The third verse in the first chapter of Genesis, which, by the way, is one of the most effective sentences in the whole Bible, contains twice the term “light” (_or_, ‪אור‬). Now, this word was frequently employed by some authors of the Bible as a metaphor. Thus, for example, using the term “light” in a spiritual sense, and making it signify favour and grace, they applied it, in the first instance, to God, as the Psalmist puts it, “For with thee (O Lord) is the fountain of life: in thy _light_ shall we see _light_” (Ps. xxxvi. 10). The same term is frequently employed by the prophet Isaiah as the emblem of enlightenment as well as that of joy and exultation. In fact, some of Isaiah's most beautiful metaphors are taken from this very word, one of which runs thus:—“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death upon them has a light shined” (Isa. ix. 1). In another place (ibid. xlii. 6) he says: “I the Lord have called thee in righteousness . . . and given thee for a covenant of the people, for a _light_ of the nations.” It is interesting to note that some of the authors of the New Testament have often employed the term “light” in a number of striking metaphors, tacitly borrowed, it may be observed, from the Old Testament. Martin Luther, too, failed to acknowledge his obligation to his Hebrew tutor, Nicolaus de Lyra, who helped him greatly in the preparation of the famous German version of the Bible^[16-1]. Turning now to some parallels found in the Greek and Latin classics, we meet one in the fifth ode of the fourth book of Horace, in which the latter implores the absent Emperor Augustus to return speedily to the Roman capital, where his noble presence was anxiously looked for by his loving subjects. The stanza in question runs thus:— Lucem redde tuae, dux bone, patriae; Instar veris enim vultus ubi tuus Affulsit populo, gratior it dies, Et soles melius nitent. Restore, Great Sir, your country's light; For, as in spring the sun is softly bright, So, when on us thy countenance's beams arise, Fairer days appear, and smile o'er the skies^[17-1]. Homer, too, often uses light and fire as metaphors, which are in some instances quite of a Biblical type. Take, for instance, the following lines that occur in the eleventh book of the _Iliad_:— As the red star shows his sanguine fires Through the dark clouds, and now in night retires: Thus through the ranks appear'd the godlike man, Plunged in the rear, or blazing in the van; While streamy sparkles, restless as he flies, Flash from his arms, as lightning from the skies. Again, in the nineteenth book of the _Odyssey_ (35–41), Homer has a metaphor from fire, from which it may be seen that in his time a notion was prevalent among the Greeks that a miraculous light was a sure token of the presence of some divinity. The lines in question run as follows:—