The New Testament writers too, apply this expression in other ways than as a name of Jesus Christ. It is given as a mere periphrasis, entirely synonymous with “man,” in a general or abstract sense, without reference to any particular individual, in Mark iii. 28, (compare Matthew xii. 13, where the simple expression “men” is given,) Hebrews ii. 6, (a mere translation of Psalm viii. 4,) Ephesians iii. 5, Revelation i. 13, xiv. 14. In the peculiar emphatic limitation to which this note refers, it is applied by Jesus Christ to himself about eighty times in the gospels, but is never used by any other person in the New Testament, as a name of the Savior, except by Stephen, in Acts, vii. 56. It never occurs in this sense in the apostolic epistles. (Bretschneider.) For this use of the word, I should not think it necessary to seek any mystical or important reason, as so many have done, nor can I see that in its application to Jesus, it has any very direct reference to the circumstance of his having, though divine, put on a human nature, but simply a nobly modest and strikingly emphatic form of expression used by him, in speaking of his own exalted character and mighty plans, and partly to avoid the too frequent repetition of the personal pronoun. It is at once evident that this indirect form, in the third person, is both more dignified and modest in solemn address, than the use of the first person singular of the pronoun. Exactly similar to this are many forms of circumlocution with which we are familiar. The presiding officer of any great deliberative assembly, for instance, in announcing his own decision on points of order, by a similar periphrasis, says “The chair decides,” &c. In fashionable forms of intercourse, such instances are still more frequent. In many books, where the writer has occasion to speak of himself, he speaks in the third person, “the author,” &c.; as in an instance close at hand, in this book it will be noticed, that where it is necessary for me to allude to myself in the _text_ of the work, which, of course, is more elevated in its tone than the _notes_, I speak, according to standard forms of scriptorial propriety, in the third person, as “the author,” &c.; while here, in these small discussions, which break in on the more dignified narrative, I find it at once more convenient and proper, to use the more familiar and simple forms of ♦expression. ♦ “expresssion” replaced with “expression” This periphrasis (“_son of_”) is not peculiar to oriental languages, as every Greek scholar knows, who is familiar with Homer’s common expression υιες Αχαιων, (_uies Akhaion_,) “sons of Grecians,” instead of “Grecians” simply, which by a striking coincidence, occurs in Joel xiii. 6, in the same sense. Other instances might be needlessly ♦multiplied. ♦ “multipled” replaced with “multiplied”