[14] As the disputes concerning religious flagellations have been carried on with great warmth on both sides, the two parties have ransacked the Scriptures for passages that might support their respective opinions; and the supporters of flagellations have been particularly happy in the discovery of the passage of David, mentioned in the preceding Chapter; and that of St. Paul which is recited here. By the former passage, the supporters of flagellations pretend to shew, that they were in use so early as the time of David; and that the Prophet underwent a flagellation every morning: by the latter passage, they endeavour to prove that self-scourgings were practised by St. Paul, and of course by the first Christians. As the literal meaning of the above two passages is wholly on the side of the supporters of flagellations, this, as it always happens in controversies of that kind, has given them a great advantage over their opponents, who have been reduced, either to plead that the expressions urged against them were only to be understood in a figurative sense, or to endeavour, by altering the original passage, to substitute others in their stead. The latter is the expedient on which our Author has chiefly relied in this chapter, and he strives to substitute another word, to the word ὑπωπιάζω, used by St. Paul when he said, he _chastised_ his _flesh_; which is to be found in all the common Editions of the Greek New Testament. And indeed it must be confessed, that the above word is of itself extremely favourable to the promoters of self-flagellation; little less so than the words of Asaph, _fui flagellatus_ (_I have been whipped_) mentioned in the foregoing Chapter; its precise meaning being the same as _I bruise or discolour with blows_: it comes from the word ὐπώπιον, which signifies a livid mark left under the eye by a blow: on which the Reader may observe (which, no doubt, will be matter of agreeable surprise to him) that what is called in plain English a _black-eye_, was expressed in Greek by the word ὑπώπιον. Besides trying to substitute another word to that attributed to St. Paul in the common Greek Editions of the New Testament, our Author produces several passages from Greek and Latin Fathers, to shew that they thought that St. Paul meant no more than to speak of his great labours, abstinence, continence, &c. The principal end of this Chapter is, therefore, to discuss the interesting question, whether St. Paul used to flagellate himself: and I have preferred to give the above compendious account of the contest on the subject, rather than introduce the long discussion of Greek words, and use the whole string of passages from Greek and Latin Fathers, contained in the Abbé Boileau’s Book. By that means, the present Chapter has, for the sake of the Reader, been shortened to ten pages, instead of thirty, it must otherwise have contained.