ounded to the chosen
people certain terms, and bound himself, upon condition of the
fulfilment of these terms, to bestow upon them blessings temporal and
spiritual. Now the Greek word _diatheke_, by which the Septuagint
renders the Hebrew word for _covenant_, signifies both _covenant_, in
the general sense above given, and _testament_, as being the final
disposition which a man makes of his worldly estate. The new covenant
introduced by Christ is, in a sense, a _testament_, as being ratified by
his bloody death. Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20. So it is
expressly called in the epistle to the Hebrews, 9:15-17, where the new
covenant, considered in the light of a testament, is contrasted with the
old. It was probably in connection with this view that the _Old Latin_
version of the Bible (made in the Old Testament not from the original
Hebrew, but from the Greek Septuagint) everywhere rendered the Greek
word _diatheke_ by the Latin _testamentum_. When Jerome undertook the
work of correcting this version, he did not everywhere pursue the same
plan. The books of the Old Testament he rendered in general from the
Hebrew; and here he employed for the Hebrew word denoting _covenant_ the
appropriate Latin words _foedus_ and _pactum_. But in the Psalms, and
the whole New Testament, from deference to established usage, he gave
simply a revision of the Old Latin, leaving the word _testamentum_, by
which that version had rendered the word _diatheke_, _covenant_,
untouched. Hence in Latin usage we have in the New Testament the two
covenants, the old and the new, expressed by the terms _old testament_
(_vetus testamentum_, _prius_ or _primum testamentum_) and _new
testament_ (_novum testamentum_), and sometimes in immediate contrast
with each other, as in 2 Cor. 3:6, 14; Heb. 9:15-18. The transfer of
these terms from the covenants themselves to the writings which give an
account of them was easy, and soon became established in general usage.
Hence the terms _Old_ and _New Testament_ for the two great divisions of
the Bible.

Another Latin term for the two great divisions of the Bible was
_instrumentum_, _instrument_, _document_; a term applied to the
documents or body of records relating to the Roman empire, and
very appropriate, therefore, to the records of God's dealings
with men. But as early as the time of Tertullian, about the
close of the second century, the word _testamentum_,
_testament_, was mo