BS
2595
F62
1916
CAVEN UMARV
KNOX COLLEGE
ST LUKE AND A MODERN
WRITER
A STUDY IN CRITICISM
A PRAELKCTION DELIVERED BEFORE
THE COUNCIL OF THE SENATE
BY
F. J. FOAKES-JACKSON, D.D.
CAMBRIDGE
W. HEFFER 6? SONS LTD.
1916
ST LUKE AND A MODERN WRITER
LUKE i. 14.
EIIEIAHIIEP TroXAoi eVi^e/yco/eray avaragacrOai
7re/cu Tiav 7reir\rjpo(f)Opr]fJi.VU)v ev y/u.tv Trpay/maTwv, /caOco
i CITT apx^f avroTTTai /ecu uTrrjpeTai yevo/j.evoL roii \oyov,
KO.JULOI 7raptjKO\ov9t]KOTt avwQev Tracriv itKpi/35)S /caOe^v/? crot
\lsai, KpaTicrTc Qeo<j>l\, \va eTTiyvws Trepl cov KaTt]^ i9r]? \6yu)v
TY\V air^aXeiav.
" Since many have undertaken to draw up a narrative
about the facts which have been fully established among
us, as those who were actual eye-witnesses and ministers
of the matter delivered them, I too have thought good,
most excellent Theophilus, after having followed all the
circumstances from the very beginning with the utmost
care, to present you with an orderly account in writing,
that you may have certain information about the things
you have been told by word of mouth."
Among the books of the New Testament two stand
by themselves. Their avowed object is to set forth facts,
collected by their author, in literary form. He gathered
his information, as he declares, from reliable sources.
He was probably, if not certainly, a witness if not a
principal actor, in some of the scenes which he depicts.
For the facts outside his personal experience he relied on
the testimony of the best authorities he could find. His
preface, though not without parallels in antiquity, is
strangely modern in tone, in claiming to present his
little books as the result of laborious investigation.
But he was something more than a collector of facts.
He possessed no little knowledge of the writer s craft.
He was well aware of the value of using his material in
such a way as to make his narrative attractive to his
readers ; and knew how to make the best of sources
which in less skilful hands would have seemed un
promising, judging well when to elaborate and when to
touch lightly on a particular theme. He was also gifted
with a great power of sympathy and adaptibility. He
could, when he chose, write like a man conversant with
the world ; and, if the subject seemed to demand it, adopt
the style and language of a prophet of the old covenant.
He threw himself, as only a writer of genius can, into the
characters he depicts, and makes them talk and write
appropriately and naturally. Moreover he shews a re
markable sense of literary proportion. He sets himself
a most difficult task whether he accomplished it or not
is impossible for us to decide to describe in a very brief
compass the great revolution in religion which his times
had witnessed. He recognised the immense importance
of the work of Jesus Christ during his ministry ; but he
saw, as apparently none of his contemporaries did, that
the story did not end when the Master was withdrawn
from the Earth, soon, as was expected, to return in
Glory. He perceived that Jesus had begun a work,
which had been left to His followers to carry on; and
he proceeds to shew how this was accomplished. To do
this he makes a comprehensive survey of that momentous
period of history, from the Ascension to the arrival of
St Paul in Rome, within the limits of what we should
now describe rather as a pamphlet than as a book. Such
is the author of the third Gospel and the Acts, whom the
only available tradition says was Luke the friend and
companion of the Apostle Paul.
The object of this lecture is to discuss how far such
books as the third Gospel and the Acts can be considered
as reliable history ; and it is my intention to confine my
attention to the later work after making a few remarks
on one point as to the method of the writer with regard
to the third Gospel. As we have seen from the intro
duction, the book is avowedly a compilation of facts
gathered with care and accuracy (a/c/o<8a>?) from first-
hand oral sources. But modern investigations have
shewn that Luke in all probability used a written source,
if not our Gospel of St Mark, at any rate a document on
which it is mainly based. Time will not permit me to
discuss why I accept this conclusion, nor to enter into a
disquisition as to the manner in which Luke adapted his
Marcan material. Suffice it to say that he seems to have
re-written much in deference to the literary tastes of his
age and, perhaps, to recent events. He certainly allowed
himself considerable freedom in transposing, amplifying,
and even altering narratives and reported sayings of our
Lord.
In the case of the Acts we have less guidance as
to sources; for even if St Paul s Epistles were known
to his biographer, which is, to say the least, open to
doubt he does not seem to have made use of them for
his narrative. In the case of the account of Herod
Agrippa s death Luke may have had the Antiquities of
Josephus before him ; and in this case, regarding Herod,
as he does, as a persecutor, whereas Josephus depicts
him as a national hero, he gives the story a totally
different complexion. But with this exception, setting
aside the passages in which the first person plural is
used, we can only make conjectures as to the material
employed by him whether oral or written.
Since the days of Schnekenburger s book "On the
Aim of the Acts of the Apostles " (1841), controversy has
raged around the Lucan narrative, sometimes in favour,
often against its value as an historical record. First
the Tubingen school led by F. C. Baur carried all
before them by pronouncing for the genuineness of the
four great Pauline Epistles, comparing them with the
Acts, and pronouncing the latter a story written with
the purpose of proving that the antagonism of the
Pauline and Petrine schools was imaginary, in order
to foster a reconciliation between the two opposing
parties. Then the Dutch school reversed the process,
and, by acclaiming the so-called " We " sections as
genuine, sought to prove the writings of St Paul the
work of churchmen of the second century. Harnack
has more recently undertaken the defence of the
authenticity rather than the credibility of Acts ; whilst
Ramsay has sought by his valuable researches in Asia
Minor to prove that the accuracy of the author in
matters of detail and his extraordinary topical knowledge,
especially of Asia Minor, are a guarantee of the value of
his record of events. The latest stage of the controversy
has been opened by the publication of Norden s Agnosias
Theos, the general tendency of which is to shew from
Paul s speech at Athens, that Luke made use of the
current literature of his age, in order to fashion appropriate
utterances for the persons whom he introduces and
to relate incidents in the conventional manner of his
contemporaries.
It is, I confess, tempting to enter upon a disquisition
as to the grandeur of the scheme of history our author
proposed to himself, and to his manner of carrying it out.
His merits, especially that of conciseness, and his defects,
in leaving much unexplained and not a little of his
narrative obscure, are worth careful consideration. But
I must resist the temptation to enter upon this and other
equally fascinating themes, and confine my remarks to
the manner in which the author of the Acts used his
sources, especially in one particular. The first impulse
of Christianity was assuredly not literary. It emanated
from One, who with all reverence it may be said, talked
rather than wrote. His immediate followers, the eye
witnesses and ministers of the word, are acknowledged
to have been unlettered men without education (aypdju.-
jj-aroi KOI iSiarai). We have abundance of evidence from
the recently discovered ostraka and papyri what this
meant in the first century A.D. For aught we know
to the contrary the original " Mark " may have been
a production so destitute of literary skill, that our
Gospel according to St Mark would appear a truly
polished composition. It is an open question whether
St Luke wrote his two works for the Church at large
or for an individual friend. I confess I prefer the latter
hypothesis, as simpler and more natural. Allow me,
therefore, to assume that Luke was not engaged in
producing official documents, nor in giving to the world
a work intended for posterity such attempts seldom
endure for a generation and rarely survive a single
edition ; but that he was merely anxious to tell his
story briefly and in such a manner as to interest
Theophilus and the circle in which he moved. Let
us suppose that he had, as he implied, conversed with
people who told him what they knew with much
simplicity, and read, not only official documents, but
private papers, letters, etc., the work of men to whom
writing was a difficulty, and any sort of composition
laborious. Let us further imagine Theophilus an educated
man, who had not leisure to study a number of documents
and fragmentary stories ; but desired to have the matter
put before him in an attractive literary form. Finally,
may we not assume that the object of Luke was to give
his friend a treatise about Jesus which would make him
desire to be His disciple, and another about the doings
of the Church, calculated to encourage him by shewing
how the work begun by the Master had progressed?
Such an exercise of the imagination might help to
explain the origin of the Gospel and the Acts and the
character of each book.
By the purest accident I have been led myself to
make a literary investigation, which appears to throw a
light on the subject of the way in which some of the
literature of the New Testament came into being. In the
course of my researches I passed successively through the
stages of absolute belief, scepticism as to details, positive
incredulity, and, finally, as I believe, reached a tolerably
just conclusion. It was a case in which tradition was
8
tolerably fresh but hardly any documents were available,
till the kindness of friends and relatives put me in
possession of papers unquestionably authentic which had
been hitherto quite inaccessible.
In 1797, a woman was condemned to death for
stealing a horse from her former master. Though com
pelled to prosecute, he behaved with great humanity, and
joined with others in obtaining her reprieve. His wife
interested herself greatly in the case, visited her fre
quently in prison, and, I think, firmly believed that she
had made her see the error of her ways. But in an
unlucky moment the woman s lover was taken to the
same prison ; and, on his liberation, he persuaded her to
escape. By an act of extraordinary daring she climbed
the wall, and, disguised as a man, fled to the coast and
was there arrested. To escape from prison was death;
and she was again condemned. Her speech in court
made so extraordinary an impression that she was again
reprieved; but condemned to transportation for life.
Her mistress was indefatigable in visiting her in prison,
and showed her extraordinary kindness. This time the
woman s heart was deeply touched. She was deported to
Australia; and from the penal settlement she wrote
constant letters to her mistress, sending her every rarity
she could collect from the district. It was believed that
she married well, and died as lately as 1841.
The son of this benevolent lady wrote the story of
the adventures of his mother s penitent, which became
one of the most widely read books of the day. Even now
it is in great demand, and touches a sympathetic chord in
many a heart. It is confessedly one of the best pictures
of life in the part of England wherein the scene is laid,
and, despite the fact that the style makes it tedious to a
modern reader, it has been a living book for more than
seventy years.
What makes the story so popular is that the author
declares it to be absolutely true, and uses language not
9 .
wholly unlike the opening words of the third Gospel.
" This simple history being a relation of facts, well
known to many persons of the highest respectability
still living in the country." Again, " The public may
depend upon the truth of the main features of this
narrative: indeed most of the facts recorded were
matters of public notoriety at the time of their occur
rence." Again, " Though all the documents relating to
this extraordinary female are duly filed and preserved
and her own letters in her own handwriting have
been transmitted for inspection to several enquirers,
&c., &c." Again, " The years of intercourse and passing
of presents to and fro between the prosecutor and
prisoner made a deep impression on his (the author s)
young heart."
We have here echoes of such words as avroTrrat K<U
vTTijpeTai avcoOev Trapr]KO\ov9t)KOTi a/c/ot/jft)?- KaOex ijs <roi ypa<j>at
and St Paul s expression 6u yap ecrnv ev yoavia
The author avowedly draws on his imagination for
certain scenes ; and the conversations are obviously his
own composition. But he declares the fact to be correct,
except for one particular, that he alters the married
name of his heroine.
I cannot exactly say why I was prompted to investi
gate the truth of this narrative; arid my first step was
decidedly discouraging. It was proved conclusively that
the author was totally wrong in supposing that his
heroine had ever married ; for on enquiry, I found that a
copy of the certificate of her death and burial had been
sent from Australia : and this took place in 1819.
Through the kindness of the head of his family I
was allowed to use the note-book which the author had
prepared in 1874, twenty-nine years after his book
appeared, and three before his death at the age of eighty.
In it I found conclusive proof that he believed in the
truth of his story, including the marriage. He shews
10
himself in these purely private remarks confident that
he has told the truth in his so-called romance, though
admitting here and there that what he described was
founded only on uncertain report. But in language which
recalls words of the Church fathers he declares, "The
author treasured up in his memory all that fell from his
father or mother concerning all family events. . . In such
a spirit of love are many things collected and done by
many a good old author." In such a spirit did Ireiiaeus
write about Polycarp to Florinus !
This made me anxious to study his psychology. I
knew that he was a man of blameless character and high
repute, an honoured clergyman, and the father of a dis
tinguished man of science. The tone of his writing is
deeply religious, and his love and admiration for his
mother everywhere apparent. Yet he seemed to have
been guilty of writing a work of pure fiction and pass
ing it off as truth. As I pursued my investigations the
case against him grew blacker. In the first place, how
ever, the foundations on which the story rested proved
to be undoubtedly sound. The public records and the
handbills issued agreed in confirming the facts of the
horse stealing, the prison breaking, as well as the two
condemnations to death followed by transportation. But
I discovered (what had previously been unnoticed) that
in the handbill issued in 1800 the escaped prisoner is
described as about 38 years of age, whereas the author,
doubtless to heighten his romance, makes her only 27. I
am sorry to say that 1 can prove this ; and, moreover,
feel sure that he knew it. Thus it is most unlikely that
she married in 1812, when she would have been fifty,
and she had several children. Next I noticed in the
report of her first arrest that she made a confession to
the magistrate and affixed her mark to it, being unable
to write. But at the time of her trial she writes long
letters to her mistress and her relatives couched in
admirable English. Doubts arose in my mind whether
11
the words " congratulations," " exultation," " realize,"
" recreations " could have been used by a peasant girl who
had, as the author says, been brought up without any early
education. During the three years which ensued she
certainly learned to write; for there exists in a public
institution a letter to her former mistress, well written,
but atrociously spelt, ending with a request for a little
money. This in the book appears in a style which the
author himself might have adopted forty-five years later
the pathetic request for cash being suppressed as un
worthy of the occasion. By the courtesy of a gentleman
in the country I was permitted to copy extracts from
some of her letters from Australia to her relatives which
had been obtained by his father; and these were so
illiterate as to be almost undecipherable. It seemed
proved therefore that, though the author had used facts
of public notoriety, he had professed to be possessed of
documents which he had himself fabricated. With
tradition I fared 110 better than with my documentary
evidence. An aged man wrote to me that his mother had
known the subject of my enquiries, and had been very
indignant at such a character being held up as a misused
female. He told me he had heard her called "that
baggage." It was the same with her appearance. I was
shewn a picture I should judge made before the book
was written in which she appears, according to the
author, in a bill offering a reward for her arrest " as tall,
dark, and of an intelligent countenance." On the other
hand a print from another portrait of perhaps an earlier
date represents her, as the original but unsympathetic
handbill describes her, " 5 ft. 2 in. in height, very dark,
swarthy, and hard favoured." I confess that my prejudice
against the author s veracity was still further increased
by the fact that he sought to make one of his characters,
avowedly the creation of his own brain, appear as an
actual person by a display of remarkable local knowledge.
He connects him with the man who discovered the use of
12
crag shells as manure ; and a reference to his native place
in an early description of the country shows that the
circumstances of this discovery, with the exception of the
date, are absolutely correct.
Now I submit that had I been dealing with a book of
ancient date I should have made an overwhelming case
for its untrustworthiness. The argument from style
would have been amply sufficient; but, in addition to
this, I have adduced not only public documents and
traditions but actual letters in support of the conclusion
that what was professedly a true story was actually
a fabric of fiction erected on a very slight foundation
of fact. Several before me have declared this to be the
case ; but I have had access to evidence which was
entirely unaccessible to the public. I ask you to imagine
how powerful a case could be made, if these materials
were at the disposal of our critics abroad and at home
which they assuredly are not against the credibility of
such a book as the Acts of the Apostles. Would one
word of it be believed if the evidence I have brought
forward in this case, or even a tithe of it, \vere producible.
And, moreover, when I reached this stage of the enquiry
I was assured on good authority that 110 more documents
were in existence. The very grandson of the author
wrote and told me that he did not think that any
more letters could be found. One morning, however,
a packet arrived from a granddaughter of the author
saying that she had found some old letters and papers
which might be of service to me. To my surprise it
contained, not only the notes the author had made
when he wrote his book, but the original letters. I
discovered, on closer examination, that, though the
letters he had published would be quite unrecognisable
to the casual reader, they were evidently based on
those in his possession. Prom his notes it was obvious
that the public documents which I had seen were
examined by him and found to be so meagre that they
13
had to be supplemented in order to make the account
of the two trials readable, or even intelligible. It
was evident that the mistake he had made about the
marriage, which led him into serious trouble and nearly
involved him in a law suit, was made with absolute
bond fides and that most people at the time believed
it. I could see that in rewriting the letters he had
incorporated in them facts derived, not only from family
tradition, but from his own personal knowledge. I was
even compelled to acknowledge that the alteration of
the heroine s age, though inexcusable in the face of
the evidence of public documents, and one of her letters,
which I am not absolutely certain he ever saw, could
plead a certain amount of justification, due to mistaken
identity ; and I am still endeavouring to clear up this
point.
I hope I can, by a few brief examples, shew
how an illiterate letter can be rewritten, and in
the editor s opinion, improved. Here is the convict s
description of Australia:
"it is a very woodey countrey if i goo out any
distence hear is going throw woods for miles. But
they are very buttefull and very prettey I oneley
wish my good Leddy i could send you one of the
parrets for they are very buttefull. But [illegible]
it mak me so very unwilling to send you one. But
if i should contiiiuer long in this countrey i sartenely
will send you sum out of this wicked countrey for
I must say this is the wickedes places i ever was in
in all my life . . . wat is 8 shillens par Busshell."
Here is the same passage cast in literary form :
" The country is very woody so that I cannot go out
any distance from Sidney without travelling through
woods for miles. They are many of them very pictur
esque, and quite alive with birds of such exquisite plum
age that the eye is constantly dazzled by them. I assure
you, dear lady, that in taking a ramble through them
14
with my mistress and some of the elder orphans, etc.
I wish I could send you one of the beautiful parrots
of the country, but I have no means of doing so, etc.
I grieve to say, my dear Lady, that this is one of the
wickedest places in the world. I never heard of one,
excepting those of Sodom and Gomorrah, which could
come up to it in evil practices. People are so bold, so
shameless and so sinful, that even crime is as familiar
as fashion in England."
The author knew his public. He perceived that the poor
woman s letter, which if read as it is spelt would reproduce
the cadence of her native tongue, would not be appre
ciated, that the ordinary reader would not perceive that
underlying the simple sentences were love and gratitude
and a desire to amend her life. He wished, moreover, to
inform his readers that she was employed by the mistress
of an orphanage, and therefore he supplements her letter
by an allusion to the fact.
Does not this comparison suggest a possible solution
of some New Testament difficulties ? It is almost im
possible to believe, for example, that the speeches and
epistles of St Peter really represent the language of the
Apostle ; much less the Epistle of James, with its evident
knowledge of the Greek wisdom literature of Judaism.
And when one reads some of the correspondence of the
Roman confessors in the collection of Cyprian s letters
one sees how illiterate many Christians, even in promi
nent positions, were in the third century; and may we
not suppose the possibility of genuine letters of apostles
having been in existence which have come down to us in
literary forms, in which some of the spirit, if little of the
form, has survived? I often wonder whether some of the
passages in these writings which have caused untold
perplexity to scholars, for example, I. Peter iii. 18ff.
James iii. 6 (TOV Tpo\ov ri?? yevecrews), are not really literary
insertions intended to display the pious erudition of some
unknown adapter. And I venture to say that students
15
in all ages are frequently misled by the disregard of such
simple methods as I am suggesting in this lecture.
Another point of interest I should like to raise is
that of a literary editor in his attempt to translate an
illiterate document into good language completely mis
sing the meaning of the writer. Let me take but two
examples. Here is a sentence from a letter : " Elizabeth
Kellett lives very near to me, and is very well. She and
I were both taken off the stores on the same day. We
have not to go to government work as tJie horses do : but
we have both obtained respectable places, and I hope we
shall continue in them."
Now can we not easily picture the perplexity the
allusion to "horses" would raise if this occurred in a
sacred book, and the applause with which each new
textual emendation would be welcomed. How tame is
the real solution of the mystery ! Let me quote the
original :
" Elizabth Kellett live very neear to me and do very
well shee is of the stors so as wee and not (illegible) a
Bout after work for goverment Lik Horseas we are free
from all hard work."
I take this to mean no more nor less than, " We have not
to work like horses for the Goverment." The other
example is a mere trifle. The writer speaks of " whiskeys
and shay cartes." The editor calls the latter " clay carts."
There are in the Acts several sentences and w r ords
which are to us unintelligible, and, perhaps, were so to
the writer of the book himself, owing to the fact that he
used some thoroughly illiterate source. For instance,
there is in the prayer in iv. 25 the untranslatable
passage 6 TOU Trar/oo? rj/j-wv Siu Trveu/maTos ayiou erro/xaTo?
TraiSos <rov ; viii. 7, TroXXot TU>V \6vTu>v Trvev/mara acca-
/SowvTa <p(0vy /u.eyu\y efy ip^ovTo. There are w r ords like
7reXey/>to9 (xix. 27), SegioXafioi (xxiii. 23), &c., which may
have been introduced for this reason. These do not make
any material difference : in some cases the sense is fairly
16
obvious, but if an explanation is needed it may perhaps
be sought in the manner I have ventured to indicate.
To return to my subject. The investigation of the
material used by the author of my document appears to
afford sufficient proof that as far as he was able he gave a
true account ; but that between the events he records
and the date of publication a good deal had become
obscure, and he made one or more serious blunders.
Still, he possessed a thoroughly honest, if not very
scholarly or critical mind ; and for this reason he is
interesting as illustrating the difficulty of telling the
precise facts for a writer who, though he has good
documents and excellent traditions, has an eye to style
and literary arrangement.
It may well, however, be asked whether I am justified
in treating so great a subject as an important section
of the New Testament in this manner. You may say
that it is, to say the least, indiscreet to compare the
methods of the writer, whose work has obtained its most
enduring popularity with, perhaps, uneducated readers,
with the literature on which the Christian faith is built.
I can only reply that, with my humble material, I am
trying to indicate a new line of investigation. I have
been but lately reading an unpublished statement of a
distinguished foreign scholar, as to Avhy he cannot accept
the Lucan authorship of the Acts. The case is put by
him with remarkable fairness ; and his arguments from
his standpoint are, to me at least, extremely convincing.
But the weak point seems to be that he starts, as every
body else has done, with the idea that the author ought
to have supplied a good deal of information which he has
suppressed ; and evidently failed to explain various things
we do not understand. In other words, this scholar, like
most of us, has yielded to the temptation, first to imagine
what ought to have been written, and then to judge the
work by the assumptions he has made. It seems a better
way of going to work to start, if it be possible, not from
17
assumptions, which we almost always have to do in the
case of an ancient document, but from some definite
material : and a modern book is better than nothing.
What I have done is what every student of the New
Testament would do if he could namely, I have taken a
book, and, as far as possible, tried to get at the author s
sources. Small as my success has been, we can never
hope for any similar success in regard to the literature of
the Early Church. I have, however, discovered in a tale
based on tradition, public and private documents and
notorious facts, all the features which scholars recognize
in the composition of St Luke s second treatise; the
tradition, as acknowledged by the mention of eye-witnesses
and ministers of the word, the use of official reports
(Claudius Lysias letter, the speech of Tertullus, etc.),
private records like the "We" sections, to which we must
perhaps add free compositions as in the case of many
speeches, which the author under no circumstances could
have heard, and narratives embellished with literary skill
and sometimes with a certain conventionality. We have
seen how a writer may feel at liberty to use documents
with freedom, in order to adapt them to the taste of his
public, and to commend his book to a larger circle of
readers. The great dissimilarity between the modern and
ancient books which we are discussing lies in this ; that,
whereas the modern writer had to write a large book on
a small basis of fact, St Luke set himself the far more
difficult task of compressing a vast amount of material
into the smallest possible compass. We may complain
that he has told us too little on certain points, but we
cannot fail to confess that he has achieved the almost
impossible by making his short histories full of interest.
I will now proceed to apply some of my principles of
investigation to one of the crucial passages of the Acts
the fifteenth chapter, which relates the Apostolic Council
of Jerusalem, giving the letter to the Gentile Churches.
I need hardly remind you of the fact that there is a very
18
serious discrepancy between what St Paul says in his
letter to the Galatians and St Luke s account in this
place. Nor need I do more than assert that in the whole
Pauline literature this letter is completely ignored. To
explain the difficulty has been a hopeless task to every
scholar who has made the attempt ; and almost every
solution involves us in new perplexities. But may not
some light be thrown on this dark place if we acknow
ledge that an author may have, without any intention of
fraud, read his own meaning into a document of which
he gives the substance. From Galatians I certainly gather
that St Paul did come to some sort of understanding with
the elder Apostles at Jerusalem. He was to go to the
Gentiles, Peter to the Jews. When the Apostles met at
Antioch the subject of their dispute had certainly to do
with how much deference should be paid to Jewish pre
judices. But in Acts we have a decree made and then
embodied in a letter, of wilich it is incredible to many
that Paul could ever have been aware ; nor does it seem
probable to us that, even if he had been, he would have
agreed to it. The decree itself has been a constant source
of difficulty ; and no one, so far as I know, has yet given a
satisfactory explanation. As it stands it may be either
an injunction to the newly converted heathen to observe
the moral law or to respect certain Jewish prejudices in
regard to food. Now I suggest that the letter, as it now
appears in Acts, is not likely to have been the form in
which the Apostolic decision was promulgated. An
examination of its language shews that it is characteristic
of the author of Acts ; and it is not incredible that he had
some record of the proceedings of the assembly, couched
in language which he himself imperfectly understood.
In transcribing it he may have made what was quite clear
to the older Apostles and St Paul well nigh incompre
hensible ; or he may have embodied in his version of the
letter some local agreement between Gentile and Jewish
Christians known to him. At any rate it is conceivable
19
to me that, were we to know the circumstances, all
the difficulties involved in the injunction to Gentile
Christians to abstain from " things offered to idols and
things strangled, &c.," might have a far simpler solution
than we now suppose. Whatever be the real meaning of
the famous " decree," it has no bearing on the life or
conduct of a modern Christian, and our interest in it is
rather antiquarian than practical.
The day when good men deplored the severe literary
criticism of what is to us a very sacred book indeed is
passed : and yet more so the idea that all who presumed
to enter upon such a task were enemies of religious truth.
Nevertheless, I am one of those who believe that the days
of what we now call advanced criticism are over: and
that when we are again called upon to teach the study of
the scriptures, much once declared to be "the assured
results of modern scholarship " will be pronounced
obsolete. I do not mean that we shall contemptuously
brush aside all that the scholarship of the 19th century
achieved, or fail to use all it did in the way of opening up
roads for fresh enquiry. Even though a violent reaction
in the matter of theology were the result of the cataclysm,
in which the world is involved, I cannot believe in its
permanence. But it is more than possible that our
methods of inquiry will be very different from those
hitherto adopted. For one thing I cannot but believe
that, in England at least, many of the controversies about
the scriptures have been, like some Homeric battles, over
a dead body. Inspiration, as our ancestors explained it,
has no life in it. We have been making the difference
between orthodox and heterodox on points of belief,
which do not have the slightest effect on our lives whether
we profess to accept or reject them. We are learning by
sad experience what are fundamentals, and what are
mere adjuncts to our Christianity; and when we really
make the distinction we shall benefit by the lesson.
But it is the methods which have been pursued that
20
we shall have to modify most ; for, as is often the case, the
views of those professedly " advanced " have by becoming
popular become stereotyped. We, by our deference to
the vast modern school of critics and commentators,
have tended to lose the right to be guided by our own
commonsense. Scholars seem to be growing more and
more afraid of coming to an independent judgment
because of the accumulating weight of an academic
authority, which in some countries has first put
orthodoxy out of court, and then made originality con
form to rules of its own invention. It was not without
reason that Blass complained of the tlieologer. In
Cambridge we are allowed to live in a free atmosphere ;
whether our young men in future will be permitted to
thrive if they wish to develope on their own lines is
another question I trust they may be. But we shall
have in future to shew our independence of subjective
criticism, on however weighty authority it rests; and
to work, where we have not facts to guide us, by the
exercise of our independent judgment. If we do not act
thus we shall find ourselves in the position of theologians
before the Reformation fettered by a new scholasticism,
and praying, perhaps in vain, for a new Erasmus to
arise and set us free.
There is one result that I believe will be the outcome
of the future study of the scriptures, when we under
stand the circumstances under which they were written
more fully. The author, to whom I have made so many
allusions, wrote with the pious object of honouring the
memory of his mother, whose unselfish exertions saved
a poor woman from despair, and made her become a
useful member of society. But when his work has been
stripped of all ornamentation, the truth proves finer than
fiction. When the handsome, spirited girl becomes " the
hard favoured " woman, aged about 38, the romance,
perhaps, disappears, but the kindness of the lady, busy
with a large household and numerous family, is enhanced
21
as we think of her standing by her poor servant at her
two trials, teaching and helping her in her long imprison
ment, and never forgetting her for years in the convict
settlement. Nor does the servant lose when we know the
truth. In her simple, awkwardly expressed letters, we
find not the somewhat effusive penitent of romance, not
the woman who was self-educated to write in pompous
literary language: but a poor convict trying to keep
straight under great difficulties, with a heart overflowing
with gratitude, in letters which, despite their simplicity
of diction and crude spelling, reveal a singularly obser
vant character, and are far better unadorned than when
improved by literary artifice. We find, moreover, that the
author was at times mistaken, and sometimes failed to
give the right impression, but was yet thoroughly honest;
and where critics saw only pure romance, those who could
ascertain the facts find a substratum of true history.
May it not be that underlying a book like the Acts
there is a story, simpler it may be than the one we now
have; but even more wonderful? That we have, for
instance, but a faint portrayal of the actual Paul, whose
works and speeches may have been less dramatic than
Luke represents them, but whose character would appear
greater, were he to be presented in the cold light of
actuality. May it not even be that the Jesus of the
very earliest gospel was more human than the reverence
of the second generation of His followers dared to
represent Him; yet, in truth, more Divine? Perhaps we
have hitherto tended, rather to worship Him as an
abstraction, than to follow Him as a real Master; and
that those who have, as was once frequently asserted,
exposed the Sacred Scriptures to profane treatment,
have, possibly unknowingly, done the work that our
age most needs and brought men to a Christ, not only
supreme in Heaven, but man s great Exemplar upon
earth.
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