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Q  1^t^ 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 


Class 


THE   BOOK   OF   BOOKS 


THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

A  STUDY  OF  THE  BIBLE 


BV 


LONSDALE  RAGG,  B.D. 

CHRIST  CHURCH,   OXFORD 

PREBENDARY  OF  BUCKDEN  IN  LINCOLN  CATHEDRAL 

SOMKTIME  WARDEN  OF  THE  BISHOP'S   HOSTEL,   LINCOLN 


Sffa  ydip  Tpo€ypd(f>7if 
€lt  T^v  iffjueripav  diSaaKoXlav  iypdtpTj 

Rom.  XV.  4 


LONDON 

EDWARD     ARNOLD 

1910 

[Ail  rights  reserved] 


^^^ 


GENERAL 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 

EDWARD   WICK  HAM, 

SCHOLAR  AND  DIVINE 


207031 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/bookofbooksstudyOOraggrich 


PREFACE 


The  modest  aim  of  this  book  is  that  of  setting  forth 
a  point  of  view ;  and  the  writer  has  tried  to  avoid  the 
appearance  of  an  erudition  which  he  cannot  claim. 
Much  of  his  matter,  especially  for  Chapters  II  and  IX, 
has  been  derived  of  necessity  at  second-hand,  though 
always,  he  hopes,  from  trustworthy  sources.  But  he  has 
endeavoured  to  work  as  far  as  possible  with  no  book 
except  the  Bible  before  him,  and  to  burden  the  pages 
with  few  references  except  those  indicating  the  scriptural 
passages  concerned.  For  the  point  of  view  which  he 
fain  would  bring  before  the  reader  is  that  of  one  who, 
with  instincts  preponderatingly  traditional,  practical,  and 
devotional,  has  allowed  the  leaven  of  the  ^JSTew  Learn- 
ing' to  work  in  his  mind,  believing  that  there  is  much 
that  is  true  in  it,  and  that  all  truth  comes  down  from 
the  ^  Father  of  Lights.'  His  endeavour  is,  in  fact,  to 
show,  with  as  little  technicality  as  possible,  what  the 
Bible,  in  its  manifold  aspects,  looks  like  to-day  to  one 
who,  for  many  years,  has  turned  over  its  pages,  and  has 
never  lost,  with  changing  times,  his  first  love  and 
reverence  for  its  teachings. 

The  subject  is  at  once  so  sacred  and  so  vital  that  its 
treatment  demands  a  rare  combination  of  self-restraint 
and  frankness.     The  writer  is  acutely  conscious  that  he 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

must  have  failed  again  and  again  in  these  respects,  and 
takes  this  opportunity  of  craving  the  pardon  of  any 
fellow-lovers  of  Holy  Scripture  who  may  be  offended  by 
his  well-meant  phrases.  That  he  has  not  still  more  to 
apologize  for,  is  due  to  the  friends  whose  names  he 
records  with  sincerest  gratitude  below. 

The  attempt  seemed  worth  making,  with  all  its  risks, 
and  the  author  hopes  to  follow  it  up  by  two  companion 
volumes — one  devoted  to  the  Old  Testament,  and  the 
other  to  the  New.  In  these  an  endeavour  will  be  made 
to  set  forth,  as  graphically  as  the  data  will  permit,  the 
circumstances  of  origin,  spirit,  tendency,  and  teaching 
of  the  various  elements  or  units  of  which  these  great 
collections  are  composed.  For  if  there  is  anything  that 
the  average  Bible-reader  has  a  right  to  demand  of  the 
New  Learning,  it  is  that  the  books  should  be  made  to  live 
for  him  in  a  new  way. 

Among  the  friends  to  whom  the  author's  grateful 
remembrance  is  due  are  the  Rev.  Alban  Blakiston, 
Chancellor  Crowfoot,  Canon  Hobhouse,  Dr.  Tancock, 
and  Dr.  G.  C.  Joyce,  who  have  most  kindly  looked  over 
parts  of  the  manuscript.  To  the  first-named  the  third 
chapter  owes  a  great  debt ;  to  the  last-named  Chapter  lY, 
for  which  Dr.  Joyce's  recent  book  on  '  The  Inspiration 
of  Prophecy '  supplied  not  a  little  material. 

Dr.  R.  L.  Ottley  and  the  Rev.  R.  St.  J.  Parry  have 
each  of  them  read  through  all  the  proof-sheets,  and  have 
earned  the  thanks  of  writer  and  readers  alike  by  the 
removal  of  many  a  blemish. 

L.  R. 

TiCKENCOTE, 

Stf  Peter's  Day,  191Q, 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  TEMPLE  OF  HOLY  SCRIPTURE  (Pr.  1-10) 

PAGE 

Bible  compared  to  a  Gothic  cathedral  .  .  -  -        1 

Analogy  of  various  types  of  visitors — Is  entrance  lawful  to  non- 
worshippers  ?        -  -  -  -  -  -  -        3 

What  the  worshipper  may  learn  from  the  expert — Apparent  dis- 
illusionment ;  real  advance  in  fruitful  knowledge — Plea  for 
tolerance  .......         6 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  (Pp.  11-43) 

Significance    of   name    •  Bible '  —  Diversity    in    unity  —  External 

authority  and  internal  fitness      -  -  -  -  -      11 

N.T.  and  O.T.— Diversity  of  language — Variations  of  N.T.  Greek : 
Hebrew,  and  Aramaic  in  O.T. — Diversities  of  style  and 
matter      .-.---.-       14 

Gradual  and  informal  process  of  Canon-formation — Three  stages 
in  growth  of  Hebrew  Canon — Unity  primarily  imposed  from 
without    ..-----.      17 

Analogies    of   structure    between    O.T.    and    N.T. — Analogies    in 
growth  of  each  Canon — Authorship  not  sole  or  final  ground 
of  reception  -  -  -  -  -  -  -      21 

ix 


CONTENTS 


PAQK 


Underlying  unanimity  of  books  emphasized  by  absence  of  philo- 
sophic scheme  and  by  progressive  character  of  teaching — Con- 
centrated in  Messianic  expectation — N.T.  fulfils  O.T. — Con- 
tinuity of  the  two  Testaments     -  -  -  -  -       25 

The  Church  and  the  Bible      ------      32 

Limits    of    Canon  —  Problem    of    Apocrypha — Reasonableness    of 

Anglican  position  -  -  -  -  -       35 

Conclusion       ........       42 


CHAPTER  III 

CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  (Pp.  44-100) 

Changed  attitude  of  present  generation — Puritanism  of  past  akin  to 
Pharisaic  Rabbinism — Three  present-day  attitudes — School  of 
Wellhausen  -  -  -  -  -  -  -       44 

Sketch   of    history    of   O.T.    criticism — The  Pentateuch — Joshua, 
Judges,  and  Samuel — Kings  and  Chronicles— Subject-matter- 
Style    and    vocabulary — Literary    affinities — Corroboration    of 
Pentateuchal  analysis — Problem  of  Deuteronomy  -  -       52 

Eighth-century  prophets — Their  relation  to  the  law  -  -  -      58 

Criticism  of  the  Psalter  -  -  -  -  -  -       61 

Outline -survey  of  results        -  -  -  -  -  -      63 

Archaeology  as  a  check  on  critical  speculation — Assyriology- Limits 

of  its  application  -  -  -  -  -  -       65 

Criticism  of  N.T.  contrasted  with  that  of  O.T. — Radical  differences 
of  chronology— Corroborative  character  of  N.T.  archaeology — 
St.  Luke  and  St.  Paul — Interest  concentrated  upon  Gospels      -      69 
The  question  of  the  Fourth  Gospel     -  -  -  -  -       74 

The  Synoptic  problem  -  -  -  -  -  -       76 

Present-day  questions : 

(1)  Eschatology        --....      79 

(2)  *  Jesus  or  Christ  ?'  -  -  -  -  -       84 
Possible  fruits  of  the  controversy — Psychology  of  the  Incarnation — 

Admitted  results  of  criticism — Advantages  accruing       -  -      90 


CONTENTS  xi 

CHAPTER  IV 

PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  (Pp.  101-138) 

PAGE 

Idea  of  inspiration  both  scriptural  and  traditional  in  the  Church — 

Difficulty  of  definition  enhanced  by  growth  of  knowledge  -     101 

•  Verbal  inspiration  '  untenable — 

(a)   in  light  of  textual  criticism— This  illustrated   from 

N.T.       -  -  -  -  -  -  -     104 

ih)  in  light  of  higher  criticism  ...  -     107 

O.T.  prophets  proper  starting-point  for  investigation — Amos,  Isaiah, 

Jeremiah,  Ezekiel — Psychology  of  prophecy        -  -  -     109 

Phenomena  of  false  prophecy  illustrates  the  character  of  the  true — 

Instances  from  Amos  and  Jeremiah         -  -  -  -     112 

Development  of  prophecy  from  Samuel  to  eighth  century — Early 
prophecy  akin  to  Gentile  divination— Samuel  and  Saul  in 
1  Sam.  ix. — Divination  among  Samuel's  successors         -  -     117 

Difference  of  level  among  'writing  prophets' — Between  'pro- 
phetical '  and  other  O.T.  writings — Literary  method — Inspi- 
rational intensity— Varied  action  of  Holy  Spirit  -  -     122 

Relation  of  scriptural  inspiration  to  phenomena  of  Gentile  re- 
ligions— Contrast  diminished  by  anomalous  position  of  'Apo- 
crypha'— Calchas  and  Greek  soothsayers — Delphic  Oracle — 
Socrates  and  Plato — Does  inspiration  overflow  the  limits  of 
the  Bible?  -  -  -  -  -  -     126 

Special  purpose  of  inspiration — Practical  aim — Not  such  as  to 
abolish  human  characteristics  of  writers  — '  Inspiration  of 
selection '  ..--.-.     131 

Inspiration  of  whole  and  parts  alike— Inspiration  of  the  reader        -     136 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  (Pp.  139-164) 

Introductory :  Ancient,  mediaeval,  and  modern  versions  of  Scripture 

— Their  influence  on  national  literatures  -  -  -    139 


Xll 


CONTENTS 


Bible  associated  with  English  literature — Back  beyond  Tindale  to 

"Wycliffe,  and  beyond  Wycliffe  to  Caedmon         -            -            -  143 
Traces  of  biblical  influence  before  Wycliffe  :  Csedmon — Bade — ^Ifric 

— Alfred — Ormin — Rolle — Shoreham      -            -            -            -  145 

Wycliffe  and  Purvey— Chaucer           -            -            -            -            -  147 

Tindale           -            -            -            -            -            -                        -  151 

Coverdale — His  Psalter — Matthew's  Bible — Geneva  and  '  Bishops' ' 

Bibles       -            -            -            -            -            -            .            -  155 

'Authorized' Version  of  1611              .....  153 

*  Revised  '  Version — Its  necessity — Virtues  and  defects         -           -  161 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  (Pp.  165-197) 

Present-day  jealousy  of  Bible's  past  influence— How  far  reasonable 
— Important  as  testimony  to  that  influence — Which  as  regards 
European  civilization  has  been  paramount  -  -  -     165 

Separate  books  already  influential  before  *  canonical ' — This  illus- 
trated by  Deuteronomy  and  Colossians   -  -  -  -     170 

Still  greater  influence  of  *  Divine  Library ' :  On  Apostles — On 
patristic  writers — Greek  and  Latin  language  and  literature — 
On  '  barbarians  '  in  mediteval  Europe  —  On  pre- Norman 
England  --------     173 

Influence  of  Bible  on  Dante  and  the  Franciscans — On   Art  and 

Architecture         -  -  -  -  -  -  -177 

How  far  ecclesiastical  influence  derived  from  Bible    -  -  -     181 

Educational  influence  of  Scripture  on  individuals — Example  of 
Grosseteste — Conversion  of  Justin  Martyr,  Hilary,  and  Augus- 
tine --..-..-    188 

The  Bible  in  modern  missions — Uganda         ....    189 

Future  of  the  Bible— Prospects  brighter  as  result  of  critical  scholar- 
ship        -  -     .       -  -  .  -  .  -     190 

Hope  from  new  types  of  Christianity  -  -  -  -     196 


CONTENTS  xiii 

CHAPTER  VII 
THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE  (Pp.  198-229). 

PAGE 

*  Science  v.  Religion ' — Obsoleteness  of  nineteenth-century  con- 
troversy  .-------     198 

Crudity  of  Hebrew  cosmology — Of  ethical  standards  and  historical 
methods  of  early  Israel — These  imperfections,  characteristic  of 
progi-essive  revelation,  do  not  affect  religious  teaching — This 
illustrated  by  comparison  of  biblical  with  Babylonian  Genesis  -     200 

Miracle  and  natural  law — Changed  views  on  both  sides — Organic 

idea  supplants  mechanical  .....     206 

Scripture  miracles  in  light  of  modern  conceptions — Relativity  of 

miracles  .......      209 

N.T.  miracles :  interest  focussed  in  psychology — Christ's  works  of 
power  better  understood  to-day— The  wonder  of  His  Messianic 
consciousness        -  -  -  -  -  -  -    215 

Relativity  of  N.T.  as  of  O.T.  miracles — Evidence  for  N.T.  miracles 
much  stronger — Culminates  in  St.  Paul  and  St.  Luke,  to  which 
some  would  add  St.  John  -  -  •  -  -    218 

Prayer  and  miracle— Summary  and  conclusion  -  -  -    227 

CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  BACKGROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE  (Pp.  280-250) 

Apparent  insignificance  of  Palestine  contrasted   with   world-wide 

influence  of  its  Scriptures  .....     2-30 

Significance  of  Palestinian  characteristics  enforced  by  hypothesis  of 

Bible  originating  elsewhere         -  -  -  -  -    234 

Palestine's    immense    variety  —  '  Providential '    teaching    of    its 

climate     .  -  -  -  -  -  -  -    236 

Teaching  of  its  geographical  environment      ...  -    240 

Scriptural  symbolism  derived  from  Nature     ....     241 

Scriptural  symbolism  derived  from  commerce  and  arts  of  life  -     243 

Nature -imagery  employed  by  Christ— Open-air  background  of  His 
parables— Fisher's  craft — Vineyard  and  cornfields— Shepherd's 

life 245 

Summary  and  conclusion        ......    249 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTEE  IX 
THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS  (Pp.  251-282) 

PAGE 

Summary  of  results  so  far  obtained — Two  aspects  of  the  Bible — 

Argument  from  its  kinship  with  heathen  sacred  books  -  -     251 

Extant  sacred  books  almost  entirely  Asiatic — None  (except  Persian) 

can  have  influenced  Bible  directly  .  .  .  .     254 

Yet  all  exhibit  common  characteristics:  aggregates  of  diverse 
elements — Emanating  from  special '  caste ' — Claiming  (generally) 
supernatural  origin  ..-..-    256 

This  point  illustrated    from   sacred  books   of  Persia,   India,    and 

China       --.-..-.     260 

These  books  offer  farther  analogies  to  Bible,  but  lack  (a)  note  of 
progress,  and  (&)  continuous  touch  with  life  and  history  which 
mark  our  Bible    -  -  -  -  -  -  -    262 

This  point  illustrated  from  literatures  of  Persia,  India,  and  China: 

(b)  Touch  with  history         -  -  -  -  -     267 

(a)  Progressive  note,  forward-looking  -  -  -     269 

The  Koran  compared  with  the  Bible  -  .  -  -  -     274 

Summary  and  conclusion        .-.-..    281 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE  (Pp.  283-310) 

Resume — The  Bible's  uniqueness         .  .  .  .  .     283 

Two  remaining  problems :    (1)   Individual  judgment  and   Church 
authority  in  interpretation  of  Scripture  ;  (2)  Criticism  and  the 
devotional  use  of  the  Bible — These  problems  to  be  faced,  if  not 
solved      -....--.     287 
(1)  Regard  to  Church  essential  for  historical  estimate  of  Bible  -     288 

'Expert'  authority  of  Church  for  those  outside— Moral  authority 
over    her    children  —  Yet    always    correlative    to    individual 
responsibility       -..--..     292 
Significance  of  the  '  Apostles' '  Creed  -  -  -  .  .     298 


CONTENTS  XV 


PAOK 


Limitations  of  ecclesiastical  authority  over  intellect  -  -  -     800 

(2)  Outcome  of  criticism — Emphasis  on  human  aide  of  the  Bible  i 

— On  variety  of  character  and  level  in  its  elements,  which  yet 

are  all  necessary  to  completeness  of  revelation    -  -  -     305  ; 

Suggested  careful  selection  of  subject — Study  of  particular  passages  ! 

against  background  of  the  whole — Progress  and  continuity  of  j; 

revelation — General  '  Messianic '  movement        -  -  -     308  { 

\ 
] 
Index  of  Scripture  References  -----    311  i 

General  Index        --.-...     316 


THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  HOLY  SCEIPTURE 

The  Bible  may  be  compared  to  one  of  our  great 
cathedrals — a  grand,  harmonious  structure  having  an 
acknowledged  unity  and  a  recognized  character  of  its 
own,  yet  obviously,  on  the  most  casual  examination,  the 
work  of  many  hands,  many  minds,  many  epochs.  Here 
and  there  records  are  left  of  the  actual  building — we 
have  documentary  knowledge  of  the  name  of  this  or  that 
architect  or  foreman,  who  employed  him  and  what  he 
earned — but  for  the  most  part  the  work  is  anonymous. 
Only  an  expert  among  experts  can  detect  in  the  mass  of 
this  anonymous  work  the  impress  of  different  hands,  by 
a  peculiarity  of  structure,  of  ornamentation,  of  tooling ; 
but  a  thorough  expert  can  sometimes  do  so  with  a 
certainty  that  amounts  to  demonstration.  vSo  it  is  with 
the  Bible.  The  noble  proportions  of  the  cathedral,  the 
grandeur  of  the  great  outlines,  strike  the  eye  at  once, 
and  these  things  evoke  the  greater  admiration  because 
the  structure  gives  the  impression  of  being  an  organism 
rather  than  a  mechanical  product.  It  has  about  it  the  air 
of  that  which  has  grown  and  developed,  almost  the  air 
of  a  living  thing.     And  when  the  component  parts  of 

1 


2  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

this  structure  are  examined  more  closely — tlie  west  front ; 
the  roofs  and  towers ;  the  nave  with  its  aisles,  its  trif orium, 
its  clerestory ;  the  transepts ;  the  great  choir ;  the  retro- 
choir  or  Lady-chapel,  and  the  diif erent  side-chapels ;  the 
various  windows,  with  their  tracery  and  their  coloured 
glass ;  not  to  speak  of  the  tombs  and  effigies,  the  stalls, 
and  the  diverse  ornaments  of  the  church — a  bewildering 
richness  of  variation  springs  into  view.  So,  too,  it  is 
with  the  Bible.  And  as  in  the  cathedral  many  of  the 
details  would  of  themselves  seem  mutually  inconsistent, 
yet  somehow  they  blend  into  a  unity,  so  that  the  relics 
of  the  Norman  or  pre-Norman  work  seem  to  melt  almost 
insensibly  into  the  Early  English,  and  so  through  the 
Decorated,  Perpendicular,  and  Tudor  work  to  Jacobean 
tombs  and  Caroline  altar-rails :  so,  again,  is  it  with  the 
Bible.  Nay,  as  one  looks  more  closely,  the  very  outline 
of  the  grand  plan  of  the  great  building  seems  to  be 
marred,  and  its  symmetrical  buttressing  obscured  by 
excrescences  in  the  shape  of  chapels  of  the  Perpendicular 
period  or  later.  And  in  the  case  of  the  Bible,  the  same 
phenomenon  recurs :  whether  these  excrescences  are  to 
be  compared  to  the  Apocrypha,  or  to  such  books  as 
Esther  and  Ecclesiastes  and  the  Song  of  Songs,  whose 
place  in  the  Bible  is,  for  many,  a  difficulty.  In  the  Bible 
and  the  cathedral  alike,  however,  such  seeming  excres- 
cences will  be  found  to  have  won  their  place  as  parts  of 
the  great  organism.  We  should  miss  them,  and  feel  the 
want  of  them  if  they  were  removed. 

But  the  parallel  does  not  end  here.  Without  elabo- 
rating the  analogy  of  the  different  parts  according  to 
their  use  and  sacredness — where  the  nave  would  answer 
to  the  Old  Testament,  the  choir  to  the  Psalter,  the 
sanctuary  to  the  New  Testament,  with  the  Gospels  for  its 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  HOLY  SCRIPTURE  3 

altar  and  (shall  we  say  ?)  the  Apocalypse  for  reredos — we 
may  pause  for  a  moment  to  consider  the  various  types 
of  men  who  enter  the  cathedral,  the  purpose  with  which 
each  comes,  and  the  impression  which  the  building  makes 
upon  him. 

The  people  who  pass  through  the  open  doors  of  the 
cathedral  during  an  average  day  will  include  not  a  few 
to  whom  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  built  and  adorned 
means  little  or  nothing.  There  are  those  who  come  to 
^while  away  a  spare  hour,  or  to  listen  with  more  or  less 
intelligent  appreciation  to  the  choral  music  of  the  daily 
services.  There  are  some  who  are  attracted  simply  by 
the  size  of  the  building,  viewed  from  outside,  or  the  noble 
dignity  of  its  towers  and  pinnacles.  Again,  there  are  some 
who  have  acquired  a  smattering  of  the  principles  of  Gothic 
architecture,  and  wish  to  '  practise '  upon  a  building  in 
which  they  are  told  so  many  styles  are  represented.  Then 
there  are  the  people  to  whom  historical  associations  are 
paramount.  The  noble  choir  attracts  them  because  its 
architecture  speaks  to  them,  say,  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  with  all  its  manifold  glories;  the  nave  or  the 
west  end  recalls  the  grim  days  of  the  Conquest ;  and  the 
crypt  carries  the  mind  back  to  still  earlier  times.  Or  it 
may  be  that  this  and  that  part  of  the  building  is  definitely 
connected  with  the  name  of  some  hero  of  the  past :  here 
is  a  part  of  the  building  for  which  he  was  himself 
responsible ;  here  he  was  martyred ;  here  was  his  shrine ; 
here  may  be  seen  his  actual  ef^gy,  carved  by  contem- 
porary hands.  In  the  lover  of  history  the  cathedral 
finds  one  who,  if  he  come  not  actually  to  worship,  comes, 
nevertheless,  much  in  the  spirit  of  a  pilgrim. 

Besides   these,   there   are   what   may   be    called    the 
experts.     There  is  the  musical  expert,  who  times  his  visit 


4  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

carefully  so  that  it  shall  coincide  with  the  hour  of 
Evensong.  He  takes  a  keen  interest  in  every  detail  of 
the  music,  choral  and  instrumental — in  its  form  and  its 
matter,  in  the  music  chosen  and  the  way  it  is  rendered, 
in  the  skill  of  the  organist  and  the  tone  and  quality  of 
the  instrument.  Possibly  he  has  his  hobbies  and  his 
special  studies,  and  has  come  on  purpose  to  listen  to  the 
Bach  voluntary  or  the  Pergolesi  anthem,  or,  it  may  be,  to 
the  plain-song  chanting. 

So,  too,  with  the  architectural  expert :  the  great 
building  is  like  an  open  book  to  him,  wherein  he  can 
read  at  a  glance  more  of  the  general  history  and  the 
local  peculiarities  of  the  development  of  ecclesiastical 
architecture  than  the  plain  man  would  find  out  for  him- 
self in  a  lifetime.  This  expert,  too,  may  very  likely  have 
his  hobbies  and  his  special  studies,  and  on  these  he  will 
naturally  spend  most  of  the  time  at  his  disposal.  Besides 
these,  again,  there  is  a  host  of  specialists  who  have  come 
principally  to  see  just  one  thing;  yet  linger  on,  very 
likely,  under  the  magic  of  the  impressive  grandeur  of 
the  whole.  One  has  organ-cases  as  his  hobby ;  and  the 
quality  and  tone  of  the  organ,  or  the  character  of  the 
music  played,  means  nothing  to  him  in  comparison. 
Another  makes  a  special  study  of  bells  and  their  in- 
scriptions, and  the  way  they  are  hung.  He  hurries  up 
the  turret  steps  of  the  central  tower,  heedless  of  the 
magnificent  views  that  burst  upon  him  from  time  to 
time — fairy  glimpses  of  the  interior  of  the  building,  or  of 
the  city  and  surrounding  country  spread  out  at  his  feet. 
Another  has  come  because  the  guide-book  tells  him  that 
in  a  certain  nook  there  is  an  effigy  wearing  an  '  SS. 
collar,'  and  he  is  impatient  till  the  service  is  over,  because 
till  then  he  is  debarred  from  approaching  the  spot. 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  HOLY  SCRIPTURE  5 

The  parable  is  not  very  obscure,  and  the  reader 
will  have  no  difficulty  in  interpreting  its  details  in  a 
general  way.  A  large  proportion  of  those  who  turn  the 
pages  of  the  Bible  nowadays  come  to  it  primarily  with 
no  devotional  purpose ;  but  many  of  them  bring  to  it  a 
genuine  interest  far  more  intelligent  and  enthusiastic 
than  that  of  the  average  conventional  worshipper ;  and 
who  shall  say  how  much  of  the  spirit  of  devotion  they 
may  have  imbibed  before  they  leave,  under  the  spell  of 
a  building  whose  very  stones  are  saturated  with  prayer  ! 
Even  the  careless,  unintelligent,  or  dilettante  visitor  is 
likely  to  leave  the  place  with  some  fresh  touch  of  the 
ideal  in  his  nature  ;  much  more  he  who  comes  intending 
to  learn  something.  Public  opinion  does  not  resent  the 
intrusion  of  such  visitors.  The  non- worshippers  are 
welcome  to  come,  provided  they  will  uncover  their  heads 
as  they  enter,  and  hush  their  voices  a  little,  and  not 
disturb  the  actual  service  by  their  movements.  The 
cathedral  authorities  themselves  recognize  the  fact  that, 
though  the  building  is  first  and  foremost  a  religious 
temple,  it  is  also  a  national  monument,  and  a  concrete 
glossary  of  Gothic  architecture.  They  are  proud  and 
glad  that  as  many  as  possible  should  become  familiar 
with  every  aspect,  primary  or  secondary,  of  their  noble 
charge. 

But  the  more  narrow-minded  of  the  worshippers  are 
apt  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  occasional  breaches  of 
reverence  or  of  courtesy  on  the  part  of  the  non- 
worshipping  visitors,  to  resent  their  entrance  as  an 
'  intrusion,'  to  speak  glibly  of  '  desecration.'  No  doubt 
there  are  some  who  walk  noisily  about  during  Divine 
Service,  or  raise  their  voices  to  an  unseemly  pitch,  or 
make   tasteless   remarks  in   strident   tones ;   but   these 


6  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

are  few,  and  their  sins  should  not  be  visited  on  the 
many. 

The  present  study  is,  among  other  things,  a  plea  for 
a  more  sympathetic  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  purely 
devotional  reader  of  the  Bible  towards  those  many  who 
interest  themselves  in  Holy  Scripture  for  reasons  other 
than  devotion.  If  the  Bible  is  a  Divine  book,  said 
Origen  in  the  third  century,  it  is  also  a  human  book. 
For  some  of  us,  as  for  our  forefathers,  it  is  a  veritable 
sanctuary  of  devotion ;  but  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is 
also,  in  its  material  structure,  a  monument  of  literary 
architecture,  a  treasure-house  of  historical  material  and 
of  heroic  biography ;  that,  while  it  offers  an  unique  field 
of  investigation  to  the  more  general  experts — the  scientific 
student  of  the  development  of  religion,  the  literary- 
historical  critic,  the  reconstructer  of  ancient  history — it 
offers  also  a  hundred  points  of  interest  to  specialists 
of  various  types,  men  whose  soul  is  immersed  in  the 
study  of  some  particular  department  of  grammar  or 
etymology,  of  ethnology  or  anthropology,  of  ritual,  law, 
or  custom,  of  psychology  or  mental  therapeutics. 

Shall  we  resent  the  intrusion  of  these  men  into  our 
temple — men  whose  profound  knowledge  of  some  of  its 
characteristics  might  well  make  us  ashamed  of  our  own 
contented  ignorance  ?  The  doors  are  open,  whether  we 
will  or  no ;  the  doors  are  open,  and  they  have  a  right  to 
enter.  Shall  we  not  rather  study  to  welcome  them,  and 
try  to  learn  from  them  ?  We  have  learnt  something 
from  them  already.  We  have  learnt  to  realize  something 
more  of  the  richness  of  our  own  heritage  :  its  almost 
infinite  variety,  the  wonderful  historical  pageant  that  it 
represents  in  solid  stone,  the  marvellous  mechanism 
(represented  typically  by  the  '  flying  buttress ')  that  in 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  HOLY  SCRIPTURE  7 

an  almost  inconceivable  way  combines  structural  utility 
with  beauty  and  grace. 

If  we  sit  at  the  feet  of  one  and  another  of  these  experts, 
our  wonder  will  not  diminish  but  increase.  The  archi- 
tectural expert  will  perhaps  point  out  to  us  a  clumsy 
joint  here,  or  a  technical  blemish  there;  he  will  also 
teach  us  to  see  differences  of  date  in  what  we  had  super- 
ficially assumed  to  be  a  homogeneous  arcade,  or  a  simple 
mass  of  masonry.  He  will  point  out  to  us  pieces  of  the 
very  earliest  structure  overlaid  with  carved  and  moulded 
work  of  a  much  later  period  (as  the  veil  of  Perpendicular 
tracery  is  cast  over  Gloucester's  Norman  choir)  ;  he  will 
hint,  here  and  there,  at  a  probable  mixture  of  styles  and 
periods  beneath  the  surface,  which  can  never  be  demon- 
strated till  the  building  is  pulled  to  pieces.  The  historical 
expert  will  conjure  up  for  us  living  associations  with  the 
past,  the  thrill  of  which  will  be  upon  us  in  future  when- 
ever we  enter  the  building.  He  may  open  our  eyes  also 
to  the  darker  side  of  history,  and  unsettle  to  some  extent 
our  sentimental  affection  for  the  '  ages  of  faith.'  He  may 
even  compel  us  to  listen  while  he  reads  out  some  quite 
indisputable  contemporary  document  which  proves  that 
sordid  motives  contributed  in  some  degree  to  the 
uprearing  of  this  noble  church — that  sordid  incidents 
are  inextricably  interwoven  with  the  story  of  its  growth. 
Our  first  feeling  will  be  one  of  disillusionment,  and  of 
resentment  against  him  who  has  caused  it.  But,  if  we 
are  true  men,  the  feeling  will  not  last.  The  glorious 
buildings,  familiar  to  us  from  infancy,  and  always 
associated,  from  the  first  moment  that  we  can  remember, 
with  a  thrill  of  awe  !  The  structure  whose  sky-scaling 
lines  literally  drew  our  eyes  and  our  thoughts  up  heaven- 
ward !     We  had  never  thought  of  it  before  as  so  many 


8  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

stones  piled  up  one  on  the  other  by  coarse,  rude  work- 
men. We  had  somehow  taken  its  existence  for  granted. 
It  must  have  been  always  there,  or  have  come  into  being 
at  a  wave  of  the  wand,  like  the  magic  palaces  of  our 
fairy-tales,  or  have  reared  itself  up  to  the  strains  of 
heavenly  music,  like  the  mythical  walls  of  Troy.  And 
then,  when  the  thought  of  the  process  intruded  itself 
more  upon  our  notice,  we  instinctively  pictured  the 
builders  of  old  time  each  -svith  a  nimbus  round  his  head, 
like  saints  in  a  window,  passing  to  and  fro  with  stately 
grace,  every  movement  an  act  of  devotion.  Now  we 
have  been  taught  to  hear  the  ring  of  the  chisel  on  the 
stone,  the  creak  of  straining  ropes,  the  clank  of  chains, 
the  ill-considered  ejaculations,  it  may  be,  of  some  over- 
worked mechanic.  The  entire  building  breathes  a  spirit 
of  devotion ;  it  is  inspired  alike  in  the  whole  and  in  the 
parts,  but 

'  Many  a  blow  and  biting  sculpture 
Polish'd  well  those  stones  elect, 
In  their  places  now  compacted 
By  the  heavenly  Architect.* 

It  is  well  for  us,  the  world  being  what  it  is,  to  realize 
sometimes  that  our  inspired  and  inspiring  cathedral 
was  reared  up  by  men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves, 
and  of  a  less-developed  external  politeness  ;  that  human 
weariness  and  tears  and  blood  contributed  to  its  build- 
ing; that  men  probably  quarrelled  and  swore  in  its 
unfinished  aisles;  and  the  whole  round  of  human  life 
went  on  in  those  days  as  in  these.  So,  too,  we  should 
be  thankful  to  the  various  experts  who  disclose  -to  us 
their  secrets  about  the  human  aspects  of  the  Bible ;  and 
the  stories  of  human  struggle  and  suffering,  of  construc- 
tion   and    demolition    and    reconstruction,   of    piecing" 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  HOLY  SCRIPTURE  9 

together  of  old  fragments  with  new  work — every  fresh 
light  thrown  by  research  upon  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  Divine  yet  human  structure — should  increase  our 
intelligent  appreciation  of  Holy  Writ,  and  enable  us  to 
use  it  for  its  own  primary  purpose  with  fresh  enthusiasm. 

For,  thanks  be  to  God,  its  own  primary  purpose  still 
remains.  It  is  still,  above  all,  a  temple  of  devotion, 
where,  day  by  day,  those  who  will  may  kneel  in  prayer, 
and  drink  in  fresh  draughts  of  inspiration;  where  the 
time-honoured  strains  of  the  Psalter  still  voice  the 
aspirations,  the  fears,  doubts,  triumphs  of  the  human 
heart,  face  to  face  with  its  God,  and  link  these  latter 
times  "svith  all  the  Christian  centuries  and  with  the 
Second  Temple  at  Jerusalem.  Here,  in  the  sanctuary 
of  Scripture,  devout  spirits  may  still  find  an  Altar  of 
mystic  Communion,  a  very  Holy  of  Holies,  in  the 
intimate  teachings  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

Moreover,  the  devotional  use  of  the  Temple  of  Holy 
Writ  is,  for  the  devout,  not  hindered,  but  enhanced  and 
enriched  by  a  fuller  scientific  knowledge  of  its  structure 
and  its  history.  The  most  intelligent  of  all  the  wor- 
shippers is  he  to  whom  every  arch  and  pillar,  every 
stone,  has  a  meaning,  and  that  no  mere,  vaguely  imagined 
symbolic  meaning,  but  a  genuine  historical  significance. 
He  values  the  Divine  and  inspiringly  beautiful  product  all 
the  more  because  he  knows  how  humanly  it  came  into 
being,  and  because  he  realizes  its  place  in  the  drama  of 
his  nation^s  history.  The  more  we  can  succeed  in 
discovering  that  the  Bible  (the  Old  Testament  especially) 
is  the  record  of  a  Revelation  wrought  out  in  a  people^s 
history,  the  more  it  will  mean  to  us. 

But  if  the  worshipper  can  learn  from  the  scientific 
expert,  whose  interest  in  the  loved  object  is,  primarily^ 


10  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

so  different  from  his  own;  so,  too,  the  expert,  if  he  is 
welcomed,  may  learn  something  from  the  worshipper. 
Probably,  if  he  be  a  sincere,  and  therefore  a  humble- 
minded,  seeker  after  truth,  he  will  never  leave  the  sacred 
precincts  unmoved  by  the  spell  of  awe  and  reverence, 
that  atmosphere  of  long  generations  of  worship,  which 
seems  to  linger  in  the  mysterious  spaces  of  the  Temple. 

Further — and  in  this  lies  our  surest  hope  for  the 
continued  influence  of  the  Bible  upon  the  generations  to 
come — the  expert  may  be  a  devcnd  expert,  a  worshipper 
too.  He  may  be  one  who  feeds  his  mind  and  memory 
and  his  aesthetic  taste  upon  the  material  fabric,  with  its 
sovereign  literary  beauty  and  its  inexhaustible  intel- 
lectual interest ;  but  he  does  not  end  there.  He  carries 
his  keen,  penetrating  mind,  his  well-stored  memory, 
his  cultivated,  aesthetic  taste  into  the  sanctuary,  and  is 
thus  enabled  to  offer  up  anew  to  the  Inspirer  of  the  great 
structure  its  various  aspects  incarnated,  as  it  were,  in 
his  own  life;  and  to  offer  up  this  life  enriched  by 
the  manifold  inspirations  of  the  Temple  in  which  he 
worships. 


II 

THE  DIVINE  LIBKARY 

Is  there  any  instance^  within  the  entire  range  of  ety- 
mology, of  a  title  so  significant  as  that  by  which  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Church  are  familiarly  known  ?  ^ Bible' 
has  become  the  proper  name  of  one  among  many 
volumes — a  volume  which  all  Christians  hold  sacred. 
To  the  average  Christian  the  name  expresses  the  fact 
that  this  is  ^The  Book'  'par  excellence.  A  hundred 
associations  have  gathered  round  the  name — associations 
of  the  most  holy  and  inspiring  kind — justifying  the  title 
which  they  illustrate  and  enrich,  justifying  the  supreme 
place  which  this  Book  has  held  for  centuries  past  among 
the  books  of  the  world.  But  among  all  the  ideas  which 
the  name  *  Bible '  suggests  to  the  mind,  none  is  more 
remarkable  or  more  significant  than  the  idea  of  unity. 

Bihle  to  us  is  a  word  in  the  singular  number,  but  in 
its  etymological  ancestry  we  find  a  plural  original.  It 
was  not  without  reason  that  the  Latin  hiblia — a  mere 
transliteration  of  the  Greek  ffi0\la — transformed  itself 
insensibly  from  a  neuter  plural  to  a  feminine  singular ; 
and  what  had  been  at  the  outset  spoken  of  as  a  group 
of  books  (or,  to  be  more  exact,  of  little  hybloi,  or  papyrus 
documents)  came  to  be  recognized  as  a  single  entity. 
Singular  and  plural,  as  we  shall  see,  have  each  an 
important  claim  to  recognition ;  and  on  the  just  appre- 

11 


12  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

elation  of  each  claim   depends,  in  large  measure,  the 
intelligent  understanding  of  the  Bible  itself. 

The  constituent  elements  of  the  Bible  are  many  and 
various,  as  we  shall  have  occasion  to  note,  but  they  form 
a  single  group,  an  organic  whole,  with  a  single  funda- 
mental theme;  and  it  is,  doubtless,  this  essential  unity 
in  diversity  which  at  once  justifies  and  accounts  for  the 
strange  history  of  its  title.  St.  Jerome^s  title  of  Bihlio- 
theca  Divina — 'The  Divine  Library' — is  the  earliest 
specific  name  applied  to  the  whole  group  of  small  books 
{ffiffXio) ;  and  Bihllotheca  remained,  right  into  the 
Middle  Ages,  a  familiar  title  for  the  collection  of  sacred 
Scriptures.  And,  in  spite  of  the  domination  of  custom 
and  tradition  over  our  minds,  and  the  habit  of  seeing  and 
handling  those  Scriptures  in  the  form  of  a  single  volume, 
none  can  deny  that  the  Bible  is,  at  the  first  intelligent 
glance,  more  appropriately  to  be  called  a  library  than 
a  single  book. 

It  may  be  well  to  pause  for  a  moment  upon  these  two 
aspects  of  the  familiar  object :  its  diversity  and  its  unity. 
Speaking  generally,  we  may  say  that  the  former  associates 
itself  with  history,  the  latter  with  tradition.  The  literary 
historian  marks  and  emphasizes  the  very  various  dates, 
occasions,  and  circumstances  in  which  the  several  books 
had  their  origin;  for  him  the  diversity  within  the  unity  has 
the  greater  significance.  The  traditional  view  of  the  Bible, 
on  the  other  hand,  gives  greater  significance  to  its  unity — 
a  unity  which  is  the  outcome  of  that  pressure  of  external 
influence  and  authority  upon  the  various  elements  which 
we  know  as  the  formation  of  the  Canon  of  Scripture."^ 

*  'Canon'  (Gk.  Kavdjv)  means,  technically,  a  list  (and  a  standard)  of 
books  believed  to  be  divinely  inspired :  a  Jewish  idea  handed  on  to 
the  Christian  Church. 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRABY  13 

But  such  a  broad  and  general  way  of  speaking  lends 
itself  to  misconception.  The  selection  and  grouping  of 
these  writings  involved  in  the  formation  of  the  Canon 
had  undoubtedly  an  internal  as  well  as  an  external 
justification.  If  these  particular  documents  came  to  be 
recognized  as  canonical,  it  can  hardly  have  been  as  the 
result  of  a  mere  arbitrary  and  capricious  selection.  Was 
it  not  rather,  in  the  main,  because  they  were  found  to 
possess  certain  common  characteristics ;  to  exhibit  a 
common  tendency,  to  conform  to  a  common  type  and 
standard  ?  Such  a  supposition  would  not  have  been,  in 
any  case,  a  very  rash  one.  It  is  supported  by  the 
history  of  the  growth  of  the  Canon ;  by  the  very  informal 
way  in  which  the  documents  won  their  recognition  from 
the  consciousness  of  the  Church.  It  is  corroborated  to 
the  point  of  conviction  by  a  study  of  the  books  them- 
selves, and  a  comparison  of  those  which  actually 
established  their  claim  to  a  place  in  the  Canon  with 
what  we  may  call  the  rejected  candidates  for  admission. 
The  greater  prominence  that  modern  scholarship  gives 
to  the  Apocalyptic  works  of  later  Judaism — works  like 
the  Book  of  Enoch,  the  Book  of  Jubilees j  and  the  Assump- 
tion  of  Moses — is  due  (as  we  shall  have  occasion  to  note 
hereafter)  to  their  historical  importance  in  the  evolution 
of  thought,  and  to  the  light  which  they  throw  upon  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments ;  it  does  not  obliterate  the 
distinction  on  the  spiritual  side  between  canonical  and 
uncanonical  books.  The  supremacy  of  the  former  in  the 
spiritual  realm  is  on  the  whole  brought  out  into  stronger 
relief  by  a  comparison.  And  the  same  is  true  of  the 
books  which  may  be  styled  New  Testament  Apocrypha. 

The  childish  imaginings  by  which  the  typical '  Apocry- 
phal Gospel^   is   distinguished   from   the   work   of   the 


14  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

canonical  Evangelists  are  worthy  of  the  darkest  of  dark 
ages ;  and  the  beauty  of  thought  and  feeling  which  mark 
such  writings  as  the  Epistle  of  Clement  of  Rome  and  (in 
a  less  degree)  that  ascribed  to  '  Barnabas '  are  far  from 
placing  these  works  on  a  level  >vith  the  New  Testament 
Epistles,  though  at  one  time  it  seemed  as  though  they 
might  have  made  good  their  place  in  the  Canon. 

The  books  of  the  Bible  have  every  right  to  stand  apart 
from  the  literature  that  was  contemporary  with  them, 
and  every  right  also,  as  we  shall  see  more  clearly  here- 
after, to  be  regarded  as  forming  a  single  organic  group. 

The  unity  in  diversity  which  results,  gives  the  Bible  a 
character  all  its  own,  a  something  which  we  recognize  as 
parallel  to  human  nature  and  human  history,  to  the 
universe  itself — nay,  to  the  mysterious  revelation  of  the 
Being  of  Grod  which  Christianity  claims  to  discern  in  its 
pages. "^  This  unity  in  diversity  is  doubtless  one  of  the 
grounds  of  the  Bible's  unique  appeal  to  mankind — an 
appeal  to  which  no  barriers  of  race,  language,  circum- 
stances or  environment  have  been  found  to  oppose  an 
effective  hindrance. 

Perhaps  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  dwell  at  length  on 
the  superficially  heterogeneous  character  of  the  elements 
of  which  the  Bible  is  composed.  To  estimate  this  aright, 
the  English  reader  must  first  think  away  the  results  of 
translation.  The  familiar  and  revered  'Authorized 
Version '  and  the  more  exact,  if  less  rhythmical.  Revised 
Version  have  made  it  possible  for  the  average  English- 
man to  pass  from  the  New  Testament  to  the  Old  and 
back  again  without  the  sense  of  a  break,  or  the  necessity 

*  It  is  possible  that  the  very  name  given  to  the  Ahnighty  in 
many  of  the  Hebrew  writings — the  familiar  name  Elohim — may 
be  reckoned  as  an  analogy,  being,  like  biblia,  a  plural  word  that 
has  become  a  sin^uliir. 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  15 

of  focussing  his  mind  afresh.  But  the  one  vernacular 
rendering  represents,  not  merely  two  different  dialects, 
but  two  languages  entirely  distinct  in  script,  in  etymology, 
and  in  syntax.  The  Bible  is  written  partly  in  Hebrew 
and  partly  in  Greek. 

The  Greek  portion,  which  includes  all  the  New  Testa- 
ment books  as  they  have  come  down  to  us,"^  varies 
greatly  from  part  to  part  in  style  and  diction.  We  pass 
from  the  comparatively  pure  Greek  of  the  Third  Gospel 
and  the  Acts  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  to  the 
intensely  un-Greek  phrases  and  constructions  with  which 
the  Apocalypse  abounds.  The  type  of  Greek  used 
throughout  is  what  is  known  as  Hellenistic,  a  dialect 
which  has  been  generally  regarded  as  owing  very  much 
to  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 
It  has  commonly  been  looked  upon  as  a  debased  Hellenic 
speech  flooded  with  Hebraistic  ideas.  Recent  discoveries 
have  modified  this  judgment.  Contemporary  inscriptions 
and  papyri  show  that  many  words  and  phrases  hitherto 
regarded  as  '  Hebraisms '  must  renounce  the  title.  The 
Greek  of  the  New  Testament  is,  in  fact,  regarded  now  as 
little  more  than  the  cosmopolitan  vernacular  of  the 
period,  varied  by  local  peculiarities.  But  this  only 
throws  into  stronger  relief  the  difference  of  original 
language  which  separates  the  Old  Testament  from  the 
New.  In  any  case,  we  may  still  find  in  the  Apo- 
crypha, the  Deutero-canonical  books  which  follow  the 
Old  Testament  proper  in  our  Bible,  early  instances  of 
the  type  or  types  of  language  in  which  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  written.  These  books  (of  which  more  here- 
after) were  not  in  the  Hebrew  Canon  of  Palestine,  but 

*  There  is  traditional  evidence  (see  below,  Chapter  II.,  p.  78)  for 
an  original  Hebrew — i.e.,  Aramaic — St.  Matthew. 


16  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS  ! 

were  circulated  with  the  Septuagint  translation  (begun  ^ 
280  B.C.,  and  only  finished  some  time  after  the  Christian 
era).  Most  of  them  are  original  compositions,  as  they  | 
stand,  in  Greek;  but  here  and  there,  as  in  the  case  of  | 
the  wisdom  of  the  Son  of  Sirach  (Ecclesiasticus),  we  have  j 
proof  of  a  Hebrew  original.  ! 

The  Hebrew  portion  of  the  Bible  comprises  the  whole  I 
of  the  Old  Testament,  though  certain  portions  of  the  ' 
Books  of  Ezra  and  Daniel  are  in  Aramaic,  the  debased  i 
Hebrew-Syriac  speech,  a  sort  of  lingua  franca  for  Syria,  ' 
which  came  into  use  after  the  Exile,  when  classical 
Hebrew  had  become  the  language  of  the  learned;  and  \ 
Aramaisms,  we  are  told,  abound  in  some  other  books —  ! 
e.g.,  the  Books  of  Chronicles. 

For  the  rest,  there  seems  at  first  sight  little  variety  in 
language,  as  distinct  from  style.  But  scholarship  is  i 
learning  to  recognize  more  and  more  differences  of  • 
vocabulary  and  phraseology — differences  pointing  prob-  ' 
ably  to  distinctions  of  dialect  and  of  date  in  the  Hebrew 
Books.  And  this  is  not  unnatural ;  for  while  the  New  \ 
Testament  Books  saw  the  light,  all  of  them,"^  within  half  : 
a  century,  the  component  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  j 
cover  a  period  of  many  centuries.  ' 

When  we  come  to  style,  there  is  no  need  of  a  know-  ' 
ledge  of  Hebrew  to  distinguish  between  the  statistical  : 
portions  of  Chronicles  and  the  flowing  narratives  of  \ 
Samuel ;  between  the  legal  phraseology  of  much  of  the  j 
Pentateuch  and  the  fiery  utterances  of  the  Prophets;  ! 
between  Isaiah  and  Daniel;  between  the  Book  of  Pro-  ' 
verbs  and  that  which  bears  the  name  of  Job;  between  \ 
one  and  another  among  the  Psalms.  ] 

*  With  the  possible  exception  of  2  Peter  or  Jude,  or  both  of  1 
them  (see,  further,  pp.  24,  71). 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  17 

If  we  turn  our  attention  to  details  of  subject-matter, 
and  to  the  circumstances  to  which  the  different  books 
owe  their  origin,  we  need  not  go  beyond  the  New 
Testament  literature  to  illustrate  very  amply  this  aspect 
of  diversity  and  variety.  'The  documents  .  .  .  range 
from  the  formal  historical  work  of  St.  Luke,  to  the 
personal  and  private  letters  of  St.  Paul  to  Philemon  and 
St.  John  to  Gains.  Their  authors  include  such  divers 
personalities  as  a  Galilaean  fisherman,  a  learned  Jewish 
Rabbi,  a  Gentile  man  of  science ;  their  themes  range 
from  the  mysteries  of  Divine  redemption  and  the  theory 
of  the  Universal  Church,  to  the  method  of  dressing  a 
woman's  hair  and  the  use  of  wine  as  an  article  of  diet.'"^ 

If  the  diversity  of  origin,  style,  character,  and 
immediate  purpose  which  marks  its  component  parts 
qualifies  the  Bible  for  its  earliest  title  'Bibliotheca 
Divina,'  so  also  does  the  history  of  the  process  by 
which  those  components  came  together,  so  far  as  we  can 
trace  it.  The  Bible  was  not  'built  in  a  day';  indeed, 
it  rather  grew  than  was  built,  and  many  different  forces 
and  tendencies  contributed  to  its  growth.  We  must  not 
think  of  the  various  books  as  being  written  currente 
calamo  in  an  abstract,  independent  way,  without  relation 
to  contemporary  conditions,  and  then  acknowledged  im- 
mediately as  inspired  and  canonical  works.  Modern 
scholarship  rightly  bids  us  distinguish  carefully  between 
the  date  of  a  book's  appearance  as  literature  and  that  of 
its  assumption  into  the  group  of  approved  '  Scriptures.' 
Some  of  the  books  received  a  more  speedy,  others  a 
more  tardy  recognition.  In  the  New  Testament,  the 
Gospels,  the  earliest  of  which  were  undoubtedly  com- 
mitted to  writing  after  many  of  the  Epistles  were  already 

*  L.  Eagg,  *  Church  of  the  Apostles,'  p.  17. 

2 


18  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

in  circulation,  are  the  first  to  be  used  and  acknowledged 
as  Scripture.  They  quickly  win  the  place  of  honour, 
corresponding  to  that  of  the  Pentateuch  in  the  Old 
Testament,  a  place  which  they  have  never  lost. 

Similarly,  in  the  Old  Testament,  a  younger  group  of 
documents  appears  to  have  achieved  canonical  precedence 
over  writings  earlier  born  or  earlier  matured.  The  first 
Hebrew  Bible  was  the  Pentateuch  (beyond  which  the 
Samaritan  canon,  which  dates  from  about  400  B.c.,"^ 
never  grew)  ;  and  much  of  this  is  now  judged  to  have 
been  compiled  after  many  of  the  prophetic  writings. 
Yet  it  was  only  at  a  considerably  later  date  that  the 
'Former'  and  the  'Later'  Prophets  were  admitted  as 
a  canonical  appendix  to  the  'Law.'  And  at  the  head 
of  this  second  group  is  a  book  (Joshua)  whose  style  and 
structure  proclaims  its  affinity  with  the  Pentateuchal 
writings  rather  than  with  the  books  that  follow. 

In  the  formation  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  three  main 
stages  are  traced.  The  first  Hebrew  Bible,  which 
received  general  acknowledgment  in  the  time  of  Ezra 
and  Nehemiahf  (in  the  fifth  century  B.C.)  comprises  the 
Mve  Books  of  the  Law,  one  of  which,  Deuteronomy,  had 
already  been  received  as  an  authoritative  basis  of 
reformation  a  century  earlier,  after  Hilkiah's  dramatic 
discovery  of  it  while  he  was  engaged  in  cleansing  the 
Temple. J  The  second  Canon,  that  of  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets,  was  probably  acknowledged  about  200  B.C. 
This  itself,  however,  is  based  on  several  preliminary  col- 

*  Manuscripts  of  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  are  still  in  existence. 
They  are  written  in  an  older  Hebrew  script,  similar,  probably,  to 
that  in  use  before  the  Exile,  for  it  resembles  that  of  the  celebrated 
Siloam  inscription  of  circa  850-820  b.c.  They  exhibit  some  inter- 
esting variations  of  text. 

t  Ezra  iii.  2,  vii.  6,  10, 14 ;  Neh.  viii.  1-15,  ix.  8,  x.  29. 

I  2  Kings  xxii.  8  (621  b.c). 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  19 

lections  or  crystallizations.  The  'Former  Prophets' — 
i.e.,  the  prophetic  historians — comprising  the  Books  of 
Joshua^  Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings,  form  a  group  by 
themselves,  with  a  special  history,  and  were  obviously 
edited  as  an  historical  appendix  to  the  Pentateuch.  Of 
the  Prophets  proper  (in  which  Daniel  is  not  included, 
nor  the  Book  of  Lamentations),  the  twelve  whom  we  call 
"Minor  Prophets"  formed  a  collection  by  themselves, 
and  were  regarded  as  a  single  book.  The  addition  of  the 
entire  prophetic  group  to  the  Pentateuch,  so  as  to  form 
the  second  Hebrew  Bible,  was  followed,  at  a  later  date, 
by  a  second  and  final  appendix,  known  to  the  Hebrews 
as  the  WritifigSj  and  generally  distinguished  by  scholars 
under  its  Greek  title  Hagiographa.  This  is  a  very 
miscellaneous  collection,  including  all  the  books  not 
hitherto  enumerated,  and  its  final  acceptance  must,  of 
course,  be  dated  not  only  later  than  the  latest  chrono- 
logical indication  exhibited  in  the  text,  but  also  con- 
siderably later  than  the  date  of  the  second  or  'Prophetic' 
Canon.  The  Book  of  Nehemiah  (xii.  11)  carries  down 
the  list  of  High  Priests  to  Jaddua,  the  contemporary 
of  Alexander  the  Grreat.  But  the  third  and  final 
Hebrew  Canon  must  date  from  a  still  later  period, 
probably  circa  105  B.C.  From  that  time  we  have  reason 
to  believe  that  the  Canon  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures, 
as  we  have  it,  was  generally  accepted  in  the  Jewish 
Church  (who  enumerated  their  books  as  twenty-four  in 
number),  though  the  formal  ratification  and  declara- 
tion of  its  limits  did  not  take  place  till  the  Synod  of 
Jamnia,  after  the  Destruction  of  Jerusalem,  in  the  last 
decade  of  the  first  century  a.d. 

The   Divine    Library  of   the   Old   Testament   is  thus 
formed  (it  will  be  observed)  of  three  lesser  libraries,  and 


20  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

is  composite  in  more  senses  than  one.  For  each  of  these 
lesser  libraries  contains  a  number  of  books — books  which, 
in  the  Second  and  the  Third  Collections,  fall  into  still 
smaller  groups;  while  many  of  the  individual  books  (as 
we  shall  have  occasion  to  observe  in  the  next  chapter) 
bear  more  or  less  distinct  traces  of  a  composite  origin. 

The  unity  which  governs  this  complexity  would  seem 
at  first  sight  to  be  a  unity  imposed  from  without.  It 
was  the  authority  of  the  Jewish  Church  (however 
officially  or  unofficially  expressed)  that  sifted  and  selected, 
that  grouped  together  in  each  age  those  books  which, 
in  the  quaint  Rabbinic  phrase,  '  defile  the  hands'^ — i.e., 
are  sacred ;  that  added  book  to  book  within  the  group, 
and  group  to  group  within  the  Canon,  till  at  last,  some 
time  before  the  commencement  of  our  era,  the  complete 
Hebrew  Old  Testament  was  recognized  as  '  Holy  Scrip- 
ture^ and  as  'inspired  of  God.'t 

This  process  was  doubtless,  in  the  main,  an  informal — 
we  might  almost  say  an  instinctive — one.  The  New 
Testament  itself  proves  that  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures, 
practically  as  they  stand,  were  already  accepted  by  Jesus 
of  Nazareth  and  His  contemporaries  among  the  Jews, 
though  it  was  not,  as  we  have  said,  till  the  Synod  of 
Jamnia  that  the  formal  and  summary  decision  of  Jewish 
experts  was  promulgated — a  decision  which  only  con- 
firmed the  conclusions  already  informally  reached. 

The  acceptance  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  by  the  Lord 
Himself  made  its  acceptance  by  the  Christian  Church 
a  foregone  conclusion.  Nothing  is  more  certain  than 
that  the  primitive  Christian  Church  accepted  the  Old 

*  To  protect  the  sacred  books  from  careless  handling  the  Eabbins 
laid  down  the  rule  that  to  touch  them  was  to  incur  ceremonial 
defilement :  after  touching  them  the  hands  must  be  washed. 

t  2  Tim.  iii.  16. 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  21 

Testament  Scriptures  bodily  as  a  legacy  from  the  Church 
of  the  Old  Covenant. 

There  is,  indeed,  a  group  of  writings,  to  which  we 
have  referred  above  (writings  familiarly  known  to  us  as 
the  'Apocrypha'),  which  raises  problems  difficult  of 
solution.  These  are  books,  mostly  or  entirely  of  Greek- 
Jewish  origin,  which  were  circulated,  apparently,  with 
the  Greek  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  known 
as  the  Septuagint  Version.  Whether  this  larger  Bible, 
which  comprised  not  only  a  number  of  extra  books,  but 
also  Greek  interpolations  into  certain  canonical  books, 
was  ever  formally  accepted  by  any  section  of  the  Jewish 
Church  remains  an  open  question.  Its  very  general 
acceptance  in  the  Christian  Church  (though  not  without 
protest  from  the  more  learned  of  her  teachers)  was  doubt- 
less due  to  the  influence  of  the  Septuagint.  But  to  the 
whole  question  of  the  Apocrypha  we  must  return  later ."^ 

We  have  seen  that  the  Hebrew  Canon  was  a  gradual 
formation,  in  which  three  outstanding  stages  may  be 
marked — a  process  in  which  later-born  documents  some- 
times won  an  earlier  recognition  as  canonical. 

The  three  great  landmarks  are  visible  in  the  New 
Testament  itself,  where  our  Lord  is  made  to  speak  of 
Scripture  now  as  the  'Law,'t  now  again  as  the  'Law 
and  the  Prophets,'  J  and  in  one  place  as  '  the  Law,  the 
Prophets,  and  the  Psalms '§ — where  'Psalms'  stands 
(it  would  seem)  for  the  whole  group  of  the  Writings  of 
which  it  was  typical,  and  in  which  it  held  the  first  place. 

A  similar  line  of  development  marks  the   growth  of 

*  See  below,  pp.  36-39,  127,  128. 

t  Matt.  xii.  5  ;  John  vii.  19. 

X  Matt.  V.  17 ;  Luke  xvi.  16. 

§  Luke  xxiv.  44  ;  cf.  xx.  42,  and  Acts  i.  20. 


22  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

the  New  Testament  Canon,  tliough  the  successive  stages 
and  groups  are  not,  perhaps,  so  clearly  marked.  Here, 
too,  as  we  have  observed,  the  order  of  canonical  accept- 
ance does  not  coincide  with  the  order  in  which  the 
documents  saw  the  light.  Here,  too,  there  is  an  inner 
group,  a  '  holy  of  holies '  within  the  Temple  of  Holy 
Writ,  the  sacred  '  Tetrateuch '  of  the  Four  Gospels,  the 
first  accepted  nucleus  of  the  distinctively  Christian 
Bible.  Here,  too,  there  is  a  book — the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles — which  holds  an  ambiguous  position,  and  forms 
a  link  between  the  first  or  Gospel  group  and  the  second 
group  of  the  Pauline  Epistles.  The  Acts,  like  the  Book 
of  Joshua,  in  the  Old  Testament,  belongs  by  literary 
affinity  to  the  group  which  precedes  it  in  the  Canon,  but 
(again  like  Joshua)  is  separated  therefrom  by  the 
cleavage-line  of  canonical  structure. 

In  the  New  Testament,  again,  there  may  be  discerned 
three  groups.  The  Gospels  are  followed  by  the  Pauline 
Epistles,  and  these  again  by  a  somewhat  miscellaneous 
group  of  writings  including  the  Catholic  Epistles  and 
the  Apocalypse.  And  if  it  be  not  fanciful  to  carry  the 
parallel  still  further,  we  may  see  an  analogy  between 
St.  Paul's  writings  and  the  'Prophets'  of  the  Old 
Testament,  preceded  by  the  Acts  as  '  Former  Prophets,' 
and  in  the  miscellaneous  collection  which  completes  the 
New  Testament,  the  analogue  of  the  strangely  hetero- 
geneous '  Writings  '  or  '  Hagiographa '  of  the  Hebrew 
Bible.  In  the  New  Testament,  as  in  the  Old,  the  third 
group — some  elements  of  which  ^  belong  both  in  origin 
and  in  character  to  the  early  period,  and  might  naturally 

*  This  is  true,  e.g.^  of  much  of  the  Psalter,  which  has  Psalms 
both  early  and  prophetic  in  style,  and  in  the  New  Testament  of 
the  Johannine  Epistles,  which  clearly  belong  to  the  Fourth  Gospel. 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  23 

have  been  looked  for  in  the  earlier  stratum — has  least 
cohesion,  least  equality  of  level,  and,  with  some  notable 
exceptions,  least  sublimity  of  style ;  while  it  is  in  this 
third  group  that  the  Apocalyptic  element  is  most  strongly 
(though  not  exclusively)  represented.  The  closest  Old 
Testament  parallel  to  the  Book  of  the  Revelation  is  to 
be  seen  in  the  Book  of  Daniel. 

In  the  case  of  the  New  Testament,  as  in  that  of  the 
Old,  the  process  of  canonization  Avas  a  gradual  and 
a  more  or  less  instinctive  one.  When  at  last  conciliar 
recognition  was  given  to  the  whole  body  of  New 
Testament  Scriptures,"^  it  was  the  acceptance  of  a  fait 
accompli.  Of  the  recognition  of  the  Four  Gospels  as 
worthy  to  be  placed  beside  the  Sacred  Scriptures  of  the 
Old  Testament  we  have  record  as  early  as  a.d.  170,  in 
the  testimony  of  Dionysius  of  Corinth."^  The  other 
books  followed  gradually.  Some,  like  the  Apocalypse 
and  2  Peter,  shared  the  fate  of  Esther  and  Canticles  in 
the  Jewish  Canon,  and  were  long  considered  doubtful. 
It  is  not  till  after  a.d.  300  that  the  New  Testament 
Canon  may  be  said  to  have  been  stereotyped  in  its 
present  form.  It  was  in  virtue  of  their  acceptance  as 
'  Scripture '  by  each  separate  group  of  Churches  that 
these  writings  finally  received  universal  recognition 
throughout  the  Church  as  a  whole,  and  were  accorded 
the  external  seal  and  stamp  of  canonicity.  But  while 
the  characteristic  feature  of  canonical  recognition  in  the 
case  of  Old  and  New  Testament  alike  was  an  appeal  to 
tradition — what  has  been  accepted  ? — the  earlier  informal 
acceptance  must  have  had  its  grounds  and  reasons.     In 

*  See  Euseb.,  'H.  E.,'  iv.  23.  The  first  conciliar  recognition  of 
the  complete  Canon  took  place  at  the  Council  of  Laodicea  (a.d.  365), 
though  practically  all  the  individual  books  were  specially  honoured 
dnd  used  by  the  end  of  the  second  century. 


24  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

the  last  resort  it  will  be  found  that  each  book  was 
received  upon  its  merits.  Other  considerations  un- 
doubtedly made  themselves  felt,  but  only  in  a  secondary 
way.  The  name  of  the  supposed  author,  whether  rightly 
or  wrongly  attached  to  a  work,  may  have  played  a  real 
part  in  this  case  or  in  that,  gaining  for  some  postulant 
book  a  hearing.  But  this  particular  consideration  was 
not  necessarily  decisive,  nor  was  it  indispensable.  True, 
a  book  bearing  the  name  of  Solomon  could  not  be  lightly 
dismissed  by  the  Jewish  Rabbis,  nor  one  claiming  to  be 
Peter^s  by  the  guiding  spirits  of  early  Christian  thought. 
But  while  the  Song  of  Songs  and  the  Book  of  Wisdom 
are  both  (in  all  probability  pseudonymously)  ascribed  to 
Solomon,  the  former  found  a  place  in  the  Jewish  Canon, 
and  the  latter,  in  spite  of  its  noble  thoughts  and  splendid 
passages  (which  have  won  it  a  place  in  the  larger  form 
of  the  Christian  Canon),  failed  to  secure  an  entrance. 
And  though  the  '  Second  Epistle  of  Peter  ^  (the  Petrine 
authorship  of  which,  as  it  stands,  modern  scholarship 
cannot  accept)  has  rightly  secured  a  place  in  the  New 
Testament,  there  are  not  a  few  pseudonymous  Petrine 
documents — like  the  Apocalypse  of  Peter,  or  the  recently 
discovered  Gospel  of  Peter — which  never  succeeded  in 
obtaining  recognition  as  canonical. 

The  fact  that  a  large  number  of  the  Old  Testament 
Books  are,  strictly  speaking,  anonymous  (perhaps  we 
might  add  also  the  Acts  and  the  Hebrews  in  the  New 
Testament),  would  of  itself  be  sufficient  to  prove  that 
authorship  was  not  the  deciding  factor.  Nor  can  subject- 
matter,  in  any  narrow  sense,  nor  style  have  formed  the 
decisive  criterion.  A  glance  at  the  variety  of  the  books 
will  assure  us  of  that.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
actual  specific  considerations  by  which  each  member  of 


or- 

OF  "*""  '    ' 

.^''^  .-.>->.   ^, THE  DIYINE  LIBEARY  25 

the  series  ultimately  attained  its  place,  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  the  selection  is  amply  justified  by  an 
inner  unity  of  spirit  and  teaching,  which  links  together 
books  so  diverse  in  character,  style,  and  circumstances 
of  origin. 

The  old  Jewish  experts  saw  both  in  Esther  (which 
never  once  names  the  Name  of  God)  and  in  Exodus 
(where  it  occurs  again  and  again  on  every  page)  a 
revelation  of  the  Divine  will  and  purpose,  just  as  they 
saw  the  same  not  only  in  the  Prophetic  Books  that 
introduce  their  utterances  with  the  bold  phrase,  '  Thus 
saith  Jehovah,^  but  also  in  a  dramatic  epic  like  Job,  in 
which  the  apologetic  of  traditional  piety  is  unmercifully 
criticized,  and  a  lyric  drama  like  the  Song  of  So7igs,  where 
anything  beyond  and  above  the  surface  theme  of  human 
sexual  love  is  rather  hinted  at  than  directly  inculcated."^ 

To  the  modern  reader,  though  he  recognizes  in  the 
Old  Testament  Books  a  clear  difference  of  levels,  and 
finds  one  book  far  more  sublime  than  another,  there  is  a 
certain  unanimity  about  them  all,  in  what  they  teach 
and  in  what  they  postulate,  though  each  has  its  own 
slightly  different  point  of  view.  In  this  matter  the 
postulates  are  often  more  important  than  the  doctrines 
formally  enunciated.  The  tendency  of  the  concordance 
may  be  to  exaggerate  this  unanimity ;  yet  its  systematic 
elaboration  would  be  impossible  but  for  an  underlying 
agreement  in  theological  presuppositions  which  makes  it 
possible  to  leap  from  Isaiah  to  Ecclesiastes  and  back 

*  The  Targum  on  the  Song  of  Songs,  however,  shows  that  the 
traditional  Eabbinic  interpretation  of  this  book  ran  on  allegorical 
lines  from  beginning  to  end.  The  book  is  treated  as  a  discourse  on 
the  mystical  love  of  Jehovah  to  His  people.  It  was  doubtless  from 
his  Hebrew  teacher  that  Origen  (c/.  below,  pp.  226,  308)  acquired 
the  germ  of  his  Christian  interpretation  of  this,  his  favourite  book. 


26  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

again,  from  the  Psalter  to  Daniel,  and  from  Daniel  to 
Deuteronomy,  without  conscious  strain.  The  very  possi- 
bihty  of  a  concordance  speaks  volumes ;  the  scope  and 
scientific  elaboration  of  it  are  still  more  significant. 

Of  course,  we  need  to  remember  that  some  of  the 
books  are  actually  dependent  on  others,  as  Chronicles 
upon  Kings  or  on  the  sources  of  Kings.  And  in  many 
others  (so  modern  criticism  assures  us)  the  original 
matter  has  been  reduced  by  successive  processes  of 
compilation  and  redaction  to  a  conformity  and  homo- 
geneity which  it  did  not  at  first  possess.  But  if  so,  these 
later  minds  must  at  least  have  recognized  in  the  earlier 
documents  material  amenable  to  their  purpose.  Moreover, 
this  common  ground  of  theological  postulates  is  visible 
not  only  in  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  but  equally  in 
the  Hagiographa,  the  group  of  writings  which  is  most 
miscellaneous  in  style  and  character,  and  in  which  the 
hand  of  the  later  editor  or  redactor  is,  on  the  whole, 
least  to  be  traced. 

The  underlying  unanimity  of  which  we  have  spoken  is 
the  more  remarkable  because  it  is  not  the  outcome  of 
a  clear-cut  system  of  philosophy.  The  Hebrew  mind 
had  not  a  philosophical  turn.  Its  most  philosophical 
utterances  emanate  from  the  '  Apocryphal  period,' 
when  Hebrew  and  Greek  thought  were  mingled  in 
Alexandria. 

In  the  Old  Testament  Books  we  have  not  the  teachings 
of  a  single  school  of  thought — like  Stoicism  or  Epicu- 
reanism— finding  expression  in  a  series  of  individual 
minds.  There  is  something  intensely  unsystematic  about 
the  utterances  of  the  sacred  writers,  something  intensely 
concrete  and  unphilosophical  about  their  way  of  looking 
at  the  universe.     It  is  naive  and  ingenuous  in  its  mode 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  27 

of  expression.  It  rarely  attempts  to  reflect  upon  its 
own  presuppositions,  though  it  is  ever  prompt  to  deduce 
from  them  practical  religious  and  moral  conclusions.  It 
never  dreams  of  proving  the  existence  of  the  Divine 
J5eing,  though,  in  its  later  phases,  it  is  ready  enough  to 
discredit  idolatry  by  an  argument  akin  to  the  reductio  ad 
ahsurdtom.'^  It  claims  for  the  Deity  attributes  mutually 
inconsistent,  yet  justified  by  the  logic  of  later  ages. 

It  believes,  and  believes  intensely,  in  a  God  at  once 
one,  living,  personal,  and  eternal — a  group  of  incom- 
patible ideas  of  which  each  is  indeed  necessary  to  any 
satisfying  idea  of  the  Deity,  but  which  cannot  be 
harmonized  philosophically  save  in  that  Christian  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity-in-Unity,  which  was  as  yet  outside  the 
range  of  Hebrew  thought. 

Again,  the  scheme  (if  we  may  call  it  such)  of  the 
physical  universe  which  underlies  the  Old  Testament 
writings  is  the  crudest  imaginable ;  yet  it  in  no  serious 
way  disturbs  the  harmony  of  the  different  parts,  nor 
affects  the  sublimity  and  spirituality  of  the  teaching.t 

The  modern  reader,  then,  will  be  impressed  by  this 
underlying  unanimity  of  the  very  various  writers,  and 
(unless  the  prejudice  of  reaction  is  very  strong  upon 
him)  he  will  probably  also  perceive  in  their  writings  a 
certain  progressive  character — a  character  which  recent 
scholarship!  has  brought  out  into  stronger  relief.  He 
will  observe  a  progressive  teaching  that  advances  from  the 
simpler  and  cruder  to  the  more  complex  and  perfect 
form :  from  the  days  when  Abraham  required  a  special 

*  Isa.  xl.  18-20,  xliv.  6-20;  Ps.  cxv.  4-8. 

t  On  the  ancient  Hebrew  idea  of  the  world,  see  further,  p.  200 
et  seq.  ;  cf.  p.  45. 
X  See  next  chapter,  p.  96  et  seq. 


28  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

revelation  to  demonstrate  to  him  God's  distaste  for 
human  sacrifices  to  the  time  when  sacrifice,  purified 
by  prophetic  criticism,  became  an  ordered  scheme  full  of 
religious  symbolism — a  starting-point  for  the  sublime 
spiritual  teaching  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews;  from 
the  days  when  the  Hebrew  invaders  of  Canaan  could 
feel  themselves  divinely  commanded  to  slay  man,  woman, 
and  child  to  the  time  when  the  Book  of  Jonah  should 
be  written  for  the  express  purpose  of  inculcating  a 
Divine  compassion  for  Nineveh,  and  when  a  prophet 
should  couple  Egypt  and  Assyria  with  Israel  as  fellow- 
devotees  of  Jehovah  ;^  from  the  time  when  the  good 
land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  the  material  vine  and 
fig-tree,  the  corn,  wine,  and  oil  of  this  life,  constituted 
the  highest  outlook  of  the  Chosen  People  to  the  time 
when  these  were,  to  the  spiritually  minded,  but  symbols 
of  something  sublime  and  inexpressible — '  Bye  hath  not 
seen,  nor  ear  heard.  .  .  /t 

Furthermore,  if  our  modern  reader  is  not  surfeited 
with  the  dogmatism  of  an  old-fashioned  typology,  he 
will  recognize  running  through  the  Old  Testament 
Books,  and  especially  prominent  in  some  of  them,  the 
thread  of  Messianic  expectation — that  expectation  which 
the  New  Testament  claims  to  fulfil. 

The  inspired  hymns  which  St.  Luke  records — the 
Magnificatj  Nunc  Dimittisj  and  Benedictus  —  hymns 
which  bear  the  stamp  of  authenticity  and  genuineness  in 
their  style,  and  still  more  in  the  striking  way  in  which 
they  mingle  thoughts  of  previous  Judaism  with  some- 
thing beyond — these  are  a  link  to  connect  the  Old 
Testament    with   the  New.     'As   He   promised   to  our 

*  Isa.  xix.  24. 

t  Hos.  xiv.  6-8 ;  c/.  Isa.  Ixiv.  4,  1  Cor.  11.  9. 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  29 

forefathers/"^  is  the  enlightened  Jew^s  comment  on  the 
approaching  Advent  of  the  Saviour;  and  it  is  the  key 
to  the  Old  Testament.  Not  only,  nor  chiefly,  perhaps, 
in  its  actual  predictions  is  this  'promise'  to  be  looked 
for :  in  the  destiny  of  successful  antagonism  to  evil 
foretold  to  the  woman's  seed;t  in  the  wide  promises 
attached  to  Abraham's  name;t  in  the  perfect  Prophet 
who  is  to  succeed  the  Moses  of  Deuteronomy^^  in  the 
much-discussed  Birth  predicted  as  a  sign  to  Ahaz,  and 
tlie  Child,  the  '  Grod-with-us,'  that  grows  out  of  it  in 
Isaiah's  mind;||  in  the  superhuman  'Son  of  David'  of 
J  \salmist  and  Prophet,  and  of  prophetic-historical  books 
like  Samuel — not  only  in  the  frequent  heralding  of 
Jehovah's  own  proximate  coming  to  reign  in  righteous- 
ness upon  earth,1f  or  in  that  mixture  of  heaven  and 
earth,  of  priest  and  king,  hailed  by  Psalmist  and  Prophet 
alike."^"^  Many  of  these  predictions  had  a  partial  fulfil- 
ment on  the  way,  yet  left  the  human  heart  unsatisfied, 
and  pointed  forward  to  something  more.  But  the  un- 
satisfied heart  itself,  in  the  expression  of  its  highest  and 
deepest  yearnings,  is  a  prophet.  The  very  longings  of 
the  saints  of  old  bespeak  a  fulfilment.  .  .  .  'Fecisti 
nos  ad  Te  et  inquietum  cor  nostrum  donee  requiescat 
inTe.'tt 

The  gropings,  the  passionate  cries  in  the  dark,  of  the 
Book  of  Jb6,  the  chastened  scepticism  of  Ecdesiastes, 
the    pessimistic    conclusions    against   which    both    the 

*  Luke  i.  55.  +  Gen.  iii.  15. 

X  Especially  Gen.  xxii.  17,  18 ;  cf.  Gal.  iii.  8,  16  et  seq. 

§  Deut.  xviii.  15  ;  cf.  Acts  iii.  22. 

II  Isa.  vii.  10  et  seq.,  viii.  8,  ix.  6  et  seq.^  xi.  1  et  seq. 

^  Typical  are  Psalms  like  xciii.  and  xcvii.  ('  Jehovah  reigneth '). 
**  Especially  Ps.  ex. ;  Zech.  vi.  13. 
It  St.  Augustine,  '  Confessions,'  ad  init. 


30  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

'Preacher'  and  some  of  the  Psahnists  can  only  fight 
doggedly  with  the  weapons  of  a  half-enlightened 
religious  consciousness — these  are  as  a  cry,  '  How  long, 
0  Lord,  Holy  and  True  !' — a  cry  which  demands  and 
shall  receive  its  answer.  The  demand  is  re-echoed  down 
the  ages  by  Gentile  voices  at  last,  as  well  as  Hebrew, 
and  then  the  answer  comes.  The  answer  comes  in  a 
way  so  marvellous  that  it  seems  too  good  to  be  true.  So 
marvellously  does  the  event  crown  and  complete  the 
whole  movement  of  Old  Testament  thought;  yet  in  a 
manner  so  utterly  unlike  what  the  average  Jew  of  the 
first  century  expected,  that  Judaism,  as  a  body,  rejected 
its  Messiah  when  He  came. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of  the  prefigurings  of 
the  Gospel  story  is  that  picture  of  the  suffering  servant, 
which,  to  most  of  us — surely  for  intrinsic  as  much  as  for 
traditional  reasons — speaks  directly  of  Christ,  as  it  did 
to  St.  Philip  and  his  convert  on  the  road  to  Gaza."^  It 
speaks  to  us  of  Christ,  and  reads  almost  like  a  page 
from  the  New  Testament.  Yet  its  immediate  subject 
was,  in  all  probability,  the  suffering  nation  in  capti\aty,  or, 
at  least,  that  faithful  '  remnant '  that  felt  itself,  in  its 
personally  undeserved  humiliations,  to  be,  in  a  manner, 
vicariously  expiating  the  national  guilt. 

In  fact,  it  is  as  '  fulfilling '  the  Hebrew  people  that 
Christ  may  be  said  to  have  fulfilled  the  Old  Testament 
prophecies.  He  crowned  and  perfected  in  Himself 
their  racial  capacity,  their  national  destiny.  His 
followers  believe  that  He  did  far  more  than  this ;  but  this 
also  He  did.  The  Messiah  was  the  true  raisoii  d'etre  of 
the  Hebrew  people,  as  for  ages  had  been  dimly  realized 
by  many  a  Hebrew  mother.  It  was  for  the  birth  of  this 
*  Isa.  liii. ;  Acts  viii.  32  et  seq. 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  31 

child  that  the  nation  lived;  and  in  Him — though  the 
majority  of  the  generation  most  concerned  was  blind  to 
it — in  Him  their  whole  development,  with  its  strange, 
rich  record  of  discipline  and  of  illumination,  reached  its 
climax  and  its  end. 

The  Old  Testament  (whether  we  close  it  with  Malachi, 
or  include  the  Alexandrine  books  down  to  Maccabees)  is 
an  unfinished  volume.  The  New  Testament  is  at  once 
its  completion  and  the  key  to  many  of  its  enigmas. 
And  in  the  light  which  the  New  Testament  writings 
throw  back  upon  those  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  latter 
are  seen  to  have  more  of  unity  than  could  otherwise 
have  been  discerned.  St.  Matthew  develops  the  idea 
of  the  Davidic  King,  Hebrews  that  of  the  Priesthood, 
St.  James  the  perfect  Law,  St.  Peter  the  fulfilment  of 
Prophecy.  Almost  every  New  Testament  Book  has  some 
contribution  to  add  to  the  solution  of  the  Old  Testament 
problem. 

If  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  deals  most  fully  and 
directly  with  it  from  its  own  point  of  view,  the  other 
New  Testament  writers  were  q,ll,  clearly,  of  opinion  that 
they  had  lived  to  see  at  least  the  beginning  of  the  end — 
the  first  stages  of  that  fulfilment  for  which  prophets  and 
kings  of  old  had  longed.^ 

Ere  yet  the  New  Testament  writings  had  been  col- 
lected or  had  developed  into  an  acknowledged  Canon, 
they  had  proclaimed — as  in  the  prologue  to  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  and  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  in  the 
second  chapter  of  St.  Luke — their  continuity  with  the 
'  Scriptures '  to  which  they  refer  with  such  constant 
reverence. 

And  this  essential  unity  of  Old  and  New  Testaments 
*  Luke  X.  24 ;  Matt.  xiii.  17 ;  cf.  Heb.  xi.  13,  1  Pet.  i.  10-12. 


32  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

is  jealously  and  successfully  guarded  by  the  orthodox 
Fathers  of  the  next  two  generations  against  the  assaults 
of  heretical  teachers,  who  would  have  the  God  of  the 
Old  Covenant  diverse  from,  and  opposed  to,  the  Grod  of 
the  New.  Not  even  the  Virgin  Birth,  that  new  creation 
in  which  humanity  was  to  renew  its  youth,  broke  the 
continuity  of  revelation  for  the  primitive  Christians. 
It  was  just  the  advent  of  the  complete  instead  of  the 
partial  and  fragmentary,  of  the  substance  in  place  of 
that  shadow  which  had  been  already  cast  along  the 
route.  All  previous  history  and  revelation  had  led  up 
to  this.  The  conception  of  '  Progressive  Revelation  ^ 
on  which  modern  biblical  scholarship  lays  so  much 
stress,  and  for  which  it  is  apt,  sometimes,  to  claim  a  good 
deal  of  credit,  is  in  itself  a  primitive  and  scriptural 
idea — an  idea  obscured,  indeed,  by  mechanical  and 
unfruitful  methods  of  interpretation  (and  needing,  there- 
fore, to  be  emphasized  afresh),  but  never  wholly  lost  to 
sight. 

We  have  glanced  already  at  the  growth  of  the  Canon 
of  Scripture — that  mysterious  process  of  selection  and 
crystallization,  in  many  of  its  stages  so  informal,  so 
instinctive,  so  utterly  different  from  what  we  should 
have  pictured  a  priori.  We  seemed  to  discern  intrinsic 
reasons  and  justification  for  the  setting  apart  of  these 
particular  books,  and  the  grouping  of  them  together  by 
themselves — an  inner  unity  of  tendency  and  theme. 
But  we  recognized,  also,  an  external  force  at  work,  an 
outward  pressure  to  which  the  actual  cohesion  of  these 
mutually  cohesive  elements  is  due — the  consciousness  of 
the  Church.  It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  we  must 
return  for  a  moment  to  the  problem  of  the  growth  of  the 
Canon. 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  33 

The  books  of   the  Bible  did  not  choose  themselves^ 
though,   by  their   intrinsic  character,  they   proclaimed 
themselves   meet   to    be    chosen.      The   action   of    the 
external   authority,  however  informally  exercised,  was 
absolutely  necessary  to  the  result.     When  we  realize  how 
the  Canon  of  Scripture  grew  up  in  the  historic  Church 
of  Christ,  and  was  nursed  to  maturity  in  the  Churches 
bosom,  we  cease  to  see  anything  unreasonable  or  arrogant 
in  the  claim  of  our  Twentieth  Article  that  the  Church  is 
'a   witness    and   a   keeper    of    Holy   Writ.^      We    are 
familiar  with  the  assertions  of  advocates  of  ^  the  Bible 
and  the  Bible  only,'  who  claim  that  Holy  Writ  is  in 
every  way  supreme  and  ultimate,  and  would  base  their 
religion   on  unrestrained  private  interpretation  of  the 
Scriptures.      But  while  we   recognize   the  wonderfully 
direct  appeal  of  these  Scriptures  to  the  individual  soul, 
and   their   sufficiency   as    documents    for   proof,    when 
interpreted  according  to  the  mind  of  the  Church,  the 
proclamation  of  a  religion  of  '  the  Bible  and  the  Bible 
only '  becomes  crudely  absurd  to  those  who  have  even 
seriously  considered  the  question  of  the  growth  (on  its 
human   side)    of   this  '  Divine  Library.'     To   treat   the 
Bible  as  though  it  were  'an  image  fallen  down'  from 
heaven"^  is  as  contrary  to  history  and  science  as  it  is  to 
a  reasonable  religion.     The  Word  of  Grod  is  from  ever- 
lasting, but  that  is  the  living  personal  Word,  who  was 
incarnated  in  Jesus  Christ.     As  for  the  '  Written  Word,' 
there  was  a  time  when  none  of  the  books  of  the  New 
Testament  or  of  the  Old  Testament  were  written ;  a  time 
when  none  of  those  already  written  were  set  apart  and 
accorded  the  special  position  which  for  centuries  they 

*  Like  the  Ephesian  Artemis  (Acts  xix.  35),  an  ultimate  fact 
which  could  not  be  '  gainsaid.' 


S4  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

have  held.  We  must  think  of  the  various  books  as 
already  in  existence  as  writings,  but  not  yet  ^  canonized/ 
We  must  remember  that  for  a  time  the  entire  Hebrew 
Bible  consisted  of  the  Torah,  or  Law,  the  '  Five  Books 
of  Moses ';  that  the  Prophetic  Books,  received  later  into 
the  Canon,  must,  some  of  them,  have  been  in  circulation 
for  generations  before  the  Pentateuch, assumed  its  present 
form;  that  the  last — very  miscellaneous — group  of 
writings  to  find  a  place  in  the  Hebrew  Canon  included  a 
book  like  the  Psalter,  which  had  seven  or  eight  centuries  of 
history  behind  it,  with  the  complicated  processes  of  accre- 
tion, modification,  and  liturgical  revision  which  beset  a 
hymn-book  used  by  successive  generations  of  worshippers. 

Then,  further  (leaving  aside  for  the  moment  the 
formidable  question  of  the  Apocrypha),  we  shall  observe 
that  the  process  of  the  formation  of  the  Christian  Canon 
ran  an  analogous  course.  Here,  too,  there  was  no 
automatic  or  axiomatic  canonization  of  each  book  as  it 
appeared;  here,  too,  the  order  of  the  recognition  of  the 
books  as  ^Scripture'  seems  to  have  been  independent 
of  the  chronological  order  of  their  appearance  as  litera- 
ture. Some  of  the  books  only  gained  admittance  after 
considerable  discussion,  as  certain  of  the  Old  Testament 
Books  had  done  in  the  Jewish  Church.  It  is  not  till 
three  centuries  after  the  great  Pentecost  that  the  New 
Testament  may  be  said  to  have  arrived  at  its  present 
form.  The  process  by  which  it  reached  maturity  was 
furthered,  no  doubt,  by  many  different  influences,  under 
the  rule  and  guidance  (as  we  believe)  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
the  promised  Comforter.  Prominent  among  these  in- 
fluences was  the  intellectual  capacity  of  men  like 
Dionysius  of  Corinth,  Melito,  and  Origen.  But  neither 
individuals  nor  councils  settled  the  Canon.     It  was  a 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  35 

silent^  unconscious  process  that  went  on  within  the 
Church,  and  when  at  last  councils  drew  up  and  pro- 
mulgated lists  of  the  New  Testament  Scriptures,  they 
were  but  ratifying  a  judgment  already  arrived  at. 

To  say  that  '  the  Church  gave  us  our  Bible '  is  thus 
no  metaphor  or  figure  of  speech,  but  the  barest  state- 
ment of  fact.  The  Bible  remains  as  a  documentary 
record  of  what  the  primitive  Church  thought  and  taught, 
and  as  a  touchstone  of  all  subsequent  Church  teaching. 
The  Church  in  any  particular  place  or  period  may  be 
judicially  confronted  with  it,  much  as  administrators  of 
any  venerable  society  or  organization  might  be  con- 
fronted with  the  original  charter  or  constitution  of  the 
organization  which  they  serve. "^  And  this  is  the 
principle  which  underlies  the  main  contention  of  that 
Twentieth  Article  which  we  quoted  above.  But  to 
attempt  to  understand  the  Bible  without  reference  to  the 
Church  is  to  risk  an  entire  misunderstanding  of  its  drift 
and  of  its  proportions. 

A  word  remains  to  be  said  as  to  the  limits  of  the 
Canon.  The  plain  man  of  the  old  school  was  wont  to 
accept  unquestioningly  the  English  version  put  into  his 
hands  by  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  as  being 
the  '  pure  Word  of  God.'  This  volume,  he  would  say, 
is  sharply  distinguished  from  all  other  volumes.  When 
we  pass  outside  its  limits  we  cross  the  frontier  between 
the  inspired  and  the  uninspired,  between  sacred  litera- 
ture and  profane.  There  is  no  vagueness  or  ambiguity, 
no  room  for  doubt  or  discussion.  Nor,  he  would  be 
inclined  to  add,  can  there  ever  have  been  room  for 
doubt  or  discussion  in  the  past. 

But  a  very  little  study  of  the  history  of  the  Canon 
*  On  this  point  see,  further,  Chapter  X.,  p.  296  et  8eg[» 


S6  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

puts  an  entirely  different  complexion  on  the  matter.  He 
learns  that  the  Jewish  Rabbis  disputed  long  and  hotly  as 
to  whether  the  Book  of  Esther  '  defiles  the  hands ';  that 
not  a  few  of  the  Christian  Fathers  doubted  the  canonicity 
of  this  same  book,  and  two  at  least  (Amphilochius  and 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia)  rejected  it  from  their  Old 
Testament  lists.  He  learns  that,  among  New  Testament 
writings,  the  Apocalypse  and  several  of  the  Catholic 
Epistles  were  long  disputed  in  the  Church,  while  other 
writings,  like  the  Epistle  of  Clement  of  Rome,  the 
Epistle  ascribed  to  Barnabas,  and  the  Shepherd  of 
Hermas,  seemed  at  one  time  likely  to  gain  a  footing 
within  the  Canon.  More  puzzling  still,  he  finds  printed 
in  other  Bibles,  and  used  in  some  of  his  own  Churches 
Holy  Day  Lections,  a  number  of  books  similar,  and  yet 
dissimilar,  to  those  contained  in  his  Old  Testament. 
Some  of  these,  he  is  told,  are  accepted  as  fully  canonical 
by  the  Greek  Church;  all  of  them  by  the  Church  of 
Rome.  What  is  the  history  and  status  of  these  books, 
which  he  finds  printed  under  the  heading  '  Apocrypha ' 
in  the  fuller  editions  of  the  English  Bible  ? 

The  story  is  somewhat  obscure,  and  some  points  still 
remain  under  discussion;  but  the  broad  outlines  are 
traceable.  The  books  themselves  represent  that  fusion 
of  Hebrew  and  Hellenic  thought  which  was  initiated  by 
the  conquests  of  Alexander  the  Great  at  the  beginning 
of  the  third  century  B.C.  Most  of  them  were  written 
first  in  the  Greek  language ;  one  of  them,  and  that  in 
many  ways  the  most  interesting  of  all,  had  a  Hebrew 
original,  large  fragments  of  which  have  been  discovered 
in  recent  years.  This  is  the  Wisdom  of  Jesus-ben-Sirach, 
commonly  called  Ecclesiasticios.  Composed  about  180  B.C., 
it   was  translated  into   Greek   about   130  B.C.   by   the 


I 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  37 

author's  grandson,  whose  preface  supplies  most  valuable 
data  for  the  history  of  the  Old  Testament  Canon.  Three 
times  in  this  preface  the  translator  refers  to  the  '  Law, 
the  Prophets,  and  the  other  books '  in  such  a  way  as  to 
suggest  that  the  Hebrew  Canon  was  already  practically 
closed."^  The  Hellenistic  view  of  revelation  was,  how- 
ever, more  lax  and  liberal  than  that  of  the  Palestinian 
Jews,  and  the  group  of  Grreek  books  in  question,  together 
with  long  Greek  interpolations  in  some  of  the  canonical 
Hebrew  books,  managed  without  difficulty  to  insinuate 
themselves  into  the  rolls  on  which  the  Septuagint  transla- 
tion of  the  Old  Testament  was  written.  That  this  meant 
a  formal  ^  canonization '  of  the  Apocrypha  is  more  than 
can  be  proved.  There  is  no  satisfactory  evidence  that 
there  ever  actually  existed  a  Jewish  Canon  (whether  at 
Alexandria  or  elsewhere)  including,  besides  the  Hebrew 
scriptures,  these  Grreek  works  of  very  varying  style  and 
merit.  Only  in  the  case  of  two  of  them — Ecclesiasticus 
and  1  Maccabees  (both  originally  ^yritten  in  Hebrew) — is 
there  any  reason  to  suppose  that  there  was  any  attempt 
to  introduce  these  further  books  into  the  Hebrew  Canon. 
What  is  certain  about  them  is  that,  being  circulated 
with  the  manuscripts  of  the  Septuagint  Version,  the 
Apocryphal  Books  found  an  entry  into  the  developing 
Christian  Canon  of  the  second  or  third  century  and 
onwards,  and  had  their  position  confirmed  (mainly 
through  the  influence  of  St.  Augustine's  views)  at  the 
Council  of  Carthage  in  397. t 

*  As  regards  the  '  Law '  and  the  *  Prophets '  this  deduction  is 
certain,  but  not  absolutely  certain  as  regards  the  Writings.  Ben 
Sirach's  list  of  heroes  of  the  faith  (xliv. -1.)  ranges  from  Enoch  and 
Abraham  to  Nehemiah  and  Simon,  son  of  Onias  (300  B.C.). 

t  The  books  actually  confirmed  by  the  Council  of  Carthage  were 
Tobit,  Judith,  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  and  Maccabees. 


38  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

The  explanation  is  simple.  When  the  Christian 
Church  entered  upon  its  career  of  world-wide  conquest 
it  was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  Greek-speaking 
body ;  its  leaders  knew  little  or  nothing  of  Hebrew,  and 
thus  it  appears  to  have  accepted,  at  first  without  discussion, 
the  swelled  volume  of  the  Septuagint  as  '  Scripture/ 
How  or  when  this  happened  exactly  we  do  not  know, 
but  it  is  clear  that  the  Hehreiv  Canon,  and  not  this 
wider  one,  was  the  accepted  Bible  of  our  Lord  and  His 
Apostles.  There  are  references  in  the  New  Testament 
to  every  book  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  except  Ezra, 
Nehemiahj  Esther,  and  perhaps  Ecclesiastes.  Many  of 
these  are  quoted  with  a  reverential  formula  as  '  Scripture,' 
and  the  more  general  references  to  '  The  Scriptures ' 
(both  those  put  into  our  Lord's  mouth  and  those  for 
which  the  writers  themselves  are  responsible)  are  of 
such  a  character  as  to  make  it  clear  that  there  was 
a  definite  body  of  writings  whose  authority  was  un- 
questioned alike  by  speaker  and  by  audience,  and, 
further,  that  this  body  of  writings  was  identical  with 
what  we  know  as  the  Hebrew  Canon  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment."^ Some  of  the  Apocryphal  Books  are  referred  or 
alluded  to  in  the  New  Testament — as,  e.g.,  2  Maccabees 
(vi.  18  et  seq.)  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  (xi.  35). 
But  this  fact  cannot  be  used  to  favour  the  extension  of 
the  Canon  accepted  by  the  New  Testament  writers ;  for  a 
book  like  Enoch,  which  never  came  near  to  attaining  a 
place  in  any  Canon  of  Scripture,  is  similarly  referred  to — 

*  If,  as  many  now  hold,  a  large  number  of  the  New  Testament 
quotations  were  derived,  not  from  complete  rolls  of  Old  Testament 
Books,  but  from  handbooks  of  'Testimonies'  with  collected  and 
classified  texts,  the  existence  of  such  handbooks  throws  back  still 
further  the  general  recognition  of  the  sources  from  which  it 
draws. 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  39 

nay,  more  definitely — in  the  Epistle  of  St.  Jude  (14)."^ 
Against  the  existence  of  a  recognized  Hellenistic-Jewish 
Canon  containing  the  Apocrypha  may  also  be  urged  the 
evidence  of  Philo  and  Josephus.  Both  of  them  were 
men  of  wide  literary  and  intellectual  sympathies,  both 
Grreek-speaking  Jews  of  the  first  century  a.d.,  who 
actually  wrote  on  the  subject  of  Hebrew  Scripture,  yet 
neither  of  them  shows  any  knowledge  of  such  a  wider 
Canon. 

The  knowledge  that  these  Apocryphal  Books  were  not 
in  the  Hebrew,  nor  (probably)  in  any  Jewish  Canon, 
that  they  did  not  form  part  of  the  Lord^s  own  Bible,  or 
that  of  His  immediate  followers,  has  impressed  itself  on 
the  Anglican  attitude  towards  the  Apocrypha — an  attitude 
which,  like  so  much  else  in  England,  may  be  described 
as  reasonable,  but  hopelessly  illogical.  Hebrew  scholars 
in  all  the  Christian  ages  (when  such  have  existed  in  the 
Church)  have  felt  a  difficulty  in  acquiescing  in  any 
attempt  to  rank  these  books  with  the  original  elements 
of  the  Hebrew  Canon.  The  contention  goes  back  beyond 
Reuchlin  and  Luther  to  St.  Jerome  in  the  fifth  century, 
and  Melito  in  the  middle  of  the  second. 

The  Anglican  position  is  a  strong  one  :  there  is  a  clear 
line  of  demarcation,  and  the  authority  of  the  Lord  Him- 
self (so  far  as  it  can  be  quoted)  is  rightly  held  supreme  ; 
but  the  line  has  one  weak  point.  For  men  of  a  single 
Testament  it  would  be  enough  to  say  :  ^  I  have  no  doubts 
as  to  the  limits  of  the  genuine  Jewish  Canon.  I  accept 
that  and  none  other.  It  is  the  Bible  of  Christ  and  His 
Apostles.''  But  what,  then,  becomes  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment ?  On  what  authority  is  it  accepted  ?  The  same 
Church  which  sifted  and  selected  from  its  own  literature 
■*  See,  further,  next  chapter,  p.  81, 


40  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

those  books  which  were  to  form  the  Canon  of  the  New 
Testament  accepted  also,  by  an  overwhelming  majority 
of  opinion,  though  not  without  question,  these  Apocryphal 
Books  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  Old  Testament.  If 
I  acknowledge  the  Church  as  witness  and  keeper  of 
Holy  Writ,  must  I  not  accept  the  Apocrypha  as 
canonical  ?^  Can  I,  as  an  Anglican,  fall  back  on  the 
phrase  of  Article  YI.  that  I  accept  as  Scripture  ^  those 
books  of  whose  authority  was  never  any  doubt  in  the 
Church  '?  To  press  this  principle  in  such  a  matter 
would  be  to  open  the  flood-gates  of  destructive  criticism. 
Was  not  the  Apocalypse  at  one  time  disputed,  and  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  all  or  most  of  the  Catholic 
Epistles  ?  Where  is  my  New  Testament  ?  What,  again, 
about  Esther  and  the  Song  of  Songs,  not  to  speak  of  the 
unrecorded  but  no  less  undoubted  discussions  that  must 
have  accompanied  each  successive  augmentation  of  the 
Hebrew  Bible  ?     Where,  then,  is  my  Old  Testament  ? 

Without  attempting  to  claim  for  our  own  branch  of 
the  Church  Catholic  that  absolute  infallibility  which  we 
do  not  allow  to  any  other  single  branch,  we  cannot  but 
feel  that  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  Apocrypha 
lies  somewhere  along  the  line  that  she  has  taken.  She 
is  right  in  her  refusal  to  extrude  altogether  from  her 
Bible  a  group  of  writings  held  in  especial  reverence  by 
the  Fathers  of  the  early  centuries,  and  accepted  still  by 
thousands  of  her  fellow  Christians  to-day.  She  is  right, 
again,  in  refusing  to  put  on  a  level  with  the  old  Hebrew 

*  It  is  open,  perhaps,  to  an  objector  to  urge  that  the  judgment 
of  the  early  Christian  critics  is  more  to  be  trusted  when  they  are 
dealing  with  Christian  or  pseudo-Christian  documents,  where  they 
may  be  styled  *  experts,'  than  when  the  subject  is  (like  the 
Apocryphal  Books)  a  product  of  Jewish  thought.  On  the  position 
9f  tl^e  Es^rly  Church  as  an  '  expert,'  see  Cl^apter  X.,  p.  293  et  sec^. 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  41 

Sacred  Books  which  formed  Christ^s  own  Bible  this 
group  of  predominantly  Greek  writings,  whose  admission 
was  regarded  by  some  of  the  best  Christian  scholars  of 
antiquity  as  due  to  a  misconception,  and  whose  general 
acceptance  in  the  West  we  probably  owe  to  the  com- 
manding influence  of  St.  Augustine.  A  quasi-canonical 
position  they  have  won  for  themselves.  The  Church, 
therefore,  reads  them  (as  St.  Jerome  actually  says)  ^for 
the  edification  of  the  people,  not  to  confirm  ecclesiastical 
dogmas.'  Much  has  been  done  to  obscure  her  position 
by  the  irresponsible  action  of  publishers,  who  have,  on 
their  own  authority,  printed  copies  of  the  Bible  without 
the  Apocryphal  Books.  Attempts  have  been  made  again 
and  again  from  a  Puritan  standpoint  to  expunge  the 
Apocrypha  entirely,  following  the  lead  of  Genevan 
Protestantism.  The  inclusion  of  these  books  in  the  Old 
Testament  volume  was  to  Martin  Marprelate  a  mingling 
of  ^  heaven  and  earth  together,'  a  making  '  the  spirite 
of  God  to  be  the  author  of  prophain  bookes.'  The 
arguments  used  upon  the  other  side  have  not  always 
been  of  the  strongest,  but  the  instinct,  surely,  has  been 
right;  and  the  process  by  which  the  English  Church 
has  arrived  at  her  position  offers  analogies  to  that 
instinctive  and  informal  way  in  which  the  Canon  origin- 
ally came  to  be  formed. 

The  problem  of  the  Apocrypha  raises  other  questions, 
which  must  be  answered  elsewhere.  It  affects,  for  in- 
stance, or  may  affect,  our  whole  view  of  what  inspiration 
means.  Can  we  draw  still  that  sharp  line  between 
inspired  and  uninspired,  between  sacred  and  profane, 
which  the  old  controversialists  drew,  when  we  are 
conscious  that  our  Bible  contains  not  only  canonical 
books  of  greatly  varying  quality,  but  g;lso  a  whole  group 


42  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

of  deutero-canonical  works,  of  which  the  noblest  passages 
seem  to  us  far  more  inspiring  than  much  of  the  Hebrew 
Canon  proper  ?  When  we  look  forward  to  All  Saints^ 
Day  and  to  Founder's  Day,  and  to  the  last  days  of  October 
and  the  first  eighteen  of  November  for  their  weekday 
lessons  from  Wisdom,  Ecclesiasticus,  and  Baruch,  is 
not  the  dividing  line  apt  to  become  a  little  blurred  ? 
This  question  we  shall  attempt  to  meet  in  another  chapter. 
Meanwhile  we  accept  the  Apocrypha  gratefully  for  the 
light  they  throw  on  the  period  between  Malachi  and 
St.  Matthew — a  light  in  recent  days  reinforced  from 
other  sources,  but  none  the  less  reliable  in  itself.  And, 
without  prejudice  to  the  further  question  just  mentioned, 
we  may  still  quote  Bishop  Westcott's  estimate  of  these 
books.  In  general  it  is  true  of  them.  '  They  witness 
alike  to  what  Judaism  could  do,  and  to  what  it  could  not 
do.  They  prove  by  contrast  that  the  books  of  the 
Hebrew  Canon,  as  a  whole,  are  generically  distinct  from 
the  ordinary  religious  literature  of  the  Jews,  and  establish 
more  clearly  than  anything  else  the  absolute  originality 
of  the  Gospel.'  The  last  phrase,  indeed,  would  be  hotly 
disputed  by  many  scholars  of  to-day,  who  would  contend 
that  a  fuller  knowledge  of  the  Jewish  literature  con- 
temporary with  them — of  the  Book  of  Enoch,  the  Book 
of  Jubilees,  and  the  rest  of  the  so-called  '  Apocalyptic 
literature' — has  to  some  extent  bridged  over  the  gulf 
which  once  separated  the  Apocrypha,  in  phraseology 
and  ideas,  from  the  New  Testament.  But  this,  again,  is  a 
question  to  be  treated  elsewhere.  There  is  (as  we  shall 
see)  a  very  important  sense  in  which  the  Gospel  originality 
is  thrown  into  stronger  relief  by  modern  studies. 

Enough  has  been  said,  however,  to  make  clear   the 
Bible's  claim  to  the  name  Bibliotheca  Divina^  in  virtue  of 


THE  DIVINE  LIBRARY  43 

the  almost  infinite  variety  of  the  elements  of  which  it  is 
composed — a  variety  emphasized  by  the  story  of  the 
formation  of  the  Canon.  Diversity  in  unity  is  the  mark 
which  history  has  left  upon  it.  Diversity  in  unity  is  the 
secret  of  its  unfailing  appeal  to  all  the  races  of  the 
world ;  may  we  not  see  in  it  also  the  seal  of  the  Spirit 
who  has  exercised  an  inspiring  influence  over  its  begin- 
nings and  a  providential  control  over  the  strange,  slow 
process  of  its  evolution  ?  .  .  .  '  There  are  diversities  of 
gifts,  but  the  same  Spirit/ 


I 


Ill 

CEITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY 

In  the  foregoing  chapter  reference  has  been  made  more 
than  once  to  modern  scholarship  and  recent  criticism. 
The  general  attitude  towards  the  Bible  there  exhibited, 
though  not  of  a  startling  or  revolutionary  kind,  bears 
manifest  traces  of  the  influence  of  these  forces.  The 
views  there  expressed  may  seem  commonplace  now,  but 
three  generations  ago  they  would  have  been  regarded 
with  suspicion,  and  a  little  earlier  would  have  been 
inconceivable. 

The  critical  faculties  of  three  generations,  furnished 
with  scientific  instruments  unknown  to  our  forefathers, 
have  been  busily  and  patiently  at  work  upon  the  biblical 
literature,  and  it  would  be  strange  indeed  if  no  result 
had  ensued,  if  no  modification  of  previous  opinion  had 
been  evoked.  But,  apart  from  the  expert  and  specialized 
studies  of  the  past  century,  the  general  advance  of 
knowledge  was  bound  to  affect  a  man's  view  of  the  Bible, 
as  of  everything  else.  His  view  of  Holy  Writ  is  largely 
coloured  by  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  lives.  To  the 
Hebrews,  to  whom  we  owe  the  earliest  pages  of  the 
Bible,  it  was  one  thing;  to  the  Greek-speaking  Jews, 
who  were  largely  responsible  for  its  completion,  and  to 
the  Grreeks,  who  practically  settled  its  traditional  inter- 
pretation, another.     To  mediaeval   Christianity   it   pre- 

44 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  45 

sented  one  aspect,  another  to  the  Reformation  leaders, 
and  yet  another  does  it  present  to  the  modern  student. 
Within  living  memory  in  England  the  prevailing  attitude 
has-  greatly  changed.  The  generation  that  held  up  its 
hands  in  horror  at  the  publication  of  Essays  and  Reviews 
has  been  succeeded  by  one  that  reads  the  Hibhert  Journal 
and  the  Encyclopdedia  Bihlica  almost  without  flinching. 

Each  age,  however,  leaves  its  impression  on  the  tone 
of  those  that  come  after.  In  the  action  and  reaction 
of  the  world\s  intellectual  development,  its  message 
sometimes  reappears  in  a  slightly  different  form,  and 
individual  survivals  of  each  previous  type  are  probably 
to  be  found  living  in  every  generation.  These  are  men 
who  live  isolated  intellectual  lives,  or  men  in  whom  a 
particular  intellectual  bacillus  is  so  strongly  present 
that  the  ideas  of  their  own  century  cannot  force  an 
entrance.  The  characteristic  Hebrew  view  of  the 
Scriptures  has  thus  been  able  to  propagate  itself  down 
the  ages,  and  has  at  times  secured  for  itself  a  notable 
revival,  as  in  the  Puritanic  tendency,  a  form  of  Chris- 
tianity with  a  strong  Old  Testament  bias. 

The  Hebrew  mind,  though  not  philosophical,  was 
daringly  theological,  in  a  concrete  and  practical  way. 
Its  working  is,  perhaps,  most  characteristically  and  most 
sublimely  exhibited  in  the  Psalter.  To  it  the  Divine 
presence  in  the  world,  conceived  in  terms  of  a  sort  of 
spiritualized  anthropomorphism,  was  a  very  immediate 
reality.  The  Hebrew  knew  nothing  of  secondary  causes. 
The  thunder  was  God^s  voice,  the  lightning  His  flashing 
sword;  the  clouds  were  His  chariots,  the  winds  His  path. 
What  to  us  is  poetic  imagery  and  metaphor  was  to  the 
Hebrew  the  baldest  statement  of  fact.  The  Almighty 
literally  drew  the  sun,  moon,   and  planets   across   the 


46  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

i 

firmament,  which  He  had,  as  literally,  studded  with  the  '' 
fixed  stars.  He  literally  opened  the  windows  of  heaven  ] 
and  poured  out  the  ^  waters  above  the  firmament  ^  upon  ' 
the  earth. "^  His  hand  was  literally  seen  and  felt  in  ' 
human  life  and  human  history ;  what  we  should  describe  i 
as  the  'pressure  of  circumstances'  would  be  to  the  ; 
Hebrew  '  the  strong  hand  of  the  Lord.'  ! 

Such  a  Deity  to  such  a  man  would  speak  with  a  i 
literally  vibrating  voice,  the  voice  of  many  waters,  or  \ 
the  deep  tones  of  one  of  his  most  formidable  creatures,  i 
'The  lion  hath  roared,'  exclaims  Amos,  'who  ^vill  not 
fear  ?  Jehovah  hath  sjDoken,  who  can  but  prophesy  V  t 
To  such  a  man,  in  his  more  exalted  moments,  revelation  | 
would  come  as  an  articulate  and  audible  whisper  :  '  In  i 
mine  ears  saith  Jehovah  Sabaoth.'  % 

Pondering  on  words  like  these,  it  was  easy  enough  for  ' 
the  biblical  student  of  a  later  age — the  Pharisaic  '  scribe '  \ 
or  'lawyer'  of  New  Testament  times — to  mistake  the  : 
scope  and  bearing  of  such  notes  of  direct  revelation.  It  j 
was  not  unnatural  that  he  should  first  of  all  infer  from  j 
them  a  like  character  for  every  word  written  by  the  ; 
same  prophet,  and  that  then  he  should  proceed  to  ascribe  i 
to  the  whole  of  Scripture  the  form  and  intensity  of  i 
direct  inspiration  which  he  found  to  be  claimed  in  certain  | 
of  its  passages. 

Nor  is  it  surprising  that  with  his  Hebrew  temperament  \ 
he  should  have  ignored  the  secondary  causes  and  inter-  : 
mediate  processes  by  which  the  various  documents  slowly  ] 
and  painfully  attained  their  final  forms,  and  climbed  up  to  \ 
a  place  within  the  Canon ;  and  have  attributed  to  them  " 
a  direct  and  absolute  sacredness,  which  the  literalistic   ^ 

*  On  the  Hebrew  cosmology,  see,  further,  pp.  200  et  seq. ;  203-206.    I 
t  Amos  iii.  8 ;  cf.  i.  2.  |  Isa.  v.  9. 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  47 

Pharisee  of  a  still  later  age  might  interpret  in  terms  of 
a  strictly  mechanical  inspiration  of  every  word  of 
Scripture.  That  something  of  this  sort  happened  we 
know.  Some  centuries  after  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era  the  process  culminated  in  giving  us  what 
is  called  the  Massoretic  text  of  the  Old  Testament :  a 
text  which  reigns  supreme  because  (if  the  traditional 
view  is  to  be  trusted)  all  variant  manuscripts  were 
sedulously  destroyed  by  Pharisaic  zeal  for  orthodoxy. 
But  the  process  was  certainly  far  advanced  when  the 
Christian  Church  took  on  from  Judaism  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  and  something  of  the  prevailing  Hebrew  esti- 
mate of  them.  Hence  it  is — from  literalistic  Pharisaism 
— that  is  derived  the  theory,  revived  in  comparatively 
recent  days  by  Hebrew-minded  Puritans :  the  theory 
which  sees  in  the  Scriptures  a  body  of  writings  mechani- 
cally dictated  by  the  Spirit.  The  authors  of  these 
writings,  it  is  held,  were  authors  in  name  alone,  because 
their  natural  faculties  were  entirely  passive  and  quiescent 
during  the  hours  of  inspiration  when  they  wrote.  Their 
writings  are  not  theirs,  but  God's,  and,  as  such,  marked 
off  by  a  clear  line  from  all  other  literature  whatsoever. 

On  such  premises  criticism  of  the  biblical  literature 
would  be  out  of  the  question.  To  this  subject  we  shall 
return  when  we  come  to  treat  of  inspiration."^  Our 
present  task  is  an  equally  formidable  one — to  sum  up,  as 
far  as  may  be  without  entering  too  much  into  detail,  the 
general  results  of  criticism  as  controlled  and  illustrated 
by  archaeology. 

The  results  so  far  obtained  are  necessarily  incomplete, 
and  in  part  quite  provisional.  The  movement  of 
criticism,  though  never  left  quite  without  witness  since 
*  See  next  chapter. 


4S  THE  BOOJK:  OF  BOOKS 

the  days  of  Jerome  and  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  has 
been  slow  and  fitful  in  its  action  till  a  hundred  years 
ago  j  and  since  it  began  to  work  effectively,  its  path  has 
been  beset  with  obstacles,  of  which  by  no  means  the 
greatest  has  been  the  dead-weight  of  conservative 
opposition.  The  conservative  prejudices  or  the  radical 
or  anarchical  extravagances  of  its  own  extreme  Right  and 
Left ;  the  vagueness  of  its  data ;  the  pioneer  character  of 
much  of  its  work ;  the  want  of  unity  and  aim  and  of 
concerted  plan  which  marked  its  earlier  stages — these 
and  other  causes  have  imposed  an  effective  drag  upon  the 
course  of  criticism;  while  the  sympathy  of  many  who 
might  have  become  its  solid  supporters  has  been  alienated 
by  a  misconception  of  its  motive  and  its  aim.  Tradi- 
tionalism has  tarred  all  critics  with  the  same  brush ;  and 
because  some  of  its  leaders  have  been  Ultra-rationalists, 
the  whole  movement  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  con- 
spiracy against  the  supernatural.  Because  many  of  its 
provisional  conclusions  have  been  from  time  to  time 
upset  by  further  evidence,  all  its  results  are  wont  to  be 
characterized  as  wild  imaginings,  '  the  baseless  fabric  of 
a  vision/ 

There  are  four  possible  attitudes  towards  the  literary- 
historical  criticism  of  the  Bible,  but  not  all  of  these 
(need  it  be  suggested)  have  any  real  claim  to  con- 
sideration. 

First  of  all,  there  is  the  attitude  of  the  fanatical 
opponent,  to  whom  criticism  (to  speak  frankly)  'is  of 
the  devil.'  'I  am  thankful  to  say  I  know  nothing 
about  it,  and  it  is  all  wrong.'  Such  statements  may 
still  be  heard  here  and  there  from  the  lips  of  otherwise 
intelligent  people — men  who,  however  old-fashioned,  are 
quite  ready  to  use  telegraph,  telephone,  and  motor-car — 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCH^OLOCY  49 

and  who,  when  questioned,  prove  critics  enough  to  have 
given  up  the  Ptolemaic  theory  of  the  universe,  and  even 
to  have  discarded  the  doctrine  of  a  process  of  creation 
limited  to  a  hundred  and  forty-four  hours. 

Such  a  genuine  laudator  temporis  acti  has  to  live  his 
workaday  life  in  the  twentieth  century  amid  its  sights 
and  sounds,  but  he  manages  somehow  to  close  his  eyes 
and  shut  his  ears  whenever  the  question  of  the  Bible 
comes  up.  It  is  one  of  the  miracles  of  Divine  grace 
that  Holy  Writ,  thus  artificially  isolated  from  the  rest  of 
his  universe,  remains  for  him  so  fruitful  and  so  helpful. 
If  he  chance  to  be  a  preacher,  must  not  his  interpreta- 
tions of  it  lose  their  force  to  a  large  section  of  his 
congregation  ? 

At  the  other  extreme  is  the  man  who  is  anxious  above 
all  things  to  be  up-to-date ;  who  is  ever  on  the  watch 
for  the  newest  and  most  ingenious  of  those  critical 
extravaganzas  which  come  into  being  day  after  day. 
'Dummkopf  has  proved  this,^  'Hanswurst  has  proved 
that.'  If  some  Continental  theologian,  in  despair  of 
showing  himself  original  in  any  more  rational  way,  should 
broach  a  theory  that  the  Book  of  Daniel  was  compiled 
by  Ibn  Ezra  in  the  twelfth  century,  or  that  Martin  Luther 
was  the  author  (shall  we  say  ?)  of  the  Epistle  of  St.  James, 
such  an  one  would  not  turn  a  hair.  He  is  ready  (have 
we  not  known  instances  among  the  self-styled  votaries  of 
criticism  and  of  archaeology  alike  ?)  to  accept  any  new 
theory  on  the  slenderest  of  evidence,  provided  it  be  suffi- 
ciently unorthodox.  Obviously,  the  advance  of  sound 
knowledge  does  not  lie  in  that  direction. 

The  true  attitude,  surely,  is  that  of  one  who,  while 
conceding  its  just  value  to  the  heritage  of  the  past,  is 
ready  to  admit  such  modifications  of  his  old  ideas  as  are 

4 


50  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

necessitated — not  by  the  latest  theory  advanced  by 
some  irresponsible  professor,  exaltes  as  many  of  these  are 
apt  to  become  by  the  strange  fascination  of  Oriental 
studies,  but  by  such  general  conclusions  as  may  be  estab- 
lished from  time  to  time. 

The  fanatical  opponent  of  whom  we  spoke  just  now 
would  probably  assert  that  he  was  ready  to  accept  all 
genuinely  established  conclusions.  But  the  value  of  this 
concession  is  heavily  discounted  by  his  frank  avowal 
that  he  knows  nothing  about  it,  and  does  not  ever  mean 
to  know  anything  about  it — an  avowal  which  bears  the 
stamp  of  genuineness  and  sincerity ! 

But  the  attitude  which  we  have  commended  itself 
offers  several  types.  The  advocate  of  the  via  media  may 
have  sympathetic  leanings  towards  criticism,  or  the 
reverse.  Sympathy  by  no  means  involves  a  want  of 
discrimination.  Nor  does  a  general  sympathy  with 
criticism  imply  a  lack  of  real  reverence  for  Holy  Writ, 
or  a  rejection  of  the  belief  that  it  is  in  some  special  way 
'inspired  of  God.'  The  Bible,  after  all,  has  its  two 
sides,  corresponding  to  the  body  and  the  spirit;  and 
just  as  man,  on  the  physical  side,  is  linked  to  the 
material  world  of  organic  life,  and  offers  countless 
analogies  for  the  physiologist  to  what  we  call  the 
'brute  creation';  so  the  Bible,  on  its  material  side, 
falls  under  the  category  of  ancient  literature,  and  is 
amenable  to  the  same  tests  and  criteria  by  which  other 
ancient  literature  is  judged.  While  its  theological  side 
reflects  every  phase  and  stage  of  the  Grodward  move- 
ment of  man's  spirit,  and  appeals  to  every  mood  of 
the  individual  spiritual  life,  its  material  side  offers 
fields  of  study  to  every  type  of  literary  and  scientific 
investigator.     The  floods  of  new  knowledge  let  in  from 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  51 

every  quarter  by  an  age  of  unique  specialization  were 
sure  to  affect  biblical  studies  as  they  have  affected  all 
other  studies.  The  development  of  literary  and  historical 
as  well  as  textual  criticism^  the  advance  of  archaeology, 
the  birth  and  growth  of  anthropology,  psychology  (in  the 
modern  sense),  and  of  the  study  called,  somewhat  clumsily, 
^comparative  religion' — all  these,  together  with  the  pro- 
gress of  sciences,  like  geology  and  astronomy,  more  general 
and  remote  in  their  relation  to  Holy  Writ,  have,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  deeply  affected  the  thinking  man's  view 
of  the  Bible.  And  the  student,  whose  sympathies  are, 
on  the  whole,  with  criticism,  accepts  the  fact  with 
gratitude.  Any  real  access  of  truth,  even  if  it  unsettle 
some  of  our  preconceived  notions,  is  a  thing  to  be 
thankful  for.  Some  cherished  ideas  must  go.  We  shall 
not  part  with  them  lightly ;  but  if  we  have  to  give  them 
up,  we  do  so  whole-heartedly,  knowing  that  the  new 
light  is  from  the  same  source  as  the  old,  even  from  the 
'Light  which  lighteth  every  man.'"'^ 

The  less  sympathetic  attitude  is  that  adopted  by  the 
most  stalwart  champions  of  orthodox  conservatism  at  the 
present  day.  Without  a  settled  theory  of  its  own — for 
the  rigidly  conservative  view  of  the  Bible,  like  the 
chronology  of  Archbishop  Ussher,  is  surely  discredited — 
it  contests  the  ground  inch  by  inch,  using  every  bit  of 
cover,  invoking  every  available  ally  from  the  archaeo- 
logical camp ;  scoring  now  a  real,  but  unfruitful,  now  a 
merely  imaginary,  success ;  fighting  a  defensive  battle. 
The  defending  party  lacks  coherence  and  organization, 
but  its  courage  is  splendid,  and  its  dogged  persistence 
heroic.  On  the  whole  its  action  is  beneficial,  for  it 
ensures  the  careful  testing  of  fresh  hypotheses,  and  in 
*  John  i.  9. 


52  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

the  end  consolidates  while  it  retards  the  advance  of 
critical  knowledge.  In  this  way  it  holds  a  position 
analogous  to  that  of  a  Second  Chamber  in  the  progress 
of  legislation. 

What,  then,  are  the  general  outlines,  the  broad 
tendencies  and  main  conclusions,  of  the  type  of  criticism 
which  may  be  said  to  hold  the  field  to-day  ? 

I. 

It  was  with  the  Old  Testament  that  criticism  began, 
and  it  is  here  that  it  claims  to  have  achieved  the  most 
remarkable  results,  so  we  shall  do  well  to  reckon  with 
Old  Testament  criticism  first.  In  the  sequel  it  will 
appear  how  far  similar  methods  are  likely  to  produce 
similar  results  in  the  case  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  type  of  Old  Testament  criticism  which  may  be 
said  to  hold  the  field  to-day,  alike  in  Europe  and  in 
America,  is  that  which  is  represented  by  the  School  of 
Wellhausen.  It  owes  its  impulse,  its  special  principles, 
and  the  outlines  of  its  theory,  to  Julius  Wellhausen,  whose 
work  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago — itself  the  culmination 
of  a  long  series  of  previous  investigations  by  other  critics 
— was  ably  seconded  in  England  by  Eobertson  Smith,  and 
has  since  been  carried  forward  by  scholars  too  numerous 
to  be  mentioned. 

Literary  criticism  of  the  Pentateuch  on  common-sense 
lines  did  not,  of  course,  originate  with  the  Protestant 
scholars  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Apart  from  the 
sound  biblical  scholarship  of  earlier  Christian  students 
like  St.  Jerome,  the  Jews  themselves  show  traces  of  an 
early  and  intelligent  interest  in  questions  of  authorship, 
though  these  traces  are  few  and  scattered.  That  Moses 
himself  should  have  written  the  story  of  his  own  death, 
in  the  last  verses  of  Deuteronomy^  presented  no  difficulty 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  53 

to  the  minds  of  Philo  and  Joseplius,  the  contemporaries 
of  the  New  Testament  writers ;  but  the  Talmud  makes  it 
clear  that  Jewish  scholars  before  the  sixth  century  a.d. 
were  prepared  to  assign  the  authorship  of  these  verses 
to  Joshua,  and  of  the  account  of  the  death  of  Joshua 
similarly  to  Eleazar. 

We  come  much  nearer  to  the  spirit  of  the  best  modern 
criticism  in  the  suggestion  of  a  Rabbi  Isaac  (c.  a.d.  900) 
that  the  phrase  '  These  are  the  kings  that  reigned  in 
the  land  of  Edom  before  there  reigned  any  king  over 
the  children  of  Israel '  "^  must  have  been  written  after 
the  establishment  of  the  monarchy,  a  consideration 
which  led  him  to  assign  the  whole  section  to  the  days  of 
Jehoshaphat. 

But  the  immediate  ancestry  of  modern  criticism  may 
perhaps  be  said  to  date  from  1766,  when  Astruc,  a 
devout  French  physician,  called  attention  to  the  strange 
alternation  of  the  two  Divine  names,  Jehovah  and 
Elohim,  in  the  Pentateuch,  and  suggested  that  they 
might  represent  traces  of  two  earlier  documents  in- 
corporated by  Moses  in  his  work.  The  suggestion 
proved  a  valuable  one,  though  not  covering  all  the 
ground.  Other  starting-points  for  analysis  quickly 
emerged.  Later  critics  were  struck  by  the  occurrence 
of  glaring  inconsistencies,  and  especially  of  apparently 
duplicate  narratives  of  the  same  event,  successive,  as  in 
the  first  two  chapters  of  Genesis,  or  interwoven,  as  in  the 
story  of  the  Deluge,  and  the  account  of  the  way  in  which 
Joseph    came   into    Egypt,t   and    (more   obscurely)    in 

*  Gen.  xxxvi.  31. 

f  Gen.  xxxvii.  The  existence  of  two  parallel  narratives  becomes 
clear  if  verses  21,  25-27,  28'',  be  read  as  one  story,  and  verses  22, 
24,  28^  and  ""^  29,  30,  36,  as  another.  In  the  first  Joseph  is  sold 
by  his  brethren  to  Ishmaelites ;  in  the  second  they  throw  him  into 
a  pit,  whence  he  is  taken  by  Midianites  without  their  knowledge. 


54  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 


] 


the   record    of   the   plagues   and  the  deliverance   from 
Egypt. 

These  phenomena  were  found  not  to  be  confined  to  ] 
the  Pentateuch.  The  opening  chapter  of  the  Book  of 
Judges  proved  difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  summary  , 
record  of  the  conquest  in  Joshua.  The  history  of  ! 
David,  again,  afforded  duplicates  which  suggested  that  ? 
the  Books  of  Samuel  embodied  two  parallel  and  not  i 
entirely  consistent  narratives.  The  story  of  his  introduc-  j 
tion  to  Saul  is  a  clear  instance  of  this,^  and  it  is  tempting  j 
to  the  critic  to  see  the  like  in  the  two  accounts  of  how  ; 
he  spared  Saul's  life  when  his  enemy  lay  in  his  power.t      3 

A  conspicuous  case  of  general  parallelism,  combined    ^ 
with  a  host  of  detailed  inconsistencies,  is  that  afforded  by 
a  comparison  of  the  two  records  of  the  Hebrew  monarchy 
as  exhibited  on  the  one  hand  in  the  prophetic  narratives   j 
of  Samuel  and  Kings,   and  on  the  other  hand  in  the    1 
Chronicles.     The  account  of  the  Chronicler  follows  the 
earlier  narrative  word  for  word  to  a  very  large  extent, 
so  far  as  it  deals  with  the  kingdom  of  the  House  of 
David,  in  which  alone  he  is  interested ;  but  his  additional 
matter  shows  a  marked  difference  in  tone  and  tendency, 
and   not   seldom   an  inconsistency  in  matters   of   fact. 
'  In  many  cases,'  says  Dr.  Driver   (and  his  words  are  1 
carefully  measured) — ^in  many   cases   the   figures    [in   J 
Chronicles]   are  incredibly  high ;  in  others  the  scale  or  1 
magnitude  of  the  occurrences  described  is  such  that,  had    j 
they  really  happened  precisely  as  represented,  they  could    1 
hardly  have  been  passed  over  by  the  compiler  of  Samuel   . 
or  Kings.     Elsewhere,  again,  the  description  appears  to  i 
be   irreconcilable   with  that   in   the   earlier  narrative;    ] 

*  Compare  1  Sam.  xvi.  14  et  scq.  with  xvii.  65  et  geq. 
t  1  Sam.  xxiv.  and  xxvi. 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHiEOLOaY  55 

while  nearly  always  the  speeches  assigned  to  historical 
characters,  and  the  motives  attributed  to  them,  are 
conceived  largely  from  a  point  of  view  very  different 
from  that  which  dominates  the  earlier  narrative,  and 
agreeing  closely  with  the  compilers/"^  A  good  typical 
instance  of  this  may  be  found  in  the  speech  put  into  the 
mouth  of  Abijah  by  the  Chronicler, t  and  his  account  of 
that  king's  reign,  when  compared  with  the  brief  notice 
in  Kings. t  But  other  criteria  besides  those  of  subject- 
matter  quickly  claim  attention.  The  study  of  style  and 
vocabulary  must  be  called  in  to  control  the  results  of 
such  investigations,  which,  again,  will  be  illustrated  by  all 
that  we  can  learn  of  the  language,  habits,  and  religion 
of  the  nations  surrounding  Israel. 

-  Style  and  vocabulary  show  a  tendency  to  corroborate 
results  obtained  from  other  data.  The  phenomena 
frequently  group  themselves  in  an  intelligible  way. 
Passages  and  sections  which  had  already  been,  on  other 
grounds,  separated  from  their  context  and  classified  by 
themselves  are  found  to  be  distinguished  further  by 
special  characteristics  of  vocabulary  and  style,  and  thus 
tentative  lines  of  cleavage  are  deepened  and  made 
permanent,  and  the  sober  conjectures  of  analysis  are 
corroborated. 
•  Again,  analytical  principles  first  applied  over  a 
restricted  area  are  found  to  be  more  widely  applicable. 
Fresh  literary  affinities  are  discovered  between  book  and 
book.  Thus,  Joshua  is  found  to  exhibit  a  composite 
character,  involving  the  interweaving  of  the  same  docu- 
ments which  analysis  has  discovered  in  the  preceding 
books,  and  so  the  Pentateuch  becomes,  for  the  literary 

*  Driver, '  Literature  of  Old  Testament,'  p.  500  (6th  edit.,  p.  533). 
t  2  Chron.  xiii.  1-xiv.  1.  XI  Kings  xv.  1-8. 


56  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

critic,  a  Hexateuch.  The  following  books,  again — Judges, 
Samuel,  and  Kings,  which  form  with  Joshua  the  Hebrew 
canonical  group  of  the  'Former  Prophets^ — show  in 
their  finest  and  most  graphic  passages  affinities  in  style 
and  vocabulary,  as  also  in  tendency  and  point  of  view, 
to  a  certain  strain  in  Genesis,  which  is  represented,  e.g.y 
by  the  second  account  of  creation  (Gen.  ii.  4  et  seq.), 
and  by  the  noble  character-studies  of  the  patriarchs."^ 
The  Books  of  Chronicles  ally  themselves  naturally  with 
the  first  account  of  creation,  and  the  many  statistical 
and  essentially  legalistic  portions  of  the  Pentateuch  : 
though  apparently  of  much  later  date  than  these,  they 
have  imbibed  their  spirit. 

Further  study  of  books  outside  the  Pentateuch  some- 
times corroborates  in  a  most  remarkable  and  unexpected 
way  the  results  of  Pentateuchal  analysis.  A  good 
instance  is  furnished  by  the  story  of  Korah,  Dathan, 
and  Abiram  in  Num.  xvi.  A  close  study  of  this 
passage  seemed  to  reveal  a  composite  origin,  in  which 
the  '  priestly '  story  of  Korah's  rebellion  on  ecclesiastical 
grounds  (itself  exhibiting  a  composite  character)  had 
been  added  to  a  '  prophetic '  ( JE)  narrative  of  the 
revolt  of  Dathan  and  Abiram  (laymen)  against  the  civil 
authority.  It  was  not  observed  till  afterwards  that 
Ps.  cvi.t  had  no  mention  of  Korah,  and  treats  Dathan 
and  Abiram  as  representatives  of  the  rebels  on  whom 
such  summary  judgment  was  executed. 

The  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  at  first  sight  puzzling 
beyond  measure   in  its   relations   to   the  books  which 

*  This  documentary  series  is  known  hy  the  symbol  JE ;  that  of 
Leviticus,  etc.,  by  P.  See,  further,  p.  63,  and  note  at  the  end 
of  this  chapter. 

t  Ps.  cvi.  17. 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHJEOLOaY  57 

precede  and  follow  it,  proves,  when  better  understood, 
to  be  an  important  pivot  of  the  critical  theory. 

Its  style  is  far  superior  to  that  of  the  Chronicles,  its 
language  and  vocabulary  more  classical;  yet  it  has 
obviously  left  a  strong  mark  upon  the  later  work.  Its 
characteristic  doctrine  of  the  necessity  of  a  single 
sanctuary,  at  the  place  '  which  Jehovah  shall  choose  to 
place  His  Name  there,'  is  the  standard  by  which  the 
kings  are  judged  throughout  the  Books  of  Chronicles. 
On  the  earlier  series  of  historical  books — the  ^  Former 
Prophets' — Deuteronomy  has  indeed  set  its  mark,  as 
though  the  whole  series  had  been  finally  edited  and 
welded  together  by  one  who  was  under  the  infiuence 
of  that  book.  Yet  in  this  series  the  ceremonial  and 
religious  standard  of  Deuteronomy  is  not  imposed  upon 
the  historical  characters — they  are  not  definitely  arraigned 
by  the  historian  for  breaches  of  it — until  the  reign  of 
Josiah  and  the  discovery  of  the  Law-book  in  the  Temple. 

In  the  early  chapters  of  Kings  few  traces  are  left 
of  the  distinctive  Deuteronomic  teaching,  not  to  speak 
of  the  full-blown  system  of  Levitical  sacrifice  which 
is  strongly  present  in  Chronicles ;  still  fewer  are  to  be 
found  in  Samuel  and  Judges.  Heroes  of  theocratic 
history,  like  Solomon,  David,  Samuel,  naively  and 
without  blame  break  all  the  rules  of  sacrificial  observ- 
ance. Ephod  images  and  teraphim  are  mentioned 
without  wincing.  The  Judges,  actuated  as  they  are  by 
the  direct  influence  of  the  'Spirit  of  Jehovah,'^  act 
without  any  reference  to,  or  apparent  knowledge  of,  the 
precepts  of  Deuteronomy,  or  of  the  Levitical  ceremonial, 
and  are  not,  in  the  narrative,  condemned  therefor. 
Priestly  functions  are  freely  exercised  by  laymen;  sacri- 
*  Judg.  xi.  29,  xiv.  19,  etc. 


58  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

fices  are  performed,  as  in  patriarchal  timeS;  wherever  it 
is  most  convenient.  There  is  a  prevailing  silence  with 
regard  to  the  observance  of  even  the  greater  festivals 
enjoined  by  the  law.  From  the  days  of  Joshua  to  those 
of  Hezekiah  the  Passover  is  not  mentioned  even  in 
Chronicles,  and  in  Kings  not  till  the  eighteenth  year  of 
Josiah^s  reign.  And  the  language  of  both  Kings  and 
Chronicles  about  Josiah's  Passover  suggest  that  it 
followed  an  almost  immemorial  neglect  or  abeyance  of 
the  feast  .^ 

We  have  spoken  of  Deuteronomy  as  one  of  the  pivots 
of  the  Wellhausen  theory.  The  Passover  is  a  typical 
instance  of  a  number  of  fundamental  enactments  which, 
according  to  the  best  historical  evidence  we  have,  were 
unobserved  before  the  days  of  Josiah,  and  in  his  reforms 
were  explicitly  associated  with  the  newly-discovered 
Law-book :  '  Keep  the  passover  unto  the  Lord  your  God, 
as  it  is  written  in  this  book  of  the  covenant.'  t 

Another  pivot  of  the  theory  is  found  in  the  eighth- 
century  prophets,  Amos,  Hosea,  and  Isaiah.  A  candid 
reader  will  be  ready  to  admit  that  the  background  of 
their  teaching  does  not  seem  to  be  the  Levitical  system 
as  embodied  in  the  Pentateuch.  The  apparent  an- 
tagonism of  the  prophets — and  notably  of  Isaiah — to 
ceremonial  sacrifice  is  no  doubt  very  easily  exaggerated, 
and  has  been  inordinately  exploited  by  leaders  of  an 
anti-sacrificial  crusade.  Hosea\s  '  I  will  have  mercy  and 
not  sacrifice,'  was,  doubtless,  like  Samuel's  '  To  obey  is 
better  than  sacrifice,' t  intended  rather  to  exalt  the 
essential  spiritual  and  moral  element  than  to  deny 
efficacy  to  the  ritual   form   in  which  the  spirit  found 

*  2  Kings  xxiii.  22,  23  ;  2  Chron.  xxxv.  18,  19. 

t  2  Kings  xxiii.  21.  X  Hos.  vi.  6 ;  1  Sam.  xv.  22, 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  59 

natural  and  meet  expression.  But  it  is  certainly  not  for 
neglect  of  the  ceremonial  law  that  the  earlier  writing 
prophets  arraign  the  people;  their  denunciations  have 
a  pervadingly  moral  and  spiritual  aim,  and  some  at 
least  of  their  statements  are  not  easy  to  harmonize  with 
the  Pentateuchal  atmosphere,  as  when  the  Lord,  by 
Amos,  asks  (clearly  expecting  a  negative  answer),  '  Did 
ye  bring  unto  me  sacrifices  and  offerings  in  the  wilder- 
ness forty  years,  0  house  of  Israel?^*  And  Jeremiah t 
provided  the  answer  :  '  I  spake  not  unto  your  fathers, 
nor  commanded  them  in  the  day  that  I  brought  them  up 
out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  concerning  burnt  offerings 
or  sacrifices/ 

In  general,  the  Prophets  seem  to  emphasize  the  inward 
part  of  the  religious  life,  morality  and  heart-worship,  at 
the  expense  of  the  outward ;  and  it  is  not  until  we  come 
to  Ezekiel,  the  priest-prophet,  that  we  find  anything 
like  a  complete  reflection  of  the  Levitical  system.  And 
here  the  phenomena  are  so  striking  as  to  suggest  the 
idea  that  the  teaching  of  Ezekiel  may  have  had  a  direct 
influence  upon  some  of-  the  last  stages  by  which  the 
'  Pentateuchal  ^  Law  reached  its  final  form. J  If  this  be 
so,  then  we  can  readily  understand  the  apparent  ignor- 
ance of  the  Law  shown  by  the  earlier  prophets. 

Once  more,  the  study  of  Arabic  side  by  side  with 
Hebrew,  and  of  the  religious  customs  of  the  Arabs  and  of 
kindred  Semitic  peoples,  has  largely  illustrated  and  cor- 
roborated the  results  sketched  above.  Light  has  been 
thrown  on  the  Hebrew  language,  which  enables  the  expert 
to  detect  with  greater  certainty  the  presence  of  late  words 

*  Amos  V.  25.  t  vii.  22. 

X  He  seems  to  be  directly  responsible  for  the  second  part  of 
Leviticus  (xvii.-xxvi.)  dealing  with  the  'Law  of  Holiness,'  which 
the  critics  mark  as  '  H.' 


60  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

and  constructions,  and  in  consequence  many  passages 
long  reputed  earlier  have  been  relegated  to  the  period 
of  the  Exile  or  the  Restoration.  The  comparison  of 
Hebrew  rites  and  ceremonies,  and  of  their  religious 
formulas,  with  those  of  their  neighbours  shows  strong 
and  close  affinities.  The  language  used  by  Mesha  of 
Moab  about  his  god  Chemosh  on  the  famous  'Moabite 
stone'  almost  exactly  parallels  the  religious-political 
attitude  of  Jephthah  in  controversy  with  Ammon."^ 

The  sacrificial  customs  of  the  primitive  Arabs  adduced 
by  Robertson  Smith  seem  to  represent  the  germ  of  the 
Hebrew  sacrificial  system,  and  the  general  trend  of  the 
evidence  is  towards  showing  that  the  so-called  Mosaic 
legislation  was,  in  many  of  its  points,  a  modification  of 
existing  customs — a  modification  worked  out,  it  would 
seem,  slowly  and  gradually,  and  not  without  a  helping 
hand  from  the  prophets. 

As  regards  the  sacrificial  system,  the  evidence  of  the 
prophetical  historians  seems  to  ignore  the  distinctive 
rites  of  the  sin-offering,  attributing,  apparently,  some- 
thing of  an  expiatory  value  to  burnt-offerings  of  the 
patriarchal  type,  as  does  also  the  framework  of  the 
Book  of  Job  (chaps,  i.  and  xlii.),  where  a  remarkably 
successful  attempt  is  made  to  reproduce  the  atmosphere 
of  primitive  patriarchal  religion ;  nor  is  such  an  elabora- 
tion of  sacrifices  implied  even  in  Micah.t  This  agrees 
with  the  general  movement  of  religious  evolution  among 
the  Semites,  as  elsewhere  in  antiquity,  where  the  elabora- 
tion of  rites  definitely  connected  with  the  developed  sense 
of  sin  is  wont  to  appear  at  a  comparatively  late  date. 

*  Compare,  e.g.,  with  Judg.  xi.  24  ('  Wilt  not  thou  possess  that 
which  Chemosh  thy  god  giveth  thee  to  possess  ?')  the  Moabite  stone, 
'  And  Chemosh  said  unto  thee,  Go,  take  Nebo  against  Israel.' 

t  Cf.  vi.  6. 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  61 

Again,  the  Levitical  technical  term  for  guilt-offering 
occurs,  indeed,  in  the  First  Book  of  Samuel,  but  its 
connotation  is  different :  it  is  applied  to  the  '  golden 
mice  and  golden  emerods'  of  the  Philistines."^  So,  too, 
the  quaint  ceremonies  associated  in  the  Book  of  Rutht 
with  the  marriage  of  an  heiress  widow  to  her  husband's 
next  of  kin  do  not  correspond  to  the  provisions  of  the 
Book  of  Deuteronomy.  In  these  and  similar  cases  J  we 
seem  to  have  links  between  the  primitive  customs  of 
the  ancient  heathen  Semites  and  the  later  developed 
system  of  the  Levitical  law. 

The  general  characteristics  of  the  course  of  literary 
development,  independently  detected  by  a  close  study  of 
the  first  two  groups  of  Old  Testament  Books — '  the  Law 
and  '  the  Prophets ' — ^reappear  also  in  the  Psalter,  the 
leading  book  of  the  third  or  Hagiographic  Group.  The 
Psalter  is  a  sort  of  micro-canon,  a  little  Bible  in  itself. 
Its  five  books  §  (corresponding  in  number,  perhaps 
intentionally,  to  the  ^  Five  Books  of  Moses ')  represent 
successive  collections  of  documents,  the  documents  them- 
selves of  widely  varying  date.  Each  book  has  its  own 
special  characteristics,  more  or  less  marked,  yet  the  line 
of  literary  and  historical  affinity  cuts  across  the  line  of 
demarcation  provided  by  the  formal  divisions ;  and  the 
Psalter  as  a  whole  exhibits  (as  is  to  be  expected  in  a 
hymn-book  in  use  for  successive  generations)  manifest 
signs  of  editing.  It  has  variations  in  the  use  of  the 
Divine  names  corresponding  (superficially,  at  any  rate) 
to  those  of  the  Pentateuch.     The  first,  fourth  and  fifth 

*  'Asham  (D^«),  1  Sam.  vi.  8,  etc. 

■f  Euth  iv.  ;  contrast  Dent.  xxv.  5  et  seq. 

%  E.g.y  the  lifelong  Nazirite  observance  of  Samson  (Judg.  xiii.) 

different  from  the  temporary  vows  of  Num.  vi. 

§  The  division  into  books  is  marked  in  the  Eevised  Version. 


62  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

books  use  Jehovah  ;  the  second,  Elohim ;  the  third  has 
the  two  names  about  equally  distributed. 

The  significant  phenomena  of  style  and  vocabulary, 
and  the  variations  in  ethical  and  religious  background, 
reappear  here  in  a  new  setting,  and  form  a  fascinating, 
though  often  elusive,  subject  for  study.  There  are 
psalms  historical,  didactic,  gnomic  or  proverbial,  pro- 
phetic, mystic,  answering  to  each  type  of  Old  Testament 
literature. 

The  general  result  of  the  last  half-century  of  criticism 
of  the  Psalter  has  been  to  bring  down  the  dates  to  a 
later  period  than  was  formerly  supposed  to  be  correct. 
A  candid  comparison  of  the  so-called  '  Davidic '  Psalms 
with  the  historical  material  provided  by  the  Books  of 
Samuel,  though  it  does  not  rob  the  royal  Singer  of  his 
place  at  the  fountain-head  of  Hebrew  psalmody,  makes 
it  impossible  to  assign  to  David  and  his  contemporaries 
anything  like  the  number  of  psalms  attributed  to  them 
by  tradition,  even  making  allowance  for  subsequent 
verbal  changes ;  while  the  frequent  occurrence  of 
Aramaic  words  and  later  constructions  has  stamped 
many  psalms  as  being  (in  their  present  form)  post-exilic, 
and  has  led  some  critics  to  look  for  the  patriotic  stimulus 
of  not  a  few  in  the  stirring  and  heroic  period  of  the 
Maccabean  wars  of  independence — that  is,  in  the  middle 
of  the  second  century  before  our  era. 

The  chronological  results  which  emerge  from  the 
literary-historical  study  of  the  Psalter  are  paralleled,  to 
a  large  extent,  in  the  rest  of  the  Old  Testament.  There 
has  been  a  general  reduction  of  the  dates.  But  a  still 
greater  revolution  is  involved  in  the  discovery  of  the 
Wellhausen  School  that  the  chronology  of  the  Law  and 
the  Prophets  has   (broadly  speaking)   to   be  reversed ; 


CRITICISM  AND  ARGH^OLOaY  63 

that  the  prophets  of  the  eighth  century,  Amos,  Hosea, 
Isaiah,  represent  (apart  from  isolated  passages  embodied 
in  later  narrative"^)  the  earliest  Hebrew  literature  to 
which  we  can  give  a  certain  date;  that  the  prophetic 
narrative,  from  which  we  derive  the  most  graphic  details 
of  the  history,  alike  in  the  Pentateuch  and  in  the  books 
which  follow,  though  compiled  out  of  earlier  Judaic  and 
Ephraimite  documents  assignable  to  the  ninth  (J)  and 
eighth  (E)  centuries  respectively,  dates  in  its  consolidated 
form  after  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  B.C. ;  while 
the  Priestly  Code  (P),t  which  interweaves  its  statistical 
records  with  this,  and  supplements  the  historical  narrative 
by  the  Books  of  Chronicles,  saw  the  light  in  Babylon 
during  the  exile,  between  the  days  of  Ezekiel  and  those 
of  Ezra.  To  this  period  is  to  be  assigned  the  finished 
legal  and  ceremonial  system  embodied  in  Exodus, 
Leviticus,  and  Numbers;  while  Deuteronomy,  which 
formed  (in  whole  or  in  part)  the  basis  of  Josiah's 
reforms,  cannot  have  been  in  existence  many  years 
before  its  discovery  by  Hilkiah  in  a.d.  621,  or  at  any 
rate  cannot  ever  have  been  acknowledged  as  authori- 
tative before  that  date. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  to  present,  exhaustively  or 
scientifically,  the  evidence  on  which  the  Wellhausen 
theory  is  based ;  but  it  is  hoped  that  the  somewhat 
superficial  outline  just  given  may  be  enough  to  show 
how  very  broad  are  its  foundations,  how  very  varied, 
yet  how  mutually  cohesive,  are  the  materials  out  of 
which  it  is  built. 

Within  the  general  outlines  of  this  scheme,  which  is 

*  E.g.,  Gen.  iv.  23, 24  ;  Judg.  v. ;  the  poetic  extracts  in  Num.  xxi., 
xxiii.,  and  xxiv.,  and  elsewhere. 

f  For  scheme  of  documentary  signs  and  probable  dates,  see  note 
at  end  of  chapter. 


64  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

very  widely  accepted  in  Europe  and  America,  and  claims 
amid  its  adherents  in  England  the  names  of  such  sound, 
devoted,  and  trusted  scholars  as  Driver,  Ryle,  and 
Kirkpatrick,  there  is  room  for  considerable  variety  in 
detail.  Much  is  still  left  vague,  and  must  remain  so, 
unless  archaeology  intervenes  with  conclusive  evidence 
on  one  side  or  the  other.  A  Mosaic  nucleus  of  legisla- 
tion in  the  Pentateuch  is  warranted  and  demanded  by 
the  strength  and  unanimity  of  tradition.  The  minimum 
attributed  to  Moses  himself  is,  perhaps,  an  indeterminate 
nucleus  of  Exod.  xx.-xxiii.  19,  and  that,  perhaps  in  an 
earlier  form,  now  lost;  the  maximum,  as  much  of  the 
whole  as  the  phenomena  of  later  history  will  permit. 
Again,  as  regards  the  patriarchal  narratives  of  Genesis, 
opinion  will  always  be  divided  —  unless  archaeology 
comes  forward  to  arbitrate — as  to  the  exact  degree  of 
historical  value  attributable  to  continuous  oral  tradition, 
and,  again,  as  to  the  possibility  of  documentary  trans- 
mission of  some  of  the  (presumably)  very  earliest 
narratives,  like  that,  for  instance,  of  Gen.  xiv. 

But,  making  allowance  for  all  possible  concessions, 
the  traditionalist  would  probably  not  be  far  wrong  in 
stating  the  grounds  of  his  quarrel  with  the  Wellhausen 
School  somewhat  as  follows  :  They  deny  the  strictly 
historical  character  of  the  narratives  in  Genesis,  and 
question  that  of  the  bulk  of  the  seemingly  historical 
matter  that  bridges  the  gulf  between  Moses  and  David. 
If  the  existence  of  Moses  be  conceded  as,  in  some  sense,  a 
'  founder '  of  the  religious  polity  of  Israel,  the  exact  part 
he  played  is  left  uncertain.  Of  thePentateuchal  legislation 
only  a  vague  and  undetermined  nucleus  is  granted  to  be 
of  an  undetermined  antiquity.  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob 
become  little  more  than  legendary  figures ;  the  sojourn 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHJ30L0GY  65 

of  the  twelve  tribes  in  Egypt  is  regarded  as  open  to 
discussion;  the  story  of  Joshua^s  conquest  has  to  be 
entirely  rewritten.  It  is  only  with  the  monarchy  that 
we  begin  to  stand  on  firm  ground;  and  even  here  we 
must  be  on  our  guard,  not  only  against  the  priestly 
strain  in  the  narrative,  which  colours  it  with  the  tints 
of  post-exilic  Judaism,  but  even  against  the  earlier 
Deuteronomist  element,  in  which  history  has  been  re- 
written from  the  standpoint  of  Josiah's  reforms. 

It  is  a  serried  front  and  a  solid  systematic  organiza- 
tion that  Wellhausenism  opposes  to  the  attacks  of  the 
traditionalist.  How  does  the  latter  hope  to  prevail,  or 
even  to  hold  his  own  ?  A  natural  step  on  the  part  of 
one  who  suspects  this  revolutionary  movement  is  to  turn 
to  Archaeology  for  aid.  And  in  a  certain  sense  it  is  a 
right  step.  For  the  literary  critic  will  be  the  first  to 
admit  that  his  conclusions  are  always  open  to  revision 
from  the  archaeological  side.  If  an  archseological 
discovery  were  to  disprove  the  Wellhausenist  hypothesis 
to-day,  its  advocates  would  cheerfully  give  it  all  up 
to-morrow.  But  archaeological  data  are  one  thing — a 
factor  which  must  be  treated  with  the  utmost  respect — 
while  the  inferences  hastily  drawn  from  such  data  are 
on  quite  a  different  plane.  Archaeology  has  much  to 
say,  and  will  have  more  to  say  hereafter ;  but  her  dicta 
as  regards  the  Old  Testament,  though  now  and  again 
they  corroborate,  and  still  more  of  ten  illustrate,  statements 
in  the  sacred  text,  not  seldom  suggest  a  chronological 
or  other  inexactitude.  This  is  more  especially  the  case 
where  (from  the  time  of  Ahab  and  onwards)  the  records 
of  Hebrew  and  Assyrian  history  can  be  read  side  by 
side,  with  points  of  contact  recurring  at  intervals. 

Babylonian  archaeology  will  probably  from  henceforth 

5 


66  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

have  not  a  little  to  contribute  to  the  criticism  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Its  devotees  assert  that  it  has  been 
too  long  neglected  by  literary  critics,  and  is  about  to 
revenge  itself  upon  them.  It  will  be  a  welcome  revenge 
for  all  true  scholars  of  whatever  type,  if  it  has  new  truth 
to  reveal.  Assyriolo gy  is,  indeed,  still  in  its  infancy, 
though  much  advance  has  been  made  since  the  days 
when  George  Smith,  between  1872  and  1876,  first 
published  to  the  modern  world  the  '  Babylonian  Epic  of 
Creation.'  As  fresh  material  is  deciphered,  and  the 
rendering  of  the  familiar  texts  progressively  corrected, 
there  will  be  more  opportunity  of  estimating  aright  the 
relation  between  Babylonian  religion  and  mythology 
and  the  Old  Testament;  with  the  result,  doubtless,  of 
modifying  conclusions  reached  without  due  considera- 
tion of  the  Babylonian  factor.  No  one  can  deny  the 
importance  or  the  relevance  of  such  discoveries  as  that 
of  the  Tell-el-Amarna  Tablets  in  1887,  and  of  the  Code 
of  Hammurabi  in  1902.  The  former  shew  us  a  Babylonian 
(cuneiform)  script  in  vogue  in  Palestine  and  Egypt  in 
the  time  of  the  Eighteenth  Egyptian  Dynasty,  and 
demonstrate  the  fact  that  writing  and  other  civilized  arts 
were  practised  in  Palestine  in  or  about  1450  B.C. — i.e.,  nearly 
two  centuries  earlier  than  the  date  which  has  been  the 
favourite  with  traditionalists  for  the  Exodus;  but  its 
evidence,  though  in  many  ways  deeply  interesting  to 
the  Bible  student,  cannot  be  said  to  confirm  all  round 
the  traditional  view  of  Hebrew  history.  There  is  not, 
as  yet,  a  scrap  of  evidence  that  Hebrew  records  were 
ever  written  in  the  Babylonian  cuneiform.  As  for  the 
Code  of  Hammurabi,  while  the  elaboration  and  the 
wisdom  of  its  provisions  witness  to  a  very  early  develop- 
ment of    legislative    genius,    about    1800  B.C.,   several 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHAEOLOGY  67 

generations — perhaps  we  sliould  say  several  centuries — 
before  the  traditional  era  of  Moses;  its  exact  bearing 
upon  Old  Testament  criticism  is  obscured,  like  that  of 
the  Babylonian  Creation  and  Deluge  literature,  by  the 
vast  and  continuous  chronological  duration  of  these 
monuments.  The  extant  copies  come  to  us  from  the 
library  of  Assurbanipal,  inscribed  in  the  seventh  century 
B.C.  But  many  of  the  ponderous  records  of  this  famous 
collection  are  copies  made  of  earlier  documents,  most  of 
which  have  since  disappeared,  though  considerable 
fragments  have  been  recovered.  Some  of  these  originals, 
when  copied  by  AssurbanipaFs  librarians,  must  have 
been  handed  down  already  for  some  fourteen  or  fifteen 
centuries. 

Thus  one  of  the  burning  questions  remains  (and  may 
remain  indefinitely)  insoluble — at  least,  from  this  quarter 
• — the  question  of  the  date  of  the  Babylonian  influence, 
if  such  it  be,  upon  the  early  narratives  of  Genesis  and 
(some  would  add)  upon  the  legislation  of  the  Pentateuch. 
Is  it  to  be  ascribed  to  the  period  of  the  Exile,  or  to  be 
accounted  for  by  the  earlier  contact  with  Mesopotamia 
embodied  in  the  tradition  that  the  father  of  the  Hebrew 
race  came  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  ?  "^ 

If  archaeology,  Babylonian  or  otherwise,  is  to  modify 
the  trend  of  critical  research,  it  will  probably  effect  most 
in  that  period  previous  to  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  of 
which  higher  criticism  is  prepared  to  concede  that  it  is 
^  still,^  to  a  certain  extent,  ^  under  discussion.'  Now  and 
again  it  strikingly  supports  the  literary  critics.  Stade, 
for  instance,  on  purely  literary-historical  grounds,  con- 
tended that  the  account  of  the  summary  conquest  of 
Canaan  given  in  the  Book  of  Joshua  must  involve  a 
*  Gen.  xi.  31 ;  c/.  Josh.  xxiv.  2 


68  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

considerable  idealizing  of  the  facts.  Excavations  in 
Palestine  now  seem  to  be  justifying  his  criticism  more 
and  more.  Their  evidence,  which  is  akin  to  that  of 
geology,  seems  to  admit  of  no  '  abrupt  gap '  or  breach  of 
continuity  in  the  development  of  Palestinian  religious 
archaeology.  How  far  such  evidence  can  be  said  to 
corroborate  more  advanced  theories  such  as  those  of  Dr. 
Cheyne,  which,  working  upon  a  study  of  the  tendencies 
of  clerical  errors,  and  the  variation  of  place-names, 
would  deny  the  sojourn  in  Egypt,  is  another  question. 
What  archaeology  may  be  expected  to  do  in  general,  if 
one  may  hazard  a  prediction,  is  to  bring  out  more  and 
more  into  relief  the  genuinely  oriental  and  Semitic 
character  of  the  Old  Testament,  diminishing  the  gap 
between  the  traditions,  customs  and  habits  of  thought 
of  the  Hebrews,  and  those  of  the  surrounding  peoples ; 
emphasizing  their  affinities,  without,  however,  detract- 
ing from  the  supremacy  and  uniqueness  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  the  sphere  of  moral  and  religious  teaching. 
It  may  probably  illustrate,  and  in  places  confirm  as 
historical,  suspected  details  of  the  earlier  period  of 
Hebrew  history  referred  to  above.  We  have  seen  that 
it  has  already  proved  that  the  art  of  writing  was  known 
in  Palestine  in  pre-Mosaic  and  early  post-Mosaic  times. 
We  may  yet  discover,  in  Canaan  or  in  Egypt,  direct 
documentary  evidence  for  one  or  other  of  the  patriarchal 
narratives,  or  justify  a  considerable  enlargement  of  the 
nucleus  of  legislation  ascribed  to  Moses  by  even  the 
most  exigent  critics.  And  even  when  archaeology  fails 
to  give  direct  support  to  a  given  tradition,  it  may  supply 
a  picture  of  the  age  in  question  that  renders  the  tradi- 
tion indefinitely  more  probable — as  Egyptian  archaeology 
is  thought  by  some  to  have  done  for  the  story  of  Joseph, 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  69 

while,  according  to  another  view,  it  has  but  confirmed  its 
legendary  character."^  Or,  again,  it  may  strengthen  in  a 
general  way  the  credit  of  oral  tradition  in  the  ancient 
East,  or  of  tradition  that  has  but  a  minimum  of  docu- 
mentary support.  The  traditionalist  may  draw  some 
comfort  from  the  recent  excavations  in  Crete — that  signal 
triumph  of  the  spade  over  the  pen,  which  has  vindicated 
for  history  an  entire  civilization  long  reputed  purely 
fabulous  ;  has  vindicated  a  vague  but  persistent  tradition 
of  Minoan  greatness  against  the  ignorance  even  of  the 
great  historians  of  ancient  Greece  ! 

There  is  no  limit,  in  reason,  to  the  revelations  that  the 
spade  may  have  to  offer.  It  is  not  likely,  however,  to 
upset  that  working  hypothesis  which  is  known  as  the 
law  of  gravitation,  nor — so  the  critics  confidently  affirm 
— the  main  outlines  of  their  working  hypothesis,  which, 
like  the  gravitation  theory,  is  corroborated  from  so  many 
different  sides.  In  the  main  issue  it  is  doubtful  whether 
there  is  any  hope  for  the  rigid  conservatives.  We  shall 
probably  never  work  round  again  to  the  position  of 
accepting  the  chronology  which  lies  on  the  surface  of  the 
books ;  of  accepting  the  Pentateuch  as  it  stands  for  the 
work  of  Moses,  and  explaining  the  entire  neglect  of  its 
injunctions  during  centuries  of  subsequent  history  by  the 
theory  of  the  '  passive  existence '  of  a  document  backed 
by  such  overwhelming  sanctions.  The  '  Ornaments 
Rubric '  has  been  ingeniously  adduced  as  a  parallel,  and 
is  not  a  bad  parallel  as  far  as  it  goes — for  at  what  period 
between  its  promulgation  and  the  present  day  has  it 
been  generally  obeyed  by  those  who  claim  to  be  orthodox 

*  If  the  Joseph-story  could  be  8ho\vn  to  have  originated  in 
Egyptian  legend,  it  would  still  bear  witness  to  a  connection  of 
Israel  with  Egypt. 


70  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

followers  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  ?  But,  after 
all,  the  parallel  does  not  go  far  enough.  The  Ornaments 
Eubric  cannot  fairly  be  balanced  against  the  entire 
system  of  the  Levitical  Law  ! 

II. 

Criticism  concerns  itself  with  the  New  Testament  as 
well  as  with  the  Old,  and  so  does  archaeology.  And 
many  an  enlightened  traditionalist  is  roused  to  violent 
antagonism  against  the  drastic  methods  and  revo- 
lutionary conclusions  of  Old  Testament  critics  because 
he  dreads  the  application  of  the  same  methods,  and  the 
proclamation  of  similar  results  in  the  case  of  the  New 
Testament.  Nor  is  his  fear  unaccountable.  The  wild 
and  savage  assaults  of  the  Tubingen  School  upon  the 
New  Testament  stronghold,  though  they  have  been 
beaten  back  by  solid  scholarship  armed  mth  the  same 
weapons  of  literary  and  historical  method,  have  left  a 
good  deal  of  suspicion  and  unsettlement  behind.  The 
plain  man  feels  that  every  inch  he  concedes  on  Old 
Testament  ground  brings  the  enemy  so  much  nearer  to 
the  Gospel  citadel;  that  the  battles  of  the  Gospel  are 
being  fought  out  on  the  field  of  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets. 

Such  considerations  as  these  may  account  for  anxiety 
and  apprehension,  but  they  do  not  justify  despair.  It  is 
natural  and  right  that  we  should  shrink  from  an  un- 
sympathetic dissection  of  the  most  sacred  pages  of  the 
Gospel  story.  With  an  honest  desire  that  the  truth  may 
prevail,  one  may  yet  shudder  at  the  character  of  some  of 
the  episodes  of  the  struggle.  A  genuine  sympathizer 
with  criticism  may  well  be  shocked,  roused  to  wrath, 
scorn,  indignation,  by  some  of  the  insolent  utterances  of 
the  modern  spirit.     He  may  feel  (to  take  up  a  former 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  71 

metaphor)  that  a  non-worshipping  intruder  into  the 
Temple  of  Holy  Writ  is  disturbing  the  worship  by  his 
loud  talk  and  irreverent  behaviour.  But  the  fears  of  the 
plain  man  are  enhanced  by  a  failure  to  estimate  the 
immense  difference  which  separates  the  critical  problems 
of  the  New  Testament  from  those  of  the  Old — a  failure 
which  not  a  few  would-be  critics  share. 

It  is  true  that  the  method  by  which  the  second  group 
of  writings  must  be  tested  and  sifted  is  the  same ;  but 
the  material  to  be  dealt  with  is  in  one  respect  wholly 
diverse.  The  literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  besides 
being  largely  anonymous,  is  spread  over  a  vague  period 
of  a  thousand  years  or  more ;  and  much  of  it  is  separated 
by  many  generations  from  the  events  which  it  narrates. 
The  genesis  of  all,  or  practically  all,  of  the  New 
Testament  writings  is  confined  within  the  space  of  half 
a  century — roughly  speaking,  a.d.  50  to  100 — and  the 
latest  of  its  books  (with  the  possible  exception  of  2  Peter 
or  of  Jude)  was  in  all  probability  finished  within  seventy 
years  of  the  date  of  the  Crucifixion. 

These  simple  facts  of  chronology,  which  have  been 
established,  not,  indeed,  without  a  struggle,  but  es- 
tablished, one  may  hope,  once  for  all,  make  all  the 
difference.  No  amount  of  shifting  of  the  order  of  the 
documents  can  possibly  produce  for  the  New  Testament 
the  chronological  revolution  that  Wellhausenism  has 
introduced  into  Old  Testament  study  by  putting  the 
Prophets  before  the  Law. 

The  new  chronological  reading  of  the  Old  Testament 
documents  finds  indeed  (as  we  saw  in  the  preceding 
chapter)  a  curious  parallel  in  the  generally  accepted 
order  of  the  genesis  of  the  New  Testament  Books,  where 
the  Epistles,  representing  prophetism,  actually  precede 
the  Gospels — the  Christian  Tetrateuch — and  the  Apoca- 


72  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

lypse  comes  in  at  the  end  (or  near  the  end),  like  the 
Apocalyptic  writings,  canonical  and  uncanonical,  of 
Judaism. 

If  the  New  Testament  is  not  subject  to  drastic  chrono- 
logical rearrangement,  neither  can  there  be  levelled 
against  it  the  accusation  from  which  the  Old  Testament 
narratives  so  often  suffer,  that  it  lacks  the  essentials  of 
historical  credibility.  The  Old  Testament  historians,  we 
are  told,  date  from  the  Exile  or  later,  and  the  earliest  of 
the  documents  which  they  incorporate  cannot  (with  a 
few  fragmentary  exceptions)  claim  an  antiquity  earlier 
than  the  age  of  David  or  Solomon. 

If,  then,  no  historical  details  can  be  trusted  that  have 
passed  down  unwritten  for  more  than  a  couple  of 
generations,  all  likelihood  of  detailed  accuracy  in  these 
narratives  disappears.  This  canon  of  criticism,  if  so  it 
should  be  styled,  may  perhaps  be  accepted,  with  some 
reservation,  as  regards  details,  though  the  spade,  as  in 
Crete  of  late,  wins  now  and  again  surprising  victories 
over  the  critic's  pen,  and  vindicates  (as  we  have  seen) 
hoary  traditions  that  have  had  but  slender  documentary 
support.  But  such  criticism  has  no  foothold  in  a  region 
like  that  of  the  New  Testament,  where  all  (or  all  that  is 
essential)  is  compressed  into  the  space  of  a  single 
generation. 

In  the  New  Testament  region,  moreover,  archaeology 
is  very  largely  confirmatory  at  the  points  where  it 
touches.  The  researches  of  Sir  William  Ramsay,  for 
instance,  in  Asia  Minor  may  be  claimed  as  not  only 
illustrating  in  a  remarkable  way  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
and  the  first  two  chapters  of  the  Apocalypse,  but  also  as 
vindicating  the  historical  accuracy  and  detailed  topo- 
graphical knowledge  of  the  writers  of  tjios^  books, 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  73 

New  Testament  criticism  has  ceased  to  busy  itself  so 
mucli  with  date  and  authorship,  and  is  concentrating 
itself  more  and  more  on  the  central  Figure  of  the 
Gospels.  The  date  and  authorship  of  the  several 
documents  occupy  much  less  attention  to-day,  partly 
because  so  much  is  settled,  partly  because,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  the  problem  has  assumed 
another  form ;  and  it  is  '  source  ^  rather  than  authorship 
or  date  that  is  of  primary  importance. 

Much  is  settled.  Ramsay's  triumphant  vindication  of 
the  veracity  and  historical  trustworthiness  of  the  Acts, 
and  of  its  '  Lucan '  authorship — with  all  that  this  implies 
for  the  Third  Gospel — Harnack's  conversion  to  the  early 
date  of  practically  all  the  New  Testament  writings,  and, 
above  all,  to  the  genuineness  of  the  bulk  of  the  Pauline 
Epistles — these  are  great  gains,  of  permanent  value,  and 
have  helped  to  clear  the  ground. 

They  have  given  us  back  St.  Paul  (branded  in 
Tiibingen  days  as  the  wilful  perverter  of  Christianity) — 
given  him  back  to  us  as  the  author,  directly  or  indirectly 
(through  his  companion  St.  Luke),  of  half  our  New 
Testament,  as  the  great  thinker  and  statesman  to  whom, 
under  God,  Christianity  owes  its  very  continuance  in  the 
world. 

The  authorship  and  composition  of  the  Apocalypse 
still  offer  puzzling  problems,  for  which  it  is,  perhaps,  too 
soon  to  look  for  a  final  solution,  till  we  are  still  further 
familiar  with  the  Apocalyptic  literature  of  the  period 
outside  the  Canon.  Even  the  most  conservative  of 
critics,  who  contend  for  the  integrity  of  the  book  as  the 
work  of  a  single  author,  recognize  the  difficulty  of 
attributing  it,  with  its  immense  differences  of  style,  to  the 
author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  unless  a  considerable  lapse 


74  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

of  years  (and  change  of  conditions)  can  be  supposed 
between  the  composition  of  the  one  and  the  other.  But 
there  is  a  prevailing  tendency  to  date  the  Apocalypse, 
together  with  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  rest  of  the 
Johannine  writings,  before  the  close  of  the  first  century; 
and  in  this  matter  the  question  of  date  is,  perhaps,  even 
more  important  than  that  of  authorship. 

It  is  upon  the  Gospels,  then,  that  criticism  is  once 
again  concentrating  its  forces  more  and  more;  always 
with  a  view  to  coming  face  to  face  with  the  central 
Subject  of  these  Gospels,  who,  for  some  of  us,  is  also  the 
central  Figure  of  all  human  history. 

The  real  difficulty  of  harmonizing  the  narrative  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  with  that  of  the  other  three,  the  group 
of  problems  raised  by  the  interrelations  of  these  other 
three — called,  for  convenience,  '  The  Synoptic  Problem ' 
— these  matters  are  still  to  the  fore,  though  some,  at 
least,  of  the  questions  are  nearing  a  provisional  solution. 
But  the  critical  spirit  cannot  rest  there.  Working  upon 
the  data  supplied  by  the  study  of  these  and  of  kindred 
problems,  it  is  making  a  bold  attempt  to  estimate  how 
much  of  the  Gospel  teaching,  as  we  have  it,  can  be 
identified  (in  substance  at  least)  with  actual  sayings  of 
Jesus,  and  how  much  must  be  attributed  to  the  interpre- 
tative tendency  of  the  minds  through  which  it  has  been 
filtered ;  and,  finally,  what  is  the  real  tone  and  tendency 
of  the  original  utterances  so  far  as  we  can  disentangle 
them.  Has  the  Lord's  teaching  been  faithfully  trans- 
mitted, or  has  it  (perhaps  without  any  lack  of  bona  fides) 
assumed  a  very  different  complexion  in  the  course  of 
that  dogmatic  evolution  which  must  have  begun  from 
the  first  moment  when  the  Master's  words  fell  upon  the 
ears  of   fallible,  if  loyal,  disciples  ?     We  have  here,  in 


CEITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  75 

other  words,  the  question  crudely  propounded  in  the 
alternative,  '  Jesus  or  Christ  V  We  have  also  the 
problem  raised  in  a  different  form,  in  the  discussion  of 
the  ^ eschatological  teaching^  of  Jesus.  To  these  we 
will  revert  in  a  moment,  but  first  it  may  be  well  to 
sketch,  in  as  few  words  as  possible,  the  present  state  of 
criticism  with  regard  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  with 
regard  to  the  Synoptic  problem. 

The  fierce  battle  that  has  raged  now  for  years  over 
the  authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  can  scarcely  be 
said  to  have  issued  in  an  absolutely  decisive  victory  for 
either  side.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  the  traditionalists  would 
seem  to  have  the  advantage.  Harnack  now  admits  the 
STohannine^  authorship;  and  though  it  is  to  another 
John  that  he  attributes  it,  yet  this  '  John  the  Elder '  "^  is 
a  contemporary  of  John  the  Apostle,  and  is  accounted 
the  author  also  of  the  Apocalypse.  If  an  early  date  be 
admitted — within  the  limits  of  the  first  century — that  is 
really,  perhaps,  more  important  than  the  actual  author- 
ship. On  the  other  hand,  a  bold  attempt  has  been  made 
by  Schmiedel  to  shift  the  date  to  near  the  middle  of 
the  second  century  (a.d.  132-140).  It  requires  but  a 
little  historical  imagination  to  realize  the  extreme 
difficulty  of  this  hypothesis,  by  which  an  entirely  new 
Gospel  is,  in  Dr.  Sanday^s  words,  '  suddenly  thrust  into 
the  course  of  events  ...  as  it  were  under  the  very  eyes 
of  Poly  carp  and  Anicetus  and  Justin  and  Tatian,  with- 
out making  so  much  as  a  ripple  upon  the  surface.' 

Nor  do  we  find  Wernle's  theory  convincing — that '  the 
whole  of  the  Johannine  theology  is  a  natural  develop- 
ment of  the  Pauline.' 

*  Mentioned  by  Papias  in  the  well-known  passage  cited  by 
Eusebius,  '  H.  E.,'  iii.  89. 


76  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Attempts  have  been  made  to  dissect  the  Gospel  into 
two  or  more  documents — e.g.,  the  first,  comparatively 
early  and  dependent  on  the  Synoptics,  the  second 
consisting  of  additions  by  a  later  editor.  It  would  be 
useless  to  deny  that  abundant  material  for  such  analj^sis 
can  be  found,  especially  on  a  theory  which  demands  a 
more  than  twentieth-century  consistency,  and  a  Western 
sequence  of  ideas  in  the  Evangelist.  But,  on  the 
whole,  the  theory  which  best  fits  the  facts  would  seem 
to  be  that  of  '  reminiscences  interpreted  in  the  light  of 
fuller  experience  and  later  controversy,'  with  or  without 
a  definite  implied  criticism  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  such 
as  Dr.  Sanday  inclines  to.  And  no  more  appropriate 
author  has  yet  been  suggested  than  John  the  Apostle, 
son  of  Zebedee,  to  be  identified  with  the  'other  disciple' 
and  '  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved '  of  the  Gospel  itself. 
That  he  was  a  Jew  of  Palestine,  and  of  all  the  Evangel- 
ists the  best  acquainted  with  Rabbinic  Judaism,  appears 
to  be  a  growing  conviction  among  Jewish  scholars. 

The  Synoptic  problem  seems,  after  years  of  patient  and 
industrious  labour,  to  be  nearing  a  solution.  The  three 
Gospels  have  been  compared  with  one  another,  paragraph 
by  paragraph  and  verse  by  verse.  Every  phrase,  every 
single  word,  has  been  weighed,  tabulated,  classified. 
We  have  had  printed  and  set  out  in  parallel  columns 
the  sections  in  which  St.  Luke  and  St.  Matthew  agree 
with  St.  Mark ;  those  in  which  St.  Mark  and  one  other 
are  coincident ;  those  in  which  St.  Luke  and  St.  Matthew 
are  together  with  nothing  corresponding  in  St.  Mark; 
and  the  passages  peculiar  to  each  Gospel  have  been 
carefully  classified  and  considered.  The  traditions  of 
later  writers,  and  notably  those  derived  from  Papias 
of   Hierapolis    (circa   a.d.   130),   about   the    Gospels   of 


CRITICISM  AND  ABCH^OLOaY  77 

St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark  have  not  been  left  out  of 
account;  every  attempt  has  been  made — now  with  greater 
and  now  with  less  success — to  respect  them  in  forming  a 
decision.  The  results  so  far  attained  from  this  investiga- 
tion may  be  roughly  set  down  somewhat  as  follows : 

The  first  point  established  is  that  St.  Mark's  Gospel  is 
the  earliest,  and  may  be  supposed,  in  accordance  with 
the  tradition  preserved  by  Papias,  to  preserve,  in 
substance,  the  teaching  of  St.  Peter,  or  to  be  derived 
directly  or  indirectly  from  that  Apostle. 

The  next  point  is  the  use  of  this  '  Second '  Gospel  hy 
the  First  and  Third.  In  these  other  Gospels  the  narra- 
tive of  St.  Mark  reappears  in  its  order,  phraseology,  and 
detail.  Each  uses  nearly  the  whole  of  the  material 
supplied  by  St.  Mark,  but  uses  that  material  inde- 
pendently. 

Further,  while  a  comparison  of  St.  Matthew  with 
St.  Luke  gives  no  ground  for  the  supposition  that  either 
of  these  Evangelists  knew  the  other's  work  as  we  have  it, 
it  warrants  us  in  the  conclusion  that  each  of  them  used, 
independently,  a  document  other  than  St.  Marh.  Though 
this  document  is  unknown,  and  cannot  be  dated  with 
certainty,  their  use  of  it  is  so  full  that  it  can  almost 
be  reconstructed,  conjecturally,  from  St.  Matthew  and 
St.  Luke."^ 

Lastly,  while  both  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke  have 
clearly  made  use  of  other  (independent)  sources,  one 
point,  on  which  not  a  few  scholars  confidently  expected 
to  be  enlightened,  still   remains   obscure — namely,  the 

*  This  source  was  at  one  time  provisionally  identified  by  many 
with  the  Logia  or  'Oracles  of  the  Lord'  mentioned  by  Papias. 
The  identification  may  not  be  wholly  baseless,  but  is  not  much  in 
favour  now.  The  present  symbol  for  this  '  common  tradition  of 
bt.  Matthew  and  St.  Luke'  is  Q  (German,  Quelle  =  BOMvc,<d). 


78  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

connection,  if  such  there  be,  between  the  Gospel  we 
know  as  St.  Matthew's  and  the  Logia,  or  '  Sayings  of 
Jesus/  of  which  Papias  speaks.  '  Matthew/  says  that 
writer,  in  a  familiar  passage,  '  composed  the  oracles 
{XoyLo)  in  the  Hebrew  language,  and  each  one  inter- 
preted them  as  he  could.' ^  That  the  influence  of  a 
collection  of  such  oracles  in  Hebrew  or  Aramaic  can  be 
traced  upon  our  present  First  Grospel  is  more  than  can 
be  affirmed  at  present,  though  it  would  be  bold  to  deny 
the  possibility  of  it.  What  seems  to  be  probable  is  that 
the  Grospel  in  question  acquired  its  title  of  St.  Matthew 
because  an  early  generation  of  Christian  critics  inferred 
or  assumed  its  dependence  on,  or  its  identity  with,  the 
Logia  mentioned  by  Papias. 

The  relation  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  narrative  to  that 
of  the  Synoptics  is  still  under  discussion.  There  are 
immense  difficulties  confronting  the  harmonizer,  but 
there  is  still  a  good  deal  to  be  said  in  favour  of  the 
superior  accuracy  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  certain  details. 
The  Synoptics  seem  to  imply  a  Judaean  ministry  which 
they  never  describe ;  St.  John's  dating  of  the  Crucifixion 
is  by  many  thought  to  be  the  true  one,  and  there  are  not 
a  few  passages  which  favour  the  hypothesis  that  the 
Fourth  Gospel  deliberately  supplements  the  first  three. 

Such  being,  roughly,  the  present  state  of  Gospel 
criticism,  what  is  the  particular  form  assumed  by  the 
problems  which  attach  themselves  to  the  Person  of  our 
Lord  ?  Such  problems  are  apt  to  be  protean,  ever 
changing  form,  shifting  ground,  and  much  of  their  actual 
expression  at  any  given  moment  is  often  of  a  merely 
ephemeral  interest.  But  the  two  aspects  of  the  central 
problem  which  are  most  prominently  before  us  to-day 
*  Eusebius,  *H.  E.,'iii.  39. 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCH^OLOaY  79 

have  a  more  than  passing  importance.  Rightly  under- 
stood, the  eschatological  question,  and  the  dilemma, 
'  Jesus  or  Christ  ?'  raise  issues  of  greatest  moment. 

(1)  Taking  the  eschatological  question  first,  we  will 
glance  first  at  its  general  aspect,  as  it  must  appear  to  the 
ordinary  intelligent  observer,  and  then  consider  a  little 
more  deeply  its  grounds  and  its  issues.  For  many  ages 
Christendom  has,  for  obvious  reasons,  interpreted  sym- 
bolically and  figuratively  the  utterances  of  her  Lord  and 
His  first  followers,  as  recorded  in  the  New  Testament, 
with  regard  to  the  approaching  end  of  the  world  and 
the  '  Second  Coming '  of  Christ.  There  has  probably 
always  been  a  latent  feeling  that  much  of  this  interpre- 
tation was  unsatisfactory,  that  it  explained  away  what 
looked  like  plain,  straightforAvard  language,  and  that  it 
entirely  failed  to  account  for,  or  to  justify,  the  general 
expectation  of  an  ^  end  of  all  things,'  which  a  literal 
reading  of  the  New  Testament  seems  to  shew  was  the 
prevailing  attitude  of  the  first  generation  of  Christians. 
Christ's  teaching  has  been  interpreted  more  and  more, 
especially  by  Protestant  theologians,  as  though  it  con- 
tained no  eschatological  element  at  all — as  though  it 
had  no  message  about  a  future  dispensation  and  another 
life,  but  were  just  a  rational  system  of  ethics  made  to 
suit  this  present  world,  and,  in  particular,  our  Western 
civilization  of  to-day.  Even  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
that  precious  collection  of  moral  precepts  and  principles 
adapted  to  the  whole  range  of  human  life,  has  to  be 
violently  expurgated  if  it  is  to  be  reduced  within  such 
limits;  and  the  inadequacy  and  unreality  of  the  traditional 
interpretation  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  has  roused  the 
indignation  of  honest  critics  and  brought  about  a 
reaction.     Extreme  criticism  will  have  it  that  our  Lord's 


80  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

doctrine  is  saturated  with  tlie  characteristic  ideas  of  the 
age  and  century  in  which  it  was  first  delivered,  and  ex- 
hibits nothing  original  .except,  perhaps,  the  identification 
of  Himself  with  the  '  Son  of  man/  All  the  rest  (it  is  said) 
was  '  in  the  air/  as  is  clear  to  us  from  our  fuller  know- 
ledge of  the  apocalyptic  writings  current  at  the  time. 

The  Apocalyptic  Writings  of  Judaism,  of  which  several 
have  been  discovered  in  recent  years,  are  very  impor- 
tant for  the  understanding  of  the  conditions  prevailing 
in  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  atmosphere  of  Palestine 
in  the  first  century  a.d.  The  writings  to  which  this 
designation  of  ^  Apocalyptic '  is  given  range  from  about 
170  B.C.  to  about  a.d.  100,  several  of  the  later  ones  being 
wholly  or  partly  Christian  works.  The  series  includes 
two  canonical  books — the  Book  of  Daniel  (the  first  of 
the  Apocalypses  properly  so  called),  and  that  of  the 
Revelation,  a  typical  apocalyptic  work  which  has  lent 
its  name  to  the  whole  group.  After  the  Bab3donian 
Exile  prophecy  began  to  assume  a  new  form.  The 
change  is  already  visible  in  Ezekiel,  who  represents 
the  period  of  transition,  and  is  still  more  prominent 
in  Zechariah.  i,The  prophet's  spirit  apparently  becomes 
more  and  more  removed  from  earthly  things,  more 
dependent  (as  in  Ezekiel  and  Daniel)  upon  trance- 
visions  and  special  psychic  conditions.  It  dwells  in- 
creasingly upon  the  supernal  world,  which  it  depicts  in 
obscurely  symbolic  imagery ;  occupies  itself  with  heaven 
and  the  angel-world  and  the  future  destiny  of  man 
beyond  the  grave.  It  shows  two  tendencies  side  by  side. 
On  the  one  hand,  its  view  becomes  broader  and  more 
abstract :  it  is  able  to  give  us,  as  in  Daniel,  the  begin- 
nings of  a  philosophy  of  history;  on  the  other,  as 
Judaism   becomes   subject   to   foreign   domination   and 


i; 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCH^OLOaY  81 

cruel  oppression,  it  dwells  on  national  glory  and  national 
revenge.  The  patriotic  note  of  Divine  judgment  upon 
enemies  is  pronounced.  The  great  Apocalyptic  period 
synchronizes  with  the  persecution  of  Antiochus  Epi- 
phanes  and  the  revolt  under  Judas  Maccabaeus  at  its 
beginning,  and  with  the  revolt  against  Rome  and  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  at  its  end.  These  apocalyptic 
books,  all  alike  pseudonymous — i.e.y  circulated  under 
assumed  names — include  the  Book  of  Enoch  (100  B.C. 
and  later),  quoted  by  St.  Jude  (verse  14) ;  the  Assump- 
tion of  Moses  (4  B.C.  to  a.d.  10),  referred  to  by  the  same 
writer  (verse  9)  ;  the  Apocalypse  of  Ezra,  which  appears 
in  the  Apocrypha  of  our  Bibles  as  2  Esdras  iii.-xiv. 
(a.d.  90-100) ;  that  of  Barttch  (a.d.  90-100) ;  and  two  or 
three  others,  among  which  is  the  early  Christian  Apoca- 
lypse of  Peter,  of  which  a  large  portion  was  first  pub- 
lished in  1892.  This  last  is  of  special  interest,  because 
it  has  nothing  Jewish  about  it,  and  because  at  one  time 
it  seemed  likely  to  find  a  place  within  the  Canon.  With 
these  Apocalypses  may  also  be  classed  the  so-called 
Sibylline  oracles — poems  partly  Jewish  (140  et  seq.  B.C.) 
and  partly  Christian — the  Pharisaic  Psalms  of  Solomon"^ 
(63  et  seq.  B.C.)  appended  to  some  manuscripts  of  the 
Septuagint,  and  the  Ascension  of  Isaiah,  perhaps  referred 
to  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. t 

This  literature  goes  far  towards  explaining  to  us  the 
difference  noticeable  between  the  views  on  eschatology 
(that  is,  on  the  end  of  this  dispensation  and  the  world  to 
come),  which  are  implied  in  the  Old  Testament,  and 
those  which  appear  at  once  in  the  New.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly true  that  much  which  we  had  been  accustomed 
to  regard  as  original  in  the  New  Testament  writers  is 

*  With  the  lately-discovered  Odes  of  Solomon,  f  xi.  47. 

6 


82  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

now  proved  to  have  been  a  commonplace  of  eschatology 
or  of  Messianic  prediction  in  those  apocalyptic  writings 
which  St.  Jude  quotes  almost  as  though  they  were 
'  Scripture/"^  The  solitary  reference  to  ^a  Son  of  man' 
in  Daniel  t  is  taken  up  and  elaborated  in  the  Book  of 
Enoch  in  connection  with  the  Messiah's  office  as  Judge, 
while  the  seventeenth  Psalm  of  Solomon  and  some  of  the 
Sibylline  oracles  contain  glowing  descriptions  of  Messiah's 
reign.  So  much  of  the  imagery  and  general  colouring 
of  our  Lord's  eschatological  discourses  is  traceable  in  one 
or  another  of  these  works  that  some  critics  are  tempted 
almost  to  deny  Him  originality  altogether.  What 
Christendom  has  accepted  as  puzzling  but  authoritative 
glimpses  into  the  future  and  into  the  world  to  come  are, 
from  this  point  of  view,  only  a  working  up  of  con- 
temporary eschatological  phrases  and  fancies,  many  of 
them  not  even  drawn  from  canonical  sources.  And  the 
heart  of  the  teaching  (as  it  is  contended)  is  apocalyptic 
and  eschatological.  The  ethics  of  Jesus,  for  which  so 
uniquely  final  and  perfect  a  character  has  been  claimed, 
are,  it  is  urged,  '  end-ethics ' — moral  teaching  suitable 
only  for  a  dispensation  just  coming  to  an  end,  wholly  un- 
suited  to  be  the  staple  moral  diet  of  successive  centuries 
of  humanity.  It  is  from  this  point  of  view,  presumably, 
that  a  recent  writer  has  dared  to  say :  '  The  New 
Testament  is  quite  unsuitable  for  general  reading  :  in 
particular  it  should  be  kept  carefully  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  young  and  simple  who  have  not  scholarship  and 
experience  enough  to  separate  grain  from  chaff,  and  to 
resist  the  infection  of  its  dangerous  delusions.' 

To  many  of  us  the  present  treatment  of  the  eschato- 
logical element   in  the   teaching  of  Jesus   will   appear 
*  Jude  9  et  seq.;  14,  15.  |  Dan.  vii.  13. 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCH^OLOaY  83 

exaggerated  and  far-fetched.  Nor  shall  we  be  inclined 
to  assent  at  once  to  the  conclusions  drawn  from  it.  For 
there  is  a  tendency  to  push  the  argument  very  far;  to 
claim  that  Christendom  has  entirely  misunderstood  the 
Master  who  spoke  so  continually  in  the  language  of  the 
particular  time  and  place  in  which  He  was  speaking, 
who  shared  very  largely  (so  far  as  His  words  can  shew  it) 
the  views  held  by  the  devout  Jews  of  His  time  about  the 
^  Day  of  the  Lord/  and  predicted  events  as  imminent  for 
which  His  followers  are  still  waiting  nineteen  centuries 
afterwards.  It  is  implied,  also,  that  He  himself  must 
have  misunderstood  the  course  that  events  were  to  take. 
Such  arguments  must  be  faced,  and  however  extravagant 
the  stress  laid  upon  one  aspect  of  the  teaching  may 
appear,  the  problems  raised  will  doubtless  leave  behind 
them  a  characteristic  contribution  to  the  understanding 
of  the  truth.  Meanwhile  we  must  needs  confess  that  if 
a  disproportionate  weight  is  given  to  eschatology,  it  is 
largely  by  way  of  reaction  from  the  long  neglect  of  that 
side  of  the  Master's  teaching.  It  was  time  the  balance 
should  be  redressed,  and  the  Church  brought  back  to  a 
right  attitude.  She  has  not,  of  late,  erred  on  the  side  of 
other- worldliness. 

The  fuller  knowledge  of  contemporary  apocalyptic 
phraseology  will  be  a  great  advantage,  enabling  us  to 
realize  more  than  before  how  far  our  Lord\s  utterances 
are  symbolical,  and  helping  us  here  and  there  to  a  truer 
interpretation  of  their  symbolic  meaning. 

We  have  always  the  Master's  own  disclaimer,  'Not 
even  the  Son  of  man  knoweth  the  day  and  hour';  we 
have  also  His  reminder  to  us,  '  It  is  not  for  you  to  know 
times  and  seasons  .  .  .';  and  with  these  conditions  in 
mind,  we  are  willing  to  accept  the  critics'  taunt.     The 


84  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

ethics  of  Jesus  are  '  end-ethics '  to  a  certain  extent,  and 
that  rightly  and  necessarily,  for  the  true  attitude  of  His 
followers  is  an  ever-expectant  attitude — expectant,  yet 
not  unsettled :  '  if  He  tarry,  wait  for  Him,'  and  wait 
industriously,  '  occupying  till  He  come,'  as  more  than 
one  of  His  own  parables  enjoins.  Meanwhile  these 
despised  '  end-ethics '  have  furnished  for  widely  different 
nations  and  races  the  most  satisfactory  code  the  world 
has  ever  seen. 

(2)  The  dilemma  '  Jesus  or  Christ  V  which  to  the  tradi- 
tional believer  looks  at  first  like  nonsense,  and,  as  he  begins 
to  realize  its  bearing,  assumes  the  character  of  something 
very  like  blasphemy,  is  again  a  bold  attempt  to  see  the 
Master  face  to  face,  to  listen  to  the  actual  tones  of  His 
voice  as  they  listened  who  heard  Him  on  the  lake-shore 
or  the  hillside  in  Galilee.  It  is  an  attempt  made  by  men 
who  think,  at  any  rate,  that  they  are  dealing  honestly 
with  the  material  of  the  Gospel  narratives,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  modern  learning.  Being  free  (as  they  conceive), 
from  presuppositions  such  as  colour  the  impression 
drawn  from  these  narratives  when  read  by  men  saturated 
with  Christian  tradition,  they  claim  to  see  depicted  there 
a  very  different  figure  from  the  Divine  Christ  of 
Christendom.  Their  quest  has  not  been  a  simple  or  an 
easy  one,  for  the  earliest  documents  from  which  they  can 
draw  their  data  are  already  tinted  with  the  tints  of 
Christology,  and  exhibit  a  superhuman  Christ.  Again, 
to  get  back  to  His  actual  words  is  an  almost  hopeless 
task.  The  more  part  of  the  sayings  are  absent  from  our 
earliest  Gospel,  St.  Mark,  and  are  variously  phrased 
sometimes  and  variously  grouped  in  St.  Matthew  and 
St.  Luke;  while  the  discourses  put  into  the  Master's 
mouth  by  the  fourth  Evangelist,  even  if  not  inconsistent 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCH^OLOaY  85 

with — but  rather  wholly  worthy  of — the  subject  of  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,  go  far  beyond  the  sayings  they  record 
of  Him,  in  many  ways,  and  appear  in  an  entirely  different 
form,  allegory  and  prolonged  discourse  taking  the  place 
of  parable  and  precept.  Moreover,  we  have  indications 
that  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth  spoke  in  Aramaic,  and 
that  His  followers  addressed  Him  likewise  in  that  tongue. 
Yet  the  utterances  attributed  to  Him,  all  but  a  few  short 
phrases,  are  extant  only  in  Greek. 

Long  familiarity,  however,  gives  a  sort  of  instinct  by 
which  the  genuine  and  characteristic  may,  to  some 
extent,  be  discerned.  And  we  have  no  right  to  make 
such  familiarity  a  monopoly  of  the  traditionalist  readers. 
One  critic,  Schmiedel,  has  hit  upon  a  plan  which  may 
afford  a  useful  standing-ground  and  starting-point  for 
students  of  whatever  tendency.  He  recognizes  that  the 
Gospels  as  we  have  them  depict  a  Divine  Christ,  and 
assumes  that  the  picture  does  not  faithfully  represent 
the  original.  He  admits,  however,  the  good  faith  of  the 
compilers  of  the  Gospel,  and  finds  it  worth  while  to 
search  among  the  material  that  they  have  left  us  for 
traces  of  the  untouched  original.  And  in  those  naive  and 
artless  narratives  he  is  not  disappointed  of  his  hope. 
Imbedded  in  the  structure  which  already  shews  signs, 
as  a  whole,  of  what  the  latest  criticism  would  call  the 
transfiguration  of  the  '  Jesus  of  history '  into  the  '  Christ 
of  Christianity,^  he  finds  twelve  short  passages  which  he 
is  able  to  choose  as  'foundation-pillars'  for  his  structure."^ 
They   are   partly   sayings    attributed    to    Jesus,    partly 

*  (1)  Mark  ill.  21,  31-35  ;  (2)  Mark  xiii.  32 ;  (3)  Mark  x.  18 ; 
(4)  Matt.  xii.  32 ;  (5)  Mark  xv.  34  ;  (6)  Mark  viii.  12 ;  (7)  Mark  vi. 
5,  6 ;  (8)  Matt.  xi.  2-6 ;  (9)  Matt.  xvi.  5-12 ;  (10)  Matt.  vii.  29  ; 
(11)  Mark  vi.  34;  (12)  Matt.  xi.  28.  [I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  King's 
Etkic  0^  Jesus  for  the  substance  of  this  and  the  following  paragraph.] 


86  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

descriptive  of  Him^  most  of  which  at  first  sight  would  so 
tell  against  the  general  tone  and  tendency  of  the  finished 
Gospels — tell,  in  fact,  against  the  Divinity  of  Christ — 
that  they  cannot  conceivably  have  been  invented,  or 
even  unconsciously  transmuted,  by  the  Evangelists ;  they 
must  be  genuine,  historical  beyond  all  dispute. 

Such  a  selection  must,  of  course,  be  largely  subjective, 
and  another  mind  working  towards  the  same  end 
would  probably  make  a  different  choice.  Nor  can  we 
hope  to  form  a  complete  picture  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
from  such  one-sided  and  arbitrarily  selected  data.  In 
practice,  however,  Schmiedel  may  be  said  to  give  us 
an  irreducible  minimum  beyond  which  criticism  can 
scarcely  presume  to  pass,  and  a  nucleus  to  work  from. 
And  it  is  remarkable  how  much  is  implied,  e.g.,  in  the 
sphere  of  ethics,  by  these  few  passages,  chosen,  not  at  all 
for  their  ethical  content,  but  simply  for  their  special 
trustworthiness.  They  show  an  intense  moral  earnest- 
ness, genuineness,  independence  and  self -reverence,  an 
essentially  ethical  conception  of  religion  ;  they  imply 
in  the  speaker,  or  Him  of  whom  the  words  were  spoken, 
a  sense  of  contrast  between  His  teaching  and  that  of  His 
times,  a  strong  sense  of  mission,  and  of  a  unique  relation 
to  God  and  man.  They  leave,  in  fact,  on  the  reader's 
mind  an  indelible  impression  of  authority. 

But  whether  in  Schmiedel's  plan  or  otherwise,  a 
determined  effort  is  being  made  to  work  back  from  the 
Christ  of  Christendom — the  Christ  in  whom  all  the  New 
Testament  writers  believe  —  to  an  earlier  and  more 
original  figure  presumed  to  be  implied  in  the  sources 
from  which  those  writers  draw  their  material — to  work 
back,  in  fact,  to  a  Jesus  who  is  not  yet  Christ.  And  as 
such  critics  sift  and  analyze  the  Gospel  matter,  they  seem 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCH^OLOaY  87 

to  find  materials  for  the  reconstruction  of  such  a  figure. 
They  find  One  whose  whole  spirit  seems  to  have  been 
saturated  with  the  apocalyptic  imagery  and  the  Messianic 
ideas  of  contemporary  Judaism;  One  who,  identifying 
Himself  with  the  '  Son  of  man  ^  of  Daniel  and  of  the 
later  Jewish  Apocalypses,  with  the  Messiah  or  Christ  of 
the  Psalms  and  Prophets  and  of  the  apocryphal  '  Psalms 
of  Solomon/  predicted  a  speedy  ending  of  this  world, 
a  swift  return  of  Himself  upon  the  clouds  of  heaven  to 
judge  mankind  and  bring  in  the  future  dispensation. 
They  find  His  outlook  to  be  apparently  coloured  by  the 
characteristic  superstitions  and  prejudices  of  the  age  and 
race  into  which  He  was  born.  They  have  discovered 
what  they  were  looking  for — the  human  Jesus  of 
Nazareth.  Unique  He  is,  supreme  in  moral  grandeur, 
in  spiritual  intensity;  but  not  supernatural,  not  the 
Christ  of  Christendom. 

It  is  essential  to  this  line  of  criticism  to  demonstrate 
that  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels  is  in  all  respects  a  Jew  of  His 
own  age,  with  the  ideas  and  the  outlook  of  His  con- 
temporaries. Some  of  its  exponents  go  further,  and 
strive  earnestly  to  belittle  His  teaching  as  being  local 
and  racial  in  its  tone  and  scope,  and  based  on  a  miscon- 
ception— to  wit,  that  the  end  of  the  world  was  imminent. 
This  latter  line  of  inference  is,  happily,  not  essential  to 
the  criticism  with  which  it  associates  itself,  nor  can  it  be 
alleged  against  it  as  its  inspiring  motive. 

The  aspect  of  a  great  teacher^s  message  which  brings 
him  into  contact  with  what  is  most  distinctive  of  con- 
temporary thought  (with  its  superstitions  and  prejudices, 
as  well  as  with  its  sounder  achievements)  has  been  well 
compared  to  the  scaffolding  which  is  erected  to  facilitate 
the  construction  of  a  permanent  building.     If  this  be 


88  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

so,  then  to  identify  Christ^s  permanent  message  with  the 
prevailing  Jewish,  apocalyptic  and  eschatological  form  in 
which  it  is  conched,  is  to  mistake  the  scaffolding  for  the 
building.  To  belittle  and  pour  scorn  upon  its  ethical 
principles  as  of  no  permanent  value,  is  to  shut  one's  eyes 
to  the  expansive  and  adaptable  quality  of  the  Gospel 
teaching,  which  has  shewn  itself  capable  time  after  time 
of  germinating,  developing  and  bearing  fruit  in  every 
type  of  human  soil. 

Some  of  His  utterances,  indeed,  seem  useless  for  this 
world,  unless  this  world  is  really  the  preparation  for 
another — unless,  that  is  (apart  from  the  question  of  time, 
concerning  which  a  New  Testament  writer  has  pointed 
out  to  us  that  'a  thousand  years  are  as  one  day'"^),  the 
Master's  outlook  was  essentially  right. 

If  originality  means  something  particular  and  out  of 
relation  to  the  rest  of  the  universe ;  if  to  be  original  one 
must  make  no  use  of  the  heritage  of  the  ages,  and  have 
no  correspondence  whatever  with  one's  own  present 
environment,  then  we  must  admit  that  the  Gospel  is 
not  original.  Before  the  eschatological  phase  of 
criticism  came  into  vogue,  or  the  question  'Jesus  or 
Christ  ?'  in  its  modern  form  was  raised,  most  of  us  realized 
that  many,  if  not  all,  of  the  Master's  most  characteristic 
phrases — and  all  the  words  of  which  those  phrases  were 
composed — were  in  existence  before  He  appeared  upon 
the  earth.  We  all  realized,  though  not  to  the  same  extent 
as  we  recognize  it  now,  that  His  teaching  was  clothed  in 
the  language  used  habitually  by  His  hearers,  and  illus- 
trated by  the  current  imagery  and  ideas  of  contemporary 
Judaism.  It  has  been  well  urged  that  if  He  had  spoken 
in  the  language  of  the  twentieth  century,  and  based  His 
*  2  Pet.  ill.  8 ;  cf.  Ps.  xc.  4. 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCH^OLOaY  89 

teaching  on  the  conceptions  of  the  same  epoch,  His  first- 
century  hearers  would  have  been  merely  mystified,  not 
uplifted  nor  kindled. 

But  this  is  not  to  deny  the  true  originality  of  His 
doctrine — its  implication  of  an  authority  unique  in  the 
records  of  human  history ;  its  masterly  manipulation  of 
Jewish  law  and  tradition ;  its  simple  and  consistent  body 
of  ethical  teaching  expressed  in  scattered  and  apparently 
disconnected  precepts;  its  fresh  and  illuminating  enun- 
ciation of  the  Divine  Fatherhood,  and  of  the  forgiveness 
of  sins.  In  these  and  countless  other  ways  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  is  stamped  with  the  impress  of  originality,  while 
the  most  original  element  of  all  that  the  Gospel  contains 
is  the  picture  of  His  own  character,  in  its  unity  and 
harmony,  in  its  balance  of  opposite  characteristics,  in  its 
intense  realization  of  sin  in  the  world,  combined  with  an 
entire  absence  of  any  trace  of  consciousness  of  sin  within 
His  own  soul. 

But  does  not  the  matter  resolve  itself  largely  into 
a  question  of  presuppositions  ?  Those  to  whom  historic 
Christianity  has  already  afforded  a  key  to  numberless 
problems  within  and  without  themselves,  those  who  are 
prepared  to  find  the  three  Gospels — nay,  the  four  Gospels 
— nay,  the  whole  of  the  New  Testament  writings — self- 
consistent  and  mutually  corroborative,  will  look  at  the 
question  '  Jesus  or  Christ  V  in  one  way ;  to  those  who 
approach  the  Gospels  with  what  seems  to  them  an  open 
mind,  but  to  their  opponents  looks  like  a  sharp  and 
irresponsible  pair  of  scissors,  it  will  have  a  quite  different 
meaning.  The  believers  in  Christianity  will  point  to 
the  Lord's  promise  of  the  Comforter,  whose  office,  as 
leader  into  all  truth,  was  just  that  of  transforming 
Jesus  of   Nazareth  into  that  Divine  Christ  which  was 


90  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

latent  in  Him  all  the  time^  yet  invisible  to  tliose  who 
knew  Him  'after  the  flesh/  for  that  'their  e3^es  were 
holden/ 

The  New  Theologians  will  promptly  produce  their  own 
copy  of  the  records,  from  which  the  Fourth  Gospel — 
supreme  example  of  the  Comforter's  work — has  been 
expunged,  and  with  it  the  Comforter  Himself.  The 
other  side  will  point  to  the  phenomenon  of  Christianity, 
and  ask  their  opponents  to  be  so  good  as  to  account  for 
it.  They  will  bid  them  mark  the  extraordinary  swiftness 
and  completeness  of  the  supposed  change  of  tradition 
from  Jesus  to  Christ ;  they  will  suggest  the  unlikelihood 
of  so  beneficent,  so  vigorous  and  so  progressive  a 
structure  being  built  on  the  foundation  of  a  woeful 
misunderstanding  or  a  wilful  perversion  of  the  teachings 
of  a  largely  misguided  Jewish  enthusiast.  Finally,  they 
will  turn  from  the  contemplation  of  historic  Christianity, 
and  declare  with  Dr.  Headlam  that,  if  the  New  Testament 
records  had  disappeared,  we  should  be  forced  (were  it 
possible)  to  reconstruct  them  in  order  to  account  for  the 
subsequent  course  of  history. 

Yet  we  cannot  quite  dismiss  in  this  fashion  the  contro- 
versy which  has  raised  once  more  the  question  of  the 
Divinity  of  our  Lord,  and  raised  it  in  a  new  form.  It  is 
too  soon,  perhaps,  to  formulate  in  this  case  the  resulting 
gains  to  the  truth  which  must,  we  are  convinced,  be  the 
outcome  of  every  battle  for  the  faith. 

Yet,  perhaps,  we  may  dimly  see  some  fruits  of  the 
struggle.  What  if  the  now  popular  interpretation  of 
St.  Paul's  significant  words  about  the  Lord's  'self- 
emptying  ' — the  theory  initiated  by  Lux  Mundi — should 
be  jDroved  inadequate  ?  What  if  it  should  seem  neces- 
sary, in  view  of  the  demands  of  truth  to  fact,  and  of  the 
demands,  indeed,  of  the  true  humanity  of  Jesus,  to  look 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCH^OLOaY  91 

upon  Him  more  frankly  and  simply  as  a  Jew  of  His  own 
age,  with  the  general  outlook  and  ideas  of  His  contem- 
poraries, and  to  suppose  the  Divinity  in  Him  confined 
(at  first,  at  any  rate)  to  that  region  of  the  subliminal 
consciousness  which  figures  so  largely  in  modern  psycho- 
logy ?"^  Might  there  not  thus  emerge  from  the  seemingly 
barren  controversy  a  theory  of  the  Incarnation  that 
would  satisfy  at  once  the  demands  of  a  strict  criticism 
of  the  Gospel  material,  and  of  the  objections  of  those 
who  are  scandalized  at  the  Christological  development 
which  they  see  at  work  in  the  Church  of  the  Apostolic 
and  the  Subapostolic  Age — the  process  by  which,  as  they 
would  say,  '  Jesus '  is  transformed  into  '  Christ '  ?  For 
the  process  will  be  found  to  have  been  paralleled  in  the 
consciousness  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself,  as  the  power  and 
meaning  of  the  latent  Divinity  gradually  penetrated 
upward  from  the  subconscious  region,  making  itself  felt 
first  now  and  again,  as  in  the  boy  of  twelve  years  old  in 
the  Lucan  narrative,t  then  more  fully,  as  all  evangelists 
suggest,  from  His  baptism  onwards. 

But  without  daring  to  intrude  into  such  sacred 
regions,  or  to  forecast  the  ultimate  results  of  the  present 
phase  of  criticism  upon  Christian  theology,  we  may 
admit  without  reserve  that  criticism  has  changed  the 
attitude  even  of  the  intelligent  traditionalist  towards  the 
New  Testament  writings,  as  well  as  towards  those  of  the 
Old  Testament,  though  not,  perhaps,  to  the  same  extent. 
There  are  few  thoughtful  men  to-day  who  would  not  be 
ready  to  admit,  for  instance,  that  the  '  Second  Epistle  of 
St.  Peter,^  as  we  have  it,  is  pseudonymous ;  few  who  will 
not  allow  that,  while  the  three  Johannine  Epistles  are 

■*  A  view  put  forward  in  Dr.  Sanday's  Christologies  (which  I  had 
not  seen  wh"n  I  penned  these  lines).— L.  R. 
t  Luke  ii.  49. 


92  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

obviously  by  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  there  are 
grave  (though,  perhaps,  not  insurmountable)  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  attributing  the  Apocalypse  to  the  same 
hand.  There  are  few,  again,  who  will  not  be  prepared 
to  acknowledge  the  existence  of  a  '  Synoptic  Problem  ^ ; 
who  will  not  admit  that  the  first  three  Gospels,  as  we 
have  them — the  first  and  third,  at  any  rate — show  signs 
of  compilation  and  of  a  dependence  on  other  writings, 
of  which  the  Second  Gospel  may  or  may  not  be  the  most 
considerable.  There  are  few  who,  studying  candidly  the 
verbal  differences — and  differences  of  arrangement  which 
occasionally  characterize  the  same  matter  as  it  reappears 
in  one  Gospel  and  another — will  not  be  ready  to  confess 
that  here  and  there  at  any  rate  there  must  be  some 
doubt  as  to  whether  we  have  preserved  for  us  the 
ipsissima  verba  of  the  Master.  And  the  same  is  true, 
a  fortiori,  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  where  the  character  and 
phraseology  of  the  discourses  is  in  marked  contrast  to 
that  exhibited  in  the  Synoptics.  However  convinced 
we  may  be  that  St.  John's  portrayal  of  his  Master  is 
genuinely  and  intimately  faithful,  we  shall  be  bound  to 
confess  that  either  it  or  the  Synoptic  portrait  reflects  the 
individuality  of  the  portrayer — is  marked,  so  to  speak, 
with  the  mannerisms  of  his  style  :  has  the  seal  upon  it 
(we  should  prefer  to  say)  of  the  Holy  Spirit's  leading 
through  long  years  of  meditation.  St.  John's  Christ  is 
the  Christ  of  reflection,  and  of  a  vital  spiritual  experience. 

In  New  Testament  study,  as  in  that  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, criticism  has  changed  the  view-point  of  even  the 
most  conservative  student.  The  wild  extravagances  of 
Tiibingen  have  been  thoroughly  exposed ;  we  may  seem 
to  have  come  back  practically  to  the  same  point  at  which 
our  fathers  stood.  But  it  is  not  so.  The  movement  has 
not  been  a  mere  swing  of  the  pendulum,  or  the  comple- 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHiEOLOCY  93 

tion  of  a  circle.  It  is  a  spiral  movement  by  which  most 
things  in  this  world  progress.  And  so  here,  while  many 
of  the  once  familiar  objects  have  emerged  again  into  sight, 
we  are  really  further  advanced  than  we  were. 

Criticism  has  of  necessity  modified  in  certain  directions 
the  current  view  of  inspiration — of  that  we  will  say  more 
later  on.  But  what  has  it  to  say  to  canonicity  ?  Luther 
and  his  contemporaries  (as  we  have  seen  elsewhere) 
were  half  inclined  to  reconstruct  the  Canon  on  a  sub- 
jective basis,  keeping  the  books  which  had  most  to  say 
about  Christ,  and  those  which  offered  clearest  support  to 
their  favourite  doctrines,  and  rejecting  the  rest.  In  this 
they  were  influenced  also  to  some  extent  by  the  criteria 
of  contemporary  scholarship;  and  it  was,  we  may  say, 
on  literary-historical  grounds  that  they  gave  to  the 
Apocrypha  that  ambiguous  position  which  those  writings 
hold  among  us  to-day. 

The  tendency  of  modern  Higher  Criticism  is  to  ignore 
the  question  of  canonicity,  except  in  so  far  as  the  history 
of  the  growth  of  the  Canon  is  matter  for  technical  study 
as  a  department  of  the  history  of  ancient  literature. 
With  the  canonical  authority  of  the  books  such  criticism 
has  nothing  to  do.  It  deals  with  the  documents,  not  as 
inspired,  nor  as  canonical,  but  simply  as  so  much  mere 
literature. 

The  Old  Testament  critic,  though  he  passes  judgment 
freely  and  fearlessly  on  the  comparative  merits  of  the 
various  documents  considered  as  literature,  or  as  soi- 
disant  historical  records,  does  not,  e.g.,  presume  to  say 
that  the  Judahite  and  Ephraimite  historians  (J  and  E) 
are  inspired  and  the  Priestly  writers  (P  and  H)  are  not ; 
nor  does  he  propose  to  exclude  the  Book  of  Chronicles 
from  the  Canon  because  he  finds  it  guilty  of  idealizations 


94  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

and  historical  inaccuracies,  or  the  second  part  of  Isaiah 
because  he  is  convinced  that  it  was  not  written  by  the 
prophet  whose  name  it  bears  by  tradition.  Nay,  the 
critic  leaves  to  the  traditionalist  this  crumb  of  comfort — 
that,  while  removing  the  historical  landmarks,  he  has 
largely  preserved  the  canonical  ones.  If  the  Law-books 
were  written  later  than  many  of  the  prophetic  writings, 
they  were  at  any  rate  accepted  first,  and  formed  the 
first  Bible  of  the  Hebrews.  The  canonical  order  is  not 
(1)  Prophets,  (2)  Law,  but,  as  of  old,  (1)  Law,  (2)  Prophets, 
(3)  Bagiographa. 

What  criticism  has  done  for  the  history  of  the  Old 
Testament  Canon  is  to  clear  away  the  overgrowth  and 
make  the  position  of  the  landmarks  plainer.  If  the 
result  is  a  bringing  forward  of  the  dates  by  several 
centuries,  that,  too,  has  its  compensations.  The  plain 
man's  horror  at  the  idea  of  Maccabean  Psalms  in  the 
Psalter  is  relieved  by  the  consideration  that  such  a 
theory  brings  out  more  clearly  the  continuity  of  the 
Divine  revelation.  Instead  of  the  deep,  dark  gulf  between 
Malachi  and  St.  Matthew,  peopled  with  dimly  discerned 
and  therefore  despised  figures  known  as  Apocrypha,  we 
find  fragments  of  inspired  literature  scattered  along  the 
route,  marked  with  the  hall-mark  of  full  canonicity — 
points  of  Divine  illumination  relieving  the  darkness  that 
followed  the  sunset  of  Old  Testament  prophetism. 

For  the  rest,  we  need  scarcely  remind  ourselves  of 
more  than  a  few  of  the  material  gains  that  have  accrued 
to  the  Bible  student  in  compensation  for  the  unsettlement 
of  this  critical  period. 

First  and  foremost  comes  the  feeling  that  truth  in 
general  is  making  headway,  the  conviction  that  in  the 
end  the  message  of  Him  who  is  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCH^OLOaY  95 

the  Life  must  be  helped  and  not  hindered,  clarified  and 
not  obscured,  by  an  access  of  real  knowledge,  from  what- 
ever quarter  it  comes — a  conviction  that,  though  the  pro- 
cess of  growing  in  knowledge  is  accompanied  by  its  pains, 
maturity  is  a  desirable  thing,  and  that  when  it  comes — this 
maturity  of  real  knowledge — then  the  Truth  shall  make 
us  free  indeed. 

The  study  of  the  Bible  in  general  has  benefited  by  the 
results  of  textual  criticism.  New  problems  have  been 
raised  by  the  attempt  in  Old  Testament  studies  to  get 
behind  the  traditional  Hebrew  (Massoretic)  text ;  ^  while 
in  the  New  Testament  the  intricacy  of  textual  controversy 
and  the  technicalities  of  its  discussion  are  evinced  by 
such  a  monumental  phrase  as  ^Western  non-interpolation.' 
Some  of  the  characteristic  problems  raised  by  it  will 
come  before  us  later  on.t  But  to  the  genuine  lover  of 
the  Bible  any  process  is  to  be  welcomed  which  gives  him 
the  hope  of  a  nearer  access  to  the  text  of  the  Scripture 
as  it  left  its  first  writers'  hands. 

On  this  foundation  of  textual  criticism  is  built  up  the 
structure  of  the  Higher,  the  literary-historical  criticism, 
and  it  would  be  difficult  to  deny  that  its  gifts  to  the 
Bible  student  are  more  valuable  still.  True,  they  do 
not  (or  should  not)  directly  touch  the  inner  heart  of 
Scripture,  the  deep  which  answers  to  the  deep  of  the 
reader's  spirit;  but  they  give  him  new  opportunities  of 
intelligent  appreciation  of  the  letter,  and  new  possibilities, 
therefore,  of  just  and  living  interpretation.  In  this  they 
are  reinforced  by  the  gifts  of  archaeology,  which,  literally 
as  well  as  metaphorically,  supply  us  with  pictorial  illus- 
trations of  the  sacred  text,  and  enable  us  also  to  compare 

*  On  the  Massoretic  text  see  next  chapter,  p.  105. 
t  Ibicl,^.  106. 


96  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

the  picture  of  the  religious  development  of  the  Chosen 
People  at  various  stages  with  that  of  contemporary 
heathen  nations. 

But  it  is  in  the  great  principles  that  emerge  from  it, 
more  perhaps  than  in  matters  of  detail,  that  Criticism 
may  claim  the  gratitude  of  the  Bible  student. 

If  it  has  removed  certain  cherished  ideas  and  formulas, 
it  has  brought  out  as  never  before  the  separate  individu- 
ality of  the  sacred  writers,  and  taught  us  to  realize  the 
living  presence  of  the  human  element  in  Scripture.  As 
literature  the  Scriptures  have  thereby  gained  im- 
mensely in  interest,  and  meanwhile  the  mere  scientific 
study  of  them  on  their  literary  side  has  made  the 
appreciation  of  them  in  this  direction  more  richly  possible 
to  us  all. 

But  it  is  perhaps  on  the  side  of  revelation  and  inspira- 
tion (just  where  it  seems  to  have  created  most  disturb- 
ance) that  modern  criticism  has  the  most  vivifying  and 
illuminating  suggestions  to  make. 

It  has  familiarized  us  with  the  ideas  of  contmuity  and 
'progress  as  applied  to  Divine  revelation,  and  it  has 
focussed  the  conception  of  inspiration  in  such  a  way  as 
to  bring  us  appreciably  nearer  a  definition  of  that  most 
elusive  idea. 

The  thought  of  progress  in  revelation  comes  out  more 
clearly  than  before  in  a  theory  that  takes  the  leading 
narratives  of  the  Books  of  Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings 
pretty  much  as  they  stand,  and  makes  Moses  the 
promulgator  of  a  germ  rather  than  of  the  entire  system 
of  the  levitical  legislation.  The  continuity  of  revelation 
is  brought  out  in  two  ways,  for,  besides  the  practical 
continuity  between  Old  and  New  Testament  times,  which 
results  from  the  later  dating  of  some  of  the  documents, 


CRITICISM  AND  ARCHEOLOGY  97 

Criticism  and  Archaeology  alike  are  constantly  narrowing 
the  gap  that  divides  early  Israel,  in  most  things,  from  the 
surrounding  nations.  The  Hebrew  civilization  is  seen 
more  and  more  to  be  continuous  with  rather  than  out 
of  all  relation  to  the  neighbouring  civilizations;  the 
differentia  of  the  Chosen  People  is  seen  more  and  more 
to  have  consisted  in  a  Divine  selection  of  elements 
common  to  the  heathen  world,  and  a  transfiguration  of 
those  elements  under  the  great  informing  principle  of  a 
progressively  spiritual  and  monotheistic  worship — a 
monotheism  which,  if  it  has  occasional  parallels  in 
Babylonia,  Egypt  (under  Khuen-aten),  and  Persia,  is,  in 
its  depth  and  its  permanence,  unique  in  the  history  of 
ancient  religion.  The  Hebrews  had  more  in  common 
with  the  Canaanites  than  we  once  supposed,  more  in 
common  with  the  Babylonians.  And  the  comparison  of 
the  Hebrew  records  with  Babylonian  inscriptions,  and 
with  the  data  for  Canaan  furnished  by  Palestinian 
excavation,  while  it  points  to  an  ^  inspiration  by  selec- 
tion,' offers,  as  does  also  comparison  with  the  fine 
religious  literature  of  ancient  Egypt,  a  convincing 
testimony  to  the  supreme  position  occupied  by  Israel  in 
the  religious  sphere. 

We  ventured  to  suggest  just  now  that  criticism  had 
brought  us  appreciably  nearer  to  a  definition  of  inspira- 
tion. For  one  thing,  it  has  narrowed  the  field  of  in- 
spiration strictly  so  called.  It  has  taught  us  to  look  no 
longer  upon  G-enesis  as  a  scientific  textbook  of  geology, 
anthropology,  or  the  like,  or  even  as  a  verbally  and 
chronologically  accurate  account  of  the  early  history  of 
the  human  race.  We  do  not  go  to  the  Song  of  Songs 
for  the  principles  of  botany,  nor  to  the  Book  of  Job  for 
the  classification  of  mammals.     Much  material  for  the 

7 


98  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

early  history  of  any  of  the  sciences  alluded  to  may  be 
gathered  from  the  Hebrew  Scriptures;  but  we  have 
learned  to  look  to  the  Scriptures  primarily  for  moral 
and  religious  teaching,  and  to  expect  to  find  even  this 
revealed  progressively  '  by  divers  portions  and  in  divers 
manners/"^  For  while  we  believe. them  to  be  inspired 
of  God/  we  recognize  more  and  more  that  their  inspira- 
tion is  for  a  definite  purpose  :  that  the  Divine  treasure  is 
given  to  us  in  '  earthen  vessels  ^  t — the  revelation  of  God 
has  incarnated  itself,  so  to  speak,  under  the  conditions 
and  limitations  of  human  intellect  and  speech;  so  that 
while  their  natural  science,  their  historical  method  and 
the  whole  setting  of  their  message,  is  conditioned  by  the 
age  in  which  each  of  the  sacred  writers  lived,  there  is  a 
side,  an  aspect  of  their  teaching,  which  transcends  those 
limitations.  We  believe,  then,  that  every  Scripture 
inspired  of  God  is  profitable,  not  for  the  authoritative 
control  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  but  'for  reproof,  for 
correction,  for  instruction  which  is  in  righteousness,  that 
the  man  of  God  may  be  complete,  furnished  completely 
unto  every  good  work/ J 

*  Heb.  i.  1.  t  2  Cor.  iv.  7.  J  2  Tim.  iii.  16. 


SYMBOLS  USED  IN  CONNECTION  WITH  THE  BOCU- 
MENTAKY  ANALYSIS  OF  THE  PENTATEUCH  AND 
CERTAIN  OTHER  BOOKS  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

J.  Found  in  Genesis,  Exodus,  Numbers,  Deuteronomy  (chap,  xxxiv.), 
Joshua,  Judges,  and  (?)  Samuel.  A  Judahite  history  of  Israel 
and  its  antecedents  from  the  Creation  (Gen.  ii )  to  Samson, 
and  probably  to  the  death  of  David.  Uses  'Jehovah'  in 
Genesis.     It  is  dated  850  B.C.,  or  later. 

E.  Found  in  Genesis  (from  chap,  xx.),  Exodus,  Numbers,  Joshua, 
Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings.  An  Ephraimite  history  of 
Israel  from  Abraham  to  (?)  Elisha.  It  is  largely  parallel 
with  J,  but  has  characteristics  peculiar  to  itself;  is  more 
didactic,  and  less  anthropomorphic  than  J,  and  uses 
*  Elohim '  in  Genesis.     It  is  dated  between  850  and  750  B.C. 

D  or  Di.  Contained  certainly  Deut.  xii.-xxvi.,  probably  v.-xi.  and 
xxiii.,  possibly  also  i.-iv.  It  is  the  '  Book  of  the  Law,'  found 
by  Hilkiah  in  621  B.C.,  and  is  dated  between  721  and  621  b.c. 

D2.  An  editor  (or  editors)  who  completed  Deuteronomy,  and 
worked  up  the  other  books  (see  below). 

H.  =  Lev.  xvii.-xxvi.,  the  'Law  of  Holiness,'  with,  possibly,  also 
other  small  portions  of  the  book.  A  compilation  made 
from  older  codes  in  close  relation  to  Ezek.  xl.-xlviii.,  and 
probably  made  under  the  influence  of,  or  by  disciples  of 
Ezekiel.  It  forms,  apparently,  the  nucleus  of  the  next 
item  (P),  and  the  transition  between  it  and  D^.  It  is  to  be 
dated,  probably,  early  in  the  Exile. 

P.  Contains  much  of  Genesis,  Exodus,  Numbers,  all  Leviticus 
(including  H),  closing  verses  of  Deuteronomy,  Josh,  xiii.- 
xxii.  There  are  traces  of  its  influence  in  Judges  —  Kings, 
and  Chronicles  is  entirely  influenced  by  it.  A  constitutional 
history  of  Israel  from  the  Priestly  point  of  view,  may 
possibly  be  the  work  of  Ezra  himself.  Dated  in  Exile, 
some  time  before  Ezra's  mission  in  458. 

The  successive  processes  of  compilation  and  combination  by 
which  these  elements  were  fused  into  their  present  condition  are 
still  matter  of  controversy.    It  is  not  certain,  e.g.,  whether  or  not 

99 


100  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

J  and  E  were  combined  to  form  one  document,  JE,  before  the 
Deuteronomist  editor  or  editors  (?  possibly  Hilkiah  himself)  com- 
bined them  to  form  one  with  the  newly- discovered  Dj.  Nor  is  it 
certain  at  what  period  before  the  Eestoration  later  Deuteronomist 
editors,  D2,  worked  up  JEDj  with  the  sources  mentioned  in  Kings 
as  '  Acts  of  Solomon '  and  '  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  Judah '  and 
'  of  Israel,'  to  form  one  long  continuous  history  embracing  our 
Books  Genesis  to  2  Kings  (except  Leviticus  and  the  other  portions 
assigned  to  P).  This  process,  however,  and  the  addition  of  PH, 
must  probably  have  been  accomplished  before  400  B.C.  Chronicles, 
which  is  in  spirit  closely  allied  to  P,  belongs,  in  its  completed  form, 
like  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  to  the  following  century.  These  general 
results  we  may  tabulate,  roughly,  as  follows  : 

Ninth  century     J. 

Eighth  century E. 

Seventh  century  ...  JED,  (JE). 

Sixth  century     H  and  P,  PH. 

Fifth  century      JEDi+PH  +  Dg. 

Fourth  century Chronicles,  Ezra,  Nehemiah. 


IV 

PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION 

'EvEKY  Scripture  inspired  of  God/  wrote  St.  Paul  to 
Timothy,  ^  is  also  profitable  for  teaching,  for  reproof,  for 
correction,  for  instruction  which  is  in  righteousness/"^ 

If  this  is  the  only  passage  where  inspiration  is,  in  so 
many  words,  predicated  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures, 
there  are  not  a  few  others,  whether  in  St.  PauPs  own 
writings,  as  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,t  or  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  t  or  in  the  First  Epistle  of 
St.  Peter,§  where  the  implication  is  the  same.  A  like 
doctrine  is  implied  in  the  attitude  of  the  Evangelists 
towards  Scripture,  and  in  that  which  they  depict  as  in 
vogue  among  the  Jews,  and  adopted  by  Christ  Himself 
in  controversy  with  them. 

Of  the  fact  of  inspiration  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
we  may  safely  say  Christendom  has  never  doubted  from 
the  first.  The  reverence  accorded  them  by  the  Apostles 
as  pious  Jews  was  deepened  and  rendered  more  reason- 
able by  the  new  light  with  which  their  Divine  Master 
illuminated  the  hallowed  pages  when  He  exclaimed, 
'  These  are  they  which  bear  witness  of  me  ';||  or  when  He 
proclaimed  to  them  the  fulfilment  of  'all  things  .  .  . 
which  are  written  in  the  law  of  Moses  and  the  prophets  and 

♦  2  Tim.  lit.  16.  t  Rom.  xv.  4.  |  Heb.  i.  1. 

§  1  Pet.  i.  10  et  seq.  II  John  v.  89. 

101 


102  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

the  psaJms  concerning  me  'f"  or  when  (in  words  of  which 
we  refuse  to  be  deprived  by  a  purely  subjective  criticism), 
He  declared  that  He  had  come  not  to  destroy,  but  to 
fulfil  the  Law  and  the  Prophets. t 

And  this  acceptance  of  the  Old  Testament  writings  as 
inspired  was  soon  followed,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the 
elevation  of  certain  writings  of  the  Apostolic  Age  to  a 
like  position  of  honour.  First  the  Gospels,  then  the 
Pauline  Epistles  (which  seem  already  in  2  Peter  to  be 
classed  as  Scripture), J  and  finally  the  rest  of  the  New 
Testament,  came  to  be  recognized  as  '  inspired  of  God.' 

Of  the  fact  of  inspiration  there  has  never  been  any 
doubt,  but  of  the  nature  of  inspiration  no  authoritative 
definition  has  ever  been  given;  and  so  all  sorts  of 
questions  remain  on  which  the  reverent  imagination  and 
intellect  may  exercise  themselves. 

What  does  it  mean  when  we  say  that  the  Scriptures 
are  inspired  ?  Does  it  imply  a  miraculous,  and  a 
uniformly  miraculous,  process  by  which  each  was 
originated  ?  Does  it,  for  instance,  according  to  a  view 
of  inspiration  generally  held  a  century  ago,  imply  such 
a  direct  action  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  the  inspired 
writer  as  should  leave  him  purely  passive,  with  nothing, 
so  to  speak,  of  his  own  to  contribute  ?  Or  is  it  a 
quickening  or  intensifying  of  his  own  natural  gifts — the 
psychological  endowment  due  ultimately,  after  all,  to  the 
same  Spirit  ?  Is  it  a  uniform  mechanical  process, 
operating  in  the  same  manner  and  with  the  same  in- 
tensity over  all  the  field  of  Scripture  ?  or  may  we  speak 
of  different  modes  and  types  and  varying  degrees  of 
inspiration?  Again — and  the  answer  to  this  question 
will  depend  more  or  less  directly  on  the  way  in  which 
*  Luke  xxiv.  44.  f  Matt.  v.  17.  %  2  Pet.  iii.  16. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  103 

tlie  previous  ones  are  solved — is  the  operation  and  the 
quality  of  inspiration  of  such  a  kind  as  to  justify  us  in 
drawing  an  absolute  line  between  sacred  and  profane 
writings  ?  or  are  the  Scriptures  linked  in  some  organic 
way  to  the  rest  of  human  literature,  and  may  even 
inspiration  itself,  on  its  psychological  side,  be  said  to 
have  some  historic  continuity  with  similar  phenomena  in 
the  Gentile  world  ? 

Our  previous  studies  have  given  us  already  more  than 
a  hint  as  to  the  direction  in  which  we  must  look  for 
a  solution  of  such  problems.  A  mere  glance  at  the 
variety,  the  almost  infinite  diversity,  contained  within 
the  unity  of  Scripture  suggests  that  the  intensity  and 
the  mode  of  working  of  inspiration  exercised  over  this 
vast  field  may  probably  be  found  to  exhibit  a  like 
variety — a  thought  which  St.  PauFs  familiar  teaching  on 
the  subject  of  'spiritual  gifts ^^  enforces  not  a  little.  If 
the  '  word  of  wisdom '  and  the  '  word  of  knowledge  '  are 
inspired,  and  the  '  workings  of  miracles '  and  the  gift  of 
*  prophecy ' — if  apostles,  prophets,  and  teachers  are 
inspired,  so,  too,  are  'ministrations,'  'helps,  govern- 
ments,' and  so  is  'faith,'  by  which  revelation  is  appre- 
hended, and  the  'discerning  of  spirits,'  whereby  it  is 
spiritually  criticized :  '  There  are  diversities  of  gifts, 
but  the  same  spirit.' 

A  mere  glance,  again,  at  the  Old  Testament  writings, 
from  the  literary-historical  point  of  view,  brings  into 
sight  countless  variations  of  style  and  method,  and 
countless  relations  with  non-canonical  history  and  litera- 
ture. But  we  shall  now  take  up  the  investigation  from 
a  slightly  different  starting-point. 

First  of  all,  however,  it  may  be  as  well  to  insist  upon 
*  1  Cor.  xii.  4-11,  28.30. 


i04  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

the  impossibility  of  holding  to-day  any  rigid  and 
mechanical  theory  of  verbal  inspiration.  We  are  often 
told  that  the  Church,  while  accepting  the  canonical 
Scriptures  as  inspired,  has  never  authoritatively  defined 
what  is  meant  by  inspiration.  If  the  generations  which 
preceded  the  application  of  modern  scientific  methods  to 
biblical  criticism  had  come  to  accept  a  rough-and-ready 
theory  of  the  Churches  method  of  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures,  such  theory  was  built  on  no  clearly  under- 
stood principles  of  authority  or  of  reason.  It  could 
point  to  no  such  unanimity  of  continuous  recognition  as 
that  which  sealed  the  Churches  view  that  certain  books 
were  marked  off  from  the  rest  of  human  literature  by 
a  special  note  which  warranted  the  title  ^Holy  Scripture.' 

The  extreme  form  of  theory  very  largely  accepted  by 
our  grandfathers  is  known  as  that  of  '  verbal  inspiration.'"^ 
This  theory  would  make  the  actual  words  of  Holy 
Scripture  Divine,  as  being  dictated  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  minds  so  completely  under  His  sway  that  the  -writer's 
pen  became  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  mechanical 
instrument  for  the  recording  of  Another's  utterances. 

This  view,  which  may  be  traced  back  ultimately  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Jewish  Rabbis,  and  is  paralleled,  more  or 
less,  by  the  attitude  of  primitive  peoples  towards  their 
sacred  books,  is  confronted,  for  a  thinking  person,  by  many 
difficulties — difficulties  which  are  constantly  increasing 
with  the  growth  of  knowledge  and  the  spread  of  scientific 
method.  If  the  text  is  verbally  inspired,  the  question 
immediately  arises.  What  text  ?  And  the  simple  believer 
is    forced    back    from   fastness   to   fastness — ^from   the 

*  The  Helvetic  Consensus  Formula  of  1675,  a  'local  and 
ephemoral  document,'  is  apparently  the  only  formal  acceptance 
by  a  Christian  body  of  the  extreme  doctrine  of  literal  inspiration 
of  the  Massoretic  Hebrew  text. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  105 

unthinking  assumption  of  the  verbal  infallibility  of  his 
familiar  Vulgate  or  Authorized  Version,  as  the  case 
may  be,  to  that  of  the  Greek  textus  recephts  for  the  New 
Testament,  and  the  Massoretic  Hebrew  text  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Sooner  or  later  he  will  be  dislodged  even 
from  these  apparently  impregnable  entrenchments.  He 
will  find  that  the  traditional  Greek  text  on  which  our 
Authorized  Version  of  the  New  Testament  was  based 
is  an  uncritical  heirloom  of  the  Renaissance,  when  the 
best  and  earliest  Greek  manuscripts  were  not  yet  avail- 
able. He  will  find  that  the  traditional  Hebrew  text  of  the 
Old  Testament,  regarded  as  sacred  by  the  Jews — the 
Massoretic — only  reigns  supreme  because  all  manuscripts 
which  diverged  from  it  were  carefully  destroyed,  and 
that  there  is  no  earlier  manuscript  of  it  extant  than  one 
of  the  tenth  century  a.d.  j  while  the  Septuagint,  of 
which  we  have  copies  dating  from  a  much  anterior  time, 
quite  indubitably  represents,  in  not  a  few  places,  the 
translation  of  a  Hebrew  text  widely  divergent  from  the 
Massoretic,  its  readings  in  some  passages  being  accepted 
by  scholars  as  most  certainly  the  more  original.  Textual 
criticism,  if  it  has  not  always  been  able  to  reach  irre- 
fragable conclusions,  has  at  any  rate  made  it  clear  that 
the  Hebrew  and  Greek  texts  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments respectively,  so  long  traditionally  accepted,  are  far 
from  representing  the  originals  word  for  word.  Can  the 
simple  believer  close  his  eyes  to  the  light,  and  refuse  to 
listen  to  the  voice  of  scientific  investigation  ?  To  do  this 
is  to  stultify  himself. 

What  is  the  advocate  of  verbal  inspiration  to  reply, 
for  instance,  when  he  is  assured,  on  purely  scientific 
grounds,  that  the  incident  of  the  woman  taken  in 
adultery  cannot  be  a  part  of  the  original  text  of  the 


106  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Fourth  Gospel,  nor  can  the  last  twelve  verses  of 
St.  Mark  be  by  the  hand  of  the  writer  or  compiler  of 
the  rest  of  that  Gospel  ;  while  the  verse  about  the 
'  Three  Heavenly  Witnesses '  in  the  First  Epistle  of 
St.  John  is  clearly  a  not  very  early  gloss  ?  Is  he  to 
throw  himself  back  upon  the  authority  of  the  Church, 
and  urge  that  the  reception  of  these  interpolations,  if 
such  they  are,  is  prior  to  the  acceptance  of  the  Canon 
as  a  whole,"^  and  that  we  may  therefore  regard  them 
as  inspired  ?  To  do  this  is  to  adopt  a  position  logical 
in  itself  ;  but  he  is  abandoning  his  attitude  of  '  Bible 
Christianity,^  his  proclamation  of  the  traditional  text  as 
absolutely  authoritative  in  itself.  Or  is  he  to  take  a 
still  bolder  line,  and,  congratulating  himself  on  the 
undeniable  fact  that  the  disputed  passages,  if  removed, 
subtract  nothing  substantial  from  the  sum  of  revelation, 
relegate  them  to  an  ambiguous  position,  as  early  tradi- 
tions at  least  as  worthy  to  be  appended  to  the  genuine 
New  Testament  writings  as  are  the  so-called  ^  Apocrypha ' 
to  be  printed  after  the  Hebrew  Canon  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment ?  If  he  should  take  this  step,  or,  as  an  alternative, 
should  claim  to  judge  each  case  on  its  merits — relegating 
(shall  we  say  ?)  1  John  v.  7  to  the  margin  as  a  gloss, 
placing  St.  John  vii.  53  to  viii.  11  at  the  end  of  the 
Gospel  as  an  early  and  presumably  true  tradition,  the 
exact  position  of  which  in  the  narrative  cannot  now  be 
determined,  and  separating  St.  Mark  xvi.  9-20  from  the 
preceding  verses,  as  a  later  (though  still  early)  appendix 
by  a  different  hand — in  either  case  he  would  have  to 
abandon  his  simple,  unreasoned  theory  of  a  verbal  in- 
spiration of  the  textics  recepttts. 

It  is  true,  as  has  been  implied  above,  that  the  most 

*  Perhaps  this  would  be  difficult  to  substantiate  in  the  case  of 
1  John  V,  7. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  107 

drastic  changes  suggested  by  textual  criticism  do  not 
materially  alter  the  sense  or  proportion  of  the  revelation 
as  a  whole.  The  three  creeds  are  just  as  satisfactory 
a  summary,  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  origin  and 
purpose,  of  the  general  teaching  of  Scripture  exhibited 
in  the  most  carefully  edited  modern  text  as  they  are 
of  the  same  teaching  exhibited  in  the  traditional  text. 
This  fact  cannot  fail  to  be  comforting  to  all  who  value 
historic  Christianity  and  its  venerable  symbols.  But  it 
is  equally  undeniable  that  textual  criticism,  developed 
without  any  bias,  on  purely  scientific  lines,  and  largely 
by  devout  Christian  scholars,  has  raised  problems  which 
cut  at  the  root  of  any  absolute  theory  of  verbal  inspiration. 

May  we  not  venture  to  apply  to  this  matter  words 
spoken  in  a  somewhat  different  connection,  and,  while 
recognizing  thankfully  that,  in  the  bounty  of  Providence, 
a  comparatively  faulty  text  was  sufficient  for  those  who 
came  before  us,  rise  to  a  sense  of  our  own  responsibilities  ? 
'The  times  of  ignorance  .  .  .  God  overlooked';"^  but  to  a 
generation  to  whom  He  has  given  fuller  light  His  com- 
mand is  clear  that  they  should  walk  in  that  light. 

But  in  facing  the  problems  of  inspiration,  we  have  not 
to  take  into  account  the  results  of  '  the  Lower '  textual 
criticism  only.  'The  Higher' — that  is,  literary  and 
historical  criticism — fastens  upon  verbal  discrepancies, 
alike  in  the  Old  Testament  and  in  the  New — discrepancies 
which,  to  the  old  theory  of  verbal  inspiration,  remained 
inexplicable — and  explains  them  as  it  would  explain 
discrepancies  in  any  other  literature.  Moreover  (as  we 
have  seen  in  our  last  study),  it  supplements  these  explana- 
tions with  a  mass  of  disconcerting  notions — revolutionary 
ideas  about  the  date,  authorship,  and  composition  of  the 
various  books.  Of  these  ideas,  again,  while  many  are^ 
*  Acts  xvii.  30 


108  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

doubtless,  tentative,  and  many  more  incapable  of  proof, 
a  considerable  proportion  must  be  accepted  by  every 
thinking  man — enough,  at  any  rate,  to  militate  against 
a  Divine  verbal  infallibility  of  a  precise  kind  in  any 
Hebrew  or  Greek  text,  however  original,  even  if  it 
could  be  restored  with  absolute  certainty  by  the  methods 
of  textual  criticism.  If  there  are  textual  errors  in  the 
received  text,  there  are  also  in  any  text  material  errors — 
mistakes  of  history,  of  chronology,  etc. — such  as  textual 
criticism  is  powerless  to  expunge. 

That  such  blemishes  (if  they  are  to  be  called  blemishes) 
are  inconsistent  with  any  theory  of  inspiration  we  should 
be  the  last  to  suggest.  But  to  a  rigid  theory  of  verbal 
inerrancy  they  do  seem  to  form  a  fatal  objection. 
Are  we,  then,  to  abandon  any  theory  of  the  action  of 
Divine  inspiration  upon  Scripture  in  detail,  and  say  that 
its  influence  must  be  looked  for  in  the  selection  of  the 
books  to  be  considered  canonical  ?  Or,  considering  the 
ambiguity  with  which  even  the  question  of  the  Canon 
itself  is  beset  by  the  position  of  the  Apocrjrpha,  are  we 
to  go  still  further,  and  apply  the  word  '  inspiration ' 
not  to  the  writings  at  all,  but  to  the  writers  ? 

Some  would  say,  for  instance,  that  it  is  better  to 
speak  of  the  Old  Testament  as  'the  literature  of  an 
inspired  people  ^  than  to  apply  the  word  '  inspiration  '  to 
the  Scriptures  themselves.  Such  a  view  would  meet  the 
difficulty  of  the  very  various  types  of  literature  found  in 
the  Canon,  but  it  does  not  cover  the  whole  ground."^ 

If  we  may  anticipate  for  a  moment  the  course  of  the 

future  argument,  we  believe  it  will  be  found  that  the 

scope  of  the  action  of  Divine  inspiration  is  many-sided, 

and   takes  in  all   these  different  departments.     It  was 

*  See  p.  136,  and  note. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  109 

indeed  an  '  inspired  people ' — a  people  with  a  special 
genius  for  religion — to  whom,  and  by  whom,  God  chose 
to  reveal  Himself  in  the  ancient  world ;  and  the  Bible  is 
just  the  record  of  His  revelation  of  Himself,  wrought 
out  concretely  in  their  national  and  spiritual  history. 
Within  that  inspired  people  He  seems  to  have  chosen 
specially  gifted  individuals,  men  conspicuously  fitted  to 
be  His  mouthpieces — yet  not  mere  mouthpieces.  Again, 
a  control  is  visible,  not  only  (in  very  different  ways)  over 
the  writers  and  compilers  of  the  books — a  control  which 
guides  them  in  the  selection  of  appropriate  material  and 
the  rejection  of  the  inappropriate — but  also  over  the 
selection  of  the  books  themselves  to  form  elements  in 
the  Canon,  and  thus  to  constitute  a  single  organic  whole. 
We  may  see,  perhaps,  in  inspiration  a  general  and 
a  special  control,  but  never  such  control  as  should 
deprive  the  Scriptures  of  that  human  character  which 
is  everywhere  visible  side  by  side  with  the  Divine,  or 
endue  them  with  an  absolute  verbal  inerrancy  utterly 
remote  from  the  circumstances  of  their  origin. 

If  we  would  learn  about  inspiration  at  first  hand,  it 
will  be  well  to  question  the  Scriptures  themselves ;  and 
if  we  ask  where  we  shall  begin,  the  most  natural  starting- 
point  will  be  found  in  the  prophetical  books  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Our  ancient  dogmatic  Creed  describes 
the  Holy  Ghost  as  'the  Lord,  the  Life-giver  .  .  .  who 
spake  by  the  prophets,'  and  it  is  to  the  prophets  that 
our  attention  is  called  in  the  New  Testament's  most  strik- 
ing sketch  of  the  progressive  character  of  Divine  Revela- 
tion :  '  God,  having  of  old  time  spoken  unto  the  fathers 
in  the  prophets  by  divers  portions  and  in  divers  manners, 
hath  at  the  end  of  these  days  spoken  to  us  in  his  Son.'  "^ 
*  Heb.  i.  1. 


110  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Now,  if  we  turn  to  the  writings  of  prophets  like  Amos, 
Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  we  feel  at  once  that  we  are 
rewarded  for  our  pains.  Here,  if  anywhere,  we  shall 
find  clear  indications  of  the  presence,  if  not  also  of  the 
method,  of  inspiration.  For  these  men  speak  literally 
in  the  name  of  G-od.  They  feel  themselves  (rightly  or 
wrongly)  to  be  charged  with  a  message  not  their  own. 
Each  expresses  himself  largely  in  his  own  style  and 
phraseology ;  the  message  has  in  each  case  filtered 
through  the  prophet^s  personality.  It  is  couched,  often, 
in  terms  suggested  by  the  special  circumstances  of  the 
speaker  and  his  hearers;  yet,  if  we  are  to  accept  the 
conviction  of  the  prophet  himself,  its  origin  is  not  in  him 
who  delivers  it.  '  Thus  saith  Jehovah,'  *  Hear  this  word 
that  Jehovah  hath  spoken,'  is  the  refrain  of  Amos."^ 
'  Hear,  0  heavens,  and  give  ear,  0  earth,  for  Jehovah 
hath  spoken.' t  So  Isaiah  introduces  the  series  of 
prophecies  in  which  constant  reference  occurs  to 
Jehovah's  word  spoken  to  him.  So,  too,  with  Jeremiah 
and  Ezekiel,  with  Hosea,  with  Zechariah,  and  the 
prophets  in  general. 

They  not  only  make  this  great  claim,  but  they  disclose 
to  us  now  and  again  the  way  in  which  such  messages 
came  to  them.  The  prophetic  ministry  of  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  and  Ezekiel  is  in  each  case  initiated  by  a  vision 
in  which  the  prophet  claims  to  have  '  seen '  Jehovah,  and 
to  have  received  his  commission  direct  from  Him.  Amos, 
also,  who  stands  at  the  head  of  the  series  of  writing 
prophets,  embodies  in  his  book  a  group  of  visions  which, 
in  their  naive  and  simple  form,  bear  every  appearance  of 
being  an  ungarnished  record  of  psychical  experiences.  J 

In  Ezekiel  the  visions  begin  to  assume  a  more  cum- 

*  Amos  i.  3,  6,  9,  etc.,  iii.  1.  f  Isa.  i.  2.  J  Amos  vii. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  111 

brous  and  elaborate  character,  which  is  further  developed 
in  the  ^  apocalyptic  *  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Daniel. 

Ezekiel  gives  us  some  striking  instances  of  the  vision 
experienced  in  trance.  The  graphic  story  of  his  spiritual 
visit  to  Jerusalem^  presents  what  in  modern  phrase  would 
be  called  the  phenomena  of  clairvoyance,  and  the 
experience  is  ushered  in  by  a  sudden  access  of  catalepsy, 
followed  by  a  repetition  of  the  strange  vision  of  the 
Almighty  (so  difficult  to  translate  into  picture  form) 
which  had  accompanied  his  first  call.  He  sees  the 
hideous  orgies  of  idolatry  actually  going  on  in  Jerusalem, 
just  as  Isaiah  (according  to  one  view  of  the  chronology) 
sees  by  clairvoyance  the  fall  of  Babylon.t  In  each  case 
the  prophet^s  imagination  had  been  working  upon  the 
subject,  doubtless,  in  a  waking  state,  and  in  the  trance 
he  was  able  to  see  and  hear  what  was  going  on  at  a 
distance. 

But  not  all  the  messages  of  the  prophets  came  to 
them  in  trance-visions,  or  with  the  intense  psychical 
experience  of  an  apparently  uttered  voice  ringing  in 
their  ears.  Large  parts  of  their  writings  show  evident 
traces  of  literary  elaboration,  of  calm  reflection  on 
passing  events;  and  it  may  well  be  that  even  the 
formula  'Thus  saith  Jehovah,^  or  the  phrase  'I  saw,' 
may  have  become  in  some  mouths  little  more  than  a 
conventional  expression  of  the  conviction  that  they  were 
speaking  the  mind  of  God. 

The  phenomena,  however,  are  sufficiently  marked  to 
warrant  us  in  the  conclusion  that  the  prophets  were,  in 
general,  men  of  peculiar  psychic  sensitiveness,  prone  to 
what  would  now  be  called  'sensory  automatism,'  who 
had  the  faculty  of  hearing  voices  and  seeing  sights  to 
*  Ezek.  viii.-xi.  f  Isa.  xxi.  1-10. 


112  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

which  there  was  nothing  material  corresponding  in  their 
outward  environment. 

This,  however,  is,  of  course,  by  no  means  sufficient  to 
warrant  their  own  clear  conviction  that  such  sights  and 
sounds  came  to  them  from  the  very  Source  of  Truth. 
Why  should  they  be  any  more  inspired  than  a  modern 
^  medium^? 

The  prophetic  books  themselves  give  us  clear  testi- 
mony that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  false  prophecy,  and 
that  its  outward  phenomena  and  its  formulae  superficially, 
at  least,  resembled  those  of  the  orthodox  prophet.  The 
four  hundred  prophets  who  gave  Ahab  the  fatal  advice 
that  he  looked  for  prophesied,  like  Micaiah,  the  son  of 
Imlah,  in  the  name  of  Jehovah."^  And  false  prophets, 
claiming  to  give  Jehovah^s  message,  were  clearly  very 
numerous  in  Jeremiah^s  time. 

The  acted  symbolism  of  Jeremiah^s  rival,  Hananiah, 
like  that  of  Zedekiah,  the  son  of  Chenaanah,  can  be 
paralleled  from  the  behaviour  of  true  prophets  in  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New,t  and  his  words  have  just 
the  ring  of  the  orthodox  phraseology;  nor  can  we 
suppose  that  he  doubted  the  truth  of  his  prediction  of 
the  fall  of  Babylon,  else  he  would  not  have  named  so 
short  a  term  as  two  years.  J 

What  is  it,  then,  that  distinguished  the  false  prophet 
from  the  true;  the  utterance  'inspired  of  Grod'  from 
that  inspired,  if  at  all,  from  another  quarter  ?  First  of 
all,  the  tree  may  be  judged  by  its  fruits.  We  may 
surely  say  that  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  bear 
their  own  credentials  with  them.     The  effect  of  their 

*  1  Kings  xxii.  5,  6. 

t  Jer.  xxviii.  10,  cf.  the  action  of  Agabus  in  Acts  xxi.  11. 

X  Jer.  xxviii.  8. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  113 

words,  not  upon  their  contemporaries  alone,  but  upon 
subsequent  ages,  and  their  appeal  to  the    enlightened 
conscience  of  to-day,  are  the  strongest  guarantee  of  the 
validity  of  their  claim — a  guarantee  that  their  utterances 
are   neither   consciously   fraudulent   nor    the    fruit    of 
self-deception.     It  is  not  so  much  by  their  predictions 
that   the    prophets  will  be    ultimately  judged    (though 
many  of  these  are  striking  enough  in  their  fulfilment), 
as  by  their  enunciation  of  moral  and  spiritual  principles, 
in  which   they  showed   themselves   pioneers,   ready  to 
advance  alone,  ready  to  submit  their  highly-strung  and 
exceptionally   sensitive    psychic    temperament    to    the 
torture  of  felt  unpopularity.     In  this  more  than  in  any- 
thing else  we  may  see  the  distinction  between  the  true 
and  the  false  prophet.     Each  alike  was  gifted,  it  would 
seem,  with  an  intensely  sensitive   psychic  endowment, 
including  the  capacity  to  read  the  thoughts,  desires,  and 
aims   of   those    around   him.     The    false    prophet    was 
content  to  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance,  to  take  his 
colour  entirely  from  his  surroundings.     The  afflatus  that 
came  upon  him  stimulated  his  spirit  much  in  the  same 
way  as  he  might  have  been  stimulated   (had  he  taken 
a  higher  line)  by  Divine  inspiration.    He  himself  applied 
to   it   the   formula  *  Thus  saith  Jehovah  ^ ;    but   it  was 
simply  the  reflex  of   the  popular  tendency,  the  effect 
upon  him  of  the  prevailing  ^  suggestion '  of  his  environ- 
ment.    For  him  t'o^c  popioli  was  literally  vox  Dei.     The 
false  prophet  was,  as  has   been  well   pointed  out,  the 
victim  of   a   threefold   deception.      First,    he    deceived 
himself.     Prophesying  ^  out  of  his  own  heart,^  he  found 
it  most  comfortable  to  take  a  complacent  line  towards 
the  royal  court,  whether  it  were  that  of  an  Ahab  or  a 
Zedekiah,    or   towards    the    clamorous   wishes    of    the 


h 


114  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

populace.  To  prophesy  ^  smooth  things/  and  these  alone, 
was  to  '^ prophesy  deceits/"^  Having  prostituted  his 
psychic  gifts  at  the  outset,  he  became  the  slave  of  strong 
delusions.  Any  suggestion  strong  enough  to  produce  in 
him  the  customary  excitation  was  mistaken  for  the 
Divine  voice;  and  the  suggestions  among  which  he 
habitually  lived  were  those  supplied  by  a  corrupt  court 
and  a  decadent  populace.  The  self-deception  thus 
shades  off  into  a  deception  of  the  prophet  by  the  people. 
If  the  prophets  prophesy  falsely,  it  is  because  the 
people  love  to  have  it  so.t  '  The  combined  influence  of 
many  minds  concentrated  in  a  given  direction  upon  some 
impressionable  person' — that  is  the  psychological  explana- 
tion of  the  influence  of  the  popular  will  upon  the  pliant 
spirit  of  the  false  prophet.  And,  finally,  having  thus 
become  the  willing  '  dupe  of  the  current  temper  of  those 
whom  he  professed  to  guide,'  he  becomes  an  instrument 
in  the  hands  of  Divine  Righteousness  for  his  own  and 
the  people's  chastisement.  In  EzekieFs  graphic  phrase, 
he  is  deceived  by  Jehovah  Himself.  J 

It  is  by  contrast  to  this  fatal  prostitution  of  the 
psychical  endowments  that  we  can  really  judge  of  the 
strength  and  spiritual  originality  of  the  true  prophet. 
He  may  use  the  same  formula  as  the  other,  but  the 
message  it  introduces  is  one  which  takes  its  tone  and 
colour,  not  from  the  human  environment,  nor  merely 
from  his  own  heart,  but  from  the  suggestions  of  that 
Divine  Spirit  to  whom  he  owes  his  exceptional  gifts. 
Thus  his  voice  is  no  mere  echo  of  public  sentiment  or 
public  opinion ;  it  is  often  enough  in  direct  opposition  to 
the  ideas  of  his  contemporaries.  And  it  rings  true. 
Any  false  prophet  might  have  proclaimed  in  the  Lord's 
*  Isa.  XXX.  10.  t  Jer.  v.  31.  X  Ezek.  xiv.  9. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  115 

name  to  Israel :  '  You  only  have  I  known  of  all  the 
families  of  the  earth/  None  but  a  true  prophet  like 
Amos  could  have  appended  the  startling  conclusion: 
'Therefore  will  I  visit  upon  you  all  your  iniquities/"^ 
None  but  a  prophet  whose  convictions  were  free  from 
all  taint  of  respect  of  persons  could  have  chosen  the  life 
of  mental  and  spiritual  suffering  which  loyalty  to  his 
call  demanded  of  the  sensitive  and  affectionate  nature  of 
Jeremiah,  condemned  to  live  a  life  of  isolation  among 
his  contemporaries,  to  see  his  own  far-sighted  counsel 
slighted,  and  in  consequence  his  beloved  city  brought  to 
ruin.t 

Who  can  but  be  thrilled  by  the  spectacle  of  a  bleeding 
heart  such  as  he  displays,  in  the  midst  of  his  strong 
confidence,  in  a  piercing  cry  like  this  : 

'Woe  is  me,  my  mother,  that  thou  hast  borne  me  a 
man  of  strife  and  a  man  of  contention  to  the  whole 
earth !  I  have  not  lent  on  usury,  neither  have  men  lent 
to  me  on  usury ;  yet  every  one  of  them  doth  curse  me/J 

Or,  again,  the  consciousness  of  encompassing  hatred 
is  embittered  by  the  darts  of  derision,  as  some  prophetic 
message  seems  to  be  stultified : 

'0  Jehovah,  Thou  hast  deceived  me,  and  I  was 
deceived  :  thou  art  stronger  than  I,  and  hast  prevailed : 
I  am  become  a  laughingstock  all  the  day.  .  .  /  He  is 
even  tempted  to  keep  silence,  but  he  cannot  if  he  would : 
the  message  will  burn  its  way  out.  '  And  if  I  say,  I  will 
not  make  mention  of  Him,  nor  speak  any  more  in  His 
name,  then  there  is  in  mine  heart  as  it  were  a  burning 
fire  shut  up  in  my  bones,  and  I  am  weary  with  forbear- 
ing,  I   cannot   contain.  .  .  .     Denounce,    and   we   will 

*  Amos  iii.  2.  t"^ 

t  See  especially  Jer»  xxxvii.  ei  seq.  %  Jer.  xv.  10. 


116  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

denounce  him,  say  all  my  familiar  friends,  tliey  that 
watch  for  my  halting ;  peradventure  he  will  be  enticed, 
and  we  shall  prevail  against  him,  and  we  shall  take  our 
revenge  on  him.  .  .  .  Wherefore  came  I  forth  out  of 
the  womb  to  see  labour  and  sorrow,  that  my  days  should 
be  consumed  with  shame  V  "^ 

It  was  indeed  a  heavy  burden  that  lay  upon  the 
faithful  prophet's  shoulders.  The  prophetic  role  is 
essentially  unpopular.  If  he  is  to  lift  the  whole  tone 
of  his  contemporaries,  it  cannot  be  without  strain; 
if  he  is  to  change  radically  the  complex  S3^stem  of  their 
religious  habits  and  tendencies,  much  friction  will  be 
the  inevitable  outcome. 

If  the  true  character  of  the  genuine  prophet  is 
brought  out  by  contrast  with  the  false  prophet,  its 
greatness  will  also  be  more  clearly  discerned  if  we  try 
to  trace  out  the  earlier  stages  of  prophecy,  and  compare 
them  with  the  splendid  products  of  the  eighth  and 
seventh  centuries  B.C. 

What  do  we  mean  (it  may  be  asked)  by  the  earlier 
stages  of  Old  Testament  prophecy  ?  Have  we  not  in 
the  very  forefront  of  Israel's  history  the  figure  of 
Moses,  the  ideal  prophetic  figure,  before  the  glory  of 
which  even  the  brilliancy  of  an  Isaiah  pales  ? 

The  answer  of  modern  criticism  is  confident,  and  to 
many  minds  decisive.  The  Moses  of  the  Pentateuch  is, 
indeed,  an  'ideal  figure.'  The  picture  there  drawn  of 
the  great  founder  of  the  Hebrew  polity  belongs,  if  the 
results  of  literary  criticism  are  to  be  trusted,  to  an  age 
when  prophecy  was  fully  developed,  the  eighth  and 
following  centuries.  The  most  finished  portrait  of  the 
ideal  Moses,  that  of  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  belongs, 
*  Jer.  XX.  7  et  «cjr. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  117 

if  not  to  the  lifetime  of  Isaiah,  the  son  of  Amos,  at  any 
rate  to  a  time  when  that  noble  figure  was  fresh  in  men^s 
memories.  Perhaps  in  nothing  is  the  Wellhausen 
theory,  with  its  reconstruction  of  the  chronology  of  the 
Old  Testament  writings,  more  brilliantly  corroborated 
by  general  historical  probabilities  than  in  this  matter  of 
the  evolution  of  prophecy.  If  it  be  recognized  that  the 
Deuteronomic  Moses  is  just  the  eighth-century  ideal  of 
a  prophet,  all  the  puzzling  phenomena  of  the  earlier 
history  fall  naturally  into  their  places. 

The  impulse  given  to  Hebrew  religion  by  the  historic 
Moses  may  well  have  been  incalculable.  Allowance  may 
rightly  be  made  for  subsequent  deterioration,  for  a  loss 
of  spiritual  heritage  such  as  God^s  Church  has  suffered 
again  and  again  in  periods  of  prevailing  unfaithfulness 
and  superstition.  But  this  does  not  explain  satisfactorily 
the  phenomena  of  the  Books  of  Judges  and  Samuel.  It 
is  in  SamueVs  person  that  these  books  would  lead  us  to 
see  the  transformation  taking  place  whereby  prophecy, 
as  we  know  it,  grew  out  of  a  system  of  divination  very 
little  different  from  that  practised  by  the  heathen 
Semites  and  the  Gentile  world  of  classical  antiquity. 

In  the  Book  of  Judges,  with  its  ephods  and  teraphim, 
its  graven  and  molten  images,"^  its  'Augurs'  Oak,'t  and 
its  hired  divining  levite,J  we  seem  not  far  removed  from 
that  primitive  state  of  things  in  which  religion  and 
magic  stand  side  by  side  as  rivals,  and  the  dividing  line 
between  prophecy  and  divination  is  not  yet  clearly 
drawn.  In  all  primitive  religions  some  men  seem  to 
have  been  credited  with  a  capacity  to  deal  more  directly 
with  the  unseen  world,  and  these  dealings  to  have  been 


h 


*  viii.  27  ;  xvii.  3-5  ;  xviii.  14,  etc. 

t  ix.  37  (R.V.  7narg.).  |  xviii.  10-13. 


118  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

classed   as  legitimate  or  illegitimate — i.e.,  as  religious, 
in  the  true  sense,  or  magical.     In  some  religions,  like 
that  of  Rome,  divination  received   official  recognition, 
while  magic  was  condemned.     In  Deuteronony — which 
represents,    if   we    are   right,   the   Hebrew   religion   of 
the   seventh   century   B.C. — divination    is    classed   with 
necromancy  and  condemned."^     In  the  Books  of  Judges 
and  Samuel  there  is,  indeed,  a  line  drawn  between  the 
lawful  and  the  unlawful — a  line  which  Saul  crossed,  and 
crossed   consciously,    when   he   stooped   to  consult   the 
Avitch  of  En-dor ;  but  divination  is  still  legitimate,  or  may 
be  so  when  practised  with  the  right  aims  and  under  the 
right   conditions.      The    employment  of   ephod  images, 
the  consultation  of  '  the  oracle,'  the  casting  of  the  sacred 
lot  (whether  by  Urim  and  Thummim,  or  otherwise)  t — nay, 
the  use  made  of  the  Ark  of  God  itself  J  in  the  age  of 
Samuel — all  point  to  a  state  of  things  which  by  a  later 
generation  would  have  been  called  superstitious;   to  a 
stage  of  religious  development  which,  but  for  the  grace 
of  God — and,  humanly  speaking,  but  for  the  genius  of 
Samuel — might  have  borne  fruit  of  little  better  quality 
than  that  of  the  Gentile  religions.     The  old  Greek  seer 
Teiresias  is,  after  all,  a  noble  figure,  and  one  which  has 
close  affinities  with  the  prophet.     The  inquiries  addressed 
to  the  Delphic   oracle  were  many  of  them  of   greater 
importance  for  humanity  than  some  of  the  questions  put 
to  the  oracle  of  Jehovah  by  Saul  and  David;  and  the 
oracle  of  Apollo  showed  itself,  on  the  whole,  during  a 
long  period  of  history,  an  influence  for  good  rather  than 

*  Deiit.  xviii.  10,  11. 

t  Ephod,  1  Sam.  xxi.  9,  xxiii.  6 ;  Teraphim,  1  Sam.  xix.  13 ; 
Urim,  1  Sam.  xxviii.  6 ;  Oracle  ('  Inquiring  of  Jehovah  '),  1  Sam.  xxii. 
10 ;  xxiii.  2  et  aeq ;  2  Sam.  ii.  1 ;  v.  19  et  seq. 

J  1  Sam.  iv.  3  et  aeq.;  xiv.  18. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  119 

for  evil.  To  this  we  shall  revert  later  on.  For  the 
present  what  chiefly  concerns  us  is  to  realize  that  it  was 
Samuel  who  at  a  critical  moment  in  the  evolution  of  the 
Hebrew  religion  directed  the  future  course  of  prophecy 
into  the  channel  from  which  it  has  poured  out  its 
blessings  on  humanity  in  general. 

In  the  New  Testament,  as  in  the  Old,  Samuel  is 
reckoned  to  be,  in  some  sort,  the  first  of  the  great  line  of 
prophets."^  He  was  the  founder  of  what  we  used  to  call 
the  '  schools  of  the  prophets,'  prominent  in  the  history  of 
his  own  day  and  in  that  of  Elijah  and  Elisha.  As  such 
he  may  or  may  not  have  been  the  father  of  Hebrew 
history-writing.  But  his  greatest  claim  to  fame  is  the 
position  he  holds  as  at  once  the  climax  of  the  old  order 
and  the  inaugurator  of  the  new.  He  is  familiar  to  us  as 
the  last  of  the  Judges  and  the  initiator  of  the  new 
theocratic  kingdom.  Equally  important  is  his  place  as 
last  of  the  diviners  and  first  of  the  prophets. 

The  well-known  story  of  Saul's  search  for  his  father's 
asses  narrated  in  the  ninth  chapter  of  the  First  Book  of 
Samuel  has  been  a  favourite  with  us  from  our  child- 
hood ;  but  it  is  only  in  connection  with  the  evolution  of 
prophecy  that  its  full  significance  can  be  appreciated. 
After  a  fruitless  search  of  three  days'  duration,  Saul 
proposes  to  his  servant  that  they  return  home.  The 
servant  replies  :t  '  Behold  now  there  is  in  this  city  a  man 
of  God,  and  he  is  a  man  that  is  held  in  honour;  all  that 
he  saith  cometh  surely  to  pass :  now  let  us  go  thither ; 
peradventure  he  can  tell  us  concerning  our  journey 
whereon  we  go.' 

Saul  demurs,  because  he  has  neither  food  nor  money 
for  '  a  present ' — that  is,  for  the  price  of  divination.     And 

♦  Acts  iii.  24 ;  cf.  Heb.  xi,  32.  -f  1  Sarti.  ix.  6  et  se^. 


120  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

the  servant  answers  :  '  Behold,  I  have  in  mj  hand  the 
fourth  part  of  a  shekel  of  silver :  that  will  I  give  to  the 
man  of  Grod  to  tell  us  our  way/  Then  comes  the 
significant  note  of  the  eighth-century  historian  (J): 
Beforetime  in  Israel,  when  a  man  went  to  inqiure  of  God, 
thus  he  said,  Come  and  let  us  go  to  the  seer  (Hozeh) :  for 
he  that  is  now  called  a  prophet  (Nabhi)  wa.s  beforetime 
called  a  seer. 

This  'seer/  who  turns  out  to  be  none  other  than 
Samuel,  is  indeed  a  veritable  '  man  of  God ';  no  diviner 
on  the  line  between  religion  and  the  Black  Art,  no 
prostitutor  of  his  exceptional  psychic  gifts  of  clair- 
voyance and  sensory  automatism.  He  is  Mield  in 
honour^  by  those  among  whom  he  dwells,  and  is  their 
accepted  leader  in  the  rites  of  religion."^  He  welcomes 
the  young  giant  who  comes  and  pays  his  half-shekel  for 
the  benefit  of  a  clairvoyant's  answer  to  his  private 
problem,  and  he  is  able  to  give  him  the  direction  he 
requires.  But  for  Samuel  the  occasion  is  one  of  great 
and  national  importance.  The  same  spiritual  insight 
which  has  given  him  access  to  the  trifling  information 
which  was  the  overt  reason  for  his  interview  with  the 
son  of  Kish  has  opened  to  him  new  vistas,  in  which  Saul 
figures  as  first  human  King  of  Israel. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  significance  of 
every  detail  of  this  simple  narrative.  Especially  notable 
is  its  picture  of  the  seer  as  paid  clairvoyant,  solving 
private  enigmas,  which  is  not  without  its  parallel  in  the 
following  generations,  yet  belongs  essentially  to  the 
previous  period ;  its  suggestion  that  such  a  seer  was  the 
true  forerunner  of  the  eighth-century  prophet,  and  its 
concrete  exhibition,  in  the  person  of  Samuel,  of  one  who 
*  1  9am.  ix.  13  et  seq. 


PKOPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  121 

might  well  have  been  content,  had  he  so  willed,  to  amass 
indefinite  wealth  and  influence  as  a  mere  diviner  (an 
opportunity  still  further  intensified  by  his  paramount 
position  as  judge),  but  preferred  to  abdicate  his  judge- 
ship at  the  call  of  his  conscience,  quickened  by  a 
psychic  stimulus  which  he  recognized  as  Divine.  Samuel 
chose  the  better  part.  He  conquered  the  diviner^s 
characteristic  temptations  of  avarice  and  ambition.^  He 
lifted  nascent  prophecy  to  the  highest  place,  making  it 
the  religious  guide  and  inspirer  of  the  Hebrew  people. 

G-reat  as  is  Samuel,  and  truly  ^prophetic'  as  is  a 
saying  like  that — ^To  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice' — which 
apparently  forms  part  of  the  older  substratum  of  the 
record,t  there  is  much  that  seems  crude  and  primitive  in 
the  psychic  phenomena  of  prophecy  in  his  generation 
and  those  succeeding.  The  description  of  the  '  Sons 
of  the  prophets,'  with  their  musical  instruments,  and  the 
contagion  of  their  enthusiastic  condition  J — a  contagion 
that  influences  not  only  individuals,  but  a  group  of  men 
together, §  and  results  in  a  stripping  oif  of  the  clothes 
and  lying  down  naked  all  night  || — if  it  does  not  justify  a 
comparison  with  modern  dervishry,  shows  analogies,  at 
any  rate,  with  religious  phenomena  of  a  more  elementary 
type.  The  private  use  of  the  prophet's  clairvoyant 
power  is  exhibited  in  the  following  generation,  in  the 
dealings  of  Jeroboam's  wife  with  Abijah.  Still  later  it 
is  implied  in  Elisha's  converse  with  the  Shunamite,  and 
the  inquiries  made  by  Ahaziah  of  Judah,  and  by 
Benhadad  of  Syria  1[  of  the  same  prophet.  The  clair- 
voyant power,  we  have  seen  reason  to  believe,  persisted 

*  Cf,  1  Sam.  xii.  3,  4. 

t  1  Sam.  XV.  22,  analyzed  as  E^  by  criticism.  See  table,  pp.  99, 100. 

%  1  Sam.  X.  5,  6.  §  1  Sam.  xix.  20  et  seq. 

X  Sai4.  xix.  24.  \  2  Kings  i.  1  et  seq^ ;  viii.  8  et  seq. 


122  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

as  part  of  the  prophet's  psychic  endowment;  but  its 
use,  as  in  the  case  of  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel,  is  more  and 
more  exalted  by  the  later  prophets,  and  becomes  more 
and  more  definitely  the  vehicle  of  a  spiritual  impulse 
worthy  to  be  dignified  with  the  name  of  Revelation. 

This  glance  at  the  beginnings  of  prophecy  in  Israel 
illustrates  what  the  most  superficial  study  of  the  ^  writing 
prophets'  themselves  will  have  suggested — that  even 
in  the  succession  of  genuine  prophets  there  is  a  differ- 
ence, not  only  of  type  and  individual  style,  but  a 
difference  also  of  level.  From  the  level  of  prophecy 
exhibited  in  Samuel's  time  to  that  of  the  age  of  Isaiah  is 
an  immense  step.  But  among  the  writing  prophets  them- 
selves we  should  not  hesitate,  surely,  to  place  Jeremiah, 
on  the  whole,  above  Ezekiel,  and  to  put  highest  of  all 
Isaiah  and  that  later  prophet,  ^  Deutero-Isaiah,'  whose 
writings  are  appended  to  those  of  the  son  of  Amoz 
(chap.  xl.  et  seq.).  And  in  so  doing  we  should  be  making 
a  very  important  classification,  for  we  should  be  com- 
mitting ourselves  to  the  theory  that  the  sublimity  and 
permanent  value  of  inspired  work  does  not  necessarily 
follow  the  lines  of  greatest  psychic  excitation.  The 
indications  of  this  in  the  three  greatest  prophets 
culminate  in  Ezekiel,  and  still  more  intensely  are  they 
exhibited  (though  in  a  form  which  suggests  a  rather  less 
spontaneous  form  of  excitation)  in  the  writer  of  the  Book 
of  Daniel,  which  is  apocalyptic  rather  than  strictly 
prophetic,  and  (in  spite  of  its  wonderful  power)  fails 
entirely  to  reach  the  sublimity  of  an  Isaiah  or  a  Zechariah. 

The  study  of  the  beginnings  of  prophecy  has  also 
brought  us  face  to  face  with  the  problems  of  heathen 
divination;  but  before  we  return  to  these,  let  us  follow 
out  a  little  further  the  thread  of  the  present  argument. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  123 

If  inherent  sublimity  and  practical  utility  are  to  enter 
into  our  estimate  of  the  inspired  character  of  a  given 
book  or  passage  of  Holy  Writ,  we  needs  must  admit 
different  levels  of  inspiration.  If  divergence  of  literary 
type,  exhibiting  itself  now  in  narrative  power,  now  in 
poetic  fire,  now  in  hortatory  appeal,  and  now  in 
legislation  or  ceremonial  systematization,  is  to  be  allowed 
due  weight,  then  we  must  surely  agree  that  inspiration 
expresses  itself  in  different  forms.  Let  us  take  first  this 
difference  of  form.  The  old,  unthinking  idea  of  a  Bible 
all  equally  and  uniformly  inspired,  all  on  one  dead  level 
of  spiritual  and  devotional  utility,  was  based  doubtless 
on  an  unexpressed  assumption  that  the  direct  inspiration 
claimed  by  the  prophets  with  their  '  Thus  saith  Jehovah ' 
could  be  predicated  in  the  same  sense  of  every  book 
and  every  verse  within  the  covers  of  the  Bible.  Now, 
a  very  superficial  study  of  the  different  books  is  sufficient 
to  overthrow  this  idea.  To  say  nothing  of  the  generally 
accepted  critical  conclusions  as  to  the  composite  character 
of  the  Pentateuch,  many  of  the  books  are  clearly  com- 
pilations rather  than  the  direct  products  of  prophetic 
vision.  In  the  New  Testament  St.  Luke  proclaims  his 
adoption  of  the  best  historical  methods  of  his  day;^ 
St.  Paul  draws  a  distinction  between  certain  of  his  own 
utterances  which  he  believes  to  come  direct  from  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  others  for  which  he  is  not  prepared  to 
make  that  claim.t  In  the  Old  Testament,  Numbers, 
Judges,  and  Samuel  cite  early  documents  as  authority 
for  some  of  their  statements,  and  Kings  and  Chronicles 
abound  in  references  to  authorities  (which  do  not,  how- 

♦  Luke  i.  1  et  seq. 

f  1  Cor.  vii.  10,  12,  25,  40 :  where  the  variation  of  phrases  ia 
very  instructive. 


124  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

ever,  if  critics  are  right,  exhaust  the  analysis  of  that 
process  of  compilation  through  which  they  assumed 
their  present  form).  The  very  prophets  themselves 
borrow  passages  from  one  another.  To  go  no  further, 
everyone  will  remember  the  verbal  identity  of  the 
prophecy  of  the  'Mountain  of  the  Lord^s  House'  in 
Isaiah  and  Micah"^ — a  proof  that  one  incorporated  it 
from  the  other,  if  both  did  not  borrow  it  from  an 
earlier  source. 

The  literary  methods  of  the  inspired  writers  are  found 
to  range  from  the  systematic  arrangement  of  ancient 
lists  and  genealogies  to  the  spontaneously  poetic 
utterances  of  prophet  and  psalmist ;  and  the  Old  Testa- 
ment exhibits  so  manj^  varieties  of  literary  composition 
that  one  might  almost  say  its  writers  must  have  included 
every  representative  type  of  temperament.  Think  of 
the  difference  of  psychic  endowment  reflected  in  the 
vibrating  utterances  of  Amos  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
shrewd,  cold  wisdom  of  parts  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs 
on  the  other.  The  poetic  temperament  is,  no  doubt, 
closely  allied  to  the  prophetic ;  and  the  grand  spontaneity 
of  many  a  passage  in  Job  bespeaks  a  high  nervous 
sensitiveness,  a  power  of  imagination  and  of  intuition 
comparable  with  the  psychical  intensity  of  the 
prophets  proper.  And  here  and  there  the  Song  of 
Songs  approaches  the  same  level.  But  the  same  cannot 
be  said  of  the  bulk  of  the  Priestly  writing,  whether  in 
the  Pentateuch  or  in  the  Books  of  Chronicles;  nor  is  it 
implied  in  the  Book  of  Esther. 

The  untenable  view  which  would  extend  the  mode  and 
the  intensity  of  prophetic  inspiration  to  the  whole  of  the 
Old  Testament  has  this  in  its  favour :  that  much  of  the 
*  Isa.  ii.  2-4 ;  Mic.  iv.  1-3. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  125 

history  was  written  by  men  of  the  prophetic  type,  as  the 
Jews  themselves  acknowledged  when  they  called  Joshua, 
Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings  ^the  Former  Prophets/ 
Modern  criticism  also  recognizes  a  strong  prophetic 
strain  in  the  narrative  parts  of  the  Pentateuch.  But 
even  there,  the  gifts  required  for  this  noble  style  of 
history-writing  differ  in  some  degree  from  those  that 
went  to  produce  the  prophecies  of  an  Isaiah  or  an  Ezekiel. 

Assuming,  then,  that  this  richly  diverse  literature  is  all 
of  it  the  product  of  the  Holy  Spirit's  reaction  upon  the 
spirit  of  chosen  human  agents,  we  cannot  but  recognize 
that  His  operation  must  have  taken  diverse  forms  in  its 
energizing  upon  differently  gifted  natures,  or  upon 
different  sides  of  a  single  highly  gifted  nature. 

That  there  are  degrees  of  intensity  in  the  inspiration 
it  is,  as  we  said  above,  impossible  to  doubt,  if  inspiration  is 
in  any  degree  correlative  to  sublimity  and  spiritual  useful- 
ness. No  one  would  hold,  for  instance,  that  the  purely 
genealogical  passages  in  Chronicles,  when  added  together, 
would  produce  an  equal  amount  of  spiritual  food  to  that 
which  could  be  extracted  from  the  same  number  of 
verses  taken  at  random  from  the  Psalms  or  from  Deutero- 
Isaiah.  No  one  could  compare  the  benefit  directly  derived 
by  humanity  from  the  Book  of  Esther  with  that  derived 
from  Deuteronomy.  When  we  consider  the  extremes, 
we  feel  that  we  must  allow  degrees  of  intensity  in  in- 
spiration; though  the  attempt  to  put  into  the  scale  all 
the  different  elements  of  which  the  Old  Testament  is 
composed,  and  to  construct  a  graduated  table  from  this 
point  of  view,  would  probably  be  as  unsuccessful  in  its 
issue  as  it  would  be  arrogant  in  its  conception. 

Looking  at  the  finished  results,  we  can  but  echo  the 
inspired    words,    '  by    divers    portions    and    in    divers 


126  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

manners/"^  If  inspiration  means  the  reaction  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  on  man^s  spirit,  its  operation  must  have 
been  now  more,  now  less  direct  and  intense.  We  may- 
see  it  at  work,  now  seizing,  as  it  were,  upon  the  very 
roots  of  man^s  intellectual  being,  flooding  his  subliminal 
consciousness,  and  quivering  out  of  his  trance-bound  lips 
in  words  of  fire ;  now  directing  his  prayerful  reason  as 
it  grapples  with  one  or  other  of  the  fresh  problems  of 
an  ever- developing  religious  consciousness,  or  as  it 
reflects  upon  past  history,  tracing  out  the  indications  of 
a  guiding  Hand;  now  stimulating  the  poet^s  intuition  as 
he  breathes  forth  in  song  the  deep  emotions  of  the  soul 
face  to  face  with  its  Creator ;  now  controlling  the  hand 
of  the  compiler  as  he  selects  and  weaves  into  an  ordered 
whole  the  documentary  records  of  past  ages — history, 
legend,  or  myth ;  now  inspiring  the  lawgiver's  judgment, 
as  he  chooses  among  current  customs  and  maxims,  and 
transfigures  what  he  chooses  under  the  influence  of  the 
pure  and  lofty  religion  of  Jehovah.  Intellect  and  reason- 
ing power,  memory,  imagination,  literary  taste  and  skill, 
all  fall  within  the  scope  of  the  Divine  stimulus,  which, 
while  it  probes  the  very  unstirred  depths  of  the  prophet's 
subliminal  consciousness  till  his  whole  being  throbs,  also 
controls  with  light  yet  firm  hand  the  critical  faculties  of 
the  compiler,  securing  for  his  honest  effort  an  edifying 
result.  A  real  control  of  the  Holy  Spirit  over  each 
contributor,  and  over  the  combined  result,  but  a  control 
that  respects  and  makes  use  of  those  individual  gifts, 
which  are,  after  all,  the  Holy  Spirit's  endowment — may 
not  this  be  one  aspect,  at  least,  of  inspiration  ? 

And  now  we  may  return  to  the  question  raised  by  the 
way.     Is   the   Bible   quite   cut   off   from  all   '  profane ' 
*  Heb.  i.  1. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  127 

literature  by  the  fact  of  its  inspiration?  Does  its 
inspiration  make  it  a  thing  sui  generis,  or  has  it 
affinities  with  non-biblical  literature  ?  Is  its  most 
characteristic  phenomenon  of  prophecy  a  thing  entirely 
apart,  or  does  it,  in  its  earlier  stages,  show  traces  of  a 
common  ancestry  with  certain  phenomena  in  Gentile 
religions  ? 

The  problem  of  the  Apocrypha  has  already"^  helped 
us  to  see  that  the  question  of  inspired  and  uninspired, 
of  sacred  and  profane,  is  not  by  any  means  so  simple  as 
it  sometimes  appears.  For  those  to  whom  the  Story 
of  Susanna  and  the  History  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon  are 
reckoned  as  on  a  par  with  the  Book  of  Isaiah  this  problem 
does  not  exist.  Equally  non-existent  is  it  for  those  who, 
like  some  of  the  early  Continental  reformers,  or  the 
present-day  Bible  Society,  extrude  the  Apocryphal 
Books  entirely  from  the  sacred  volume.  But  to  those  who 
agree  with  the  English  Church  in  following  the  example 
of  the  greatest  biblical  scholar  of  antiquity,  and  class 
these  books  as  Deutero  -  canonical,  the  question  at 
once  arises.  Are  these  books  inspired  or  not  ?  If  inspired, 
are  they  inspired  in  the  same  sense  or  in  the  same 
degree  as  the  Scriptures  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  proper  ? 
How  can  I  accept  as  inspired  in  the  full  sense  books 
which  are  never  quoted  as  Scripture  by  the  New 
Testament  writers — books,  too,  which,  estimated  on  their 
own  merits,  fall,  on  the  whole,  so  clearly  below  the 
average  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  ?  How,  on  the  other 
hand,  seeing  that  I  accept  the  Bible  at  the  hands  of  the 
Church,  can  I  deny  all  inspiration  to  books  which  millions 
of  orthodox  Christians  to-day — including  the  great  com- 
munions of  Rome  and  the  East — accept  as  canonical  ? 
*  Chapter  I.,  p.  36. 


128  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

The  Anglican  line  as  to  the  Apocryphal  Books,  which, 
if  not  strictly  logical,  seems  still  the  only  reasonable  one, 
places  them,  as  it  were,  on  the  threshold  of  that  plenary 
inspiration  which  all  accord  to  the  books  of  the  Hebrew 
Canon.  They  stand  on  the  threshold — and  they  keep 
open  the  door.  They  form,  as  it  were,  a  connecting-link 
between  the  inner  circle  of  the  books  of  revelation  and 
the  great  outer  circle  of  such  heathen  religious  litera- 
ture as  shows  a  groping  after  God.  Their  ambiguous 
position  suggests  to  us  at  any  rate  the  possibility  that 
what  we  were  accustomed  to  look  upon  as  a  sharp 
antithesis,  a  dichotomy  of  '  sacred  ^  on  the  one  side  and 
'  profane  ^  on  the  other,  may  be  in  reality  something  more 
like  a  graduated  series  of  greater  and  less  inspiration, 
where  a  line  may  be  drawn  across  for  logical  purposes, 
yet  not  so  as  to  limit  or  prescribe  too  decisively  the 
bounds  beyond  which  inspiration  may  not  pass. 

With  this  object-lesson  in  view,  criticism  sets  itself  to 
study  the  idea  of  inspiration  as  exhibited  in  the  Bible, 
comparing  it  with  what  anthropology  has  to  teach 
about  man's  primitive  beliefs,  and  especially  what  can 
be  learned  on  the  subject  from  classical  and  from 
heathen  Semitic  sources.  It  j&nds  the  parallels  close 
and  striking,  and  is  eager  to  raise  the  question :  Is 
there,  after  all,  anything  more  in  Hebrew  prophecy  and 
scriptural  inspiration,  if  its  germ  is  in  the  phenomena  of 
the  Books  of  Judges  and  Samuel^  than  there  is  in  the 
similar  features  exhibited  by  the  frenzied  prophetess 
or  the  paid  diviner  of  classical  antiquity,  or  the  leaping 
Baal-prophets  of  Elijah's  time,  or  the  mad  dervishes  of 
modern  Islam  ? 

If  we  grant,  however,  a  still  closer  parallel  between 
the  phenomena  of  Judges  and  Samuel  and  those  outside 


PEOPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  129 

the  Bible  than  is^  perhaps^  justified  by  the  facts,  the 
implied  interpretation  of  the  Bible^s  inspiration  by  a 
single  group  of  phenomena  in  the  earlier  history  is  like 
saying  the  full-grown  oak  is  nothing  more  than  an  acorn. 
Reversing  the  sound  Aristotelian  principle  of  interpreting 
things  that  grow  and  develop,  not  by  their  beginnings,  but 
by  the  mature  result — in  technical  language,  'teleo- 
logically' — we  fall  into  the  too  common  fallacy  which  loved 
to  deduce  from  Darwinism  the  bold  statement  (doubly  and 
trebly  unwarranted)  'Then  we  are  all  monkeys/  One 
of  the  chiefest  vindications  of  the  inspiration  of  Hebrew 
prophetism  is  to  be  found  in  a  comparison  of  its  humble 
beginnings  with  the  sublimity  of  its  eventual  develop- 
ment. One  of  the  most  striking  differences  between  the 
religion  of  the  Bible  and  that  of  the  ancient  Greeks  is 
that,  while  at  a  certain  stage  they  exhibit  very  close 
resemblances,  in  the  end  they  are  poles  apart.  And 
what  is  true  of  the  Greeks  is  true,  speaking  broadly,  of 
ancient  religion  in  general.  If,  as  we  have  suggested 
above,  the  seer  or  diviner  of  eleventh-  or  twelfth-century 
Israel  stood  at  the  parting  of  the  ways,  and  might,  if  he 
had  yielded  to  the  diviner^s  besetting  temptations  of 
avarice  and  ambition,  have  developed  into  something 
like  the  later  pagan  soothsayer,  an  object  of  just  ridicule 
and  contempt;  then,  surely,  it  was  inspiration  that  set 
his  feet  upon  the  rock  and  gave  him  the  impulse  to 
climb  the  steep  ascent  that  led  to  Isaianic  prophecy  ? 
The  psychic  temperament,  sensitive  to  the  magnetism  of 
every  suggestion,  is  easily  swayed  in  the  wrong  direction. 
Only  if  it  be  backed  by  high  resolve  and  lofty  ideals,  if 
it  be  illuminated  by  the  light  of  a  pure  and  uplifting 
theology,  can  it  escape  the  perils  of  self-deception  and 
ultimate  degradation, 

9 


130  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Had  the  Greek  religion  resembled  the  Hebrew,  the 
Greek  soothsayer  might  have  been  the  forerunner  of  a 
Hellenic  prophet  comparable  to  Isaiah.  But  instead  of 
the  bracing  atmosphere  of  a  pure  monotheism,  saturated 
with  noble  ethical  ideas,  the  Greek  had  for  his  religion 
a  polytheistic  mythology  full  of  aesthetic  charm,  but 
teeming  also  with  the  most  hideously  degrading 
immoralities. 

The  Homeric  soothsayer,  Calchas,  who,  in  his  bene- 
ficent spirit,  his  love  of  mercy,  his  championship  of  the 
oppressed,  and  of  the  cause  of  righteousness,  exhibits, 
like  the  Teiresias  of  Sophocles,  the  potentialities  of  a 
sublime  prophet,  is  an  ideal  figure,  drawn,  it  may  be,  not 
long  before  or  after  the  classic  figure  of  Samuel  in 
Hebrew  literature.  But  those  who  followed  Calchas  in 
the  line  of  Hellenic  diviners  are  not  to  be  compared 
with  the  successors  of  Samuel.  On  the  one  side  there 
is  progress,  on  the  other  retrogression  and  decadence. 
And  so  with  the  religion  in  general.  Yet  there  are 
traces  of  Divine  working  in  the  Hellenic  religion,  too, 
which  we  cannot  justly  ignore.  Greek  divination  was 
not  entirely  fraudulent.  If  it  was  due,  as  appears,  to 
the  striking  of  a  hand  upon  the  same  psychic  cords  which 
produced  ultimately  the  Divine  music  of  Hebrew 
prophecy,  the  sounds  produced  are,  in  some  cases,  so 
preponderatingly  harmonious  as  to  suggest  that  the 
same  Hand  must  surely  have  evoked  the  music.  The 
Delphic  oracle,  commended  by  such  thoughtful  critics 
as  Thucydides,  Strabo,  Plutarch,  and  Cicero,  cannot 
have  been  wholly  fraudulent.  The  early  Christians 
believed  in  it  as  a  genuine  thing,  and  attributed  its 
admittedly  supernatural  answers  to  demoniacal  agency. 

Yet  history  shows  it  to  have  exercised,  on  the  whole, 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  131 

a  beneficial  influence  upon  individuals  and  upon  nations, 
ranged  on  the  side  of  justice,  mercy,  and  progress. 
Dare  we  not  see  here  a  flickering  gleam  at  least  of  the 
'Light  that  lighteth  every  man/"^  a  partly  successful 
'feeling  after 't  the  true  God  by  those  whose  whole 
religious  horizon  was  darkened  by  the  murk  of  an 
unworthy  theology  ? 

And  if  we  are  prepared,  with  some  hesitation,  to 
recognize  certain  sparks  of  inspiration  in  Hellenic 
divination  at  its  best,  may  we  not  with  less  hesitation 
acknowledge  its  presence  in  the  highest  intuitional 
flights  of  a  Socrates  or  a  Plato — efforts  after  the  ideal 
which,  if  not  stimulated  by  faith  in  one  living  and  holy 
God,  had  yet  a  dimly  -  conceived  monotheism  or  a 
philosophic  pantheism  as  their  basis  ?  After  all,  we  can 
afford  to  be  as  liberal-minded  as  the  Greek  fathers,  who, 
if  they  denied  actual  inspiration  to  Plato,  would  have 
done  so  on  the  score  that  he  borrowed  from  the  '  teach- 
ing of  Moses/ 

We  need  not  be  afraid,  then,  to  conceive  of  inspiration 
as,  in  one  sense,  overflowing  the  limits  of  Holy  Scripture. 
We  need  not  be  reluctant  to  acknowledge  touches  of  it 
in  the  sacred  books  of  non-Christian  religions;  to  ac- 
knowledge that  there  was,  here  and  there,  some  genuine 
response  to  the  Divine  stimulus  as  it  played  upon  gifted 
souls  among  the  heathen,  for  they  'also  are  the  off- 
spring '  of  One  who  '  left  not  Himself  without  witness ' 
in  any  age  or  nation.J  But  if  we  admit  a  varying 
intensity  of  inspiration  within  the  limits  of  the  Bible, 
and  an  overflowing  of  its  influence  beyond  those  limits, 
we  shall  not  thereby  obliterate  the  line  of  demarcation, 

*  John  i.  9.  f  Acts  x^ii.  27. 

X  Acts  xiv.  17,  xvii.  23. 


132  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

or  deprive  the  Bible  of  its  claim  to  be  in  a  special  and 
unique  sense  inspired. 

We  shall  see  this  more  clearly,  perhaps,  when  we  come 
to  compare  the  Bible  with  the  sacred  books  of  non- 
Christian  religions."^  But  meanwhile,  with  the  data 
already  at  our  command,  we  may  make  an  effort  to 
define  with  greater  exactness  the  scope  and  purpose 
of  inspiration.  That  task  is,  indeed,  already  performed 
for  us  by  St.  Paul,  in  the  passage  quoted  earlier  from 
the  Second  Epistle  to  Timothy.  The  end  of  scriptural 
inspiration  he  takes  to  be  a  practical  one — moral  and 
spiritual  edification,  'for  reproof,  for  correction,  for 
instruction  which  is  in  righteousness,  that  the  man  of  God 
may  be  complete,  furnished  completely  unto  every  good 
work.'  The  sphere  of  inspiration  and  of  its  correlative 
revelation  is  religion ;  not  aesthetics,  or  physical  science, 
or  history  as  such,  or  even  philosophy,  but  a  religion 
which  says  '  Know  the  Lord  ' ;  and  reveals  to  us,  so  far 
as  human  language  can  reveal  it,  what  the  Lord  is,  and 
that  the  way  to  know  Him  is  to  strive  after  His  like- 
ness :  '  Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy.'  t 

In  this  the  Bible  is  supreme  and  unapproachable.  To 
the  outer  world  of  literature  it  is  linked  on  its  material 
side,  just  as  man,  who  bears  Grod's  image,  is  linked  through 
his  physical  organism  to  the  brute  creation.  We  need 
scarcely  enumerate  more  than  a  few  of  these  affinities. 
The  historical  narratives  of  the  Old  Testament  have 
features  in  common  with  those  of  Arabic  historians,  even 
to  their  methods  of  compilation;  the  cosmogony  of 
Genesis  and  the  account  of  the  Deluge  have  many 
striking  parallels  in  the  literature  of  other  races,  espe- 
cially, of   course,  the   Babylonian.     Many  of  what  we 

*  See  Chapter  IX.,  p.  251  et  seq.        f  Lev.  xi.  44;  1  Pet.  i.  16. 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  133 

commonly  consider  the  Bible^s  most  characteristic  moral 
teachings  find  a  more  or  less  perfect  echo  in  one   or 
other  of  the  sacred  books  of  the  East.     Nor  can  we  hold, 
with  the  facts  before  us,  that  inspiration  has  freed  the 
Scriptures  from  every  blemish  or  error  incident  to  human 
writing.      Inaccuracies   in  chronology,  imperfection   in 
the   use    of   historical    imagination,   ignorance    of    any 
scientific    historical    method,   crude    and    undeveloped 
theories  concerning  the  physical  universe — these  alone 
would  stamp  the  Old  Testament  as  uninspired,  if  the 
old  theory  of  rigid  verbal  inerrancy  were  the  true  and 
only  criterion.     Nor  can   the   New  Testament,  though 
comparatively  free   from  these  defects,  claim  absolute 
inerrancy  in  such  matters.     The  writers  themselves  do 
not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  make  the  claim.     St.  Luke  tells 
Theophilus  that  he  has  '  traced  the  course  of  all  things ' 
— that  is,  of  all  the  matters  about  which  he  is  writing — 
'  accurately  from  the  first ';  he  proposes  to  draw  up  an 
'ordered^  account,  from  which  Theophilus  may  'know 
the  certainty  concerning  the  things  which  he  has  been 
taught  by  word  of  mouth.'     But  he  compares  his  work 
openly,  and  associates  it,  with  the  narratives  which  it 
is  to  supersede.     He  speaks  as  a  human  historian  who 
gathers  his  information  from  documents  and  from  eye- 
witnesses,   and    selects    his    material   and   marshals    it 
according   to   his  intellectual   capacity.     Criticism   and 
archaeology,  as  we  have  seen,  have  strongly  vindicated 
his  accuracy  and  his  veracity.     Their  verdict  upon  his 
own  account  of  his  writing  is  a  distinctly  favourable 
one.     And  where  chronological  difficulties  arise  [e.g.,  in 
his  mention  of   Quirinius^s  governorship   as  coincident 
with  the  date  of  the  Nativity),^  we  may  well  suspend 
*  Luke  ii.  2, 


134  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

our  judgment,  and  allow  for   the  defects  of  our  own 
information. 

But  not  every  New  Testament  writer  lias  the  historical 
capacity  of  St.  Luke,  nor  is  St.  Luke  himself  so  lifted 
above  the  environment  of  his  time  as  to  speak  to  us 
always  in  language  of  the  twentieth  century.  The  New 
Testament  is  coloured,  as  we  have  seen,  from  end  to 
end  with  the  imagery,  the  ideas,  the  imaginations,  the 
expectations,  of  the  time  and  place  where  it  originated. 
Even  the  sayings  of  the  Lord  Himself  are  largely  couched 
in  the  eschatological  phraseology  of  first-century  Judaism. 
Yet  men  still  hang  upon  His  lips,  as  we  are  told  they 
did  nineteen  hundred  years  ago ;  He  still  speaks  to  them 
'  with  authority,  and  not  as  the  scribes,'  still  speaks  '  as 
never  man  spake.'  We  feel  that  if  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  Divine  inspiration,  it  breathes  in  His  words  as  in 
those  of  no  one  else  before  or  since.  It  culminates  in 
Him.  We  echo  again  the  words  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews.  That  of  which  we  saw  broken  gleams  in  the 
Old  Testament  prophets  is  concentrated,  focussed,  in  One 
for  whom  all  that  went  before  was  but  a  preparation. 
The  grey  dawn  has  been  succeeded  by  the  perfect  day. 
But  if  this  be  the  full  and  final  revelation,  the  plenary 
inspiration,  it  still  conveys  itself  through  the  limitations 
and  imperfections  of  human  language.  It  is  still  clothed 
for  us  in  a  vesture  that  is  definitely  Palestinian,  Jewish, 
and  of  a  particular  generation.  The  Lord  spoke  to  the 
men  around  Him  in  language  that  they  could  under- 
stand; the  metaphors,  the  imagery  that  He  used,  were 
such  as  were  familiar  to  them — nay.  He  spoke  exactly 
as  though,  in  all  ordinary  things.  He  shared  their 
outlook  upon  the  world — their  scientific,  historical, 
literary  ideas,  their  views  on  demoniacal  possession,  and 


PROPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  135 

so  on.  Some  of  these  conceptions  were  such  as  are  not 
possible  to  us  now.  Yet  we  feel  that  the  inspiration 
does  not  lie  in  these.  These  are  not  the  building,  but 
the  scaffolding.  If  Christ  had  spoken  to  the  first 
century  in  the  scientific  jargon  of  the  nineteenth,  His 
message  would  have  been  unintelligible  for  at  least 
eighteen  centuries ;  as  it  is,  it  has  spoken  with  a  li\ang 
voice  to  every  succeeding  generation.  Where  it  has 
been  interpreted  wrongly,  as  though  He  had  laid  down 
some  principle  of  natural  science,  it  has  not  borne  fruit, 
for  it  is  not  in  that  region  that  the  inspiration  lies. 
Where  His  message  has  been  interpreted  in  its  true 
moral  and  religious  sense,  the  language  of  first-century 
Judaism  has  made  a  direct  appeal  to  every  different  type 
of  humanity.  Throughout  the  whole  field  of  the  world 
the  seed  of  the  Word  is  fruitful  still,  provided  it  fall  on 
'good  ground.^ 

And  so  criticism  has  operated  for  good  in  bringing 
out  more  clearly  the  humanity  of  the  human  side  of  the 
Bible,  in  narrowing  the  field  in  which  we  are  to  look  for 
the  work  of  inspiration,  and  focussing  our  gaze  upon  the 
religious  teaching.  And  from  the  crucible  of  criticism 
that  religious  teaching  has  emerged  in  a  more  intelligible 
form  than  it  ever  assumed  before.  It  has  emerged  as 
a  progressive  revelation  from  rude  beginnings,  as  a  light, 
at  first  grey  and  uncertain,  but  shining  more  and  more 
unto  the  perfect  day ;  as  an  inspired  selection  of  a  race 
gifted  beyond  all  others  with  the  religious  temperament; 
an  inspired  selection  for  them  and  in  them  of  elements, 
institutions  and  customs  capable  of  high  transfiguration, 
from  the  mass  of  material  common  to  them  and  to  their 
heathen  kinsfolk  j  as  a  steady  drawing  and  disciplining 
of  the  selected  people  in  a  given  direction  j  a  shedding 


136  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

off  of  the  unworthy,  and  a  retention  again  and  again  of 
the  loyal  remnant ;  an  insjpiration  of  selection  as  regards 
both  men  and  principles."^ 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  Palestine  of  the  Book  of 
Judges  to  that  of  the  G-ospels ;  from  the  days  of  Moses 
and  of  Elijah  to  those  of  the  Transfiguration;  from 
the  dying  curse  of  Zechariah,  son  of  Jehoiada^t  to  St. 
Stephen's  ^  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge ';  % 
from  the  narrow  Judaism  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  to  the 
world-wide  Grospel  of  St.  Paul.  But  these  are  all,  as 
mirrored  in  the  Bible,  seen  to  be  parts  of  one  great 
whole,  elements  in  a  great,  complex,  growing  organism 
— the  organism  of  Progressive  Revelation. 

There  is  a  great  tree  which  has  its  roots  struck 
deep  into  the  soil — the  soil  of  myth  and  legend  where 
anthropologists  dig;  but  its  top  reaches  up  to  heaven, 
and  from  heaven  it  draws  those  vital  influences  which 
make  its  leaves  effectual  ^for  the  healing  of  the  nations,' 
and  its  fruit  the  staple  food  of  the  spiritual  life.  But  its 
connection  with  the  soil  is  never  broken  or  interrupted. 
'  We  have  this  treasure  in  earthen  vessels.' 

It  is  only  when  we  consider  the  whole  and  the  parts 
alike — first  the  variety  and  apparent  incompatibility  of 
the  individual  elements  in  the  Bible,  and  then  the  great 
living  organism  which  they  combine  to  form — that  the 
conviction  of  the  Divine  impulse  and  control  which  we 
call  inspiration  comes  home  to  us  with  its  full  force.  Here 
is  an  impulse   and  a  control  that   touches  at  once  the 

*  Some  would  say  that  it  is  the  entire  Hebrew  people  which 
must  be  regarded  as  inspired,  and  that  the  literature  of  inspiration 
is  so  various  because  it  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  complete 
literature  of  the  ancient  Hebrews.  We  must  not,  however,  forget 
that  the  Bible  itself  refers  to  other  books  now  lost. 

t  2  Chron,  xxiv.  22.  %  Acts  vii,  60, 


PBOPHECY  AND  INSPIRATION  137 

individual  voice  and  the  great  chorus.  The  Holy  Ghost, 
Svho  spake  by  the  prophets/  is  seen  initiating  and 
directing  the  movements  of  gifted  souls  in  that  region 
which  psychology  is  only  just  beginning  to  map  out — the 
vast,  mysterious  region  of  the  subliminal  consciousness, 
the  realm  of  vision  and  trance,  of  sensory  automatism, 
of  telaesthesia  and  telepathy.  '  From  generation  to 
generation  this  Spirit  of  Wisdom,  passing  into  holy 
souls  .  .  .  maketh  men  friends  of  God  and  prophets.'"^ 
But  the  Divine  impulse  comes  not  to  one  type  of 
temperament  alone ;  on  each  and  every  artificer  at  work 
in  the  great  temple  of  Scripture  the  Spirit  descends  as 
upon  the  Bezaleel  and  Aholiab  of  the  Book  of  Exodus,t 
putting  into  his  heart  the  necessary  wisdom  for  the 
particular  task  allotted  to  him.  And  over  the  great 
outlines  of  the  whole  He  presides  as  a  Divine  architect. 
Thus  it  is  that  a  unity  of  purpose  is  visible  amid  all  the 
rich  diversity  of  detail ;  thus  it  is  that  Law  and  Prophets 
and  writings  supplement  each  other;  that  the  Old 
Testament  as  a  whole  leads  up  to  the  New,  that  the  New 
completes  and  interprets  the  Old;  that  both  alike  are 
focussed  upon  the  central  Figure  of  the  world's  history, 
even  on  Him  to  whom  God  gave  not  the  Spirit  by 
measure, t  and  that  there  flows  out  from  them  a  love 
which  is  able  to  make  '  wise  unto  salvation  '§  those  who 
are  seeking  God. 

For  no  doctrine  of  inspiration  is  complete  which  does 
not  include  the  reaction  of  the  Holy  Ghost  upon  the 
believer's  consciousness  as  he  '  searches  the  Scriptures.' 

The  promise  of  the  Comforter  was  the  promise  of  an 
abiding  presence  that  should  lead  Christ's  disciples  into 

*  Wisd.  vii.  27.  t  Exod.  xxxi.  and  xxxvi.  et  aeg. 

:j:  John  iii.  34.  §  2  Tim.  iii.  X5, 


138  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

all  truth.  We  cannot  confine  His  activity  within  a 
given  period  of  past  time.  If  the  Canon  is  closed,  there 
are  other  forms  of  inspiration  still  at  work  among  us, 
and  not  least  of  these  is  the  gift  of  the  power  to  use  that 
Canon  as  a  key  to  unlock  the  many  mysteries  that 
confront  each  successive  generation  of  men. 

'We  ought  not  to  think  of  inspiration'  (it  has  been 
well  said),  'as  though  it  were  some  strange  abnormal 
process  taking  a  man  out  of  himself,  and  making  him,  as 
it  were,  a  mere  passive  instrument  for  the  Spirit  to  play 
on;  we  ought  rather  to  regard  it  as  the  normal  and 
natural  way  by  which  Grod  will  give  ordinary  people 
like  ourselves  the  power  to  use  and  develop  and 
beautify  our  mental  gifts,  and  to  believe  that  the  more 
God  shines  upon  us  and  guides  us,  the  more  there  will 
be  in  us  for  Him  to  illuminate  and  teach.'  They  were 
men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves  who  wrote  and 
compiled,  who  edited  and  transmitted,  the  Bible  literature. 
The  vehicle  of  Scriptural  Inspiration  was  just  human 
nature — human  nature  with  its  limitations,  conditioned 
by  time,  place,  race,  and  temperament;  human  nature, 
liable  to  all  sorts  of  irrelevant  errors  and  mistakes  of 
science,  as  of  history  and  chronology;  but  a  human 
nature  swift  and  unerring  in  its  delivery  of  the  essentials 
of  God's  message,  because  it  was  purely  devoted  to  His 
service,  and  never  deliberately  faltered  in  its  response  to 
His  call. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE 

No  study  of  the  Bible  in  its  general  features  and  fortunes 
would  be  complete  without  some  consideration  of  our 
own  vernacular  Bible,  which,  though  born  comparatively 
late  in  the  history  of  Christendom,  may  boast  that  it  has 
outstripped  all  other  versions  (except  perhaps  the  Latin 
'  Vulgate  ')  in  the  range  and  the  intensity  of  its  influence. 
The  so-called  'Authorized  Version'  of  300  years  ago 
has  so  insinuated  itself  into  our  affections,  so  interwoven 
itself  with  the  fibre  of  our  intellectual  and  devotional 
life,  that  the  average  Englishman,  who,  when  asked, 
would  answer  at  once  that  the  Old  Testament  was 
originally  a  Hebrew,  and  the  New  Testament  a  Greek, 
book,  is  apt  to  relapse  into  the  acceptance  of  the  English 
version  as  something  original  and  ultimate,  even  if  he 
does  not  go  further  still  and  regard  it  as  itself  the  pro- 
duct of  a  process  of  verbal  inspiration. 

Yet  until  these  last  years,  when  the  demands  of  the 
mission-field  have  led  to  the  issue  from  an  English  press 
of  the  Bible  or  parts  of  the  Bible  in  almost  every 
language  and  dialect  under  the  sun,  the  revered  English 
translation  was  simply  one  among  the  younger  of  the 
great  family  of  versions  which  have  attested  in  all  ages 
the   adaptability  of   the   Scriptures   to   the   needs   and 

139 


140  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

aspirations  of  the  various  races  of  mankind.  The  Hebrew 
Canon  was  scarcely  completed  before  the  great  '  Septua- 
gint'  translation  into  Grreek  was  begun  under  the  auspices 
of  Ptolemy  Philadelpus  (284-246  B.C.),  and  when  the 
learned  scholar  Origen,  about  a.d.  232,  compiled  his  six- 
fold Bible  in  parallel  columns,  he  was  able  to  copy  out 
three  independent  Greek  versions,  besides  the  Septuagint 
— those  of  Aquila,  Symmachus,  and  Theodotion.  Before 
the  end  of  the  second  century  we  have  traces  of  an  old 
Latin  version  of  the  entire  Scriptures,  and  at  least  one 
Syriac  (the  Curetonian)  and  two  Egyptian  (the  Thebaic 
and  Memphitic),  and  at  least  one  Latin  version  in 
North  Africa;  and  these  are  followed  by  later  Latin, 
Syriac,  and  Egyptian  versions,  and  later  still  by  ^thiopic 
and  Armenian  translations,  the  last-named  dating  from 
the  fifth  century.  It  will  be  realized  of  what  inestimable 
value  the  earlier  versions  are  to  the  textual  critic  of  the 
New  Testament,  since  each  translation  implies  a  Greek 
manuscript  already  in  existence;  while  some,  by  their 
evident  literalness,  enable  the  scholar  to  recover  a 
hitherto  unknown  reading,  or  to  date,  within  limits, 
a  variant  reading  already  known.  It  will  be  realized, 
too,  how  reassuring  is  the  evidence  which  these  early 
versions  supply,  that,  two  centuries  before  the  date  at 
which  our  earliest  extant  manuscript  of  the  Scriptures 
came  into  being,  and  considerably  less  than  two  centuries 
after  the  Lord^s  ascension,  these  Scriptures  were  already 
in  existence,  and  substantially  in  the  form  in  which 
they  have  been  handed  down  to  us. 

But  for  our  immediate  purpose  the  significance  of  these 
versions  is  of  another  kind.  They  shew  the  power  of  the 
Scriptures  to  acclimatize  themselves,  to  live  and  work  in 
a  new  dress,  to  adapt  themselves  to  a  new  environment^ 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  141 

to  make  themselves  at  home  among  peoples  of  different 
race  and  tongue,  of  different  religious  antecedents  and 
mental  habits  from  those  among  whom  they  first  saw 
the  light.  They  witness  to  that  strange  way  the  Bible 
has  of  becoming  '  original  ^  wherever  it  makes  its  home. 
If  we  come  to  achieve  a  more  microscopic  knowledge  of 
the  structure  and  a  more  detailed  and  minute  familiarity 
with  the  history  of  the  languages  in  which  these  versions 
were  made,  we  may  probably  find  that  they  exercised 
a  strong  formative  and  fixative  influence  upon  the  tongues 
themselves.  When  Ulphilas,  in  the  fourth  century,  wished 
to  take  the  Gospels  to  the  Goths,  he  had  to  invent  an 
alphabet,  for  their  language  had  never  been  reduced  to 
writing.  The  same  was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
true  of  the  Romansch  language  of  the  Grisons  at  a  later 
date.  Not  that  it  required  a  new  alphabet,  but  the 
vernacular  Bible  was  its  first  considerable  piece  of 
permanent  literature.  The  Reformation  and  the  art  of 
printing  came  upon  it  when  it  had  not  yet  emerged  from 
the  folk-song  stage.  In  a  hundred  different  mission- 
fields  the  same  thing  has  been  enacted  in  our  lifetime. 
Languages  and  dialects  that  have  never  been  written 
down  before,  some  that  have  scarcely  attained  maturity 
of  grammar  and  syntax,  now  possess  the  Christian 
Scriptures  as  their  first  specimen  of  vernacular  literature. 
It  is  a  fact  of  great  significance. 

The  vernacular  Bible  tradition  was  carried  on,  more 
or  less  fitfully,  in  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages. 
Quite  early  in  the  history  of  the  Provencal  and  Italian 
tongues  (whose  literary  career,  properly  so  called,  began 
with  lyric  verse)  we  find  successful  attempts  to  put 
into  the  vernacular  the  more  familiar  parts  of  the 
Latin  Vulgate.     There  was  a  complete  Yaudois  transla- 


142  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

tion  about  a.d.  1100.  A  new  impulse  was  given  to  this 
movement  almost  all  over  Europe  by  the  Reformation, 
following  close  upon  the  heels  of  the  invention  of  print- 
ing, and  then  it  was  that  some  tongues  awoke  for  the 
first  time  to  a  literary  life. 

Our  English  literature  was  not  born  at  the  Reforma- 
tion, nor  in  the  earlier  evangelical  age  of  primitive 
Franciscanism,  when  vernacular  versions  of  the  Scriptures 
began  to  spring  to  life  in  Southern  Europe.  Its  con- 
tinuous life,  which  reached  early  manhood  with  Chaucer 
and  maturity  with  the  Elizabethans,  and  in  these  latter 
days  still  shows  itself  full  of  unexhausted  vigour,  can  be 
traced  back  for  some  twelve  centuries  along  the  track  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  across  the  watershed  of  the 
Norman  Conquest,  to  the  days  of  Alfred  and  beyond, 
when  the  land  was  not  yet  one. 

But  the  Bible  is  there,  at  the  dawn  of  English  poetry, 
in  Caedmon's  paraphrase  of  Genesis.  And  we  shall  see 
that  the  Scriptures  exercised  a  practically  continuous 
influence,  now  stronger,  now  weaker,  upon  our  national 
literature,  till  the  day  when  the  great  version  of  1611, 
marking  an  epoch  in  the  literary  history  of  Europe, 
should  set  a  standard  of  classical  English.  This  it  has 
done  so  effectually,  and  in  so  many  departments — in 
vocabulary  and  phraseology,  in  syntax,  in  rhythm  and 
cadence — that  '  Bible  English '  has  become  a  recognized 
and  well-understood  expression,  denoting  a  style  at  once 
eloquent  and  chaste,  lofty  and  simple,  graceful  and 
severe — a  style  inimitable  in  its  unselfconscious  dignity 
and  grandeur. 

Our  familiarity  with  the  subject-matter  of  the  Bible 
will  have  prepared  us  to  acknowledge  that  the  matter 
itself   reacted   very  powerfully    upon   the   style  of   the 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  143 

translation.  True,  the  event  is  happily  timed,  following 
close  upon  the  glorious  literary  awakening  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan Age,  and  so  finding  ready  to  hand  a  medium 
of  literary  expression ;  but  if  this  version  of  the  Bible 
be  compared  with  the  rest  of  English  literature  of  the 
period,  worthy  and  dignified  as  that  is,  it  will  be  found 
still  supreme.  Moreover,  the  best  of  the  contemporary 
literature — Shakespeare's  verse  and  Bacon's  prose — 
owes  not  a  little  to  the  leaven  of  scriptural  ideas  and 
phrases — ideas  and  phrases  which  had  begun  to  exercise 
a  potent  influence  upon  the  literary  language  two 
centuries  earlier,  as  a  result  of  Wycliffe's  work  at  Bible 
translation. 

If  we  are  to  make  clear  to  ourselves  the  antecedents 
of  the  Authorized  Version,  it  will  be  necessary  to  traverse 
ground  familiar  to  many,  and  sketch  the  outlines  of  a 
literary  evolution  of  many  centuries'  duration. 

The  history  of  the  English  Bible,  in  one  sense,  goes 
back  to  Tindale's  New  Testament  of  1525-26.  To  this, 
and  his  subsequent  translations  of  many  of  the  Old 
Testament  books,  every  subsequent  English  version  owes 
very  much;  its  diction  and  phraseology  have  left  an 
indelible  mark,  not  only  upon  the  translations  of  the 
Scriptures  now  in  use  among  us,  but  also  upon  English 
literature  as  such,  and  upon  the  language  which  is  its 
instrument.  Tindale's  work  marks  a  fresh  start,  because 
his  version  is  based  largely  upon  the  originals — the 
Hebrew  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Testament  in 
Grreek. 

Yet  that  work  itself  would  have  been  impossible 
without  the  inspiration  due  to  John  Wy cliff e.  The 
century  which  passed  between  the  death  of  Wycliffe 
(1384)    and   the   birth  of   Tindale    (1484)  had  been    a 


144  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

momentous  one  for  European  culture.  It  had  seen  tlie 
invention  of  printing  and  the  fall  of  Constantinople. 
This  latter  event  had  flooded  the  West  with  fugitive 
Greek  scholars  and  with  precious  Grreek  manuscripts, 
and  given  an  enormous  impulse  to  that  revival  of 
learning  which  Petrarch  had  done  so  much  to  foster  a 
century  earlier  still.  The  century  had  also  witnessed 
the  birth  of  men  like  Erasmus  (1467),  Eeuchlin  (1455), 
and  Luther  (1483),  who  were,  each  in  his  different  way, 
to  be  the  pioneers  of  a  new  and  more  discerning  biblical 
scholarship.  Tindale  thus  started  on  a  different  plane 
from  that  on  which  Wycliffe  had  laboured.  If  the 
opposition  he  had  to  encounter  was  better  organized 
and  more  bitter,  his  material  and  personal  advantages 
were  more  numerous  and  efficacious.  Yet  Wy cliff e,  as 
the  great  English  pioneer  of  revolt  against  Roman  abuses, 
was  more  or  less  responsible  for  the  atmosphere  in  which 
Tindale  found  himself  —  an  atmosphere  stimulating 
enough,  charged  with  immense  possibilities. 

And  although  Wycliffe's  noble  work,  being,  at  best, 
a  translation  from  the  Yulgate  translation,  and  from 
a  poor  text  of  that,  had  less  direct  influence  on  subse- 
quent versions  than  might  have  been  expected,  its 
influence  was  still  felt,  through  Tindale,  and  has  re- 
turned in  these  last  days  with  greater  force ;  its  render- 
ings having  been  restored  in  not  a  few  places  of  the 
Revised  New  Testament  of  1881. 

But  its  main  significance  is  as  a  monument  of  the 
national  love  of  Scripture,  and  the  national  desire  to 
have  access  to  the  holy  writings  in  the  vulgar  tongue. 
That  love  and  that  desire  were  not  born  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  nor  do  they  owe  their  origin  to  so  negative  an 
impulse  as  the  revolt  against  the  corruption  of  the  friars 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  145 

and  monks,  and  against  the  obscurantism  and  oppression 
of  the  Papal  Court. 

We  must  go  back,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  dawn  of 
our  national  history — to  the  time  when  we  were  not  yet 
a  single  nation — if  we  would  trace  the  beginnings  of 
this  great  drama  of  the  English  Bible.  Before  the  end 
of  the  seventh  century  Caedmon  had  written  his  famous 
paraphrase,  which  was  at  once  the  first  attempt  to  put 
the  Bible  into  an  English  dress,  and  the  beginning 
of  English  poetry.  Bede  it  is  who  tells  us  the  story 
how,  when  past  middle  life,  the  modest  lay-brother  of 
St.  Hilda's  Monastery  at  Whitby  burst  into  song  under 
the  stimulus  of  what  seemed  to  him  a  heaven-sent 
inspiration ;  how  in  his  sleep  One  came  to  him  and  said, 
'  Caedmon,  sing  me  a  song ';  and  how,  when  he  answered 
that  just  because  he  could  not  sing  he  had  left  the  festive 
hall,  and  gone  to  rest  by  the  cattle  that  were  his  care, 
the  Voice  insisted,  'However,  you  shall  sing.'  And 
when  he  asked,  '  What  shall  I  sing  ?'  he  received  the 
answer,  '  Sing  the  beginning  of  created  things.'  '  Others 
after  him,'  Bede  adds,  'attempted  to  make  religious 
poems,  but  none  could  vie  with  him,  for  he  did  not  learn 
the  art  of  poetry  from  men,  nor  of  men,  but  from  God.' 

Whether  we  have  or  have  not  some  parts  of  Caedmon's 
original  paraphrase  extant  in  the  earlier  portions  of  the 
'  Junian  Caedmon '  is  still  a  matter  of  dispute ;  unfor- 
tunately, there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Bede's  own  trans- 
lation work  is  lost  to  us.  For  if  Caedmon  is  the  first  who 
attempted  to  put  the  Bible  into  an  English  dress,  it  is 
Bede's  own  version  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  that  opens  the 
long  and  noble  list  of  attempts  to  translate  Scripture 
faithfully  into  English  prose.  He  was  at  work  upon 
this  on  his  death-bed  (in  735),  as  the  pathetic  narrative 

10 


146  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

of  his  pupil  Cuthbert  assures  us  ;  so  that  the  story  of  the 
English  Bible  in  this  very  definite  sense  takes  us  back 
to  the  first  half  of  the  eighth  century,  some  six  centuries 
and  a  half  before  Wycliffe  accomplished  his  work  of 
translation,  and  nearly  eight  hundred  years  before 
Tindale's  publications  ushered  in  the  last  phase  in  the 
evolution. 

Between  Bede  and  Wycliffe  there  is  not  wanting  a 
series  of  efforts,  more  or  less  ambitious  and  more  or  less 
successful,  to  render  portions  of  the  Bible  into  the 
vernacular.  Besides  the  early  version  of  the  Psalter 
ascribed  (but  erroneously)  to  Aldhelm,  who  died  more 
than  twenty  years  before  Bede,  King  Alfred,  at  the 
close  of  the  ninth  century,  prefixed  to  his  code  of  laws 
a  free  English  rendering  of  Exod.  xx.-xxiii.  and  of 
Acts  XV.,  and  further  projected  a  translation  of  the 
Psalms.  The  period  between  his  death  and  the  Norman 
Conquest  is  rich  in  specimens  of  biblical  translation, 
considering  the  small  total  bulk  of  the  English  literature 
of  those  centuries.  Several  versions  and  'glosses' 
(i.e.j  literal  renderings,  interlinear  with  the  Latin)  of 
the  Psalms  are  extant,  and  three  translations  and  several 
glosses  of  the  Grospels,  while,  during  the  first  years  of  the 
eleventh  century,  ^Ifric,  who  became  Archbishop  of 
York  in  1023,  translated  a  large  proportion  of  the  Old 
Testament,  though  his  work — a  metrical  version — was 
freer  and  less  complete  and  exact  than  those  named 
above.  The  Norman  Conquest,  though  it  failed  to  stem 
the  course  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  which  was 
maintained  at  Peterborough  till  the  close  of  Stephen's 
reign,  left  little  scope  or  leisure  for  English  writing ;  and 
the  literature  of  our  tongue  all'  but  disappeared  for 
a  time,  to  arise  again  enriched  by  the  '  alluvial  deposit ' 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  147 

left  by  the  Norman-Frencli  flood.  Yet  for  this  dark 
period  we  have,  besides  early  homilies  steeped  in 
Scripture,  the  work  of  Ormin  (called  the  Ormulum) 
dating  from  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
which  originally  comprised  an  English  metrical  para- 
phrase of  some  230  Mass-Gospels,  followed  in  each  case 
by  a  commentary.  The  first  half  of  the  fourteenth 
century  has  left  us  two  prose  versions  of  the  Psalms, 
those  of  William  of  Shoreham  and  Richard  Rolle  of 
Hampole,  each  of  them  a  somewhat  crabbed  gloss, 
literally  rendering  the  sometimes  unintelligible  Latin 
with  which  the  version  is  interlined.  After  each  verse 
Rolle  adds  his  own  comment.  This  last-named  glossator, 
since  he  died  in  1349,  must  have  been  living  after  the 
birth  of  Wy cliff e,  who,  in  1360,  was  already  Master  of 
Balliol.  But  as  regards  the  extent  and  value  of  their 
work  on  the  Bible,  there  is  no  comparison.  Alike  in 
quantity  and  in  quality,  Wycliffe^s  work  is  immeasurably 
the  greater. 

John  Wycliffe,  the  last  of  the  Schoolmen,  the  precursor 
of  the  English  Reformation,  is  a  figure  of  almost 
inestimable  importance,  by  reason  of  his  influence  upon 
the  future  of  English  literature  and  English  life  and 
thought. 

He  was  the  last  of  the  Schoolmen.  By  taste  and 
training  a  scholar  and  student,  of  paramount  influence 
in  the  University  of  Oxford,  where  he  spent  the  best 
years  of  his  life,  he  was  well  versed  in  all  the  scholastic 
lore  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  bent  of  his  mind  was 
amazingly  independent,  not  to  say  revolutionary.  He 
was  a  follower  of  William  of  Ockham  and  Marsiglio  of 
Padua,  who  repaid  the  Emperor  Lewis  of  Bavaria  for 
the    protection    his    sword    afforded    them    against    a 


148  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

persecuting  Papacy  by  wielding  their  pens  with  great 
effect  on  behalf  of  the  rights  of  the  imperial  sovereignty 
and  its  independence  of  the  ecclesiastical  power.  In 
those  days  the  Papacy  was  already  discredited  by  its 
flight  from  Rome  and  by  the  corruption  of  the  '  exiled ' 
Curia  at  Avignon.  Wycliffe  lived  to  see  a  still  further 
blow  to  its  prestige  in  the  spectacle  of  two  rival  Popes, 
one  supported  by  France  and  her  allies,  the  other  by 
England  and  her  friends,  each  claiming  to  be  Christ^s 
own  Vicar,  and  each  hurling  abuse  and  anathema  at 
the  other.  This  stimulated  his  already  considerable 
suspicion  of  all  things  traditional,  of  the  whole  mediaeval 
Church  system,  root  and  branch,  and  of  much  that  was 
not  ecclesiastical  at  all — like  the  traditional  rights  of 
property.  The  centre  of  his  religious  system  is  the  right 
of  every  soul  to  deal  immediately  with  Grod.  His  theory 
of  society  and  of  government  is  really  all  but  anarchical, 
but  he  did  good  service  to  posterity  by  the  immense 
number  of  questions  he  raised  and  the  fearless  way  in 
which  he  raised  them.  The  time  was  not  ripe  as  yet. 
Many  of  Wycliffe's  ideas,  indeed,  overshot  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  have  only  reappeared  in  quite  recent  days. 
The  Reformation  in  England,  itself  the  inevitable  result  of 
so  many  and  so  complex  causes,  owes  more  to  him  than 
to  any  one  man.  His  influence  seems,  indeed,  suddenly  to 
disappear  soon  after  his  death.  The  Lollard  movement 
was  outwardly  a  failure.  In  1401  Lollardy  became, 
under  the  famous  statute  De  hs^retico  comburendo,  a  penal 
offence  by  express  desire  of  the  prelates,  clergy,  and 
commons  of  the  realm,  and  it  did  not  even  furnish  many 
martyrs  But  Wycliffe^s  influence  was  not  annihilated, 
only  eclipsed.  It  was  like  a  stream  flowing  under- 
ground and  then  reappearing.     He  himself  had  diverted 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  149 

it  into  the  soil.  Despairing  of  an  appeal  to  the  dominant 
ecclesiastical  authority,  and  finding  the  support  of  John 
of  Gaunt  a  failure,  this  scholar  and  student  decided  to 
'appeal  to  the  people/  He  abandoned  the  Latin  for 
the  English  tongue,  and  wrote  tract  after  tract  in  rough, 
clear,  homely  English,  denouncing  pardons,  indulgences, 
worship  of  the  saints,  and  the  doctrine  of  transubstantia- 
tion,  and  appealing  to  the  Bible  as  the  one  ground  of 
faith.  These  tracts  were  distributed  everywhere  by  his 
'  Poor  Preachers,'  and  leavened  the  masses  of  the  people 
not  only  with  a  suspicion  of  all  things  traditional,  but 
with  a  love  of  Holy  Scripture  and  a  taste  for  good, 
simple  English.  And  so,  when  Wycliffe  died  in  1384, 
under  the  ban  of  Rome  and  in  disfavour  with  the  local 
ecclesiastical  authorities,  his  influence  did  not  really 
die.  His  ideas  remained  to  germinate  under  the  soil ;  his 
English  prose  remained,  and,  above  all,  his  vernacular 
Bible.  Wycliffe  is  the  father  of  the  later  English  prose, 
as  Chaucer  of  the  later  poetry.  Both  his  version  of  the 
Bible  and  his  pamphlets  did  much  to  determine  the 
future  type  of  English  prose,  the  former  also  influencing 
to  an  indefinite  extent  the  still  more  influential  version 
of  Tindale. 

The  first  edition  of  Wycliffe's  Bible,  in  which  he  him- 
self was  responsible  for  the  New  Testament  and  the  last 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  from  Baruch  onwards,  while 
the  bulk  of  the  Old  Testament  was  translated  by  his 
assistant,  Nicholas  of  Hereford,  was  marred  by  the 
presence  of  a  large  number  of  Latinisms.  Even  Wycliffe's 
nimble  mind  could  not  shake  itself  free  at  once  from  the 
tongue  in  which,  as  schoolman  and  Oxford  divine,  all 
his  best  work  had  been  done — the  tongue  in  which,  no 
doubt,  he  had  hitherto  done  all  his  thinking  as  well  as 


150  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

his  writing  and  speaking  on  theological  subjects.  These 
blemishes  and  others  were  afterwards  removed  by  John 
Purvey  under  Wycliffe^s  directions,  and  thus  came  into 
existence  what  we  know  as  '  Wy differs  Bible/  A  typical 
specimen  of  the  style  of  this  work  may  be  found  in  the 
familiar  Twenty-third  Psalm  —  numbered  by  him,  of 
course,  Twenty-second,  following  the  Vulgate  Version, 
which  was  throughout  the  basis  of  his  translation : 

THE  TITLE  OF  THE  TWO  AND  TWENTITHE  SALM. 
THE  SALM,  ETHEE  THE  SONG  OF  DAUID. 

The  Lord  gouerneth  me,  and  no  thing  schal  faile  to  me ;  in  the 
place  of  pasture  there  he  hath  set  me.  He  nurschide  me  on  the 
watir  of  refreischyng  ;  he  conuertide  my  soule.  He  ledde  me  forth 
on  the  pathis  of  ri3tfulnesse  ;  for  his  name.  For  whi  thou3  p  schal 
go  in  the  middist  of  schadewe  of  deeth ;  p  schal  not  drede  yuels, 
for  thou  art  with  me.  Thi  3erde  and  thi  staf ;  tho  han  coumfortid 
me.  Thou  hast  maad  redi  a  boord  in  my  si3t ;  a3ens  hem  that 
troblen  me.  Thou  hast  maad  fat  myn  heed  with  oyle ;  and  my 
cuppe,  fillinge  greetli,  is  ful  cleer.  And  thi  merci  schal  sue  me  ;  in 
all  the  daies  of  my  lijf.  And  that  p  dwell  in  the  hows  of  the  Lord ; 
in  to  the  lengthe  of  daies. 

Even  from  so  short  an  extract  it  will  be  seen  how 
crabbed  the  version  is  to  modern  ears,  a  characteristic 
due,  of  course,  in  part,  to  the  primitive  and  unformed 
state  of  the  English  prose  as  a  vehicle  of  solemn 
literature,  partly  to  the  fact  that  the  translation  is  from 
the  Vulgate,  some  of  the  obscurities  and  defects  of 
which  are  carried  over  into  the  very  un-Latin  English 
of  Purvey's  revision.  That  the  translators  were  aware 
of  the  defects  of  the  Vulgate,  and  of  the  corrupt  state 
of  the  manuscripts  of  it  current  in  their  day,  is 
abundantly  clear  from  Purvey^s  prologue.  '  The  comune 
Latyne  Bibles,'  he  says,  '  have  more  need  to  be  corrected 
as  many  as  I  have  seen  in  my  life  than  hath  the  Englishe 
Bible  late  translated  j'  and,  again,  of  the  Psalter :  '  The 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  151 

texte  o£  our  bokis  discordeth  much  from  the  Ebreu.' 
But  neither  he  nor  any  of  his  contemporaries  would 
have  been  able  to  compare  the  Vulgate  effectually  with 
Hebrew  or  with  Grreek. 

They  claim  their  place  in  the  line  of  those  great 
men  who  had  endeavoured,  from  the  beginning  of 
English  history,  to  bring  Holy  Scripture  within  the 
reach  of  the  people.  They  appeal  to  the  examples  of 
Bede,  of  Alfred,  and  of  Grosseteste;  but  it  was  left  to 
a  later  generation  to  take  up  Grosseteste's  role  of  an 
appeal  to  the  originals. 

We  have  coupled  Wycliffe^s  name  with  that  of  his 
contemporary,  Chaucer,  as  accomplishing  a  work  for 
English  prose  analogous  to  that  which  Chaucer  achieved 
for  poetry.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  poet  may  have 
actually  used  Wycliffe's  work  in  the  last  of  his  Canterbury 
Tales;  for  while  all  the  Scripture  quotations  in  Lang- 
land's  Piers  the  Plowman  (published  before  Wycliffe  had 
brought  out  his  English  Bible)  are  in  the  Latin  of  the 
Yulgate,  the  quotations  in  the  Persone's  Tale  are  in 
English,  and  substantially  identical  with  Wycliffe's 
version.  The  years  that  followed  Wycliffe's  death  (1385- 
1389)  are  those  in  which  the  greater  part  of  the 
Canterbury  Tales  saw  the  light ;  and  how  many  copies  of 
the  Wycliffe  Bible  must  have  been  in  circulation  may  be 
udged  from  the  fact  that  though  the  book  was  pro- 
scribed by  the  authorities,  some  150  manuscripts  are 
extant  to  this  day. 

But  neither  to  Chaucer  nor  to  Wycliffe  can  we  be  said 
to  owe  the  actual  beginnings  of  the  classical  English 
language  of  to-day.  That  English  was  born  in  the 
Elizabethan  Age,  and  the  way  was  prepared  for  it  by 
William  Tindale  more  than  by  any  other   single  man. 


152  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

The  labour,  to  which  he  devoted  his  life,  of  producing  a 
sound  English  version  of  the  Bible  translated  direct 
from  the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek,  has  borne  fruit  that 
has  remained. 

It  was  rendered  possible  by  that  great  revival  of 
learning  which,  as  we  have  seen,  marked  the  century 
which  elapsed  between  Chaucer's  death  and  Tindale's 
birth  in  1484.  But  there  was  needed  a  man  also  to 
seize  the  opportunity  —  a  man  of  inflexible  purpose, 
prepared  to  suffer  persecution,  and  in  the  end  to  lay 
down  his  life  for  the  cause.  A  man,  too,  was  needed 
who  should  not  only  be  ready  to  spend  long  years  of 
labour  in  the  study  of  Hebrew  and  Greek,  but  should 
also  be  a  master  of  the  purest  English,  and  a  discerning 
enthusiast  in  regard  to  its  capabilities  and  powers. 

His  life's  purpose  is  well  expressed  in  the  familiar 
challenge  with  which,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  he  met  a 
learned  opponent.  'If  God  spare  my  life,  ere  many 
years  I  will  cause  a  boy  that  driveth  the  plough  shall 
know  more  of  the  Scriptures  than  thou  doest.'  His 
enthusiasm  for  the  English  tongue  is  expressed  in  the 
trenchant  retort  he  made  to  those  who  urged  that  the 
English  tongue  was  too  rude  to  offer  a  good  medium  for 
the  rendering  of  the  Bible  originals.  *  It  is  not  so  rude,' 
he  said,  '  as  they  are  false  liars.  For  the  Greek  tongue 
agreeth  more  with  the  English  than  the  Latin;  a 
thousand  parts  better  may  it  be  translated  into  the 
English  than  into  the  Latin.'  The  words  are  words  of 
one  who  knew  what  he  was  saying,  even  if  the  construc- 
tion be  a  little  involved  by  reason  (shall  we  say  ?)  of 
suppressed  feeling.  It  is  a  commonplace  of  modern 
scholarship  that  the  genius  of  the  Greek  language  is 
somehow  more  akin  to  the  English  than  to  the  Latin, 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  153 

but  it  needed  uncommon  insight  to  observe  the  fact  in 
those  early  days. 

Similarly,  too,  he  is  able  to  speak  from  his  familiarity 
with  the  Hebrew  tongue :  '  The  properties  of  the 
Hebrewe  tongue  agreeth  a  thousand  times  more  with  the 
Englishe  than  with  the  Latine.  The  manner  of  speak- 
ing is  in  both  one,  so  that  in  a  thousand  places  thou 
needest  not  but  to  translate  it  into  Englishe  word  for 
word/  Here  again  modern  scholarship  would  probably 
support  his  judgment. 

That  Tindale  should  have  made  no  use  at  all  of  the  work 
of  former  translators  would  have  argued  perversity  rather 
than  honesty.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  close  comparison 
shows  that,  besides  referring  to  the  Yulgate,  he  used 
Luther's  rendering  for  the  Pentateuch,  and  both  Luther 
and  Erasmus  for  the  New  Testament ;  but  he  used  them 
as  their  master,  not  as  their  servant. 

Nor  was  Tindale  lacking  in  a  sense  of  the  solemnity 
of  the  task  to  which  he  devoted  his  life.  '  I  call  God  to 
record,'  he  said,  '  against  the  day  we  shall  appear  before 
our  Lord  Jesus  to  give  a  reckoning  of  our  doings,  that  I 
never  altered  one  syllable  of  God's  Word  against  my 
conscience,  nor  would  this  day,  if  all  that  is  in  the  world, 
whether  pleasure,  honour,  or  riches,  might  be  given  me.' 
And  he  sealed  his  testimony  with  his  blood.  After  a 
life  spent  in  loneliness  and  exile,  working  at  Cologne,  at 
Worms,  at  Antwerp,  because  the  English  Bible  was 
proscribed  in  his  own  country,  he  was  entrapped  in 
May,  1535,  at  Antwerp,  and  carried  off  to  the  fortress  of 
Vilvorde,  where  he  was  burnt  in  the  October  of  the 
following  year.  During  those  months  of  imprisonment 
he  was  still  at  work  upon  the  Bible ;  when  he  begged 
the  governor  of  the  fortress  for  warmer   clothing,  he 


154  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

asked  also  for  a  Hebrew  Bible,  a  grammar,  and  a 
dictionary.  It  is  like  St.  PauPs  touching  request  to 
Timothy  written  during  his  last  imprisonment :  '  The 
cloak  that  I  left  at  Troas  with  Carpus,  when  thou 
comest,  bring  with  thee,  and  the  books^  but  especially 
the  parchments.^  "^ 

Equally  touching  are  his  last  recorded  words  :  '  Lord, 
open  the  King  of  England^s  eyes  !'  Less  than  two  years 
later,  in  1537,  an  English  Bible  ('Matthew's')  was 
published  by  the  authority  of  Henry  VIIL,  and  the 
pseudonymous  author  of  it  was  really  Tindale's  friend 
and  collaborator,  Eogers. 

Tindale's  own  work,  which  appeared  in  successive 
portions  and  successive  versions  between  1525  and  his 
death,  was  never  completed  by  him.  The  New  Testa- 
ment was  his  first  work ;  but  though  he  had  translated 
the  Pentateuch  and  the  Book  of  Jonah  by  1531,  he 
published  nothing  more  of  the  Old  Testament  in  his 
lifetime.  It  is  now  thought,  however,  that  he  finished  in 
prison  the  translation  of  the  section  Joshua  to  2  Chronicles, 
which  was  published  in  the  following  year. 

The  value  and  importance  of  his  work,  both  for  the 
diffusion  of  scriptural  knowledge  and  for  the  English 
language  and  literature,  can  scarcely  be  over-estimated. 
If  the  Authorized  Version  of  1611  set  the  standard  of 
English  for  generations  to  come,  we  must  not  forget  that 
its  English  is  very  predominantly  that  of  Tindale,  of 
whose  vocabulary  it  has  been  said  that  in  his  two 
volumes  of  political  tracts  there  are  only  twelve  Teutonic 
words  that  are  obsolete  to-day. 

The  first  complete  English  Bible  was  published  some 
months  before  Tindale's  martyrdom  by  Miles  Coverdale 
*  2  Tim.  iv.  13. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  155 

(1535)  .*  It  is  a  far  inferior  work,  in  that  it  is  not  drawn 
from  the  original  tongues,  but  compiled  out  of  such 
English,  Latin,  and  German  materials  as  came  to  hand, 
including  Tindale's  own  work.  Yet  it  has  the  merit  of  a 
fine,  dignified,  and  grandly  rhythmical  style.  English- 
men can  never  repay  the  debt  they  owe  to  Coverdale  for 
his  version  of  the  Psalms. 

The  Psalms  have  had  a  peculiar  fate  in  vernacular 
translations,  a  destiny  marked  out  for  them  by  their 
peculiar  use  in  the  Christian  Church.  Already  in  the 
early  centuries  of  Christendom  the  regular  devotional 
use  of  them  had  become  established  among  the  faithful, 
and  this  use  became  further  systematized  and  stereotyped 
by  the  rise  of  monasticism  and  the  coenobite  life. 
When  St.  Jerome  replaced  the  Old  Latin  Version,  then 
in  general  use  (a  version  based,  for  the  Old  Testament, 
on  the  Greek  of  the  Septuagint),  by  a  more  scholarly  and 
accurate  translation  from  the  original  tongues,  he  found 
it  impossible  to  dislodge  the  old  rendering  of  the  Psalter 
from  its  place  in  the  people's  affections.  Its  cadences, 
its  phraseology,  its  very  crudities  and  obscurities,  had 
become  a  part  of  the  hallowed  furniture  of  the  devotional 
life. 

Twelve  centuries  afterwards  the  same  thing  happened 
in  England.  When  in  the  year  1549  the  immemorial 
custom  of  the  regular  recitation  of  the  Psalter  was 
carried  over  in  a  new  form  into  the  English  vernacular 
Prayer-Book,  it  was  Coverdale's  translation  that  was 
chosen,  from  his  edition  of  1540,  commonly  called, 
from  the  size  of  its  page,  the  Great  Bible.     This  edition, 

♦  The  title  of  the  first  edition  runs  :  '  Biblia  |  The  Bible,  that  |  is, 
the  holy  Scripture  of  the  |  Olde  &  New  Testament,  faithfully  trans- 
lated out  1  of  Douche  &  Latyne  |  in  to  Englishe  |  M.D.XXXV.' 


156  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

'  printed  by  Richard  Grafton  and  Edward  Whitchurch, 
cum  privilegio/  was  the  Bible  ordered  to  be  set  up  in 
every  church  in  the  land.  It  spread  northwards  across 
the  Tweed,  and  by  its  influence  assimilated  the  English 
of  the  Scottish  Lowlands  to  the  English  spoken  in 
London.  It  won  its  place  quickly  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people ;  and  when,  some  sixty-two  years  after  the 
promulgation  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  the 
Authorized  Version  of  1611  was  substituted  for  the 
Grreat  Bible  in  the  reading  of  the  G-ospels  and  Epistles 
and  the  Lessons,  the  old  story  of  the  days  of  St.  Jerome 
was  repeated.  The  people  loved  the  noble,  rhythmical 
version  of  the  Psalter  to  which  they  had  been  accustomed 
from  their  youth ;  it  had  interwoven  itself  into  the  very 
texture  of  their  religious  life.  Dear  to  them  were  its 
grand  poetic  roll,  its  dignified  phraseology,  the  happy 
and  almost  inspired  renderings  which  now  and  again 
represent  with  remarkable  faithfulness  an  original  which 
the  translator  had  probably  never  seen.  But  they  loved 
it  all — its  very  crudities  and  obscurities ;  its  quaint  mis- 
translations of  immemorial  ancestry,  which  can  be  traced 
back  more  than  seventeen  centuries;  misapprehensions 
passed  on  from  the  original  Septuagint  translators  of 
the  Hebrew  to  the  Old  Latin  version  which  St.  Jerome 
was  powerless  to  dislodge  from  its  liturgical  use. 

Coverdale  himself  had  been  associated  with  Tindale, 
and  is  said  to  have  helped  the  latter  at  Hamburg  in 
1529 ;  it  is  probable,  also,  though  not  quite  certain,  that 
Coverdale's  first  edition  was  printed  at  Amsterdam  in 
1535,  the  year  when  Tindale  was  arrested  in  that 
city. 

The  next  edition  to  be  mentioned,  the  mysterious 
^Matthew's   Bible,'  has   a  still   closer   connection   with 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  157 

Tindale.  This  version;  in  which  we  have  seen  the 
answer  to  Tindale's  dying  prayer — it  is  'set  forth  with 
the  Kinges  most  gracyous  lycece ' — ^is  adorned  with  three 
groups  of  mysterious  initials.  The  title-page  has  I.  R. 
at  its  foot.  Before  the  Prophets,  and  after  the  quaint 
utterance, '  the  End  of  the  Ballet  of  Ballettes  of  Solomon/ 
is  a  page  on  which  R.  and  Gr.  figure  at  the  top,  and 
E.  and  W.  at  the  bottom.  At  the  end  of  Malachi  appear 
the  initials  W.  T. 

The  initials  R.  Gr.  and  E.  W.  are  explained  as  those 
of  Richard  Grafton  and  Edward  Whitchurch,  London 
printers,  who  apparently  bought  the  sheets  as  they  were 
passing  through  the  press  in  Antwerp. 

The  earlier  initials  I.  R.  doubtless  represent  John 
Rogers,  and  the  last,  W.  T.,  William  Tindale.  John 
Rogers  is  the '  Thomas  Matthew '  whose  name  appears  on 
the  title-page.  When  his  turn  came  to  die,  like  his 
master,  for  the  faith — Rogers  was  the  first  to  suffer  in 
the  Marian  persecution — he  was  condemned  as  '  Rogers, 
alias  Matthew.'  From  1534  to  1536  Rogers  had  been 
chaplain  to  the  English  factory  at  Amsterdam,  where  he 
came  under  the  influence  of  Tindale  and  Coverdale.  It  is 
probable  that  Tindale,  when  'spirited  away,'  left  his 
precious  manuscripts  in  Rogers'  care,  and  possible,  also, 
that  he  managed  somehow  to  convey  to  him  the  work 
accomplished  in  prison.  For  in  Matthew's  Bible  not  only 
are  the  entire  New  Testament  and  the  Pentateuch  Tindale's 
work,  but  probably  also  the  translation  of  the  following 
books  to  the  end  of  2  Chronicles.  The  rest — from  Ezra 
to  the  end  of  the  Apocrypha — Rogers  drew  from  Cover- 
dale,  except  the  '  Prayer  of  Manasses,'  which  seems  to 
be  his  own  work. 

Through  'Matthew'  and  through  Coverdale  Tindale 


158  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

influenced  all  subsequent  versions.  The  '  Geneva '  Bible 
of  1560,  the  work  of  Marian  exiles,  of  whom  Coverdale 
himself  was  one  (a  version  to  which  we  owe  the  division 
into  verses,  and  the  italics  for  words  not  in  the  original) , 
largely  followed  Tindale  and  Cover  dale's  Grreat  Bible. 
The  ^  Bishops'  Bible '  of  1568  was  based  upon  the  Great 
Bible,  followed  very  closely  in  the  Old  Testament.  On 
these  the  Authorized  Version  of  1611  largely  depends, 
though  it  draws  something  of  its  phraseology  from 
Wycliife,  and  of  its  vocabulary  from  a  Roman  Catholic 
Version,  published  partly  at  Rheims  in  1568,  and  partly 
(the  Old  Testament)  at  Douai  in  1610.^ 

The  forty-seven  who  worked  at  this  Authorized  Version, 
while  justly  claiming  to  have  made  their  rendering  '  out 
of  the  Original  Sacred  Tongues,'  openly  declare  their 
debt  to  ^  the  labours,  both  in  our  own  and  other  foreign 
languages,  of  many  worthy  men  who  went  before  us.' 
A  comparison  of  their  text  with  that  of  previous  English 
versions  compels  us  to  stretch  back  the  range  of  this 
indebtedness  over  more  than  two  centuries  to  the  pioneer 
work  of  John  Wycliffe;  but  it  is  to  Tindale,  after  all, 
that  the  English  Bible  owes  most. 

The  story  of  the  version  of  1611  is,  perhaps,  too  well 
known  to  need  detailed  repetition.  The  idea  of  it 
originated  at  the  Hampton  Court  Conference  of  1604, 
and  is  due  to  Dr.  John  Reynolds,  one  of  the  four  Puritan 
representatives  at  that  Conference.  But  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  idea  and  the  actual  working  out  of  it  we 

*  The  occasional  grotesqueness  of  this  version  may  be  judged 
from  the  following  verse  of  Ps.  Ixvii.  (our  Ixviii.):  The  mountane 
of  God  a  fat  mountane,  A  mountane  crudded  as  clieese,  a  fatte 
mountane.  Why  suppose  you,  you  crudded  mountane s?  (See 
Lupton,  in  Hastings,  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  extra  volume, 
p.  253,  an  article  to  which  I  am  much  indebted.)  ^ 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  159 

have  to  thank  the '  most  High  and  Mighty  Prince  James/ 
without  whose  zeal  and  importunity  the  leaders  of  the 
Church  of  England  would  probably  have  let  the  matter 
drop.  King  James  himself  drew  up  a  list  of  fifty-four 
learned  men,^  and  appointed  them  '  for  the  translating  of 
the  Bible/  and  he,  too,  probably  with  the  assistance  of 
Bishop  Bancroft  of  London,  drew  up  an  elaborate 
scheme  by  which  the  accuracy  and  general  perfection 
of  the  version  should  be,  as  far  as  possible,  insured.  The 
whole  Bible  was  apportioned  among  six  companies  of 
divines,  two  of  which  were  to  sit  at  Westminster,  two  at 
Oxford,  and  two  at  Cambridge.  Every  man  of  each 
company  was  to  make  his  own  independent  revision  of 
each  several  chapter,  and  these  independent  revisions 
were  to  be  considered  by  a  conference  of  the  entire 
company. 

Each  book,  when  finished  by  its  company,  was  to  be 
sent  round  to  each  of  the  other  companies  for  careful 
consideration,  and,  finally,  the  whole  was  to  be  over- 
looked and  compared  with  the  original  Hebrew  and 
Greek  by  'three  or  four  of  the  most  ancient  and  grave 
divines  in  either  of  the  Universities  not  employed  in 
translating.'  When  dealing  with  passages  of  special 
obscurity,  the  appointed  translators  were  permitted  and 
advised  to  consult  by  letter  the  opinion  of  '  any  learned 
man  in  the  land.' 

After  seven  years  of  labour,  this  carefully  organized 
band  produced  the  well-known  version,  skilfully  inter- 
weaving with  their  own  original  work  the  best  products 
of  the  toil  and  learning  and  devotion  of  their  predecessors. 

How  it  came  by  its  name  of  '  Authorized  Version,'  and 

*  Reduced  afterwards,  presumably  by  illness  or  death,  to  forty- 
seven. 


160  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

who  stamped  it  as  'Appointed  to  be  read  in  Churclies/ 
remains  something  of  a  mystery.  There  is  no  trace  of 
any  resolution  of  Convocation,  or  Act  of  Parliament,  or 
decision  of  the  Privy  Council,  or  Royal  Proclamation, 
formally  authorizing  its  use.  It  seems  to  have  slipped 
as  by  right  into  the  place  of  the  duly  authorized 
'Bishops^  Bible ^  which  it  superseded.  Certainly  it  has 
had  no  rival  (save  among  Eoman  Catholics)  in  the 
hearts  of  English-speaking  Christians  since  the  day  of  its 
birth.  Its  effect  upon  the  fixing  of  the  English  language 
may  be  estimated  by  the  fact  that,  out  of  the  6,000 
words  it  employs,  only  250  are  not  in  common  use 
to-day,  after  three  full  centuries  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment. And  as  for  its  style — the  grave,  majestic  English 
of  this  version,  so  diiferent  in  its  severe  simplicity  from 
the  ornate  and  often  affected  diction  of  its  contemporary 
literature,  struck  Newman  as  exhibiting  the  words  of 
the  inspired  teachers  in  forms  which,  '  even  humanly 
speaking,  are  among  the  most  sublime  and  beautiful 
ever  written.' 

One  can  almost  forgive  the  average  uninstructed 
Englishman  of  the  last  century  for  slipping  into  the 
hazy  belief  that  the  Authorized  Version  was  verbally 
inspired,  it  reads  so  convincingly  like  an  original,  it  is 
so  vivid,  so  varied,  yet  so  homogeneous,  so  obviously 
(one  would  have  said)  the  work  of  a  single  mind,  and 
that  the  mind  of  a  genius.  If  the  mind  of  a  single  man 
pervades  it,  it  is  that  of  William  Tindale.  But  much 
work  was  expended  upon  Tindale's  heirloom — the  work  of 
more  than  two  score  individual  minds — mechanical  work 
of  sifting,  sorting,  analyzing.  And  yet  the  version  bears  on 
its  surface  no  trace  of  this  division  of  labour,  no  trace  of 
the  multiplicity  of  forces  brought  to  bear  on  it.     This 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  161 

elaborate  patchwork  of  translation,  revision,  and  revision 
of  previous  revisions,  has  about  it  every  characteristic  of 
spontaneity.  Surely,  if  ever  any  work  of  translation 
was  ^inspired,'  this  noble  version  has  a  claim  to  the 
title  ?  That  we  need  not  fear  to  apply  it,  in  a 
secondary  degree,  our  previous  study  of  inspiration  may 
have  prepared  us  to  acknowledge. 

As  a  translation,  however,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  Authorized  Version  has  its  defects.  One  of 
these  arises  from  one  of  its  chief  virtues  as  a  standard 
of  literary  English.  The  translators  openly  prided 
themselves  on  their  deliberate  practice  of  varying 
as  much  as  possible  the  rendering  of  a  given  Hebrew  or 
Greek  word.  They  thus  permanently  enlarged  the  range 
of  our  common  vocabulary,  but  did  so  at  the  expense  of 
scientific  accuracy  in  their  rendering. 

The  advantages  of  their  principle  from  a  literary  point 
of  view,  and  its  disadvantages  from  the  standpoint  of 
scientific  exactness,  may  be  equally  demonstrated  by 
a  comparison  of  some  passage  of  considerable  length  in 
the  version  of  1611  with  the  corresponding  passage  in 
the  Revised  Version  of  1880-1884. 

That  revision — of  which  the  history  is  common  pro- 
perty, and  the  principles  are  set  forth  in  the  revisers' 
prefaces  to  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments — was  called 
for  on  many  grounds.  The  solid  and  splendid  structure 
of  the  early  seventeenth  century  was,  to  some  extent, 
subject  to  the  ravages  of  time.  In  other  words,  some 
of  its  words  and  phrases,  though  comparatively  very 
few,  had  become  obsolete,  and  so,  unintelligible  or  posi- 
tively misleading.  Again,  the  edifice,  with  all  its 
remarkable  artistic  merit,  showed  some  minor  defects 
of  construction  obvious  to  a  more  developed  stage   of 

IX 


162  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

science.  Chief  among  these  is  the  practice,  already 
referred  to,  of  capricious  variation  in  the  renderings. 
But  the  most  serious  matter  of  all  was  the  insecurity  of 
the  foundations — that  is,  the  defective  character  of  the 
Greek  and  Hebrew  texts  on  which  the  Jacobean  trans- 
lators had  based  their  work.  They  used  the  best  that 
the  seventeenth  century  had  to  offer.  They  had  pre- 
decessors of  no  mean  talent  to  prepare  the  ground, 
especially  in  the  New  Testament  region — men  like 
Erasmus  and  Beza  and  Robert  Stephen  (^  Stephanus ') — 
but  textual  criticism  has  advanced  enormously  since 
then.  A  mass  of  new  material — early  manuscripts  of 
the  G-reek  Testament,  early  versions  (almost,  if  not  quite, 
as  valuable,  in  some  ways,  as  the  manuscripts  themselves) 
— has  been  sifted  and  classified.  The  quotations  in 
early  Christian  writers,  Greek  and  Latin  alike,  have 
been  consulted  with  a  view  to  distributing  geographically 
and  chronologically  the  different  types  of  reading.  We 
are  probably  less  sure  of  the  original  Greek  text  of  the 
New  Testament  than  were  the  seventeenth-century 
scholars  with  their  meagre  apparatus,  but  we  are  vastly 
nearer  the  truth. 

So,  too,  with  the  Old  Testament,  though  here  the  con- 
ditions are  different.  The  Hebrew  manuscripts,  though 
marked  by  slight  textual  variations,  in  addition  to  the 
marginal  readings,"^  all  belong  to  a  single  family,  or, 
more  strictly,  all  would  seem  to  represent  a  single  type 
of  text,  the  so-called  '  Massoretic '  or  traditional,  which 
alone  was  allowed  to  survive,  all  other  recensions  having 
been  sedulously  destroyed  by  the  misguided  zeal  of  the 

*  E^ri  (read)  indicating  that  the  word  in  the  margin  is  to  be 
read  instead  of  that  which  is  actually  written  {K'thibh)  in  the  body 
of  the  text. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  163 

Rabbis.  There  remains,  however,  the  decision  between 
KWi  and  KHhibh,  and  also  the  use  of  ancient  versions  as 
a  check  upon  the  Hebrew  text.  These  ancient  versions, 
of  which  the  Greek  Septuagint  is  the  best  known  and 
the  most  important,  have  not  only  a  priority  in  actual 
date  of  manuscripts  (we  possess  a  Septuagint  manu- 
script of  the  fourth  century  a.d.,  while  the  earliest  extant 
Hebrew  manuscript  of  the  Massoretic  text  dates  from 
915),  but  also  often  represent  an  earlier  text.  This 
earlier  text  was  deliberately  rejected  by  the  Massoretes, 
but  it  does  not  follow  that  modern  experts,  with  a  fuller 
knowledge  of  the  principles  of  textual  criticism,  would 
have  done  the  same.  And  so,  both  in  the  New  Testament 
and  in  the  Old  Testament  region,  the  foundations  of  the 
Authorized  Version  needed  underpinning. 

Considering  the  conditions  imposed  on  them  by  the 
terms  of  reference,  and  the  imperfect  data  for  a  certain 
reconstruction  of  the  original  texts,  it  may  be  claimed 
for  the  revisers  that  they  have  done  their  work  faith- 
fully and  well.  For  the  results  of  their  labours  we  have 
abundant  reason  to  be  grateful.  It  is  open  to  criticism, 
like  every  work  of  man.  Its  attempts  to  be  consistent 
produce  sometimes  a  weak,  sometimes  a  rather  pedantic, 
result,  especially  in  the  New  Testament.  But  the  long 
and  deserved  popularity  of  its  predecessor  militates 
against  a  just  estimate  of  its  merits.  If  to  us  it  seems 
to  lack  in  a  lamentable  degree  the  inspiration  and  the 
spontaneity  of  the  Authorized  Version,  may  it  not  be 
partly  because  we  are  still  under  the  spell  of  that  noble 
work — because  its  rhythm  and  cadence  were  taken  in 
with  our  mother's  milk,  and  move,  as  it  were,  in  our 
blood? 

In  a  text  so  important  for  the  understanding  of  Holy 


164  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Scripture  itself  as  2  Tim.  iii.  16,  the  revisers  have 
wisely  gone  back  behind  the  Authorized  Version,  which 
took  its  faulty  interpretation  of  the  Greek  from  the 
Geneva  Bible^s,  '  The  whole  Scripture  is  given  by  Spira- 
tion  of  God  and  is  profitable/  They  have  reverted,  in 
substance,  to  the  oldest  English  version,  where  Wycliffe 
wrote,  ^al  scripture  inspired  of  god  is  profitable,'  etc., 
and  was  followed  by  Tindale  and  Coverdale.  And  this 
is  in  line  with  one  of  their  principles  for  which  we  owe 
them  a  double  debt  of  gratitude,  on  historical  grounds, 
and  on  grounds  of  sentiment.  Wherever  they  were 
able,  they  reverted  to  Wycliffe's  version,  and  in  the 
Psalms  they  made  all  the  use  they  could  of  the  much- 
beloved  rendering  of  Coverdale. 

If  Wycliff e  himself  could  trace  the  spirit  of  his  literary 
ancestry  back  to  Grosseteste,  to  Alfred,  and  to  Bede, 
the  last  product  of  the  English  translator's  devotion,  in 
claiming  Wycliffe  again  for  its  own,  has  linked  up  the 
chain  that  binds  these  latter  days  to  the  dawn  of  our 
literature.  That  chain  is  the  Bible,  loved  and  honoured 
from  first  to  last. 


VI 

THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR 

'  Of  all  the  terrible  intellectual  disasters  of  Europe,  the 
Bible  has  been  far  the  greatest/  So  runs  the  ill-con- 
sidered verdict  of  a  typical  modern  maker  of  paradoxes. 
Such  statements  represent  the  extreme  of  reaction  from 
that  almost  superstitious  attitude  towards  the  Scriptures 
which  has  been  characteristic  of  much  Protestant  teach- 
ing. Searching  for  an  external  principle  of  authority  to 
replace  that  of  the  discredited  Papacy,  the  l^ders  of  the 
Continental  Reformation  turned  to  those  Scriptures 
which  had  been  looked  upon  in  the  Church  from  time 
immemorial  as  a  sort  of  documentary  court  of  appeal. 
In  substituting  the  Bible  for  the  Pope,  they  found  them- 
selves constrained  to  concede  to  it  a  position  as 
authoritative  and  supreme  as  that  which  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees  of  old  had  accorded  to  the  Torah,  the  inspired 
Law  of  Moses.  For  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  they 
substituted  an  infallibility  of  the  Book  which  tended  to 
assimilate  the  basis  of  Reformed  Christianity  to  that  of 
Islam. 

The  structure  thus  raised  was  from  the  first  illogical. 
Combined  as  it  was  with  a  doctrine  of  private  judgment 
and  individual  interpretation,  it  gave  ample  room  for 
confusion  and  dissidence.  The  unity  and  objectivity  of 
the  external  standard  of  truth  was  impaired.     If  the 

165 


166  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Bible  speaks  with  one  voice  to  you,  and  with  quite 
another  to  me,  and  in  both  cases  speaks  infallibly,  who 
is  to  judge  between  us  ?  Nor  was  this  the  only  weak 
point.  If  the  body  of  Scriptures  was  to  be  the  ultimate, 
the  only  standard,  there  ought,  at  any  rate,  to  have  been 
no  possibility  of  question  as  to  the  actual  contents  of 
those  Scriptures. 

Yet  (as  we  have  seen)  this  was  far  from  being  the 
case.  In  restricting  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  to 
the  original  Hebrew  Canon,  and  rejecting  the  so-called 
Apocrypha,  the  Reforming  leaders  acted  in  an  exceed- 
ingly arbitrary  manner.  Where  a  distinction  was 
certainly  warranted — a  distinction  for  which  they  could 
claim  the  redoubtable  authority  of  St.  Jerome — they 
were,  some  of  them,  content  with  nothing  less  than  a 
contumelious  rejection.  They  spoke  of  the  impiety  of 
mixing  the  Word  of  Grod  with  that  of  man,  and  poured 
on  'Toby's  fish'  a  ridicule  which,  as  shrewder  con- 
temporaries perceived,  was  bound  to  overflow  sooner  or 
later  upon  '  Jonah's  whale.' 

But  the  full  weakness  of  this  '  Bible  and  Bible  only ' 
theory  has  only  disclosed  itself  eifectively  in  the  last 
half-century,  under  the  search-light  of  that  historical 
and  literary  criticism  which  has  been  the  subject  of  pur 
study  in  a  previous  chapter. 

The  Bibliolatry,  or  perhaps  we  had  better  say  tyranny 
of  the  letter,  which,  after  three  centuries  and  a  half, 
still  holds  sway  over  a  certain  section  of  old-fashioned 
Protestantism,  is  now  seen  to  be  based  on  a  fatally  false 
conception  of  the  method  of  inspiration;  and  with  the 
crumbling  of  the  foundation  of  verbal  infallibility  the 
whole  superstructure  threatens  to  collapse.  The  saner 
and  more  historical  portion  of  our  English  Christianity 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  167 

is,  however,  most  happily,  not  committed  to  such  a 
doctrine,  and  is  largely  left  free  to  welcome  all  new 
light,  and  to  adapt  itself  to  new  conditions. 

That  the  modern  critical  spirit — a  greater  and  more 
thoroughgoing  Renaissance,  with  its  fearless  question- 
ings of  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  and  its  application 
of  the  same  criteria  to  all  literature,  'sacred'  and 
'  profane  '  alike — should  have  produced  in  some  minds  a 
violent  reaction  from  the  old,  exaggerated  views  of  the 
Bible  is  natural  and,  indeed,  inevitable.  That  the  dis- 
crediting of  the  old  mechanical  view  of  inspiration 
should  lead  the  more  impatient  spirits  to  deny  the  fact 
of  any  inspiration  at  all  was  perhaps  to  be  expected. 
And,  side  by  side  with  the  denial  of  any  specially  sacred 
or  authoritative  character  to  the  Christian  Bible,  it  is 
not  unnatural  to  find  a  jealousy  of  the  great  Book's  past 
supremacy  over  the  minds  of  men  and  nations.  Such  a 
jealousy  is,  however,  in  the  first  place,  a  significant 
tribute  to  the  Bible's  power  in  the  past.  It  is  tanta- 
mount to  an  admission  that  the  evolution  of  our  modern 
Western  civilization  has  been  predominantly  influenced 
by  the  Scriptures.  As  to  the  tendency  and  value  of  that 
influence,  opinions  may  conceivably  differ.  The  judg- 
ment pronounced  will  depend  partly  on  our  estimate  of 
the  progress  of  civilization  among  the  nations  of  Europe. 
Has  its  movement  on  the  whole  been  productive  of  a 
preponderance  of  good  or  of  evil  ? 

But  even  those  who  are  prepared  to  cast  their  vote  in 
judgment  against  modern  Western  civilization  in  the 
form  of  material  progress,  which  it  has  more  and  more 
definitely  assumed  of  late,  have  not  committed  them- 
selves on  the  real  question.  For  it  remains  for  them  to 
consider  for  what  elements  in  that  civilization  the  Bible 


168  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

is  more  directly  responsible,  and  to  what  extent;  and, 
further,  how  far  the  influence  of  its  leading — admittedly 
decisive  in  the  nursling  days  of  Europe — has  been 
thrown  off  in  the  period  nearest  to  our  own  time. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Bible  is  accused  (and  this  with 
greater  appearance  of  justice)  of  abusing  its  power;  of 
throwing  the  weight  of  its  influence  into  the  scale 
against  civilization  and  progress.  The  persecuting  and 
intolerant  spirit  which  so  often  emerges  in  the  Old 
Testament,  and  not  least  in  the  Psalter,  the  most 
influential  book  of  all,  though  expressly  denounced  by 
Christ,  has  been  imitated  only  too  faithfully  by  those 
who  bore  His  name ;  and  it  was  the  misapplication  of  a 
phrase  of  His — ^Compel  them  to  come  in^ — in  the 
mouth  of  the  great  St.  Augustine  that  formed  the  germ 
out  of  which  grew  the  horrors  of  the  mediaeval  inquisition. 
Out  of  the  belief  in  witchcraft  and  in  diabolic  agencies, 
which  is  reflected  on  the  pages  of  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment alike,  sprang  the  superstitious  cruelties  which 
disgraced  the  judicial  procedure  of  our  own  country  up 
to  two  or  three  generations  back.  The  absence  of  any 
direct  teaching  in  the  Bible  against  slavery  is  held 
responsible  for  the  long  continuance  of  the  slave-trade. 
Science  itself  has  been  retarded  again  and  again  in  its 
legitimate  progress,  in  the  Bible's  name.  The  door  has 
been  shut  in  its  face,  as  against  an  intruder  into  the 
sacred  sphere  of  Revelation.  Such  charges  as  these 
express,  perhaps,  the  principal  cause  of  that  jealousy  of 
the  Bible's  past  influence.  It  is  not  difficult  to  detect 
the  flaw  in  the  accusation.  In  all  the  cases  mentioned, 
and  probably  in  any  similar  ones  that  might  be  adduced, 
the  fault  is  clearly  not  that  of  the  Bible  itself,  but  of 
those  who  misapprehended  its  meaning,  or  only  partially 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  169 

or  disproportionately  grasped  it.  The  New  Testament 
teaching,  and  more  especially  the  Gospel  teaching,  in 
which  the  Bible  culminates,  provides  a  sufficient  antidote 
against  all  the  poison  of  intolerance  and  other  practical 
imperfections  that  may  be  drawn  from  this  or  that 
portion  of  the  earlier  revelation.^  The  crusade  against 
natural  science  in  the  name  of  religious  truth  has  been, 
wherever  it  has  occurred,  an  instance  of  the  'ye  know 
not  what  spirit  ye  are  of.'t  If  the  Bible  did  not 
denounce  slavery,  it  did  announce,  in  no  uncertain 
language,  the  brotherhood  of  all  men  :  a  doctrine  which, 
when  allowed  free  play,  was  bound  to  annihilate  slavery. 
To  these  questions  we  may  have  occasion  to  return 
later  on.  For  the  moment  our  chief  concern  is  with  the 
acknowledgment  of  the  Bible's  paramount  influence  in 
the  past  on  the  part  of  the  most  defiant  of  its  modern 
critics.  The  extent  of  that  influence  upon  individuals 
and  upon  nations  during  all  the  ages  of  the  Bible's 
existence  has  certainly  been  unparalleled  in  the  history 
of  literature.  The  sacred  books  of  India,  of  China,  of 
Persia,  have  wielded,  indeed,  great  influence,  and  an 
influence  in  many  ways  beneficent,  over  large  sections  of 
mankind;  but  their  influence  has  been  essentially  local 
and  partial  in  its  range.  The  influence  of  the  Koran  is 
a  living  force  to-day  in  not  a  few  parts  of  the  world ; 
but  it  is  no  mere  narrowness  of  Christian  prejudice  that 
would  laugh  at  the  idea  of  its  ever  taking  the  place  of 
the  Bible  among   the    dominant   races   of   the   modern 

*  The  Baptismal  Creed  (see  Chapter  X.,  p.  298  et  seq.)  shows  us  the 
proportion  of  the  Old  Testament  Eevelation  to  that  of  the  Gospel 
as  estimated  by  the  primitive  Church.  It  is  by  giving  the  Old 
Testament  an  independent  value  that  the  most  grievous  mistakes 
have  been  made. 

I  Luke  ix.  55  (R.V.,  marg.). 


170  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

world.  Nor  would  it  be  extravagant  to  suggest  that  the 
highest  influences  that  the  Koran  brings  to  bear  on  those 
who  accept  it  are  derived,  directly  or  indirectly,  from 
Jewish  and  Christian  lore,  and  thus  bear  their  own 
testimony  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  Bible  ."^ 

We  have  not  to  wait  for  the  formation  of  the  Canon 
to  discern  the  beginnings  of  the  influence  of  Scripture 
on  mankind.  From  one  point  of  view,  it  is  obvious  that 
the  earlier  or  later  entrance  of  this  or  that  book  into  the 
charmed  circle  of  the  Jewish  or  the  Christian  Canon 
depended  on  the  degree  of  influence  it  was  already 
exercising  from  an  unprivileged  position.  It  was  their 
already  achieved  popularity  that  gave  the  claimants  for 
admission  a  hearing,  that  made  them  candidates  at  all. 
According  to  the  modern  reading  of  history,  Deuteronomy 
holds  a  typical  position  in  this  respect.  If  we  may  take 
it  as  established  that  the  'Book  of  the  Covenant'  dis- 
covered by  Hilkiah  was  the  nucleus — or  an  earlier  form 
— of  that  work,  we  see  a  Scripture  swiftly  accepted  on 
its  own  authority,  moulding  at  once  the  whole  course  of 
a  nation^s  internal  religious  policy,  opening  new  vistas  of 
revelation,  becoming  a  standard  by  which  even  the 
history  of  past  generations  should  be  judged,  and  forming 
itself,  a  couple  of  centuries  later,  the  nucleus  of  the  first 
Hebrew  Bible,  the  Canon  of  the  Law. 

Deuteronomy,  however,  in  this  earlier  shape,  appears 
to  have  achieved,  from  the  moment  of  its  discovery,  a 
quasi-canonical  position,  due  to  the  providential  ordering 
of  circumstances — to  the  character  of  the  hands  into 
which  it  first  fell,  and  to  the  ready  sympathy,  with  its 
aims  and  ideals,  of  a  deeply  religious  king.     A  clearer 

*  On  the  other  sacred  books,  see  pp.  254-273  j  on  the  Koran, 
pp.  280,  256,  259,  274-281. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  171 

instance  of  the  pre-canonical  influence  of  a  book  would 
be  before  us  could  we  trace  through  all  the  stages  of  its 
early  history  the  fortunes  of  one  of  the  New  Testament 
Epistles.  Unfortunately,  no  detailed  record  is  left  to  us  j 
yet  we  have  enough  material  to  reconstruct  the  general 
outlines  of  the  career  of  such  a  book,  in  the  case,  for 
instance,  of  St.  PauPs  Epistle  to  the  Colossians. 

In  Central  Phrygia,  near  the  point  where  the  Lycus 
joins  the  Masander,  there  existed  a  triangle  of  flourishing 
cities,  Hierapolis,  Laodicea,  and  Colossae.  These  cities, 
which  had  close  relations  with  one  another,  had  all 
of  them,  probably,  been  evangelized  by  Epaphras  or 
Epaphroditus,  a  convert  and  companion  of  St.  Paul. 
In  or  about  a.d.  61,  St.  Paul  (apparently  before  he 
had  visited  the  district  in  person)  despatched  by  the 
hand  of  Tychicus  letters  to  two  of  these  Churches, 
Laodicea  and  Colossae. 

Unless  the  Epistle  to  the  Laodiceans,  mentioned  in 
that  address  to  the  Colossians,  was  a  circular  letter 
actually  identical  with  the  one  headed  '  Ephesians '  in 
our  Bible,  it  has  been  lost,  as  have  certainly  other  letters 
of  the  Apostle's  addressed  to  the  Church  of  Corinth. 
But  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  remains. 

Written  originally  to  a  particular  group  of  Asiatic 
Christians,  in  view  of  a  particular  crisis,  it  has  become 
part  of  the  general  heritage  of  the  Church  Universal. 
St.  Paul's  main  object  in  writing  to  the  Colossians  is  to 
combat  a  heretical  system  of  teaching,  of  which  Judaistic 
extravagances,  worship  of  angels  and  a  false  asceticism, 
formed  the  leading  features.  The  chief  peril  of  this 
teaching  was  its  deficient  Christology.  Religious  and 
devotional  interest  at  Colossae  was  dissipating  itself  on  a 
number  of  unworthy  objects,  and  the  central  things  of 


172  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

the  Gospel  were  being  neglected.  In  opposition  to  this 
false  tendency,  St.  Paul  develops  in  the  first  chapter  his 
doctrine  of  Christ  as  the  central  figure  of  the  universe, 
the  principle  of  its  cohesion  and,  indeed,  of  its  very 
existence."^ 

He  takes  up  (it  would  seem)  the  catchwords  of  the 
new  teaching,  aeo7i  and  pleroma — catchwords  that  were 
adopted  later  on  by  the  Gnostics  of  the  second  century — 
and  brings  them  into  subjection  to  the  royalty  of  Christ, 
at   whose   feet    he    also    places    those    angelic    orders, 
'thrones,    dominations,    principalities,    and   powers,'    to 
whom  the  misguided  Colossians  were  tempted  to  accord 
divine  honours.     Thus  it  is  that  we  owe  to  the  theological 
errors  of  the  Colossians  one  of   the  most  striking  and 
important  Christological  passages  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  one  which  is  in  every  way  worthy  to  be  classed  with 
the  sublimest  passages  which  the  Old  Testament  has  to 
offer.     That  the  recipients  of  the  letter  should  at  once 
have  placed  the  Apostle's  words  in  the  same  category 
with  what  they  had  been  taught  to  accept  as  Scripture 
inspired   of   God   it  would   be   impossible   to  conceive. 
That  they  prized  the  Epistle,  its  survival   is  sufficient 
testimony.     That  it  was  soon  known  beyond  the  walls 
of    Colossge    itself   we   may    infer    from    the    Apostle's 
injunction  written  at  its  close  :t  '  And  when  this  epistle 
hath  been  read  among  you,  cause  that  it  be  read  also  in 
the  church  of  the  Laodiceans;  and  that  ye  also  read  the 
epistle   from   Laodicea.'     Doubtless   it   was    passed   on 
from  Laodicea  to  Hierapolis,  with  which  the  other  two 
Churches   had   close   relations.      Doubtless,  also,  other 
Churches  borrowed  it  and  copied  it  as  time  went  on. 
Thus  the  Epistle  would  become  known  and  valued  over 
*  Gol.  i.  13  et  seq.  t  Ibid,,  iv.  16. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  173 

a  comparatively  wide  area.  The  fact  that  it  was  ordered 
to  be  read  in  the  Church  assembly  would  of  itself 
institute  a  comparison  between  it  and  the  Old  Testament 
writings,  from  which  the  Church  seems  to  have  read 
lections  from  the  first  in  her  Lord^s  Day  meetings, 
following  the  Sabbath  Day  usage  of  the  Jewish  Church. 
And  as  there  grew  up  the  idea  of  a  distinctively 
Christian  appendix  to  the  Canon  of  Holy  Scripture,  this 
letter,  written,  as  we  have  seen,  originally  to  a  local 
group  of  Christians  to  meet  a  particular  emergency,  was 
found  to  have  established  its  place  among  the  writings 
generally  acknowledged  and  esteemed  by  Christendom. 
Its  pre-canonical  influence  won  it  a  place  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  and  when  the  assembled  Bishops  at 
neighbouring  Laodicea,  in  the  fourth  century,  made  their 
pronouncement  upon  the  Canon  and  its  limits,  the 
Epistle  to  the  Colossians  was,  without  doubt,  among  the 
books  acknowledged  by  them. 

Much  the  same  story  might  be  written  about  the  rest 
of  the  New  Testament  Books.  Their  influence  as 
separate  units  was  great  enough  to  procure  them  in  the 
end  a  place  in  the  'Divine  Library.^  But  if  their 
individual  influence  was  great,  their  influence  in 
combination — the  constraining  power,  that  is,  of  the  com- 
pleted Bible — has  been  incalculably  greater.  That  this 
power  was  felt  from  the  very  earliest  days  of  the  Christian 
Church  we  have  indisputable  evidence :  the  influence, 
first,  of  the  Jewish  Canon,  and  then  of  the  enlarged 
Canon  of  Christendom,  is  written  unmistakably  upon 
the  history. 

The  Apostles  of  the  Lord  were  originally  devout  Jews 
who  (as  their  familiarity  with  the  Scripture  shews)  had 
passed  through  the  normal  training  of  a  Jewish  boy  and 


174  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

youth.  The  Jewish  lad^s  education  up  to  the  age  of  ten 
was  drawn  exclusively  from  the  Scriptures,  supplemented 
for  the  next  five  years  by  instruction  in  the  Mishna,  or 
traditional  Law.  From  his  earliest  years,  while  the 
precepts  of  Leviticus  trained  him  in  regular  habits  of 
devotion,  the  noble  conceptions  of  the  early  chapters  of 
G-enesis  would  mould  his  thoughts  of  Grod  and  His 
world;  and  he  would  learn  to  repeat  day  by  day 
the  Sh^ma,  which  opened  with  the  magnificent  con- 
fession, ^  Hear,  0  Israel  V^  in  which  man^s  attitude 
towards  his  Maker  is  expressed  in  language  valid  for  all 
time.  Week  by  week  his  early  memories  would  be 
refreshed  by  listening  to  the  Sabbath-Day  lections  in  the 
synagogue. 

Thus  nurtured  on  the  noblest  literature  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen,  the  Apostles  obtained  in  middle  life, 
through  their  intercourse  with  One  who  spake  with 
'  authority,  and  not  as  the  scribes 't — who  spake,  indeed, 
as  '  never  man  spake  'J — a  new  insight  into  the  meaning 
of  Scripture;  felt  it  being  actually  'fulfilled  in  their 
ears^;§  knew  themselves  to  be  the  spectators  of  things 
which  'prophets  and  kings ^  had  desired  in  vain  to  see. 
Progressively  their  Master  opened  to  them  the  Scriptures, 
and  showed  them  there  what  they  had  never  seen 
before. II  And  then,  when  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost  they 
received  their  baptism  of  fire,  there  was  put  into  their 
hearts  a  hitherto  unknown  key  to  unlock  the  mysteries 
of  the  Scriptures,  which  they  studied  henceforth  with  a 
new  earnestness  and  a  new  intelligence.  Their  experience 
was  largely  paralleled  by  that  of  Timothy,  who,  as  the 
son  of  a  devout  Hebrew  mother,  had  been  familiar  from 

*  Deut.  vi.  4.  t  Mark  i.  22.  %  John  vii.  46. 

§  Luke  iv.  21.  [j  Luke  xxiv.  27,  45  et  seg. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  175 

his  childhood — from  his  very  babyhood  the  text  sug- 
gests^— with  the  sacred  writings,  but  had  only  come 
to  realize  their  full  power  later  on  when,  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  Christian  believer,  he  knew  them  able  to 
make  him  ^  wise  unto  salvation  through  faith  which  is 
in  Christ  Jesus/ 

When  the  next  generation  began  to  appreciate  at 
their  full  value,  and  to  read,  side  by  side  with  the  Old 
Testament  Scriptures,  certain  writings  of  their  own 
immediate  predecessors,  the  new  writings  were  found  to 
explain  and  to  supplement  the  old,  to  flood  them  with 
fresh  light,  and  to  infuse  into  them  the  vitality  of  youth. 

The  old  Hebrew  Scriptures,  thus  rejuvenated,  pro- 
ceeded to  play  a  remarkable  part  in  leavening  the 
literature  of  the  future.  The  classic  age  of  Greek  and 
Latin  literature  was  past  never  to  return ;  but  the  New 
Testament  writers  had  given  a  new  dignity  to  the  Hel- 
lenistic vernacular,  and  shewn  it  to  be  capable  of  giving 
expression  to  ideas  beyond  the  scope  of  a  Sophocles  or  a 
Plato ;  and,  later  on,  in  the  hands  of  the  Grreek  Fathers 
of  the  Church — men  sometimes  of  considerable  culture 
— the  decadent  Greek  tongue  becomes  once  more  an 
object  of  intense  interest.  With  Origen,  steeped  in 
biblical  lore,  a  Hebrew  scholar,  and  a  deep  and  enthusi- 
astic student  of  the  Septuagint  and  other  Greek  versions, 
it  becomes  the  medium  of  expression  for  nascent  Christian 
philosophy.  With  Athanasius  and  his  successors  it  is 
an  instrument  of  profound  theological  discourse;  of 
moving  and  inspiring  oratory  with  St.  Chrysostom;  of 
both  alike  with  the  three  Cappadocian  Fathers,  St.  Basil 
and  the  two  Gregories.  Thus,  a  tongue  which,  as  a 
vehicle  of  literary  expression,  was  on  the  way  to  perish 
♦  2  Tim.  iii.  15,  R.V.  (Gk.  dTrb  pp44>ovs). 


176  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

of  inanition,  was  awakened  to  a  new  and  vigorous  life 
by  that  contact  with  the  real,  the  moving,  and  the 
sublime,  which  it  found  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  So,  too, 
with  the  Latin  tongue.  The  language  of  a  Tertullian 
or  an  Augustine  cannot,  of  course,  be  compared,  for 
artistic  taste  or  for  scientific  self-restraint,  with  that  of 
a  Tacitus,  still  less  with  the  best  writings  of  the  Augustan 
Age.  But  not  even  the  most  bigoted  purist  in  scholar- 
ship (provided  only  he  had  patience  to  grapple  honestly 
with  his  author)  can  fail  to  be  carried  away  by  the 
epigrammatic  originality  of  the  Christian  Fathers — the 
freshness  and  illuminating  quality  of  their  ideas.  These 
men  have  drawn  from  a  fountain  of  literary  life.  Their 
study  of  the  Scriptures  has  been  to  them  a  liberal 
education.  In  the  Old  Testament  they  see  mirrored  the 
living  God,  apprehended  by  a  '  lively  faith ' ;  in  the  New 
Testament,  the  Life  Incarnate,  who  came  that  men  might 
have  life  and  might  have  it  more  abundantly,  and  they 
themselves  have  drunk  of  the  fountain  of  the  water  of 
life  freely.  Their  study  of  the  Scriptures  has  affected 
not  their  subject-matter  only,  but  their  style,  nor  that 
alone,  but  also,  and  chiefly,  their  whole  view  of  the 
world.     Their  writings  are  alive. 

Then,  with  the  decay  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  Bible 
became,  in  the  Churches  hands,  the  educator  of  modern 
Europe.  It  was  with  the  Bible  in  her  hands  that  the 
Roman  Church  instructed  the  barbarian  conquerors  in 
the  elements  of  an  ordered  and  civilized  life.  And 
though  the  direct  access  of  the  laity  to  Scripture  was 
restricted  in  the  Middle  Ages,  much  as  it  is  now  in  the 
Roman  Communion,  it  was  from  the  Scriptures  even 
then  (if  not  from  them  exclusively)  that  the  Church's 
most   influential   doctors   drew   the   substance  of  their 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  177 

teaching.  It  was  from  the  same  Scriptures  that  the 
liturgical  forms  drew  the  inspiration  with  which  they 
blessed  the  most  solemn  moments  of  a  man's  life  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave ;  on  the  Scriptures  the  individual 
priest  based  his  public  and  private  exhortations.  Law 
and  government,  outside  the  distinctively  'spiritual' 
sphere,  were  leavened  with  scriptural  principles  and 
ideas.  The  Roman  legal  system,  out  of  which  modern 
law  has  been  largely  evolved,  came  to  us  through 
channels  steeped  in  biblical  phraseology  and  tendency — 
Justinian  and  Theodosius.  The  Teutonic  idea  of  the 
'  divine  right  of  Kings'  is  an  inheritance  from  the 
Jewish  theocracy  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  Book  of 
Leviticus  not  only  supplied  Christian  Europe  with  details 
of  its  marriage  law,  but  also  did  much  towards  the 
establishment  and  support  of  the  mediaeval  clergy.  To 
it,  for  instance,  we  owe  the  institution  of  tithes.  Indeed, 
the  entire  system  of  Canon  Law,  which  in  the  later 
Middle  Ages  exercised  so  potent  an  influence  on  national, 
social  and  individual  life,  was  directly  based  on  the 
Bible.  In  Saxon  England  the  Bishop  sat  side  by  side 
with  the  King's  representative  to  administer  a  justice 
of  which  Divine  Revelation  was  recognized  to  be  the 
informing  spirit.  Prefixed  to  the  Code  of  Alfred  the 
Great  (which  contained,  of  course,  many  elements  handed 
down  from  our  pagan  forefathers)  was,  as  we  have  had 
occasion  to  note  in  another  connection,  an  English  trans- 
lation of  Bxod.  xx.-xxiii. — the  Commandments  and  the 
Book  of  the  Covenant — and  of  Acts  xv. — the  decrees  of 
the  first  Christian  Council. 

Moreover,  though  there  was,  as  we  have  said,  no 
general  access  of  the  lay  folk  to  an  '  open  Bible,'  such  as 
was  initiated  (or  restored)  by  the  Reformation,  and  has 

12 


178  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

been  facilitated  progressively  through  subsequent  cen- 
turies by  the  more  universal  instruction  of  the  people ; 
we  yet  have  evidence  that  even  in  the  Middle  Ages 
many  among  the  humbler  classes  were  saturated  with 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures.  The  evangelical  tone  of 
the  first  Franciscans,  evidently  drawn  straight  from  the 
Grospels,  was  bound  to  influence  their  many  admirers  in 
the  world.  One  of  these,  the  great  Dante  Alighieri, 
shows  a  general  acquaintance  with  Scripture  which  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  match,  certainly  among  the  most 
cultured  of  his  countrymen  to-day,  and  in  England, 
perhaps,  only  among  professed  theologians.  And  if 
ever  the  Bible  shewed  its  educative  power  to  full  effect, 
it  was  upon  that  poem  on  which  ^  Heaven  and  earth 
have  set  their  hand ': 

'  II  poema  sacro 
Al  quale  ha  posto  mano  e  cielo  e  terra.' 

Par,y  x: 

And  upon  the  man  who,  good  Catholic  as  he  was,  put  the 
Bible  before  the  Pope  : 

*  Avete  il  vecchio  e  11  nuovo  Testamento, 
E  il  pastor  della  Chiesa  che  vi  guida  : 
Questo  vi  basti  per  vostro  salvamento.' 

Par.,  V.  76. 

But  it  is  not  only  upon  the  learned  laymen  of  the 
Middle  Ages  that  this  influence  is  visible.  The  Gospel 
teaching  of  the  early  Franciscans  is  paralleled  very 
markedly  outside  the  Church,  among  the  original 
Waldensians"^  and  kindred  sectaries,  who,  revolting 
from  the  elaboration  of  external  ceremonies,  the  super- 
stitious accretions  of  contemporary  Romanism,  and, 
above  all,  from  the  theory  of  Papal  autocracy,  attempted, 

*  The  Vaudois  translation  dates  from  about  a.d.  1100. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  179 

perhaps,  in  some  cases,  with  more  sincerity  than  know- 
ledge, a  return  to  primitive  Christianity.  And  among 
the  orthodox  theologians,  notably  in  Franciscan  Oxford 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  there  was  a  tendency  to  appeal 
from  tradition  to  the  fountain-head  of  Holy  Scripture. 
This  appeal  is  associated  more  especially  with  the  name 
of  Robert  Grrosseteste,  the  first  Chancellor  of  that 
University,  a  name  which  will  come  before  us  again  in 
our  present  study  of  the  Bible  as  an  educator. 

Nor  was  it  not  only  in  the  domain  of  literature  that 
the  Scriptures  set  their  broad  seal  upon  the  Middle  Ages. 
Art,  the  handmaid  of  religion,  acknowledges  throughout 
the  centuries  her  debt  to  Holy  Writ.  The  rude  drawings 
and  sculptures  of  the  catacombs  evince  a  loving 
familiarity  with  the  symbolism,  not  only  of  the  Gospels — 
the  Good  Shepherd,  the  Loaves  and  Fishes — but  with 
that  of  the  Old  Testament  too,  in  their  treatment  of 
which  the  story  of  Jonah  figures  prominently.  In  the 
splendid  fourth  and  fifth  century  mosaics  of  Ravenna 
a  like  influence  is  traceable ;  the  story  of  the  Shepherd 
of  souls  being  still,  perhaps,  the  favourite.  Generation 
after  generation  must  have  imbibed  central  truths  of 
Scripture  lore  from  the  imperishable  decoration  of  those 
walls.  Five  centuries  later  the  genius  of  Giotto  makes 
the  Gospel  story  live  in  fresco  as  never  before.  On  the 
walls  of  the  Arena  Chapel  at  Padua  we  have,  not  just 
a  few  selected  themes,  but  the  whole  pageant  of  the 
Saviour's  earthly  mission  displayed  before  us,  with  the 
appreciative  touch  of  one  who  clearly  loved  to  linger 
over  the  sacred  scenes,  and  expected  others  to  do  the 
same.  In  the  age  that  follows,  when  the  Renaissance 
floods  all  minds  with  new  and  wider  interests,  and  pagan 
mythology  begins  to  exercise  a  sway  over  the  painter's 


180  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

mindj  it  is  still  from  the  Scriptures  that  a  Michelangelo, 
a  Raffaele,  and  a  Titian  draw  their  highest  inspiration — 
from  the  Scriptures,  and  from  that  domain  of  hagiology 
(embodied,  notably,  in  the  'Golden  Legend')  which 
encircled  the  Scriptures  for  the  men  of  those  days,  as 
the  nimbus  encircles  the  face  of  a  painted  saint.  And 
if  some  of  them,  like  Botticelli,  are  known  to  us  best  by 
masterpieces  which  deal  directly  with  classical  and 
mythological  subjects — a  '  Venus  Rising  from  the  Sea/ 
or  other  less  easily  decipherable  theme — can  we  not 
detect  in  their  work,  as  in  the  non-theological  passages 
of  the  Christian  Fathers,  a  subtle  difference  of  tone  and 
treatment  from  that  of  classical  days ;  a  change  that  is 
not  all  loss,  a  touch  of  a  new  humanity  and  a  new  pathos, 
a  something  which  whispers  that  since  the  Grospel  story 
was  written  the  world  can  never  be  the  same  theatre  of 
naive,  unthinking  natural  enjoyment  that  it  was  in  the 
days  of  old  ?  But  though  the  painter's  conventional 
field  is  enlarged  till  at  last  contemporary  historical 
scenes  are  followed  by  contemporary  portraits,  and 
portraits  by  genre  pictures,  and,  finally,  Giorgione  ushers 
in  the  first  dawn  of  the  era  of  landscape  painting, 
yet  it  remains  true  for  many  decades  after  the  high 
and  full  Renaissance,  that  the  Gospel  reigns  sovereign 
still  in  Umbria,  in  Tuscany,  in  Venice,  in  Flanders; 
the  noblest  efforts  of  all  are  those  inspired  by  the 
scenes  of  the  Saviour's  infancy  and  the  story  of  the 
Cross. 

Nor  does  mediaeval  architecture  lag  behind  the  sister 
art  in  her  homage  to  the  sacred  Canon.  Ruskin's 
famous  phrase,  '  the  Bible  of  Amiens,'  singles  out  a 
conspicuous  example  of  a  principle  that  runs  through 
very  much  of  the  religious  architecture  of  the  Middle 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  181 

Ages.  Not  only  do  splendid  Western  fa9ades  exhibit  to 
us  again  and  again  the  outlines  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  story  hewn  in  stone — a  story  frequently 
repeated  in  the  quaint  figures  and  deep,  rich  tones  of  the 
windows — but  the  very  ground-plan  of  the  church  itself 
will  often  witness  to  the  Cross,  the  symbol  of  that 
atoning  Sacrifice  which  our  fathers  read  in  (or  between) 
the  lines  of  almost  every  page  of  the  Bible.  And  when 
at  last  the  builder's  art  had  wholly  freed  herself  from 
the  agelong  domination  of  the  Roman  tradition,  with 
its  round  arches  and  its  prevailingly  horizontal  lines,  the 
style  we  know  as  '  Gothic '  sprang  up  joyously  heaven- 
ward, exhibiting  that  regenerate  spirit  which  we  have 
seen  infused  by  the  Gospel  message  into  literature  and 
painting :  the  spirit  that  seems  to  throb  with  fresh  life, 
that  communicates  its  own  throbbing  life  to  old  material 
and  old  methods,  transforming  them,  transfiguring  them, 
with  the  magic  formula,  'Behold,  I  make  all  things 
new.'  ^ 

It  would  be  obviously  mistaken  to  claim  as  the  direct 
and  immediate  effect  of  the  Bible  all  those  developments 
in  which  Christianity  has  shewn  herself  the  nursing- 
mother  of  our  Western  civilization.  Christianity  is 
older,  and  in  a  sense  wider,  than  the  New  Testament, 
which  grew  up  under  her  wing ;  and  her  influence  upon 
humanity,  though  never  divorced  from  that  of  the 
Scriptures,  has  not  always  been  marked  by  a  direct  and 
immediate  influence  of  the  Bible,  such  as  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  in  England.  It  is  felt  to-day  in  regions  where 
Roman  Catholicism  (for  reasons  which  cannot  be  dis- 
cussed here)  denies  the  private  use  of  the  Scriptures  to 
the  laity.  But  can  we  not  draw  a  line  of  distinction 
*  Kev.  xxi.  5 


182  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

between  those  countries  where  the  Bible  is  open  to  all, 
and  those  where  it  is,  or  has  been,  practically  prohibited  ? 
Do  we  not  observe  in  the  Reformed  and  the  Protestant 
peoples  of  the  North,  certain  characteristics  more  prom- 
inent than  they  are  in  countries  where  the  Bible  has 
not  been  the  staple  food  of  the  people's  spiritual  life  for 
many  generations  ?  It  would  be  precarious,  perhaps, 
to  assign  to  a  single  influence  what  may  be  the  result 
of  a  complex  of  causes.  The  special  honour  which  is 
paid,  for  instance,  to  veracity  and  straightforwardness 
among  the  Teutonic  nations,  as  compared  with  the 
Latin  peoples  of  the  Mediterranean  region,  has,  no 
doubt,  its  root  in  racial  tendency,  modified  by  the  mould- 
ing hand  of  national  destiny ;  but  that  it  has  been 
developed  and  intensified  by  generations  of  familiarity 
with  Holy  Writ  can  scarcely  be  questioned.  To  '  love 
the  truth  and  peace,' ^  to  'put  away  lying,  and  speak 
every  man  truth  with  his  neighbour,' t  these  are  very 
characteristic  precepts  of  Old  Testament  and  New 
Testament,  and  they  are  fundamental  in  the  instinctive 
ethics  of  the  Northern  peoples.  It  might  even  be 
argued  that  the  inborn  Teutonic  love  of  truth,  and 
impulse  to  seek  it  at  all  costs,  was  a  large,  if  unrealized, 
factor  in  the  complex  movement  which  led  these  nations 
of  the  North  to  shake  off  the  Roman  yoke,  and  to 
identify  themselves  each  with  some  type  or  types  of 
reformed  religion  that  would  offer  them  the  Scriptures 
once  more,  free  and  open,  as  in  the  golden  days  of 
undivided  Christendom. 

If   Scripture  and   Church   discipline  do  not  actually 
create  characteristics  in  the  individual  or  the  race,  they 
have  the  power,  at  any  rate,  of  drawing  out  and  develop- 
*  Zeoh,  viii.  19.  t  Eph.  iv.  25. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOK  183 

ing  latent  tendencies  and  capacities,  of  moulding  and 
reshaping  material  ready  to  hand.  And  we  cannot  be 
wrong  in  holding  that  some  of  the  most  precious  tradi- 
tional features  of  our  own  national  character  have  been 
the  fruit  of  generations  of  diligent  and  earnest  Bible 
study,  guided  and  directed  by  liturgical  practice,  and, 
in  its  elementary  stages,  based  during  the  last  three 
centuries  and  a  half,  more,  perhaps,  than  is  generally 
realized,  on  the  clear,  practical  teaching  of  the  Church 
Catechism.  If  we  are  to  take  our  own  nation  as  an 
example,  we  shall  be  forced  to  acknowledge  that  the 
educative  value  of  the  Bible  upon  the  individual  can 
scarcely  be  exaggerated.  One  is  apt,  somehow,  to 
regard  as  narrow  and  restricted  the  intellectual  outlook 
of  the  typical  religious  cottager  of  past  generations, 
whose  only  book  was  the  family  Bible.  In  the  case  of 
those  to  whom  the  Bible  meant  little  more  than  the 
family  chronicle,  scrawled  in  illiterate  script  on  its  fly- 
leaf, such  a  criticism  may  be  well-founded;  but  we  are 
apt  to  forget  the  advantage  that  lies  in  the  concentra- 
tion of  one^s  attention  on  the  best  in  any  department. 
To  those  '  men  of  a  single  Book,^  who  really  studied  that 
Book,  and  became  familiar  with  its  contents,  the  Bible 
could  not  fail  to  be  a  liberal  education.  One  cannot  be 
familiar  with  the  noblest  literature  of  the  world,  without 
receiving  some  beneficent  impress  from  the  familiarity. 
And  here  we  may  remind  ourselves  once  again  of  the 
vast  range  of  subjects  treated  in  the  Old  Testament 
alone ;  of  the  wealth  of  metaphor  and  illustration  with 
which  the  treatment  of  those  subjects  is  adorned ;  of  the 
infinite  variety  of  style  and  method  employed  by  its 
writers ;  of  the  stern  majesty  of  its  legislative  enact- 
ments, the  graphic  simplicity  of  its  narrative,  the  pene- 


184  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

tration  and  insight  of  its  studies  of  human  character, 
the  pathos  of  its  appeals,  the  thunder  of  its  warnings 
and  denunciations,  the  unearthly  glory  of  its  visions  and 
its  promises. 

One  single  book,  the  Book  of  the  Psalms,  traverses 
again  and  again  the  entire  range  of  human  emotion,  and 
has  supplied  to  the  Church  as  a  whole,  and  to  her 
individual  members  throughout  all  generations,  a  voice 
with  which  to  bring  before  God  every  state  of  heart, 
from  the  depths  of  despair  to  the  sublime  heights  of 
mystic  exultation.  This  marvellous  group  of  hymns — 
lyric,  epic,  didactic,  some  of  them  personal,  some  social 
or  national,  but  with  a  strong  infusion  of  the  personal 
element — has  undoubtedly  exerted  a  unique  educative 
influence — intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual — on  those 
who,  from  religious  motives,  have  made  it  their  familiar 
companion :  and  that  even  when  but  a  fraction  of  its 
utterances  have  been  fully  understood. 

A  mind  stored  with  the  imagery  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  accustomed  to  roam  in  the  vast  spaces  of  its  historical 
background,  can  never  be  vacant,  uninteresting,  or 
commonplace.  An  ear  trained  to  the  rhythm  and  the 
cadences  of  our  English  Version  cannot  be  destitute  of 
artistic  taste,  or  insensible  to  the  music  of  language.  A 
conscience  nourished  upon  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures 
may  fail,  perhaps,  in  width  and  sympathy,  but  cannot  be 
wanting  in  definiteness  or  in  force,  in  that  practical 
clear-cut  idea  of  duty  which  the  Jewish  lad  imbibed 
with  his  early  lessons  from  the  Book  of  Leviticus.  And 
the  breadth  of  view  and  the  sympathetic  sensitiveness 
that  such  a  conscience  needs  will  be  found  in  the  study 
of  the  Gospels,  and  in  a  noble  word-portrait  of  the 
central  Figure  of  the   Gospels,  such   as   St.   Paul   has 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  185 

given  us  in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  his  First  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians. 

When  Robert  Crosseteste  was  asked  whence  he  had 
acquired  his  gentle,  tactful  and  courtly  manners,  the 
peasant's  son,  who  had  developed  into  the  greatest  man 
of  his  generation,  is  reported  to  have  answered :  '  It  is 
true  that  I  come  of  a  humble  father  and  mother,  but 
from  my  earliest  years  I  have  studied  the  best  men  in  the 
Scriptures,  and  have  tried  to  conform  my  actions  to  theirs/ 

Grrosseteste,  it  is  true,  was  no  ordinary  man,  and 
his  reading  of  the  Scriptures  was  of  no  ordinary  type. 
Doubtless  he  shewed  from  early  days  the  scholarly 
instincts  which  became  afterwards  the  admiration  of 
Europe.  For  him  one  Book  was  indeed  supreme ;  yet  he 
was  not  (in  the  natural  and  literal  sense)  a  '  man  of  a 
single  book.'  His  name  recalls  to  us  the  advantage  to 
be  reaped  from  the  application  of  a  widely  and  deeply 
trained  intellect  to  the  pages  of  the  Bible.  Undoubtedly 
much  is  to  be  gained  from  a  fuller  and  more  scientific 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  in  all  their  aspects,  a  know- 
ledge such  as  enables  its  possessor  to  trace  back  the 
documents  to  their  origin,  and  to  reconstruct,  with  the 
help  of  archa3ological  data,  something  of  their  original 
setting.  Still  more  valuable,  perhaps,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  education  to  be  gained  from  the  Scriptures, 
is  the  gift  of  scholarly  taste,  the  power  to  realize  subtle 
distinctions,  to  see  things  in  due  proportion  and  perspec- 
tive. These  faculties  may  surely  be  classed  among  the 
gifts  —  charismata  —  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  form, 
as  it  were,  the  complement  of  inspiration.  But  when  all 
has  been  said,  the  traditional  pious  cottager  reaped  a 
goodly  harvest  of  culture  from  the  sacred  pages  over 
which  he  pored  with  no  thought  of  culture,  as  such,  in 


186  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

his  mind ;  and  his  very  familiarity  with  the  whole  mass 
of  the  material  stood  him  in  good  stead.  It  took  the 
place  of  glossary  and  of  concordance;  he  acquired  an 
exegetic  instinct,  or  rather  an  instinct  for  results  and 
conclusions,  comparable  in  its  way  to  that  of  the  early 
patristic  writers,  who  surprise  us  very  often  by  the 
saneness  of  their  conclusions,  based  on  what  seem  to  us 
the  flimsiest  and  most  far-fetched  processes  of  reasoning. 
The  sound  result  is  in  each  case  due  rather  to  instinct 
than  to  argument,  and  the  instinct  is  developed  out  of 
a  loving  familiarity  with  the  whole  range  of  the  sacred 
literature. 

Dean  Church  has  taught  us  to  see  in  Christianity  a 
nursing-mother  of  the  young  nations  that  have  grown 
up  on  the  ruins  of  the  old  Roman  Empire.  He  has 
taught  us  to  watch  her  at  work  providing  a  civilizing 
school  for  them ;  not,  as  a  machine,  moulding  them  all 
in  a  single  mould,  or  turning  them  out  after  one  pattern, 
but  rather  as  a  sympathetic  teacher  bringing  out  the 
idiosyncrasies,  the  distinctive  and  individual  potentialities, 
of  each  race ;  giving  a  new  life  and  a  higher  sanction  to 
the  Teuton's  love  of  freedom  and  worship  of  womanhood, 
to  the  Celt's  fervid  enthusiasm,  as  to  the  Roman's  love 
of  order  and  system.  This  contention  receives  remark- 
able corroboration  from  the  results  of  modern  missions 
to  the  heathen,  carried  on  as  they  are  now,  if  not  with 
greater  zeal  than  ever  before,  at  any  rate  with  more  of 
systematic  and  scientific  organization,  year  by  year,  and 
offering  yearly  a  broader  and  more  certain  basis  for 
classification  of  statistics  and  for  generalization.  Chris- 
tianity, properly  and  fairly  presented  (as  distinct  from 
the  many  imperfect  and  disproportionate  presentations 
of  it  which  have  been,  alas !  too  common  in  the  past),  has 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  187 

shewn  itself  capable  of  educating,  in  the  truest  sense, 
every  sort  of  humanity,  from  the  Western  types  with 
which  we  are  most  familiar,  to  the  Mongolian  races  of 
the  Far  East,  the  Bantus  of  Africa,  and  the  degraded 
Australian  aborigines. 

With  all  its  failures  and  imperfections,  it  has  demon- 
strated the  truth  and  the  ultimate  possibility  of  St. 
PauFs  noble  ideal  of  a  corporate  organization  which,  by 
union  of  countless  diverse  elements,  each  perfect  in  its 
own  kind  and  degree — Jew,  Greek,  Barbarian,  Scythian 
— shall  sum  up  in  itself  the  rich  ideal  of  the  perfect 
Humanity  :  '  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of 
Christ.'^ 

It  would  be  a  mistake  (as  we  have  already  remarked) 
to  identify  Christianity  with  the  Christian  Scriptures, 
and  to  postulate  of  the  latter  all  that  can  be  predicted 
of  the  former.  Yet  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  if  the 
Church  has  been  the  chief  educator  of  that  portion  of 
our  race  which  has  hitherto  done  most  for  the  world^s 
progress,  the  Bible  has  been  its  principal  textbook. 
The  textbook  has  not  always  been  in  the  hands  of  the 
scholar.  In  some  periods  even  the  teacher  has  derived 
his  precepts  largely  at  second  hand;  but  the  primary 
authority  of  the  textbook  has  always  been  there ;  there 
has  always  been  an  appeal^  explicit  or  implicit,  to  the 
body  of  teaching  represented  by  the  Canon  of  Scripture. 

Christianity  is  not,  of  course,  the  ^religion  of  a  Book^ 
as  Islam  is,  and  as  was  the  Judaism  of  the  ^  Scribes  and 
Pharisees '  who  opposed  our  Lord.  It  is  fundamentally 
and  essentially  the  religion  of  a  life.  Still,  the  first 
generation  of  Christians  looked  to  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures  for  spiritual  guidance,  even  as  did  their 
*  Eph.  iv.  13. 


188  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

best  contemporaries  among  the  Jews,  but  with  a  dif- 
ference. 

The  Jews  thought  they  had  in  them  eternal  life/"^ 
the  Christians  realized  that  their  message  was  primarily 
one  of  hope,t  and  that  the  saving  wisdom  which  they 
could  instil  drew  its  virtue  from  faith  %  in  One  who 
'was  dead  and  ...  is  alive  for  evermore.'§  The 
constant  felt  presence  of  their  risen  Lord  who  was 
the  raison  d'etre  of  law  and  prophecy,  while  it  gave  the 
Scriptures,  in  the  eyes  of  primitive  Christendom,  a  new 
and  living  interest,  forced  them,  of  necessity,  to  take  a 
second  place.  The  Written  Word  is  but  the  minister  of 
the  Word  Incarnate.  The  Church,  mystical  body  of 
Christ,  comes  first;  the  Scripture,  second. 

There  were  great  ones,  however,  in  early  days,  like 
Justin  Martyr  and  Hilary  of  Poitiers,  who  were  literally 
converted  by  the  Bible  itself,  and  drawn,  through  the 
influence  of  the  Book,  to  the  living  system  of  the  Church. 
To  these  keen,  inquiring  intellects  the  Scriptures 
formed  a  coping-stone  of  education.  They  found,  or 
believed  themselves  to  have  found  therein,  the  true 
philosophy,  the  key  to  the  understanding  of  the  universe. 
The  appeal,  however,  of  the  Scriptures  to  the  individual 
has  been  historically  to  heart  or  conscience  as  much  as 
to  head.  A  dramatic  instance  of  the  power  of  'The 
Heart-Book,'  as  a  Chinese  inquirer  once  touchingly 
called  it,  is  to  be  found  in  the  well-known  story  of  the 
conversion  of  St.  Augustine  of  Hippo.  A  single  verse 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Komans  ||  changed  his  whole  view  of 
life,  his  life  itself,  and  with  it  the  whole  future  of 
European  theology. 

*  John  V.  39.        t  Rom.  xv.  4.        t  1  Tim.  iii.  15. 
§  Rev.  i.  18.        II  Rom.  xiii.  13. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  189 

And  what  happened  to  St.  Augustine  sixteen  centuries 
ago  happens  to  others  all  over  the  world  to-day — to 
the  Burmese  who  a  few  months  ago  came  spontaneously 
to  put  himself  under  Christian  instruction,  because  he 
had  read  in  the  words  of  St.  John  that  '  God  so  loved 
the  world  .  .  .'^j  to  the  great  native  Indian  missionary 
who  was  first  moved  towards  Christianity  because  once 
when  he  was  detained  for  a  fault  at  school  a  Bible 
chanced  to  be  in  the  room  where  he  was  locked  up. 
Modern  mission  work,  indeed,  offers  the  spectacle  of 
thousands  of  souls  so  drawn  and  influenced,  where  in  the 
early  history  of  the  Church  we  count  (owing  partly  to 
the  incompleteness  of  the  records)  but  twos  and  threes. 
And  the  classical  example  is  undoubtedly  to  be  found  in 
Uganda,  where  in  a  few  short  years  a  marvellous 
transformation  has  taken  place,  which  has  compelled  the 
respect  and  attention  of  all  thinking  people.  We  may 
perhaps  feel  inclined  to  criticize  this  or  that  detail  of  the 
missionary  policy  which  has  produced  such  wonderful 
results ;  we  may  suspect  that  a  neglect  of  the  traditional 
lines  of  the  Churches  discipline  may  bear  embarrassing 
fruit  in  a  later  generation;  we  may  fear  that  a  people 
nurtured  so  exclusively  on  the  Bible  of  the  great 
distributing  Society,  and  by  the  methods  corresponding, 
may  shortly  find  itself  plunged  into  intellectual  per- 
plexities and  faith-shaking  problems  when  the  wave  of 
criticism  reaches  it.  But  we  cannot  deny  that  here, 
where  of  all  places  Holy  Writ  has  been  '  left  to  do  its 
own  work,'  its  immediate  success  is  beyond  all  parallel. 
A  whole  nation  has  been  lifted  from  a  low  grade  of 
civilization  to  high  moral,  social  and  intellectual  ideals. 
The  Bible  has  been  for  Uganda  a  liberal  education 
*  John  iii.  16. 


190  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

indeed^  and  the  'Epic  Poem/  as  Stanley  called  it,  of 
Uganda's  conversion  is  a  splendid  eulogy  of  the 
Scriptures. 

And  what  of  the  future  ?  Has  the  Bible  a  future 
before  it  comparable  to  its  past  ?  The  Book  which 
more  than  any  other  has  furnished  to  the  nations  of 
Europe  and  to  the  English-speaking  people  beyond  the 
seas  the  manifold  inspiration  of  their  individual  develop- 
ment :  is  its  fund  of  inspiration  exhausted  ?  That 
inspiration  of  the  painter's  art,  of  which  the  galleries  are 
full,  the  whole  eloquence  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
concentrated  upon  the  typical  figures  of  the  Virgin 
Mother  and  her  Child;  that  inspiration  which  by  the 
sculptor's  hand  peopled  the  noble  fa9ades  of  our 
churches  with  figures  that  tell  the  entire  Bible  story 
from  beginning  to  end;  that  inspiration  which,  acting 
through  vernacular  translations  of  the  '  Divine  Library,' 
has  given  its  literary  form  to  many  a  modern  language, 
our  own  included,  and  forms  to-day  the  entire  literature 
of  many  a  backward  race.  ...  Is  the  Bible's  career  as 
an  educator  finished  and  done  ? 

Uganda  strikes  a  chord  of  hope  for  its  future.  It  is 
not  only  to  the  more  cultured  peoples  of  the  world — so 
missionary  experience  assures  us — that  the  Scriptures 
make  their  appeal.  The  child-races  also  hear  the  voice 
of  the  '  Heart-Book,'  and  respond  to  the  thrill  of  it. 
The  apparently  unlimited  appeal  of  the  Bible  is 
illustrated  by  the  daily  effect  of  the  Gospel  teaching  and 
discipline  on  such  diverse  types  as  the  peoples  of 
Hindustan,  the  Chinese  and  Japanese,  the  Malays,  the 
aborigines  of  Australia,  the  Red  Indians  of  the  New 
World,  and  the  Esquimaux  of  the  frozen  north.  And 
the  principle  of  its  effectiveness  in  such  divergent  fields 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  191 

is  one  that  grows  not  old,  one  which,  we  may  dare  to 
say,  will  insure  for  it  a  work  for  humanity  to  the  end  of 
time.  The  inspired  selection  and  infinite  diversity  of 
the  contents  of  this  vast  treasure-house  of  spiritual 
experience,  wide  as  human  nature  itself ;  the  progressive 
character  of  the  revelation  it  records;  the  crude  simple 
beginnings  recorded  equally  with  the  inconceivably 
glorious  climax — here  is  the  secret  of  the  Bible^s 
ubiquitous  and  undying  power.  Here  is  milk  for  babes  as 
well  as  strong  meat  for  adults.  What  we  might  have 
regarded  as  defects  become  an  added  strength ;  the  im- 
perfect leads  up  to  the  perfect ;  the  law  proves  a  ^  school- 
master ^  to  lead  us  to  Christ. 

And  yet  there  is  certainly  another  side  to  the  picture. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  an  apparent  loosening 
of  the  Bible^s  hold  upon  Europe — upon  the  nations  that 
have  known  many  generations  of  Christian  tradition.  If 
the  Bible  has  still  a  useful  field  of  influence  before  it 
among  the  backward  races  (as  some  hold  that  even  the 
Koran  has  among  tribes  whom  it  reaches  at  a  certain 
early  stage  of  their  upward  advance)  ;  if  it  still  has  a 
part  to  play  among  the  ancient  nations  of  the  Orient 
whose  progress  has  been  arrested  for  centuries  back — 
what  about  the  progressive  peoples  of  historic  Christen- 
dom ?  Has  it  not  done  all  it  can  for  them  ?  Have  they 
not  passed  beyond  its  control  and  reached  a  stage 
where  its  help  is  no  longer  welcomed  or  required  ? 

Certainly  there  has  been  among  intellectual  Europeans 
of  the  last  two  or  three  generations  an  appearance  of 
widespread  revolt  against  the  teachings  of  Holy  Scripture, 
or,  perhaps,  we  should  rather  say  against  the  systems 
with  which  that  teaching  has  been  associated.  In 
France   the   revolt   has   taken   the  form  of  a  political 


192  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

movement;  but  it  is  not  so  much  against  the  Bible  as 
such  as  against  clericalism  and  what  it  stands  for  that 
the  energies  of  the  secularist  Government  are  directed. 
In  France  and  Italy,  as  in  practically  all  European 
countries,  including  our  own,  there  is  a  vast  deal  of 
professed  or  unacknowledged  agnosticism ;  some  of  it  due 
to  local  or  national  causes  too  complex  to  be  enumerated, 
some  of  it  the  result  of  honest  doubt  inevitable  in  a 
period  of  transition  like  our  own;  much  more  of  it, 
probably,  simply  a  habit  or  fashion  of  free  and  loose 
thinking,  based  partly  on  a  wilful  and  undisciplined 
moral  tendency,  partly  on  scarcely  justified  deductions 
drawn  from  half- digested  results  of  a  criticism  some- 
times exaggerated  or  precarious.  Modern  Europe,  since 
the  Grreat  Revolution,  is  restive  under  authority,  suspicious 
of  tradition,  impatient  of  restraint,  spiritual  or  intel- 
lectual. It  is  not  merely  the  Bible,  but  'godly 
discipline,'  and  indeed  religious  practice  in  general,  that 
is  in  temporary  disfavour.  Yet  the  prestige  of  the 
Bible  itself  has  been  lowered,  and  its  influence  weakened 
by  a  number  of  causes,  not  the  least  of  which  is  that 
general  loosening  of  the  hold  of  traditional  beliefs  which 
results  from  an  unusually  swift  advance  of  knowledge  in 
general,  and  the  consequent  difficulty  which  ordinary 
minds  experience  in  readjusting  themselves  to  new 
conditions. 

The  old  views  of  the  Bible  need  to  be  modified.  They 
fitted  very  tolerably  into  the  cosy  and  compact  intel- 
lectual universe  of  our  forefathers — fitted  in  quite 
naturally,  for  they  were  made  expressly  for  the  purpose. 
But  now  the  intellectual  horizon  is  vastly  wider,  the 
perspective  of  the  objects  it  encloses  is  quite  altered, 
and  so  the  old  views  in  this,  as  in  other  things,  must  be 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  193 

re-shaped  if  they  are  to  find  then'  place.  What  wonder 
that  some  cling  doggedly  to  the  old,  and  will  not  see 
that  it  is  obsolete ;  that  some  grow  tired  of  waiting  for 
finality,  and  impatiently  conclude  that  there  is  no  place 
for  the  Bible  at  all — that  it  is,  in  the  familiar  and  forcible 
phrase,  '  played  out  ^ ! 

The  certainty  of  the  Bible's  future  usefulness  lies  with 
those  who,  while  believing  whole-heartedly  in  its  in- 
exhaustible message,  and  frankly  ready  to  accept  new 
learning  as  it  comes,  are  prepared  to  devote  their  best 
powers  to  the  elucidation  of  it  in  the  light  of  the  manifold 
knowledge  of  to-day. 

Such  men  are  to  be  found  in  every  great  communion 
of  Christians  here,  and  on  the  Continent,  and  beyond  the 
ocean ;  but  we  may  well  believe  that  the  English  Church, 
which,  on  the  whole,  made  so  sound  and  sober  a  use  of 
the  'New  Learning'  in  the  sixteenth  century,  has  no 
mean  part  to  play  in  the  reinstatement  of  Holy  Writ. 
With  so  many  devout,  honest,  and  competent  scholars  in 
the  field,  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the  destructive 
forces  undeniably  at  work  will  prevail. 

The  scientific  and  impartial  study  of  other  '  sacred ' 
books,  the  cold  analysis  and  surgical  dismembering  of 
the  biblical  literature  itself — these  will  not,  we  may 
confidently  say,  issue  in  a  dethroning  of  the  Bible  from 
its  rightful  place.  A  Bible  made  to  usurp  the  place 
of  the  Word  Licarnate,  or  of  His  mystical  Body,  must 
needs  be  dethroned,  and  the  sooner  the  better.  It  may 
be  that  there  has  been  something  superstitious  about  the 
attitude  of  many  devout  people  towards  this  Book  in 
the  past ;  it  is  certain  that  it  has  been  only  half  under- 
stood; yet,  hampered  thus,  how  much  it  has  accom- 
plished ! 


194  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

If  the  Bible,  scarcely  half  understood,  unintelligently 
and  superstitiously  used,  has  been  able  to  produce  such 
remarkable  results  upon  the  culture  of  two  continents, 
what  may  we  expect  from  a  more  enlightened  use  of  it — 
a  use  illumined  by  floods  of  light  from  every  quarter  ? 

Certain  uses  of  it,  irrelevant  from  the  strictly  religious 
"point  of  view,  are  only  just  beginning  to  come  into 
prominence  —  philological,  anthropological,  historico- 
psychological,  and  the  like.  The  development  of  these 
aspects  will  doubtless  attract  to  it  in  the  near  future  the 
interest  of  many  by  whom  its  religious  appeal  is  as  yet 
unheard.  But  if  it  is  to  occupy  in  the  ages  to  come 
a  position  analogous  to  that  which  it  has  held  hitherto — 
that  of  a  documentary  sacrament  of  Divine  knowledge — 
it  will  be  because  historical  criticism,  stripping  off  the 
accretions  of  ages,  has  left  the  Bible  in  all  essentials 
what  it  was,  only  bringing  out  more  clearly,  besides  the 
grand  outlines,  the  more  minute  details  of  light  and  shade 
which  had  been  obscured  beyond  all  recognition.  In  all 
essentials,  for  its  fundamental  purpose,  the  changed  Bible 
remains  the  same.  The  earlier  library  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  still  the  inspired  record  of  God's  revelation,  though  seen 
to  be  far  more  complex  in  its  origin  than  was  once  sup- 
posed. Though  the  order  in  which  its  component  parts  were 
produced  be  far  different  from  that  which  appears  on  the 
surface — though  the  form  assumed  by  its  utterances  prove 
to  be  related  much  more  intimately  than  used  to  be  thought 
to  the  conditions,  limitations,  needs  of  the  times  when  they 
came  to  birth — the  Old  Testament  will  still  be  recognized 
as  the  inspired  record  of  God's  revelation  to  a  race  pecu- 
liarly gifted  by  Him  to  be  '  a  sacred  school  of  religious 
knowledge  for  all  peoples.'  The  partial  parallels  (very 
partial)  which  can  be  obtained  from  ancient  literature, 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  195 

or  from  a  reconstruction  of  ancient  Semitic  religions,  are, 
in  one  sense,  from  our  modern  point  of  view,  a  corrobora- 
tion of  the  value  set  on  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  for  they 
take  away  from  those  Scriptures  the  character  of  an 
isolated  portent  without  analogies — a  character  which 
would  in  no  wise  harmonize  with  what  else  we  know  of 
the  Divine  methods  of  working.  In  another  sense  the 
very  partial  nature  of  these  parallels  brings  out  by 
contrast  the  unrivalled  authority  of  the  Old  Testament. 
And  what  is  true  of  the  Old  Testament  is  true  a  fortiori 
of  the  New.  Here  criticism  has  been  by  no  means  so 
subversive  of  our  old  ideas,  and  it  will  probably  be 
generally  admitted  within  a  few  years'  time  that  all  its 
books  are  genuine  products  of  the  first  century.  The 
battle  still  rages  fiercely  over  the  ijpsiasima  verba  of  the 
central  Figure,  and  there  is  room,  no  doubt,  for  legitimate 
controversy.  But  Christians  will  certainly  have  to  be 
content,  for  practical  purposes,  with  the  teaching  em- 
bodied in  the  Gospels  as  they  stand,  and  in  the  New 
Testament  as  a  whole.  Those  by  whom  the  doctrine 
of  the  Paraclete  as  it  appears  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  is 
acknowledged  as,  in  substance,  the  Master's  teaching, 
will  find  no  difficulty  in  accepting,  for  practical  guidance, 
the  documents  as  they  have  come  down  to  us. 

If  we  may  venture,  then,  to  forecast  the  future  of 
the  Bible,  we  should  have  no  hesitation  in  predicting 
for  it  a  great  work  for  humanity.  What  limits  can 
be  set  to  the  work  that  it  is  to  accomplish  when 
it  is  really  known — known  thoroughly  and  scientifi- 
cally in  all  its  parts — when  there  are  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  study  of  it  all  the  most  exquisite  instru- 
ments and  methods  of  scholarship  and  exegesis  that 
humanity  has  gradually  evolved,  and  these  illumined  by 


196  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

the  various  sciences  wliich  now  conspire  to  cover  the 
field  of  the  knowable  ?  Surely,  with  all  these  advan- 
tages, its  achievement  may  be  expected  to  prove  as  great, 
if  not  greater,  than  that  which  it  wrought  when  historical 
narrative  was  frequently  mistaken  for  allegory,  and  the 
extremes  of  symbolic  imagery  for  literal  fact ;  or  when 
men  looked  to  Grenesis  and  to  Aristotle  for  their  physi- 
cal science,  and  the  assertion  of  the  earth's  rotundity 
was  a  ^damnable  heresy M  Certainly  the  Bible  has  a 
great  future  before  it  as  an  educator — greater,  perhaps, 
than  ever  before ;  but  only  if  it  be  taken  at  its  own 
valuation,  when  it  claims  to  say,  '  Thus  saith  the  Lord/ 
If  the  generations  to  come  look  to  it,  as  did  their  fore- 
fathers, for  spiritual  inspiration,  they  will  probably 
derive  from  it  also  the  maximum  of  intellectual  culture. 
Even  if  we  could  imagine  it  deposed  from  its  spiritual 
throne,  it  would  still  remain,  for  those  who  should 
approach  it  as  a  literary  textbook,  unique  alike  in  its 
range,  its  quality  and  its  historical  associations. 

And  there  is  yet  another  ground  for  confidence  in  the 
Bible's  future.  It  is  not  only  the  scientific,  historical, 
and  critical  methods  of  the  West  that  will  be  focussed 
more  and  more  upon  its  pages.  From  every  quarter 
and  from  every  race  will  pour  in  contributions  to  the 
fuller  understanding  of  its  inner  meaning  and  of  its 
practical  uses.  We  spoke  of  St.  PauFs  conception  of 
the  great  Body  of  Christ,  in  which  every  race  shall  have 
a  share.  There  is  another  aspect  of  that  great  organism 
which  remains  to  be  adverted  to.  If  each  shares  in  the 
mystic  Life,  each  also  contributes  its  characteristic  gift; 
the  different  peoples  'bring  their  glory  and  honour'* 
into  the  City  of  God.  But  an  enrichment  of  the  Church 
♦  Rev.  xxi.  24, 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  197 

is  an  enrichment  also  of  the  Scriptures.  To  the  China- 
man, as  to  many  another,  the  Bible  is  '  the  Heart-Book '; 
but  he  brings  to  the  interpretation  of  it  a  type  of 
religious  experience  which,  however  parallel  in  its 
fundamental  lines  to  that  of  all  other  believers,  has  on 
it  the  stamp  of  the  Chinese  genius.  The  Christ  he  sees 
depicted  there  is  a  Chinese  Christ.  Even  so  the  Hindoo 
will  find  a  Hindoo  Christ  in  the  Book,  the  Malay  and 
the  New  Zealander  each  a  Christ  of  his  own  race.  We 
are  just  beginning  to  reap  the  harvest  now;  what  another 
generation  may  garner  of  fuller  and  more  proportionate 
understanding  of  the  Scriptures  we  can  only  dimly  guess. 
What  we  already  see  amounts  to  a  powerful  testimony 
to  the  Bible^s  universal  message  and  appeal.  It  bears 
with  it  also  the  promise  of  a  far  richer  and  truer  con- 
ception of  what  the  Bible  means.  As  yet  it  has  been 
interpreted  almost  entirely  by  Aryan  minds,  and  those 
of  Europe  and  the  Mediterranean  countries ;  but  a  time 
is  near  at  hand  when  the  Far  East  and  the  Far  South 
will  make  their  particular  genius  felt  in  its  interpretation, 
and  then  we  shall  begin  to  know  it  in  a  new  way. 


VII 

THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE 

Foe  many  of  us  this  phrase,  '  The  Bible  and  Modern 
Science/  begins  already  to  savour  of  obsolete  controversy. 
It  has  a  subtle  mid- Victorian  fragrance  like  that  of 
lavender-scented  heirlooms  put  away  in  rarely  opened 
drawers.  The  stirrings  of  passion  thinly  veiled  under 
the  artistic  phraseology  of  the  poet  of  *  In  Memoriam/ 
when  his  eye  was  fixed  on  'Nature  red  in  tooth  and 
claw ';  the  odium  theologicum  aroused  by  Huxley  and 
his  circle,  and  the  odium  agnosticum  with  which  they 
retorted  ;  the  almost  frenzied  clamour  that  would  fain 
have  shouted  down  the  honest  utterances  of  that  gentlest 
and  simplest  of  men,  Charles  Darwin — all  these  things 
have  for  us  an  exaggerated,  almost  melodramatic,  touch. 
There  are  circles  still,  no  doubt,  where  the  cramhe 
repetita  of  last  century's  controversial  talk  still  forms 
the  staple  dish;  where  collected  scraps  from  the  cuisine 
of  Herbert  Spencer  and  Huxley  (phrases  often  violently 
torn  from  their  context)  are  served  up,  garnished  with  all 
the  bravery  of  journalistic  eloquence.  There  are  circles, 
too,  of  an  opposite  temper  and  tendency,  to  which  the 
cheaper  apologetics  of  two  generations  ago  still  appeal 
as  forcibly  as  ever ;  to  whom  Darwin  is  still  anathema  ; 
by  whom  '  Modern  Science '  and  '  the  Higher  Criticism ' 
are   alike   summarily   characterized    and    dismissed    as 

198 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      199 

'attacks  on  the  Bible/  But  neither  the  one  circle  nor 
the  other  can  be  claimed  as  representing  the  true 
tendency  of  intelligent  thought  and  belief.  For  the 
average  thinking  man  the  'Science  and  Religion'  con- 
troversy in  its  mid- Victorian  form  is  a  thing  of  the  past. 
The  battle  is  '  passed  over '  to  another  region. 

Oui^  interest  in  the  Bible,  our  reverence  for  its  teaching, 
its  religious  and  devotional  value  for  us,  may  grow  as 
years  go  on — well  for  us  if  they  do ! — but  the  point  of 
view  from  which  our  minds  approach  it  is  changed. 
The  Bible  is  no  longer  for  us  what  the  Koran  is  to  the 
pious  Mohammedan,  what  the  Torah  is  to  the  Jew  of  the 
old  school,  a  magical  book,  every  word  of  which  has 
been  dictated  miraculously  to  an  unerring  scribe.  We 
are  no  longer  concerned  to  prove  that  the  implied 
geological  basis  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  is  identical 
with  the  lines  marked  out  by  the  current  theories  of  the 
nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries;  or  to  demonstrate, 
with  an  ingenuity  worthy  of  a  less  sacred  cause,  that 
the  disturbance  introduced  into  the  entire  solar  system 
by  the  miracle  associated  with  the  name  of  Joshua  was 
rectified,  after  the  lapse  of  centuries,  by  the  putting 
back  of  the  shadow  on  the  dial  of  Ahaz  in  the  reign  of 
Hezekiah.  We  do  not  lay  ourselves  out  to  champion 
Jonah's  whale  any  more  than  Toby's  fish ;  we  feel  that 
the  magnificent  teaching  of  the  book  which  bears 
Jonah's  name  is  equally  valid  whether  the  story  in 
which  it  is  embodied  be  history,  allegory,  or  myth. 
Perhaps  our  tendency  has  been  of  late  to  take  a  too 
modest  line  about  '  miracles ' ;  certainly  we  are  more 
ready  to  apologize  for  the  presence  of  wonder-stories  in 
Scripture  than  to  use  such  stories  as  the  basis  of  our 
apologetics.    At  any  rate,  we  have  come  to  the  conviction 


200  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

that;  if  the  Old  Testament  is  a  Divine  Book,  it  is  also  an 
ancient  Hebrew  Book,  bearing  marks  of  its  provenance 
on  every  page.  Its  view  of  the  construction  of  the 
universe  is,  when  grasped,  simple  and  intelligible,  but 
to  our  minds  crude  and  primitive  to  a  degree.  We  can 
reconstruct  the  Hebrew  universe  fairly  completely  by  a 
comparison  of  the  first  chapter  of  Grenesis  with  one  or 
two  other  passages  in  the  same  book,  and  iiL  Job,  the 
Psalms,  and  the  Prophets. 

The  earth  is  a  flat  mass,  surrounded  by  the  seas  and 
floating  upon  the  'great  deep,^  'the  waters  under  the 
earth,^"^  whence  hidden  channels  are  connected  with  the 
springs  and  keep  the  rivers  supplied.t  Above  the  earth 
is  the  solid  firmament  or  dome  of  heaven,  conceived  as 
stretched  out  J  like  a  curtain,  §  or  beaten  out||  like  a 
'strong  molten  mirror'  supported  by  pillars,1[  which 
rest  presumably  upon  the  earth's  fringe.  This  firma- 
ment Jehovah  thrust  in  between  the  upper  and  the 
lower  waters,  as  Marduk  did  with  half  of  the  cloven 
carcass  of  Tiamat  in  the  Babylonian  Genesis.  And  to  it 
He  attached  the  sun,  moon,  and  planets,  and  studded  it 
with  the  fixed  stars.  Above  the  firmament  are  gathered 
the  upper  waters,"^^  in  which  the  '  beams '  of  Jehovah's 
'  chambers '  are  laid — the  floods  above  which  He  sits 
enthroned.tt  These  upper  waters  are  kept  off  from  the 
earth  by  the  firmament,  but  there  are  sluices  or '  windows 
of  heaven '  which  may  be  divinely  manipulated  so  as  to 
let  the  waters  pass  through.     The  Noachian  Deluge  is 

*  Gen.  vii.  11,  xlix.  26 ;  Amo3  vii.  4 ;  Ps.  cxxxvi.  6 ;  Isa.  li.  10 ; 
Exod.  XX.  4. 
t  Deut.  viii.  7 ;  Prov.  iii.  20. 

I  Job  ix.  8 ;  Isa.  xlii.  5,  xliv.  24.  §  Ps.  civ.  2. 

II  Job  xxxvii.  18.  f  Job  xxvi.  11. 

**  Ps,  cxlviii.  4  ;  Gen.  i.  6.  ff  Ps.  civ.  3  ;  Amos  ix.  6, 


THE  BIBL;^  and  modern  SCIENCE      201 

represented  as  due  to  a  simultaneous  opening  of  these 
windows  and  a  breaking  up  of  the  '  fountains  of  the 
great  deep/''^  so  that  upper  and  nether  waters  conspire 
to  reproduce  something  like  the  original  chaotic  con- 
dition, out  of  which  a  renovated  and  purified  earth  is  to 
emerge. 

It  is  a  childish  conception,  perhaps,  worthy  of  man's 
childhood.  It  reminds  us  of  the  conceptions  of  our 
own  early  childhood,  and  of  the  primitive  mythological 
ideas  that  have  left  their  mark  upon  the  world's  best 
poetry,  from  Homer  downwards. 

We  may  concede  to  the  Assyriologist  his  claim  that 
this  conception  of  the  world  as  originating  out  of  water 
— so  tantalizingly  like  and  unlike  the  nebular  hypothesis 
of  later  physicists — marks  the  creation  story  as  descended 
from  Babylonian  ancestry ;  that  it  was  suggested  by  the 
spectacle  of  the  long  Babylonian  winter,  during  which 
the  flooded  plains  present  the  appearance  of  a  vast  sea 
of  waters — waters  which  subside  at  the  coming  of  spring, 
when  the  clouds  lift,  and  the  dry  land  and  vegetation 
appear.  We  must  concede,  too,  to  the  Hebrew  scholar 
his  contention  that,  whatever  the  Hebrew  conception 
of  the  world's  construction  was,  it  was  not  that  of 
modern  Western  science. 

If  we  glance  at  the  ethical  standards  of  the  Old 
Testament,  we  cannot  disguise  from  ourselves  the  fact 
that  there  is  much,  especially  in  the  narratives  which 
purport  to  deal  with  early  history,  which  revolts  the 
modern  conscience.  ,If  ethics  is  a  science,  then  from 
this  point  of  view  also  the  Old  Testament  lays  itself 
open  to  criticism. 

The  wholesale  massacres  of  men,  women,  and  children 
*  Gen.  vii.  \\, 


202  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

in  the  name  and  by  the  direct  command  of  Jehovah 
portrayed  in  the  Book  of  Joshua,  and  repeated,  with 
something  of  a  gloating  spirit,  in  the  later  chap'j:ers  of 
Esther;"^  the  condemnation  of  an  entire  family  for  the 
sin  of  one  man,  Achan,-t  the  commendation  of  the 
treacherous  act  of  Jael ;  J  the  apparently  condoned  deceit 
of  heroes  like  Abraham,  §  Isaac,  ||  and  Jacob  (though 
the  last-named  clearly  pays  due  penalty  in  the  end) ; 
and  perhaps  we  may  add  the  plurality  of  wives, 
mentioned  without  comment  in  the  case  of  Abraham, 
Jacob,  Elkanah,  and  David — such  blots  as  these — and 
many  others  could  be  named — we  rightly  regard  as 
incident  to  early  stages  in  an  upward  progress.  And 
the  New  Testament,  with  its  announcement  that  'the 
Law  made  nothing  perf  ect,^1f  and  its  typical  emendations 
of  Old  Testament  precepts  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
and  elsewhere,  corroborates  our  judgment.  But  in 
themselves  these  things  are  undoubted  imperfections. 

So,  too,  is  it  with  the  historical  method  of  the  Old 
Testament  chroniclers  and  historians.  They  are,  from 
the  modern  point  of  view,  unscientific.  The  results 
achieved  fill  us  more  and  more  with  reverence  and 
admiration;  but  it  is  something  other  than  the  writer's 
method,  scientifically  considered,  that  evokes  our 
enthusiasm.  That  method,  if  recent  criticism  has  rightly 
appraised  it,  consists  largely  in  the  manipulation  and 
the  piecing  together  of  fragments  culled  from  narratives 
and  other  documents,  sometimes  parallel,  sometimes 
mutually  inconsistent,  the  whole  being  then  coloured 
with  the  tints  of  the  writer's  own  age.     The  results  of 

*  Especially  ix.  5  et  seq.y  13  et  seq.       f  Josh.  vii.  24. 

X  Judg.  V.  24.  §  Gen.  xii.  11  et  seq. 

I   Gen,  xxvi.  7  et  seq.  ^  Heb.  vii,  19, 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      203 

this  process  are  themselves  occasionally  inconsistent  with 
one    another,    and,    so   far   as   they   can   be   tested   by 
archaeological   data,  marked   here   and  there  by  grave 
chronological  errors.     The  works — especially  in  the  case 
of   the  'Former   Prophets' — are  works   of   genius   and 
something   more,    but   the   methods   are,    according    to 
modern   standards,  imperfect.     They  resemble    (as   has 
been  recently  demonstrated  afresh)  the  methods  of  the 
earlier  Arab  historians ;  they  are,  in  fact,  the  methods 
of  ancient  days,  and  of  an  unscientific  race.     All  this 
has  emerged  again  and  again  in  our  previous  studies, 
and  we   have  become  accustomed  to  see  in  it  nothing 
strange.       These    crudities,    these    imperfections,    this 
local    colour — they    are    natural    and    inevitable    in    a 
revelation     that    is     given     progressively,     from    rude 
beginnings,    and   given   through  all  its  course  through 
finite   human   media.     Yet   such   a   reflection  somehow 
fails  to  content   us  when  we  see  once  more  the  Bible 
and   modern  science   confronting  one  another.     If   the 
physical   science   of   the   Bible,    its    ethical   and    social 
standards,  its    historical  method,   are  all  recognized  as 
being  in  a  real  sense  relative  rather  than  final  or  absolute, 
they  must  still  have  a  certain  validity  in  so  far  as  they 
touch  religion,  unless  the  religious  value  of  the  Bible  is 
to  disappear.     It  is  for  this  reason  that   the  aspect  of 
the  Bible  that  faces  science  will  always  have  an  interest. 
If  we  do  not  go  to  the  Bible  for  our  principles  of  geology, 
astronomy,  anthropology,  history,  or  even  metaphysics; 
if  we  recognize   that   these  are  not  proper  subjects  of 
revelation,  but  rather  fields  for  patient  and  honest  use 
of  those  intellectual  gifts  with  which  the  Creator  Him- 
self has  endowed  all  mankind ;  we  yet  feel  justified  in 
demanding  that  the  Bible\s  science  and  philosophy  shall 


204  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

not  be  such  as  to  lead  us  astray  in  the  ethical  and 
spiritual  realms.  It  may  be  as  crude  and  primitive  as 
you  like,  this  underlying  science  of  the  Bible,  but  it 
must  not  commit  us  to  wrong  principles,  or  put  obstacles 
in  the  way  of  intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual  progress 
and  expansion. 

It  is  just  here  that  the  Bible  asserts  its  unique 
sovereignty — the  Bible,  that  is,  intelligently  read,  with 
the  illuminating  conceptions  of  the  genuine  humanity  of 
its  writers  and  the  progressive  character  of  its  revelation. 
Take  the  doctrine  of  Creation  embodied  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Grenesis.  How  entirely  the  potentialities  of 
its  teaching  would  be  changed  if  we  were  to  substitute 
for  its  reiterated  ^very  good^  a  theory  which  makes 
matter  in  itself  evil.  The  philosophical  and  theological 
consequences  would  have  been  enormously  different. 
The  chapter  would  have  shown  itself  utterly  unworthy 
of  its  present  position — a  position  in  virtue  of  which  it 
not  only  forms  a  noble  prelude  to  the  record  of  revela- 
tion, but  also  supplies  the  opening  phrase  of  Christendom's 
profession,  ^  I  believe  in  God  .  .  .  Maker  of  heaven  and 
earth.' 

It  is  a  commonplace  of  modern  exegesis  to  institute  a 
detailed  comparison  between  the  record  in  Genesis  of 
the  Creation  and  the  Deluge  with  the  Babylonian  myths 
on  the  same  subject  recovered  from  the  great  library  of 
Assurbanipal.  Such  a  comparison  brings  out,  perhaps, 
more  emphatically  than  anything  else  the  essential 
greatness  of  the  biblical  story,  and  the  reality  of  that 
'inspiration  of  selection'  which  enabled  the  Priestly 
writer  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  or  the  earlier  author, 
whose  conceptions  he  embodied  in  this  masterpiece  of 
his,  to  pick  his  way  so  unerringly  amid  the  confusing 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      205 

maze  of  primitive  Semitic  mythology :  to  '  refuse  the  evil 
and  to  choose  the  good/  The  two  accounts,  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Babylonian,  have  much  in  common,  as  has 
been  pointed  out  again  and  again — so  much  that  a 
common  literary  relationship  of  some  kind  must  be 
accounted  undeniable.  Both  alike  are  very  far  removed 
from  modern  ideas.  But  they  are  worlds  apart  from 
each  other  philosophically  and  theologically,  because  the 
theological  basis  of  the  Babylonian  cosmology  is  a  crude 
and  misleading  polytheistic  mythology,  while  that  of 
Genesis  is  a  pure  monotheism.  In  consequence,  the 
cuneiform  tablets  of  the  Creation  myth  have  a  pre- 
dominatingly archaeological  interest :  their  appropriate 
place  is  the  museum  of  antiquities;  while  the  Hebrew 
Creation  story  is  in  every  hand  and  on  every  lip.  The 
theological  structure  built  on  the  rude  foundation  of 
that  very  unscientific  cosmogony  is  valid  even  to-day. 
Nor  can  we  fail  to  realize  the  importance  of  the 
progressive  idea  as  it  appears  in  the  Hebrew  narrative — 
the  gradual  educing  of  order  out  of  chaos  and  of  com- 
plexity out  of  the  simple.  We  cannot  actually  identify 
this  principle  as  exhibited  in  Genesis  with  the  evolu- 
tion of  present-day  science,  still  less  can  we  expect  to 
identify  the  'Days'  of  Creation  with  the  Eozoic, 
Palaeozoic,  Mesozoic,  and  Caenozoic  periods  of  geology, 
or  their  animal  and  vegetable  products  with  the  products 
of  those  successive  periods.  But  the  principle  of  order 
and  progress  certainly  underlies  the  Hebrew  narrative  of 
Creation,  and  its  biological  series  works  up  to  man  as  a 
climax,  as  does  also  the  series  of  modern  science.  So  it  is 
that,  while  the  physical  science  (so  to  speak)  of  Genesis  is 
obsolete,  its  spirit  and  tendency,  its  philosophical  and 
theological  basis,  is  still   valid;   and  the   transfigured 


206  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Semitic  myth  has  become  an  inspired  picture  or  symbol, 
not  only  of  the  origin  of  this  world,  but  of  the  Divine 
method  of  dealing  with  the  world  and  with  man  in 
nature  and  in  grace.  Because  it  is  essentially  true,  it 
adapts  itself  to  a  more  modern  view  than  its  literal 
wording  reflects :  the  language  is  patient  of  a  much 
more  modern  interpretation  than  could  have  been 
understood  by  those  who  first  put  it  into  words. 

But  it  is  not,  of  course,  in  its  earlier  chapters  alone 
that  the  Bible  seems  out  of  touch  with  the  modern 
scientific  temper.  The  presence  of  miracle  all  through 
its  course,  in  Old  Testament  and  New  Testament  alike, 
still  tells  against  the  Bible  in  the  minds  of  many  who 
are  dominated  by  the  conception  of  the  supremacy  of 
'  Natural  Law.^  This  feeling  is  a  reasonable  reaction 
against  that  view  of  the  Bible  miracles  which  was 
associated  with  the  theory  of  verbal  inspiration.  That 
all  the  records  of  miracles  are  of  equal  value  and  of 
equal  weight ;  that  they  must  all  be  accepted  alike,  and 
alike  interpreted  with  equal  literalness ;  that,  in  fact, 
they  are  all  exactly  on  the  same  plane,  and  all  '  stand  or 
fall  together' — a  theory  of  this  kind  undoubtedly  pre- 
sented insuperable  difficulties  to  the  scientific  mind.  To 
say  that  if  I  find  it  difficult  to  accept  the  traditional 
explanation  given  in  Josh.  x.  13  of  the  old  poetic  phrase 
preserved  in  the  same  context,  and  to  believe  that  the 
whole  solar  system  was  deranged  at  that  moment,  I  am 
impugning  at  the  same  time  the  credibility  of  each  and 
all  of  the  Lord's  'miracles'  of  healing,  would  now  be 
considered  preposterous.  But  it  was  indisputably  an 
attitude  of  this  sort  that  embittered  the  'scientific  mind' 
of  the  last  generation  against  the  '  supernatural '  element 
in  the  Bible.     Recently  a  good  deal  has  happened  to 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      207 

reduce  the  bitterness  on  both  sides ;  not  least  among  the 

factors  making  for  peace  is  the  changed  view  of  the 

world.     The  old  controversy  about  Miracle  and  Natural 

Law  has  become  less  acute,  as  the  organic  conception 

of  the  universe  has,  in  the  best  minds  on  both  sides, 

taken  the  place  of  the  former  mechanical  view.     The 

champions  of  the  supernatural  have  realized  more  than 

before  the  force  of  the  many  indications  and  analogies 

which  point  to  a  real  oneness  in  the  universe  seen  and 

unseen,  material  and  spiritual.     Grasping  more   firmly 

the  implications  of  their  belief  in  '  one  Grod  the  Father 

Almighty,  Maker  of  .  .  .  all  things  visible  and  invisible,' 

they  no  longer  tend  to  picture  to  themselves  two  mutually 

imcompatible  worlds,  the  natural  and  the  supernatural, 

in  one  of  which  a  reign  of  law  prevails,  save  where  the 

other,  ruled  by  chaos  and  caprice,  encroaches  upon  it. 

Nature  and  grace.  Providence  and  miracle,  the  natural 

and  the  supernatural,  are  seen  to  be  parts  of  one  great 

scheme,  ruled  by  a   single  Mind  and  Will.     That  the 

Ruler  of  the  universe  is  '  not  a  God  of  confusion,'  but 

of  law  and  order,  is  a  truth  latent  in  any  satisfactory 

theological   scheme;  but  it  has   been  enforced   for  us 

strikingly  during  the  last  two  or  three  generations  by 

the  general  acceptance  of  the  scientific  principle  of  the 

uniformity  of  Nature. 

On  the  side  of  physical  science,  too,  a  change  has  come 

over  the  scene.    Men  are  conscious  more  than  before  that 

we  are  all 

*  Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized ' ; 

that  the  universe  with  which  science  may  yet  deal  is 
larger  and  more  varied  than  was  supposed ;  that  a  com- 
plete analysis  of  the  world  in  which  we  live  must  take 
account  of  elements  that  cannot  be  touched,  tasted,  or 


208  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

handled,  cannot  be  measured  with  a  line  or  weighed  in 
a  balance ;  that  the  phenomena  which  psychology  is 
beginning  to  classify  suggest  the  action  and  reaction 
of  forces  of  which  the  physicist  had  not  hitherto  taken 
account,  and  imply  the  presence  of  yet  more  distant 
realms  as  yet  unexplored.  If  the  action  of  spirit  upon 
matter,  of  the  immaterial  upon  the  material,  is  one  of 
the  most  important  factors  in  the  moulding  of  things 
around  us,  then  there  is  room,  after  all  (as,  indeed, 
Aquinas  saw  long  ago),  for  the  power  of  prayer,  within 
a  world  ruled  by  law  and  uniformity.  If,  in  the 
psychological  direction,  there  is  a  whole  realm  (or  realms) 
into  which  the  scientific  investigator  has  only  just  begun 
to  find  his  way,  then  it  was  not  unreasonable  in  the  past 
for  those  who  were  granted  from  time  to  time  to  see 
glimpses  of  this  realm,  or  to  receive  visits  from  its 
denizens,  to  speak  of,  or  to  look  upon,  such  glimpses  and 
such  visitants  as  '  miraculous '  or  '  supernatural/ 

As  the  organic  is  supernatural  viewed  from  the  stand- 
point of  inorganic  Nature,  and  man  supernatural  as 
compared  with  the  chain  of  existences  below  him,  yet 
each  successive  stratum  stands  upon  the  one  below  it,  and 
is  bound  to  the  lower  one  by  ties,  so  to  speak,  of  aflinity 
and  of  a  common  subjection  to  law ;  so,  too,  the  series 
of  strata  may  pass  beyond  our  ken.  We  may  posit  a 
still  higher  order  (or  orders)  above  and  beyond  that  in 
which  man  ordinarily  moves,  yet  interpenetrating  his 
habitual  sphere,  and  governed  by  laws  anologous  to  those 
of  which  he  is  gradually  discovering  the  operation  in 
Nature  round  about  him. 

Such  ideas  as  these  have  become  commonplaces,  but 
they  do  not  lose  their  importance  thereby.  The  word 
'  miracle '  has  become  almost  out  of  place  in  this  genera- 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      209 

tion,  not  because  we  have  ceased  to  admire  with  rever- 
ence the  wonder  of  the  Divine  working,  but  because 
what  an  apparent  '  portent '  did  for  our  ancestors  is 
accomplished  for  us  by  the  conception  of  natural  law. 
To  us,  to  whom  so  much  light  has  been  given  upon  the 
principle  of  law  and  of  orderly  growth  in  creation,  that 
principle  itself  is  a  more  convincing  witness  to  the 
existence,  the  presence,  and  the  working  of  the  Almighty 
than  any  sudden  or  apparently  capricious  breach  of  the 
principle  could  be.  Such  a  breach  has  become,  in  fact, 
inconceivable  to  us.  An  apparent  instance  of  it  we 
should  interpret — and  interpret  rightly — as  the  inter- 
vention of  a  higher  principle  analogous  to  human  will, 
which,  after  all,  moulds,  groups,  modifies,  but  does  not 
actually  annul,  the  action  of  the  natural  forces  already 
at  work,  nor  '  break '  the  normal  laws  by  which  the 
universe  is  governed.  By  just  lifting  or  dropping  his 
thumb,  the  Roman  spectator  could  give  life  or  death  to 
those  in  the  arena  below ;  by  a  nod  or  a  shake  of  the 
head,  one  favourably  placed  may  change  the  whole  course 
of  history.     But  we  do  not  speak  of  these  as  '  miracles.' 

Such  thoughts  as  these,  when  associated  with  the 
principle  of  progressive  revelation,  have  an  important 
bearing  on  the  problem  of  scriptural  miracles  as  viewed 
in  the  light  of  modern  science. 

On  the  one  hand,  the  recognition  by  science  of  such 
forces  as  telepathy,  telsssthesia,  and  sensory  automatism, 
and  of  the  entire  and  largely  unexplored  domain  of  the 
subliminal  consciousness,  makes  the  former  contemptuous 
dismissal  of  some  of  the  Bible  miracles  appear  arrogant 
and  unscientific.  On  the  other  hand,  the  champion  of 
the  essential  veracity  of  the  Bible  is  brought  face  to 
face  with  new  problems.     What  part  is  played  by  the 

14 


210  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

belief  in  the   miraculous  in  the  drama  of  progressive 
revelation  ?     What  has  literary  criticism  to  say  as  to 
the   evidence   for   the    miracles   of   the    Old   and   New 
Testaments?     And  how  does  its  utterance  bear  on  the 
solution  of  the  former  problem  ?     He  will  find,  if  we 
are  not  mistaken,  that  two  useful  principles  emerge  into 
sight — principles  harmonious  and  concordant,    (i.)   Criti- 
cism teaches  him  that  the  actual  evidence  for  the  miracles, 
regarded  from  the  strictly  literary  and  historical  point 
of  view,  varies  immensely,  and  is,  on  the  whole,  much 
stronger  for  the  New  Testament  than  for  the  Old.     To  this 
point  we  shall  revert  at  a  later  stage,     (ii.)  The  doctrine 
of  progressive  revelation,  read   in  the  light  of   recent 
studies  of  human  nature,  prepares  him  to  concede  that 
the   miracles   of   one  age  may  be   to  the  next   simply 
instances  of  the  working  of  a  natural  law  now  recog- 
nized, but  previously  undiscovered. 

Thus  the  miracles  of  the  crossing  of  the  Red  Sea  and 
of  Jordan,  for  which  criticism  assures  us  the  documentary 
evidence  is,  to  all  appearance,  centuries  later  than  the 
narrated  event,  might,  on  these  principles,  turn  out  to  be 
the  elaborate  literary  expression,  in  terms  of  the  beliefs 
of  a  much  later  (but  still  uncritical)  age,  of  old  traditions 
of   events   conceived   as   miraculous    (in   the   full,    old- 
fashioned  sense  of  the  word)   by  those   concerned,  but 
which  in  our  own  age  would  explain  themselves  to  a  pious 
mind  as  providential  coincidences,  as  involving  the  group- 
ing and  ordering  for  a  particular  purpose,  at  a  particular 
crisis,  of  natural  forces  now  well  understood :  or  (shall 
we  say)  the  modification  of  the  action  of  such  familiar 
forces  by  the  introduction  of   another  whose  analogue 
is  equally  familiar  to  us  under  the  name  of  human  will. 
That  the  events  thus  handed  down  by  tradition  were 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      211 

accepted  as  miraculous  portents  by  those  to  whom  they 
originally  happened,  as  by  those  also  who,  after  the 
lapse  of  time,  idealized  them  (it  may  be),  working  them 
up  into  literary  form,  the  modern  student  has  no  doubt. 
He  does  not  suspect  the  bona  fides  of  the  original  tradi- 
tion nor  of  its  historian.  He  realizes,  however,  that  if 
these  things  happened  to-day,  they  would  not  be  (so  to 
speak)  the  same  to  him  as  they  were  to  the  men  of  old 
time.  There  is  a  difference  between  their  standpoint  and 
his  :  a  difference  which  enters  into  the  Divine  scheme  of 
progressive  revelation.  In  every  age  and  in  each  succes- 
sive stage  of  knowledge,  our  apprehension  of  the  truth 
is  but  partial ;  but  God  condescends  to  teach  us  even  by 
this  partial  apprehension — to  teach  man  progressively, 
'  as  he  is  able  to  bear  it.' 

The  very  '  misunderstanding,^  as  we  might  be  tempted 
to  call  it,  of  the  causes  at  work  in  this  or  that  event  in 
old  time  was  made  the  occasion  of  revelation  to  those 
who  sought  to  know  Grod,  and  used  the  intellectual 
powers  that  had  been  given  them.  The  authors  of  the 
tradition,  and  the  chronicler  who  worked  it  up  after- 
wards, each  in  all  good  faith,  had  in  some  ways  a  truer 
grasp  of  the  matter  than  many  have  in  a  more  scientific 
age.  If  they  ignored  or  misunderstood  the  secondary 
causes  at  work,  their  instinct  carried  them  straight  to 
the  primal  cause,  whom  they  rightly  conceived  as  order- 
ing history  for  beneficent  and  righteous  ends.  They 
were  inspired,  in  fact,  to  draw  the  truest  and  most 
important  lessons  from  the  occurrences  which  they 
conceived  so  unscientifically. 

The  question  naturally  arises :  Have  there  not  been, 
then,  in  every  age,  and  are  there  not  existing  even  now 
upon  the  earth,  souls  in  just  that  stage  of  development 


212  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

which  is  the  correlative  of  the  miraculous  narratives  of 
the  Old  Testament — even  of  those  which  appeal  least  to 
our  modern  'scientific  temper'?  The  question  is  a  very- 
wide  one,  and  one  that  might  lead  us  far  afield ;  but  it 
is  not  in  itself  irrelevant.  The  miracles  of  mediasval 
hagiology,  which  have  their  lineal  descendants  in  those 
of  Lourdes  to-day,  cannot  (if  the  evidence  of  Lourdes  is 
to  be  accepted  on  its  merits)  be  dismissed  as  entirely 
fraudulent.  If  we  try  to  find  their  nearest  analogue  in 
the  Bible,  we  must  look  to  those  central  chapters  of  the 
Books  of  Kings  which  narrate  the  story  of  Elijah  and 
Elisha  (chapters  which,  be  it  observed,  criticism  places 
comparatively  near  in  time  to  the  events  they  record)  ; 
and  it  is  not,  perhaps,  audacious  to  suggest  that  the  grim 
epoch  in  which  those  prophets  lived,  with  its  superstition 
and  strife,  its  sovereignty  of  the  '  mailed  fist,'  its  religious 
intolerance  and  free  shedding  of  blood  in  the  name  of 
religion,  supplies  an  environment  for  the  miracles 
similar  in  very  many  respects  to  that  in  which  the  typical 
ecclesiastical  miracles  originated — an  atmosphere  which 
(to  a  very  large  extent)  the  pilgrims  of  Lourdes  may 
still  be  said  to  breathe. 

The  contention  we  would  make  at  the  moment  is  not  that 
all  the  recorded  miracles  of  mediaeval  hagiology  are  equally 
credible.  Those  who  find  one  or  two  of  those  recorded  of 
Elisha  an  obstacle  to  faith — for  instance,  the  swimming 
axe-head* — will  be  tempted  to  find  in  the  credulity 
of  Elisha's  days  a  further  parallel  with  the  Middle  Ages. 
But  none,  with  the  facts  of  history  and  psychology 
before  them,  will  be  likely  to  deny  credence  entirely  to 
the  wonder-stories  of  either  period. 

The    God   who,   according  to   Ezekiel,   answers    the 
*  2  Kings  vi.  5-7. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      213 

idolater  'according  to  tlie  multitude  of  his  idols/ "^  may 
be  conceived  as  answering  every  man,  and  every  group 
of  men,  the  sincere  as  well  as  the  insincere,  according  to 
the  stage  of  spiritual  and  mental  attainment  reached. 
So  it  is  that  what  to  one  age  or  stage  of  development 
would  be  a  response  to  faith  would  be  to  another  an 
implication  of  unbelief.  Already  in  the  thirteenth 
century  St.  Hugh  of  Lincoln  felt  that  a  miracle  of  the 
early  mediaeval  type  was  out  of  place,  was  obsolete. 
When  he  was  asked  to  come  and  witness  a  material 
transformation  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  a  proof  of  the 
doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  he  replied  indignantly  : 
'  In  God's  Name  let  them  keep  to  themselves  the  signs  of 
their  own  infidelity.' t 

A  new  point  is  given  to  the  mention  of  Lourdes  in  this 
connection  by  the  contention  put  forward  by  the  late 
Father  Tyrrell  in  his  '  Christianity  at  the  Cross-roads.' 
He  claims  that  Romanism  has  so  faithfully  preserved  the 
actual  colour  and  material  vesture  of  the  Gospels — with 
its  picturesque  ceremonies,  its  exorcisms,  its  prevailingly 
eschatological  conceptions — that  the  Christ  of  the  New 
Testament  would,  so  to  speak,  feel  absolutely  at  home  in 
its  atmosphere.  The  typical  Roman  Catholic  lives,  he 
would  suggest,  his  outward  (and  to  a  large  extent  his 
inward)  religious  life  in  an  atmosphere  not  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  but  of  the  first.  If  this  be  conceded 
as  true  even  in  some  degree,  it  will  be  natural  to  look  for 
a  response  to  faith  in  that  region  not  altogether  different 
from  the  response  which  faith  received  in  the  Apostolic 
Age.      The   question  is,  indeed,   complicated   by  other 

*  Ezek.  xiv.  3  et  seq. 

t  'Magna  Vita,'  V.,  iv.  245:  'Bene,  in^it,  in  nomine  Dominif 
habeant  sibi  signa  infidelitatis  susb.' 


214  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

considerations  too  wide  to  be  dealt  witli  here,  such  as 
arise  from  the  grouping,  e.g.,  of  the  biblical  miracles, 
and  their  concentration  at  certain  periods  of  the  history 
of  revelation,  and  around  the  typical  figures  of  Moses, 
Elijah,  and  Christ.  And  full  justice  cannot  be  done  to 
the  miraculous  records  of  the  Bible  without  entering 
somewhat  deeply  into  these  and  kindred  problems. 

But  at  any  rate  we  have  advanced  some  way  towards 
realizing  the  relativity  of  miracle,  not  only  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  can  speak  of  the  miracles  of  one  age 
becoming  the  scientific  commonplaces  of  a  later — 
St.  Augustine"^  had  already  observed  that  'miracle  is  not 
contrary  to  Nature,  but  only  to  what  we  hioiv  of  Nature ' 
— but  also  in  relation  to  the  'psychological  climate^  in 
which  those  live  to  whom  the  miracle  happens.  Within 
the  circle  of  that  faith  which,  in  the  Gospels,  is  the  in- 
dispensable condition  of  the  working  of  a  miracle  we  may 
distinguish  different  types  and  grades  of  faith  to  which 
different  types  and  grades  of  miracles  will  correspond. 

It  is  not  only  that,  from  man's  side,  the  same  event 
would  be  viewed  differently  by  eye-witnesses  who  had 
reached  widely  different  stages  of  mental  and  spiritual 
development,  but  that  (if  we  may  assume  a  close  analogy 
between  our  creaturely  will  and  that  which  rules  the 
universe)  in  the  Divine  ordering  of  things,  whereby 
God  teaches  man  through  nature  and  history  according 
to  the  capacity  of  the  individual  scholar  or  class,  some 
lessons  are  more  appropriate  here  and  others  there.  A 
village  schoolmaster  would  only  destroy  his  own  reputa- 
tion in  the  eyes  of  his  scholars  if  he  wasted  the  time  of 
the  seventh  standard  on  ABC.  He  would  only  muddle 
and  mystify  the  infants  by  discoursing  to  them  on  the 

*  '  Civ.  Dei,'  xxi.  8. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      215 

higher  stages  of  algebra.  So  we  may  reverently  believe 
the  Great  Schoolmaster,  who  orders  all  things,  finds 
appropriate  means  to  enforce  and  to  illustrate  the  truths 
which  it  is  essential  for  each  age  to  grasp. 

In  the  New  Testament,  as  in  the  Old,  the  scientific 
interest  tends  to  focus  itself  more  and  more  upon 
p.b-ychology ,  and  the  psychological  aspect  of  the  phenomena 
recorded,  as  also  of  the  process  by  which  the  records 
came  into  being.  We  have  no  longer  the  crude  antithesis 
of  miracle  and  natural  law  when  the  wonderful  works 
of  the  Lord  come  up  for  consideration ;  nor,  when  we 
would  estimate  the  value  of  the  records  of  that  un- 
paralleled life,  are  we  faced  by  the  crude  and  cruel 
alternative — credulity  or  fraud.  The  exact  historical 
accuracy  of  some  points  in  the  records  may  give  rise  to 
doubts  j  but  the  scientist  is  more  generally  interested  in 
discussing  how  it  might  have  happened — how  the  words 
and  ideas  of  the  first-century  narrative  should  be  trans- 
lated into  those  of  a  later  and  more  scientific  age — than 
in  disputing  whether  it  could  have  happened  at  all. 
And  even  where  he  finds  the  event,  as  stated,  difficult  to 
account  for  on  modern  principles,  he  remains  hopeful  of 
finding  at  any  rate  a  clue  to  the  psychological  process 
by  which  the  writer  was  led — presumably  in  all  sincerity 
— to  record  what  he  has  recorded. 

Psychology,  in  the  modern  sense,  is  still  too  young, 
its  growth  has  been  too  much  retarded  by  prejudice  and 
superstition,  for  it  to  be  able  to  speak,  as  yet,  on  these 
most  sacred  topics  with  a  voice  of  accepted  authority. 
Yet  none  of  us  can  fail  to  realize  the  change  that  its 
development  has  already  wrought  in  the  popular  scientific 
attitude   towards   the   Gospel   miracles.      The   immense 


216  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

potentialities  of  'suggestion^ — the  power,  as  it  used  to 
be  called,  of  mind  over  matter — the  vast  region  of 
personality  now  opening  out  before  us  under  the  name 
of  the  subconscious  mind  or  subliminal  consciousness — 
these  tend  to  bring  to  the  level  of  the  commonplace, 
phenomena  which  a  generation  ago  would  have  been 
voted  miraculous,  or  illusory.  The  large  majority  of  our 
Lord^s  recorded  miracles,  the  miracles  of  healing,  no 
longer  offer  any  difficulty  to  a  generation  that  has 
become  habituated  to  the  established  facts  of  faith- 
healing  both  within  and  without  the  borders  of  the 
Church.  A  short  time  ago  it  seemed  as  though  a  line 
would  have  to  be  drawn  between  the  cases  that  involved 
an  organic  change  and  those  that  are  only  functional, 
but  now  there  are  not  a  few  indications  that  some  day 
both  alike  may  come  to  be  accounted  as  falling  within 
that  region  wherein  spirit  can  react  directly  upon  spirit, 
and  so  upon  the  bodily  counterpart  of  that  spirit.  In 
short,  if  our  Lord's  wonderful  works  of  healing  are  still 
accounted  miraculous,  it  is  not  as  involving  any  definitely 
superhuman  power  —  still  less  any  'breach  of  natural 
law ' — but  rather  as  exhibiting  the  action  of  the  psychic 
forces  latent  in  man  in  a  degree  surprisingly  beyond  the 
average  attainment,  not  only  of  the  age  when  the  works 
were  wrought,  but,  so  far  as  we  know,  of  any  age. 
Whatever  may  be  the  explanation  of  the  so-called 
'cosmic  miracles'"^ — ^the  Feeding  of  the  Four  Thousand 
and  the  Five  Thousand,  the  Walking  on  the  Sea,  the 
Stilling  of  the  Storm — the  next  generation  may  probably 

*  What  right  have  we  to  pronounce  inconceivable  miracles  such 
as  those  recorded  of  our  Saviour,  whose  psychic  endowment  was 
undoubtedly  unique,  in  an  age  in  which,  e.g.,  wireless  telegraphy, 
which  would  have  been  scouted  as  ridiculously  impossible  a  century 
ago,  has  become  one  of  the  accepted  adjuncts  of  daily  life  ? 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      217 

see  in  the  majority  of  Christ^s  works  of  mercy  the  works 
of  the  Perfect  Man.  They  will  not  need,  that  is,  to  look 
beyond  the  perfect  humanity  of  the  Incarnate  Son  of 
Grod  to  explain  these  phenomena  amply  and  fully  from 
the  point  of  view  of  scientific  psychology. 

If  we  may  venture,  in  all  reverence,  to  revert  to  a  more 
sacred  and  mysterious  subject  still,  the  subject  of  the 
consciousness  of  Jesus  Christ  as  exhibited  in  His  actions 
and  His  utterances,  it  will  be  obvious  that  the  scientific 
psychology  of  the  future  may  be  able  to  throw  new  light 
also  upon  this.  And  it  is  not  unlikely  that  a  truer 
psychology,  brought  to  bear  especially  upon  the  Messianic 
consciousness  of  Jesus,  may  do  much  to  bridge  the  gap 
which  the  casual  reader  is  apt  to  find  between  the  utter- 
ances recorded  by  the  Synoptists  and  those  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  We  are  here  in  a  region  where  ordinary 
human  experience  can  only  carry  us  a  certain  distance, 
and  where  science  can  only  feel  its  way  if  it  leans  upon 
the  staff  of  mysticism.  But  our  glance  at  the  psychology 
of  prophecy  has  done  something  to  illuminate  the  subject. 
If  the  basis  of  prophecy  is  the  response,  by  a  specially 
gifted  psychic  nature,  to  the  stimulus  of  a  suggestion 
originating  with  the  Holy  Spirit  acting  upon  the  sub- 
liminal consciousness,  what  a  concentration  of  the  pro- 
phetic gift  may  be  looked  for  in  One  who  was  Wholly 
and  habitually  indwelt  by  that  Spirit,  and  whose 
subliminal  consciousness  was,  if  we  may  dare  to  express 
it  so,  the  meeting-place  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  proper 
field  of  the  Incarnation,  of  the  hypostatic  union  (to  use 
a  traditional  phrase)  between  the  Divine  and  human 
natures  of  the  God-man  ! 

Science  may  find  much  that  it  can  explain  and  much 
that  it  can  dimly  discern  in  the  wonders  of  the  life  of 


218  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Jesus  Christ,  but  there  will  always  remain  (on  the 
Christian  view  of  His  Person,  which  is  that  of  the 
earliest  records)  a  residuum  of  phenomena  to  which 
human  experience  affords  no  parallel.  We  are  not 
concerned  to  combat  and  contest  every  advance  it  may 
make  towards  the  scientific  explanation  of  points  in  His 
life  hitherto  regarded  as  supernatural.  The  Incarnation 
is  too  wonderfully  self-explanatory — too  wonderfully 
explanatory  of  the  world  and  its  history,  and  of  our  own 
spiritual  life — for  us  to  be  shaken  in  our  faith  because 
few  or  many  of  the  ^  miracles '  may  be  proved  to  offer  no 
direct  testimony  to  the  Divinity  of  the  Worker.  Like 
those  phenomena  which  seem  to  call  for  an  identification 
of  His  mental  outlook  more  exclusively  than  had  been 
supposed  with  the  mental  outlook  of  first-century 
Judaism,  they  testify  the  more  strongly  to  the  reality 
of  His  manhood. 

Our  attitude  towards  the  scientific  interpretation  of 
the  miracles  of  Jesus  Christ  will  be,  to  a  large  extent, 
like  that  which  we  adopt  towards  the  scientific  inter- 
pretation of  the  miracles  of  the  Old  Testament.  In  the 
case  of  Christ  the  historical  attestation  of  the  facts  is 
indefinitely  stronger ;  but,  assuming  the  facts  recorded, 
we  shall  not  be  surprised  if  in  many  cases  science  is  able 
to  suggest  a  physical  or  psychic  cause  within  her  ken, 
where  the  Old  Testament  writers  or  the  Evangelists  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  the  people  to  whom  the  things  of 
which  they  write  actually  happened,  could  see  nothing 
but  an  inexplicable  marvel.  Nor  need  we  suppose  that 
if  the  scriptural  writer's  view  of  the  incident  was 
unscientific,  it  was  therefore  necessarily  untrue.  That 
will  depend  on  the  presuppositions  with  which  we 
approach   the  matter.     No  fact  in  this  world  is  fully 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      219 

explained  by  the  enumeration  of  its  physical  antecedents. 
I  may  say  that  the  surgeon's  knife  cured  me  when  it 
cut  out  the  malignant  growth,  or  I  may  say  that  the 
removal  of  the  trouble  cured  me,  or  I  may  enumerate 
exhaustively  and  with  scientific  precision  the  whole 
process  of  cellular  changes  resulting  from  the  operation, 
which  marked  the  line  of  progress  from  disease  to 
health.  But  if  I  simply  say  the  surgeon  cured  me,  I  am 
perhaps  proclaiming  a  more  fundamental  truth ;  and  the 
fact  that  the  surgeon  cured  me  is  equally  valid  if,  in  my 
want  of  scientific  knowledge,  I  regard  his  operation  as 
literally  miraculous.  May  not  the  same  be  true  of  those 
who  saw  the  Hand  of  God  in  the  crises  of  their  nation's 
fortunes,  and  of  those  who  explained  the  marvels  of  the 
Saviour's  works  of  mercy  by  the  phrase  '  the  power  of 
the  Lord  was  present  to  heal  them '  ? 

It  is,  indeed,  in  the  Grospels  that  we  see  most  clearly 
exhibited  the  raison  d^etre  of  miracle — to  help  towards 
conviction,  in  a  moment  of  religious  crisis  for  the  world, 
those  who  else  might  have  found  conviction  difficult. 
That  one  whose  life  and  teaching  ran  on  the  whole  in  a 
line  so  contrary  to  the  prevailing  expectations  of  the 
Jews  should  be  accepted  as  the  Messiah,  probably 
needed  in  that  age  attestation  which,  to  that  age,  should 
appear  '  miraculous.'  And  so,  as  the  Fourth  Evangelist 
tells  us,  '  He  manifested  forth  His  glory,  and  His 
disciples  believed  on  Him.'"^  For  them  the  'mighty 
works'  supplied  just  the  additional  stimulus  that  was 
needed  to  make  possible  the  final  venture  of  faith.  To 
a  later  generation  the  mere  record  of  them  is  sometimes 
an  obstacle  to  faith;  not,  however,  an  insuperable  one, 
else  Christ  would  not  number  His  thousands  of  devoted 
*  John  11.  11. 


220  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

followers  amongst  us :  nor,  perhaps,  a  permanent  one,  as 
science  begins  to  find  in  them  a  less  ^ portentous^  character. 

We  said  above  that  the  evidence  for  miracle — or  for 
the  occurrence  of  events  which  seemed  miraculous  to 
the  beholders — is  stronger  for  the  New  Testament  than 
for  the  Old.  Criticism  would  relegate  the  attestation  of 
the  miracles  of  the  age  of  Moses  and  Joshua,  for 
instance,  to  a  date  very  far  removed  from  the  events 
described.  Thus,  granting  a  germ  of  historical  fact, 
time  is  in  these  cases  allowed  for  the  working  upon  the 
fact  of  minds  accustomed  to  reflect  upon  Nature  and 
history  in  what  we  should  call  an  unscientific  way — 
minds  to  which  the  violent  interference  with  the  course 
of  Nature  suggested  no  difficulties  whatever.  There  is 
room  for  an  unconscious  introduction  of  the  folk-lore 
element  which  appears  so  prominently  in  the  early  narra- 
tives of  the  Creation  and  the  Flood. 

The  story  of  Elijah  and  Elisha  is  recorded  for  us, 
according  to  the  critical  view,  in  a  document  much 
nearer  the  time — say,  a  generation  after  the  events — but 
is  the  work  of  an  obviously  credulous  and  uncritical 
age ;  the  wonderful  psychic  experiences  of  the  Prophets 
are,  many  of  them,  autobiography.  Thus  we  have  very 
various  grades  of  attestation  within  the  limits  of  the  Old 
Testament.  The  same  is  true,  in  a  different  degree,  of 
the  New  Testament  miracles;  but  here  we  feel  at  once 
that,  from  a  scientific  point  of  view,  we  stand  on  firmer 
ground.  If  the  evidence  for  the  Grospel  miracles  is  not 
absolutely  first-hand  (and  the  answer  to  this  question 
turns  on  our  belief  as  to  the  authorship  of  the  Fourth 
Grospel),  yet  we  have  absolutely  first-hand  evidence  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  and  in  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul. 
The  author  of  the  Acts  is  a  witness  to  whom  we  shall 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      221 

listen  with  peculiar  interest,  because  lie  is  a  man  perhaps 
more  obviously  like  ourselves  than  any  one  of  his 
contemporaries  whom  we  know.  He  is  not  a  Jew — no 
Semite — but  a  fellow- Aryan ;  he  is  a  professional  man, 
whose  career  itself  may  be  accounted  a  school  of  exact 
thinking  and  careful  weighing  of  evidence.  He  is  a 
travelled  man,  and  one  of  developed  literary  and 
historical  tastes.  He  is  a  man  who  used  his  powers  to 
the  best  advantage,  as  the  light  thrown  on  his  work  by 
archaeology  shows.  Finally,  he  is  most  certainly  an 
eye-witness  of  the  events  he  records  in  certain  chapters 
of  the  Acts — chapters  which  seem  to  represent  the  work- 
ing up  of  a  diary  made  at  the  time  of  his  journeys  with 
St.  Paul.  This  man  it  is  who  records  the  miracle 
wrought  upon  the  soothsaying  girl  at  Philippi,  the 
earthquake  which  opened  the  prison  doors,  the  restora- 
tion of  Eutychus,  the  works  of  healing  at  Ephesus  and 
at  Melita,  the  prophecy  of  Agabus.  These  wonders 
have  in  them  nothing  contrary  to  Nature,  though  they 
may  not  be  in  all  details  explicable  to  us  as  yet.  They 
corroborate  St.  PauFs  own  conviction,  expressed  in  his 
Epistles,  that  he  himself  was  a  worker  of  miracles,"'^  as 
were  many  of  those  among  whom  he  moved.  St.  Paul's 
conviction  of  the  reality  of  mysterious  spiritual  gifts  is 
brought  out  in  a  way  of  peculiar  interest  to  the  scientist. 
The  chapter  t  of  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians, 
which  treat  of  the  gifts  of  tongues  and  of  prophecy  and 
of  healing,  do  not  attempt  to  prove  the  presence  of 
these  gifts.  That  is  assumed  alike  by  writer  and  by 
readers,  and  the  Apostle  proceeds  to  employ  his  reason- 
ing  powers   and  his   judgment   upon   the   facts   in  an 

♦  2  Cor.  xii.  11,  12 :  Neither  St.  Paul  nor  his  Master  lay  much 
stress  on  the  miraculous  aspect  of  their  '  works  of  power.* 
t  1  Cor.  xii.,  xiv. 


222  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

attempt  to  solve  the  practical  problems  which^  as  a 
result  of  these  phenomena,  had  become  a  pressing 
difficulty  to  the  Corinthian  Church.  St.  Luke  thus,  in 
his  first-hand  evidence  about  St.  Paul,  corroborates  that 
Apostle^s  witness  to  his  own  miraculous  powers,  and  both 
alike  throw  back  light  on  the  earlier  history.  St.  Luke 
was  not  an  eye-witness  of  the  ^  miracle  of  Pentecost,*  or 
of  the  events  of  his  earlier  chapters.  There  is  room  for 
some  development  and  modification  of  the  facts,  or  at 
any  rate  some  tingeing  of  the  records  with  the  tints  of 
other  minds  before  they  reached  that  of  the  historian. 
But  St.  Paul  is  a  first-hand  witness  of  the  phenomena  of 
'tongues*  at  Corinth,  and  this  itself  vouches  for  the 
possibility  of  similar  phenomena  at  an  earlier  date.  So, 
too,  the  Pauline  miracles,  of  which  St.  Luke  is  a  first- 
hand witness,  offer  parallels  to  some  of  the  most 
characteristic  wonders  of  the  Gospels  and  of  the  Old 
Testament  too.  While  the  gifts  of  tongues  and 
prophecy  ally  themselves  with  the  psychological  phe- 
nomena of  Old  Testament  prophecy — Agabus,  as  depicted 
in  a  few  short  strokes  by  St.  Luke,  has  all  the  air  of  a 
prophet  of  the  old  times — so,  too,  the  miracle  of  the 
providential  earthquake  throws  light,  perhaps,  upon 
the  earlier  deliverance  of  St.  Peter  at  Jerusalem,  and 
certainly  brings  us  within  sight  of  an  explanation  of 
some  of  the  more  difficult  miracles  of  the  Gospels  and  of 
the  Old  Testament — the  miracles  in  which  inanimate 
Nature  plays  a  part.  The  healing  of  the  soothsaying 
girl  has  many  parallels  in  the  demoniac  incidents  of  the 
Gospel  story,  and  the  other  healings,  in  Christ's  frequent 
miracles  of  mercy.  The  story  of  the  restoration  of 
Eutychus,  however  we  explain  it,  joins  hands  with 
that  of   St.  Peter's  raising  of   Dorcas,  and  our  Lord's 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      223 

raising  of  Jairus's  daughter,  of  the  widow's  son,  and  of 
Lazarus. 

Thus  St.  Luke  the  scientist  takes  us  by  the  hand,  and 
leads  us  gently  into  the  central  wonderland  of  Scripture, 
to  the  region  where,  if  anywhere,  heaven  and  earth  are 
blended  in  the  Son  of  man,  who,  to  the  same  St.  Luke,  is 
also  Son  of  God.  For  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is  this 
man  with  whom,  of  all  others  whom  we  know  of  that 
period,  the  modern  world  has  most  in  common — it  is  the 
one  non-Semitic  contributor  to  the  New  Testament — 
who  has  recorded  for  us  the  marvels  of  the  Annunciation 
and  the  Nativity,  the  'Gospel  of  the  Infancy,'  in  his 
own  special  way.  Nor  is  his  description  of  the  Lord's 
ministry,  with  its  signs  and  wonders,  of  the  marvels  of 
the  Holy  Week,  and  the  glories  that  followed  it,  one 
whit  less  '  miraculous '  than  that  of  the  other  Synoptists. 

In  these  matters  he  does  not  claim  to  have  been  an 
eye-witness,  and  clearly  was  not  such ;  but  it  is  not  a 
matter  of  no  significance,  that  the  Third  Gospel  should 
be  from  the  pen  of  him  '  whose  praise  is  in  all '  mouths 
to-day  because  of  the  accuracy  and  general  excellence 
which  his  historical  narrative  displays  wherever  it  can 
be  tested  by  archaeological  data. 

That  his  narrative  was  coloured  by  the  presuppositions 
of  his  age  cannot  be  denied,  but  so  would  be  that  of  the 
most  scientific  historian  of  the  present  day.  The  present- 
day  writer  would  have  the  advantage  of  describing 
events  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  much  greater  scientific 
knowledge ;  but  to  say  that  his  narrative  would  be  more 
fundamentally  true  than  St.  Luke's  is  quite  another  thing. 

Thus  St.  Luke,  in  his  acceptance  of  the  matter  which 
forms  his  Gospel,  shows  that  a  mind  accustomed  to  the 
practice  of  the  physician's  art,  and  trained  in  judgment, 


224  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

in  diagnosis  of  symptoms,  in  the  weighing  of  evidence, 
accepted  as  fact  the  substance  of  this  marvellous  record, 
which  is  paralleled  by  the  other  Synoptic  narratives. 
There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  he  drew  much  of 
his  matter  from  eye-witnesses,  as  also  that  St.  Mark's 
narrative  represents  at  second  hand  the  testimony  of  no 
less  an  eye-witness  than  St.  Peter. 

To  those  of  us  who  still  believe  that  the  Fourth  Gospel 
is  the  work  of  the  son  of  Zebedee  (and  that  in  a  few 
years'  time  the  force  of  converging  evidence  will  bring 
the  full  weight  of  the  best  criticism  to  our  side),  there  is 
evidence  for  the  wonders  of  the  life  of  Jesus  of  an 
absolutely  first-hand  nature.  In  our  scientific  estimate 
of  the  narrative  we  should  bear  in  mind  that  the  most 
trustworthy  tradition  would  make  it  a  work  of  the 
Apostle's  extreme  old  age.  We  should  allow,  in  his 
case,  not  only  for  the  presuppositions  and  the  psycho- 
logical bent  of  a  particular  age  and  race,  but  also  for 
the  lapse  of  time,  for  the  effect  of  long  reflection  upon 
the  reminiscences  of  youth,  and  the  unconscious  modifica- 
tions which  happen  to  a  story  in  the  course  of  frequent 
oral  repetition,  even  in  the  mouth  of  an  eye-witness. 
We  should  admit  that  it  is,  in  fact,  the  product  of  reflec- 
tion and  of  spiritual  experience  upon  the  reminiscences 
of  an  eye-witness,  who,  since  the  days  when  he  had 
'seen'  and  his  'hands  had  handled,'"^  had  formed  a 
particular  conception  of  his  Master  which  grew  with 
growing  years  ;  had  fed  his  soul  upon  spiritual  com- 
munion with  One  with  whom  he  still  believed  himself  to 
be  in  vital  contact ;  and  had  had  his  ideas  fixed  and  the 
expression  of  them  determined  by  the  necessity  of  com- 
bating what  he — the  only  surviving  eye-witness — believed 
*  1  John  i.  1. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      225 

to   be   false^    unworthy,    and   misleading  views   of    his 
Master's  person  and  work. 

So  our  own  English  poet  pictures  him :  * 

*  Left  to  repeat,  '*  I  saw,  I  heard,  I  knew," 
And  go  all  over  the  old  ground  again. 
With  Antichrist  already  in  the  world. 

And  many  Antichrists,  who  answered  prompt, 

"  Am  I  not  Jasper  as  thyself  art  John  ?" 

Nay,  young,  whereas  through  age  thou  mayest  forget : 

Wherefore  explain,  or  how  shall  we  beUeve  ?' 

And  the  aged  Apostle  goes  on : 

•  I  never  thought  to  call  down  fire  on  such, 

***** 
But,  patient,  stated  much  of  the  Lord's  life 
Forgotten  or  misdelivered,  and  let  it  work  : 
Since  much  that  at  the  first,  in  deed  and  word. 
Lay  simply  and  sufficiently  exposed, 
Had  grown  (or  else  my  soul  was  grown  to  match. 
Fed  through  such  years,  familiar  with  such  light. 
Guarded  and  guided  still  to  see  and  speak) 
Of  new  significance  and  fresh  result.' 

If  this  conception  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  be  true,  we 
shall  not  be  surprised  to  find  St.  John's  account  of  the 
wondrous  works  less  photographically  exact  than  the 
Synoptic  accounts.  The  fact  that  these  had  been  set 
down  earlier  and  with  less  dogmatic  purpose  would,  in 
this  matter,  counterbalance  the  disadvantage  the  writers 
had  in  drawing  their  accounts  at  second  hand — at  second 
hand,  because  if  St.  Matthew's  direct  authorship  of  the 
First  Gospel  is  no  longer  tenable,  then  there  is  no  actual 
eye-witness  among  the  Synoptic  Evangelists. 

But  in  comparing  the  Fourth  Gospel  with  the  first 
three,  we  must  not  forget  that  the  mechanical  veracity 
of  a  photograph  does  not  and  cannot  rival  the  intense 
and  vital  truthfulness  of  a  great  picture. 

Our  estimate  of  the  comparative  value  of  the  Johannine 

*  R.  Browning, '  A  Death  in  the  Desert,' 

15 


226  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

record  will  depend  on  our  estimate  of  the  processes  through 
which  it  assumed  its  present  shape ;  and  of  this  science, 
as  such,  can  only  judge  when  it  is  prepared  to  recognize 
as  a  factor — in  many  cases  the  dominant  factor — in 
human  mental  processes  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of 
God.  We  know  that  the  general  estimate  of  the  Fourth 
Grospel  in  the  Early  Church  was  very  high ;  we  know  the 
opinion  of  Origen,  who,  with  all  his  allegorizing  tendencies 
(borrowed  largely  from  his  Hebrew  teacher),  was  not 
only  one  of  the  most  learned  Bible  students  that  ever 
lived,  but  a  pioneer  in  textual  and  historical  criticism. 
He  held  that,  if  the  Grospels  are  the  '  first-fruits '  of  the 
New  Testament,  St.  John  is  the  'first-fruits'  of  all  the 
Gospels. 

If  we  trust  St.  Luke  when  he  describes  the  miracles 
of  which  he  was  an  eye-witness,  and  St.  Paul  when  he 
describes  himself  as  a  miracle-worker,  we  shall  surely 
admit  the  validity  of  an  a  fortiori  argument  from  the 
heroes  of  the  Acts  to  the  Central  Figure  of  the  Gospels. 
To  St.  Luke  and  St.  Paul  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  on 
an  entirely  different  plane  from  that  on  which  they 
stood  themselves.  The  spiritual  gifts  they  possessed 
were  derived  from  Him,  the  largess  of  His  Ascension. 
The  powers  that  worked  fitfully  and  partially  in  His 
followers  were  inherent  in  Him ;  they  belonged  to  Him.  A 
straightforward,  intelligent  reading,  then,  of  the  first-hand 
record  of  the  Acts  would  naturally  lead  us  on  to  expect 
the  occurrence  of  still  greater  marvels  farther  back, 
even  if  we  had  not  the  Gospel  narratives  before  us. 
Thus  St.  Luke  not  only  gives  us,  in  his  own  personal 
experience,  points  of  contact  with  the  earlier  record  of 
wonders;  he  also  leads  us  to  look  for  something  still 
greater   in   Christ,  something   absolutely  unique.     And 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      227 

shall  our  scientific  susceptibilities  be  shocked  if  we  find 
it  there  ? 

We  have  spoken"^  of  the  changed  aspect  of  the  old  ' 
puzzle  about  prayer,  and  of  the  way  in  which  the  power 
of  prayer  seems  natural  to  many  now,  in  a  world  that  is 
ruled  by  law.  The  more  this  is  realized — that  prayer 
can  be  a  real  influence  in  a  world  where  psychic  influ- 
ence is  at  least  as  effectually  at  work  as  is  any  mechanical 
force — the  more  natural  the  atmosphere  of  the  Bible 
will  become.  For  this  atmosphere  is  one  of  belief  in  a 
providential  ordering  of  the  universe  by  a  God  who  is  in 
a  real  sense  Father  to  His  creatures,  and  who  hears  and 
answers  their  prayers. 

It  is  not  only  in  the  Epistle  of  St.  James  that  the 
efficacy  of  the  prayer  of  faith  is  emphasized,  though  that 
Apostle's  incidental  treatment  of  the  subject  is  remark- 
ably in  harmony  with  the  modern  views ;  for  though  he 
adduces  the  'cosmic'  results  of  Elijah's  prayer — the 
drought  and  subsequent  rainfall — it  is  to  point  a  spiritual 
moral :  the  actual  reward  of  faith  which  he  holds  up  before 
us  is  the  conversion  of  a  sinner  from  the  error  of  his  ways.t 
But  the  efficacy  of  the  prayer  of  faith  is  prominent 
throughout  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New,  and  most 
intensely  in  evidence  in  the  Gospels,  and  in  the  precepts 
of  Jesus  Christ. t  His  striking  metaphor  of  the  '  re- 
moval of  mountains '  was  already  in  St.  Paul's  day  on 
the  way  to  take  its  place  among  the  proverbial  com- 
monplaces of  language,  and  its  principle  has  been  ex- 
emplified abundantly  in  all  succeeding  ages  by  the 
phenomena  of  conversions  —  of  moral  and  spiritual 
miracles  within  the  Church.    But  though  these  represent 

*  See  above,  p.  208.  f  Jas.  v.  16-20. 

I  Every  '  mighty  work '  is  in  response  to  faith.     For  precepts, 
c/.,  e.g.y  Matt.  vii.  7 ;  Mark  xi.  22-24;  Luke  xi.  9,  xvii.  6. 


228  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

the  noblest  results  of  prayer,  they  may  not  be  always  the 
most  striking.  The  power  of  faith  does  certainly  extend 
its  influence  into  the  physical  realm.  Wonders  wrought  in 
answer  to  prayer — and  most  of  the  scriptural  wonders  are 
represented  as  being  such — are  robbed  at  once  of  half 
their  '  portentous  '  character,  and  made  more  intelligible 
to  an  age  to  which  mental  therapeutics  in  an  atmosphere 
of  religious  faith  are  a  matter  of  everyday  experience. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  to  cover  proportionately  or 
exhaustively  the  whole  field  of  the  subject  treated  in 
this  chapter.  The  purpose  has  rather  been  to  suggest 
something  of  the  change  which  has  passed  over  the 
controversy,  converting  it  from  a  struggle  between 
scientist  and  theologian  to  something  more  like  a  fellow- 
ship in  quest  of  the  truth.  We  are  all  agreed,  surely, 
not  to  look  for  nineteenth-century  science  in  the  early  nar- 
ratives of  Genesis,  and  their  failure  to  correspond  in  detail 
with  the  results  of  geological,  biological,  and  anthropo- 
logical research  no  longer  brings  panic  to  the  believer's 
heart  or  sceptical  contempt  of  revelation  to  the  lips  of 
the  scientist.  We  are  all  agreed  that  narratives,  even 
Scripture  narratives,  are  coloured  by  the  conceptions  and 
presuppositions  of  the  age  in  which  they  were  composed, 
and  that  what  appears  miraculous  to  one  generation  may 
be  scientifically  explicable  to  the  next.  We  are  all 
agreed  that  phenomena  of  a  psychic  nature,  and  reactions 
of  spirit  upon  matter,  which  the  savants  of  fifty  years 
ago  would  have  scouted  as  scientifically  inconceivable, 
and  therefore  pure  fabrications,  must  now  be  acknow- 
ledged as  both  possible,  and  actually  occurring.  These 
principles,  combined  with  allowance  made  for  the  results 
of  a  candid  criticism  of  the  evidence,  put  the  modern  scien- 


THE  BIBLE  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE      229 

tific  spirit  into  a  more  sympathetic  attitude  towards  the 
miracles  even  of  the  Old  Testament.  Some  of  them,  that 
formerly  seemed  incredible,  are  found  to  fall  within 
regions  that  are  just  being  mapped  out.  In  some  of 
them  the  portentous  character  of  the  narrative  is  ac- 
counted for  by  long  transmission  of  a  story  founded  on 
fact,  and  then  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth  among  a  people 
of  an  essentially  unscientific  temper  and  tradition.  In  all 
cases  the  believer,  whether  scientist  or  not,  detects  the 
hand  of  a  teaching  Providence,  of  a  self -revealing 
Personality  that  uses  even  the  defects  and  imperfections 
of  its  pupils  as  an  instrument  for  the  conveyance  of 
Divine  truth.  The  principles  with  which  we  approach  the 
miracles  of  the  Old  Testament  will  be  valid  also  for  the 
New  Testament  miracles.  Only  we  here  have  a  double 
climax — a  climax  of  the  intensity  of  wonder-working 
power,  culminating  in  the  miracle  of  the  Resurrection  • 
and  a  climax  in  the  security  of  first-hand  evidence, 
culminating  in  St.  Luke  and  St.  Paul  and  (many  would 
add)  St.  John.  The  scientist  of  the  future  will  doubtless 
be  prepared  to  see  in  the  record  of  the  Gospels  no  mere 
subject  for  pathological  study,  still  less  an  elaborate  (and 
miraculously  self -consistent !)  fabrication.  He  will  see  in 
it  the  record  of  a  life  whose  activities  as  they  touch  fallen 
and  suffering  humanity  move  partly  in  a  region  where 
science  is  gradually  making  itself  at  home,  but  pass 
insensibly,  and,  as  it  were,  without  breach  of  continuity, 
without  shock  even  to  scientific  sensibilities,  into  a 
region  whither  science  cannot  penetrate.  Even  so  He  is 
depicted  at  the  moment  of  the  Ascension  by  the  devout 
scientist  St.  Luke  :  *  As  they  were  looking  He  was  taken 
up,  and  a  cloud  received  Him  out  of  their  sight.' "^ 
*  Acts  i.  9. 


VIII 

THE  BACKGROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE 

The  Bible,  to  which  we  and  not  a  few  other  nations 
owe  much  that  is  best  and  most  classical  in  our  language, 
our  most  characteristic  and  idiomatic  phrases,  our  most 
familiar  metaphors,  is  a  Palestinian  book.  A  Palestinian 
book,  racy  of  the  soil  and  climate  of  Palestine — it  was 
produced  almost  entirely''^  in  that  insignificant  little 
corner  of  the  world.  It  could  not  have  been  produced 
as  it  is,  even  in  its  main  outlines,  in  any  other  region. 
And  the  result,  strangely  enough,  is  its  universal  appeal 
to  all  races,  periods,  climes ! 

What  is  there  about  that  strip  of  land,  with  its  rocky 
ridges  of  bare  pasture,  its  olive-clad  slopes,  its  corn- 
growing  sea-board,  its  deep-cleft  Jordan  Valley,  its 
fringe  of  desert — what  is  there  that  has  so  influenced  the 
Semitic  genius  as  to  render  its  literature  catholic  in  range 
and  quality  ? 

The  Koran,  product  of  Semitism  in  the  Arabian  desert 
— product,  too,  of  religious  enthusiasm,  of  a  championship 
of  pure  monotheism  against  idolatry — cannot,  in  this 
respect,  be  accounted  comparable  to  the  Bible  by  any 
careful  reader  of  both.  Its  appeal,  except  in  a  few 
isolated  passages,  is  exclusively  to  the  initiated.     Vivid 

*  St.  Luke's  writings  are  an  exception.  The  Epistles  of  St.  Paul, 
e.g.,  are  largely  Palestinian  in  feeling  (see  below,  p.  239). 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE       231 

and  graphic  as  is  its  rather  incoherent  language  at  times, 
and  lofty  as  are  its  theological  sentiments,  it  is  not  by 
any  means  a  book  with  which  all  races  can  so  readily 
feel  at  home ;  nor  is  it  one  that  can  compete  with 
any  single  book  of  the  Bible  in  literary  charm  and 
beauty. 

The  Babylonian  Semites  have  left  us  a  literature  which 
has  a  growing  interest  for  the  learned  Assyriologist,  an 
interest  which  he  communicates  by  means  of  his  inter- 
pretations to  the  man  of  general  culture.    But  the  attrac- 
tion of  Assyriology  for  us  is,  first  and  foremost,  due  to  our 
conviction  that  it  will  throw  light  upon  the  Bible.     And 
though  the  vigorous  people  who  chose  the  cumbrous  yet 
durable  form  of  baked  clay  tablets  for  their  records  are 
in  many  ways  worthy  of  our  attention  for  their   own 
sake,  there  is  a  certain  remoteness  about  them  and  their 
writings  which  keeps  us,  as  it  were,  at  arm's  length. 
Further  familiarity,  leading  to  a  more  just  appreciation, 
may  remove  something  of  this.     But  it  can  never  make 
the   great,  all-important  change.     We  cannot  imagine 
ourselves  adopting  the  ancient  Babylonian  literature  as 
we  have  adopted  the  Hebrew.     David  is  ours,  Mary  is 
ours,  James   and  John  and  Paul  are  ours ;   not  so  the 
dignified,  stiff -limbed  monarchs  of  Babylonia,  with  their 
cumbrous   names   and    their    massive,   muscular   limbs. 
Such  of  them  as  have  become  familiar  acquaintances — 
a  Sennacherib  and  a  Nebuchadnezzar — have  become  so 
because  of   their  place   in   the   Bible.     The  coronation 
prayer  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  rescued  from  oblivion,  wins 
our   admiration   by  the   loftiness  of   its  language,  and 
helps   us   to   a   conception   of   the   agelong  nobility  of 
monarchy  as  such;  but  we  turn  to  it  first  because  the 
king's  name  appears  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  wa 


232  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

leave  it  without  acknowledging  any  direct  contribution 
to  the  sum  of  our  theological  ideas. 

It  is  there,  after  all,  in  the  domain  of  religious  thought, 
that  the  true  difference  comes  in. 

For  it  is  not  only  David  and  Mary  and  James  and 
John  that  have  become  our  very  own.  Ours,  too,  is 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  Mary  and  the  Son  of  God ;  ours 
also  the  Hebrew  national  God,  Jehovah,  conceived  as  He 
is  in  the  developed  Old  Testament  literature  as  the  ^  one 
living  and  true  God,'  ^  the  Lord  of  all  the  earth,'  or,  in 
the  fine  phrase  of  the  Targums,  'the  Lord  of  the 
universe.'  Jesus  is  ours,  and  Jehovah  is  ours.  Bel  and 
Marduk  are  nothing  to  us  except  so  much  material  for 
the  study  of  human  beliefs,  of  mythological  evolution,  of 
'  comparative  religion.' 

That,  of  course,  is  the  secret  of  our  deepest  and  most 
intimate  relation  to  the  great  Hebrew  literature,  Jewish 
and  Christian ;  the  ultimate  differentia  which  sets  it  apart 
for  us,  and  divides  it  off  from  all  other  literature  that 
the  world  has  produced.  And  if  we  would  probe  further 
into  the  mysteries  of  it  all,  we  shall  quickly  come  face  to 
face  with  the  conceptions  of  revelation  and  inspiration. 
But  all  our  previous  studies  have  taught  us  to  look  for 
an  appropriate  material  medium  through  which  the  force 
of  inspiration  should  work,  an  appropriate  material 
setting  in  which  the  revelation  should  be  framed,  pre- 
served, and  handed  down  through  the  ages.  The  analogy 
of  God's  working  in  the  world  in  general  suggests  con- 
vincingly that  He  will  work  for  men — in  this  matter,  as 
in  others — through  men;  that  the  men  by  whom  He 
conspicuously  works  will  be  specially  fitted  for  the  task 
imposed  on  them,  and  that  not  the  least  of  the  contribu- 
tory causes  to  their  special  fitness  will  be  found  in  th^ 


THE  BACKaROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE       233 

material  environment  of  their  life.  Tlie  air  they  breathe 
— bracing  or  enervating — the  soil  on  which  their  feet 
are  planted;  the  particular  form  taken  by  the  struggle 
by  which  they  wring  their  livelihood  from  the  land;  the 
flora  and  fauna  of  their  country;  the  steepness  of  its  slopes, 
the  form  of  its  landscape — all  these  affect  a  nation  in  a 
hundred  ways.  If  the  peculiar  climate  of  our  own  island, 
so  exasperatingly  capricious  in  the  foreigner's  eyes,  and 
from  us  demanding  so  much  of  resourceful  alertness,  has 
played  its  part  in  fitting  us  to  be  the  world's  chief 
colonists,  it  may  well  be  that  the  land  of  Palestine  and 
its  climatic  conditions  have  contributed  to  the  Bible  some 
of  its  ubiquitous  quality. 

The  Hebrews  themselves  have,  indeed,  side  by  side 
with  their  astonishing  exclusiveness  and  racial  per- 
sistency, an  equally  marvellous  faculty  of  self -adaptation. 
The  Polish  Jews  are  very  Polish,  the  German  Jews 
G-erman,  the  Spanish  Jews  Spanish,  the  English  Jews 
English,  yet  each  and  all  are  unmistakably  Jews,  and 
retain  the  characteristics  which  mark  them  off  from  the 
rest  of  mankind  long  after  the  barrier  of  religion 
has  been  removed,  and  the  stock  modified  by  mixed 
marriages.  It  is  no  ordinary  race  that  produced  the 
Bible.  The  religious  genius  that  breathes  through  every 
page  of  the  Scriptures  has  left  its  traces  on  the  Jew  of 
to-day.  And  yet  the  average  Englishman  feels  further 
removed  from  the  modern  Hebrew,  who  speaks  his 
language,  deals  with  him  in  business,  and  commands, 
very  often,  his  admiration  and  respect,  than  he  does  from 
the  Hebrew  literature  of  2,000  years  ago.  The  devout 
student  of  the  Bible  sees  in  this  remoteness  and  isolation 
of  the  Jew  a  fulfilment  of  prophecy.  The  people  of  the 
Messiah,  having  rejected  Him,  have  brought  on  them- 


234  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

selves  the  Deuteronomic  penalties  of  unfaithfulness — they  - 
are  scattered,  homeless,  friendless.  Nor  would  we  dream  I 
of  denying  this.  Rather,  we  would  suggest  that  the  ' 
divorce  from  the  Land  of  Promise,  the  Land  so  eminently 
fitted  to  draw  out  what  was  best  in  them,  has  been,  ] 
under  God,  a  large  factor  in  the  change  that  has  come  i 
over  them.  The  doom  of  agelong  banishment  has 
robbed  them  of  the  environment  of  their  inspiration. 

What  we  are  now  concerned  to  consider  in  some  of  its    i 
leading  aspects  is  the   influence   exerted  by  the  Land 
upon  the  Book ;  how  the  Land  of  Promise  left  its  impress    \ 
on  the  Literature  of  Promise,  and  helped  to  fit  it  for  its    i 
great  role  as  the  religious  literature  of  two  hemispheres. 

Perhaps  we  shall  best  bring  home  to  ourselves  the  ; 
significance  of  this  point  if  we  try  to  picture  what  the  « 
Bible  would  have  been  like,  had  it  emanated  originally 
from  the  snowy  wastes  of  Greenland  or  from  some  tropical  j 
island.  If  the  Almighty  had  willed  to  teach  the  world  ; 
religion  from  one  or  other  of  those  quarters.  He  would  | 
undoubtedly  have  found  adequate  means  and  methods  I 
of  doing  so;  but  they  would  certainly  have  been  very  j 
different  from  those  with  which  Ave  are  familiar.  The  i 
long  Arctic  night,  with  its  brilliant  sky-phenomena  j 
occasionally  illuminating  the  months  of  darkness;  the  ] 
dramatic  reappearance  of  the  sun  after  protracted,  watch-  ; 
ful  waiting;  the  glories  of  the  brief  summer,  with  its  : 
uninterrupted  radiance;  the  resurrection  spectacle  of  ' 
life's  renewal — witnessed  indeed  in  action  upon  a  humbler  I 
and  more  limited  vegetation  than  ours,  but  acting  with 
surprising  swiftness ;  the  vast,  monotonous  spaces  and  the  j 
immense  expanse  of  sky ;  the  vivid,  if  simple,  joys ;  the  ! 
characteristic  toils,  hardships,  and  perils  of  the  vigorous  j 
life  of  man — all  these,  we  can  realize,  would  form  material  j 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE       235 

for  illustration  and  for  symbolism.  But  how  poor,  how 
limited,  compared  with  the  rich  background  supplied  to 
the  Bible  by  the  remarkably  varied  products  and  pro- 
cesses of  Palestinian  life  !  And  the  same  is  true,  mutatis 
mutandis,  of  our  other  hypothesis.  The  Bible  of  the 
tropical  islander,  though  lacking  the  characteristic  illus- 
trations of  the  G-reenlander,  would  be  enriched  by  a 
background  of  luxuriant  v^egetation,  with  its  glories  of 
magnificent  foliage  and  blossom  ;  and  if  the  list  of  his 
fauna  contained  but  few  mammals — few  or  none  of  those 
animal  companions  that  are  such  eloquent  teachers  of 
higher  truths  than  they  know  themselves — he  would  still 
have  the  treasury  of  a  rich  and  varied  insect  life  to  draw 
upon,  and  birds,  the  unique  glory  of  whose  plumage 
would  rival  Solomon  in  all  his  glory.  But  if  the  Esqui- 
maux Bible  suffered  from  poverty  of  background,  from 
the  excessive  limitations  of  its  illustrative  material,  the 
Bible  of  the  tropical  island,  while  subject  to  many  de- 
ficiencies in  the  same  respect  when  compared  with  that 
of  the  '  Promised  Land,^  would  have  a  special  defect  of 
its  own.  Its  effectiveness  would  be  marred,  in  a  sense,  by 
the  very  richness  of  the  island's  products,  because  those 
products  are  in  the  main  peculiar  to  a  particular  zone. 
Its  characteristic  glories  would  be  unintelligible — or,  at 
any  rate,  incapable  of  making  a  direct  and  swift  appeal — 
to  the  inhabitants  of  other  regions.  It  would  be  absurd 
to  suppose  that  this  difficulty  is  not  experienced  by  mis- 
sionaries working,  Bible  in  hand,  in  remote  parts  of  the 
world;  but  it  is  felt  in  a  comparatively  small  degree. 
And  the  mere  fact  that  the  Bible,  a  book  of  Palestinian 
origin,  exists  now,  and  works  with  living  force  in  some 
scores  of  languages  and  dialects,  speaks  eloquently  to  the 
same  purpose.     The  Promised  Land  is,  in  fact,  a  naicrg- 


236  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

cosm.  The  perennial  snows  of  Lebanon,  and  the  annual 
winter  snows  upon  the  lesser  heights,  bring  it  into  touch 
with  the  frozen  North  and  South ;  the  deep  gorge  of  the 
Jordan  Valley,  actually  some  1,200  feet  below  sea-level, 
with  its  luxuriant  tropical  vegetation,  proclaims  its  kin- 
ship with  the  climes  much  nearer  to  the  equator ;  while 
the  intermediate  regions,  the  limestone  hills  with  their 
flocks  at  pasturage,  the  vine  and  olive-clad  slopes  with 
their  attendant  industries,  and  the  cornfields  with  all 
that  they  imply  of  husbandman's  skill  and  toil,  patience 
and  anxiety  and  harvest-home  joy,  offer  illustrations  that 
appeal  directly  and  forcibly  to  the  majority  of  mankind. 
But  Palestine,  with  all  its  unique  range  and  variety  of 
climatic  conditions,  of  flora  and  fauna,  of  pastoral,  agri- 
cultural, and  industrial  opportunities,  is  still  primarily  a 
Mediterranean  country.  The  corn,  the  wine,  and  the  oil, 
that  have  become,  under  inspiration,  the  illustrating 
vehicles  of  profound  spiritual  truth — these  proclaim  its 
close  kinship  with  Asia  Minor  and  Grreece  and  Mace- 
donia, with  Italy  and  Southern  G-aul  and  Spain.  And 
so  it  is  that  the  Bible  was  fitted  by  its  background  to 
make  itself  speedily  at  home  in  that  region  where  the 
Gospel  first  spread  among  the  Gentiles. 

And  even  the  limitations — for  such,  of  course,  there  are 
— of  the  Palestinian  landscape  were  supplemented  by 
the  providential  ordering  of  the  history  of  the  Hebrew 
people. 

The  stern  wildness  and  grandeur  of  the  Judasan  wilder- 
ness, of  the  Negeb,  or  desert  of  the  south,  and  of  the 
eastern  wastes  beyond  Jordan  as  viewed  from  the  rocky 
background  of  the  land — these  were  not  sufficient  to 
supply  the  essential  note  of  utter  austerity  that  forms 
the  foundation  of  the  purest  of  all  religions.     The  lack 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE       237 

must  be  supplied  by  reminiscences  of  former  wanderings 
of  the  Hebrew  tribes  in  the  desert  of  Sinai,  and  of  a 
national  betrothal  to  their  God  amid  the  solemn  grandeur 
of  those  solitudes. 

The  mountainous  ridge  of  Palestine,  with  its  foot-hills 
and  its  narrow  strip  of  maritime  plain,  offered  no  natural 
background  for  a  worthy  vision  of  the  earth's  birthday 
pageant.  For  this  was  needed  (as  we  have  seen)  the 
spectacle  of  spring-time  in  the  vast  Babylonian  plain, 
with  its  lifting  clouds  and  subsiding  floods — the  earth\s 
emergence  from  upper  and  nether  waters.  Whether  it 
was  the  Babylonian  captivity  that  supplied  this  illustra- 
tion, or  (as  seems  more  probable)  the  Mesopotamian 
origin  of  the  Hebrew  race,  in  either  case  the  vicissitudes 
of  history  fill  up  the  little  that  is  lacking  in  Palestine's 
background,  for  a  Bible  that  shall  comprise  all  the  essen- 
tials of  religious  truth,  and  compose  them  in  a  form 
congenial  to  the  tastes  and  experiences  of  widely 
scattered  humanity. 

A  well-known  writer  on  Palestine^  calls  attention  to 
the  significance  of  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Deuteronomy, 
as  showing  a  remarkable  insight  into  the  potentialities  of 
the  Promised  Land  as  a  religious  teacher.  In  that  chapter 
the  very  simple  and  mechanical  processes  of  agriculture 
proper  to  Egypt,  and  resulting  from  the  peculiar  con- 
ditions of  climate  and  irrigation  which  are  characteristic 
of  the  Nile  Valley,  are  contrasted  with  the  freedom  and 
variety,  the  uncertainties  and  complexities,  of  man's 
struggle  with  Nature  in  Palestine.  The  climate  and 
conditions  of  agriculture  in  Egypt,  simple,  monotonous, 
mechanical,  have  all  the  appearance  of  the  inevitable 
about  them;  they  do  not  in  themselves  suggest  the 
*  G.  A.  Smith,  •  Historical  Geography,'  p.  74. 


238  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

action  of  a  personal  Providence.  Not  so  with  the  Land 
of  Promise.  Unlike  Egypt,  it  is  'a  land  of  hills  and 
valleys,  and  drinketh  water  of  the  rain  of  heaven  ;  a 
land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  careth  for :  the  eyes  of  the 
Lord  thy  God  are  upon  it  from  the  beginning  of  the 
year  even  unto  the  end  of  the  year.*''^  That  such  a 
lesson  would  be  obvious  to  every  inhabitant  of  this  rich 
and  varied  country  by  no  means  follows.  The  same 
climatic  conditions,  the  same  stimulating  landscape,  the 
same  demands  of  pastoral  and  agricultural  labour,  had 
resulted  for  the  Canaanites  in  unspeakable  moral  and 
religious  degradation.  The  land  spoke  to  them  with  a 
very  different  voice,  because  their  ears  were  only 
attuned  to  certain  tones.  And  with  the  same  alluring 
voice,  enticing  them  to  base  self-indulgence  in  the  name 
of  religion,  it  spoke  to  those  souls  in  Israel  who,  un- 
faithful in  their  allegiance  to  Jehovah,  were  ready  to 
join  their  pagan  cousins  in  the  festive  orgies  of  the  gods 
of  Nature  and  of  Keproduction.  But  the  Deuteronomist, 
with  the  prophet's  insight  into  the  lessons  of  past  history, 
reads  the  true  message  of  the  Land  to  the  people  of 
Promise. 

This  is  the  primary  function  of  the  Holy  Land  in 
relation  to  the  Bible — to  prepare  Israel  to  produce  that 
Bible  j  to  educate  them  in  man's  part  of  working 
dutifully  and  patiently  for  his  daily  bread,  and  waiting 
trustfully  upon  God  for  the  fruits  of  his  labour ;  to  instil 
into  them,  through  the  subtle  influence  of  environment, 
the  sense  of  an  ever  watchful  Providence  controlling  the 
seasons  of  the  year,  with  their  else  unaccountable  varia 
tions,  directing  every  force  and  energy  and  operation  of 
Nature,  and  thus  making  Nature  itself — alike  in  its 
normal  and  abnormal  aspects,  in  the  rain  and  sunshine, 
*  Deut.  xi.  11,  12. 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE       239 

in    the    drought    and    the    earthquake — a    witness   to 
Himself. 

How  well  the  best  of  them  learnt  this  lesson  the 
Bible  amply  testifies.  Every  page  of  it  breathes  the 
consciousness  of  a  personal  Providence,  and  the  feeling 
that  Nature  is  but  the  vesture  of  the  Almighty — 'the 
fringe  of  His  garment.^ 

Once  learnt,  this  lesson  can  be  applied  to  any  tract  of 
country  and  to  any  clime  ;  but  few  countries  in  the 
world  could  offer  so  advantageous  an  object-lesson : 
not  the  flat,  alluvial  regions  of  Egypt  and  Babylon,  not 
the  arid  grandeur  and  severity  of  the  Sinaitic  Peninsula 
or  the  Arabian  Desert;  still  less,  perhaps,  the  tropical 
island  or  the  polar  waste.  Each  would  have — and,  indeed, 
has — its  own  special  lesson  to  teach  us  about  the  God 
of  Nature;  but  none  offers  to  the  devout  mind  so 
rich  and  so  congenial  a  field  for  the  reverential  study 
of  the  providential  working  of  God.  It  is  natural  that 
a  fellow-countryman  of  him  who  wrote  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy  should  be  the  first  to  proclaim  to  the 
heathen  world  the  unfailing  witness  of  God  in  Nature. 
If  he  was  born  in  Tarsus,  he  completed  his  education  in 
the  Holy  City,  and  the  air  of  Palestine  was  in  his  blood. 
It  is  a  Benjamite  of  the  first  century  a.d.  whose  heart  was 
in  the  Land  on  which,  as  he  had  been  taught,  the  eyes  of 
Jehovah  rested  from  moment  to  moment  throughout  the 
year;  it  was  one  who  proclaimed  himself  a  '  Hebrew  of  the 
Hebrews,'  who  urged  the  pagans  of  Lystra  to  turn  to  that 
living  God,  who  '  left  not  Himself  without  witness,  in  that 
He  did  good  and  gave  you  from  heaven  rains  and  fruitful 
seasons,  filling  your  hearts  with  food  and  gladness.'"^ 

And  if  the  intrinsic  characteristics  of  the  Land  are 
significant,  so,   too,  are   its   external   surroundings,   its 
*  Acts  xiv.  17. 


-   I 


240  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS  ' 

geographical  position.  Isolated,  yet,  in  a  sense,  lying^ 
on  the  highway  by  which  the  great  imperial  movementa 
of  antiquity  passed  and  repassed,  it  possessed  a  uniquely^ 
educative  environment.  Its  isolation,  though  far  from^ 
securing  it  actual  immunity  from  invasion,  gave  the! 
nation  breathing-spaces  in  which  to  recover  its  vitality  J 
But  for  the  intercourse  with  their  Canaanite  neighbours; 
in  which  the  writers  of  Deuteronomy  rightly  see  a  fatal 
obstacle  to  their  ideal  growth  in  moral  and  religious 
purity,  this  people  might  have  found  in  the  Promised^ 
Land,  with  its  desert  fringe  on  two  sides,  and  harbour-; 
less  sea-coast  on  a  third,  a  protected  nursery  for  the* 
true  religion,  guarded  from  the  enticing  or  constraining^ 
influences  which  must  beset  those  whose  lot  is  placed  in^ 
the  midst  of  next-door  neighbours.  That  the  best  of^ 
them  did  find  it  so  is  witnessed  by  the  Bible,  with  itsi 
steady  and  growingly  intelligent  loyalty  to  a  pure  mono-j 
theism,  to  which  antiquity  presents  no  parallel.  But^ 
while  enjoying  the  advantages  of  comparative  isolation,' 
this  little  people  was  not  allowed  to  sink  into  a  state  of  j 
self-absorption.  They  stand  upon  their  limestone  ridge,  j 
as  it  were  upon  a  watch-tower,  and  scan  the  horizon  fori 
the  advancing  host  of  Assyria  or  of  Egypt ;  spectators  of ' 
great  world-movements,  over  which  (even  if  they  them-  i 
selves  have  no  direct  part  to  play  in  them)  they  must  • 
learn  that  Jehovah — no  mere  tribal  god,  but '  the  Lord  \ 
of  all  the  earth ' — lays  His  controlling  hand.  Just  so  < 
the  Prophets,  from  Amos  onwards,  stand  at  gaze,  and  : 
read  the  Divine  judgments  upon  the  great  and  little  ^ 
nations  stretched  out  beneath  their  feet."^  The  people  ' 
of  the  Bible  are  learning  to  widen  their  outlook ;  they  are  ■ 

*  Amos  i.,  it.  ;  Isa.  xiii.-xxiii.,  etc.  ;  Jer.  xlvi.  et  aeq. ;  Ezek.  i 
xxv.-xxxii.     See  further,  p.  243.  J 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE       241 

being  educated  out  of  that  self-centred  spirit  which  we 
express  by  such  terms  as  'insularity'  and  'provincialism/ 
They  have  a  message  and  a  mission  (dimly  understood  as 
yet)  to  the  whole  world,  and  over  the  whole  world  their 
gaze  must  range. 

An  indirect  tribute  to  the  potentialities  of  the  Holy  Land 
in  this  respect  may  be  drawn  from  the  effect  of  the  Baby- 
lonian captivity  upon  the  Jews.  We  might  have  supposed 
that  the  sojourn  among  strangers  would  have  broadened 
their  minds  and  given  them  a  wider  and  more  liberal 
outlook.  If  we  are  to  judge  from  the  tone  of  the  Books 
of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  the  immediate  effect  was  quite 
the  contrary.  The  temper  of  the  first  revivers  of  the 
Hebrew  polity,  full  as  it  is  of  a  strong  faith,  a  noble  zeal, 
and  self-devotion,  is  marked  by  a  narrowness  that  holds 
in  it  the  promise  of  the  bigotry  and  fanatical  exclusive- 
ness  of  the  Jews  of  New  Testament  times. 

If  the  land  reacted  upon  the  spirit  of  its  inhabitants, 
and  so  upon  the  general  tendency  of  their  literature,  it 
had  also  a  direct  effect  upon  the  details  of  that  literature, 
suggesting  its  metaphors  and  its  illustrations. 

The  poetic  imagery  of  the  Old  Testament,  which 
furnishes  it,  not  only  with  literary  charm,  but  also  with 
a  vehicle  of  sublimest  teaching,  is  largely  drawn  from 
Nature.  This  is  conspicuously  true  of  the  Psalms.  Here  are 
the  hills  and  crags,  and  the  thunderstorms  that  from  time 
to  time  enwrap  them;  the  tree  planted  by  the  water-side ; 
the  valleys, '  so  thick  with  corn  that  they  laugh  and  sing'; 
the  Lord's  vine  brought  out  of  Egypt,  and  the  vineyard, 
with  its  elaborate  arrangements  and  its  protecting  hedge, 
all  neglected  and  ruined  by  the  wild  animals  that  have 
burst  in  and  are  uprooting  the  plants.  The  great  song 
of  the  Spirit's  work  in  Nature,  the  hundred  and  fourth 

16 


242  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Psalm,  sketches,  as  it  were,  the  whole  range  of  Palestine's 
flora  and  fauna,  with  the  great,  wide  sea  beyond,  and 
man  in  the  midst,  engaged  in  his  daily  round  of  hus- 
bandry. And  what  is  true  of  the  Psalms  is  true  also 
of  the  Book  of  Job,  in  which  Nature's  wonders  are  again 
and  again  adduced  to  demonstrate  the  power  and  wisdom 
of  the  Creator. 

Rich,  too,  is  the  imagery  employed  in  the  Song  of 
Songs  to  express  love's  hyperbole  :  Carmel,  Lebanon,  and 
Hermon,  vineyards,  orchards,  and  well-stocked  gardens, 
lovely  blossoms  and  fragrant  scents,  flocks  of  sheep  and 
goats,  harts,  roes,  and  fawns,  and  little  foxes  in  the  corn, 
lions  and  leopards — all  are  brought  in  to  complete  the  pic- 
ture. The  song  reaches  its  climax  of  grace  and  beauty  in 
that  lyric  in  praise  of  springtime,  hallowed  by  the  tradition 
of  hundreds  of  generations  as  a  mystic  Easter  song  : 

'  Rise  up,  my  love,  my  fair  one,  and  come  away, 
For,  lo,  the  winter  is  past, 
The  rain  is  over  and  gone. 
The  flowers  appear  on  the  earth  ; 
The  time  of  the  singing  of  birds  is  come, 
And  the  voice  of  the  turtle  is  heard  in  our  land  ; 
The  fig-tree  ripeneth  her  green  figs. 
And  the  vines  are  in  blossom ; 
They  give  forth  their  fragrance.'  * 

And  when  the  prophets  would  picture  to  themselves 
and  to  those  who  need,  in  dismal  times,  a  message  of 
far-off  hope,  the  glorious  age  of  the  Messiah,  it  is  in 
terms  of  a  miraculous  fertility  of  Nature  that  they  picture 
it.  No  better  example  could  be  chosen  than  the  familiar 
thirty-fifth  chapter  of  Isaiah,  sublime  as  it  is  familiar: 

'  The  wilderness  and  the  solitary  place  shall  be  glad ;  and  the 
desert  shall  rejoice  and   blossom  as  the  rose.     It  shall  blossom 

*  Cant.  ii.  10  et  seq. 


THE  BACKaROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE       243 

abundantly,  and  rejoice  even  with  joy  and  singing:  the  glory  of 
Lebanon  shall  be  given  unto  it,  the  excellency  of  Carmel  and 
Sharon.  ...  In  the  wilderness  shall  waters  break  out,  and 
streams  in  the  desert.  And  the  glowing  sand  shall  become  a  pool, 
and  the  thirsty  ground  springs  of  water:  in  the  habitation  of 
jackals,  where  they  lay,  shall  be  grass  with  reeds  and  rushes.  .  .  . 
They  shall  obtain  gladness  and  joy,  and  sorrow  and  sighing  shall 
flee  away." 

Or  this  from  Amos  :^ 

'  Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  Jehovah,  that  the  plowman  shall 
overtake  the  reaper,  and  the  treader  of  grapes  him  that  soweth 
seed  ;  and  the  mountains  shall  drop  sweet  wine,  and  all  the  hills 
shall  melt.  And  I  will  bring  agaui  the  captivity  of  my  people 
Israel,  and  they  shall  build  the  waste  cities,  and  inhabit  them  ;  and 
they  shall  plant  vineyards,  and  drink  the  wine  thereof  ;  they  shall 
also  make  gardens,  and  eat  the  fruit  of  them.  And  I  will  plant 
them  upon  their  land,  and  they  shall  no  more  be  plucked  up  out 
of  their  land  which  I  have  given  them,  saith  Jehovah  thy  God.' 

But  while  Nature  supplies  with  bountiful  hand  appro- 
priate figures  and  metaphors  for  visions  too  remote  and 
unearthly  to  be  depicted  in  direct  language,  human 
civilization,  commerce,  and  art  have  also  their  contri- 
bution to  give.  Except  just  once  or  twice  in  their 
history — in  the  reign  of  Solomon,  for  instance,  and  that 
of  Jehoshaphat — the  Hebrews  of  Old  Testament  times 
were  not  a  great  trading  people,  nor  highly  advanced  in 
the  arts  of  life,  compared  with  the  nations  around  them. 
But  they  had,  as  it  were,  at  their  doors  the  greatest 
commercial  people  of  antiquity — the  Phoenicians  of  Tyre 
and  Sidon.  Their  immediate  interest  in  Tyre  probably 
began  when  David,  having  pushed  his  conquests  up  to 
the  Phoenician  hinterland,  made  alliance  with  the  Tyrian 
King,  Hiram.  But  the  literary  interest  concentrates 
itself  upon  the  eighth  and  following  centuries,  when  the 
prophets   Amos,   Joel,    Isaiah,   Jeremiah,    Ezekiel,    and 

*  Amos  ix.  V3  H  seq. 


244  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Zechariah,  gaze  out  upon  the  famous  city  to  read  its 
destiny.  And  the  climax  is  provided  by  Ezekiel  in  his 
twenty-seventh  chapter,  which  is  a  precious  treasure- 
house  of  data  for  the  student  of  ancient  commerce. 
With  inimitable  vividness  and  grace  the  prophet  depicts 
for  us  the  prospect  of  the  crowded  harbour  and  the 
richly-laden  quays  of  the  Venice  of  the  ancient  world : 
the  various  nationalities  of  the  traders  who  thronged 
her  markets  and  the  infinite  variety  of  their  goods ;  the 
glory  of  her  present  prosperity  seen  against  the  shadow 
of  her  coming  doom — it  forms  at  once  the  most  gorgeous 
and  the  most  pathetic  of  all  Old  Testament  descriptions. 
This  chapter  has  been  a  quarry  and  a  mine  for  subsequent 
writers  to  draw  from.  The  inspired  author  of  the  Book 
of  the  Revelation  drew  upon  it  for  his  description  of  the 
mystic  Babylon,  even  as  he  appears  to  have  made  free  use 
of  other  works.  But  its  treasure  is  unexhausted  still;  and 
had  not  Tyre  entered  within  the  range  of  vision  of  an 
Old  Testament  writer,  we  may  safely  say  that  the  Old 
Testament  would  have  lost  much  of  its  warning  message 
to  a  great  maritime  and  commercial  nation  like  ourselves. 
The  land  was  essentially  rural,  agricultural,  and  pastoral 
in  its  potentialities,  yet  its  prophets  were  able  to  draw 
from  its  immediate  surroundings  imagery  that  should 
be  directly  applicable  to  the  developed  commercial  and 
manufacturing  civilization  of  a  later  age. 

But,  after  all,  it  is  Nature,  first  and  last,  that  forms 
the  true  background  of  the  Bible,  and  no  sketch  of  this 
aspect  of  the  Holy  Land  would  be  complete  without 
some  special  reference  to  the  lessons  which  our  Saviour 
drew  from  Nature.  When  He  came  in  the  fulness  of 
time  to  reveal  the  Father  as  none  had  revealed  Him 
before,  He  came  also  into  an  environment  rich  in  illus- 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE        245 

trations,  by  which  Nature  could  be  made  to  speak,  not 
only  of  the  God  of  Nature,  but  of  the  God  of  grace  and 
of  redemption. 

We  naturally  picture  Him  on  the  hill-side  or  the  lake- 
shore,  or  in  His  friends'  fishing-boat  upon  the  waters, 
walking  through  cornfields,  kneeling  in  olive-grove ;  and 
such  is  the  universality  of  Palestinian  scenery  that  the 
background  against  which  His  figure  stands  out  in  such 
strong  relief,  while  yet  it  harmonizes  with  it  so  well, 
means  probably  almost  as  much  to  us  as  it  did  to  those 
who  saw  Him  there.  It  makes  us  feel  that  He  is  a  real 
figure,  and  it  makes  us  feel  at  home  with  Him.  True, 
the  city  and  the  house  were  the  scene  of  some  of  His 
most  significant  words  and  deeds,  the  temple,  also,  of 
some  of  His  sublimest  teaching.  The  marriage  feast  at 
Cana  was  the  scene  of  His  first  miracle,  and  royal 
marriage  feasts  and  banquets  form  the  basis  of  some  of 
His  most  famous  parables.  But  the  majority  of  His 
parables  are  drawn  from  outdoor  life,  and,  of  the  rest, 
some  depend  for  much  of  their  vividness  on  open-air 
scenes.  We  picture  the  starving  swine-herd  pining  for 
the  fertile  surroundings  of  his  father's  homestead,  and 
watch  him  as  he  plods  wearily,  yet  determinedly,  into 
sight,  while  the  father  runs  to  meet  him  across  the 
open  country.  We  picture  the  prostrate  figure  of  the 
robbed  and  assaulted  traveller  lying  shunned  and  un- 
noticed beside  the  lonely  highway,  and  see  the  kind  face 
of  the  Samaritan  bending  over  him.  But  the  outdoor 
life  and  its  occupations  supply  direct  material  for  a 
large  proportion  of  the  Lord's  most  characteristic  teach- 
ing. The  fisherman's  craft,  which  has  given  us  the 
deeply  instructive  parable  of  the  draw-net,  is  one  that 
speaks  with  familiar  voice  to  almost  every  clime.     Its 


246  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

teaching  power  is  enriched  by  the  repeated  object-lesson 
of  a  '  miraculous  draught  of  fishes ' — the  first  when 
Andrew  and  Simon,  James  and  John,  received  their 
formal  call  to  discipleship,  and  were  marked  out  to  be 
'  fishers  of  men ';  the  second  when  the  risen  Lord 
appeared  upon  the  shore  in  the  grey  light  of  dawn,  and 
Peter,  after  a  moment^s  hesitation,  flung  himself  into  the 
water,  and  swam  to  his  Master^s  feet  to  be  absolved  of 
his  denial.  Had  the  geographical  boundaries  of  the 
land  been  shifted  but  a  few  miles  southAvards,  we  should 
have  missed  all  this  type  of  teaching,  and  the  other  holy 
associations  of  the  Galilean  lake — the  walking  on  the  deep 
and  the  stilling  of  the  storm — for  no  Jewish  fishing- 
boats  plied  along  the  inhospitable  Mediterranean  shore, 
or  in  the  barren  waters  of  the  Dead  Sea. 

But  the  land  is  still  more  fertile  than  the  water  in 
imagery  and  metaphor  for  the  illustration  of  spiritual 
truth.  The  vineyard  and  its  labourers  form  the  basis  of 
more  than  one  deep  lesson — the  barren  fig-tree  is  the  sub- 
ject both  of  spoken  and  of  acted  parable.  The  mustard- 
plant,  like  leaven,  illustrates  the  wonderful  development 
of  the  spiritual  kingdom.  There  is,  however,  no  happier 
or  more  telling  subject  for  illustration  than  the  corn- 
plant — happy  in  the  variety  of  illustrations  it  supplies ; 
telling,  because  it  forms  the  familiar  staple  of  life,  the 
principal  object  of  the  husbandman's  care  and  toil,  over 
so  vast  an  area  of  the  earth.  In  the  parable  of  the  seed 
growing  secretly,  with  a  steady,  sure,  yet  unseen  de- 
velopment, the  corn  enforces  the  lesson  of  the  mustard- 
seed.  In  that  of  the  wheat  and  the  darnel  it  teaches,  like 
the  parable  of  the  draw-net,  the  mystery  of  the  promised 
continuance  of  good  and  evil  side  by  side  until  the  Day 
of  the  Lord ;  while  the  harvest  which  is  its  consummation 


THE  BACKaROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE       247 

is  fraught  with  important  teaching  about  the  end  of  the 
world.  The  ripening  harvest-fields  of  Samaria  suggested 
words  which  have  inspired  centuries  of  missionary  inter- 
cession. The  parable  of  the  Sower  introduces  corn-seed 
as  a  figure  of  the  Word  of  God  sown  in  men^s  hearts ; 
while  the  different  types  of  ground,  all  lying  under  the 
speaker's  eye  as  He  spoke — the  hard-beaten  track,  where 
seed  would  lie  till  it  became  a  prey  for  wild  birds ;  the 
bramble  patch  ;  the  *  stony  ground,'  where  the  underlying 
rock  emerges  to  the  surface ;  and  the  deep,  rich  soil — all 
these  offer  ideal  illustrations  of  the  different  kinds  of 
welcome  that  the  Word  receives  in  the  hearts  of  men. 
Husbandry  contributes  further  pictures  also — the  slave 
who  tills  the  field  by  day,  and  when  evening  comes,  must 
gird  himself  and  wait  at  his  master's  table  ere  he  can 
take  his  own  supper ;  the  ploughman  who,  when  he  starts, 
must  needs  keep  his  eye  fixed  on  the  furrow-line,  and 
not  look  back.  The  corn  itself  is  given  a  still  holier 
place  when  the  Lord  uses  it  as  a  figure  of  His  own  death 
and  fruitful  resurrection-life.  The  wild  flowers — '  lilies 
of  the  field' — the  wild  birds,  the  foxes,  each  has  its 
sacred  message.  But  the  noblest  teaching  of  all,  surely, 
is  that  which  draws  its  illustrations  from  the  shepherd's 
life. 

If  the  Bible  reader  has  reason  to  bless  the  little  Lake 
of  Galilee,  with  its  busy  fishing  industry,  and  the  maritime 
plain  of  Philistia  and  Sharon  with  its  corn-lands,  and 
the  intermediate  slopes  with  their  olive-yards  and  vine- 
yards, how  his  heart  goes  out  to  the  high  limestone  ridge 
that  forms  the  background  of  the  land !  These  bare 
domes,  with  their  steep  grassy  slopes  and  rugged  heights, 
are  the  things  he  loves  best  of  all,  for  they  have  given 
him  the  Good  Shepherd. 


248  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

The  pastoral  imagery  of  the  Old  Testament,  scattered 
far  and  wide,  in  the  Books  of  Genesis  and  Exodus,  in  the 
story  of  David,  in  the  Psalms,  in  the  Prophets,  is  one  of 
the  most  tender  and  moving  elements  alike  in  narrative, 
in  song,  and  in  prophetic  teaching.  The  idyllic  scenes 
of  shepherding  in  the  lives  of  the  patriarchs  and  of 
Moses  are  among  the  most  beautiful  in  the  Bible.  David, 
the  valiant  shepherd-boy,  is  the  darling  hero  of  IsraeFs 
golden  age.  The  prophetic  metaphors  by  which  sinners 
are  described  as  wandering  sheep,  and  the  suffering 
Messiah  as  the  sheep  dumb  before  its  shearers,  or  the 
mute  and  unresisting  lamb  led  to  the  slaughter,  or  the 
Divine  Shepherd  is  depicted  as  gently  tending  His  flock 
and  gathering  the  lambs  in  His  arms — these  have  become 
classical  in  all  the  languages  of  Christendom.  The  rich 
potentialities  of  shepherd  life  as  illustrating  God^s  main 
dealings  with  the  human  soul  are  gathered  up  in  the 
matchless  twenty -third  Psalm,  of  which  every  syllable, 
even  to  the  last  (grievously  misinterpreted)  verse,  is 
drawn  from  the  vocabulary  of  the  shepherd's  calling. 

But  it  is  in  Christ's  own  teaching  that  the  pastoral 
imagery  reaches  its  highest  point,  and  becomes  the  vehicle 
of  the  noblest  teaching  of  all.  He  whose  wonderful 
nativity  was  announced  first  of  all  to  shepherds  abiding 
in  the  field,  keeping  watch,  with  unremitting  devotion, 
over  their  flocks  by  night ;  He  who  after  His  baptism 
was  pointed  out  by  the  Baptist  as  '  the  Lamb  of  God  that 
taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,'  sums  up  in  the  parable 
of  the  Lost  Sheep  the  whole  story  of  a  world's  redemption. 
We  cannot  fail  to  realize  how  much  is  contributed  to  the 
picture  by  the  background  of  a  Palestinian  shepherd's 
rough  and  perilous  life — the  hardships  he  has  to  endure, 
the  dangers  he  must  face  to  keep  his  flock  intact  and 


THE  BACKaROUND  OF  THE  BIBLE       249 

entire,  to  preserve  it  from  the  temptation  of  its  own  mis- 
guided instincts  and  the  assaults  of  insidious  enemies. 

In  the  allegory,  or  group  of  allegories,  preserved  in 
the  tenth  chapter  of  St.  John^s  Gospel,  our  Lord  draws 
out  the  various  lessons  of  pastoral  life — lessons  drawn 
from  the  fold  itself,  and  its  door ;  from  the  shepherd's 
management  of  the  sheep  and  their  response  to  his 
guidance  ;  from  the  mutual  knowledge  and  confidence  and 
the  distrust  the  sheep  have  of  a  stranger.  Finally, 
identifying  Himself  with  the  '  Ideal  Shepherd,'  He 
shows  that  this  means  'giving  His  life  for  the  sheep.' 

How  much  the  Bible,  how  much  all  Christendom,  and 
all  Christendom  that  is  yet  to  be,  would  have  lost  if 
Abraham  had  made  Lot's  choice  of  the  plain  instead  of 
the  hill  country ;  if  the  Promised  Land  had  not  included 
within  its  bounds  those  bleak  slopes  where  David  faced 
the  lion  and  the  bear,  and  where  the  shepherds  of  Israel 
from  generation  to  generation  imbibed  the  lessons  of  life- 
long devotion,  in  storm  as  in  sunshine,  by  night  as  by 
day — a  devotion  which  dimly  reflected,  as  some  of  them 
were  led  to  realize,  the  ceaseless  care  of  the  Great 
Shepherd  ! 

*  Behold,  He  that  keepeth  Israel  shall  neither  slumber  nor  sleep.' 

*  I  am  the  good  Shepherd :  the  good  Shepherd  giveth  his  life  for 
the  sheep.' 

Many  of  the  thoughts  suggested  in  this  chapter  might 
be  followed  out  with  considerable  elaboration,  and  other 
fruitful  lines  of  thought  have  doubtless  escaped  mention 
altogether.  Enough,  however,  has  been  said  to  show 
how  much  the  Bible,  and  therefore  the  Bible-lover,  owes, 
under  Gt)d,  to  the  Land  of  Promise — to  its  geographical 
position  and  its  geological  formation,  to  the  outlines  of 
its  landscape  and  the  nature  of  its  climate,  to  the  pro- 


250  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

ducts  of  the  soil  and  tlie  influences  of  the  sky.  This 
microcosm  of  Palestine,  combining  traits  of  every  country 
under  heaven,  from  polar  ice  to  equatorial  luxuriance  of 
vegetation — the  only  land,  as  has  been  said,  where  a 
man  could  do  as  Benaiah  did,  and  slay  'a  lion  in  the 
midst  of  a  pit  in  time  of  snow  ^  ^ — is  the  fitting  back- 
ground for  an  object-lesson  in  revelation  that  must 
appeal  to  people  of  every  clime. 

Travellers  to  Palestine  come  back  sometimes  disap- 
pointed with  the  smallness,  the  meanness,  the  barrenness 
of  everything.  If  they  read  their  Josephus,  and  the 
records  of  subsequent  history,  they  would  be  able  to 
think  away  much  of  the  barrenness.  Centuries  of  war  and 
neglect  and  the  dead  hand  of  the  Moslem  would  turn 
the  G-arden  of  Eden  into  a  wilderness.  We  need  only 
remind  ourselves  of  the  wholesale  denudation  of  the 
country  round  Jerusalem  by  the  besieging  army  of  Titus 
to  furnish  its  colossal  girdles  of  palisading  and  its 
thousands  of  gibbets.  A  week's  denudation  will  take 
scores  of  years  to  repair,  and  will  probably  never  repair 
itself  spontaneously.  Nor,  again,  will  the  discerning 
visitor  to  Palestine  complain  of  the  narrowness  of  its 
bounds.  Diminutive  size  does  not  always  go  with  insig- 
nificance, and  if  we  spoke  of  the  Promised  Land  at  the 
beginning  as  an  '  insignificant  little  corner  of  the  world,'' 
we  were  using  the  language  of  the  superficial  observer. 
The  Promised  Land  is  large  in  its  variety  and  in  its  wide 
outlook — '  a  good  land  and  a  large  ' — a  land  where  the 
inspired  imagination  has  free  scope,  where  great  ideals 
are  born,  and  have  space  to  live  and  breathe  and 
develop.  It  is  a  land,  in  short,  well  fitted  to  be  the 
background  of  the  World's  Book. 

*  2  Sam.  xxiii.  20 ;  G.  A.  Smith,  o^?.  ci^,  p.  65. 


IX 

THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS 

The  course  which  our  studies  have  hitherto  followed  will 
not  have  left  us  destitute  of  guidance  as  to  the  path  to  be 
pursued  in  regions  still  more  remote.  Taking  the  Bible 
as  it  stands,  and  appraising  it  so  far  as  we  are  able  at  its 
own  valuation,  we  have  found  it  to  be,  like  the  Incarnate 
Word,  at  once  human  and  Divine ;  we  have  found  it  to 
be  on  its  material  side  subject  to  the  conditions  and 
limitations  which  beset  our  humanity — limitations  local 
and  temporal,  racial  and  individual — limitations  natural 
to  the  finite  when  brought  into  close  juxtaposition  to  the 
infinite.  At  the  same  time  we  have  seen  in  it  another 
aspect,  the  Divine,  in  virtue  of  which  it  has  proved  to  be 
an  unerring  guide  in  the  ethical  and  spiritual  realm — '  a 
lamp  unto  my  feet  and  a  light  unto  my  path.'  ^  Like 
man  himself,  made,  according  to  its  own  dictum,  in  the 
image  of  God,  it  is  yet  formed  of  the  'dust  of  the 
ground' — its  physical  affinities  are  with  the  lower 
creation. 

Investigation  into  the  literary  characteristics  of  the 
Bible,  and  the  psychological  basis  of  its  religious 
phenomena,  illustrated  for  us  in  various  ways  their 
double  relationship,  and  made  clear  a  close  aflinity 
between  Holy  Writ  and  what  lies  outside  its  bounds. 

*  Ps.  cxix.  105. 
251 


252  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Literary  analysis,  with  its  complex  results,  while 
increasing  for  us  the  marvel  of  the  completed  Bible's 
undoubted  unity,  evolved  out  of  such  bewilderingly 
complex  processes  of  compilation,  such  apparently 
accidental  or  casual  processes  of  selection,  brought  us 
on  to  ground  from  which  the  vast  plains  of  heathendom 
were  clearly  visible  falling  away  (here  and  there  almost 
by  insensible  gradients)  from  the  heights  of  revealed 
religion.  We  found  the  sacred  historians  employing 
methods  similar  to  those  of  Arab  chroniclers;  using 
language  closely  paralleled  by  that  of  their  Moabite 
neighbours,  incorporating,  in  a  changed  form,  material 
indubitably  drawn  from  the  treasure-house  of  Babylonian 
mythology. 

We  glanced  also  at  the  phenomena  of  prophecy,  with 
its  humbler  antecedents,  and  paused  at  the  parting  of 
the  ways  where  Samuel  stands  still  in  the  realm  of 
clairvoyant  divination,  to  mark  the  dividing  line ;  where 
one  road,  steep  and  rugged,  leads  the  soothsayer  up  to 
the  mystic  heights  of  inspired  prophecy,  the  other, 
smooth  and  alluring,  descends  by  easy  gradients,  amid 
smiling  landscapes,  to  the  low  flats  of  pagan  soothsaying 
and  necromancy.  The  upper  road  itself  we  found  to 
bifurcate  at  a  certain  point,  where  the  choice  has  to  be 
made  between  a  response  (at  whatever  cost  of  un- 
popularity and  personal  isolation)  to  the  highest  stimulus, 
and  that  following  of  the  line  of  least  resistance,  that 
reaction  of  the  psychic  medium  to  the  stimulus  of 
popular  tendency,  which  is  the  mark  of  false  prophetism. 
It  is  the  choice  between  the  career  of  a  Jeremiah  and 
that  of  a  Hananiah. 

But  the  great  bifurcation  further  back  implied  a 
common  ancestry,  a  common  psychic  and  physical  basiS| 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    253 

for  the  human  side  of  scriptural  inspiration  as  exhibited 
in  the  prophet  and  that  of  the  quasi-inspiration  (if  it  is 
to  be  called  so)  of  Gentile  religion.  It  is  the  same  type 
of  nature  that  is  wrought  upon,  the  same  highly -strung, 
highly-gifted  psychic  endowment  with  susceptibility  to 
trance  and  sensory  automatism,  with  gifts  of  clair- 
voyance, of  telepathy  and  telaesthesia ;  but  in  the  one 
case  the  suggestions  received  and  acted  upon  uplift,  in 
the  other  case  they,  on  the  whole,  degrade.  The  soul 
that  is  nourished  upon  the  theological  sustenance  of  a 
pure  monotheism,  upon  faith  in  a  living,  personal,  and 
righteous  God,  whose  call  is  '  Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy,' 
moves  upward  (in  proportion  to  his  loyalty)  from  height 
to  height.  *  To  him  that  hath,  it  shall  be  given.'  The 
soul  which,  though  endowed  with  the  same  psychical 
characteristics,  is  nurtured  upon  a  polytheistic  mythology 
that  degrades,  though  he  prove  occasionally  better  than 
his  creed,  has  no  strong  antidote  against  the  poison  of 
the  diviner's  temptations  to  avarice  and  selfish  ambition, 
temptations  which  speedily  lead  on  to  self-deception  by 
the  path  of  fraud  and  trickery.  The  gulf  that  divides 
Hebrew  prophecy  at  its  best  from  pagan  soothsaying 
was  thus  amply  accounted  for,  but  a  common  ancestry 
and  common  basis  for  the  two  was  established.  And 
we  saw  further,  in  the  example  of  the  predominantly 
healthy  and  beneficent  influence  of  such  an  institution 
as  the  Delphic  Oracle,  traces  of  the  working  of  the 
'  Spirit  of  mercy,  truth,  and  love '  among  those  with 
whom  (as  Scripture  itself  teaches  us)  the  light  that 
lighteth  every  man  left  not  himself  at  any  time  entirely 
without  witness. 

We  were  led  to  see   the  marks  of  inspiration  more 
especially  in  the   intrinsic  truth  and  sublimity  of  the 


254  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

products,  and  in  their  fruits — their  influence  upon 
humanity.  We  seemed  to  see  that  the  intrinsic  test 
showed  no  rigid  correspondence  between  intensity  of 
psychic  excitation  and  intensity  of  inspired  result.  The 
most  imposing  testimony  to  the  inspiration  of  the  sacred 
Scriptures  of  Christendom  we  found  in  their  universal 
and  undying  appeal  to  humanity  of  every  type,  and  in 
their  power  to  educe  the  best  in  each — their  educative 
power. 

If  (and  so  far  as)  like  results  are  seen  to  flow  from 
the  sacred  books  of  heathendom,  can  we  deny  to  them 
also  a  measure  of  inspiration  ?  Whatever  is  good  in 
them,  we  are  sure,  must  be  of  God.  Be  these  scattered 
lights  the  survivals  of  a  primitive  revelation  (or,  at  any 
rate,  of  a  purer  religious  system  that  has  suffered  decay), 
or  be  they  rather  blind  gropings  of  those  whom  God 
made  to  seek  Him  *  if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him 
and  find  Him' — in  either  case  their  origin  is  the  same. 
'  Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect  boon  is  from  above.' 

Not  all  of  them,  indeed,  claim  for  themselves  a  special 
inspiration  or  a  supernatural  origin.  The  sacred  books 
of  China,  for  instance,  though  they  contain  some  of  the 
most  beautiful  and  inspiring  thoughts  in  all  literature, 
make  no  such  claim. 

The  extant  *  Bibles '  of  other  peoples  and  religions 
belong  each  and  all  of  them  to  the  Asiatic  continent. 
The  religions  of  Africa  (except  Egypt),  Australasia,  and 
Polynesia,  never  seem  to  have  lifted  their  votaries,  even 
in  the  course  of  countless  centuries,  to  the  stage  of 
civilization  at  which  language  expresses  itself  in  written 
symbol  and  rudimentary  forms  of  literature.  The 
indigenous  civilizations  of  North  and  South  America, 
which,  when  Europeans  first  penetrated  into  Mexico  and 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    255 

Peru,  had  already  reached  a  comparatively  advanced 
stage,  involving  elaborate  and  complex  religious  rites, 
have  left  to  us  nothing  that  can  be  called  sacred  litera- 
ture."^ Unfortunately  for  the  modern  anthropologist, 
the  European  conquerors  of  the  sixteenth  century  took 
no  scientific  interest  on  what  they  found  established  in 
those  lands,  and  concerned  themselves  only  to  enrich 
themselves  with  the  booty  which  the  helpless  ciWlization 
of  the  New  World  provided,  and  to  plant  on  the  embers 
of  that  regime  which  they  so  sedulously  destroyed,  the 
structure  of  a  somewhat  degraded  form  of  Christianity. 

But  Asia  (from  which  our  own  Bible  comes  to  us) 
is  rich  in  sacred  books — books  which  have  become 
familiar  to  the  present  generation,  thanks  to  Professor 
Max  Muller's  great  scheme  of  publication,  as  the  '  Sacred 
Books  of  the  East/ 

The  one  exception  is  Egypt,  which,  among  a  most 
bewildering  mass  of  sacred  monuments  furnished  with 
inscriptions,  has  left  us  one  legacy  at  least  which 
deserves  the  name  of  a  sacred  book — namely,  the  famous 
Book  of  the  Dead.  But  perhaps  Egypt  may  be 
regarded  as  only  apparently  exceptional,  for  by  history 
and  tradition  the  Nile  Yalley  belongs  more  to  Asia  than 
to  Africa. 

In  the  remains  of  Egyptian  and  Mesopotamian  sacred 
literature  we  are  dealing  with  material  partly  coeval 
with  and  partly  earlier  than  the  literature  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  emanating  from  nations  with  which  the 
Hebrews  came  into  definite  contact  during  the  period  in 
which  their  own  Bible  was  growing  up.  The  Egyptian 
religious   literature   seems,   however,   to    have    left    no 

♦  The  clue  to  the  interpretation  of  such  Aztec  writing  as  remains 
is  unfortunately  lost. 


256  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS  j 

i 

traceable  impress  upon  that  of  the  Hebrews  ;  and  , 
though  the  Babylonian  literature  (wholly  or  largely  ' 
Semitic)  has  left  its  mark  unmistakably  upon  the  ; 
Hebrew  Bible,  the  date  of  the  contact  is  probably  to  be  | 
placed  very  far  back,  in  the  beginnings  of  the  Hebrew  j 
people.  The  only  other  sacred  Semitic  literature  that  | 
will  come  before  us  is  the  Koran — the  latest-born  of  all  | 
the  world's  sacred  books  —  and  the  relation  of  the  ! 
Koran  to  the  Old  Testament  as  to  the  Christian  Bible  is  ' 
a  derivative  one.  The  founder  of  Islam  seems  to  have  ' 
incorporated  in  his  book  a  number  of  scraps  of  half-  { 
understood  Jewish  and  Christian  tradition.  The  rest  of  j 
the  Asiatic  Bibles  come  down  to  us  from  the  other  great  '< 
branches  of  the  human  races — from  our  fellow- Aryans  of  i 
Persia  and  Hindostan,  and  from  the  Turanian  races  of  ' 
China. 

The  sacred  literature  of  Persia  is  the  only  one  of  these 
that   can,   with   any   likelihood,   be   supposed    to   have  ' 
exercised   a   direct   influence   upon   the   Hebrew  Bible.  , 
The  policy  of  Cyrus,  predicted  by  their  own  prophet,  ! 
doubtless   affected   the   Jews  in   general   with   a   more  i 
con(?iliatory   attitude   towards    the    Persians — in   whom  | 
J  recognized  fellow-monotheists,  worshippers  of  *  The 
of   Heaven' — than  they  adopted  towards  Gentile  i 
nations  as  a  rule.     If  it  is  almost  inconceivable  that  the  i 
Old  Testament  writers  during  the   Exile   should   have 
borrowed  religious  ideas  or   phrases  directly  from  the 
hated  Babylonians,  it  is  not,  a  priori,  improbable  that  ■ 
the  latest  phases  of  the  Old  Testament  literature  should  \ 
owe  something  to  intellectual  contact  with  their  Persian 
deliverers  and  benefactors.     The  actual  traces  of  Zoro-  | 
astrian  influence  may  be  difficult   to  discover,  but  the  I 
discovery  of  such  traces  would  not  surprise  us.  j 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    257 

A  comparison,  however,  of  the  Bible  with  other 
sacred  books  —  a  comparison  very  rough  and  general 
such  as  can  be  given  here — will  gain  rather  than  lose 
from  the  fact  that  the  books  are  independent  of  each 
other. 

And  first  we  may  point  out  certain  general  character- 
istics which  all  '  Bibles '  seem  to  share — characteristics 
common  to  the  sacred  books  of  Persia,  India,  and  China, 
and  shared,  presumably,  by  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  as 
would  doubtless  be  evident  did  we  possess  any  great 
representative  collection  of  the  sacred  literature  of 
those  countries. 

In  every  case  the  Bible  is  a  Bihliotheca  Divina,  a 
sacred  library  rather  than  a  single  work.  To  the  Bibles 
of  the  Further  East,  as  to  that  of  Judaism  and  Christen- 
dom, many  hands  contributed ;  they  were  built  up  in  the 
course  of  long  periods,  and  form,  more  or  less,  a  'national 
literature.'  The  first  Hebrew  Canon  (though  not  the 
earliest  element  in  the  nation's  literature)  was  the  Law, 
with  its  ritual  and  ceremonial  directions,  and  its  precise 
and  elaborate  provision  for  systematic  religious  observ- 
ances. This  is  based,  no  doubt,  on  a  tradition  of  simpler, 
yet  still  elaborate,  formulae  passed  down  from  generation 
to  generation  in  the  Priestly  caste.  So,  too,  in  the  most 
venerable  sacred  books  of  the  East,  the  earliest  portions, 
so  far  as  can  be  traced,  consist  chiefly  of  liturgical 
formulae  and  ritual  texts,  amplified  later,  sometimes,  by 
elaborate  hymns.  This  fact  is  also  illustrated  by  the 
phenomenon  of  the  Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead,  which 
is  simply  a  mass  of  religious  formulae  and  magical 
incantations  and  hymns.  But  the  Egyptian  Book,  while 
illustrating  the  principle  aforesaid,  and  also  the  prin- 
ciple of  compilation  and  gradual   growth,  is   probably 

17 


258  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

unique  in  the  utter  disregard  of  consistency  with  which 
additions  and  expansions  were  made  by  votaries  of  one 
or  other  of  the  numberless  different  cults  embraced  in 
the  bewildering  polytheism  of  ancient  Egypt.  But 
without  such  a  degree  of  inconsistency,  an  immense 
variety  is  possible  within  the  limits  of  a  single  collection, 
as  we  have  seen  in  our  study  of  that  Divine  Library  in 
which  we  found  the  characteristics  of  unity  and  diversity 
exhibited  side  by  side  to  an  almost  inconceivable 
degree. 

If  our  Bible  contains  many  types  of  literature,  and 
much  material  that  is  far  removed  from  the  original 
nucleus  of  religious  formulae,  so  also  do  the  sacred  books 
of  Persia  and  India. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  'religious,'  whether  priests 
or  men  in  minor  orders,  or  monks  or  friars,  had  an 
almost  complete  monopoly  of  the  scrivener's  art.  The 
very  word  *  clerk ' — which  with  us  most  commonly  means 
a  writer — witnesses  eloquently  to  this  fact.  It  was  the 
'  clergy '  who  wrote  down  whatever  was  written,  and 
read  whatever  was  read.  In  their  hands  tradition,  in  all 
its  forms,  was  gathered  up.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  all 
the  European  literature  that  has  come  down  to  us  from 
a  certain  period  has  passed  through  the  hands  of  this 
clerical  caste ;  that  we  owe  almost  entirely  to  it,  not  only 
the  theological  lore  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  its  gropings 
after  natural  science,  its  family  records  and  genealogies, 
its  chronicles  and  histories. 

If  Christendom  had  not  already  possessed  its  Canon 
of  Scripture,  fixed  and  closed,  we  may  well  imagine  that 
much  of  this  multifarious  lore  would  have  acquired,  in 
the  eyes  of  subsequent  generations,  a  special  sanctity,  as 
emanating  from  the  '  clerical  caste.'     Nor  would  there 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    259 

be  anything  obviously  incongruous,  from  a  literary  and 
historical  point  of  view,  in  imagining  such  a  fate  for 
the  works  of  the  saintly  Bede  or  the  noble  chronicle 
carried  forward  with  such  pious  care  from  generation  to 
generation  in  the  principal  religious  houses  of  England. 
Certainly  such  works  would  compare  very  favourably 
alike  in  religious  quality  and  in  historical  value  >\ath 
much  of  the  sacred  literature  of  the  ancient  world.  But 
the  point  we  desire  to  emphasize  at  present  is  the  way 
in  which  this  fact — that  the  Priestly  caste  has  always 
tended  to  be  the  learned  caste — has  affected  all  Bibles 
alike,  with  the  single  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  Koran, 
which  stands  in  this,  as  in  other  matters,  in  a  category 
by  itself.  The  fortunes  of  the  nation  concerned,  its 
historical  vicissitudes,  the  prowess  of  its  traditional 
heroes,  are  recorded  side  by  side  with  the  religious 
formulae ;  laws  and  statutes  of  no  directly  religious 
character;  scraps  of  national  mythology,  venerated 
because  of  their  antiquity ;  sayings  of  wise  men ; 
precepts  of  philosophy,  poetry  of  various  kinds,  gene- 
alogies, and  a  host  of  other  matters — all  these  have  found 
a  place  in  the  sacred  books  of  the  East,  have  shared  the 
prestige  of  the  more  ancient  and  the  more  directly 
religious  elements,  have  acquired  a  quasi-religious 
character  from  their  association  with  the  Priestly  caste. 

In  all  the  Bibles  alike,  except  the  Chinese,  a  claim 
to  some  sort  of  inspiration  is  made,  or  implied,  or  at 
least  a  claim  to  supernatural  origin;  and  in  all  alike 
there  is  a  tendency  to  support  this  claim  (sometimes 
with  more,  and  sometimes  with  less,  justification,  but 
always,  perhaps,  without  dishonest  intention)  by  assign- 
ing the  books  to  the  great  religious  leaders  of  antiquity, 
or  to  the  reputed  founder  of  the  religion. 


260  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Thus,  the  fragment  of  the  Persian  Zend-Avesta  that 
remains — one  book  out  of  an  original  total  of  twenty-one 
— contains  not  only  ancient  liturgies  and  hymns  and 
sacrificial  litanies,  but  also  laws  civil  and  religious 
(especially  concerning  ceremonial  purification),  and  a 
treatise  on  medicine.  There  is  an  account  of  the  spread 
of  Zoroastrianism,  and  the  person  of  Zoroaster  is  depicted, 
in  a  convincingly  human  form  in  the  earlier  parts,  and 
as  the  hero  of  fantastic  legend  in  the  later. 

The  Indian  Bibles,  the  sacred  books  of  Brahmanism 
and  of  Buddhism,  show  a  like  variety  of  style  and  matter 
in  their  component  elements.  Especially  is  this  visible 
in  the  Brahman-Hindu  literature.  The  Yedic  hymns 
[Mantras)  of  prayer,  praise,  and  thanksgiving,  in  verse 
or  prose,  are  supplemented  by  ritual  commentary  in  the 
BrahmanaSj  and  doctrinal  development  in  the  Upanishads. 
The  Laws  of  Menu — the  foundation  of  the  caste  system 
— ^provide  an  elaborate  rule  of  conduct,  like  that  of  the 
Pentateuch,  bringing  every  aspect  and  department  of 
life  under  the  dominion  of  religion;  while  the  great 
popular  epics,  the  Rdmayana  and  Mahdhhdrata,  supply 
the  element  of  heroic  legend  and  romance,  with  a  slender 
foundation  of  far-off  history.  The  sacred  books  of 
Brahmanism  are  remarkable  also  for  the  wide  range  of 
time  they  cover,  comparable  to  that  occupied  by  the 
composition  of  the  various  elements  of  the  Christian 
Bible.  The  Rig-Veda,  which  itself  shows  clear  traces  of 
an  elaborately  composite  origin,  involving  compilations, 
successive  additions,  and  redactions  or  editings  of  its 
various  parts,  may  lay  claim,  in  some  of  its  elements,  to 
a  very  high  antiquity  (1200-1100  B.C.),  even  these  being, 
probably,  the  products  of  a  considerable  previous 
development ;  while  the  great  epics  apparently  date  from 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    261 

about  500-200  B.C.,  tlie  Mahdbhdrata  liaving  been  subject 
also  to  later  additions. 

Nor  do  the  sacred  books  of  China  fall  behind  the  rest 
in  this  variety  of  matter  and  of  style.  The  Bible  of 
Taoism,  it  is  true  (representing  the  teaching  of  Lao-tsze, 
born  about  600  B.C.),  is  almost  entirely  metaphysical  and 
ethical  in  character,  and  akin  in  its  subject-matter  and 
the  elevation  of  its  ideas  to  some  of  the  best  philosophy 
of  ancient  Greece.  But  the  sacred  books  of  Confuciamsm, 
associated  with  the  name  of  Confucius  (Kung-foo-tsze, 
died  478  B.C.)  and  his  greatest  successor,  Mencius  (Meng- 
tsze,  died  288  B.C.),  'range  from  extremely  dry  chronicles 
to  the  interpretation  of  magical  formulas,  rules  of  conduct, 
and  sacred  songs,'  Mencius's  teaching  having  for  its  main 
theme  the  inculcation  of  reverence  in  every  department 
of  domestic  and  social  life. 

The  other  sacred  books  show,  then,  countless  analogies 
to  the  Bible,  alike  in  the  variety  of  the  elements  which 
compose  them  and  in  the  fact  that  they  represent  a 
gradual  growth — a  slowly  developed  literature. 

They  show  themselves  amenable  to  the  same  methods 
of  literary  criticism  (particularly  the  Brahman  books), 
and  several  of  them  make  a  similar  claim  to  Divine 
inspiration.  Thus,  the  Mantras  of  the  Vedic  literature 
are  ascribed  to  '  seers,'  who  wrote  down  what  they  '  saw ' 
— things  pre-existent,  absolutely  authoritative,  eternal. 
Further,  though  the  diiferent  portions  of  these  great 
literatures  vary  enormously  in  dignity  and  elevation 
of  style  and  spirit,  all  alike  contain  much  that  is  lofty 
and  inspiring,  nobly  expressed.  The  Li-Ki  of  Con- 
fucianism (completed  in  the  second  century  B.C.),  with  its 
doctrine  of  an  all-pervading  reverence,  is  responsible  for 
the  best  elements  in  the  Chinese  character  to-day,  and 


262  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

has  set  a  standard  still  maintained  with  remarkable 
fidelity  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  two  thousand  years. 

The  epics  of  Hinduism — to  say  nothing  of  the  earlier 
books — are  full  of  a  fine  heroic  spirit,  and  of  a  genuine 
feeling  after  union  between  heaven  and  earth,  expressed 
in  the  idea  of  transitory  incarnations  of  the  Divine 
Being.  The  sacred  books  of  Buddhism,  which  offer 
less  prominent  analogies  to  the  Christian  Bible  in  the 
diversity  of  their  contents,  come  perhaps  nearest  of  all 
in  the  impressive  beauty  of  their  moral  precepts, 
especially  the  Sidta  Fitaka,  in  which  are  enshrined 
the  discourses  of  Buddha  himself.  Nor  is  the  Zend- 
Avesta  wanting  in  noble  and  inspiring  thoughts.  And 
the  same  may  be  said  in  a  sense  of  the  Koran,  though 
its  peculiar  character  and  history  demand  that  it  shall 
be  left  for  separate  treatment  by  itself. 

If  this  be  so,  the  question  inevitably  arises  :  Can  we,  in 
these  days  of  free  inquiry  and  impartial  judgment, 
refuse  to  such  books  the  title  of  'inspired,'  if  we  still 
accord  it  to  our  own  Bible  ?  We  shall  admit  that  the 
analogies  between  our  Bible  and  those  of  ancient 
heathendom  are  many  and  striking.  The  Bible,  like 
them,  contains  traces  of  myth  and  legend,  tradition  that 
is  not  quite  history,  genealogical  and  other  matter 
which  of  itself  has  no  direct  bearing  upon  religion  at  all, 
apothegms  of  shrewd  worldly  wisdom,  dramatic  lyrics 
which  (on  the  surface,  at  any  rate)  breathe  the  spirit  of 
a  mere  human  love-song.  Like  them,  the  Bible  is,  in  one 
sense,  an  agelong  collection  of  national  literature,  which 
probably  attained  to  its  place  of  honour  and  authority,  as 
a  matter  of  fact  and  history,  in  a  way  largely  analogous 
to  that  by  which  the  sacred  books  of  the  East  were 
enthroned.      Its    books   were   first   received   partly,   it 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    268 

would  seem,  on  the  authority  of  the  '  caste  '  from  which 
they  emanated,  or  through  whose  hands  they  passed, 
partly  because  they,  many  of  them,  were  ascribed  (and 
that  not  always  correctly)  to  the  great  national  and 
religious  heroes  of  the  past—  a  Moses,  a  Samuel,  a  David, 
a  Solomon,  a  Job,  a  Daniel. 

All  this  may  be  granted,  and  yet  we  feel  that  the  real 
question  has  not  been  touched.  We  have  only  dealt  as 
yet  with  externals,  with  the  body  and  soul  of  the 
literature  we  are  comparing;  the  inner  spirit  remains 
unexplored. 

When  we  were  studying  inspiration,  we  saw  that, 
while  the  mere  claim  to  announce  the  Divine  message 
was  important  as  a  starting-point,  it  was  not  always  to 
be  looked  for,  nor  could  the  manifest  traces  of  psychic 
excitation  in  the  writer  be  safely  used  as  a  test  of 
inspirational  intensity.  More  helpful  criteria  could  be 
found  in  the  intrinsic  sublimity  of  a  scripture  and  its 
power  to  touch  and  elevate  and,  in  fact,  inspire,  not  only 
those  to  whom  it  was  first  addressed,  but  subsequent 
generations  too.  Nor  were  we  content  with  that.  We 
found  what  seemed  to  be  the  controlling  hand  of  inspira- 
tion as  much  in  the  whole  as  in  the  parts.  Even  the  least 
obviously  inspired  elements  of  the  Old  Testament  had  a 
claim  to  their  place  as  living  members  of  a  great 
organism;  as  contributing  to  a  vast  onward  movement 
which  culminated  outside  the  Old  Testament  itself ;  as 
adding  something  to  the  concrete  object-lesson  of  the 
Divine  dealings  with  a  race  selected  and  trained  to  be 
the  religious  teachers  of  mankind. 

Is  this  one  '  increasing  purpose  ^  to  be  traced,  however 
dimly,  through  the  pages  of  the  other  sacred  books  ? 
Are  their  various  elements  welded  together  not  so  much 


264  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

by  forged  logical  links  as  by  the  bonds  which  unite 
living  part  to  living  part  in  an  organism  that  lives  and 
grows?  Are  they  alive  to-day  at  all,  in  a  true  sense, 
with  a  life  that  is  progressive,  expansive,  self-com- 
municating ? 

Bishop  Westcott,  after  an  appreciative  survey  of  the 
Bibles  of   pre-Christian  religions,  condemned  them  as 
unhistorical,    retrogressive,    and    partial;    and    though 
nearly    twenty    years    have    passed,    and    enlightened 
Christendom    has,    on    the    whole,    adopted    a    more 
sympathetic  attitude  towards  the  religions  of  heathen- 
dom, and  a  more  critical  attitude  towards  its  own  sacred 
books,  the  judgment  remains  true  and  valuable.     The 
two  last  counts  depend,  in  a  sense,  upon  the  first.     A 
religion,  or  a  Bible,  will  be  retrogressive  and  partial  in 
proportion  as  it  is  unhistorical,  and  in  the  same  propor- 
tion it  will  tend  to  be  unfruitful.     Revelation  of  truth  is 
bound  up  with  life.     Inspiration  implies  that  the  condi- 
tions of  life  at  least  are  present  to  receive  the  Divine 
inbreathing.     As   a   matter  of   fact,   we  have  come   to 
realize  that  the  permanent  value  of  the  Old  Testament, 
as  of  the  New  Testament,  lies  in  the  fact  of  its  close 
touch  with  life  and  history.     Truth  grew  for  the  Hebrews 
because  it  was  not  relegated  to  the  region  of  abstract 
speculation,  but  was  worked  out,  often  very  painfully,  in 
flesh  and  blood.     The  chastening  discipline,  as  well  as 
the  success  and  progress,  of  the  national  life  contributed 
their   share  to  the   many-sidedness   of   truth.     So  was 
wrought  out,  for  instance,  the  lofty  conception  of  God  : 
thought,  stimulated  by  the  discipline  of  history,  moving 
on  from  the  idea  of  a  mere  tribal  Deity  to  that  of  One 
who  was,  in  a  real  sense.  Lord  of  the  Nations  too ;  from 
that  of  a  God  who  would  support  His  favourite  people, 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    265 

right  or  wrong,  to  that  of  One  whose  very  intimate 
relation  with  Israel  was  a  guarantee  that  He  would  visit 
upon  them  all  their  iniquities."^  So  gradually  the  God 
who  had  brought  Israel  out  of  Egypt  was  realized  to  be 
the  same  who  had  led  the  Philistines  from  Caphtor  and 
the  Syrians  from  Kir,t  and  who  was  ready  to  bring 
even  the  Ninevites  to  repentance  in  order  that  He  might 
pardon  them.  The  Deity  whose  sole  worshippers  the 
Hebrews  were  proud  to  be  was  One  who  would  welcome 
Egypt  and  Assyria  to  His  courts,  saying :  '  Blessed  be 
Egypt  my  people,  and  Assyria  the  work  of  my  hands, 
and  Israel  mine  inheritance.'  J 

So  it  was  also  with  other  ethical  and  religious  con- 
cepts— with  the  consciousness  of  individual  responsi- 
bility, which  appears  only,  in  its  mature  form,  in  Ezekiel ; 
with  that  of  the  superiority  of  heart-worship  to  religious 
ceremonial— one  of  the  principal  messages  of  the  great 
prophets.  Thus  the  conception  of  religion  grows.  At  first 
narrow  and  partial,  it  is  enriched  progi-essively  by  experi- 
ence, by  the  providential  discipline  of  life  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.  Because  the  revelation  is  constantly 
in  touch  with  history,  it  grows  and  expands,  till  at  last  it 
is  no  longer  national  or  even  racial,  but  a  message  for 
mankind.  Is  this  impression  left  on  us  by  any  of  the 
other  sacred  books  of  the  East  ? 

Its  historical  character  is  essential  to  our  Christian 
Bible.  Its  climax  is  in  the  New  Testament,  of  which  the 
message  is  that  a  Redeemer  has  actually  appeared,  and 
that  at  a  given  moment  of  time ;  that  God  has  actually 
revealed  Himself  in  a  real  human  life,  has  conquered  sin 
and  death,  not  in  idea  only,  but  in  fact;  and  offers  to 
every  soul  of  man  an  actual  share  in  His  victory  on  con- 
*  Amos  iii.  2.  f  Ibid.^  ix.  7.  |  Isa.  xix.  24. 


266  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

ditions  wMcli  are  practicable ;  that  liumanity,  and  every 
individual  man,  has  the  opportunity  of  a  fresh  start  in 
Christ,  who  suffered  under  Pontius  Pilate,  and  ^rose  again 
the  third  day/  and  is  ^  alive  for  ever  more/  St.  John  felt 
that  everything  depended  on  the  confession  that  '  Jesus 
Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh/ "^  and  the  Church  realized 
so  strongly  the  importance  of  emphasizing  the  historical 
character  of  the  grounds  of  her  hope  that  she  actually 
inserted  into  the  framework  of  her  creed  the  name  of 
Pontius  Pilate.  The  distinctively  Christian  part  of  our 
Bible  is  historical,  or  it  is  nothing.  If  Christ  be  not 
come  in  the  flesh — if  Christ  be  not  man — our  preaching 
and  our  faith  are  alike  vain.t  And  we  have  already 
seen  elsewhere  how  strong  is  the  basis  of  our  belief  that 
its  records  are  historical  in  every  sense  of  the  word  that 
matters. 

The  Old  Testament  Scriptures  are,  in  a  sense,  the 
historical  prelude  to  the  great  moment  of  the  '  fulness 
of  time/  which  is  the  theme  of  the  New. 

That  we  are  bidden  by  criticism  to  read  the  history  in 
a  new  way  does  not  fundamentally  alter  this  fact.  If 
the  chronology  that  lies  on  the  surface,  as  it  were,  of  the 
Old  Testament — the  chronology  adopted  by  Archbishop 
Ussher,  which  adorns  the  margin  of  old-fashioned  Bibles 
— has  proved  to  be  artificial  and  delusive,  the  fact  re- 
mains, and  comes  out,  in  some  ways  more  clearly  than 
before,  that  we  have  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  the  record 
of  a  revelation  worked  out  in  the  life  of  a  people.  His- 
torical matter  forms  the  greater  proportion  of  the  vvhole 
book,  and  the  non-historical  books  of  the  Prophets 
derive  much  of  their  significance  from  the  fact  that  their 
place  in  the  framework  of  the  history  is  determinable. 
*  1  John  iv.  2.  t  ^f-  1  Cor.  xv.  14. 


i 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    267 

And  if  the  metliods  of  the  Old  Testament  historians  are 
now  known  to  have  been  imperfect  from  the  scientifically 
historical  point  of  view  of  a  much  later  age,  that  does 
not  affect  the  matter  so  seriously  as  might  be  supposed. 
Errors,  as  we  should  call  them,  in  chronology,  and  the 
tendency  to  read  back  later  ideas  into  earlier  periods,  do  not 
affect  the  purpose  of  the  sacred  historians,  which  is  clearly 
that  of  tracing  the  governing  and  disciplining  hand 
of  God  in  the  nation^s  career.  Nor  do  they  seriously 
affect  the  final  result.  For  not  only  did  the  Hebrew 
historians  see  this  guiding  hand,  but  they  have  enabled 
us  also  to  see  it.  We  who  think  we  can  detect  some  of 
their  errors,  and  attain  to  a  truer  estimate  of  this  and 
that  period  of  their  history  than  its  own  historians  achieved, 
are  deeply  beholden  to  those  whom  we  criticize,  for  by 
their  help  we,  too,  are  able  to  mark  the  hand  of  God  in  the 
nation's  career.  We  can  see  Him  revealing  Himself 
more  and  more  in  the  history  and  in  the  people,  in  their 
prophets  and  their  prophetic  historians,  their  priests,  their 
psalmists  and  poets,  their  wise  men.  We  can  watch  the 
prophets  as  they  unfold  the  Divine  message  and  apply  it 
to  the  varying  circumstances  of  the  national  life.  We 
can  see  the  moral  and  spiritual  character  of  the  religion 
being  perfected  through  suffering.  We  can  watch  the 
light  growing  as  the  day  dawns,  till  the  'Sun  of  Right- 
eousness arise  '  at  the  first  Christmastide. 

When  we  turn  from  the  Christian  Bible  to  the  sacred 
books  of  the  East,  we  find  no  such  close  and  constant 
touch  with  history,  and  in  consequence  we  miss  the 
progressive,  living,  and  growing  character  of  the  Bible's 
revelation,  and  its  universal  appeal,  begotten  of  a  vital 
contact  with  human  nature  on  many  sides  and  through  a 
long  series  of  centuries. 


268  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Of  the  Zend-Avesta,  perhaps,  it  is  not  fair  to  speak  so 
decisively  as  of  the  other  books,  because  so  little  of  it 
remains — scarcely  a  twentieth  part,  perhaps,  of  the 
original  total.  But  it  is  significant  that  in  what  is  left 
to  us,  the  outcome,  perhaps,  of  some  eight  centuries  of 
accretion — a  period  equal  to  that  which  separates  Amos 
from  St.  Paul — the  historical  matter,  such  as  it  is, 
covers  little  more  than  a  single  generation,  and  even  the 
record  of  the  mission  of  Zoroaster  himself  is  given  without 
any  detail. 

The  Hindu  Bible  is  even  more  remarkable  for  its  want 
of  historical  substratum,  a  trait  which  partly  expresses, 
and  is  in  part,  no  doubt,  the  result  of  that  curious 
insensibility  to  the  force  of  historical  argument  which 
Western  missionaries  notice  in  the  peoples  of  India  to- 
day. With  all  the  range  of  the  Hindu  sacred  literature, 
of  which  the  Vedas  alone  probably  cover  a  period  of 
more  than  a  thousand  years,  it  has  been  observed  that 
the  history  of  Hindustan  '  remains  dateless  till  after 
the  invasion  of  Alexander  the  Great'  in  the  fourth 
century  B.C. 

In  Hebrew  history  a  conjectural  chronology,  within  a 
few  years  of  the  actual,  can  be  carried  back  as  far  as 
Solomon  or  David  (some  would  say  still  further),  and  by 
the  eighth  century  we  are  on  firm  ground. 

If  the  Vedds  offer  no  sure  historical  standing-ground, 
what  of  the  epics  of  later  days  ?  The  Rdmdyana  and 
the  Mahdbhdrata — the  latter  a  stupendous  work,  about 
seven  times  the  length  of  Iliad  and  Odyssey  put  together 
— may  contain,  like  the  Homeric  poems,  a  nucleus  of 
history  hidden  away  among  its  legendary  and  mytho- 
logical matter;  the  Wars  of  the  Kansavas  and  the 
Pandavas,  with  their  countless  episodes,  may  be  as  much 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    269 

(or  as  little)  historical  as  tliose  of  the  Trojans  and  the 
Achaians;  but  the  record  of  them  cannot  by  any  stretch 
of  language  be  described  as  historical  in  the  same  sense 
as  are  the  records  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

When  we  pass  to  China,  we  come  to  an  apparent 
exception.  The  Shoo-King,  one  of  the  Confucian 
classics,  professes  to  give  continuous  historical  records 
of  a  period  of  more  than  1,700  years — from  2357  to 
627  B.C.  (corresponding,  according  to  the  traditional 
chronology  of  Ussher,  to  the  time  between  Noah's 
middle  life  and  the  last  century  of  the  Judaean  king- 
dom): it  recounts  'the  rise  and  fall  of  dynasties  .  .  . 
personal  successes  and  failures  .  .  .  real  and  striking 
incidents  illustrative  of  national  policy  and  national 
character.'  But  this  advantage  is  matched  or  out- 
weighed by  grave  defects  in  other  directions,  which 
render  the  Confucian  literature  unworthy  to  be  classed 
with  technically  religious  books  at  all.  It  recognizes, 
in  fact,  no  Divine  object  of  worship. 

If  the  pre-Christian  sacred  literatures  offer  a  contrast 
to  the  Christian  Bible  in  the  matter  of  vital  contact  with 
human  history,  the  contrast  is  perhaps  greater  still 
when  we  come  to  mark  the  movement  and  tendency 
which  the  literatures  illustrate  and  express.  In  the  one 
case  there  is,  on  the  whole,  an  advance;  in  the  other, 
a  retrogression :  in  the  one  case  it  is  an  upward,  in  the 
other  a  downward  movement.  And  this  follows,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  from  the  relation  to  history  and  life. 

The  Old  Testament  is  marked  off  from  all  the  rest  of 
ancient  literature  in  that  it  looks  steadily  forward,  and 
not  backward.  The  '  Grolden  Age '  of  the  Gentile 
nations  lay  far  back  in  the  past.  The  so-called 
'  Messianic  Eclogue  *  of  Yergil,  in  which  the  poet  has 


270  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

caught,  perhaps,  the  spirit  of  the  more  than  half  Jewish 
'  Sibylline  Oracles,^  is  an  exception  that  proves  the  rule. 
And  even  here  it  is  not  so  much  a  '  new  heaven  and  a 
new  earth  ^  that  are  looked  for  as  a  return  of  the  glories 
of  primeval  days  : 

•.  .  .  Kedeunt  Saturniaregna.'* 

As  it  was  with  the  classical  literature  that  had  no 
'  Bible '  of  its  own,  so  is  it  also  with  the  sacred  books  of 
the  East.  The  contrast  with  the  Old  Testament  is 
fundamental.  The  Hebrew  historians  do  indeed,  in 
times  of  national  gloom  and  depression,  cast  wistful 
glances  back  to  the  wondrous  days  of  Moses,  the  heroic 
doings  of  David,  the  material  glories  of  Solomon's  reign ; 
but  the  prominent  and  distinctive  feature  of  the  Old 
Testament  literature  is  that  Messianic  hope,  that 
constant  looking  forward  to  a  Divine  Deliverer,  to  a 
day  of  the  Lord  when  righteousness  and  peace  shall 
reign,  which  culminates  in  the  psalmists  and  the 
prophets.  The  Cause  of  the  world's  religion  was  bound 
up  with  the  history  of  the  Hebrew  people,  and  they 
knew  it.  Therefore  they  looked  forward,  and  not  back. 
The  Old  Testament  needs  the  New  Testament  to 
complete  it.  *  It  is  easy,'  says  Bishop  Westcott,  '  to  see 
how  the  Old  Testament,  if  it  remains  by  itself  un- 
consummated  by  the  New,  passes  through  the  Mishna 
into  the  Talmud.'  Even  inspired  teaching,  if  it  finds  no 
opportunity  of  realizing  itself  consciously  in  the  active 
life  of  a  society,  tends  to  evaporate  into  speculative 
theory,  or  to  shrink  into  cramping  formalism.  So  the 
Old  Testament  in  the  hands  of  unbelieving  Jews  lost  its 
true    goal,  and  dissipated  its  vital  power   in  the   arid 

*  Eel.  iv.  6. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    271 

wastes  and  dismal  swamps  of  Rabbinism — deserts  not 
without  an  occasional  oasis,  it  is  true ;  morasses  not  with- 
out points  of  secure  and  solid  ground,  but  contrasting 
most  strikingly  with  that  Divine  commentary  upon  the 
Old  Testament  which  is  furnished  by  the  New.  The 
candid  Jew  of  to-day  is  foremost  to  admit  that,  while 
the  Rabbinic  literature  of  the  second  and  following 
centuries  a.d.  has  been  grievously  maligned  and  mis- 
understood by  Christian  scholars,  even  the  Jewish 
student  must  search  patiently  through  masses  of  useless 
and  uninteresting  matter  ere  he  comes  upon  a  nugget 
of  gold;  while  the  New  Testament  is,  as  it  were,  one 
mass  of  precious  metal.  There  every  word  tells — every 
chapter,  every  verse  almost,  has  a  living  message  to  the 
reader. 

The  same  contrast  appears  when  we  compare  the  New 
Testament — or  the  Bible  as  a  whole — with  the  sacred 
books  of  the  East.  As  the  Old  Testament  in  Jewish 
hands  fades  away  into  Mishna  and  G-emara,  so  the 
Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead  becomes  overlaid  with 
mutually  inconsistent  commentaries  of  an  exceedingly 
perplexing  kind.  So,  too,  the  vigorous  spirit  of  the 
Yedas  melts  away  into  the  ritual  commentary  of  the 
Brahmanas  and  the  speculative  dreams  of  the  Upanishads. 
Here,  as  in  the  Chinese  and  the  Persian  sacred  books, 
we  find  the  noblest  thoughts  and  aspirations  at  the 
beginning.  As  the  Rig- Veda  is  the  climax  of  the  Hindu 
literature,  so,  too,  the  G-athas  form  at  once  the  earliest 
and  the  noblest  element  in  the  Zend-Avesta.  The  same 
retrogressive  principle  is  visible  (though,  perhaps,  in  a 
less  marked  degree)  in  the  sacred  literature  of  Taoism 
and  Confucianism.  In  each  of  these  the  'Primary 
Classics ' — the  works  rightly  valued  most — come  first  in 


272  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

time  :  the  '  Five  King '  of  Confucianism  before  the  '  Four 
Shoo/  and  the  Tao-tih-king  of  Lao-tsze  before  the  less 
noble  Kan-ying~peen  and  Tin-chih-wan. 

Nor  is  the  Pali  literature  of  Buddhism  free  from  the 
same  defect,  if  it  be  true  that  the  Ahidharma  Pitaka,  or 
*  Basket  of  Speculation/  is  at  once  its  least  inspiring  and 
its  latest  element.^ 

The  sacred  books  that  have  not  struck  their  roots 
deep  and  wide  into  the  soil  of  human  nature  and  human 
history  have  failed,  not  only  to  grow  heavenward,  but 
also  to  spread  their  branches  abroad  over  the  earth. 
They  are  not  only  stunted  in  their  upward  growth,  but 
restricted  in  their  range.  It  is  the  glory  of  the  Bible 
that,  having  had  its  origin  in  narrow  and  insignificant 
Palestine,  it  has  yet  a  real  and  living  message  to  all  the 
earth. 

The  potentialities  of  the  Old  Testament  in  this  respect 
were  not  realized  till  it  had  been  illumined  by  the 
completed  life  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  glory  of  His 
resurrection — not,  indeed,  until  some  time  after  the 
ascended  Lord  had  sent  down  His  illuminating  gift  at 
Pentecost.  Once  realized,  however,  those  potentialities 
became  obvious,  and  since  then  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures,  with  their  Divine  commentary  of  the  New 
Testament,  have  gone  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer. 

Each  of  the  greater  religions  of  the  Orient — ^Zoro- 
astrianism,  Brahmanism,  Buddhism,  Taoism,  Con- 
fucianism— has  had  its  day  of  progress  and  of  conquest 

■^  In  frankness  it  must  be  owned  that  some  would  see  a  similar 
deterioration  within  the  limits  of  the  Old  Testament,  where  the 
Hagiographa  would  on  an  average  be  regarded  as  on  a  lower  level 
than  the  prophets,  and  also  in  the  New  Testament,  if  2  Peter  be 
accepted  as  the  latest.  But  taking  the  Christian  Bible  as  a  whole, 
there  is  an  ascending  movement  from  Old  Testament  to  New. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    273 

— far  back  in  the  centuries.  Zoroastrianism  lias  been  dead 
for  many  centuries  as  an  influential  or  a  national  religion, 
though  a  form  of  it  still  survives  among  the  Parsees. 

Brahmanism  still  holds  sway  over  millions  of  people, 
and  so  does  Buddhism  in  one  or  other  of  its  forms ;  but 
their  days  of  progress  are  over.  Like  Zoroastrianism, 
they  have  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  past,  and  their  feet 
meanwhile  have  become  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  an 
elaborate  traditionalism.  The  civilization  they  represent 
is  at  a  standstill,  except  so  far  as  it  is  stirred  by  the 
stimulus  of  enforced  contact  with  the  West.  Still  more 
emphatically  is  this  true  of  Confucianism.  In  China  we 
have  the  spectacle  of  an  arrested  development  of  twenty 
centuries'  duration,  and  it  is  directly  due  to  the 
influence  of  its  sacred  books.  *  Mencius,'  says  Bishop 
Westcott,  '  gave  his  countrymen  the  type  of  Confucius 
as  the  attainable  image  of  the  perfect  man,  and  for  two 
thousand  years  they  have  rested  in  it.'  Confucianism 
has  produced  that  '  self-sufficiency '  of  the  Chinese  char- 
acter which  is  content  without  progress  or  advance;  a 
life  that  is  no  life  because  it  is  innocent  of  change. 

The  want  of  progress,  and  the  failure  to  grow  inwardly 
and  outwardly,  is  due  to  a  deficiency  of  expansive  power, 
a  lack  of  elasticity,  of  a  faculty  of  self-adaptation  to 
new  conditions.  This  it  is  that  gives  to  the  religions  of 
the  East  and  to  their  sacred  books  their  partial  and 
local  character.  Each  of  them  has  its  noble  and 
inspiring  thoughts ;  but  they  fail  hopelessly  to  cover  the 
whole  ground.  In  the  sphere  of  religion  they  represent 
at  best  little  more  than  a  '  psalter  completed  by  a  law 
of  ritual.'  Some  of  them  are  not  religious  in  the  strict 
sense  at  all.  Confucianism  is  a  positivist  creed  that 
refuses  to  look  higher  than  man ;  Buddhism  an  agnostic 

18 


274  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

philosopliy  too  modest  to  glance  upwards.  Zoro- 
astrianism,  monotlieistic  in  its  tendency,  was  yet  based 
on  a  dualism  which  practically  divided  the  sovereignty 
of  the  universe  between  Ahuramazda  and  Ahriman — 
between  a  good  and  an  evil  power.  Brahmanism,  itself 
rather  a  philosophy  than  a  religion,  is  based  on  the 
ancient  Hindu  polytheism  represented  in  the  Ye  das  and 
the  Puranas. 

Buddhism  and  the  native  Chinese  cults  are  alike 
negative  and  repressive  in  their  influence.  Their  sacred 
books  know  of  no  positive  spiritual  stimulus  such  as  can 
transfigure  a  growing  life  and  make  it  develop  and  expand 
ideally.  Buddhism,  with  all  the  wonderful  graces  of 
the  character  it  fosters,  with  all  the  moral  beauty  of 
its  precepts,  bears  with  it  its  own  condemnation  in  its 
endeavour  to  annihilate  the  seats  of  temptation,  its 
despair  of  purifying  them,  and  turning  them  to  '  newness 
of  life.' 

The  Koran  might,  at  first  sight,  seem  more  in  a 
position  to  establish  its  claim  to  a  place  side  by  side 
with  the  Christian  Bible,  and  that  on  several  counts. 

In  the  first  place,  the  religion  associated  with  this 
remarkable  book  is  the  only  one  except  Christianity 
that  is  unquestionably  enlarging  its  borders  and  spread- 
ing itself  over  new  territories  to-day.  Zoroastrianism  is 
a  thing  of  the  past,  almost  as  extinct  as  the  far  inferior 
religions  of  ancient  Egypt  and  Babylon,  of  Greece  and 
Kome.  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism  and  Confucianism 
and  Taoism,  though  they  still  bulk  largely  within  a 
certain  defined  radius,  are  losing  rather  than  gaining 
ground.  Meanwhile  Islam,  a  religion  which  venerates 
its  sacred  book  more,  perhaps,  than  any  other  in  the 
world,  is  making  headway.     In  the  Soudan  especially 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    275 

(where  it  has  been  given,  perhaps,  more  than  a  fair 
advantage  by  the  scrupulousness  of  British  policy)  the 
religion  of  the  Koran  is  making,  among  tribes  long 
accustomed  to  Arab  influence,  a  progress  that  is 
viewed  with  something  like  consternation  by  the 
Christian  world. 

Further,  though  the  Koran  itself,  being  the  work  of 
a  single  man,  does  not  exhibit  that  working  out  of 
a  revelation  in  the  agelong  history  of  a  people  which  we 
have  found  impressed  in  a  very  rudimentary  form  on  the 
sacred  books  of  Gentile  religion,  and  with  remarkable 
perfection  on  the  Old  Testament,  it  does  compress  into 
the  short  period  of  a  single  lifetime  the  results  of  a 
growing  mental  capacity,  of  struggle  and  controversy, 
disappointment  and  failure,  of  progress  and  victory. 
It  bears  also,  especially  in  certain  places,  the  marks 
of  a  strong  conviction  of  personal  mission,  of  a  nature 
highly  strung  and  psychically  sensitive,  yet  withal  pos- 
sessed of  uncommon  shrewdness  and  insight  into  human 
nature. 

Moreover,  though  it  is  easy  from  the  Christian  point 
of  view  to  judge  and  to  condemn  the  Koran  by  its  fruits, 
to  denounce  its  policy  of  conversion  at  the  point  of  the 
sword,  its  degradation  of  the  family,  and  so  forth,  there 
is  a  retort  ready  at  hand  for  the  Mohammedan  con- 
troversialist. Christendom  has  not  always  been  inno- 
cent of  using  forcible  methods  of  conversion.  Indeed,  a 
candid  examination  of  the  history  of  the  conversion  of 
Europe  since  the  days  of  Constantine  will  shew  few 
spots  outside  the  British  Isles  where  Christianity  has 
been  planted  without  the  use  of  violent  measures — 
measures  analogous  to  those  exhibited  and  approved  in 
the  early  stages  of  Old  Testament  history,  and  drawn 


276  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

(so  the  Moslem  miglit  urge)  from  the  Christian  Bible. 
Nor  from  the  side  of  sexual  morality  was  mediaeval 
Christendom,  nor  is  modern  Christendom,  in  a  position  to 
'  cast  the  first  stone ';  though  in  this  the  blame  cannot  be 
laid  upon  the  Scriptures.  In  the  days  of  heroic  conflict 
between  Christendom  and  Islam,  the  latter  produced 
leaders  of  chivalry  as  noble  as  any  on  the  Christian  side. 
Eichard  Coeur-de-Lion  must  acknowledge  in  Saladin  his 
knightly  peer.  And  were  not  the  Moslem  Aristotelians 
the  precursors  of  the  scholastic  learning  of  mediaeval 
Christendom  ? 

Mohammedanism  was  from  the  first,  on  its  best  side,  a 
protest  on  behalf  of  monotheism  against  the  idolatry 
prevailing  among  the  Arabs  —  a  protest  uttered  and 
reiterated  by  one  who,  at  any  rate  at  the  beginning  of 
his  public  career,  believed  himself  called  of  God  to 
extirpate  idolatry,  and  to  play  the  great  legislative  role 
among  his  own  countrymen  which  he  understood  to  have 
been  performed  for  the  Jews  by  Moses,  and  for  the 
Christians  by  Jesus.  It  still  retains  some  of  the  impetus 
of  that  early  zeal  and  conviction,  and  that  may  account 
for  its  23resent-day  successes  where  it  comes  upon  African 
tribes  in  much  the  same  state  of  religious  development 
as  were  the  Arabs  among  whom  it  was  first  launched. 
But  whatever  may  be  said  for  Islam,  a  first-hand 
acquaintance  with  its  sacred  book  will  quickly  dispel 
any  expectation  of  finding  in  the  Koran  a  rival  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures.  Indeed,  were  it  not  for  its  noble 
monotheistic  zeal,  and  for  certain  characteristics  borrowed 
directly  or  indirectly  from  Jewish  and  Christian  sources, 
an  impartial  critic  would  probably  place  it  far  below 
the  level  of  those  ancient  sacred  books  of  the  Gentile 
world  which  we  have  been  considering.     To  compare  it 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACKED  BOOKS    277 

with  the  Bible  would  be,  frankly,  ridiculous.  Its  con- 
fused and  incoherent  pages,  interspersed  with  occasional 
passages  of  sublime  beauty  and  truth,  are  apt  to  give 
the  casual  Western  reader  an  exaggerated  view  of  the 
disorder  which  must  have  prevailed  in  the  mind  from 
which  they  emanated.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  dis- 
connected and  inconsequent  character  of  the  so-called 
'  revelations '  as  they  stand  is  partly  due  to  the  way  in 
which  the  Koran  assumed  its  permanent  form.  The 
prophet\s  literary  remains — written  down  by  his  scribes, 
partly  on  skins,  partly  on  dried  leaves — seem  to  have 
been  left  at  his  death  in  a  disordered  and  incomplete 
state.  His  disciple  Abu  Bekr  collected  the  writings,  and, 
instead  of  attempting  to  arrange  them  in  a  chronological 
or  logical  order,  had  them  transcribed  on  a  principle  of 
which  the  main  point  was  to  put  the  longest  Suras  first 
and  the  shortest  last.  Thus  the  revelation  accounted 
earliest  by  tradition  appears  as  the  first  half  of 
Sura  xcvi.,  which  bears  the  unpleasant  title  of  '  Con- 
gealed  Blood/  and  runs  as  follows  :  '  Read,  in  the  name 
of  thy  Lord,  who  hath  created  all  things;  who  hath 
created  man  of  congealed  blood.  Read,  by  thy  most 
beneficent  Lord ;  who  taught  the  use  of  the  pen ;  who 
teacheth  man  that  which  he  knoweth  not.'"^ 

The  orthodox  theory  about  the  Koran  is  that  on  a 
certain  night,  '  the  night  of  Al  Kadr,'  t  it  was  sent  down 
by  the  Almighty  from  beside  His  throne  to  the  lowest 
heaven,  where  it  was  placed  in  charge  of  the  angel 
G-abriel,  and  by  him  delivered  in  portion  to  Mohammed 
from  time  to  time.  Contemporary  criticism  taunted  the 
prophet  with  his  inability  to  produce  it  all  at  once.  At 
the  end  of  the  seventeenth  sura  he  meets  this  criticism 
*  Sale's  translation.  j  Sura  xcvii. 


278  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

with  a  '  revelation ':  *  We  have  divided  the  Koran, 
revealing  it  by  parcels,  that  thou  mightest  read  it  unto 
men  with  deliberation ;  and  we  have  sent  it  down, 
causing  it  to  descend  as  occasion  required/ 

In  this  '  revelation  by  parcels '  we  can  discern  a  kind 
of  evolution,  in  spite  of  the  entire  absence  of  order  which 
characterizes  the  collection.  The  shorter  suras,  which 
are  in  many  cases  the  earliest,  have  a  preponderantly 
*  mediumistic '  character,  and  are  recognized  as  being  the 
outcome  of  s(ktnces,  in  which  the  prophet  was  in  a  species 
of  epileptic  trance — a  type  of  utterance  that  among  the 
early  Arab  believers  would  carry  with  it  its  own  creden- 
tials of  inspiration.  Later  on  the  conditions  of  abnormal 
psychic  excitation  become  less  apparent;  we  have  a 
period  of  longer  utterances  of  a  more  logical  and  dog- 
matic type,  and  meanwhile  there  grows  up  also  a  tendency 
among  the  revelations  to  assume  a  more  controversial 
character,  and  to  become  more  obscure  to  us,  because 
more  and  more  directed  against  the  assaults  of  contem- 
porary criticism.  At  a  comparatively  early  period  we 
find  Mohammed  borrowing  freely,  and  often  most  inaccu- 
rately, from  Jewish  and  Christian  legend.  A  typical 
instance  is  the  identification  he  makes  between  Mary 
(Miriam)  the  sister  of  Moses  and  the  mother  of  Jesus. 
At  a  later  period,  life,  with  its  triumphs  and  disappoint- 
ments, had  given  him  enough  to  say  without  borrowing 
from  such  sources;  though  he  retains  the  colouring  of 
biblical  phraseology  picked  up  in  early  days  from  inter- 
course with  Christians  and  Arabian  Jews,"^  and  not  seldom 

*  Margoliouth,  '  Mohammed,'  p.  60,  instances  such  phrases  as 
'  tasting  death,'  '  to  bring  from  darkness  to  light,'  '  the  trumpet 
shall  be  blown,'  *to  roll  up  the  heavens  as  a  scroll  is  rolled  up,' 
'the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth,'  'that  which  eye  hath  not 
seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  hath  entered  into  the  heart  of  man.' 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    279 

has  to  use  his  wits  to  meet  criticisms  directed  against 
his  earlier  borrowings. 

Perhaps  it  may  not  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  Koran  itself  go  a  long  way  in  support  of 
that  title  of  ^  The  False  Prophet/  which  was  his  favourite 
designation  in  the  mouths  of  mediaBval  Christians.  His 
work,  in  its  more  rudimentary  stages,  evinces  very  strongly 
the  impress  of  abnormal  psychic  excitation  to  which  we 
have  already  referred.  It  is  practically  certain  that  he 
was  subject  to  epileptic  fits.  The  evidence  shows  that 
his  ^  revelations '  were  attended  by  fits  of  unconscious- 
ness, '  accompanied '  (or  preceded)  '  at  times  by  the  sound 
of  bells  in  the  ears,  or  the  belief  that  someone  was 
present ;  by  a  sense  of  fright  such  as  to  make  the  patient 
burst  out  into  perspiration ;  by  turning  of  the  head  to 
one  side ;  by  foaming  at  the  mouth  ;  by  the  reddening 
or  whitening  of  the  face;  by  a  sense  of  headache.'"'^  To 
such  a  subject  the  psychic  phenomena  which  we  have 
noticed  in  some  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  might  come 
naturally.  He  might  see  things  in  trance;  he  would 
certainly  hear  voices  which  had  no  material  counterpart. 
He  was  fitted  in  certain  specific  ways  to  be  the  channel 
of  a  Divine  message  to  his  countrymen.  Nor  was  he 
lacking  in  credentials  which  the  more  devout-minded  of 
them  would  be  ready  to  accept.  Abnormal  mental  con- 
ditions have  always  tended  to  win  the  reverence  of 
certain  races,  and  ^  madness  '  has  something  sacred  about 
it  in  the  ages  of  primitive  peoples.  Mohammed  had  great 
difficulties  in  dealing  with  scepticism  among  the  people 
of  Mecca,  and  it  was  long  before  he  could  produce  any 
'  miracle '  to  convince  them  other  than  those  '  revelations ' 
which  were  afterwards  embodied  in  the  Koran.  But  the 
*  Margoliouth,  op.  cit^ 


280  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

seances  at  which  these  were  produced  won  him  a  faithful 
nucleus  of  followers,  and  his  career  as  a  prophet  was 
begun.  If  the  Koran  had  nothing  else  to  show,  we 
might  have  retained  a  belief  in  the  sincerity  of  its 
author.  .  But  the  later  developments  of  the  prophet\s 
career  as  exhibited  in  the  book  suggest  a  declension 
through  vanity  and  ambition  to  such  self-deception  as 
we  found  to  be  characteristic  of  the  false  prophets  of  the 
Old  Testament.  That  his  fits  were  as  a  rule  subject  in 
some  degree  to  his  own  control  would  not  in  any  case  be 
surprising — we  have  witnessed  the  same  thing  in  the 
case  of  the  prophetic  excitation — but  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  the  symptoms  were  often  artificially  pro- 
duced. Moreover,  the  controversial  passages  of  the 
Koran  exhibit  a  tendency  to  '  bluff '  criticism  with  a 
fresh  revelation  from  the  angel  Grabriel;  and  there  is 
more  than  one  instance  on  record  in  which  a  spontaneous 
^  revelation ' — sometimes  correcting  or  modifying  a  pre- 
vious one — followed  immediately  upon  a  suggestion  to 
the  same  effect  by  a  human  friend. 

In  fine,  whether  or  not  we  are  right  in  our  estimate  of 
Mohammed  as  one  who,  in  the  circumstances  in  which 
he  was  raised  up,  had  the  choice  of  becoming  a  true  or 
a  false  prophet  to  his  people,  and,  after  a  sincere  and 
strenuous  beginning,  chose  the  lower  part,  and  prostituted 
his  genius  for  the  sake  of  a  material  success  which  he 
certainly  achieved ;  the  Koran  has  certainly  no  intrinsic 
right  to  be  classed  with  the  Christian  Bible.  Its  sparks 
of  inspiration,  if  such  they  be,  are  smothered  in  a  heavy 
mass  of  barren  controversy,  with  which  are  mingled 
numberless  stray  scraps  of  borrowed  legend  and  story, 
cut  away  from  their  contexts,  hopelessly  misunderstood, 
yet  reverenced,  as  all  writings,  good  or  bad,  shallow  or 


THE  BIBLE  AND  OTHER  SACRED  BOOKS    281 

profound,  are   reverenced   by   a   traditionally  illiterate 
people. 

If  the  Koran  and  its  religion  still  live  on,  is  it  not  in 
virtue  of  Mohammed's  earlier  zeal- — a  zeal  against 
idolatry  which  was  wholly  pure  and  sound  ?  That  it 
can  ever  succeed,  in  these  latter  days,  in  making  headway 
among  progressive  nations,  its  own  record  as  a  blight 
upon  the  countries  it  has  conquered  might  well  make 
us  doubt.  A  politically  regenerated  Turkey  may  have 
some  fruit  to  show ;  but  the  essence  of  the  new  regime 
is  religious  toleration,  and  that  is  the  negation  of 
traditional  Mohammedanism. 

Our  Bible  contains  every  type  of  true  and  valuable 
religious  literature  that  is  to  be  found  in  non-Christian 
sacred  books,  from  the  products  of  high  psychic  excita- 
tion to  those  of  devout  reflection  and  ratiocination  :  prose 
and  poetry,  vision  and  chronicle,  mystic  flights  and 
apothegms  of  shrewd  practical  wisdom,  religious  out- 
pourings and  ethical  precepts.  AVhat  wq  admire  in  the 
Vedas,  in  the  Zend-Avesta,  in  the  works  of  Lao-tsze, 
Confucius,  and  Mencius,  in  the  sublime  precepts  of 
Gautama-Buddha,  in  the  splendid  zeal  of  Mohammed — 
all  is  there,  and  far  more  besides.  There  is  a  theology 
latent  in  the  Bible  that  will  never  become  obsolete ;  there 
is  a  human  life  depicted  there  which  will  supply  in- 
exhaustible ideals  for  men  of  every  race  and  generation ; 
there  is  a  regenerating  power  in  the  sacramental  truths 
enunciated  there  that  none  of  the  other  'Bibles'  can  point 
to.  By  the  side  of  the  revelations  embodied  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures  the  sacred  books  of  China  show 
themselves  not  religion  at  all,  but  mere  philosophy; 
Buddhism  is  but  negative;  Islam,  with  its  remote, 
despotic  God,  void  of  all  message  of  redeeming  love, 


282  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

If  we  are  still,  in  view  of  our  previous  studies,  prepared 
to  admit  an  outpouring  of  Divine  inspiration  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  Christian  Bible,  we  shall  be  forced  to  admit 
that  the  comparative  intensity  of  inspiration  concentrated 
upon  those  Scriptures  goes  so  far  beyond  what  we  can 
detect  elsewhere  in  the  recognized  scriptures  of  other 
faiths — albeit  we  have  learnt  to  see  the  hovering  of 

' .  .  .  The  white  wings  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
O'er  dusky  tribes  and  twilight  centuries.  .  .  .' 

— that  the  difference  in  degree  becomes,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  a  difference  in  kind. 

We  feel,  therefore,  that  we  are  still  justified  in  apply- 
ing the  word  in  a  special  sense  to  the  Christian  Bible, 
and  that  it  might  be  well,  in  the  interests  of  scientific 
precision  and  logical  clearness,  to  use  some  other  word, 
such  as  '  illumination,^  to  describe  the  Spirit^s  operation 
in  other  fields. 


THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE 

Our  study  of  some  of  the  general  aspects  of  that  great 
collection  of  Hebrew  and  Christian  literature  which  we 
call  the  Bible  has  helped  us,  it  may  be,  towards  the 
solution  of  some  of  the  most  pressing  problems  of 
present-day  religion.  The  Bible  itself,  interpreted  in 
the  light  of  modern  knowledge,  has  shown  us  the  hand 
of  God  at  work  in  human  history  more  clearly  than  we 
had  been  able  to  discern  it  before ;  we  see  the  Almighty 
revealing  Himself  concretely  in  the  life  and  fortunes  of 
a  single  nation,  and  more  especially  in  its  intellectual 
and  spiritual  life  and  fortunes — that  gradual  and  pro- 
gressive unfolding  of  Divine  truth,  revealed  portion  by 
portion  as  man  was  able  to  bear  it. 

And  this  progressive  revelation,  vouchsafed  in  and 
through  Israel,  culminating  in  the  coming  of  One  who 
summed  up  in  Himself  all  Israel  and  all  humanity, 
enabled  us  to  see  more  clearly  the  '  broken  lights '  of 
Divine  illumination  scattered  about  the  world ;  those 
gleams  radiated  from  the  *  Light  that  lighteth  every 
man '  upon  the  very  darkest  corners  of  the  earth.  Read- 
ing the  Bible  in  this  way,  we  have  not  felt  it  an  outrage 
to  the  uniqueness  and  supremacy  of  the  Divine  revela- 
tion, given  to  all  the  world  in  and  through  a  chosen 
people,  to  recognize  and  acknowledge  the  hand  of  God 

283 


284  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

in  Gentile  history  and  in  ethnic  religion.     There,  too, 
we  have  watched  the  light  and  darkness  in  conflict,  but 
we  have  seen  the  darkness  more  and  more  prevail.     The 
heathen  religions,  if  not,  all  of  them,  by  any  means  as 
black  as  they  have  been  painted  by  former  Christian 
or    Jewish     controversialists,   seem    to    be    marked   in 
general  by  a  principle  of  retrogression.     Thus,  the  frank 
comparison  of  the  sacred  books  of  the  pagan  world  with 
our  Bible,   while   it  has  taught  us   to  recognize  many 
analogies  between  the  religions  which  those  sacred  books 
represent  and  that  out  of  which  our  own  has  been,  by 
God^s  Providence,  developed — while  it  has  emphasized 
for  us  the  unity  of  mankind,  the  identity  of  its  religious 
instincts  and  religious  needs — has  not  seriously  blurred 
the  line  of  demarcation  which  we  still  can  discern.     The 
phenomena  on  this  and  that  side  of  the  line  are  more 
closely  related  than  we  had  thought.     If  the  surface, 
where  life  is  actively  at  work,  presents  a  remarkable 
and   essential    difference,   the    two    regions   are   linked 
together  underground  by  the   uninterrupted  continimm 
of   the   same   geological    stratifications.      At   the   same 
time,  the  vital  difference  up  above  ground  justifies  us  in 
using  the  old  terms,  though  perhaps  in  a  somewhat  less 
rigid  sense — justifies  us  in  applying  to  the  Hebrew  and 
Christian  religion  and  to  its  sacred  Scriptures  the  words 
'  revelation  *  and  '  inspiration '  in  a  special  way.     If  we 
hesitate  to  employ  terms  which  would  imply  too  definite 
and  too  absolute  a  restriction  of  the  Spirit's  action;  if  we 
no   longer   apply   the    epithets    '  uninspired '    and   '  un- 
revealed '    with   the   same    confidence    to    the    Gentile 
phenomena;  if  our  claim  for  the  Christian  Scriptures  is 
in  some  ways  a  less  exclusive  one,  it  is  not  because  we 
no  longer  recognize  a  vital  distinction.     Call  it,  if  you 


THE  MEAOTNa  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    285 

will,  a  mere  difference  of  degree  that  separates  the  Bible 
revelation  from  the  analogous  phenomena  of  heathen- 
dom :  the  difference  is  yet  so  intense,  so  fundamental 
alike  in  its  theoretical  and  its  practical  outcome,  that  it 
virtually  constitutes  a  difference  in  hind.  The  Bible, 
and  the  Bible  revelation — Judaism  in  the  midst  of 
ancient,  and  Christianity  in  the  midst  of  modern 
religions — are  unique,  in  spite  of  their  many  'under- 
ground '  relationships  with  what  lies  beyond  them. 

The  situation  as  regards  the  Bible  itself  is  somewhat 
as  follows  :  As  children  in  the  faith  we  received  the 
Scriptures  at  the  hand  of  the  Church,  and  on  lier 
authority  accepted  them,  provisionally,  as  uniquely  in- 
spired by  God,  uniquely  useful  for  the  guidance  of 
man's  spiritual  life.  What  we  accepted  originally  (as 
children  must  do)  on  authority,  we  examined  and  tested 
later  (as  full-grown  men  will  do)  in  the  light  of  all  our 
knowledge.  We  found  much  at  first  calculated  to 
unsettle  us  ;  for,  in  fact,  our  views  of  '  inspiration  '  and 
of  what  Holy  Scripture  ought  to  be  were  unscientific, 
and  failed,  therefore,  to  fit  into  the  framework  of  the 
larger  knowledge.  But,  in  the  end,  the  traditional 
authority  was,  in  a  general  way,  abundantly  and 
triumphantly  justified.  Study  showed  that  the  human 
qualities  of  the  Bible,  its  limitations,  local,  racial, 
temporal,  were  but  an  effective  foil  to  the  Divine. 
Where  at  first  sight  it  would  seem  to  have  most  in 
common  with  the  least  scientific  products  of  paganism — 
as  in  the  story  of  Creation — there  it  most  strikingly 
displays  its  superiority  in  the  one  matter  that  is  germane 
to  a  revelation — in  its  theological  and  religious  teaching. 
On  the  side  of  religious  theory  the  Bible  is  found  to 
be  unique  and   supreme,  displaying  to  us  the   gradual 


286  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

unfolding  of  a  conception  of  God,  man,  and  the  universe 
which  has  proved  acceptable,  congenial,  and  inspiring  to 
many  of  the  best  minds  of  every  race,  age,  and  clime. 
Its  theoretical  greatness  has  been  matched  by  a 
practical  efficiency  quite  as  remarkable.  The  uniquely 
close  relation  between  the  theology  and  the  ethics  of 
the  Bible  has  made  it  the  power  in  the  world  that  it  has 
been. 

A  theology  that  is  interwoven  into  the  very  texture  of 
man's  practical  life — that,  perhaps,  Brahmanism  may  be 
said  to  offer  in  its  Laws  of  Menu,  though  these  are 
hardly,  in  strictness,  theological.  But  that  such  a 
theology  should  lift  man  up  to  higher  and  ever  higher 
levels,  should  restore  him  when  he  had  fallen  away, 
should  offer  a  continuous  spectacle  of  successive  revivals 
and  re-aspirations — this  is  a  thing  without  parallel  in  the 
ancient  and  modern  world,  without  parallel  certainly  in 
those  sacred  scriptures  of  heathendom  in  which  the 
retrogressive  principle  is  so  clearly  to  be  seen.  In  the 
great  pagan  religions  the  theology,  speaking  generally, 
either  is  negligible  as  a  practical  influence,  or  else  it 
has  a  positively  deteriorating  effect  upon  character; 
so  that  a  philosophical  superstructure  is  necessary  to 
counteract  its  evil  effects. 

The  Bible,  on  the  contrary,  where  religion  and  ethics 
are  blended  in  the  phrases,  *  Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy,' 
*  Ye  therefore  shall  be  perfect,  as  your  Father  in  heaven 
is  perfect,'"^  has  exerted  a  uniquely  powerful  influence 
wherever  it  has  passed.  We  have  witnessed  its  magis- 
terial and  educative  work  upon  the  nations  of  Europe, 
and  have  realized  that  its  power  is  just  as  remarkable 
upon  the  child-races  of  to-day.  We  have  seen  its  hand 
*  Lev.  xi.  44,  etc.  ;  Matt.  v.  48 ;  1  Pet.  i.  15,  16. 


THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    287 

upon  our  own  liistory  and  literature  from  the  days  of 
Bede  to  our  own  time.  We  have  noted  the  inspiring 
influence  which  it  seems  to  exert  upon  those  who  feed 
their  souls  and  their  minds  upon  it — its  influence  upon 
individual  character.  All  this,  and  much  more,  that 
resulted  from  our  investigation  of  the  different  aspects 
of  the  Bible  justified  in  our  eyes  the  unique  position 
given  to  the  Scriptures  by  the  Church,  and  encouraged 
us  to  augur  for  them  a  future  worthy  of  their  great  past. 

But  two  important  questions  remain  unsolved  and 
practically  untouched.  (1)  What  is  the  relation  of  the 
individual  to  the  Church's  authority  with  regard  to  the 
interpretation  of  the  Holy  Scripture  ?  (2)  What  is  the 
practical  outcome  of  recent  criticism  in  its  bearing  upon 
the  religious  and  devotional  study  of  the  Bible  of  to-day  ? 

Some  attempt  must  be  made  to  face  these  questions, 
unless  the  whole  of  our  investigation  is  to  be  rendered 
futile — to  face,  at  any  rate,  if  not  to  solve.  It  may  well 
be  that  here,  as  in  the  case  of  inspiration,  no  exact  or 
scientific  definition  may  be  forthcoming  as  yet.  More 
harm  than  good  is  done  by  premature  attempts  to  bring 
to  a  final  decision  matters  for  the  definition  of  which  we 
have  not  as  yet  all  the  data  at  hand.  But  if  we  are  to 
wait  for  a  provisional  answer  to  these  two  questions  till 
criticism  and  archaeology  have  found  their  final  adjust- 
ments j  till  the  Synoptic  problem  has  attained  a  solution 
which  no  sane  man  can  dispute;  till  the  authorship  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel  and  that  of  the  Apocalypse  have  been 
demonstrated  with  mathematical  certainty — then  we 
shall  have  solved  also,  in  a  very  unfortunate  way,  the 
problem  of  the  Bible's  influence  upon  our  own  genera- 
tion. For  while  we  wait,  in  doubt  as  to  the  precise  atti- 
tude we  ought  to  adopt,  we  deprive  our  spiritual  life  of  its 


288  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

normal  sustenance :  like  a  man  who  should  sit  and 
starve  with  a  generous  provision  of  food  laid  out  before 
him,  because  he  is  doubtful  about  the  etiquette  of  the 
meal,  or  because — still  more  perversely — he  is  unable  to 
follow  out  and  to  define  clearly  to  his  own  satisfaction 
the  series  of  digestive  processes  by  which  the  food,  if  he 
take  it,  will  repair  the  waste  of  his  system  and  give  him 
nourishment. 

(1)  As  regards  the  question  of  the  Church  and  the  Bible, 
or,  rather,  that  of  Church  authority  and  individual  judg- 
ment in  the  use  and  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  we  have 
already  made  some  little  headway.  We  have  practically 
admitted  the  absurdity  of  both  extremes.  To  exalt  the 
Scriptures  to  a  throne  of  absolute  authority,  and  invent 
a  religion  of  the  Bible  and  the  Bible  only,  is  not  only  an 
insult  and  an  outrage  to  the  Church  which  gave  us  the 
Bible ;  it  is  a  procedure  at  once  unscientific  in  itself  and 
self -stultifying  in  its  consequences.  It  is  unscientific  in 
itself  because  it  ignores  altogether  the  history  of  the 
Bible — the  way  it  grew  up,  and  the  means  by  which  it 
attained  its  present  commanding  position.  We  have 
seen  how  the  actual  history  of  the  growth  of  the  Canon 
of  Scripture  makes  the  Church  as  a  whole  responsible 
for  the  preservation  and  the  selection  of  those  books 
which  actually  form  our  Bible.  Moreover,  as  the  Canon 
of  Scripture  grew  up  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  and 
the  elements  of  which  the  Canon  is  composed  had  their 
origin  and  development  within  the  Church — Jewish  and 
Christian — any  method  of  using  and  interpreting  the 
Scriptures  will  be  unscientific  which  takes  them  violently 
out  of  their  context.  The  Epistles  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, for  instance,  were  obviously  written  to  individuals 
or  communities  already  grounded  in  the  faith,  already 


THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    289 

trained  in  elementary  Christian  duty  and  practice.  It 
is  the  differentia  with  which  they  primarily  deal — '  not 
laying  again  a  foundation  of  repentance  from  dead 
works,  and  of  faith  toward  God,  of  the  teaching  of 
baptisms,  and  of  laying  on  of  hands,' "^  and  so  forth, 
though  these  things  come  up  incidentally  from  time  to 
time.  Taking  for  granted  the  'form  of  sound  words/ 
'  the  deposit '  of  the  faith,  and  the  whole  round  of 
Christian  practice,  the  New  Testament  writers  dwell  upon 
the  problems  with  which  their  particular  readers  happen 
at  the  moment  to  be  confronted,  or  emphasize  those 
aspects  of  the  truth  which  chance  to  be  most  neglected 
by  them. 

Thus,  in  a  very  important  section  of  the  Christian 
Scriptures,  and  one  from  which  every  devout  reader 
would  of  necessity  draw  many  of  his  leading  ideas, 
history  shows  us  that  there  is  nothing  like  a  regular  or 
proportionate  system  of  teaching  set  forth;  and  that 
to  take  these  writings  out  of  their  context,  out  of  the 
atmosphere  of  Church  life  to  which  they  properly 
belong,  with  all  its  presuppositions  and  implications, 
would  be  fatally  misleading.  True,  an  elaborate  and 
consistent  system  of  doctrine  can  be  drawn  up  from 
these  and  the  other  Scriptures — a  system  which  amounts 
to  a  philosophy  of  life  and  a  theory  of  the  universe — 
but  to  make  such  a  system  true  and  proportionate ;  to 
give  the  right  weight  to  the  implications  as  well  as  to 
the  direct  utterances  of  Scripture  ;  to  restore  in  its  true 
proportions  the  framework  in  which  these  utterances 
were  originally  set — this  can  only  be  done,  if  it  can  be 
done  at  all,  from  within.  We  may  conjecturally  re- 
construct  the  details  and  the   tendencies  of   primitive 

*  Heb.  vi.  1,  2. 

19 


290  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Church  life,  and  may  form  our  own  judgments  as  to 
what  was  essential,  and  what  merely  temporary  and 
accidental.  That  we  can  do  so  at  all  is  largely  possible 
because  of  the  light  thrown  upon  the  matter  by  the 
writings  of  the  early  Fathers  and  Church  historians. 

But  to  perform  this  reconstruction  in  a  really  satis- 
factory way  is  obviously  possible  only  to  those  who  have 
never  lost  touch  with  ecclesiastical  tradition.  The  Bible 
itself  is  by  far  the  most  considerable  document  for  the 
reconstruction  of  primitive  Christianity,  but  it  does  not 
cover  the  whole  ground.  It  tells  us  so  itself  in  not  a 
few  places.  ^  Beginning  from  Moses  and  from  all  the 
prophets,  he  interpreted  to  them  in  all  the  Scriptures 
the  things  concerning  himself.'"^  Where  are  the  details 
of  this  interpretation,  unless  they  have  diffused  them- 
selves through  the  consciousness  of  the  Church  and 
affected  the  general  lines  of  her  Old  Testament  inter- 
pretation ? 

'There  are  also  many  other  things  which  Jesus  did, 
the  which,  if  they  should  be  written  every  one,  I  suppose 
that  even  the  world  itself  would  not  contain  the  books 
that  should  be  written.^  t  Where  are  the  results  of  these 
numberless  unrecorded  acts  to  be  looked  for,  if  not  in 
that  very  strong  conviction  of  the  Lord's  unique  person- 
ality and  work  which  the  Early  Church  formulated  in  its 
creed  ? 

' .  .  .  Appearing  unto  them  by  the  space  of  forty  days, 
and  speaking  the  things  concerning  the  kingdom  of 
Grod.'t  Where  are  we  to  look  for  the  outcome  of  this 
assiduous  teaching,  if  not  in  the  life,  practice,  and  faith 
of  the  Church  which  believed  itself  to  be  the  kingdom 
of  God  upon  earth  ? 

*  Luke  xxiv.  27.  t  John  xxi.  25.  J  Acts  i.  3. 


THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    291 

Granted  that  Holy  Scripture,  by  the  wonderful  dis- 
position of  Providence,  contains  all  things  necessary  for 
salvation ;  granted  that  out  of  its  unsystematic  and  frag- 
mentary records  a  complete  system  of  doctrine  can  be 
elicited,  it  is  clearly  unscientific  to  take  Scripture  violently 
out  of  its  historical  context,  to  throw  away  the  one  means 
offered  to  us  by  which  we  may  hope  to  discover  the  scope 
and  the  proportions  of  its  teaching,  unravel  its  enigmas 
and  obscurities,  supply  its  implications,  fill  up  the  blanks 
which  it  leaves  unfilled. 

Furthermore,  to  divorce  Scripture  from  the  historic 
Church,  if  unscientific  and  unwarranted  in  itself,  is  also 
fatal  in  its  results. 

Private  judgment  has  its  place,  as  we  shall  see,  and 
the  responsibility  of  individual  conviction;  but  the  effect 
of  private  judgment  since  the  Reformation  has  been  the 
indefinite  multiplication  of  sects,  each  of  which  claims 
a  monopoly  of  the  truth.  Private  judgment  which  sets 
up  an  infallible  Bible,  verbally  inspired,  and  claims  for 
it  inerrancy  on  all  matters  whatsoever,  is  already  stultified 
by  the  results  of  modern  knowledge,  and  needs  to  fear, 
'  lest  haply '  it  ^  be  found  even  to  be  fighting  against 
God.^"^  The  infallibility  of  the  Bible  proves  theoretically 
untenable,  while  practically  it  is  just  as  elusive  as  the 
modern  Roman  doctrine  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope ; 
seeing  that  every  man^s  views  drawn  from  the  same 
infallible  Scriptures  will  differ  in  greater  or  less  degree 
from  those  of  every  other. 

But  while  the  extreme  individualist  attitude  towards 

the   Bible,   which   utterly   ignores   the   relation   of   the 

Church  to  her  own   Scriptures,  is  clearly  unhistorical, 

unscientific,  illogical,  and  productive  of  disastrous  con- 

*  Acts  V.  39. 


292  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

fusion,  we  have  already  realized  that  there  are  difficulties 
also  at  the  other  extreme. 

A  blind  acceptance  of  ecclesiastical  authority  in  de- 
ciding every  question  in  heaven  and  earth  is  no  longer 
possible  for  thinking  men.  That  authority  which,  as 
represented  by  the  medieeval  and  modern  Papacy,  has 
been  a  constant  obstruction  to  the  advance  of  knowledge, 
and  an  enemy  to  the  very  spirit  of  free  inquiry,  is  in  great 
disfavour  now  among  large  sections  even  of  the  Latin 
peoples  of  Europe.  The  Modernist  who,  while  he  pays 
homage  to  science  and  to  intellectual  truth,  yet  retains 
by  an  act  of  heroic  inconsistency  his  allegiance  to  the 
historic  Papacy,  is  constrained  to  draw  a  distinction 
between  the  principles  of  authority  and  its  abuse; 
between  the  Churches  Divine  system  and  those  who  are 
at  present  exploiting  that  system  in  the  interests  of  an 
obsolete  mediaevalism.  And  many  of  us  who  would  share 
with  the  Modernist  his  faith  in  the  permanent  value  of 
an  ecclesiastical  authority,  and  even  of  an  ecclesiastical 
tradition,  would  now  be  inclined,  not  only  to  draw  a  dis- 
tinction between  the  principle  of  authority  as  such  and 
its  partial  expression  in  any  given  time  or  place;  but  to 
recognize  also  that  there  is  a  rival  authority  which 
claims  to-day  a  share  of  our  homage.  The  authority  of 
the  scientific  expert,  paramount  within  the  limits  of  his 
expert  knowledge,  has  been  deferred  to  on  every  page 
of  this  volume.  How  are  we  to  adjust  the  claims  of 
these  two  authorities  ?  How  give  the  Church  her  due  as 
witness  and  keeper  of  Holy  Writ,  and  yet  be  true  to  the 
principle  of  free  investigation,  to  the  light  which,  though 
it  come  to  us  from  another  quarter,  we  welcome  as 
radiance  from  the  one  Spirit  of  Truth  ?  If  we  are  to  call 
the  Bible  inspired,  yet  acknowledge  the  fallibility  and 


THE  MEANINa  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    293 

tlie  actual  incorrectness  of  some  of  its  utterances  where 
religious  truth  is  not  directly  concerned,  may  we  not 
perhaps  take  up  a  similar  position  with  regard  to  the 
authority  of  the  Church  where  it  touches  upon  intel- 
lectual things  ?  If  the  Bible  is  inspired,  still  more  is  the 
Church  which  gave  us  the  Bible,  the  '  Spirit-bearing 
body '  of  Christ.  But  if  the  field  of  the  Bible's  direct 
inspiration  is  to  be  restricted  to  the  religious  sphere,  to 
the  realm  of  '  faith  and  morals '  very  strictly  so-called, 
may  it  not  be  so  with  the  Church  too  ? 

It  is  not  the  theologian,  but  the  geological  expert,  who 
can  judge  of  the  literal  truth  of  the  first  chapter  of 
Grenesis.  It  is  not  the  theologian,  but  the  expert  in  literary 
criticism,  who  can  analyze  according  to  the  rules  of  his  de- 
partment the  document  we  know  as  the  Book  of  Grenesis. 

The  defiant  proclaimer  of  the  earth's  rotatory  motion 
was  an  expert  in  that  subject;  his  inquisitorial  judges 
were  not,  though  they  had  all  the  traditional  ecclesi- 
astical authority  at  their  back.  On  the  other  hand, 
may  we  not  say  that  some  of  the  men  who  wrote  the 
Psalms  were  experts  in  the  spiritual  life;  that  St.  Luke 
was  an  expert  not  only  in  medical  science  of  his  day,  but 
in  the  subjects  on  which  he  has  written  in  his  Grospel 
and  in  the  Acts — at  least,  so  far  as  the  central  teaching 
of  them  is  concerned  ?  May  we  not  go  still  further  and 
claim  that  the  recognized  doctors  of  the  Early  Church — • 
men  like  St.  Athanasius,  St.  Basil,  St.  Chrysostom,  St. 
Augustine,  St.  Jerome — were  experts  in  the  interpretation 
of  the  spiritual  meaning  of  the  Scriptures  as  understood 
by  the  first  centuries  of  Christendom,  and  that  the 
Church  of  those  early  centuries  alone  has  the  key  to  the 
original  setting  and  context  of  the  Scriptures  as  she  first 
received  them  ? 


294  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

What  they  meant  to  the  Christians  of  the  first  few 
generations  they  should  mean,  substantially,  to  their 
successors,  though  there  will  be  of  necessity  a  change 
in  the  form  of  the  interpretation  corresponding  to  the 
change  of  general  standpoint  appropriate  to  each 
succeeding  generation.  'As  time  goes  on,^  says  St. 
Vincent  of  Lerins — *  as  time  goes  on,  it  is  right  that  the 
old  truths  should  be  elaborated,  polished,  filed  down ;  it 
is  wrong  that  they  should  be  changed,  maimed,  or 
mutilated.  They  should  be  made  clear,  have  light 
thrown  on  them,  be  marked  oif  from  each  other;  but 
they  must  not  lose  their  fulness,  their  entirety,  their 
essential  character.'  "^ 

The  words  are  those  of  the  author  of  the  famous 
phrase  which  has  been  a  watchword  of  reasonable 
dogmatism,  the  Quod  semper j  quod  ii^hique^quod  ah  omnibus, 
by  which  necessary  beliefs  are  restricted  to  that  which 
has  been  always  and  universally  held.  They  remind  us 
that  we  of  this  generation  are  not  the  first  to  discover 
the  necessity  of  restatement — of  reinterpretation  of  old 
truths.  In  every  department  of  knowledge  the  work  of 
experts  is  apt  to  require  modification  as  fresh  discoveries 
widen  the  field  of  the  knowable  and  bring  into  sight 
new  relations  and  a  new  perspective.  The  expert  work 
of  the  Church  is  no  exception  to  this  rule ;  in  some  ways 
the  principle  is  more  obviously  applicable  here  than 
elsewhere.  For  whereas  language  is  at  all  times  an 
imperfect  vehicle  for  the  expression  of  truth,  this  is 
especially  the  case  in  regard  to  those  deep  and  central 
realities  which  the  dogmas  and  formularies  of  the 
Church  attempt  to  put  into  words.  The  words  were 
never   adequate  from   the  first,  and  their  adequacy  is 

*  Cf. '  Commonitorium,'  xxiii.  Dr.  Lock  in '  Lux  Mundi,'  Essay  IX. 


THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    295 

diminislied  rather  than  increased  by  the  lapse  of  time, 
in  which  both  language  and  thought  have  suffered 
transformation. 

That  the  later  Church  should  feel  called  upon  to 
'  elaborate,  polish,  file  down '  the  earlier  expressions 
which  represent  the  best  effort  of  a  previous  generation 
would  not  be  surprising.  Contact  with  life,  the  neces- 
sity of  combating  new  errors  and  of  entering  upon  new 
fields  of  knowledge,  would  render  inevitable  such  a  pro- 
cess as  took  place  in  the  successive  modifications,  e.g.,  of 
the  original  Nicene  Creed,  by  which  it  assumed  its  final 
shape.  But  now  the  problem  assumes  a  wider  form. 
It  is  no  longer  a  question  of  later  ecclesiastical 
experts  amending  or  expanding  the  work  of  their  pre- 
decessors. 

Theological  knowledge  has  ceased  to  be  the  exclusive 
property  of  a  learned  clerical  caste.  It  lies  open  to  all 
alike,  without  respect  of  character  or  creed.  If  it  be 
still  true,  in  a  sense,  that  pecttcs  facit  theologum — that 
there  is  a  theology  unintelligible  except  to  the  devout, 
an  inner  shrine  in  which  *  spiritual  things  '  are  discerned 
by  the  spiritual  alone — it  is  true  also  that,  in  so  far  as 
theology  is  a  science,  accessible  to  the  intellect  as  such, 
it  is  open  to  anyone  of  sufficient  intellectual  capacity  to 
make  himself  an  expert  in  this  science,  and  in  this  sense 
of  the  word  Satan  himself  may  conceivably  be  the  best 
theologian  of  us  all !  The  alien  expert  may  dispute, 
on  grounds  of  philosophical  reasoning  or  of  historical 
evidence,  the  Churches  dicta  on  any  subjects  that  may 
come  within  the  range  of  such  evidence.  What,  then, 
becomes  of  the  authority  of  the  Church  in  matters  of 
faith  and  morals  ?  What  place  is  left  to  her  in  the 
interpretation  of  her  own  Scriptures  ? 


296  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

We  may  draw  a  distinction  first  of  all  between  her 
authority  as  it  affects  those  without  and  as  it  bears  on 
those  within  her  pale. 

To  those  without,  her  authority  is  simply  correlative  to 
her  expert  knowledge,  and  to  her  unique  relation  to  the 
Scriptures.  To  ignore  the  existence,  character,  growth, 
and  permanence  of  the  Christian  Church  would  be  the 
merest  folly  on  the  part  of  an  investigator  of  the  true 
meaning  and  value  of  the  New  Testament ;  he  would  be 
refusing  to  avail  himself  of  by  far  the  greatest  mass  of 
evidence  extant.  Indisputably  the  Church  and  the  New 
Testament  belong  to  each  other ;  they  were  born  in  the 
same  century,  in  the  same  region — nay,  the  New  Testa- 
ment was  nourished  in  the  bosom  of  the  Church. 

Further,  in  a  more  specific  sense,  the  Early  Church  (as 
we  have  already  seen)  is  the  only  expert  who  can  give 
first-hand  evidence  as  to  the  way  in  which  the  Scrip- 
tures were  understood  by  those  among  whom  they 
circulated  during  the  period  when  the  Canon  was  in 
process  of  formation.  The  expression  of  her  expert 
knowledge  may  need  revision,  for  the  world  has  moved 
on  since  then ;  but  substantially,  if  there  is  any  hope  of 
attaining  to  the  substance  of  the  truth,  it  is  to  be  looked 
for  in  her  statements.  These  statements  may  be  tested 
by  her  documentary  title-deeds — ^the  Scriptures  them- 
selves. The  Church  herself  has  laid  herself  open  to  such 
testing,  for  no  sooner  was  the  New  Testament  Canon 
settled  and  finally  received  than  she  at  once  made  the 
whole  body  of  Scripture  a  standard  of  teaching,  a  touch- 
stone of  developments  in  tradition ;  placed  the  book  of 
the  Grospels  upon  the  presidential  throne  in  her  councils, 
and  based  her  dogmatic  formularies — the  Nicene  Creed 
and  its  derivatives,  and  the  so-called  ^  Athanasian  ^  Creed 
— upon  Scripture  as  interpreted  by  a  tradition  believed  to 


THE  MEANINa  AND  USB  OF  THE  BIBLE    297 

be  traceable  back  to  the  Apostolic  Age.  She  thus  makes 
herself  the  humble  '  witness  and  keeper '  of  that  '  Holy- 
Writ'  which  was  itself  the  nursling  of  her  youth, 
acknowledging  that  its  revelation  comprises  all  essential 
truth  for  those  who  share  her  sacramental  life  '  in  Christ/ 
The  outside  investigator,  then,  owes  no  deference  to 
the  Church  save  that  which  her  appeal  to  history  and 
document  demands.  If  he  be  wise,  however,  he  will 
recognize  her  as  one  of  the  most  important  factors  in 
the  problem  he  is  studying. 

For  those  within,  the  case  would  seem  to  be  different. 
Over  these  the  authority  of  the  Church  (for  what  it  is 
worth)  is  direct  and  paramount.  What  does  this 
authority  amount  to  ?  Not  a  blind  submission  or  '  sacri- 
fice '  of  the  intellect,  still  less  of  conscience.  Authority 
as  such  implies  as  its  correlative  private  judgment — 
implies,  that  is,  a  reasonable  as  well  as  a  dutiful  sub- 
mission on  the  part  of  one  who  is  finally  or  provisionally, 
intellectually  or  morally,  convinced  of  its  credentials. 
It  is  only  by  a  metaphor  that  I  can  be  said  to  exercise 
'  authority '  over  the  spade  with  which  I  dig,  or  over  the 
pen  with  which  I  write.  Again  the  Church,  by  appealing 
to  history  and  to  the  Bible,  sets  limits  to  her  own 
demands  upon  the  individual  intellect  or  conscience : 
and  further,  if  those  limits  be  overpassed  in  the  name 
of  Church  authority,  the  filial  disobedience"^  of  the 
Modernists  can  hardly  be  called  unreasonable ;  for  to 
deny  what  my  mind  and  heart  and  conscience  know  to  be 
true  would  be  a  greater  disloyalty  to  the  Church  than 
is  involved  in  refusing  to  make  a  false  submission. 

What,  then,  does  the  authority  of  the  Church  amount 
to  in  the  matter  of  use  and  interpretation  of  the  Bible 
by  her  members  ?  Its  exact  limits  will  be  variously 
*  Cf.  below,  p.  300. 


298  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

interpreted  by  different  individuals  and  by  different 
communions,  but  certain  principles  will  be  admitted, 
probably,  by  all  alike. 

First,  for  us,  as  for  those  outside,  the  Churcli  has  the 
authority  of  the  expert ;  she  alone  can  give  first-hand 
evidence  as  to  what  was  the  original  setting,  framework, 
and  filling  up  of  those  very  fragmentary  and  incidental 
documents,  the  books  of  the  New  Testament.  She 
alone  can  tell  us,  in  brief,  in  what  terms  the  Church  of 
the  first  generations  expressed  the  summary  of  her  faith. 
In  a  formula  which  we  English  Churchmen  repeat  day 
by  day  she  embodied  this  summary  ere  yet  the  New 
Testament  Canon  was  settled.  The  so-called  *  Apostles' 
Creed '  is  substantially  identical  with  the  Roman  baptismal 
creed  of  the  second  century,  and  may  be  indefinitely 
earlier.  Here,  at  any  rate,  the  Church,  in  her  character 
of  expert,  gives  us  most  valuable  testimony — testimony 
which  Anglicanism  receives  as  true,  and  accepts  as  a 
summary  of  the  Bible's  teaching,  repeating  it  twice 
daily  after  the  Morning  and  Evening  Lessons,  as  though 
to  place  those  lessons  in  the  framework  of  their  entire 
context,  and  set  the  whole  '  proportion  of  the  faith ' 
before  us  every  time  we  assist  at  the  solemn  reading  of 
a  chapter  of  the  Old  Testament  or  of  the  New. 

In  this  profession  of  faith  the  Church  links  the 
revelation  of  the  Old  Testament  with  that  made  in  Jesus 
Christ  j  but  it  will  be  observed  that,  except  in  so  far  as 
the  whole  substance  of  the  Old  Testament  may  be  said 
to  lead  up  to  the  New,  there  is  nothing  of  its  distinctive 
teaching  specified  (unless  it  be  in  the  word  '  Father ')  that 
might  not  be  drawn  simply  from  the  first  verse  of  the  Book 
of  Genesis.  If  we  are  to  follow  the  expert  leading  of  the 
Early  Church,  we  shall  then  place  our  emphasis  over- 


THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    299 

whelmingly  on  the  later  revelation,  and  see  in  the 
earlier  but  a  preparation  for  it,  an  historical  picture  of  its 
antecedents,  and  a  valuable  exhibition  of  its  component 
elements  ere  yet  they  came  together  in  Christ. 

By  far  the  largest  part  of  the  Creed  is  taken  up  with 
certain  cardinal  facts  relating  to  the  person  and  work  of 
Jesus,  who,  in  a  single  significant  word — 'Christ^ — is 
identified  with  the  Hope  of  Israel,  the  looked-for  Messiah, 
the  raison  d'etre  of  all  the  long  education  and  discipline 
of  the  Hebrew  race.  His  unique  relation  to  the  Almighty 
Father ;  His  virgin  birth.  Divine  and  human ;  His  actual 
suffering,  death,  burial,  and  resurrection  (the  *  descent 
into  Hades'  is  an  addition  to  the  earliest  form  of  the 
Creed)  ;  His  ascension  into  heaven  and  exaltation  to  the 
Divine  place  of  honour  and  glory ;  His  future  coming  to 
be  Judge  of  '  quick  and  dead ' — these  form  the  substance 
of  the  central  and  largest  section  of  the  confession  of 
faith.  We  have  already  noticed  in  another  place  how 
the  introduction  of  Pilate's  name  into  this  sacred  circle 
of  ideas,  testifies  in  the  strongest  way  to  the  Church's 
estimate  of  the  supreme  importance  of  a  belief  in  the 
literal  historical  reality  of  the  facts  enumerated,  and 
more  especially  of  the  crucifixion. 

The  ministry  of  Jesus,  with  its  words  and  works 
which  mean  so  much  to  us,  becomes,  in  comparison  to 
the  importance  of  its  final  issue,  only  an  interval  (so 
to  speak)  between  the  Nativity  and  the  Passion.  His 
unique  origin ;  His  unique  and  abiding  work  for  us,  with 
its  present  and  future  results ;  the  living  organism  of  the 
Holy  Church ;  '  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  the  resurrectionvof 
the  body,  and  the  life  everlasting ' — these  are  the  points 
dwelt  upon.  This  is,  in  short,  the  whole  outcome,  very 
briefly  summarized,  of  the  promise  of  the  Old  Testament 


300  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

as  conceived  by  the  Church  of  the  second  century  (and 
perhaps  we  may  say  of  the  first)  :  the  Old  Testament  as 
read  in  the  light  of  that  common  tradition  concerning 
Jesus  Christ  which  was  to  be  handed  down  to  future 
ages  in  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  Canon. 

This  outline  must  surely  be  accepted  by  all  fair- 
minded  people  as  being,  in  a  sense,  expert  evidence,  and 
as  having  the  support  of  a  New  Testament,  of  which  it 
was  probably  in  origin  independent.  They  may  dispute 
the  literal  truth  or  the  doctrinal  implications  of  its  state- 
ments, but  they  cannot  deny  that  that  was  how  things 
looked  to  the  men  who  lived  nearest  the  time,  and  who 
had  a  key  to  the  meaning  and  context  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment writings,  to  which  we  can  have  no  access  unless  we 
borrow  it  from  them. 

To  her  own  members,  however,  the  Church  is  more 
than  '  expert ';  she  is  a  spiritual  mother,  to  whom  filial 
obedience  and  trust  is  due.  If  authority  be  abused 
in  her  name,  filial  obedience  of  necessity  changes  its 
aspect,  and  must  be  rendered  to  that  truth  of  which 
the  Church  is  ideally  'the  pillar  and  ground.'  When 
Robert  Grosseteste  declined  to  fulfil  an  iniquitous  demand 
on  the  part  of  Pope  Innocent  IV.,  he  did  so  on  the 
ground  that  such  a  demand,  tending,  as  it  did,  '  not  to 
edification,  but  to  destruction,'  could  not  possibly  emanate 
from  the  '  blessed  Apostolic  See.'  '  In  dutiful  obedience,' 
he  said,  '  I  refuse  to  obey :  filialiter  et  ohedienter  non 
ohediOj  contradico  et  rehello/^  But  normally,  until  cause 
be  shown,  filial  reverence  will  be  shown  to  the  Church's 
authority  whenever  it  comes  furnished  with  genuine 
credentials.  A  leading  function  of  that  authority  is  the 
mother's  role  of  guiding  the  first  motions  of  the  infant 
*  Ep.  cxxxviii. 


THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    301 

mind.  For  the  cliildren  of  the  flock  the  maxim  of  '  the 
Church  to  teach,  the  Bible  to  prove'  is  obviously  in 
place ;  and  for  all  alike  the  reasonable  attitude  would 
be  to  take  at  first  on  faith  the  Church's  own  estimate  of 
what  the  Bible  proves,  of  its  general  outcome,  as  given 
us  in  the  creed  of  our  baptism.  History  is  warrant 
enough  that  in  doing  so  we  are  following  no  '  cunningly 
devised  fable,'  no  fantastic  or  artificial  or  disingenuous 
interpretation  of  the  Bible's  teaching.  The  profession 
of  faith  that  grew  up — we  cannot  tell  how  soon — side 
by  side  with  the  growth  of  the  New  Testament  itself, 
and  grew  up  in  the  same  nursery,  is  not  likely  to  lead  us 
far  astray.  To  many  a  Churchman  of  deep  learning  and 
high  intellectual  capacity,  in  our  own  age  as  in  former 
ages,  that  creed  has  proved  all  through  the  years  of 
pilgrimage  a  never-failing  key  to  the  inner  mysteries 
alike  of  Scripture  and  of  life.  '  When  we  are  young, 
we  accept  a  doctrine  because  the  Church  teaches  it  to 
us ;  when  we  are  grown  up,  we  love  the  Church  because 
it  taught  us  this  doctrine.' 

What  is  true  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  is  true,  in  its 
degree,  of  the  Nicene  and  the  Athanasian  Creeds. 
If  these  latter  are  more  elaborate  and  more  dogmatic 
than  the  baptismal  symbol,  they  are,  on  the  other  hand, 
more  consciously  and  more  definitely  based  upon  Scrip- 
ture. For  this  reason  their  appeal  will  be  more  forcible 
and  more  direct  to  one  class  of  minds,  while  to  another 
the  spontaneous  and,  as  it  were,  ingenuous  utterance 
of  the  Early  Church  (itself  in  a  way  independent  of 
Scripture)  will  come  home  more  vividly. 

Such  thoughts  as  the  foregoing  may  help  in  some 
degree  to  elucidate  the  difficult  problem  raised  by  the 
relation  of  the  Bible  to  the   Church.     The  Bible  is  at 


302  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

once  every  man^s  book  and  the  Churcli^s  own  book.  As 
every  man^s  book,  it  is  open  to  criticism  and  interpreta- 
tion as  free  and  unfettered  as  is  the  human  intellect,  and 
the  criticisms  passed  upon  it  by  experts  outside  the 
Church  need  to  be  weighed  and  sifted  by  Churchmen. 
As  every  man^s  book  it  does  not,  however,  lose  its 
historical  connection  with  the  Church,  and  no  sane  critic 
can  ignore  the  fact  or  the  utterances  of  Christendom  if 
he  would  enter  into  the  meaning  of  the  New  Testament. 
As  the  Book  of  the  Church,  who  is  its  ^witness  and 
keeper,'  it  plays  a  double  part — as  a  positive  source  of 
teaching,  and  as  a  check  upon  abnormal  developments  of 
doctrine.  In  this  latter  capacity  it  may  be  a  weapon  in 
the  hands  of  the  individual  believer  against  the  repre- 
sentatives of  authority,  as  it  was  at  the  Reformation.  As 
a  source  of  teaching,  its  normal  use  for  a  Churchman  is 
found  in  following  the  leadings  of  the  Church's  for- 
mularies. 

But  since  every  expression  of  truth  in  verbal  formulae 
is  inadequate — and  this  must  be  especially  true,  as  we 
have  seen,  in  the  case  of  the  deepest  and  most  fundamental 
truths  which  the  Bible  enshrines — these  formulae  (which, 
after  all,  originated  in  an  age  very  different  from  our 
own)  may  conceivably  need  restatement  in  view  of  modern 
knowledge.  Happily  the  Church,  guided,  we  believe,  by 
the  Holy  Spirit,  has  not  committed  us  in  her  creeds  to 
statements  fundamentally  inconsistent  with  what  the 
New  Learning  has  taught  us.  For  some,  however,  who 
would  be  the  last  to  wish  to  tamper  with  the  venerable 
formulae  which  enshrine  the  '  deposit,'  the  words  have 
become  something  more  of  the  nature  of  symbols  than 
they  were  to  those  who  first  put  them  together. 

Yet  they  feel  that,  in  the  antiquated  phrases  which 


THE  MEAISriNa  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    303 

they  themselves  would  despair  of  ever  putting  satisfac- 
torily into  modern  phraseology,  we  are  nearer  in  sub- 
stance to  the  essential  truths  than  we  could  ever  have 
been  brought  by  a  mere  process  of  free  investigation. 
They  also  have  a  sense  of  the  responsibility  of  inherit- 
ance— ^Keep  the  deposit/  The  best  of  them  feel  not 
only  the  passive  responsibility  of  handing  down  the 
inheritance  unimpaired  to  those  who  come  after,  but  the 
positive  responsibility  of  contributing  their  own  quota 
of  labour  and  thought  to  the  inheritance.  Or,  rather,  they 
realize  that  each  generation  owes  both  to  its  predecessors 
and  to  its  posterity  the  duty  of  investigating  afresh  the 
grounds  of  its  belief,  and  interpreting  its  own  faith  in 
contemporary  language  and  in  relation  to  contemporary 
thought.  They  thank  the  Church  for  her  guidance  during 
their  intellectual  minority,  for  they  believe  that  they  were 
guided  aright,  and  they  feel  that  the  best  way  to  show 
their  gratitude  is  by  taking  up  the  responsibilities  of 
their  intellectual  manhood  and  testing  the  faith  and  its 
documents,  on  their  intellectual  side,  with  every  test 
that  the  laboratory  of  criticism  can  furnish.  From  such 
a  process,  they  are  assured,  the  fine  gold  of  truth  will 
come  out  brighter  and  purer  than  ever. 

But  meanwhile  the  Church  is  still  their  guide,  and  the 
Word  is  '  a  lamp  unto  their  feet  and  a  light  unto  their 
path.'  It  is  not  an  external  authority  which  imposes  on 
them  from  without  a  certain  restraint  of  the  intellect ; 
it  is  a  great  living  sacramental  organism,  of  which  they 
are  ^  members  incorporate ';  and,  normally,  when  there  is 
no  question  of  abuse  of  authority,  there  is  equally  no 
question  of  opposition  between  the  Bible  and  the 
Church.  To  the  communicant  member  of  the  Church,  as 
to  the  alien  expert,  any  attempt  to  interpret  the  Bible 


304  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

exhaustively  without  taking  account  of  the  Church 
would  be  ridiculous ;  but  to  the  former  it  would  be 
doubly  so,  for  all  through  the  Bible  he  sees  the  Church 
prognosticated,  prepared  for,  born,  and  started  on  her 
career.  Without  her  the  Bible  becomes  to  him  com- 
paratively meaningless. 

Anyone  can  see  the  human  side  of  the  Bible ;  anyone, 
perhaps,  can  see  its  uniqueness,  and  stand  on  the 
threshold  which  must  be  crossed  before  the  Divine  side 
can  be  reached.  But  to  appreciate  aright  the  Divine 
side  of  the  Scriptures  is  the  gift  of  that  Spirit  by  whom 
they  are  inspired;  spiritual  things  are  spiritually  dis- 
cerned. In  these  things  the  simplest  and  most  un- 
learned reader  may  penetrate  to  depths  to  which  the 
most  eminent  critic's  keenest  instruments  give  him  no 
access — of  the  very  existence  of  which  the  critic  may  have 
no  inkling.  Or  if  the  critic,  as  such,  has  an  inkling  of  this 
aspect  of  the  Bible  of  which  his  science  is  not  cognizant, 
it  is  because,  as  a  student  of  human  nature  and  human 
history,  he  cannot  ignore  the  enormous  weight  of 
evidence  supplied  by  the  accumulated  testimony  of  the 
words  and  lives  of  millions  for  whom  the  Scriptures 
have  clearly  contained  secrets  of  most  transcendent  value. 

To  the  inner  circle  of  believers  this  aspect  of  the 
Bible  is  simply  a  matter  of  experience.  The  believer 
has  learnt  from  his  Church  what  to  look  for  in  the 
Scriptures,  and  how  to  look  for  it;  and  he  looks  and 
finds.  Accepting  the  judgments  of  the  critical  expert 
on  the  material  vesture  of  the  Bible,  and  adjusting  to 
the  new  theories  his  view  of  the  documents,  he  does  not 
abate  anything  of  a  reasonable  reverence  for  them.  If 
he  feel  himself  capable  of  criticizing,  from  the  stand- 
point of  modern  science,  the  historical  methods  of  the 


THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    305 

Chronicler,  he  is  yet  ready  to  sit  at  his  feet  as  a  religious 
teacher,  and  take  upon  his  lips  at  the  most  sacred 
moment  words  put  by  the  writer  of  Chronicles  into  the 
mouth  of  King  David :  *  All  things  come  of  thee,  and 
of  thine  own  have  we  given  thee/"^  If  compelled  to 
admit  the  pseudonymous  character  of  the  so-called  Second 
Epistle  of  Peter,  he  yet  takes  to  heart  its  distinctive 
teaching,  and  rejoices  to  account  himself,  in  its  noble 
phrase,  a  'partaker  of  the  divine  nature/ 1  Nay,  when 
the  Church  calls  on  him  to  recite  the  '  imprecatory ' 
Psalms,  he  learns  to  see  in  them  no  mere  expression  of 
personal  spite  or  resentment,  but  a  call  to  range  himself 
decisively  on  the  side  of  Divine  righteousness  and  against 
evil — to  condemn  evil  on  principle,  if  need  be  in  himself* 

(2)  We  have  been  led  on  insensibly  into  the  region 
where  our  second  problem  may  look  to  find  its  answer.  If 
it  now  be  asked,  What  is  the  practical  effect  of  recent 
criticism  upon  the  religious  and  devotional  study  of  the 
Bible  ?  we  shall  answer  that  such  a  use  of  the  Scriptures 
is  left  to  the  loyal  son  of  the  Church,  not  unchanged, 
perhaps,  but  unimpaired.  It  comes  to  him,  indeed,  with 
new  sanction,  for  he  has  learnt  that  it  is  upon  this 
aspect  of  Holy  Writ  that  the  force  of  inspiration  is 
concentrated. 

Criticism  and  archasology,  while  they  have  opened  up 
new  lines  of  investigation  for  the  human  side  of  the 
Bible,  and  lifted  the  literature  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  to  a  place  in  the  interest  of  the  general 
intellectual  world  which  it  certainly  never  held  before, 
have  left  its  own  votaries  free  to  study  it  with  un- 
diminished ardour,  as  the  inspired  record  of  revelation. 

Our  devotional  use  of  the  Bible  is  no  more  impaired 
*  1  Chron.  xxix.  14.  t  2  Pet.  i.  M 


306  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

by  an  intelligent  knowledge  of  the  processes  by  which 
its  component  documents  came  into  being  than  is  the 
devotional  use  of  the  cathedral  to  the  worshipper  who 
has  furnished  himself  with  some  knowledge  of  the 
principles  of  Grothic  architecture,  and  so  learnt  to  spell 
out  the  story  of  the  great  building^s  chequered  life.  His 
new-found  knowledge  may  distract  his  thoughts,  perhaps, 
at  first,  and  make  devotional  concentration  less  easy,  but 
in  the  end  it  will  enrich  and  ennoble  his  worship. 

Criticism,  however,  leaves  with  the  devotional  student 
some  hints  and  warnings  which,  if  he  is  wise,  he  will 
not  neglect.  In  the  first  place,  it  warns  him  never  to 
forget  the  human  side  of  Scripture.  If  the  Almighty 
refuses  so  to  insult  the  sacred  prerogative  of  His  image 
in  man  as  to  force  on  him  the  blessings  of  faith  and  of 
eternal  salvation,  is  it  likely  that  He  would  paralyze  or 
ignore  the  personal  individuality  of  those  through  whom 
He  wills  to  reveal  His  most  precious  truths  to  humanity  ? 
A  hundred  indications  in  the  sacred  text  force  on  us  the 
conviction  that  He  has  not  done  so. 

Henceforth  it  will  be  as  inexcusable  to  ignore  the 
human  setting  of  the  Bible  revelation  as  to  neglect,  in 
theology,  the  real  humanity  of  our  Lord.  Both  have 
been  over-emphasized  of  late,  it  is  true,  to  the  detriment  of 
the  complementary  truths  of  divinity  and  inspiration ;  but 
the  over-emphasis  is  largely  a  redressing  of  the  balance. 

Again,  with  the  restoration  of  the  individual  and 
human  element  to  its  rightful  place,  will  disappear  that 
unintelligent  and  superstitious  view  of  the  Bible  as  one 
long,  level,  and  homogeneous  series  of  so  many  thousands 
of  verses,  all  of  equal  value  and  authority  for  the  spiritual 
life.  We  shall  find,  if  we  open  our  eyes,  every  variety 
of  literary  expression,  from  the  bald  statistical  phrase 


THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    307 

ology  of  the  priestly  code  to  the  vivid  narrative  of  the 
prophetic  historian,  and  on  to  the  rhapsodies  of  prophet 
and  psalmist,  and  the  unparalleled  simplicity  and  grandeur 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  We  shall  find  every  degree  of 
historical  validity,  from  the  utterances  of  dramatic 
imagination  and  visionary  symbolism  to  bare  and  truthful 
narratives  of  eye-witnesses.  We  shall  experience  every 
variety  of  spiritual  stimulus,  from  the  revulsion  aroused 
by  the  spectacle  of  hideous  iniquity  to  the  supreme  attrac- 
tion of  the  one  perfect  Example ;  from  the  cumbrous  and 
cryptic  suggestions  of  Levitical  symbolism  to  the  heart- 
piercing  precepts  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  We 
shall  breathe  on  every  level  of  spiritual  atmosphere,  from 
the  worldly  shrewdness  of  much  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs, 
the  all  but  complete  pessimism  of  Ecclesiastes,  the 
narrow  Judaism  of  the  Book  of  Esther,  to  the  glowing 
enthusiasm  of  St.  Paulas  splendid  picture  of  charity,  and 
the  priceless  embodiment  of  that  charity  in  the  Gospel 
narratives. 

The  old  practice  of  looking  on  every  verse  of  the  Bible 
as  of  equal  weight  and  equal  value  to  the  soul — equally 
adapted,  say,  for  devotional  reading — was  never,  surely, 
based  on  genuine  conviction.  Who  could  honestly 
assert,  for  instance,  that  the  long  series  of  names  pre- 
served in  the  genealogies  of  Chronicles  meant  as  much 
to  him  (or  to  anyone)  as  the  narrative  of  the  Passion  ? 

To  say  that  each  book,  as  a  whole,  is  indispensable  to 
the  completeness  of  the  revelation  record  is  quite  another 
thing.  To  take  that  for  granted  provisionally  is  an 
act  of  the  merest  courtesy  to  our  spiritual  mother,  the 
Church,  by  whose  instinct  (guided,  as  some  of  us  believe 
from  above)  the  selection  was  made. 

Without  looking  at  the  Song  of  Songs  with  Origen's 


308  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

eyes,  and  seeing  in  it  a  pure  and  simple  allegory  of 
Christ's  love  for  His  Church — nay,  accepting  the  (now 
largely  accepted)  interpretation  of  Jacobi  and  Ewald, 
whereby  King  Solomon  becomes  the  villain  rather  than 
the  hero  of  this  dramatic  idyll — one  can  still  see  good 
reason  why  the  long-disputed  book  should  hold  a  place 
in  the  Canon.  Just  as  the  long-drawn  chronicles  of  reigns, 
conspicuous  for  neither  military  nor  administrative  ability, 
evince  to  us  Grod's  interest  in  human  history  and  politics ; 
just  as  the  passionate  and  deficient  utterances  of  Job 
show  His  sympathy  with  honest  doubt,  so,  too,  this  idyll 
of  human  love,  faithful,  proof  against  even  royal  blandish- 
ments, sets  upon  sexual  passion  at  its  best — upon  that 
love  which  '  many  waters  cannot  quench,'  that  love  which 
is  a  '  very  flame  of  Jehovah '  "^ — the  royal  seal  of  Him 
who,  at  the  beginning,  ordained  holy  matrimony  in  the 
state  of  man's  innocency.  And  in  so  doing  it  inevitably, 
without  any  artificial  allegorizing,  leads  the  student  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  to  the  contemplation  of  that 
of  which  our  human  love — honoured  and  cherished, 
nevertheless,  for  its  own  sake — is  but  a  poor,  weak 
symbol.  These  are  mystical  interpretations  which  come 
of  themselves. 

But  to  recognize  the  essential  relation  of  every  book 
to  the  completeness  of  the  revelation  record — a  record 
which,  after  all,  is  supplemented  further  by  the  book  of 
Nature  and  the  book  of  human  sympathy  and  experience 
— is  not  to  say  that  each  is  of  equal  value  and  weight, 
still  less  that  every  verse  has  an  equal  applicability 
to  the  needs  of  every  soul. 

For  purposes  of  Bible-class,  as  of  devotional  reading 
and  meditation,  where  the  study  is  minute  and  concerned 
*  Cant,  viii.,  6  and  7. 


THE  MEANING  AND  USE  OF  THE  BIBLE    309 

with  short  passages,  the  critical  movement  will  have  im- 
pressed on  us  the  importance  of  a  careful  selection  of 
our  subject.  Equally  important,  however,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  '  proportion '  or  *  analogy '  of  the 
faith,  will  be  a  grasp  of  the  general  outlines  of  the 
whole :  so  that,  as  far  as  may  be,  when  our  thoughts 
are  focussed  on  a  single  verse,  that  verse  will  be  set,  as 
a  gem,  in  the  setting  of  the  whole  book  from  which  it 
comes,  and  will  stand  out  against  the  background  of  the 
entire  Bible.  Occasionally,  where  the  spiritual  pasturage 
is  more  diffused,  it  may  be  profitable  to  take  an  entire 
book  as  the  subject  of  our  meditation,  focussing  the  eye, 
for  convenience,  on  a  representative  verse.  And  while 
we  always  make  an  earnest  effort  to  read  each  docu- 
ment and  each  passage  as  far  as  possible  in  the  light  of 
the  age  and  circumstances  of  its  human  origin,  we  shall 
never  forget  the  organic  unity  of  all  Scripture — each 
fragment,  with  all  its  individuality  and  diversity,  being 
related  to  the  others,  as  parts  of  a  great  progressive 
movement  which  culminates  in  the  Gospel-story. 

The  realization  of  this  progress  and  of  this  continuity 
of  revelation,  which  is  one  of  the  characteristic  fruits  of 
modern  scholarship,  gives  back  to  us  in  a  new  form  what 
we  were  beginning  to  fear  we  had  lost — the  right  to  look 
for  Christ  everywhere.  If  criticism  has  unsettled  the 
'  Messianic '  interpretation  (in  the  old  sense)  of  certain 
individual  passages,  if  it  has  robbed  us  of  the  crude  view 
of  prediction  which  isolated  it  from  all  relation  to  the 
circumstances  of  its  utterance,  it  has  in  return  given  us  a 
healthier  and  more  human,  as  well  as  a  more  scientific, 
view  of  the  progress  of  revelation — a  view  in  which  there 
is  still  room  to  see  Law,  Prophets,  and  Psalms  speaking  of 
Christ.     For  it  is  not  only  clear-cut  predictions  that  His 


310  THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

advent  has  fulfilled,  marvellous  as  many  of  these  fulfil- 
ments will  always  be.  Longings,  yearnings,  wistful 
questionings,  the  cry  of  the  oppressed,  the  gropings  of 
the  bewildered,  the  unsatisfied  spiritual  ideas  of  an  un- 
conquerably expectant  people — all  these,  as  well  as  the 
clearer  utterances  of  the  prophets  and  psalmists,  pro- 
claim the  coming  of  the  Saviour.  And  so,  while  the 
Old  Testament  writings  are  for  us  something  more 
human  than  mere  allegory;  their  utterances,  while 
vividly  reminiscent  each  of  a  particular  time  and  place, 
have  a  mystical  and  universal  character  lent  to  them 
by  the  ever-present  consciousness  of  that  to  which  it  all 
is  leading : 

'  God,  having  of  old  time  spoken  unto  the  fathers  ...  by  divers 
portions  and  in  divers  manners,  hath  at  the  end  of  these  days 
spoken  to  us  in  his  Son.' 


INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  REFERENCES 


OLD  TESTAMENT 


Genesis  :  pp.  64,  99,  248. 


i.  6     ... 
ii.  4  et  aeq. 
iii.  15    ... 
iv.  23,  24 
vii.  11    ... 
xi.  31    ... 
xii.  11  et  seq 
xiv. 

XX.  et  seq. 
xxii.  17,  18 
xxvi.  7  et  seq. 
XXX vi.  31    ... 
xxxvii. 

xlix.  25    ... 


200, 


PAQB 

200 
99 
29 
63 
,201 
67 

202 
64 
99 
29 

202 
53 
58 

200 


Exodus  :  pp.  25,  63,  99,  248. 

XX.  1-xxiii.  19      ...    64,  177 

XX.  4     200 

xxxi 137 

xxxvi.  et  seq 137 

Leviticus  :  pp.  63, 99, 100, 184. 

132.  286 

59,  99 


xi.  44   . 
xvii.-xxvi. 


Numbers  :  pp.  63,  99,  123. 

vi 

xvi 

xxi.  14  et  seq. ;  28  et  seq 

xxiii.  7-10;  18-24 

xxiv.  3-9;  15-24     


61 
56 
63 
63 
64 
[311  ] 


Deuteronomy:  pp.  26,  63,  99, 
125,  240. 

PAQK 

99 
99 
174 
200 
238 
99 
118 


i.-iv.  ... 

V.  -xi.   . . . 

vi.  4     ... 

viii.  7     ... 

xi.  11,  12 

xii. -xxvi. 

xviii.  10,  11 

xviii.  15   ... 

xxiii. 

XXV.  5  et  seq. 
xxxiv. 


Joshua  :  pp.  19,  22,  64 

vii.  24 

X.  13 

xiii.  xxii 

xxiv.  2     


99 
61 
99 


56,  99. 

...  202 
...  206 
...  99 
...     67 


Judges  :  pp.  19,  56,  99, 123, 128. 


V. 
V. 

viii. 

ix. 

xi. 

xi. 

xiii. 

xiv. 

xvii. 

xviii. 

xviii. 


24  ... 

27  ... 

37  ... 

24  ... 

29  ... 

19  '.'. 
3-5  ... 
10-13 
14  ... 


54 

63 

202 

117 

117 

60 

57 

61 

57 

117 

117 

117 


312     INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  REFERENCES 


Buth: 

iv.  1-11 

1  Samuel:  pp.  19, 
123,  125,  128. 

iv.  3  et  seq. 

vi.  3     

ix.  6  et  seq. 
ix.  13  et  seq. 
X.  5,  6 

xiv.  18 

XV.  22 

xvi.  14  et  seq. 
xvii.  55  e^  seq. 

xix.  13 

xix.  20  et  seq. 

xix.  24 

xxi.  9     

xxii.  10 

xxiii.  1     

xxiii.  6     

xxiv.         

xxvi 

xxviii.  6     


PAGE 

61 

54,  66,   99, 

118 

61 

119 

120 

121 

118 

...     58,121 

54 

54 

118 

121 

121 

118 

118 

118 

118 

54 

66 

118 


2  Samuel:  pp.  19,  54,  56,  99, 
123,  125,  128. 


i.  1     ...     . 
V.  19  et  seq. 


...  118 
...  118 


1  Kings  :  pp.  19,  26,  54,  56,  99 
123,  125. 

XV.  1-8 


2  Kings  :  pp.  19,  26,  54, 
123,  125. 

i.  1  et  seq. 

vi.  6-7 

viii.  8  et  seq. 

xxii.  5,  6        

xxii.  8     

xxiii.  21,  22     

xxiii.  23 


...     66 

56,  99, 

..  121 
..  212 
..  121 
..  112 

..  18 
..  68 
..     58 


1  Chronicles:  pp.   16,  26,  54, 


58,  93,  99,  123,  124. 
xxix.  14 


2  Chronicles:  pp.  16,  26,  64, 
58,  93,  99,  123,  124. 


xiii.  1-xiv.  1 

xxiv.  22 

XXXV.  18,  19     

PAOB 

...     55 
...  186 

...     68 

Ezra  :  pp.  16,  38,  241. 

iii.  2     

vii.  6,  10,  14 

...     18 
...     18 

Nbhemiah  :  pp.  16,  38, 

241. 

viii.  1-15        

ix.  8     

X.  29 

xii.  11 

...     18 
...     18 
...     18 
...     19 

Esther  :  pp.  2,  36,  38,  40,  124. 

ix.  5  202 

ix.  13  ..  ., 202 

Job  :  pp.  16,  25,  60,  97,  124. 

i 60 

ix.  8  200 

xxvi.  11 200 


XXX  viii.  18 
xlii. 


200 
60 


805 


Psalms  :  pp.  21,  84,  46,  94,  126, 
184,  241. 

xxiii 248 

Ixviii.  16 168 

xc.  4     88 

xciii 29 

xcvii 29 

civ.  2,8        200 

cvi.  17 66 

ex 29 

cxv.  4-8 27 

cxix.  105         251 

cxxxvi.  6     200 

cxlviii.  4     200 

i  Proverbs  :  pp.  16,  124. 

iii.  20 200 

Ecclbsiastbs  :  pp.  2,  28,  26,  88. 


INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  REFERENCES     313 


Song  of  Songs  :   pp.   2,  23-25, 
40,  97,  124,  308. 

PAGE 

ii.  10  etseq 242 

viii.  6,  7 308 

Isaiah  :  pp.  16,  25,  94,  122, 126. 


V. 

vii. 


XL 

xiii. 
xix. 

xxi. 

XXX. 

xl. 
xlii. 
xliv. 
xliv. 
li. 
liii. 
Ixiv. 


2 
2-4...     . 

9     

10  et  aeq. 
8     ...     . 
6  et  seq. 
1  et  seq. 

-xxiii. 
24  ... 
1-10 

10 

18.20      . 

5     

6-20 

24 

10 


Jbrbmiah  :  pp.  115,  122. 

V.  81 

vii.  22 

XV.  10 

XX.  7  et  seq. 

xxviii.  3     

xxxvii,  et  seq 

xlvi.  et  seq 

Lamentations 


110 
124 
46 
29 
29 
29 
29 
240 
28,  266 
.  Ill 
.  114 
.  27 
.  200 
.  27 
.  200 
.  200 
80 


114 
69 
116 
116 
112 
116 
240 


p.  19. 

EzBKiEL  :  pp.  59,  80,  122,  125. 

viii.-xi Ill 

xiv.  3  et  seq 213 


EzEKiEL  {continued) 

xiv.  9     

xxv.-xxxii. 
xxvii.        ...      .. 

xl.-xlviii.     ... 


PAOB 

114 

240 

244 

99 


Daniel  :  pp.  16,  19,  23,  26,  80, 
!       87,  122. 

I  vii.  13 82 

Hosea  : 


vi.  6     ... 
xiv.  6-8  ... 


Amos  : 

i.,  ii. 

i.  2 

i.  8 

i.  6 

1.9 
iii.  1 
iii.  2 
ill.  8 

V.  25 
vii. 
vii.  4 
ix.  7 
ix.  13  et  seq. 

Jonah  :  pp.  28,  199. 

MiGAH  : 

iv.  1-3  

vi.  6    

Zbchariah 

vi.  13 
viii.  19 

Malachi  : 


115 


pp.  80,  122. 


68 
28 


240 

46 

110 

110 

110 

110 

,  265 

46 

69 

110 

200 

266 

248 


124 
60 


29 
182 


p.  31. 


General  Eemarks:  pp.  2,  16, 
21,  26,  36-39,  94,  108,  127, 
128. 

ToBiT  :  pp.  37, 199. 


APOCRYPHA 

JtJDiTH:  p.  37. 


Wisdom  :  pp.  24,  37,  42. 
vii.  27 


...  137 


314     INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  REFERENCES 

EccLBSiASTicus  :  pp.  16,  37,  42.    |  Bel  and  the  Dragon  :  p.  127. 

1  Maccabees  :  pp.  31,  87. 


Baruch  :  p.  42. 

Susanna  :  p.  127. 

Prayer  of  Manasses  :  p.  157. 


2  Maccabees  :  p.  37. 

vi.  18  et  seq. 


PAOB 

38 


NEW  TESTAMENT 


St.  Matthew 

V.  17  ... 

V.  48  ... 

vii.  7  ... 

vii.  29  ... 

xi.  28  ... 

xii.  5  ... 

xii.  32  ... 

xiii.  17  ... 

xvi.  5-12 


pp.  15,  31, 76-78. 

PAGE 

21,102 

286 

227 

86 

85 

21 

85 

...     .  .     ...     31 

85 


St.  John  :  pp.  78-76,  78,  90,  92. 


St.  Mark  :  pp.  76-78,  92. 

i.  22 174 

iii.  21,  31-35       85 

vi.  5,  6         85 

vi.  34 85 

X.  18 85 

xi.  22-24      227 

xiii.  32 85 

xvi.  9-20       106 

St.  Luke:  pp.  15,  73,76-78,  223. 

i.  1-4 123 

i.  55 29 

ii 81 

ii.  2     138 

u.  49  ...     91 

iv.  24 174 

ix.  56 169 

X.  24 31 

xi.  9     227 

xvi.  16 21 

xvii.  r>     227 

XX.  42 21 

xxiv.  27 174,  290 

xxiv.  44 21,  109 

xxiv.  45 174 


i.  1-18 

31 

i.  9  ... 

...  51,131 

ii.  11  ... 

219 

iii.  16  ... 

189 

V.  39  ... 

..  101,  188 

vii.  19  ... 

21 

vii.  46  ... 

174 

vii.  53  viii 

.  11 

106 

X. 

... 

249 

xxi.  25  ... 

... 

290 

TS :  pp.  15, 

22,  73, 

221  et  seq. 

i.  3  ... 

290 

i.  9  ... 

229 

i.  20  ... 

21 

iii.  24  ... 

119 

V.  39  ... 

291 

vii.  60  ... 

136 

viii.  32  et  seq. 

30 

xiv.  17  ... 

... 

..  131,239 

XV. 

177 

xvii.  27,  28 

... 

-  ...  131 

xvii.  30  ... 

107 

xix.  35  ... 

... 

83 

xxi.  11  ... 

... 

112 

Komans : 

XV.  4     ... 

1  Corinthians 

ii.  9  ... 
vii.  10, 12 
vii.  25  ... 
vii.  40  ... 
xii. 
xii.  4-11 


101, 188 


28 
128 
128 
128 
221 
103 


INDEX  OF  SCEIPTUEE  REFEEENCES     315 


1  Corinthians  (continued) : 

xii.  28-30     

xiii 

xiv 

XV.  14 


PAGE 

103 
185 
221 
266 


2  Corinthians  : 

iv.  7     98 

xii.  11,  12     221 

Galatians  : 

iii.  8,  16  et  seq 

Ephesians  : 

iv.  13 

iv.  25 

Colossians  :  pp.  171-173. 

i.  13  et  seq 

iv.  16 


29 


187 
182 


172 
172 


2  Timothy 

iu.  15 
iii.  16 
iv.  13 


...137,  175,  188 
20,  98,  101,  164 
164 


Hebrews  :  pp.  15,  31,  40. 

i.  1     ...  98,  101,  109,126, 
134,  310 

vi.  1,2        289 

vii.  19 202 


Hebrews  (continued) 


xi.  13 

xi.  32 

xi.  35 

.  ...  31 
.  ...  119 
.  ...  38 

St.  James  :  p.  31. 

V.  16-20  

.  ...  227 

1  St.  Peter  :  p.  31. 

i.  10-12  

i.  15,  16  

i.  16 

.  31,101 
.  ...  280 
.  ..  132 

2  St.  Peter  :  pp.  16, 23,  71,  272. 

iii.  8     88 

iii.  16  ...     102 


1  St.  John 

i.  1 
iv.  2 
V.  7 


224 
266 
106 


St.  Jddb  :  pp.  16,  23,  71,  82. 

9  et  seq 82 

14,  15 39,82 

Revelation  :  pp.  2,  16,  23,  40, 

73,  74,  80. 

i.  18 188 

xxi.  6     181 

xxi.  24 196 


GENERAL  INDEX 


N.B. 


-Direct  references  to  the  Books  of  the  Bible  will  be  found  in  the 
'  Index  of  Scripture  References.' 


Abidharma  Pitaka — 272 

Abraham— 27,  202 

Achan— 202 

iElfric— 146 

jEthiopic  Version— 140 

Aldhelm— 146 

Alfred,  King— 146,  151,  164,  177 

Amos— 63,  110  et  seq.,  243 

Amphilochius— 36 

Anglican  Church— 39,  40,  127, 193, 

298 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle — 146 
Antiochus  Epiphanes — 81 
Apocalyptic  literature — 13,  42,  79- 

82,  87 
Apocrypha— 1 5,  21,  36-39,  93,  127, 

128,  166 
Apocryphal  Gospels — 13,  14 
Aquila — 140 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas— 208 
Arabic  historians— 132,  202,  252 
Archaeology— 51,    60,    65-70,     97, 

305 
Architecture,    influenced   by   B.— 

181 
Aristotle— 196 
Armenian  Version — 140 
Art,  influenced  by  B.— 179-180 
Assurbanipal- 67 
Assyriology— 66,  201,  231 
Astruc — 53 

Athanasius,  St.— 175,  179,  298 
Augustine,    St.— 29,    37,    41,  168, 

176.  188.  214,  293 
'Authorized'    Version— 105,    139, 

158-161 


Babylonian    mythology — 66,    132, 

182,  200,  204-206 
Bancroft,  Bishop— 159 
Barnabas,  Epistle  of — 14,  36 
Baruch,  Apocalypse  of — 81 
Basil,  St.— 175.  293 
Bede— 145,  151,  164,  259 
Beza— 162 
Bezaleel— 137 

Bible :  compared  to  a  cathedral — 
1-10,  306 
etymology    and      history     of 

name — 11,  12 
growth  of  Canon— 18-25,  32,  46 
variety  of  elements — 14-17 
underlying  unity — 12,  27 
inspiration   of    B.      See    '  In- 
spiration.' 
physical  background  of  B.— 

230,  250 
B.  in  mission  work— 189-191, 

197 
influence  on  nations — 176, 177, 

181-183.  186 
influence  on  individuals— 183- 

186 
B.    contrasted  with    heathen 

Scriptures— 264-274 
B.  contrasted  with  Babylonian 

mythology — 304 
B.   contrasted    with    Koran — 

280,  281 
B.   and    Church  authority  — 

285-304 
Devotional  use  of  B.— 306-310 
Futureof  B.— 193 


816 


GENERAL  INDEX 


317 


V 


*  Bible  English  '—142 
Botticelli— 180 
Brahmanism— 260,  273,  286 
Browning  quoted — 225 
Buddha— 262,  281 
Buddhism— 260,  272 

Csedmon— 142,  145 

Calchas— 130 

Canon    (see   also   'Bible,'    'O.T.,' 

•N.T.')— 13,  17-25,  32-43 
Cappadocian  Fathers — 175 
Catacombs — 179 
Catechism — 183 
Chaucer— 151,  152 
Chemosh— 60 
Cheyne,  Dr.— 68 
Chinese  religion— 259.  260 
Chrysostom,  St.— 175,  293 
Church,  Dean— 186 
Church,  the :  and  the  Canon — 13, 
33-35,  106 

Ch.  has  not  defined  inspiration 
—104 

appeals  to  Scripture — 165 

use  of  B.— 176,  181 

relation  to  B.— 188 

nature  of  Ch.  authority — 285- 
304 
Cicero— 130 

Civilization,  European — 165-170 
Clairvoyance— 111,  120.  121 
ClemerU  of  Borne,   Epistle  qf—li, 

36 
Colossian  heresy — 171,  172 
Confucianism— 261,  269-273,  281 
Confucius— 261,  281 
Corn,  symbolism  of — 246  et  seq. 
Cosmogony,  Hebrew — 45,  46,  200 

203,  206 
Coverdale— 154-158,  164 
Creation.     See  *  Cosmogony. ' 
Creed,  Baptismal— 107,  298-300 
Creed,  Nicene— 107,  109,  207,  295 
Crete,  discoveries  in — 69,  72 
Criticism,    literary-historical  —  44- 
100,  107,  252,  etc. 

changed  attitude  towards  C. — 
44,  45 

of  Pentateuch— 52-54 

of  Psalter— 61,  62 

of  O.T.  in  general— 54-63,  71 


Criticism,     summary    of     results 
of  O.T. —64-65,  252 
C.  of  N.T.— 70-92 
C.  and  archseology — 67-70 
C.   and    inspiration— 93,    135 

et  seq. 
C.  and  canonicity — 93,  94 
gains  from  C— 194-196,  305- 
310 
I   Criticism,  textual— 95,  105-107 

Dante  qtooted — 178 
Darwin— 129,  198 
Dead,  Book  of  the— 255,  257,  258, 

271 
Delphic  Oracle— 118,  130,  131,  253 
Divination— 117-120,  122,  129-131 
*  Douai '  Version — 158 
Driver,  Dr.- 54,  64 

Egypt— 28,  68,  239 

religion  of — 255,  257 
Elizabethan  Age — 143 
Enoch,  Book  of— 13,  38,  42,  81 
Erasmus— 144,  162 
Eschatology— 79-84,  86  et  seq.,  134 
Ethical  standards  of  O.T.— 201 
Eusebius — 75 
Ewald— 308 
Ezekiel  — 59,   80,    110,    111,    122, 

125,  243,  265 
Ezra,  Apocalypse  of— 81 

Fishing,  symbolism  of — 254  et  seq. 
Fourth   Gospel— 75.    76,   92,   195 

224-226 
France,  religion  in— 192 
Franciscans— 173 


Geneva  Bible— 158.  164 

Geology— 206 

Giorgione — 180 

Giotto— 179 

(Jospels.       See     also      *  Synoptic,' 
'Fourth,'  'N.T.' 
their  place  in  N.T.  Canon — 22 
criticism  of  G. — 74  et  seq. 
miracles  of  G.— 222-226 

Gothic  Version — 141 

Greek  (Hellenistic) — 15 

Greek  religion— 118,  129-131,  253 

Grosseteste— 164,  179,  186 


318 


GENERAL  INDEX 


Hagiographa— 19,  26,  61.  94 

Hammurabi^  Code  of — 61 

Hampton  Court  Conference — 158 

Harnack,  Professor — 73,  75 

Headlam,  Dr.— 90 

Her  mas,  Shephei'd  o/"— 36 

Hilary,  St. ,  of  Poitiers— 188 

Hilkiah— 63,  170 

Hindu  religion — 262 

Historical  methods  of  O.T.— 202 

Hosea— 63 

Hugh,  St.,  of  Lincoln— 213 

Huxley,  Professor — 198 

Incarnation  of  our  Lord— 91,  218 
Inspiration— 101-138,  252-254 

'Verbal'— 46,   104,   107.  108, 
133,  165 
Isaiah— 63,  110  et  seq.,  122,  243 
Isaiah,  Ascension  of— 81 
Islam     (see    also    '  Koran,'    '  Mo- 
hammed')— 165,  187,  250 

Jacobi— 308 

Jael— 202 

James  I. — 169 

Jeremiah— 115,  116,  123,  243,  252 

Jerome,  St.— 12,  13,  37,  39,  48.  52, 

155,  166 
Jewish  education — 173,  174,  184 
Josephus — 39,  52 
Jubilees,  Book  of — 13,  42 
Judas  Maccabaeus — 81 
Justin  Martyr — 188 
Justinian — 177 

Kan-ying-peen — 272 
Khuen-aten — 97 
Kirkpatrick,  Dr. — 64 
Koran,  the  — 170,    199,    230,    256, 
259,  274-281 

Langland — 151 

Lao-tsze— 261,272,  281 

Latin  Fathers— 176 

Z^K— 261 

Logia—76,  77 

Lollards— 148 

Lourdes— 212,  213 

Luke,  St.,  importance  of— 75,  221- 

223,  226 
Luther— 39,  93,  144 
Liox  Mundi—90,  294 


MaMbMrata— 260,  261,  268 
Mantras— 2Q1 
Marsiglio  of  Padua — 147 
Martin  3Iarprelate — 41 
Massoretic  Text  of  O.T.— 47,  95, 
104,  105,  163 

*  Matthew's  '  Bible— 154,  156-157 
Melito— 39 

Mencius— 261,  273,  281 
Menu.  Laws  of— 260,  286 

*  Messianic  Hope  '—28-32,  270,  299- 

310 
Michelangelo — 180 
Miracle,   changed   view    of — 199, 
207,  227 
relativity  of^214 
miracles  of  the  N.T. — 215  et  seq. 
M.  and  natural  law — 207-215 
M.    and    criticism  —  210-212, 

220-228 
M.  and  psychology — 215,  218 
Moabite  Stone — 60 
Modernism— 292,  297 
Mohammed- 276-281 
Moses,  Assumption  of — 81 

*  Moses,'  the,  of  Deuteronomy,  116 

Natural  Law.     See  '  Miracle.' 
Natural  Science.     See  '  Science.' 
Nature  in  the  B.— 241-249 
Nebuchadnezzar— 232,  281 
New  Testament,  criticism  of — 70-93 
Newman,  J.  H.— 160 

Ockham,  William  of— 147 
Old  Testament— 16,  18-20,  25-31, 
52-71,  93,  etc 
i   Oracle  (see  also  '  Delphic.'  '  Sibyl- 
line')—118 
Origen- 25,  140,  175,  226,  308 
Originality  of  Christ-  88 
Ormulum,  the — 174 

Palestine-68,  97,  230-250 

Papias— 75,  77 

Parables  of  Christ— 245-249 

Paraclete,  doctrine  of— 89,  90,  195 

Pastoral  imagery — 248,  249 

Paul,  St.,  importance  of— 73,  222, 

226,  239 
Persian    religion.       See    '  Zend  - 

Aveata. ' 


GENERAL  INDEX 


319 


P^er,  Apocalypse  qf—2i,  81 

Gospel  o/— 24 
Philo— 39,  52 

Pilate,  named  in  Creed— 266,  299 
Plato— 137,  175 
Plutarch— 130 
Prayer— 208,  228 
Private  judgment — 291 
Prophecy— 112-114,  121,  122,  217, 

252,  253 
Provengal  Versions — 141 
Psalter— 9,  155.  156.  184,  241 
Psychology  — 112-114,    121.    122, 

215-218 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus- 140 
Purvey,  150 

Rabbi  Isaac — 53 
Rabbinism— 76,  271 
RaflFaele— 180 
Mmay ana— 260,  268 
Ramsay,  Sir  William— 72,  73 
Reuchlin— 39,  144 
Revelation,    progressive  —  32,   96. 
134.  136,  203,  214,  309 

continuous,  26-32,  42,  94,  309 

historical,  264-267 
'  Revised  '  Version— 14,  161-164 
Reynolds,  Dr.  J.— 158 
Rig-Veda— 260,  271 
RoUe,  Richard— 147 
Roman  Church— 176,  182,  213 
Romansch  Bible — 141 
Ruskin— 180 
Ryle,  Dr.— 64 

Sacrifice— 60,  61 

Samuel,  importance  of — 118-122, 

252 
Sanday,  Dr.— 75,  76,  79,  91 
Schmiedel— 75,  85,  86 
Science,  physical — 198-229 
Septuagitit— 21,  38.  81, 140,  163 
Shepherd.    See  '  Pastoral. ' 
Shoo-King—26^ 
Shoreham.  William  of— 147 
Sibylline  Oracles — 181 
Smith,  George— 66 
Smith,  G.  A.,  Dr.— 237,  250 
Smith,  Robertson— 52 
Socrates — 131 
Solomon,  Odes  of— 81 


Solomon,  Psalms  of — 81,  87 

•  Son  of  Man  '—80,  82,  87 

Spencer,  Herbert — 198 

Stade— 67 

Strabo— 130 

Stephanus — 162 

Sutta  Pitaka— 262 

Symmachus— 140 

•Synoptic  Problem  ' — 74,  77  et  seq. 

Syriac  Bible— 140 

Tacitus-175 

Talmud— hZ,  270 

Taoism— 261 

Tao-tih-king— 212 

Teiresias— 118 

Tell-el-Amarna  Tablets— 66 

Tennyson— 198 

Tertullian— 176 

Theodore  of  Mopsuestia— 36,  48 

Theodosius— 177 

Theodotion— 140 

Thucydides- 130 

Tindale— 143.  164 

Titian— 180 

Tiibingen  School-  -70,  73 

Tyrrell,  Father— 213 

Uganda,  Bible  in— 189 
Ulphilas— 141 
Upanishads — 260 
Ussher.  Archbishop— 51 

Fedas— 260,  268.  271,  281 
Vergil  quoted— 210 
Vernacular  Bible — 141  et  seq. 
Versions,  Ancient— 140 
Vincent,  St. ,  of  Lerins — 224 
Vulgate,  105,  139 

Waldensian  Bible— 141,  178 
Wellhausen— 62,  62-65,  71 
Wemle — 75 
Westcott,    Bishop— 42,    264.   270. 

273 
Wycliffe— 143.  146-151,  164 

Yin-  chih-wan — 272 

Zend-Avesta— 260,   262.   268,  271, 

281 
Zoroaster— 2C0,  273,  274 


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