+ Ay tte Ly Whee laratded Sapient Sette ox rath be hesdattantaniy Ὶ Wu Uh 9% Li 4 ΝῚ Τὰ ital Seat ΗΝ a ately yd Ata jue Meese ν ΠΥ he τη τ ᾿" tr ie OT " ΓᾺ Ἶ “4 Bho Le, : svete + ow en en ὩΣ ΑΗ aiheae te Δ ΠΝ Ἂν ic . pnt ye ples I ie by eta sent rani PH ΟῚ ie I niet Abe ’ VNC hOm eae ct dit ' nna + engas be lta ἈΝ Wiehe Siw beh lyse tro t " mi he μα se ἢ th Abe ay ne ἢ " ΡΝ τα i Tat τὴν det Ἢ YY ΠΗ fe . Are i tip: ΤΊ ΛΝ τῷ ᾿ Pn ANA 0 Pabetelelen preereaat ahi ΠΕΣ ἮΝ diel “ rhe Ἷ ἮΝ i ἢ Sh) oN tis weber enh ut van ἢ Val Nan ΠΝ τἀ ἐδ | intially Aad { Hr Π \ eae Ἰ Wah Hy ἐμ ΠΟΥ ἮΝ x Ὅν hae eh SA il 8 hale i} saa ΠΗ ἈΠ ἮΝ ἈΝ ΤΠ ΤΙΝ Νὴ! Ny ὙΡῊ ΠΝ ἣν Pun a Ή i al ΤΠ ΔΙ ΤῊΝ ἢ Ὴ ΜΝ ΑΔΕ tt: station iM ie δ H ΡΝ i) ia hey thy! Ka " ἊΝ ns NG sits Ait thon lay! iit wl ἀμ ΠΝ: ἢ ἢ δ, bey ts rite Ἢ MOUS kD what mM ᾿ μον ΕἸ Ang FAO σφ permet onto aetr nan ΠΑ Demet ’ Ἵ ῃ bake Δ ΕΝ ἡ i. i Het hE Tove, ey i νὴ ΔΝ on wea ᾿ ¢ f ah πρὸ ote Ν f ΡΣ ΩΣ Ἶ me . ; fobs) ted ye ay ew ite di ΠῚ ἾὟΑ rit Mind ΥΩ ἔ Ἵ ἢ M4 a React ony re 7 γον rend Wy μὰν on) + hte OLAS ade Ody ingen NOT Fe nae OWE yr μευ “ν».. ἈΠΟ ἐδ τ ΡΣ ΤῊ ΄- τ aia ny inl ΝᾺ " ἣν ii ire no bee the ΟΝ a ᾿ CU ΗΝ: Ws ee aD aaa ἢ sea een he es Aree woe pa aN | ᾽ ies ΟΦ ΓΟ ἢ ΝΣ Aerial eens γριοώσειντσαπ δον et ale te oe goer το τ aie rite realty ia ἐν ith "ey: ieee be mdi sees wee , iy “o> > i. ΄“..» iis ΟΝ = Gar tt ore 1 oat Ate Ὁ » ““4“-“ 322 dost area Bop news on “4. -« ἐς ote oe bent ἀν δννὶ abastesOaeodiand anda “Aes Ry, ΡΥ χ ον τ ᾿ ΧΗ La prehe BREESE SSeS os Bampton lectures ὃ - pe om ’ a Sn 7 oe Ὗ ᾿ Ne ie ? a i i ‘ Mek 7m, CU take: - cn Ap ros dae iy ane , 1% dle Tite Dita MidB te Sa ra | Εν ἣν fae ite " Ὕ ΝΜ Miah oe ΠΑ ΜΨΤΟΝ LECTUKES POR: ΝΜ ΓΕ XCM! Works by the same Author, Crown 8vo. 45. THE ORACLES OF GOD: Nine Lectures on the Nature and Extent of Biblical Inspiration and the Special Significance of the Old Testament Scriptures at the Present Time. Crown 8vo. 25. 6d. TWO PRESENT-DAY QUESTIONS. 1. Biblical Criticism. II. The Social Movement. Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge on Ascension Day and the Sunday after Ascension Day, 1892. DLondon and Pew Work LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. ΝΠ ΓΙΝΆΤΙΟΝ ἘΓΕΓΌΝΕΙ ON THE EARLY HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION νὰ Being the Bampton Lectures for 1893 BY Vv MeaoSN DAY, M As” D.D.,; EELD: DEAN IRELAND’S PROFESSOR OF EXEGESIS FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD SECOND EDITION Zondon LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16TH STREET 1894 [All rights reserved | Oxford HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY Ecclesiae Maiori Anglicanae SCILICET OMNIBUS QUI EX GENTE ANGLORUM ORIUNDI QUOCUMQUE SUB NOMINE CHRISTUM EX ANIMO COLUNT ET VENERANTUR Ecclesiae Matori Anglicanae CUI ET MINQREM ILLAM GUIUS IPSE SACRA FERO ET-FILIUS AUDIO DUCEM ET QUASI SIGNIFERUM ESSE VELLEM Gcclesiae Aaiori Anglicanae ΘΑ INTER SPEM ET SOLETECITUDINEM SED SPE MAIORI QUAM SOLLICITUDINE SINGULARI AMORE PROSECUTUS SUM ET PROSEQUOR HAS CONTIONES QUALESCUMQUE DEDICO PRECATUS UT SIBI SE NON IMPAREM PRAESTET SED ANTIQUA PIETATE NULLATENUS REMISSA AD NOVA MUNERA, NOVAM RERUM CONDITIONEM DEO ADIUVANTE SE FORTITER ET FELICITER ACCINGAT oe ᾿ Ἁ ἘΝ ᾿ δ: . ee ee _~ Ν “Ve 1 | af Perea Ses aon aa τοι ΕΟ tHE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE Rev. JON BANPTON, CANON OF SALISBURY. “1 give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the “Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of “Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the “said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and “purposes hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, I will and “appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ox- “ford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, “issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, “and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the re- “mainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Ser- “mons, to be established for ever in the said University, and “to be performed in the manner following: “JT direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in “Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads “of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining “to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the “morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity “Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary’s in Ox- “ford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent “Term and the end of the third week in Act Term. Vill EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTON’S WILL. ‘“ Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture “Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following “ Subjects—to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and “to confute all heretics and schismatics—upon the divine “authority of the holy Scriptures—upon the authority of “the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and “practice of the primitive Church—upon the Divinity of our “Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ—upon the Divinity of the “Holy Ghost—upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as “comprehended in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. “Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec- “ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months “after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the “Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of “every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of “Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; “and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the “revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the “Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be ‘paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. “ Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quali- “fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath “taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the “two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge; and that the “same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Ser- “mons twice.” PREPACE Tue Bampton Lectures are preached before an audience which has some parallels in this country and America, but few, if any, upon the Continent. It is a rare thing for the Continental theologian to be brought into such direct contact with the class of highly trained and intelligent laity who are engaged in the teaching of secular literature and science. We may count it as one of the happiest of English tradi- tions, and in fact as the main compensation for the backwardness of much of our theology proper, that this class has never ceased to take an active interest in all matters connected with religion. It is ready to listen even to what are practically monographs on theological subjects; and many of the best volumes which the series has produced have been more or less of this nature. The present lectures can lay no claim to the char- acter of a monograph. Their aim has been rather to furnish a general view which shall cover as far as possible the data, at once new and old, which go x Preface. to determine the conception which thoughtful men would form of the Bible. If it is thought that this is to attempt too much, and that a satisfactory treatment of all parts of the subject was not possible within the compass of eight lectures, the writer can only assent to the criticism. It seemed however to be more important that the subject should be presented, if only in outline, as a fairly complete and coherent whole, than to work out in detail any one of the parts. That can be done afterwards ; and in fact it is being done every day. Another drawback has been the limited time which is allowed for the preparation of the lectures. Be- tween the election of the Bampton Lecturer and the delivery of his first lecture is an interval of at most ten months. For one who holds, as the present writer does, a double office with double duties, this interval is curtailed still further. In his case nearly three months more had to be deducted for illness, a loss which however was largely made up to him by the kind indulgence of his College. For the timely relief thus accorded to him he cannot be too grateful. All this time books came pouring from the press at a rate with which it was difficult to keep pace. Many of them were of high value, and of some he wishes that he could have made a more extended use. He hopes that his obligations in various direc- tions will have been sufficiently acknowledged. But he ought perhaps to single out in particular the Preface. xi Introductions of Driver and Cornill to the Old Testament and the third edition of Holtzmann’s Introduction to the New, with the works on the Canon by Ryle, Buhl, and Wildeboer in the one case, and by Zahn and Harnack in the other. In one instance he fears that he has done less than justice. The main reference to Dr. E. Konig in Lecture III consists in part of criticism; and this makes it all the more incumbent upon the writer to say that the lead- ing idea of this lecture, and indeed one of the leading ideas of the whole book, is to the best of his belief derived ultimately from Dr. KGnig. It is becoming almost a commonplace to say that our conception of what the Bible is should be drawn in the first instance from what the Biblical writers say of themselves. This idea took a strong hold of the writer some years ago, as he believes indirectly rather than directly through the emphatic statement of it by Dr. Konig. Yet when he came to read the Ofenbarungsbegrif des A. T., along with its independence and ability he could not help being struck by what seemed to be an element of arbitrariness and exaggeration. This however has been a diminishing quantity in later books by the same author, notably in his recent Introduction to the Old Testament, which he wishes had reached him a little earlier. The writer is conscious of having criticized most freely (especially in Lecture 1) some of those for whom he has the highest respect. This applies particularly xii Preface. to some of the German scholars whose names de- servedly carry the greatest weight in England. There are none to whom he is himself more indebted; but he does not wish them to impose upon his countrymen by the weight of authority views which do not seem to be borne out by the evidence. The parts of these lectures which relate to the Old Testament should be taken with the qualification expressed on p. 119f. The writer cannot speak in this part so much at first hand as he can in the case of the New. If, in spite of this, the result seems to work out somewhat more positively in the former case than in the latter, this is due in part to the clear-cut form in which modern critical theories relat- ing to the Old Testament are presented. Perhaps also it would be true to say that in recent years stronger work upon the whole has been done upon the Old Testament than upon the New. In view of this body of Old Testament criticism the writer's own position is tentative and provisional. He does not think that the great revolution which seems to be expected in some quarters, from the Tell- el-Amarna tablets or otherwise, is probable; at the same time his impression is that the criticism of the near future is likely to be more conservative in its tendency than it has been, or at least to do fuller justice to the positive data than it has done. In regard to the New Testament he has tried to state the case as objectively as possible. He has thus Preface. xiii been led rather to understate than to overstate the results which seem to him to have been attained so far. But he believes that there is much still to be done; and he hopes most from the spirit which is not impatient for ‘results,’ which does not suppress or slur over difficulties in the critical view any more than in the traditional, which lays its plans broadly, and is determined to make good the lesser steps before it attempts the greater. Besides his large debt to books the writer is also under obligations to friends who have done him the kindness to read through the proofs as they were passing through the press. He owes much to the criticisms and suggestions which he has received in this way, especially from Dr. Plummer, Mr. Lock, and Mr. A. C. Headlam. He wishes that his book were better than it is; but he can truly say that in writing it he has gained for himself a deepened and a strengthened hold on the principles to which he has given imperfect expression. The Synopsis of Contents was issued separately at the time of the delivery of the lectures, and has been allowed to retain the form given to it for that purpose. MARCHFIELD, OXFORD, August, 1893. ὃν ΤῊ ΠΗ ΤΟ ΘΝ CONTENTS LECTURE I. THE HISTORIC CANON. ESTIMATE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT BY THE EARLY CHURCH. Subject and method of the proposed inquiry. Two lectures to be devoted to analysis of main points in the conception of the Canon; the succeeding five to an attempt to sketch constructively the pro- cess by which that eer was reached; the last to retrospect and summary. : : - . ΡΡ.1-4. Idea of a Canon ἘΠΕ ἜΝ Ὁ. Τ. ἴο Ν. T. Two landmarks in the history of the N. T. Canon, about 400 a.p. and 200 A.D. Ρρρ. 4-6. I. Contents of N. T. (1) c. 400 A.D. Practically the same as our own over the greater part of Christendom. This result very partially due to Synodical decisions (African Synods of 393, 397, 419 [Council of Laodicea c¢. 363], Trullan Council of 692); far more in the West to the influence of the Vulgate, in the East to that of leading Churchmen (Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Amphilochius, Gregory Nazianzen). Only considerable exception the Syrian Church which recognised no more than three (two) Epp. Cath. and rejected Apoc. These books wanting in Peshitto, but added in later Syriac Versions. pp. 6-12. Contents of N. T. (2) ¢. 200 a.D.: approximate date of Muratorian Fragment. Solid nucleus of four Gospels, thirteen Epp. Paul., Acts. Divergent views on this subject. It is questioned (i) that the Four Gospels were everywhere accepted ; (ii) that Epp. Paul. stood on an equal footing with Gospels and O. T.; (iii) that Acts formed part of the collection. In each case with but ‘slight real support from the evidence. he ΠΟ 125-25: Writings struggling ΤῈ ΚΠ} to ie Calon: τ Pet., τ Jo. all but fixed—Heb., Jac., Apoc.—2 [3] Jo., Jud.,2 Pet. . . «ΡΡ. 23-26. Writings which obtain a partial footing but are disiodged : Evv., sec. Heb., sec. Aegypt., sec. Pet—Epp. Clem., Barn. — Didache, Pastor — Leucian Acts, Predicatio Petri, Acta Paul. Ξ Thecl., &.—Apoc. Pet. pp. 26-28. VL os Synopsis of Contents. II. Properties ascribed to the Canonical Books. The N. T. is (1) a sacred book ; (2) on the same footing with O. T.—a proposition ques- tioned but true; (3) inspired by the Holy Spirit, or bearing the authority of Christ; (4) this inspiration is even ‘ verbal’ and extends to facts as well as doctrines ; (5) it carries with it a sort of perfection, completeness, infallibility; (6) the N. T. Scriptures are appealed to as (a) the rule of faith, (6) the rule of conduct; (7) they are interpreted allegorically like a sacred book, and complaints are made of perverse interpretation. : - ὃ : - ΒΡ: 26-42. Yet along with this high ΩΝ cere are occasional traces of (1) the recognition of degrees of inspiration ; (2) a natural account of the origin ae certain Ἐροῖ-Ξ (e.g. the Gospels). . - 3 - pp. 42-47. III. Criteria by which books were admitted to the New Testament. (1) Apostolic origin; (2) reception by the Churches; (3) conformity to established doctrine; (4) conformity to recognised history ; (5) mystical significance of numbers. - 5 5 . Ppp. 47-58. Note A.— The Canons of the Quinisextine Council, of Carthage, and of Laodicea. : 5 . pp. 59-61. Note B. puis τ eo of the ΓΙ of the New Testament Canon. . : : . pp. 61-63. Νοίε Ὁ. seep Bee sine to the ΝΣ : . pp. 64-65. Note D.— The use of the New Testament by Clement of Alexandria. PP. 65-69. LECTURE, II. THE HISTORIC CANON. ESTIMATE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. The critical period in the history of the Bible is the forming of Canon of O. T. Our first clear view of an O. T. Canon is obtained in the century which follows the Birth of Christ. For this we have Philo, N. T., Josephus, supplemented by the Talmud. . ΡΡ.70-72. I. Properties ascribed to O. T. in these writings. O.T. (1) is a sacred book ; (2) is inspired by God—difference in this respect between Philo and Josephus; (3) has a normative value; (4) is interpreted allegori- cally; (5) prophetically determines the course of future events ; (6) has a minute perfection which implies, at least in the case of Philo, an inspiration that might be called ‘verbal.’ . - Pp. 72-90. 11. Contents of O. T. Many other religious books of Jewish origin in circulation during first century besides the Canonical. Distinction between so-called Palestinian and Alexandrian Canon not so much Synopsis of Contents. χν geographical as between popular and learned or official usage. Both Philo and Josephus have wide views of the range of inspiration and yet treat the Canonical Books only as authoritative. So too in N. T., though there are traces of acquaintance with Apocrypha. With Josephus and the Rabbis of the end of first century the Canon is really complete. There is however still some hesitation as to certain books, especially Cant., Eccles., Esther. . : ‘ pp- 90-98. Divisions of Jewish Canon point back to circumstances of its origin. Traceable from soon after 132 B.c., and correspond to so many stages in the formation of the Canon: (1) the Law, 444 B.c.; (2) the Pro- phets, probably in third ue, B.C.3 8) the Hagiographa or Kethubim, ¢. 100 B.C. δ : : : ΡΡ. 98-105. III. Criteria ἥν which books were admitted to the Canon. History of the word ‘Apocrypha’: (i) milder Jewish sense,=not read in public ; (ii) stronger sense, increasingly common in Christian circles, =‘heretical.’ Discussions in the Jewish Schools mainly concerned with fitness of books for public reading. In Philo, Josephus and the Talmud the leading positive principle was Prophecy. The closing of the Canon supposed to coincide with cessation of prophecy. Sym- bolism of numbers as applied to O. T. : ΡΡ. 105-115. Before entering on larger inquiry it is right to explain the attitude adopted to the criticism of Ὁ. T. The critical theories come with great force, though they seem open to qualification in certain direc- tions. They are assumed here hypothetically and provisionally, as aminimum. The data which they supply for a doctrine of inspiration cannot well be less and may be more. ofS SE points in the critical position. . . : pp. 115-122. Note A.—On the Date of the Formation af the Jewish Canon. p. 123. LECTURE 7, &c. © Theodoret, H. £. i. 6 (ed. Schulze, 5 ed. Vales.). ? Ap. Eus, 7. Z. vi. 12. 3. 8 Strom. vii. 16. ὃ ΤΟΙ. ° E.g. Strom. vii. τι δ 13 16. ὃ 94. 10 Strom. Vii. 16. ὃ 95: ἔχομεν yap τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς διδασκαλίας τὸν κύριον διά τε τῶν προφητῶν διά τε τοῦ εὐαγγελίου καὶ διὰ τῶν μακαρίων ἀποστόλων. : 34 1. [he New Testament in the Early Churcn. the Son Himselft. Origen assumes that the true sense or mind of the Gospels is really the mind of Christ®. And a later writer quoted by Jerome takes up St. Paul’s phrase ‘Christ speaking in me’ (2 Cor. xiii. 3) as a mode of expressing the process of inspiration*®, The Epistles of St. Paul prepare us for the equivalence of the two phrases, ‘ Christ speaking in me’ and ‘the Spirit of Christ speaking in me. Those who used them no doubt meant exactly the same thing. Testimonies to the general doctrine of inspiration may be multiplied to almost any extent; but there are some which go further and point to an inspiration which might be described as ‘ verbal.’ Nor does this idea come in tentatively and by degrees, but almost from the very first. Both Irenaeus and Tertullian regard Inspiration as determining the choice of par- ticular words and phrases. For instance, Irenaeus - in view of the Gnostic separation between the man Jesus and the aeon Christus, the descent of which they postponed until the Baptism, says that the Holy Spirit, foreseeing these corruptions of the truth and guarding against their fraudulent dealing, said by the mouth of Matthew, ‘ Now the birth of Christ was on this wise +.’ - This is the more noticeable, because the * Adv. Haer. iv. 7. 2: Quit... adventum Christi prophelaverunt, revelationem acceperunt ab ipso δ πο. Compare iv. 15. I. 2 De Princ. iv. 10; Lomm. xxi. 499. 5 Comm. in Ep. ad Philem. prol. * Adv. Haer. ii. 16. 2: praevidens Spiritus Sanctus depravatores et praemuniens contra fraudulenham eorum per Matlhaeum ait, Christt aulem generalio sic erat. Δ γοῤογίτος ascribed to the New Testament. 535 reading which Irenaeus assumes, though very possibly and perhaps probably the right one, is not now found in a single Greek MS. And in like manner Ter- tullian speaks of the Holy Spirit as foreseeing that some would claim unlimited licence for bishops, and therefore laying down that they were to be the hus- bands of only one wife!; and in more places than one he speaks of the ‘foresight’ (provedentia) of the Holy Spirit cutting away the ground from heretics *. Tertullian, like Irenaeus, quite adopts the formula of St. Matthew and other New Testament writers as to the Spirit of God speaking ‘through’ the human author. Origen, adopting another phrase from St. Matthew's Gospel, expresses his belief that ‘there is not one jot or one tittle but is charged with divine lessons *.’ Inspiration may attach even to a number. Thus the author of Computus de Pascha, a contem- porary of Cyprian’s, refers St. Paul’s estimate of the length of the period of the Judges expressly to the teaching of the Holy Spirit‘. And as inspiration is here invoked on a question of numbers, so elsewhere in regard to the facts of history; Moses was indebted to the teaching of the Holy Spirit for the older history from the Creation to the times of Abraham, and in like manner it was He who informed the Evangelists of the wondrous sign which happened at 1 De Monog. 12. 2 De Jejun. 15; Adv. Mare. v. 7. 8. Comm. in Ev. Matt. xvi. 12 ; Lomm. iv. 39: ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν ἰῶτα ἕν ἣ μίαν κεραίαν οὐ πιστεύω κενὴν εἶναι θείων μαθημάτων. 1. De Pasch. Comp. 11: Secundum Pauli b. apostoh’ sermonem, qui Spiritu Domini edoctus retulit cos implesse annos cece. D 2 36 JI. The New Testament in the Early Church. the Baptism’. The four Canonical Evangelists were not like others who attempted to write Gospel narra- tives, they really wrote them at the prompting of the Holy Spirit 3, Dionysius of Alexandria says that ‘ the Holy Spirit, imparted severally to the Evangelists, describes the whole mind of our Saviour by the words of each*.’ And Archelaus, bishop of Caschara in Mesopotamia, makes the Holy Spirit vouch for the accuracy of a saying ascribed to our Lord in the Gospel of St. Matthew +. We cannot wonder if this high doctrine sometimes takes the form of asserting the absolute perfection and infallibility of the Scriptures. We saw that Irenaeus attributes to the Apostles ‘ perfect know- ledge δ, Elsewhere he is still more explicit, asserting that the Scriptures. must needs be ‘perfect, as having been spoken by the Word of God and His 1 Contra Cels.i. 44; Lomm. xviii. 83 f.: ἔλλλος δ᾽ ἄν τις εἴποι, ὅτι ov πάντες τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ ἤκουσαν ταῦτα διηγουμένου of ἀναγράψαντες τὰ περὶ τοῦ εἴδους τῆς περιστερᾶς καὶ τῆς ἐξ οὐράνου φωνῆς" ἀλλὰ τὸ διδάξαν Μωῦσέα Πνεῦμα τὴν πρεσβυτέραν αὐτοῦ ἱστορίαν, ἀρξαμένην ἀπὸ τῆς κοσμογονίας μέχρι τῆς κατὰ τὸν ᾿Αβραὰμ τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ, τοῦτ᾽ ἐδίδαξε καὶ τοὺς γράψαντας τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, τὸ γενόμενον παράδοξον κατὰ τὸν χρόνον τοῦ βαπτίσματος ᾿Ιησοῦ. A similar idea occurs in Josephus, c. Afzon. i. 8: μόνον τῶν προφητῶν τὰ μὲν ἀνωτάτω καὶ παλαιότατα κατὰ τὴν ἐπίπνοιαν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ μαθόντων. 5. Homil. 1. in Luc. 5 Migne, Patrol. Graec. x. 1389: Τὸ οὖν Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον εἰς τοὺς εὐαγγελιστὰς κατανεμηθέν, τὴν πᾶσαν τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν διάθεσιν ἐκ τῆς ἑκάστου φωνῆς συντίθησιν. * Sed et Spiritu (Spiritus cod.) Evangelista Matthaeus diligenter significat Domini nostri Jesu Christi sermonem;: Videle ne quis vos seducat, &c. Acta Disp. S. Archelat cum Manete (Migne, ut sup., col. 1485; Routh, Rell. Sacr. v. 131). 5 Sup., Pp. 52. Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 531] Spirit’. An anonymous writer against the Mon- tanists guards himself against being supposed to be ambitious of supplementing the Gospels to which no good Christian could add anything and from which he could not take away*®. MHeracleon, the Gnostic, is convicted of this audacity, inserting qualifying words in the prologue to the Gospel of St. John, which entirely pervert its meaning*, Clement of Alex- andria asserts that ‘not one tittle’ of the Scriptures (in which he has included just before the Epistle to the Romans) can pass away, because they are spoken by the Holy Ghost‘. Methodius, bishop of Olympus, lays down that there can be ‘no contradiction or absurdity in holy writ®.’ Origen starts from the premises that the Gospels having been composed with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit the writers cannot have had any lapse of memory®; and else- where that the Evangelists ‘cannot have made a mistake or set down anything falsely’, so that two 1 Adv. Haer. ii. 28.2: rectissime sctentes, quia Scriplurae quidem perfectae sunt, quippe a Verbo Det et Spiritu ejus dictae, ? Ap. Eus. H. EF. v. τό. 3: δεδιὼς δὲ καὶ ἐξευλαβούμενος, μή πη δόξω τισὶν ἐπισυγγράφειν ἢ ἐπιδιατάσσεσθαι τῷ τῆς τοῦ εὐαγγελίου καινῆς διαθήκης λόγῳ, ᾧ μήτε προσθεῖναι μήτ᾽ ἀφελεῖν δυνατὸν τῷ κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον αὐτὸ πολιτεύεσθαι προῃρημένῳ. 3 Orig. ἐπ Ev. Joan. ii. 8 (Lommatzsch, i. 117). * Protrept. 9. ὃ 82. 5 μηδεμία ὑπεναντίωσις ἢ ἀτοπία ἐν τοῖς θείοις λόγοις (De Resurrect. 48 ; ed. Bonwetsch, i. 155). 6 Εἴπερ ἀκριβῶς πιστεύομεν ἀναγεγράφθαι συνεργοῦντος καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος τὰ εὐαγγέλια, καὶ μὴ ἐσφάλησαν ἐν τῷ ἀπομνημονεύειν οἱ γραψάντες αὐτά (Comm. in Ev. Matt. xvi. 12; Lomm. iv. 36). 7 μηδενὸς σφαλλομένου τῶν εὐαγγελιστῶν μηδὲ ψευδομένου (Comm. in Ev. Jo. vi. 18; Lomm. i. 228). 38 JI. The New Testament in the Early Church. sayings with a slight variation must really have been spoken at different times. And Novatian, who al- though the author of a schism was a very orthodox writer, says roundly that the Scriptures are infallible (xunguam fallunt) ". The object of the appeal to Scripture is to establish the rule of faith or the rule of conduct. Irenaeus calls the written tradition as well as the oral teaching of the Apostles ‘the foundation and pillar of our faith.” He lays himself out to prove his whole posi- tion by the Scriptures, and treats this method as one universally recognised”. Indeed on both sides, the side of doctrine and the side of practice, the authori- tative use of Scripture—the New Testament equally with the Old—underlies the whole of the Christian literature of this period. Not only might we quote for it page after page of Irenaeus, Clement of Alex- andria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen (with the single exception of the Apologies, where the method would have been out of place), but—what is of even more importance—the method is shared alike by orthodox writers and heretical. It had been used by Basilides and Valentinus and their followers; and the great Church-writers fought them with the same weapons ; they authenticate Scripture by Scripture, Gospel by Gospel, and Epistle by Epistle—for in dealing with many of the Gnostics the Old Testament was out of court. ‘This usage is really coextensive with the ἘΣ ATA. 50. 2 Adv. Haer. ii. 35. 43 cp. iii. 4. 1, 2: the written tradition forms the first line of evidence, oral tradition the second. Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 39 Christian name, and arises very soon after the first traces of a Christian literature outside the New Testament. How high the authority was which is ascribed to the Scriptures comes out from the stress which is laid upon their interpretation. It appears equally from the methods of interpretation adopted by orthodox writers and the jealous watch kept over those who were not orthodox. Only in a book which is regarded as possessing peculiar sacredness and authority is the attempt likely to be made to elicit another sense from the words than the obvious and literal one. Now in the earliest known commentary on a book of the New Testament, that of the Gnostic Heracleon on St. John, which is probably not later and may even be some little time earlier than 170 a.p.!, the allegorical method is already full-blown. It is notorious to what lengths it was carried by Clement of Alexandria and Origen. It may not be used quite to the same extent for the New Testament as for the Old, but it is used quite as unequivocally, and for the Epistles as well as for the Gospels It may suffice to note the fact of the use of allegory for the present. We shall have occasion to return to the subject in the next lecture, where we shall be brought to closer quarters with the origin and first application of the method. 1 See Mr. A. E. Brooke in the Cambridge Zex/s and Studies, i. 4. 34. The evidence relates perhaps rather to the teaching of Heracleon generally than to the Commentary on St. John, but the date given (c. 170) is probably not far wrong. 2 See Additional Note D, p. 68 ἢ 40 JL. Lhe New Testament in the Early Church. Complaints of the perversion of Scripture by the heretics are exceedingly common, and perhaps com- monest in the second century. The earliest reference to such perversion in the case of the New Testa- ment is probably the allusion in the Second Epistle which bears the name of St. Peter to the Epistles of St. Paul, ‘which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest (στρεβλοῦσιν) as they do the other Scriptures!’ We must only take this passage with the uncertainty which attaches to the genuineness and date of the Epistle in which it occurs. There were two methods of tampering with the Scriptures. One was the inter- polation or mutilation of the text; the other was the perversion of its meaning. It is now pretty generally understood that the accusations which we are constantly meeting under the first of these heads are for the most part groundless. One such attempt we certainly do know, the attempt of Marcion the Gnostic to adapt to his own purposes the Gospel of ot., Luke’ and, ten of St. Pauls Epistles. But he did so simply by excision of the passages to which he objected. ‘The charge of altering the text of the portions which he received, generally speaking’, breaks down. The supposed alterations are in so many cases demonstrably nothing more than various readings which he found in his copy as to give rise to considerable presumption that the same would be true of the remainder. There are other well-known 12. ets Π|: 16: * This must not be taken to exclude slight consequential changes due to the omissions. Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 41 examples! in which not only does the Catholic writer wrongly accuse his opponents of falsifying the text, but in point of fact it is his opponents who have the right reading, and he himself who is misled by a wrong one *. The other means of commending error by perverse interpretation was no doubt far more common. Tertul- lian* and Irenaeus* with equal vehemence accuse the Valentinians. An anonymous writer quoted by Euse- bius accuses the rationalizing Monarchians®. Hippo- lytus urges his readers not to ‘force’ the Word of od'*« And yet it must be admitted that the ‘ forcing’ was not all on one side. Both the orthodox champions and the heterodox employed such methods as were current, and there was probably no great difference between them so faras these methods were concerned, though the mind of the Church was doubtless governed by an instinct which was nearer the truth 1 See (¢.g.) the various readings on John i. 13; iii. 63 vii. 53- viii. 11; Luke xxiii. 44; and perhaps Matt. i. 18. 2 Compare Hort, Ju/rod. p. 282 : ‘ It will not be out of place to add here a distinct expression of our belief that even among the numerous unquestionably spurious readings of the New Testament there are no signs of deliberate falsification of the text for dogmatic purposes.’ And again, Appendix, p. 66: ‘Notwithstanding the random sug- gestions of rash or dishonest handling thrown out by controversialists there is no tangible evidence for the excision [except by Marcion] of a substantial portion of narrative for doctrinal reasons at any period of textual history.’ § De Praescr. Haeret. 38. * Adv. Haer. i. 3. 6. rd. 2, Ve 28: § Contra Noetum, 9: μὴ βιαζόμενοι τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ δεδομένα. 4 I. The New Testament in the Early Church. than any argument that could be put into words. Se- curus gudicat ordis terrarum. ‘Vhere were question- able points in the exegesis of Irenaeus and Hippolytus as well as in that of Basilides or the Valentinians ; there were questionable points in the exegesis of Athanasius as well as in that of Arius; but it is possible to admit this and yet to think that Irenaeus and Hippolytus on the one hand, and Athanasius and his fellows on the other, represented more truly the real sense of Scripture than the Gnostics or Arians. And yet the right is-sometimes on the side of the minority. On this very matter of the inspiration of Holy Scripture we come across isolated sayings from time to time which show a greater insight into the real facts of the case, and would have formed a whole- some corrective to the current views if more attention had been paid to them. Even a writer who holds so high a doctrine as Tertullian yet points out that St. Paul recognises different degrees of inspiration, sometimes speaking in his own name and not in the name of Christ'. The same passage which put him upon this also caught the eye of Origen, and is more than once used by him in support of a wider view in regard to an ascending and descending scale of in- spiration. Origen saw that there was a difference ' De Exhort. Cast. 3: In primts autem non videbor trreligiosus, st quod tpse profiletur, animadvertam, omnem illam indulgentiam nuptt- arum de suo, td est, de humano sensu, non de divino praescriplo induxtsse. The apologetic language in which this opinion is introduced reveals a consciousness that it ran somewhat counter to general feeling. Any seeming depreciation of Scripture was as unpopular even then as it is now. Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 43 between the inspiration of Christ and all other in- spiration’, The inspiration of the prophets was given them at particular times and for particular purposes ; they had visitations of the Spirit which ceased when they had served their turn. Only upon Christ did the Holy Spirit abide continually *. We may probably trace the influence of Origen, though it is certainly not Origen himself who is speaking, in a remarkable criticism to which Jerome refers in the preface to his commentary on the Epistle to Philemon. He says that some who refuse a place to this among the other Epistles of St. Paul urge that all the Apostle’s utterances were not made by ‘ Christ speaking in him’ because the weakness of human nature could not endure the constant indwelling of the Holy Spirit («am tenorem Spiritus Sanctz), nor yet could the ordinary functions of the body be always discharged under the presence of the Lord. There must have been times when St. Paul could not venture to say ‘I live, yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me’ (Gal. i. 20), or ‘do ye seek a proof of Christ that speaketh in me’ (2 Cor. xiii. 3) ?. ‘ What sort of proof of Christ is it, they ask, to be told “ The cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee” (2 Tim. iv. 13), or in Galatians (v. 12) “T would they were even cut off” (or ‘were mutilated,’ ᾽ excidantur ?) “that trouble you,” and in this very Epistle, “ But withal prepare me also a lodging” (Philem. i. 22)? They say that this was the case not only with 1 Hom.in Num. xvi. 4; in Ev. Jo. i. 5, (Zahn, Gesch. d. Κ΄. ii, 1002). 2. See the passages quoted by Zahn. 44 1. The New Testament in the Early Church. the Apostles but with the Prophets; so that we often find it written, “ The word of the Lord came to Eze- kiel” or to any other of the prophets, because when the prophecy was finished the prophet resumed his ordinary self and became like any other man, and ex- cept our Lord Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit abode permanently with no one. And that this was the sign which John the Baptist had received, that on whom he saw the Holy Spirit descending and abiding upon him he might know to be the Christ (John i. 33). A proof that the Holy Spirit descended indeed upon many, but it was a peculiar distinction of the Saviour that it abode upon him. On these and other like grounds, says Jerome, ‘ they decide that the Epistle to Phile- mon either is not St. Paul’s, or, even if it is his, it contains nothing that tends to edification, and they say that it is rejected by many of the ancients as being only a letter of commendation and not for the purpose of teaching 1’ We may differ from this ancient critic in our esti- mate of the beautiful little Epistle to Philemon, with its touches of nature which appeal to the common heart of mankind. We may have different ideas as to the true dignity of an inspired writer. And yet we must admit that he has hit upon truths in regard to the nature of inspiration which have by no means always been remembered, and which it is important to keep in sight. There are not wanting other indications that side by 1 Comm. in Ep. ad Philem., prol. (ed. Migne, vii. 637 ; ed. Vallarsi, vii. 742 f.). Properties ascribed to the New Testament. 45 Ὁ side with the high and strict doctrine of which we have given illustrations, there was a sort of under-current, sometimes perceptible in the very same writers, which took more account of human infirmity and was in closer contact with the facts. There was not indeed any hard and fast dogma of inspiration imposed upon the whole Church. Men formed a high idea of it, and they clung to that idea, largely we cannot doubt from a sense of the preciousness of the Scriptures to themselves. But this did not prevent them at other times and in pursu- ance of other trains of thought from giving the reins to a freer and more candid observation, and allowing the facts to tell their own story in a simpler and more natural theory. Quite oi this simple and natural character is the account which Papias gives of the origin of St. Mark's Gospel, put together from notes of the occasional preaching of St. Peter, and therefore incomplete though careful as far as it went!. This is in perfect keeping with the language which St. Luke uses in the preface to his own Gospel, which again describes a purely natural process based upon the human virtues of research and care, but without claim to anything beyond. In like manner the Muratorian Fragment, while apparently repeating a tradition similar to that of Papias about St. Mark 2, lays stress upon the extent to which St. Luke was an eye-witness of the events recorded in the Acts, and St. John of those recorded in his Gospel. δ ΕΗ 7. 2, lil. 20. Τῆς 2 This part of the Fragment is mutilated, but the words which remain point to this conclusion. 46 JL. The New Testament in the Early Church. Origen in the context of a passage already quoted implies that in his day there were persons who thought it possible that the discrepancies in the Gospels were due to inaccuracy and failure of memory?. Origen himself, as we have seen, rejects this explanation; but in another place he admits the possibility at least of clerical error. This is in his comment on St. Matt. xxvii. οὗ, where a quotation from Zechariah 15 attributed to Jeremiah. The passage is a touchstone to ancient commentators. Eusebius’, like Origen, gives an altern- ative : either clerical error, or that the original of the quotation had been fraudulently removed from the copies of Jeremiah. Augustine first rejects, by a piece of really good textual criticism ὁ, the reading fer prophetam only (without Yeremzam) which he found in some MSS., but then goes on to say that St. Matthew was inspired to write ‘Jeremiah’ in order to bring out the completeness of the agreement between 1 Comm. in Ev, Jo. vi. 18; Lomm. i. 228 f.: οὐ yap περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν, ὡς οἴονταί τινες of ἀπομνημονεύοντες διαφόρως ἠνεχθήσαν, μὴ ἀκριβοῦντες TH μνήμῃ ἕκαστον τῶν εἰρημένων ἢ γεγενημένων. 2 Lommatzsch, v. 28: suspicor aut errorem esse scripturae [Scrip- turae, Lommatzsch, which is surely wrong] ef pro Zacharia positum Jeremiam, aut esse aliquam secretam Jeremiae scripiuram, in qua scribitur. 8 Demonst. Evang. x; ed. Migne, iv. 745. * Sed utalur ista defensione cut placet: mihi autem cur non placeat, haec caussa est, quia et plures codices habent Jeremtae nomen, et qui diligentius tn Graects exemplaribus consideraverunt, in antiquis Graects tla se perhibent invenisse: et nulla fuit caussa cur adderetur hoc nomen, ut mendositas fierel ; cur autem de nonnullis codictbus tolleretur fuit uligue caussa ul audax imperttia faceret, cum turbaretur quaeslone quod hoc testimonium apud Jeremiam non inveniretur. Criteria applied to the New Testament. 4Ἱ the prophets, so that sayings of Zechariah might be claimed by Jeremiah and vce versa’. Jerome has not only heard of but seen an apocryphal work of Jeremiah in which the words quoted occur: he does not however adopt that solution, but simply remarks that the passage is not in Jeremiah but ex- presses the sense of a place in Zechariah* The Breviarium in Psalmos, which is printed with the works of Jerome’, treats together of St. Matt. xiii. 35 (with the reading ‘ Isaiah’) and xxvii. 9, and ends with the frank avowal of a mistake, but apparently on the part of the scribes not of the Evangelist, in both places (Videlts ergo quia et hic error furt sicut 161). III. But now we have reached the third and last of our main questions. We have traced backwards the process by which the New Testament received its present dimensions, and we have endeavoured to define what was understood by the New Testament as a Sacred Volume. It remains for us to ask by what criteria the several books were admitted to their place in that volume, or in other words what were taken to be the tests οὗ the presence or absence of . . . ——_ inspiration. The general test which determined the place of a book in the New Testament was no doubt A fostoliczty. ? De Cons. Evang. iii. 29, 30; ed. Benedict. iii. 2. 114 f. ? Comm, in Ev. Mait. ad \oc.; ed. Migne, vii. 213; ed. Vallarsi, li. 228. * Ed. Migne, vii. 1108. 4. I. The New Testament in the Early Church. When the writer of the Muratorian Fragment declares against the admission of the Shepherd of Hermas into the Canon, he does so on the ground that it is too recent, and that it cannot have a place ‘among the Prophets whose number is complete, nor yet among the Apostles in these latter days.’ As ‘the Prophets’ here stand for the Old Testament, so ‘ the Apostles’ are practically equivalent to the New’. This agrees with the whole tendency of the age in which the Fragmentist was writing. As there grew up round the Church in the second century a crowd of tentative theories for the explanation of the universe into which Christianity was worked with more or less of modification, and as among Christians who were unaffected by these external theories different shades of doctrine began to prevail, it was necessary to fix upon some standard by which competing views might be judged and verified. It was natural that this standard should be sought in the teaching of the Apostles as the best interpretation of the mind of Christ Himself. ‘We walk,’ says Tertullian, ‘by that rule which the Church has handed down from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, and Christ from God?” There was a double guarantee for this tradition, the written Word and the historic continuity of the Apostolic Churches. The heretics, according to the argument which Tertul- lian wields with so much forensic skill, were really debarred from appealing to the Scriptures because 1 So Kuhn, ad loc. ! 2. De Praescr, Παργοί. 37. Compare Serapion as quoted above, P: 33: Criteria applied to the New Testament. 49 they stood outside the Churches which were the proper guardians of those Scriptures. Tertullian claims to be himself ‘heir to the Apostles’ by his loyalty to the faith which they had bequeathed. The Apostles had disinherited and repudiated the heretics who were not true to that faith but struck out new ways of thinking of their own. Before Tertullian Irenaeus had taken up substantially the same ground. He too lays down that the ‘ plan of our salvation’ (dsposcteonem salutis nostrae) had only become known through those who first preached the Gospel and then handed it on to us in the Scriptures !. With these the oral tradition transmitted through suc- cessors of the Apostles is wholly consonant® The double tradition, written and oral, is a storehouse of truth which the Apostles have formed from which every one may take as he will*. The preaching and the writings of the Apostles along with those of the Prophets and the teaching of the Lord supply the premises for his argument*. And even Clement of Alexandria adopts a similar line of reasoning. He appeals to the Scriptures as carrying with them the authority of the Prophets in the Old Testament, and of the Lord and the Apostles in the New®; and he too, like Tertullian, claimed first that the tradition derived from the Apostles is one and the same, and secondly that it proves its truth by its priority to the heresies®. But this tendency to appeal to the authority of the 1 Adv. Haer. iii. 1. 1. 10d. 5.1: δι 1. 2.1. * Tbid. ii. 35. 4: 5 Strom, vii. 16. §§ 95, 91. ® bid. δὲ 106, 108. E 50 7. The New Testament in the Early Church. Apostles can really be traced much further back, in fact to the confines of the New Testament itself. The now famous Dzdaché is put forward in the name of the Twelve | Apostles. Ignatius would ‘have recourse to the Gospel as the flesh of Christ, and to the Apostles as the presbytery’ (or ‘governing body’) ‘of the Church?’ Clement of Rome refers the Corinthians to {πε΄ Epistle which the blessed Apostle Paul wrote to them under the influence of the Spirit (πνευματικῶς) 5, And Justin, though he is not writing for Christians and therefore does not need to lay stress on the point, yet calls the Gospels ‘ Memoirs of the Apostles,’ and 15 careful to note that the Apocalypse is the work of an Apostle ἃ. ; We observe however that in the Muratorian Frag- ment there is still a healthy feeling that the authority of the Apostles is not merely of the nature of dogmatic assertion. In all that he says about the Historical Books the writer insists on the personal qualification of the authors either as eye-witnesses, or as careful historians 4, The Fragmentist takes his stand on the position of the Canon in his own day, and it is that position of which he gives an account. But the idea of Aposto- licity did not exactly cover the contents of that Canon. Three of the Historical Books just mentioned were not by Apostles. And in the debates relating to the 1 Ad Philad. Β. 5 Ad Cor. 47.1: δ᾽ Apol. i. 66,67; Dial. c. Tryph. 88, 101, 103, 104, 106; and for the Apocalypse, Dza/. 81, * See above, p. 45. Criteria applied to the New Testament. δι Epistle to the Hebrews the same difficulty was evi- dently felt. There were two ways out of it. One was to regard the works in question, if not directly Apostolic, as vouched for by Apostles ; the Gospel of St. Mark going back virtually to St. Peter, the writings of St. Luke to St. Paul, and the Epistle to the Hebrews deriving its substance, if not its actual words, from the same Apostle. This expedient was adopted very early'. The other was to lay stress, not so much on Apostolic authorship as on reception by the Churches. || This was a parallel line of argument all through the history of the Canon. Reception by the Churches clearly admitted of degrees’, and reception by the _Apostolic Churches took the next place as an argu- ment to certainly Apostolic origin. In the later stages of the history ecclesiastical usage proved decisive. It is the principle which runs through the Canon of Origen, and after Origen still more distinctly through that of Eusebius. St. Augustine lays it down very 1 Tertullian, Adv. Marc. iv. 5: Marcus quod edidit evangelium Petri afirmatur, cujus interpres Marcus. Nam et Lucae digestum Paulo ad- scribere solent. Cf. for St. Mark, Eus. Demonsir. Evang. iii. 5 (ed. Migne, iv. 217): for St. Luke, Iren. Adv. Haer. iii. 1. 1, 14.1; Tert. Adv. Mare. iv. 2; Orig. ap. Eus. H. £. vi. 25.6, Eus. himself quoting common report, .}7. £. ii. 4. 8, &c. Tertullian takes a rather different line in regard to Ep. to Hebrews. He places it a step, but only a single step, below the writings of the Apostles: Volo famen ex redun- dantia alicujus etiam comitis apostolorum testimontum superducere, tdoneum confirmari de proximo jure disciplinam magistrorum. Extat et Bar- nabae titulus ad Hebraeos,a Deo satis auctorati viri, δε. (De Pudic. 20). * Tertullian uses the comparative recepfior apud ecclestas of the Epistle to the Hebrews as compared with the Shepherd of Hermas (De Pudic. 20, as above). E 2 8: 1. The New Testament in the Early Church. explicitly. ‘In regard to the Canonical Scriptures let him follow the authority of as many as possible of the Catholic Churches, among which of course are those which are of Apostolic foundation or were thought worthy to have Epistles addressed to them. He will therefore follow this rule as to the Canonical Scriptures, to prefer those which are accepted by all the Catholic Churches to those which are not accepted by some; and among those which are not accepted by all to prefer those which the greater and more important Churches accept to those which are supported by fewer Churches or those of less authority!’ Jerome supplements this, with a scholar’s instinct basing his individual opinion more upon the verdict of eminent and ancient authors. Writing with something of the freedom of private correspondence, he says that ‘it does not matter who is the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, as in any case it is the work of a Church-writer (ecclescastict virz) and is constantly read in the Churches’.” As the Latin Churches reject Hebrews so the Greek Churches reject the Apocalypse, but Jerome himself accepts both on the ground that they are quoted by ancient writers as canonical. I do not know that there is any instance in which Apostolic authorship is so expressly abandoned as a necessary condition of Canonicity. We have at the same time brought out another factor which also runs through the whole of » De Doct. Christ. ii. 8. § 12. * Nihil tnteresse cujus sit, quum ecclestastict virt sit, et quotidte ecclestarum lectione celebretur (Ep. cxxix. ad Dardanum; ed. Migne, i. 1103; ed. Vallarsi, i. 971). Criteria applied to the New Testament. 53 the history, the influence of leading individuals, whether of bishops or scholars, in determining the usage of the Churches. It is in this way that Irenaeus appeals to the ‘presbyters,’ that Clement appeals to Pantaenus?! and Origen to the ἀρχαῖοι ἄνδρες 5, and that Eusebius also rests his judgment on that of leading Churchmen (of ἐκκλησιαστικοί) ὃ, The further back we go the more weight such individual opinions doubtless possessed. The usage of particular Churches would be determined, especially at the earliest and most critical stage, by those of its members who carried the greatest weight whether invested with formal authority or not, but especially when invested with such authority, or at least through the direct intervention of those who possessed it*. The judgment of individuals would thus pass into and be lost in the judgment of the Society ; and the combined judgment of these societies would be the verdict of the Catholic Church. The whole process was checked at each step by an active and jealous sense of what was Catholic in doctrine. Just as under the Old Covenant the message of a prophet was to be tested not merely by the success of his predictions but by the agree- ment of the substance of his prophecy with the funda- ΜΕ. Eus. 27.2. Vis TAs 2 Tbid. 25. 8 Jbid. iii. 25. 4 Instances in which learning was on one side and episcopal authority on the other would be Origen and Demetrius at Aléxandria, or Hippolytus and Zephyrinus with his successor Callistus at Rome; but there would be many other examples of the opposite state of things where the bishop took the advice of his leading presbyters. 54 1. [he New Testament in the Early Church. mentals of Israel’s religion, so also under the New Covenant it is clear that writings which came with any claim to be considered canonical were judged by the nature of their contents. The Muratorian Frag- mentist will not have ‘gall mixed with honey.’ He rejects with decision the works of the heretics; just as Irenaeus and Tertullian and writers as far back as Agrippa Castor in the time of Hadrian reject them!. It is often objected that this is an argu- ment in a circle, because the Scriptures are used to establish Church doctrine, and then Church doctrine is used—not as the only test but as one of the tests— to determine what is Scripture. But there is not really a petitio princifit here any more than there was in the testing of a prophet’s message. There was enough New Testament Scripture, as there was enough Old Testament teaching, established on a firm and unshakeable basis to be used as a standard in judging of the rest. There were writings as to the authorship of which the early Church had not a shadow of doubt, and those writings continued to speak with the same personal weight with which their living authors had spoken. Here was a fixed standard to which doubtful writings could be referred. On the strength of it was drawn up before the middle of the second century that short summary of Christian Doctrine which formed the basis of what is known to us as ‘the Apostles’ Creed.’ And round the out- skirts of this there grew up a larger Church con- sciousness, fed and nurtured upon the unquestioned tS, Wao. τν ἢ. Ὁ. ἢ. Criteria applied to the New Testament. 55 documents, which became itself a touchstone to decide what was the ‘analogy of the faith.’ I do not say that it was an infallible touchstone. I only say that it was one which did exist, and which was applied by the men of those days according to the best of their lights, and without any clear logical fallacy. The standard thus obtained worked in two direc- tions. On the one hand it excluded any writing which did not satisfy it in regard to doctrine; and on the other hand it also excluded, or had a tendency to exclude, any writing which clashed with those already received in matters of history. This was the objection brought by the Alogi against the Gospel of St. John?. It gave force to the charge brought by Apollinaris against the Quartodecimans that by their practice they made the Gospels conflict with one another?. And Origen treats it as a principle ac- cepted by most if not by all that the Gospels cannot disagree. There remains one more test which the ancients applied, and of which it is all the more incumbent on me to speak, because it has been the subject of much ridicule and has helped perhaps more than anything to bring the work of the early Canon-makers into dis- credit. I refer to the use of numbers, of which we have conspicuous examples in Irenaeus and the Muratorian 1 Epiph. Haer. li. 4: οὐ συμφωνεῖ τὰ αὐτοῦ βιβλία τοῖς λοιποῖς ἀποστόλοις. 2 Chron. Pasch. i. p. 13 (ed. Dindorf). Comm. in Ev. Matt, xvi. 12 (Lommatzsch, iv. 36): Ὁ μὲν οὖν τῇ ἱστορίᾳ YAR παριστάμενος, καὶ μὴ βουλόμενος διαφωνεῖν τοὺς εὐαγγελιστάς, compared with what follows, Εἴπερ γὰρ ἀκριβῶς πιστεύομεν ἀναγεγράφθαι, κ-τ.λ. 56 I. The New Testament in the Early Church. Fragment, but which was employed equally in regard to the Old Testament and in regard to the New! According to Irenaeus, there must be four Gospels, as there are four quarters of the globe and four cardinal winds *,_ Even Origen compares the Four Gospels to the four elements*. And the Muratorian Fragmentist makes out, as he can do indeed without forcing, that St. Paul wrote exactly to seven Churches, as St. John also in the Epistles attached to the Apocalypse. In this stress on the number seven there is clearly an allusion to the idea of universality, the seven Churches in each case symbolizing the Church uni- versal. The idea is no doubt connected with the revival of Pythagoreanism and the doctrine of the value of numbers*. It is of course not at all a specially Christian idea, but is simply an application to Christian subjects of intellectual methods current at the time. The estimate of these methods belongs to the general history of culture, and in a very subordinate * It is perhaps true (as Mr. Lock suggests to me) that this use of numbers was more often a symbolical interpretation of the facts after the settlement of the different parts of the Canon than a means employed in that settlement, I suspect however that it had something to do with predisposing men’s minds to accept the Epistle to the Hebrews as St. Paul’s and so making up a total of 14 Epistles (2 x 7), and also perhaps in determining the number of the Catholic Epistles. We should thus have a complete system of sevens. St. Paul and St. John wrote alike to 7 churches (cf Fragm. Mur.); Epp. Cath. are 7, and Epp. Paul. twice 7. ? Adv. Haer. iii. 11. 8. ° Comm. in Ev. Joan. i. 6; Lomm. i. 13. * SeeDr.C. Taylor, Hermas and the Four Gospels (Cambridge, 1892), p20. Criteria applied to the New Testament. 5 degree to the history of Christianity. In order to be fair to them we need to place them alongside of those wonderful guesses at the constituent elements of the universe made by the early Greek philosophers. Let us realize for a moment the chaos in which thinking must have been involved before the invention of numbers, and realize also the impression which must have been made upon men’s minds after their inven- tion as day by day new properties were discovered in them, and we shall not I think be surprised if a mystic power sometimes seemed to attach to them, and if they were applied as a key to the solution of problems to which they were really foreign. But those who infer that because Irenaeus uses arguments such as this in regard to the Four Gospels, he is therefore a puerile and contemptible writer, probably in most cases have not read Irenaeus at all, or, if they have read him, have done so without eyes to see, or imagination to enter into, a phase of civilization in any way different from their own. Irenaeus no doubt uses arguments which are some- times good and sometimes bad; and so did others who were concerned with the forming of the Canon. But it is an often-told story that conclusions may be better than the reasons that are givenforthem. The process, by which the Early Church defined the limits of its Scriptures was like the process by which opinion has ripened on many another subject before and since. There entered into it a number of varied elements ; reasoning partly conscious and partly unconscious, authority, usage, the sense of affinity to things spiritual 58 I. The New Testament in the Early Church. and of harmony between spiritual things already realized and appropriated, and others lying beyond, where the realization and appropriation was still to come. And may not the Christian think that there was something even more than this ? May he not think that there is truth in the promise of Him who said, ‘ Lo, 1 am _with you always, even unto the end of the world’? It would not even then follow that all was perfection. It does not seem to be the Will of God that either the World or the Church should leap into perfection all at once, or even make way towards perfection except by gradual and slowdegrees. In all ages it has been His Will to give His servants light enough to walk by ; and that light has gone on broadening down the centuries till it has reached ourselves, in measures fuller perhaps than have been vouchsafed to any generation before. Such privileges bring at once difficulties and responsi- bilities. The very fact that the light given to us now is penetrating into the more hidden recesses may well make it seem at times garish and disturbing. Let us wait awhile patiently and our eyes will get used to it. And, if we are tempted to elation at our superior knowledge, let us remember St. Paul’s warning, ‘ Be not high-minded, but fear’; and again, let us remember that ‘Towhom much is given, of him shall much be required,’ Notes to Lecture I, 59 NOTE A. The Canons of the Quinisextine Council, of Carthage, and of Laodicea. IT may be convenient for the reader to have. before him the text of the only synodical decisions of the Early Church relating to the Canon. CONCILIUM QUINISEXTUM (an. 692), Cav. ii. ... ἐπισφρα- γίζομεν δὲ καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς πάντας ἱεροὺς κανόνας τοὺς ὑπὸ τῶν ἁγίων καὶ μακαρίων πατέρων ἡμῶν ἐκτεθέντας, τοῦτ᾽ ἐστι τῶν τε ἐν Νικαίᾳ συναθροισθέντων τριακοσίων δεκαοκτὼ θεοφόρων ἁγίων πατέρων καὶ τῶν ἐν ’Aykipa... ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τῶν ἐν Λαοδικείᾳ τῆς Φρυγίας ... ὡσαύτως καὶ τῶν ἐν Σαρδικῇ, ἔτι μὴν καὶ τῶν ἐν Καρθαγένῃ [the only Western Councils mentioned]... ᾽Αθα- νασίου ἀρχιεπισκόπου ᾿Αλεξανδρείας . .. Γρηγορίου τοῦ θεολύόγου, ᾿Αμφιλοχίου ᾿Ικονίου ... καὶ μηδενὶ ἐξεῖναι τοὺς προδηλωθέντας παραχαράττειν κανόνας ἢ ἀθετεῖν ἢ ἑτέρους παρὰ τοὺς προκει- μένους παραδέχεσθαι κανόνας Ψψευδεπιγράφως ὑπό τινων συντεθέντας τῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν καπηλεύειν ἐπιχειρησάντων ... (From Bruns, Canones Apost. et Concil. Vet. Selecti, Berolini, 1839, p. 36 f.) It will be observed here that κανών = any formulated and authoritative rule or set of rules, whether laid down by a Council or by some individual Churchman. Only some of those which were thus sanctioned contained lists of the Sacred Books. Conc. Carthag. iv. (an. 419), Can. xxiv. ratifies Conc. Car- thag. iii. (an. 397), Caz. xlvii, which is given thus by Bruns, a few various readings from English MSS. being contributed by Dr. Westcott. 60 Notes to Lecture I. CONCILIUM CARTHAGINIENSE III. (an. 397), Can. xlvii. ‘Item placuit, ut praeter scripturas canonicas nihil in ecclesia legatur sub nomine divinarum scripturarum. Sunt autem canonicae scripturae [+hae W.]: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri, Deuteronomium, Jesus Nave, Judicum, Ruth, Reg- norum libri quatuor, Paralipomenon libri duo, Job, Psalterium Davidicum, Salomonis libri quinque, libri duodecim Prophe- tarum, Jesaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel, Daniel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, Esdrae libri duo, Machabaeorum libri duo. Novi autem Testamenti, Evangeliorum libri quatuor, Actuum Apostolorum liber unus, Pauli apostoli epistolae tredecim, elusdem ad Hebraeos una, Petri apostoli duae, Joannis ap. [om. W.] tres, Judae ap. una et Jacobi una [Jacobi i., Judae i., W.], Apocalypsis Joannis liber unus. Hoc etiam fratri et consacerdoti nostro Bonifacio vel aliis earum partium epi- scopis pro confirmando isto canone innotescat, quia a patribus ἰδία accepimus in ecclesia legenda. Liceat etiam [autem W.] legi passiones martyrum, cum anniversarii dies eorum cele- brantur.’ The presence of the clause providing for the sending of the list to Pope Boniface (418-422 A.D.) shows that this form of the Canon really belongs to the Council of 419. With it should be compared Brev. Statut. Hippon. xxxvi. as given by Zahn (Gesch. d. K. ii. 251 f.), the text of which is however clearly in an uncertain condition. It is generally agreed that the list appended as Caw. 1x. to the Council of Laodicea is not original, but as it may be included in the sanction of the Quinisextine Council, it seems best to give it with the variants of Westcott and Zahn. CONCILIUM LAODICENUM (an. circ._363), Can. lix. Ὅτι οὐ δεῖ ἰδιωτικοὺς ψαλμοὺς λέγεσθαι ἐν τῇ προ δ οὐδὲ ἀκανόνιστα βιβλία, ἀλλὰ μόνα τὰ κανονικὰ τῆς καινῆς καὶ παλαιᾶς διαθήκης. [Ix. Ὅσα δεῖ βιβλία ἀναγινώσκεσθαι τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης" a’ Γένεσις κόσμου. β΄ "Egodos ἐξ [om. Z.] Αἰγύπτου. γ΄ Λευιτικόν. δ΄ ᾿Αριθμοί. ε΄ Δευτερονόμιον. ς΄ Ἰησοῦς Ναυῆ. ζ΄ Κριταί, ῬΡούθ. η΄ Ἐσθήρ. 0° Βασιλειῶν πρώτη καὶ δευτέρα. ι΄ Βασιλειῶν τρίτη καὶ τετάρτη. ια΄ Παραλειπόμενα πρῶτον καὶ δεύτερον. ιβ' Note B. 6r "Ἔσδρας πρῶτον καὶ δεύτερον. ty’ Βίβλος Ψαλμῶν ἑκατὸν πεντή- κοντα. ιδ΄ Παροιμίαι Σολομῶντος. ιε΄ ᾿Εκκλησιαστής. ws’ Ἄσμα ἀσμάτων. ιζ Ἰώβ. ιη΄ Δώδεκα προφῆται. ιθ΄ Ἡσαΐας. κ' ᾿Ιερεμίας καὶ Βαρούχ, Θρηνοὶ καὶ ᾿πιστολαί. xa’ ᾿Ιεζεκιήχλ. κβ΄ Δανιήλ. Τὰ δὲ τῆς [wne. incl. Z.| καινῆς διαθήκης ταῦτα. [ογ71. W., unc. incl. Ζ.1. Ἐϊαγγέλια τέσσαρα, κατὰ Ματθαῖον, κατὰ Μάρκον, κατὰ Λουκᾶν, κατὰ Ἰωάννην. Πράξεις ἀποστόλων. ᾿Επιστολαὶ καθολικαὶ ἑπτά: οὕτως [om. Z.]. ᾿ἸΙακώβου μία, Πέτρου δύο, Ἰωάννου τρεῖς, ἸΙούδα pla. ᾿Επιστολαὶ Παύλου δεκατέσσαρες" πρὸς Ῥωμαίους μία, πρὸς Κορινθίους δύο, πρὸς Γαλάτας μία, πρὸς ᾿Εφεσίους μία, πρὸς Φιλιππησίους μία, πρὸς Κολοσσαεῖς μία, πρὸς Θεσσαλονικεῖς δύο, πρὸς Ἑβραίους μία, πρὸς Τιμόθεον δύο, πρὸς Τίτον μία, πρὸς Φιλή- μονα μία. NOTE B. Harnack’s Theory of the Growth of the New Testament Canon. HARNACK’S theory of the growth of the New Testament Canon can be stated, and is sometimes stated by himself, in a way to which exception need not be taken. But it is no less difficult to reconcile the language which he uses on some occasions with that which is used on others than to bring these latter passages into harmony with the facts. Perhaps the best summary of his views with which I am acquainted is that which is given at the end of the tract Das Neue Tesia- ment von das Fahr 200; but it is just here that the opposition between the two sides of his theory comes out most clearly. I proceed to quote what seems to be the central part of this summary, numbering the sentences for convenience of reference. (1) ‘The New Testament in the strict sense of the word is every- where, wherever it emerges, something sudden ; that is, the complete equation of the written word of the Apostles with the written word of 62 Notes to Lecture I. the Lord, the incorporation of the Acts in the Canon, and the concep- tion of the whole collection as the tradition of the Apostolic teaching deposited in written books, forming a complete whole, and placed beyond competition (die in Schriften niedergelegte, abgeschlossene unerreichbare apostolische Lehrtradition) had no previous history in the strict sense of the word, but must be described as a change of ‘interest in the Holy Scriptures, brought about by controversy with Gnosticism and Montanism. (2) But Holy Christian Writings or Scriptures the Church had long possessed (hatte man lingst); indeed there was a time when it believed to a large extent that among the Christian writings which it possessed there was nothing which was not holy ; because the Church knew that it was holy itself, and it knew also that every word was holy which was spoken or written in the name and to the praise of Christ (Acts xv. 28; 1 Cor. xii. 3; 1 Clem. 63). (3) Besides this there were holy Apostles, prophets and teachers ; for the degrees and kinds of holiness were very various, as were the gifts of the Holy Ghost. (4) In the first age there was not much writing; but such writings as there were, were early collected and diffused. (5) So there came to be similar collections in the different district churches, in the greater churches no doubt several of these collections. (6) The dignity of the writings contained in them was, according as one likes to take it, either very great or very small. (7) Very great; because all was holy which preached the name of Christ, especially if it proceeded from Apostles, prophets and teachers: very small; because they did not yet attain to the position either of the Old Testament, the Sacred Volume of highest antiquity, or the Word of the Lord, and every new utterance of the Spirit might interpret or supersede that which had gone before.’ In this passage the sentences numbered 2--Ξ seem to me to describe very well the real state of the case. Those numbered 6 and 7 (in the second alternative) are an exaggeration ; because the prophets of the New Covenant were on precisely the same footing with those of the Old, and the Apostles represented something still higher and more authoritative than the prophets. But the first sentence of all is diametri- cally opposed to those which follow. It makes a gulf between the spoken word and the written word which cer- tainly did not exist. It assumesa breach of continuity where there is no breach but simply the direct and inevitable Note B. 63 development of conditions present from the first. As the following sentences show, the potentiality of the New Testa- ment was there from the first moment when the Lord and His Apostles began to open their lips in public teaching. There was never any change in the estimate of the value and authority of that teaching. It is true that there were descend- ing grades: but these practically do not affect the question, because (as Harnack says) there was not at first much writing of any sort, and by the Providence of God it is mainly the best which has been preserved to us. When the Church began to reflect and define, it merely gave conscious and deliberate expression to feelings which had been present in- articulately throughout. Of course there was a little oscilla- tion at first, as there could not but be in ascertaining the true sense of a body so widely scattered and so imperfectly organized for such a purpose; but the oscillation did not take long to subside, and the result once obtained remained undisturbed. The ‘ sudden change’ of which Harnack speaks, and which assumes in his eyes such magnified proportions, is merely the reflexion—I had almost said, mirage—cast by the fact that the date at which it is supposed to take place is practically ‘that at which the bulk of the evidence begins. It seems as if he could not shake himself free from the legal formula, De non existentibus et non apparentibus eadem est ratio. But that is not a maxim for history. The historian’s duty is to look hard at the facts as soon as they do appear. They will seldom refuse to reveal something of the process which has brought them to the point at which they are, and which connects them with other facts on the further side of the chasm. 64 Notes to Lecture I. NOTE (Ὁ. Debateable Points relating to the Alog. I HAVE tried to hold the scales between Harnack and Zahn and to do justice to the elements of truth in the conceptions of both writers. (1) I think that Harnack is inclined slightly to exaggerate the importance of the party, though he does not see an allusion to it in the Muratorian Fragment. On this point I go rather with Zahn. The Alogi no doubt did make a certain stir in literary circles; but it was only a side eddy in the great movement of opinion. (2) 1 agree with Harnack in thinking that it is quite possible . that the Alogi had a double front against Gnosticism as well as Montanism: we might add also against Chiliasm. They seem to have been just a few rationalizing Christians who cut away all that seemed to them mystical or extravagant. It was inevitable that this tendency should go further; and therefore I go with Harnack in accepting the statement of Epiphanius that Theodotus of Byzantium sprang out of this circle (Haer. liv. 1: ἀπόσπασμα ὑπάρχων ἐκ τῆς προειρημένης ἀλόγου αἱρέσεως). (3) At the same time I cannot assent to Harnack’s con- clusion that the attitude of the Alogi is ‘sehr verhangnissvoll’ for the Fourth Gospel. It is worth just so much as the critical grounds by which it is supported are worth, and no more. It is clear that this handful of primitive rationalists had nothing to trust to but their own arguments. They were not in possession of any real historical tradition adverse to the Johannean authorship of the Gospel. Their attribution of it to Cerinthus was a random guess, thrown out in the heat of personal dislike: it goes so far to confirm the Catholic tradition that it agrees with it both as to time and place. Note D. 65 The views of Zahn respecting the Alogi will be found in Gesch. αἰ. K.i. 223-227, 237-262 ; ii. 967-973, 1021 f. Those of Harnack are sharply expressed in VV. 7. wm 200, pp. 58-70; compare Dogmengesch. i. 307, and index, NOTE. D: The use of the New Testament by Clement of Alexandria, As Clement of Alexandria is the writer to whom appeal is usually made by those who maintain the unequal authority of different parts of the New Testament, and of the New Testament as a whole compared with the Old, it may be worth while to test his evidence on the following points: (1) the equality of the two Testaments ; (2) the authority of the Acts; (3) the authority of the Epistles. (1) It is true, as stated in the text, that there is some ambiguity in the juxtaposition of 7 παλαιά and ἡ καινὴ (νέα) διαθήκη : it need not necessarily mean the writings of the two Dispensations. But with Clement of Alexandria this sense seems to lie near at hand. The double phrase seems to mean the body of laws or teaching belonging to the two Dispensations, but usually with the further implication that this body of laws and teaching is accessible in written docu- ments. Sometimes the stress may be on the dispensation in the abstract, sometimes on its written expression. The following seem to be fairly clear cases; Strom. i. 5. § 28, πάντων μὲν yap αἴτιος τῶν καλῶν ὁ Θεός, ἀλλὰ τῶν μὲν κατὰ προηγούμενον ὡς τῆς τε διαθήκης τῆς παλαιᾶς καὶ τῆς νέας, τῶν δὲ Kar’ ἐπακολούθημα ὡς τῆς φιλοσοφίας. Here the ‘divine library’ of the Old and New Testaments is opposed to the philosophical library as an instrument of education. In Strom. iii. 11. § 71 the eighth commandment is ratified in Matt. v. 27 κατὰ τὴν νέαν διαθήκην. In like manner we have in Svrom. 111, 18. § 108, written F 66 Notes to Lecture I. enactments of the New Testament (ἡ 6:00. ἣ καινή) opposed to written enactments of the Law. Similarly in Strom. v. 1. § 3 we have mention of ai ἐντολαὶ αἵ τε κατὰ τὴν παλαιὰν αἵ τε κατὰ τὴν νέαν διαθήκην. And in Strom. v. 13. ὃ 85 precepts of the New Testament are placed side by side with those of the Old. Does this juxtaposition imply equality? Yes, because in several places Clement insists upon the common origin of both dispensations. Thus S¢rom. ii. 6. δὲ 28, 29, εἷς ἀμφοῖν ταῖν διαθήκαιν δείκνυται 6 Θεός... ἐπειδὴ δύο αὗται ὀνόματι καὶ χρόνῳ καθ᾽ ἡλικίαν καὶ προκοπὴν οἰκονομικῶς δεδομέναι δυνάμει μία οὖσαι, ἣ μὲν παλαιά, ἣ δὲ καινή, διὰ υἱοῦ παρ᾽ ἑνὸς Θεοῦ χορηγοῦνται ... τὴν μίαν τὴν ἐκ προφητείας εἰς εὐαγγέλιον τετελειωμένην δι᾿ ἑνὸς καὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ κυρίου διδάσκων σωτηρίαν. Compare especially Strom. vi. 13. § 106, μία μὲν γὰρ τῷ ὄντι διαθήκη ἡ σωτήριος ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου εἰς ἡμᾶς διήκουσα κατὰ διαφόρους γενεάς τε καὶ χρόνους διάφορος εἶναι τὴν δόσιν ὑποληφθεῖσα : and zbid. 15. ὃ 125, κανὼν δὲ ἐκκλησιαστικὸς ἡ συνωδία καὶ ἣ συμφωνία νόμου τε καὶ προφητῶν τῇ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου παρουσίαν παραδιδομένῃ διαθήκῃ. If there is any superiority it is on the side of the New Testament and not of the Old. Thus in the extract from Strom. 11. 6. § 29 it is implied that the Law was ‘perfected’ in the Gospel; an idea which is further developed in iv. 21. § 130, ἀλλὰ νομικοῦ μὲν τελείωσις γνωστικὴ εὐαγγελίου πρόσληψις « ἐν εὐαγγελίῳ δὲ ἤδη προκόπτει ὁ γνωστικὸς οὐ βαθμῷ χρησά- μενος τῷ νόμῳ μόνον, συνιεὶς δὲ αὐτὸν καὶ νοήσας ὡς παρέδωκε τοῖς ἀποστόλοις 6 τὰς διαθήκας δεδωκὼς κύριος. Compare v. 6. § 38, ἄλλως τε ἐχρῆν τῇ κεφαλῇ τῇ κυριακῇ νόμον μὲν καὶ προφήτας ὑποκεῖσθαι κιτιλ. Stress is laid upon the fact that while both Testaments proceed from the same Lord, in the Gospels He spoke ‘in His own person’ (αὐτοπροσώπως Strom. iii. 11. § 71). (2) The fact that Clement insists so strongly as he does on the identical origin of the two Testaments is fatal to Harnack’s contention that any part of the New Testament is inferior to the Old. With him the book of the Acts goes along with the Epistles. Both alike give expression to that revelation of which Christ Himself was the author through Note D. 67 the Apostles. The Old Testament and the New make up one single harmony in which the Apostles play a prominent part; λάβοις δ᾽ ἂν καὶ ἄλλως μουσικὴν συμφωνίαν τὴν ἐκκλη- σιαστικὴν νόμου καὶ προφητῶν ὁμοῦ καὶ ἀποστόλων σὺν καὶ τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ (Strom. vi. 11. § 88). The Acts are as a rule appealed to for plain historical facts, and their authority is as absolutely unquestioned as that of any of the other Historical Books. The book is expressly ascribed to St. Luke (S¢vom. v. 13. ὃ 82). But in one place it is clearly placed on the same footing with the Epistles ; and from the way in which it is quoted in this passage the reader may conclude what kind of estimate Clement formed of it: ὁ yap ἀπόστολος “πάντα᾽ φησὶ “τὰ ἄλλα ὠνεῖσθε ἐκ pa- κέλλου μηδὲν ἀνακρίνοντες, καθ᾽ ὑπεξαίρεσιν τῶν δηλουμένων κατὰ τὴν ἐπιστολὴν τὴν καθολικὴν τῶν ἀποστόλων ἁπάντων, “σὺν τῇ εὐδοκίᾳ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος τῇ γεγραμμένῃ μὲν ἐν ταῖς Πράξεσι τῶν ἀποστόλων, διακομισθείσῃ δὲ εἰς τοὺς πιστοὺς δι’ αὐτοῦ δια- κονοῦντος τοῦ Παύλου. ἐμήνυσαν γὰρ “ ἐπάναγκες ἀπέχεσθαι δεῖν εἰδωλοθύτων᾽᾽ κιτιλ. (Strom. iv. 15. § 97). (3) Both the Acts and Epistles are quoted with the ordinary formulae for the citation of Scripture (γέγραπται, ἡ γραφή). Christ as the Divine Paedagogus or Tutor speaks through different organs, at one time through Moses, at another through the Apostles (Paedag. iii. 12. § 94). Accordingly Clement uses the highest language of reverence of the Apostles. They are more many-sided in their gifts than the Prophets: ἀλλ᾽ ἕκαστος ἴδιον ἔχει χάρισμα ἀπὸ Θεοῦ, ὁ μὲν οὕτως, ὁ δὲ οὕτως, οἱ ἀπόστολοι δὲ ἐν πᾶσι πεπληρώμενοι (Strom. iv. 21. 132). St. Paul is ὁ ἅγιος ἀπόστολος τοῦ κυρίου (Protrept. 8, ὃ 81); ὁ θεῖος ἀπόστολος (Strom. iv. 16.§ 101; 21. ὃ 132); ὁ μακάριος ἀπόστολος (Protrept. 9. ὃ 83; Pacdag. ii. το. § 98; Strom. i. 10. § 49) or 6 μακάριος Παῦλος (Paedag. i. 5.§ 19; 6. § 23). In like manner St. Peter is 6 μακάριος Πέτρος (Paedag. ii. 12. ὃ 127); ὁ θαυμάσιος Πέτρος (Strom. iii. 11.§ 75); in both cases with quotations from his Epistle. St. James, St. Peter, St. John and St. Paul, are grouped together as possessed of the true γνῶσις (Strom. vi. 8. § 68). F 2 68 Notes to Lecture I. We seldom read many pages of Clement without coming across quotations from the Epistles, often in thick clusters, and with such formulae as φησὶν 6 ἀπόστολος, 6 ἀπόστολος λέγει, παραγγέλλει, βοᾷ, ἀξιοῖ. κτλ. There is really no difference whatever in the way in which the Epistles are appealed to and that in which appeal is made to other parts of the Bible. In a number of places they are expressly equated with other books. Thus with the Gospel and the Prophets, Strom. v. 5. § 31, δύο ὁδοὺς ὑποτιθεμένου τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Kal τῶν ἀποστόλων ὁμοίως τοῖς προφήταις ἅπασι (cf. Strom. vi. 11. § 88, quoted above); with the Prophets, προφήτας yap ἅμα καὶ δικαίους εἶναι τοὺς ἀποστόλους λέγοντες εὖ ἂν εἴποιμεν “ ἑνὸς καὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐνερ- γοῦντος᾽ διὰ πάντων ἁγίου πνεύματος (Strom. v. 6. § 38); with the Gospels, τὸν Χριστὸν σοφίαν φαμέν... ὡς αὐτὸς κατὰ τὴν παρουσίαν τοὺς ἁγίους ἐδίδαξεν ἀποστόλους (Strom. vi. 7. § 61). Harnack makes two strange statements respecting Clement, one in the text and the other ina note of his Dogmengeschichte (i. 321 ed. 2), ‘bereits die paulinischen Briefe sind ihm nicht in derselben Weise Instanz wie die Evv., obschon er sie gelegentlich als γραφαί bezeichnet’; and, ‘sehr interessant ist auch, dass Clemens den parabolischen Charakter der h. Schriften fast nirgendwo an der Brieflitteratur darthut, son- dern an dem A. T. und dem Ev., wie er auch Stellen aus anderen Schriften fast niemals allegorisirt hat.’ We have seen in what sense Clement does assign a certain superiority to the Gospels, as any of us moderns might do, because the Lord there speaks in person. But he quotes, and not only quotes but expounds, the Epistles with all the full authority of Scripture, not once or twice but hundreds of times. And he in principle evidently feels himself just as free to allegorize the Epistles as any other part either of the New Testament or of the Old. If we are to take Harnack’s words quite literally, it is true that the allegorizing of the Epistles does not occur frequently ; for the simple reason that the Epistles lend themselves more naturally to direct application, both on points of doctrine and of practice, than to allegorizing. But there are instances Note D. 69 enough to show that Clement had not the slightest hesita- tion to apply them allegorically in principle. Clear examples may be seen in Paedag. i. 6. δὲ 33-47 (a long and very characteristic passage on ὅτε ἤμην νήπιος and γάλα ὑμᾶς ἐπό- tiga); ΣΟ 1. 11. ὃ 53; iii. 12. §§ 80, 84; ἵν. τό. ὃ 100: v. 4. δῷ 26, 61, 62; 12. ὃ 80. In several of these places he says expressly that St. Paul is allegorizing: ὅτε ἤμην νήπιος ... τὴν κατὰ νόμον ἀγωγὴν αἰνίττεται-- λόγος ἀλληγορούμενος γάλα--- ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸ “ ἐπότισα᾽ ῥῆμα τελείας μεταλήψεως σύμ- βολόν ἐστι--ἰ θαύματος μυστικοῦ---εἰκότως ἀλληγορῶν 6 Παῦλος καὶ γάλα αὐτὸν ὀνομάζων “ἐπότισα᾽ ἐπιφέρει --- πάλιν τε αὖ περὶ τοῦ νύμου διαλεγόμενος ἀλληγορίᾳ χρώ- μενος “ἣ γὰρ ὕπανδρος γυνὴ φησὶ “τῷ ζῶντι ἀνδρὶ δέδεται νόμῳ᾽ καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς---“ ἁγίου δὲ ὄντος τοῦ νόμου᾽ ἅγιος ὁ γάμος" τὸ μυστήριον τοίνυν τοῦτο εἰς τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἄγει ὃ ἀπόστολος---τὴν γιωστικὴν οἰκοδομὴν ... αἰνισσόμενός φησιν. Not only does Clement interpret the Epistles alle- gorically, but he bases upon them the practice of allegorical interpretation (Strom. v. 4. δὲ 25, 26). So entirely without foundation is Harnack’s statement, and so conclusive is the proof that Clement ascribed to the Epistles (he treats St. Peter in the same way as St. Paul) the highest property of a Sacred Book, that of being inter- preted as allegory. It is in vain to attempt to draw any real distinction between the use of the New Testament by Clement of Alexandria and the great writers who were his contemporaries and successors. He is distinguished from them only (i) in the higher value which he assigns to the wisdom of the Greeks, drawn, as he maintained, from Hebrew sources; and (ii) by the uncritical way in which he accepted as Apostolic whatever came to him with the name of an Apostle. {ἘΠΕ air THE HISTORIC “CANON. ESTIMATE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE FIRST | CENTURY (OF THE (CHRISTIAN ERA. ‘What advantage then hath the Jew? Or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way: first of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.’—om. iii. 1, 2. WE are engaged in the attempt to form a con- structive view of the growth of the Bible as an Inspired or Sacred Book; and as a preliminary to this, before we venture upon the more difficult problem of origins, we are seeking to map out in broad lines the conception which results when the process is more or less complete, or at least when it emerges from its passage as it were underground into the fuller light of history. In pursuance of this object we have already taken a section, so to speak, of the history of the New Testament at two of its stages. We have now to take, if we can succeed in doing so, a corresponding section of the Old Testa- ment. ‘This part of our subject is really, as has been said, the more critical of the two: because the con- ception of a Canon, of an inspired volume, was first formed for the Old Testament, and only extended The Old Testament in the First Century. 1 from it to the New. The Books of the New Testa- ment acquired canonical value when they came to be placed on the same footing with those of the Old. It was not that any new attributes were ascribed to them, or that any new idea of Canonicity had to be constructed. The idea was already there, complete in all its parts. The only step required was that the Books of the New Testament—at first some, then all—should be brought under it. And they were so brought under it the moment that the literature of the New Covenant came to be treated as on an equality with that of the Elder Covenant, when the writings of the Apostles and their followers took rank beside the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms. We approach then to-day this most important question: What was the estimate formed by the Jews and by the early Christians of the Old Testament ? How far had they our present idea of Canonicity ? What particular connotation did they attach to that idea ? In dealing with the New Testament we selected the two periods 200 and 400 a.p. In dealing with the Old Testament we cannot draw so definite a line. We shall do well to take not a year but a century. About the end of the first century after Christ a sort of formal decision seems to have been given by the Jewish doctors assembled at Jamnia on the Canonicity of certain books; and the same century saw three important groups of writings in all of which this idea is to a greater or less extent presupposed— 12 Il. The Old Testament in the First Century. the works of Philo, the New Testament, and the works of Josephus'. From these three groups it is not difficult to understand how the Scriptures of the Old Testament were regarded in three typical sections of the Jewish people. It should be premised that in collecting data from the New Testament I reserve for the present the deeper teaching of our Lord and the Apostles, and rather aim at giving those particulars in which the writers share the beliefs of their countrymen. I. We may resolve the complex idea of Canonicity into the same sort of elements as those which we followed in the last lecture. In the first place we note that the special sacredness attaching to the Scrip- tures was expressed in their titles. It is characteristic of Philo that while he accumulates expressions which denote inspiration, he lays stress rather on the inspired person than on the inspired book. He uses the phrase ‘sacred scriptures’ (ἱεραὶ γραφαί), ‘sacred books’ (ἱεραὶ βίβλοι), ‘the sacred word’ (ὁ ἱερὸς λόγος), ‘oracle’ (λόγιον, χρησμοί) 3, &c.; but far more often he * It may be convenient to remember that the works of Philo were probably nearly all composed before his embassy to Rome in 40 A.D.; that the earliest extant New Testament writing (1 Thess.) dates from about 52 a.p., and the Antiguzties and Cont. Apion. of Josephus (which alone are important for our purpose) about or soon after 93-94 A.D. ? A number of these expressions are collected by Eichhorn, Einlettung in d. A. 7.1. 129. It is important to note that a Historical Book, 1 Sam. i. 11, is quoted as ὁ ἱερὸς λόγος (De Lbriet. 36, Mangey, i. 379; of De Conf. Ling. 28, Mang. i. 427, τῶν ἐν βασιλικαῖς βίβλοις ἱεροφαντηθέντων, of the Book of Ezra). Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 3 refers directly to the writer, and that frequently with some qualifying phrase which brings out the fact that his words are inspired, that he is speaking in a rapt or ecstatic condition as the mouthpiece of God. Philo rarely uses the particular name with which we are so familiar in the New Testament, ‘scripture, ‘the scriptures,’ ‘holy scriptures’ (ἡ γραφή, often in the sense of a particular passage of Scripture, αἱ γραφαί, ἅγιαι γραφαί). Besides these we have in the New Testament ἱερὰ γράμματα 5, ‘sacred writings, and twice the word λόγια ὃ, ‘oracles of God,’ and ‘living oracles’ (i.e. almost ‘life-giving,’ animated by the Spirit), In Josephus we get ‘sacred books’ (éepai βίβλοι *, ἱερὰ βιβλία 5), “ sacred writings’ (ἑερὰ γράμματα), ‘books of sacred scriptures’ (ἱερῶν γραφῶν βίβλοι 1). Similar designations are found in the Talmud ὃ, It is common to all these titles that they indicate a Divine origin. And this is a point which may be illus- trated with overwhelming abundance. There can be no doubt that it was a rooted idea among the Jews of the first century, both Hellenistic and Palestinian, 1 Rom... 2. 5. 2. UG 111: 1. 5. Rom. iii. 2; Acts vii. 38. Saale provem AN. 1G. 5 ill, §.°2 5 ἵν: 8.1485 ix: 2: 2; Χ- ἃ: 2; &C0; ἘΠ 7. τ 8. τ; iii. 8) 3, 46. ᾿ δ ΡΣ 78: δ πο το 4... δὲ fo Vib A ἃ Ape τ 10: τς, 42. ἃ. 4. ὙΠῸ references to Josephus are given by Gerlach, Die Weissagungen d. A. T. in d. Schrift. d. Flav. Joseph., Berlin, 1863. The views both of Philo and Josephus are also fully discussed in a recent monograph by M. Dienstfertig, Die Prophetologie im ἃ. Religionsphilosophie d. ersten nachchristlichen Jahrhunderts, Breslau, 1892. ® They are collected by Ryle, Canon, p. 292. 74 Il. [he Old Testament tn the First Century. that the Scriptures of the Old Testament came from God. Philo expresses this in the most uncompromis- ing manner. In quoting a verse from Jeremiah he . says in so many words that it was uttered by ‘the Father of All through the mouth of the prophet 1.’ In Philo’s conception of it the recipient of inspiration is passive, and the Divine Spirit speaks through him. ‘For a prophet, he says, ‘gives forth nothing at all of his own but acts as interpreter at the prompting of another in all his utterances, and as long as he is under inspiration he is in ignorance, his reason de- parting from its place and yielding up the citadel of his soul, when the Divine Spirit enters into it and dwells in it and strikes at the mechanism of his voice sounding through it to the clear declaration of that which He prophesieth *’ The saying in Gen. xv. 12, that ‘about the setting of the sun a trance came’ upon Abraham, is typical of this process. The sun is the light of human reason, which sets and gives place to the Spirit of God. ‘So long then as our mind shines and stirs about us, pouring as it were noontide bright- ness into every corner of the soul, we are masters of ourselves and are not possessed; but when it draws to its setting, then it is natural that the trance of inspira- tion should fall upon us, seizing upon us with a sort of frenzy. For when the divine light begins to shine, the human sets; and when it sets below the horizon, the other appears above it and rises. This is what constantly happens to the prophet. The mind in us 1 De Profug. 36 (Mangey, i. 575). 2 De Special. Legg. iv. 8 (Mangey, ii. 343). Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 15 is expelled at the arrival of the Divine Spirit and returns again to its home at His removal. For it may not be that mortal dwell with immortal. So the setting of the reason and the darkness that gathers round it generates an ecstasy and heaven-caused mad- ness’. In another well-known passage an elaborate distinction is drawn between the different modes of inspiration. The highest is that in which the prophet simply acts as the ‘interpreter’ of God and in which there is the most complete identification of human and divine. Then comes the method of question and answer, in which the one alternates with the other. And lastly there are the cases in which the prophet speaks in his own person, though still as it seems possessed by the Divine Spirit *. We may observe in regard to Philo that his language bears traces of the syncretism of his whole system. The words of which he is fondest, χρησμός, λόγιον, μανία, ἱεροφάντης, ἱεροφαντεῖν, θεοφόρητος, ἐπιθειάφω, ἐνθουσιᾶν, are characteristic of Greek ‘ mantic, and especially of the application of it to philosophy by Plato. It is through this philosophical use that the terms in question come to him, as he has no respect for the ordinary methods of soothsaying*. In like manner it is from Neopythagoreanism that Philo gets the idea of the mystical vision of God*, As com- * Quts rer. div. her. 53 (Mangey, i. 511). * Vit. Mos. iii. 23 (Mangey, ii. 163). ® De Monarch. i. 9 (Mang. ii. 221). 4 De Migr. Abr. 8, 34, 35 (Mang. i. 442, 466); De Soma. i. 19, 26, 32 (i. 638, 645, 649) ; ii. 38 (i. 692), &c. "6 LI. The Old Testament in the First Century. pared with Josephus he lays greater stress on the ecstatic state in the recipient of revelation; the soul is wholly possessed and loses self-consciousness. It is also characteristic of Philo to introduce the Logos as the medium of revelation’. Josephus is simpler, and keeps closer to the Biblical accounts; he writes as a historian, and not as a speculative philosopher or theologian; but the underlying conception in both writers can hardly be said to differ. We shall have more to say about the range of Philo’s doctrine of inspiration presently. The Divine origin of the prophetic word comes out especially in the New Testament in the formula ‘that which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet’ (ὑπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου διὰ τοῦ προφήτου) 2. The prophet is only the channels for the Divine utterance; Phere ses certain ambiguity in the places in which λέγει, εἶπεν͵ φησίν, are used without any subject expressed. It may be God Himself who is speaking; or it may be the Scripture personified; or it may be the writer of the book that is being quoted. But there are not a few places in which this ambiguity is removed by the insertion (expressed or clearly implied) of ὁ Θεός 5, 1 Dienstfertig, wt sup. p. 153; Siegfried, Phzlo, p. 228. I may remark that Dienstfertig seems to me to press the difference between Philo and Josephus beyond what it will really bear. [oso Matt. i. 223 11. 15 (δ): U. 53 iil. 5ὴ; Acts van vile 25 (cp. ii. 16). Ss SomMatt. xv. 4; Acts ill. 254 vil: 2,3 16) 75 ἘΠῚ 7 (ΟΡ 22); 2/Corviee16, Τὴ, τ; Eleb. 1. 5; 6, ἡ; 8, 03)s) i ee Oe τ᾿ nae 14; Vii. 21; viii. 8; x. 5 (here the Messiah is regarded as speaking), 30; xii. 26; James ii. 11. Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 77 There are other passages where the words of Scrip- ture are directly referred to the Holy Spirit 4. Josephus uses a number of expressions which imply Divine inspiration. He speaks of ‘the Deity (τὸ θεῖον) being present with’ a writer; of ‘holding converse with God’; of ‘being possessed or inspired by God’; of ‘being filled with Deity’; of ‘being in a state of Divine inspiration’; of ‘the Spirit of God taking hold of’ the prophet ; of ‘the Divine gift passing over’ from one person to another. Josephus is almost as explicit as Philo in regard to the manner of inspiration. He describes Balaam as prophesying ‘not as master of himself but moved to say what he did by the Divine Spirit. And he makes him say to Balak, ‘ Thinkest thou that it is in our power to speak or be silent about such things when the Spirit of God takes possession of us? For He causes us to utter words such as He wills and speeches without our know- ledge...I prayed that I might not disappoint thy desire. But God is stronger than my resolve to serve thee. For those who fancy (ὑπολαμβάνοντες, Niese) that of themselves they can foretell the fortunes of men are all too weak to help saying what God suggests to them or to resist His Will; for when He has entered into us nothing that is in us is any longer our own®.’ 1 Matt. xxii. 43 (=Mark xii. 36); Acts xxviii. 25; Heb. x. 15. 2 Ant. iv. 6.5. Dienstfertig (uf sup. p. 25), after Lewinski, Besrage z. Kenninis d. reiigionsphilos. Anschauungen d. Flav. Joseph., Ῥ. 35s denies that this description applies to the prophet, because Balaam is called μάντις ἄριστος and not προφήτης ; but this seems to me to be pressing the particular word used too far. There is the same want of strict consistency in Josephus as in the Bible. 8 LI. Lhe Old Testament in the First Century. It is clear that in this Josephus is only paraphrasing and expanding the Biblical account’. But the same idea runs through his whole conception of prophecy. At the head of all the prophets is Moses, who had none like him, ‘so that in whatever he said one might imagine that one heard God Himself speaking®.’ Even historical narratives, such as those at the beginning of the Pentateuch (τὰ ἀνωτάτω καὶ παλαιότατα), which were not written down by contemporary prophets, were obtained by direct inspiration from God (κατὰ τὴν ἐπίπνοιαν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ)δ, The predictions of the prophets were absolute truth to which the subsequent history of the nation would be found to correspond 4. The Jewish doctors had precisely the same view as to the Divine origin of the Scriptures. They ex- pressed it by a decision at which we are told that the schools of Hillel and Shammai arrived in concert during the decade before the destruction of Jerusalem, that the Sacred Books ‘defile the hands,’ i. e. that any one touching them incurred ceremonial uncleanness and had to undergo the rites of purification ; the object being to prevent profane or irreverent use of the rolls on which they were written. It was equally forbidden to quote verses of Scripture lightly or profanely. And the superstitious employment of sentences from the 1 The same sort of comment is found in Philo, Vit. Jos. i. 49 (Mang. ii. 124). The angel which met Balaam on the way will supply the words which he is to speak. The prophet is wholly passive, a mere channel through which they pass. 2 Ant. iv. 8. 49. 8 Contra Apion. i. 8. * Anhix 2:.2 (ep. ΠΕ Tt). Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 19 Bible as charms and amulets points to a similar estimate of them!. It followed from all this, and indeed it is a fact that needs no proof, that by the first century of our era the normative value of the Old Testament was thoroughly established. That is the ground of the appeals ‘it is said,’ ‘it is written,’ which are so frequent in the New Testament and the Talmud’. Josephus says that the Jews from their very birth regard their Scriptures as the ‘decrees of God’ (Θεοῦ déypara), which they strictly observe, and for which if need be they are ready to die*. But the most decisive proof of the authoritative character which the Jewish writers of this century attached to the Old Testament is to be seen in the use of it for purposes of allegory. The use of allegory implies a sacred text. Philo regards the scriptural text as sacred. He tells a story of one who was punished with an ignominious death for scoffing at what might seem to be trivial details in Scripture*. He himself held fast to the literal meaning of the text, though allowing that the literal sense was often only given out of condescension to human weakness®. But behind this literal sense he thinks himself justified in looking for another deeper sense, which with him usually took the form * Weber, Al/synagogale Theologie, p. 82; also znf. p. 111. 2 The use of these expressions in the New Testament is elaborately analysed by McCalman Turpie, Zhe New Testament View of the Old, London, 1872. For the Talmud see especially Surenhusius, Βίβλος Καταλλαγῆς, Amsterdam, 1713. 8 Contra Apion. i. 8. 4 De Mutat. Nom. 8. 5 De Somn. i. 40. 80 Il. The Old Testament in the First Century. of philosophical abstractions. These of course are derived from his study of the Greeks. But the results are one thing, the method is another. And although Philo had a fully developed allegorical method ready to his hand, it would be a mistake to regard this as wholly Greek. He used the Stoic rules, but he was also very largely influenced by that Haggadic exegesis which had its origin in Palestine. Of the same exegesis we have traces in the New Testament, as (¢.g.) where St. Paul argues from the use of the singular ‘seed’ instead of the plural ‘seeds. It is a moot point how far the parallels which are found in the New Testa- ment to the teaching of Philo are due to like in- fluences acting upon both, and how far to the direct use of his writings. But the rarefied intellectualism by which they are characterized is so alien from the whole spirit of the New Testament, that if the former . hypothesis is not to be adopted entirely, the excep- tions are far more probably indirect than direct. It is hard to think that any of the Apostles had read Philo; it is more possible that words and phrases or even particular applications of the Old Testament due to Philo may have reached them through such agencies as that of Apollos. The Rabbinical exegesis is older than both Philo and the New Testament. Scanty as are the materials for the century before our era, the beginnings of it ? Siegfried, Philo v. Alexandria, p. 165. Philo’s acquaintance with the Palestinian Halachah is also amply proved by Ritter, PAz/o τ. die Halacha, Leipzig, 1879. Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 8ι can be traced far back within its limits. Hillel was made president of the Sanhedrin by Herod about 30 8.6. He belonged by birth to the Dispersion in Babylonia; but according to a well-authenticated tradition, he was moved to leave his home and journey to Palestine in order to ascertain if his in- terpretation of certain passages in the Law agreed with that which obtained there. On his arrival he found the study of the Scriptures actively prosecuted by Shemaiah and Abtalion; and he attached himself to them as a pupil. His own great rival at a later date was Shammai; but the points which they debated seem to us so small and so much matter of detail as to show that on all the larger and more fundamental questions which precede the application of exegesis there was substantial agreement between them. Hillel put forth seven rules for interpretation, which acquired great celebrity”; but these rules con- tained little that was new in principle or that did more than formulate the practice existing at the time *. But all this proves not only that the authority of Scrip- ture was absolute, but that it was the subject of an elaborate exegetical tradition quite by the middle of 1 So Edersheim, Zzfe and Times, &c., i, 129; Hamburger (2eal- Encycl. f. Bibel u. Talmud, s.v.) makes Hillel’s residence in Palestine extend from Β. 6. 70 to a.p. 10; but the chronology of his life seems somewhat vague and untrustworthy. Bacher, Die Agada der Tan- naiten, i. 5. 3 These rules are given by Schiirer, Meutest. Zetigesch. ii. 275; they were afterwards expanded to thirteen by Ishmael ben Elisha at the end of the first century a. p. (Bacher, κί sup., i. 240 ff.). 8 Strack in Herzog’s Real-Encyklopadie, vi. 115. G 82 7]. The Old Testament tn the First Century. the first century B.c., or at least a century before St. Paul wrote his first extant Epistle. Nor must it be supposed that this tradition related only to the Law. It can be abundantly illustrated for the other books from the time of Hillel onwards. And, what might be thought somewhat strange, the disputed books seem to be used quite as freely as the rest. The sayings of Hillel which have been pre- served are not numerous, but in one of them he appeals to, and in another he expounds, passages of Ecclesiastes’. Johanan ben Zakkai, who saw the destruction of the Temple and founded the School at Jamnia, interprets the same book allegorically It is quoted as authoritative by his somewhat younger contemporary, Joshua ben Hananiah, who interprets it differently from his opponent Eliezer ben Hyrka- nos *, Ishmael ben Elisha seems to have applied his rules to it*. A still longer list may be made for the » Song of Songs, both as quoted authoritatively and interpreted allegorically, before the end of the first century. And there are several instances of a like use of Esther ὅδ. One common feature which runs through all the first century writers is their uncompromising view of Prophecy. Between prophecy and its fulfilment there is a necessary connexion. The correspondence between them is exact. Together they form part of Ὁ Bacher, wf sup., i. 8, 10. * Ibid. i. 39 (cf. 45). Ὁ Ibid. i. 139, 156. * Ibid. i. 249 (cf. 258, 263). 5 Tiid..i- 46, 51, 57; 99, 118, 156, 201, 263, 318. © 7227. 1. 98; ΤΌΝ, 201, 318: Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 83 that predetermined order in which the one being given the other inevitably follows. The classical expres- sion for this is the New Testament phrase, especially characteristic of St. Matthew but found also twice in St. John, ‘[such and such a thing came to pass, or is come to pass], in order that the word spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled?’ (va... πληρωθῇ, ὅπως πληρωθῇ) As if the prophecy cried out for its fulfilment and demanded it at the hand of God* In one place in the Epistle to the Galatians (iii. 8) the Scripture itself is regarded as endowed with foresight, so that the promise made to Abraham is a ‘Gospel’ by anticipation (προϊδοῦσα ἡ γραφὴ... προευηγγελίσατο) δ. This is parallel to the saying in St. John, ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad’ (John viii. 56). The simple indication of the fulfilment of prophecy is of course extremely common. ΝΠ 122. 11: Or, 23, Vill. 17, Xi. 35, XXi. 4, XXVil. 35. John xi. 38, xix. 36. Compare Surenhusius, p. 2 ff. * A notable passage for the correspondence between prophecy and its fulfilment as seen by Christian eyes is an extract from the Predicatio Petri quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6. 15. δ 128: ἡμεῖς δὲ ἀναπτύξαντες τὰς βίβλους ἃς εἴχομεν τῶν προφητῶν, ἃ μὲν διὰ παραβολῶν, ἃ δὲ δι᾽ αἰνιγμάτων, ἃ δὲ αὐθεντικῶς καὶ αὐτολεξεὶ τὸν Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ὀνομαζόντων, εὕρομεν καὶ τὴν παρουσίαν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸν θάνατον καὶ τὸν σταυρὸν καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς κολάσεις πάσας ὅσας ἐποίησαν αὐτῷ οἱ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι, καὶ τὴν ἔγερσιν καὶ τὴν εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἀνάληψιν πρὸ τοῦ “Ἱεροσόλυμα κτισθῆναι, καθὼς ἐγέγραπτο. ταῦτα πάντα ἃ ἔδει αὐτὸν παθεῖν καὶ per αὐτὸν ἃ ἔσται. For other passages expressing the early Christian views of the inspiration of the Old Testament, see especially Westcott, Za/roduction to the Study of the Gospels, Appendix B. 8. It is clearly this which suggested the passages in Irenaeus and Tertullian quoted in the last lecture, p. 34 f. Cf Surenhus. p. 6. G2 84 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. The nature of Philo’s system and the object of his writings do not so much lead him to call atten- tion to the literal fulfilment of prophecy, but his words doubtless imply such fulfilment. He uses, as we have seen, the strongest language in regard to inspiration. He makes Jeremiah speak ‘in the person of God Himself!’ (ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ Θεοῖ). And he paints the Messianic time in terms which show that he is drawing upon the prophetic descrip- fons... in lsas νι τῷ; Want τ 3, 12}: The purpose of Josephus is more historical, and accordingly we find him often pointing out the ful- filment of prophecy. It is the special business of the prophet to foretell the future*. The prophets of Israel discharged this duty, and their predictions were verified by the event. Thus Nahum foretold the destruction of Nineveh, which came to pass after a hundred and fifteen years*. Hezekiah learnt all that was about to happen accurately from Isaiah °. So marvellously true were the prophecies of Isaiah and so confident was he that he had said nothing false that he wrote them all down in a book in order that posterity might compare them with the event. Nor did he stand alone in this, but twelve other prophets did the same. And everything bad or good that happened to the Jews was all in ac- cordance with their prophecies®. Jeremiah foretold 1 De Cherub. 14 (Mang. i. 148). 2 Edersheim in Dict. Chr. Biog. iv. 385. * See the passages collected by Gerlach, Wetssagungen, &c., p. 26. * Ant. ix. 11. 3. Lod) 5313. SOL btd, Kei 2: 28 Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 85 alike the Babylonian captivity and the catastrophe under Titus. There is a lengthy panegyric upon Daniel, whose books show that he held converse with God, and who had this distinction among his fellow-prophets, that whereas they foretold what would happen in the future, he gave the exact time when they would happen; and whereas they foretold evil and so drew upon themselves the hatred of kings and people, he was a prophet of good things, and with his cheering predictions not only won cre- dence by their accomplishment, but was held by the people to be truly divine. His writings stand to this day as proof of ‘the undeviating accuracy of his prophecy?’ (τὸ τῆς προφητείας αὐτοῦ ἀκριβὲς καὶ ἀπαράλ- λακτον). Some of the reasoning and expressions used by these writers are noticeable as signifying in different ways the minute perfection of the Scriptures. Philo’s whole method of exegesis involves a conception of inspiration which is nothing short of verbal. He lays down broadly that there is ‘nothing superfluous’ (περιτ- τὸν ὄνομα οὐδὲν τίθησιν) in the Law*. Little words that are seemingly unnecessary, and indeed just because they seem unnecessary, all have their deeper meaning ; the repetition of the name when God calls to Abraham (Gen. xxii. 11), such Hebraisms as ‘let him die the death,’ ‘ blessing I will bless.’ A profound philosophy lies hid in such phrases as ‘ brought him out’ (ἐξήγαγεν αὐτὸν ἔξω) applied to Abraham. The ἔξω denotes the ΣΝ ΧΟ δ. 1, 2 Tbid. 11. 4 8 De Prof. το (Mang. i. 554). 86 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. outermost place of all, z.¢c. freedom from the trammels of the body; ‘parted down the middle’ (μέσα διεῖλεν) of the victims of Abraham’s sacrifice has reference to the two halves into which the λόγος τομεύς divides all things; when it is said ‘thou shalt not plant thyself a vineyard,’ ‘ thyself, just because it seems superfluous, contains a special warning against pride—it is God who plants and not man. The smallest and most subsidiary parts of speech, particles, adverbs, pre- positions, acquire on this method exaggerated im- portance and receive elaborately expanded meanings 1. What makes Philo’s treatment of the text which lay before him the more remarkable is that his interpre- tations are based not upon the Hebrew original but upon the Septuagint version. He lays down that while most men know little of the true nature of things and therefore give them faulty and defective names, Moses made use of words which are the most exact and expressive possible*. Philo is constantly enlarging upon this perfection of language, and de- ducing the most elaborate inferences from it: but the strange thing is that he bases these inferences on the properties of the Greek and not of the Hebrew. The fact was that he regarded the Greek translation as itself a product of divine inspiration as much as the original. He is the first to add to the story of Aris- teas—which made the Seventy translators produce a harmonious text by comparing their versions together— 1 Philo’s methods are abundantly illustrated in Siegfried, P/z/o v. Alexandria, pp. 168-196. > De Agricult. 1 (Mang. i. 300). ~ Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 87 the further touch that this harmony was obtained, not by comparison of results, but by supernatural aid: the translators, according to him, were inspired pro- phets who ‘did not produce one one rendering and another another, but all the same words and expres- sions as though some invisible prompter were at the ear of each of them?’ The Rabbis do not interpret the Old Testament quite in the same manner as Philo, but their inter- pretations are just as minute and verbal. They too seem to attach an equal importance to every word in a sentence, even the smallest particles. And their whole exegesis is based on the assumption that the text must be taken strictly as it stands. It would’ be wrong to say that there was no attempt to get at the spirit beneath the letter, but there can be no doubt that what we should think a narrow and unhappy literalism greatly preponderated. It is just here that the New Testament is so superior alike to Philo and to the Talmud. The New Testament does not indeed escape Rabbinical methods’, but even where these are most prominent they seem to affect the form far more than the sub- stance. And through the temporary and local form the writer constantly penetrates to the very heart of the Old Testament teaching * I hope to return to 1 Vit. Mos. ii. 7 (Mang. ii. 140). ® For an excellent discussion of three of the most conspicuous instances of this, see an article by Dr. Driver in the Zxfosz/or for 1889, i. 15 ff. ® Conspicuous examples would be St. Paul’s treatment of the subject of faith, and the call of the Gentiles. 88. 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. this subject at a later stage in our inquiry; for the present it will be enough to note that, although in a broader and deeper sense than any which we have met with hitherto, there are yet a few expressions scattered over the New Testament which do seem to attribute to the Scriptures of the Older Covenant, not only authority in matters of faith and life, but a kind of ultimate and inviolable perfection. Such would be the great saying in St. Matthew’s Gospel, ‘ Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle (an iota or a letter- tip) shall in no wise pass away from the Law till all things be accomplished’ (St. Matt. v. 18). And again (St. John x. 35), ‘The scripture cannot be broken’ (λυθῆναι, ‘undone,’ ‘treated as if it were invalid’), where we must note also even in passing the further ambiguity whether ‘the scripture’ means the whole body of Scripture collectively or whether it means the particular passage of Scripture: a distinction however which may seem more important than it is. For even if we take the narrower view and restrict the saying to the particular passage, it would hardly be applied to that unless it represented a general prin- ciple which might be applied to other passages as well. Something similar may be said of a like ambiguity in the famous passage which is the only one in which a direct equivalent for our word ‘inspired’ occurs in the Bible. Even if we do not say ‘Every scripture is inspired of God,’ but ‘ Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable, for teaching, for reproof, ἄς. (2 Tim. ili, 16), we should be obliged to interpret the words Properties ascribed to the Old Testament. 89 by the current conception of what Scriptures were so inspired, and we should find that it included all, or very nearly all, those which form our present Old Testament. Lastly, when the Second Epistle which bears the name of St. Peter affirms that ‘no prophecy of Scrip- ture is of private interpretation,’ and adds that ‘no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but holy men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost’ (2 Pet. i. 20, 21), the judgment in question certainly covers the prophetic writings, and perhaps others not strictly prophetic into which a prophetic element enters; but it would hardly go beyond these. The language of Josephus is more explicit. He expressly denies that there is any discord or discrepancy in the Hebrew Scriptures, and he claims for them in this an advantage over all other books’. He also appeals to it as proof of the attachment of the Jews to their Bible that in all the long lapse of time ‘no one has ever dared to add or subtract or alter anything in it?’ And in the Preface to his Aztzguz- ties the same writer (after contrasting the lawgiver of Israel with those of other nations who refer to the gods the sins of men, whereas he conceives of God as pure and unmixed goodness in which men must use all their efforts to share) goes on to assert that those who inquire into it will find that in His law ‘there is 1 Contra Apion. i. 8: μήτε twos ἐν τοῖς γραφομένοις ἐνούσης διαφωνίας. .. » , , » ‘ 74'S ΄“ > UZ ‘A , ov μυριάδες βιβλίων εἰσὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν ἀσυμφώνων καὶ μαχομένων. 2 [bid.: τοσούτου γὰρ αἰῶνος ἤδη παρῳχηκότος οὔτε προσθεῖναί τις οὐδὲν οὔτε ἀφελεῖν αὐτῶν οὔτε μεταθεῖναι τετόλμηκεν. οο II. The Old Testament in the First Century. nothing whatever that is unreasonable (ἄλογον) or un- becoming the majesty and goodness of God?’ We may conclude these quotations with a sort of chorus of the leading Rabbis of the end of the first and beginning of the second centuries in praise of the inexhaustible riches of the Law. ‘R. Elieser said: “If all the seas were ink, and all the reeds were pens, and heaven and earth were rolls, and all men were scribes, they would not suffice to write the Torah which I have taught (ze what I have taught out of the Torah) and have made it no smaller, as little as a man makes the sea poorer who dips the tip of his brush in it.” R. Joshua said: “If all the seas were ink, and all the reeds pens, and heaven and earth were cloth (tent-cloth which was sometimes used for writing), they would not suffice to write the words of Torah which I have taught (1.6. the knowledge which I have drawn from the Torah), and I have made it no poorer.’ R. Akiba said: “I cannot tell how much my teachers have said, but they have made the Torah no poorer, neither have I myself; as little as a man makes the apple of Paradise poorer by smelling at it; he has the enjoyment thereof and the apple is no poorer; as little as one makes less the stream from which he fills his pitcher, or the lamp at which he lights his own?’ ? Ant. prooem. 4. 2 Weber, Al/synagogale Theologie, p. 84 f. The particular kind of hyperbole which runs through this passage seems to have been fre- quently applied in other connexions: see examples in Bacher, Agada ὦ. Tann. i. 28 n. Canon of the Old Testament. gt II. But now the question arises—and it is a question to which the answer is not quite so simple as those of which we have hitherto been treating— What are the Scriptures to which all this high in- spiration and authority are attributed? Was there a fixed and determinate number of books which possessed these properties to the exclusion of all others ? The Canonical Books of the Old Testament were of course by no means the only religious books which were in circulation among the Jews of Palestine and of the Dispersion in the first century. Besides them there were the books which are now classed together in our larger Bibles as the Apocrypha. And besides the books which are more commonly printed under this title, there were others, like the Psalms of Solo- mon, the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees or Little Genesis, the Assumption of Moses, composed in part before the Christian era and in part before the Fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., or composed soon after that event, like the Fourth Book of Ezra and the Apocalypse of Baruch. All these books—not to speak of others which were more probably of Christian origin—were more or less on the lines of corresponding works in the Canonical collection. To what extent were they separated from these? And if separated, on what principle was the separation made, and how was it maintained ? It is often said that two Canons were current, a larger Canon especially at Alexandria and among the Jews of the Dispersion, and a smaller Canon in 92 IT. The Old Testament in the First Century. Palestine. And there is thus much truth in the statement that many of these Apocryphal Books were included in the Alexandrian translation, and so gained currency, especially in Christian circles; that the early Christian writers of Alexandria were much given to the use of Apocryphal Books, and that the greatest of them, Origen, deliberately defended that use in his famous controversy with Julius Africanus about the additions to Daniel. It is true also, on the other hand, that the restricted Canon was in the first instance the work of the Jewish doctors}, and that so far as it maintained itself in the Christian Church it did so through the disposition which was shown by some of the most learned and influential of the Fathers to go back to the Jewish tradition, the Hebratca veritas, which the Reformed Churches afterwards took as their standard 3, And yet there are considerable qualifications to be made on both sides. The great majority of these * Lagarde (Afitherl. iv. 345) has the curious and I believe quite untenable idea, that the Jewish Canon arose among the Déaspora out of the desire to demonstrate the antiquity of the Jewish literature (as in Joseph. c. Apion.) He thinks that the Palestinian Canon may be a correction or modification of the Hellenistic. See on the other side Konig, Eznlettung, p. 449. * The chain of writers who maintain what is substantially the Jewish as distinct from the Alexandrian Canon includes Melito of Sardis, Origen (in theory if not in practice), Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Amphilochius and Gregory Nazianzen, Rufinus of Aquileia, and most emphatically and clearly, Jerome. On this branch of the history, see especially Westcott, Zhe Buble in the Church; Buhl, Kanon, p. 49 ff.; Wildeboer, Hef Ontstaan, &c., p- 66 ff. Contents of the Old Testament. 93 Apocryphal Books were composed not in Egypt but in Palestine; and the extent of their circulation both amongst Jews and Christians seems to have been de- termined not by any geographical boundaries so much as by the difference between popular and learned opinion. With the Jews learning was more exclusively concentrated upon the Scriptures; and with the Jews also the deference paid to the opinions of the learned was more complete; so that when we add to this the greater centralization and more effective authority of the schools of Jamnia and Tiberias, we are not sur- prised that the Rabbinical tradition presents greater unity and continuity than the corresponding tradition amongst Christians. The two writers from whom we have been especi- ally quoting both illustrate the real nature of the opposition. Philo’s ideas of inspiration are very wide. The centre and type of all inspiration with him is the Law of Moses. He does indeed, as we have seen, use exceedingly strong expressions in regard to the prophets, but he is fond of describing both prophets and psalmists as ‘followers or disciples of Moses’ (ωῦσέως γνώριμοι, φοιτηταί, θιασῶται), as if their inspiration was referred to their connexion with him. We have seen that Philo extended his theory of inspiration to the Septuagint translators. Nor does he stop there. He speaks in terms of the utmost reverence of the Greek philosophers. Plato is the ‘most sacred’ (éepézrazos), Heraclitus the ‘great and renowned, Parmenides, Empedocles, Zeno, and Cle- anthes, ‘godlike men, and as it were a true and in 94 LL. The Old Testament in the First Century. the strict sense sacred band!’ But with Philo all good men are inspired*% Indeed, he claims to have had moments of inspiration himself*. And yet in spite of this very comprehensive theory Philo never quotes as authoritative any but the Canonical Books; it is clear that he attributes to them an authority which is really unique in its kind+ Josephus in like manner makes some use of Apo- cryphal materials in the course of his history, but he is quite explicit in laying down a list of twenty-two Books, five of the Law, thirteen Prophets, and four containing hymns to God and patterns of life for men, which really correspond to our own Canon. He assigns a reason for this of which we shall have more to say presently. In regard to the New Testament the case stands thus. The great mass of authoritative teaching is all derived from the Canonical Books. But there are some instances in which it is clear that the writer has been influenced by Apocryphal texts > There are also a few quotations which cannot be exactly identified in the Books of our present Canon, ? Passages in Schiirer, Gesch. d. Jiid. Volkes, ii. 868. 2 Quis rer. div. her. 52(Mang. i. 510). $ De Cherub. 9 (Mang. i. 143); De Migr. Abraami, 7 (Mang. i. 441); also Dienstfertig, wf sup., p. 17. * Cf Drummond, Philo Judaeus, i. 15. 5 The books of which most use has been made in this way are Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus: see especially, for St. Pau! an essay by Grafe in Theol. Abhandlungen Carl von Wetzsdcker gewidmet (Frei- burg i. B., 1892), p. 253 ff.; and for St. James, Dr. J. B. Mayor’s commentary, p. Ixxiii. ff. Contents of the Old Testament. 95 and in regard to which there are ancient statements ‘referring them to lost Apocrypha or Pseudepigrapha. Lastly, in the Epistle of St. Jude there is an express quotation from the Book of Enoch, which is treated as if it were the genuine work of the patriarch. The first group of facts is of no more importance than that St. Paul should quote as he does from Aratus or Epimenides'. The instances which come under the second have all some element of doubt about them’. But the quotation from the Book of Enoch is quite unequivocal and it definitely prevents us from saying that no Apocryphal Book is recog- nised by a Canonical writer. In this, as in so many other things, it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line, though in any case the use of the Apo- crypha bears a very small proportion to that of the Old Testament, and in respect to spiritual authority enters into no sort of competition with it. What we see in the first century is thus a con- siderable body of literature of a quasi-prophetic character, or at least written with a view to edifi- cation, springing up most thickly in Palestine, but circulating also in the principal centres of Hellenistic Judaism, everywhere treated with a certain respect, and most of it enjoying an extended popularity, which no doubt in many cases encroached upon the authority of the Canon. But we see also at the same time, that in proportion as we rise in the 1 Acts xvii. 28; Tit. i. 12. 3 These instances are discussed by Ryle, Canon, p. 154 f, and in a different sense by Wildeboer, He/ Onts/aan, &c., pp. 44-47: οό II. The Old Testament tn the First Century. scale of spiritual intelligence and insight, and in proportion as there is a deliberate intention to decide what is authoritative and what is not, there is an in- creasing tendency to draw a line round the books of our present Canon and to mark them off from all others. It must have been really before the latter half of the first century that this Canon was formed. We have seen that the twenty-two Books of Josephus were neither more nor less than the Old Testament of our own Bible. We count there thirty-nine books ; but the difference is due to the fact that Books which we count separately were combined together in a single volume. The Twelve Minor Prophets were so combined; also what are with us the two Books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, form each one volume, as do Ezra and Nehemiah, Judges and Ruth, Jeremiah and Lamentations. The way in which Josephus speaks of this collection shows that it was ᾿ not any new thing, but already well established in his day. And the discussions which seem to have gone on in the Rabbinical School at Jamnia about the end of the century also imply a completed Canon. Or rather we ought perhaps to say a Canon com- pleted provisionally but not as yet definitively. For the discussions turn not so much on the question whether certain books ought to be admitted into a collection then being formed, as whether they had been rightly admitted into a collection already existing. After the beginning of the second century ' Ryle, p. 171 f.; Buhl, Kan. u. Text, p. 25 f. That the disputed books were treated by the leading Rabbis of the first century as Contents of the Old Testament. 97 a few sporadic doubts appear here and there, but they never made serious impression. There was just a small section of books the position of which was less secure than the rest, but that was all. The different books were on a rather different footing 1, The doubts about the Book of Jonah only find ex: pression in late works. Those as to Ezekiel came to a head at a particular date, and were solved by an indi- vidual doctor, Hananiah the son of Hezekiah, a con- temporary of St. Paul. Those in regard to the Book of Proverbs were probably dismissed quite early. The hesitation as to Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs was more persistent: these books evidently formed the subject of continued discussion in the school at Jamnia. On the Song of Songs, R. Akiba seems to have pronounced the decisive word. ‘God forbid, he said, ‘that any man of Israel should deny that the Song of Songs defileth the hands (7. 6. is canonical *) ; for the whole world is not equal to the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel. For all the Scriptures are holy, but the Song of Songs is the holiest of the holy; and if there is dispute, it is groundless except in the case of Koheleth*’ The dispute as to Koheleth and Esther lasted longest. That as to Esther went on into Christian times and Canonical will have been seen from the references given above, p. 82. It is said however that while the School of Hillel affirmed, that of Shammai denied, the Canonicity of Ecclesiastes (Buhl, p. 23). See also below, p. 107. For the following see Ryle, p. 192 f.; Buhl, pp. 28-31. 2 See p. 111 below. 8 Ryle, p. 199. H 98 ILI. The Old Testament in the First Century. extended to a number of Christian writers. It is not surprising that Christian theologians should have hesitated to incorporate this book into their Bible, but they finally acquiesced in its presence through the deference paid to Jewish tradition. We have confined ourselves so far to the evidence of the first century A.D. And we are not concerned at present to speculate as to origins. The whole question of origins we leave for investigation in subsequent lectures. We may however ask whether there are no finger-posts to point the way back behind the Christian era. ‘There are such finger-posts, of which recent works on the Canon have made ample use. The Starting-point here is the Jewish tradition as to the divisions of the Canon and the order of the Books. The main outlines of this tradition can be traced back as far as the first notice which has come down to us of anything like a Canon, viz. the prologue to Ecclesi- asticus, written after, but probably not very long after, the year 132 B.c. That prologue contains repeated reference to a collection of writings consisting of ‘the Law, the Prophets,’ and certain ‘other books,’ which the language used implies lay, not only before the author of the prologue, but also before his grandfather, the author of the Hebrew original, now known to us in its Greek form and under its Greek title Eccle- siasticus. Its translator, the younger Jesus son of Sirach, says of the elder that ‘when he had much given himself to the reading of the Law and the Prophets and the other books of their fathers, and had gotten therein good judgment, he was drawn on also The Jewish Tradition. 99 himself to write something pertaining to learning and wisdom. The inference is a little less clear that the books so closely studied by the grandfather were already known to him under the same three divisions 1. But, the fact that the books are described under these ᾿ divisions three times over in the compass of a small page, and without anything to suggest that the idea of the three divisions is a novelty, would seem to show that it had been sometime established, and therefore would go back to a time hardly short of that of the grandfather, or in other words we may say to a date not later than the decade 170-160 8.6. A piece of evidence, disputed but on the whole probable, is supplied by the treatise De Vzta Con- emplativa which passes for Philo’s. Here in § 3 (Mangey, ii. 475) there is a reference to ‘laws, oracles delivered by prophets, and hymns.’ Of recent years the genuineness of this treatise has been much questioned, but since the monograph of Massebieau the tide of opinion seems to have turned in_ its favour 3. The next trace of the threefold division would be in St. Luke’s narrative of the Walk to Emmaus (St. Luke xxiv. 44), where reference is made to ‘the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms’ as prophesying 1 Dr. Cheyne thinks that this was the case. ‘Sirach... had “the Law and the Prophets, and the rest of the books,” the latter collection being a kind of appendix, still open to additions’ (/ob and Solomon, p. 185). 3 Differently Wildeboer, p. 32 f. Massebieau’s treatise is entitled, Le traité de la Vie Contemplative et la question des Thérapeules, Paris, 1888. H 2 100 77]. The Old Testament in the First Century. of Christ. Then would come Josephus, who gives the number of the books—five of the Law, thirteen of the Prophets (including the Historical Books), and four of Hymns and practical teaching, making a total of twenty-two. This assignment does not exactly agree with that of the Hebrew tradition!, which we have in full in the Talmudic treatise Baba Bathra, confirmed substantially by Jerome’s Prologus Galeatus®. Josephus mixes the Jewish with the Greek tradition, borrowing the three- fold division from the one, the number of the books and the order (or absence of order) from the other. In the Alexandrian Version there was no really traditional order, but the books were usually classed together roughly according to subject. In the Hebrew tradition too there is what at first sight appears to be a rough classification of subjects. This however is not systematically carried out; and. the deviations from it are significant. The three divisions are called the Law, the Prophets, and the Kethudim (1.6. ‘Writings’) or Hagiographa. The Law is homogeneous. The Prophets are also homogeneous; the Historical Books coming first under the name of the Former Prophets, and then the Prophets strictly so called, or the Latter Prophets. But why is it that Daniel is not classed among the Prophets ? and why is not Chronicles classed as history? 1 This gives five books of Law, eight Prophets, and eleven Aethubsm or Hagiographa; in all 24. * The preface to his version of the Books of Kings: cp. also the preface to Daniel, The Jewish Tradition. 101 For some time it has been seen what is the answer to these questions. ‘The truth undoubtedly is that the threefold division represents three successive layers or stages in the history of the Collection. The Books of the Law were collected first; the Prophets and Histories second; and the reason why the Book of Daniel was not included among the one and the Books of Chronicles among the other was simply that at the date when the second collection was made they had not been composed, or at least were not currently accepted in the same sense as the other books !. Here there is clearly a gleam of light thrown over the history of the Canon. The results obtained through it have recently been called in question, but only in support of an arbitrary theory which sacrifices good reasons to bad ones*% The phenomena really fit in well together. And there is now a large amount of consent among scholars that the Canon of the Law was practically ὃ complete at the time of the promulga- tion of the Pentateuch by Ezra and Nehemiah in the year 444 B.c., and that of the Prophets in the course of the third century B.c.4 As to the closing of the 1 The Books of Chronicles were probably composed but not accepted. ? Duhn, /esaia (Gottingen, 1892), p. vi. Lagarde, who casts some doubts upon the integrity of the Book of Daniel, yet treats Dan. ix. 2 as written under Antiochus Epiphanes and as implying a collection of Prophetic Writings (A/7/the7?. iv. 344). 8 Cornill, Kuenen, and others assume a certain limited amount of redaction after this date. Cornill would make the process complete by about 400 B.c. * Cornill places the completion of this portion of the Canon about 102 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. Canon of the third group, the Aethudcm, there is perhaps more room for difference of opinion. A common view is that the distinct recognition of these books as Scripture would be not later than 100 8.6. Many data seem to make this at least a ferminus ad guem. The Book of Daniel is presupposed in a part of the Szdyline Oracles (iii. 396-400) which there seem to be good grounds for dating about the year 1401, and in the First Book of Maccabees (i. 54, ii. 59, 60) which falls in the early years of the next century. Ecclesiastes is quoted with the formula ‘it is written’ in a Talmudic story of a conversation between Simon ben Shetach and Alexander Jannaeus? (8.6. 105-79). The Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and Chronicles were current in the Greek version, which had already a long history behind it in the time of Philo and the New Testament*. And alli these books are quoted as authoritative in recorded sayings of the 250 B.C. (p. 102), Wildeboer about 200, which however is characterized by Buhl (p. 12) as ‘entschieden zu spat.’ 1 Schiirer, Gesch. d. Jiid. Volk. ii. 794-799. 2 Ryle, Canon, p. 138 f. $ Perhaps at once the most conspicuous and the most interesting example of this is the rendering of Ps. xl. 6. The Hebrew has here liierally ‘ears hast thou digged’ (i. 6. probably ‘ opened,’ though some understand ‘ pierced’) ‘for me’: the LXX followed by Heb. x. 5 has σῶμα δὲ κατηρτίσω μοι. The most probable explanation of this is that the original rendering was @ria, which became corrupted into σῶμα through the duplication of the final s of the preceding word ἠθέλησας (HOEAHCACQTIA—HEEAHCACCOMA). As this change must have taken place before the archetype of all the extant MSS. of the LXX (the four minuscules in which ὠτία is found probably derive it from Aquila or Symmachus) as well as Ep. to Hebrews, it is thrown back to a very remote antiquity. The Jewish Tradition. 103 Rabbis from Hillel onwards, with some traces of a difference of opinion as to Ecclesiastes}, The significant part in the Jewish tradition is the assignment of books to the three groups, not their arrangement within the groups. The internal order appears to be due to reflexion partly critical and partly suggested by the subject-matter. We must of course beware of assuming that the reasons assigned by the later Rabbis were those which de- termined the original authors of the collection. Thus it is hardly likely that the true reason is given for the sequence of the Major Prophets, among whom Jeremiah and Ezekiel are placed before Isaiah. The Talmudic tract accounts for this by saying that the Books of Kings end with desolation, that Jeremiah is all desolation, that Ezekiel begins with desolation and ends with consolation, and that Isaiah is all consolation, so that desolation is fitly joined to deso- lation and consolation to consolation; an idea which is not without its pathos and beauty, but which belongs rather to the time when the harps were hung up and the Rabbis were occupied with the wistful retrospect of their past history, than to the simpler motives at work when the books were first collected. That the place assigned to Isaiah has been affected by the incorporation of the last twenty- seven chapters, which are really later than Jere- miah and Ezekiel, would be a welcome supposition if it were probable, but it appears more likely that Jeremiah was placed next to the later chapters of 1 Supra, p. 97. 104 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. 2 Kings, with which his book is so closely connected, and Isaiah immediately before his contemporary Hosea!, The order of the Minor Prophets probably does aim at being chronological. But here too the chronology is rather such as might be arrived at by a not very recondite criticism than handed down from the time when the books were composed. It is however a fact of real importance that the Jews should have preserved the memory of the steps by which the Canon was formed. It was not pre- served everywhere. The Alexandrian translators and those who followed them seem to have arranged the books simply by their subject-matter. And the varied classifications proposed at a later date by Christian Fathers? (such for instance as the four Pentateuchs with two supernumerary books in one of the lists of Epiphanius) are all of the nature of learned after- thoughts. But the central line of Jewish tradition as handed down by the Palestinian Rabbis does seem to retain a slender thread of genuine historical remi- niscence. It is true that the oldest Rabbinical treatise which touches upon the subject of the Canon, the Baba Bathra, contains a number of statements about the authorship of the books which are absurd enough. But these it is clear are no traditions in the strict sense, but only guesses which have grown up round the tradition, and which have no better warrant than 1 So Buhl, p. 38; cf. Ryle, p. 227 f.; Kirkpatrick, Theol. of Proph. Ῥ' 360, n. 2 See the tables in Studia Brblica, iii. 227-232, and in Ryle, Canon, Excursus C, _ Separation of Apocryphal and Canonical. 105 that which belongs to Rabbinical criticism of the second or third centuries. III. We have spoken so far freely of Apocryphal and Canonical Books, using the words in their later sense to denote a certain class of writings; but in approaching the third section of our subject, the means by which these two classes were discriminated from each other, we have first to ask what was meant by the word ‘Apocryphal, not as we might conceive it used by the first framers of the Canon whose motives we can only reach by conjecture, with which we have not as yet to do, but in the first century of our era when the Canon begins to have a sufficient history. The Greek ἀπόκρυφος is a translation of a late Hebrew or Aramaic word meaning ‘hidden, ‘withdrawn from publicity.” It had at first a much milder signification than that which we attach to it. In a literal sense it was used of the rolls which were put away because they were worn out or because of faults in the writing. In a more metaphorical sense it meant that a book was not suitable for public reading. It implied in itself nothing more than this, no suspicion as to authorship, no doubts as to doc- trine. There could not well be a better commentary upon this use than is contained in the famous letter of Origen to Africanus in defence of the story of Susanna. Africanus had criticized this as not con- tained in the Hebrew Canon. Origen replies that the Jews had done all in their power to withdraw from the knowledge of the laity facts which seemed 106 77]. [he Old Testament in the First Century. to cast an imputation on their elders and rulers, ‘some of which,’ he adds, ‘are preserved in apocryphal books.’ In like manner the sawing asunder of the prophet Isaiah alluded to in the Epistle to the Hebrews was not to be found in any of ‘the public books’ (τῶν φανερῶν βιβλίων) but occurred in one of the Apo- crypha, and the account referred to by our Lord of the murder of Zacharias the son of Barachias was not in any of the books of the Old Testament, having been excluded from them because it too cast a stain upon the judges of Israel. The Apocryphal Books thus spoken of might clearly have every other claim to respect although they were not accounted fit for public reading 1, There was however another sense of the word ‘apocryphal,’ branching off from that just mentioned. The ramification is well marked in the familiar passage (xiv. 44-46) at the end of the Fourth Book of Ezra. | After the destruction of the ancient Scriptures Ezra and his five companions by means of a special in- spiration write out ninety-four books in forty days. Of these ninety-four, twenty-four are the Canonical Books which he is bidden to publish openly that — worthy and unworthy alike may read in them, but the remaining seventy are to be kept secret and put into the hands only of the wise. This is a fiction intended to explain the reservation till so late a date 1 See especially Zahn, Gesch. d. Neutestl. Kanons, i. 123 ff.; Wilde- boer, p. 79 f. Ké6nig argues against the equivalence of the Greek and Hebrew terms (£7let/ung, Ὁ. 467 f.); he would make Origen’s use more nearly in accord with that of other Fathers. Separation of Apocryphal and Canonical. 107 of the Fourth Book of Ezra itself, but the larger number is evidently chosen to cover other works of a like nature which had been or might be pub- lished. There were in circulation not a few such Apocalypses put forward under ancient names (Enoch, Moses, Baruch) and needing the same excuse. But these were not the only works to claim an esoteric character. The Apocalypses in question do not seem to have been treated as esoteric; they were in fact popular among the early Christians. But the Gnostic leaders put forth similar claims for their own pro- ductions. These were really formidable enemies. And so the idea of ‘esoteric’ became almost synony- mous with ‘heretical.’ It was thus that ‘apocryphal’ acquired the bad connotation with which it is found from Irenaeus and Tertullian onwards}, The double sense of the word is imprinted strongly upon the history of the Old Testament Canon. The discussions of which records have come down to us from the Jewish schools have for the most part to do with the question what works were to be considered ‘apocry- phal’ in the milder sense of ‘withdrawn from public use in the synagogue,’ They deal with books which had already obtained a certain amount of recognition and which it was not sought to deprive of that recog- nition entirely?, The criticisms directed against them 1 Cf. Holtzmann, Lvnlertung in d. N. T. p. 146, ed. 3. 2 This seems to be a truer description of the question at issue than that which is given either by Buhl or Wildeboer. According to Buhl (p. 25 f.) the controversies in the Jewish schools imply the existence of a Canon, and arose out of attempts to eject (‘ excanonisiren ’) 108 74. The Old Testament tn the First Century. are not of that root and branch character. If the Book of Ezekiel was questioned it was because it presented certain difficulties when compared with the Law. A famous doctor of the first half of the first century, Hananiah the son of Hezekiah, set himself to solve these difficulties, and with that all opposition to the Book was removed. If there was for a brief moment some hesitation about the Book of Proverbs, it seems to have been because it was thought to give too seductive a picture of vice’, and so to be unsuited to the young. If there was a longer and better grounded objection to the Book of Ecclesiastes, it was (1) because it was thought to be inconsistent with itself, (2) because it was thought to be inconsistent with the Psalter, and (3) because it contained doubtful doctrine—all natural criticisms, and criticisms which are made on a larger scale to this day. The Song of Songs was probably rescued by the introduction of the Haggadah or Jewish method of allegorizing*. It was this which probably led R. Akiba to assign to it certain books from it. According to Wildeboer (pp. 63-65) they are proof that the Canon itself was not yet formed. Of the two, Buhl seems to be nearer the mark: it is true that the controversies pre- suppose the existence of a Canon, and true also that in a strict sense the disputed books were in danger of being ejected from it, but only to be placed on the lower grade of books regarded with all respect but not considered to be suitable for public reading: it would by no means follow that they were reduced at once to the level of profane literature. See however Additional Note A: On the Date of the Formation of the Jewish Canon. 1 The principal passage objected to was Prov. vii. 7-20. * Instances of such allegorical interpretation from the earliest period are given by Bacher, Agad. d. Tann. i. 57, 115, 201, 263, 318. Separation of Apocryphal and Canonical. 109 so high a value. The same method was applied to the Book of Esther ', which also made good its place because it was thought to show signs of inspiration, as involving knowledge of things which only in- spiration could have revealed (Esth. ii. 22; ix. 10, πον 1'6)*. It will be observed that all these arguments turn upon the internal evidence of the book itself. That which turns upon the comparison of doubtful with acknowledged books presents the closest analogy to the criteria applied to the case of the New Testa- ment; but the doubts raised were less serious. Where Christian writers spoke of books as ‘apo- cryphal’ in the stronger sense, the Jews spoke of them as being simply ‘outside’ the Canon. This term is applied to the First Book of Maccabees, the two Wisdoms, and to the writings of Christian and other heretics*, There is however this difference; that whereas the latter may not be read at all, a book like Ecclesiasticus may be read as one would read a letter *. The only traces of an attempt of any ‘outside’ books to gain admission to the Jewish Canon are in the case of Ecclesiasticus and 1 Maccabees. The former is twice quoted in the Talmud with the formula usually reserved for the citation of Scripture ; 1 Bacher, i. 318. * Ibid. i. 397; ii. 49. For further details in regard to these dis- cussions see Ryle, Canon, pp. 192-201 ; Buhl, pp. 28-30; Wildeboer, ΡΡ. 55-60. ὁ Ryle, p. 188; cf Konig, Lrnlertung, p. 466. * R. Akiba, quoted by Buhl, p. 8; Ryle, uf sup, 110 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. and there is other evidence that it stood high in honour’. But it never attained to Canonical rank ; and there is still less proof of such a dignity being assigned to 1 Maccabees. In matters of religion the Jews were a docile people; and the decisions of the scribes and doctors, once definitely given, were not questioned. When we ask on what positive principle the Old Testament had its lines of demarcation drawn so clearly, direct evidence from the time of the real formation of the Canon fails us. But if we look for the ideas current in the first century of our era, one principle at least stands out prominently. Alike in Philo, Josephus, and the Talmud the central concep- tion appears to be that of Prophecy. We have seen how Philo and Josephus differ in what they under- stand by this; how Philo’s idea is derived largely from the Greek ‘mantic, while that of Josephus is more strictly Jewish and Biblical. But both writers agree in taking a very high view of the degree of Divine possession or inspiration which Prophecy im- plies. To both Moses is the greatest of the prophets, ‘the prophet’ of whom the rest are but copies. And both writers regard the gift of prophecy as extending beyond the Canon* Josephus thought that the pro- phetic gift was imparted to individuals like John Hyrcanus; and Philo, as we have seen, claimed a share of it for himself. Still, Philo makes a tacit dis- tinction, as he appeals only to the Canonical Books as ‘ 1 Ryle, p. 184. * Gerlach, Weissagungen, &c., p. 36. Separation of Apocryphal and Canonical. 111 primary authorities, And Josephus lays down quite explicitly that there was an unbroken line of prophets from Moses to the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus! (465-425 B. c.), and that the books written after that date are not deserving of equal credence because the prophetic gift had ceased. The Canon is with him co- extensive with the active exercise of prophecy, and it is the prophetic inspiration which gives the books their value. Josephus was doubtless mistaken in supposing that all the books of the Canon could be got within those limits, and that the Historical Books were all composed by contemporary prophets. But his leading idea is an intelligible and a sound one. And the same idea is distinctly enunciated in several Talmudic passages. ΚΝ. Akiba excludes Ecclesiasticus as having been written ‘since the days of the prophets.’ The tractate Seder Olam lays down that till the time of Alexander the Great the people prophesied through the Holy Spirit, but from that time onwards there were only the ‘ wise men. Another tractate says that no book written since the cessation of prophecy ‘defiles the hands’? —another Talmudical expression reserved for the Canonical Books. And it is in agreement with this view of the nature of inspiration that even the authors of the Hagiographa are called ‘prophets*’ It is 1 J. e. to Esther (Buhl, p. 35). 2 On ‘defiling the hands,’ see above, p. 78, and for fuller details, Buhl, p. 7; Wildeboer, p. 77 ff.; Ryle, p. 186 f.; Robertson Smith, O. T. J. C., p. 185, ed. 2; Weber, Al/synagog. Theol. p. 82; Konig, Einleitung, p. 450 ff., &c. 8 See the several passages in Bunl, pp. 8, 35, 37- 112 7]. [he Old Testament in the First Century. a satisfaction to find such ample evidence that the Jewish Church in discharging this perhaps the most important of all its functions, should have had con- sciously in view a principle which is so real and so fruitful. In Christian times one incidental attempt was made to give an altogether wider scope to the Canon of the Old Testament. Tertullian in arguing for the admis- sion of the Book of Enoch, which he assumes to be the genuine work of the patriarch, urges that it contains prophecies of our Lord, and that Christians ought not to reject whatever really belonged to them. He adds an appeal to the well-known text on inspiration (2 Tim. iii. 16) in the form that ‘all scripture which is suitable for edification is divinely inspired.’ Such a principle as this would have thrown open the doors very wide. But, like so much in Tertullian, it was only an idea struck out in the heat of the moment, and was not pressed further either by himself or by any one else. The Canon of the Old Testament, like that of the New, was very early associated with the mystical signi- ficance of numbers. There were several different ways of reckoning the total of the Books, of which two were older and more important than the rest. The Talmudic tradition gives the number as twenty- four (counting Ruth and Lamentations separately). 1 De Cult. Fem. i. 3: Sed cum Enoch eadem scriptura ehiam de Domino praedicarit, a nobis quidem nthil omnino reiciendum est, quod pertineat ad nos. Et legimus omnem scripturam aedificationt habilem divinitus inspirart. Symbolism of Numbers. 113 This is the total in one place mentioned, and in one place adopted, by Jerome!. It is mentioned in like manner by Hilary of Poitiers? (who makes up the number differently by adding Tobit and Judith), and is adopted by Victorinus of Pettau* and in Mommsen’s list+) “Phere is) yeti earlier authority for! it in 4 Ezra xiv. 45, where the twenty-four books ‘first written’ are clearly those of the Jewish Canon. Jerome, Vic- torinus, and the list connect the twenty-four Books with the ‘twenty-four elders’ of the Apocalypse ; Hilary with the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet ; the Rabbis connect them with the ‘twenty- four watches’ in the Temple’. But there is another numeration, equally or even more ancient, which by combining Ruth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah, makes the total twenty-two. This is found inferentially in Melito of Sardis and Rufinus, expressly in Josephus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Leontius and Nicephorus, and expressly also with the further equation of the twenty-two Books with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet in Origen, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Epiphanius (in one of his lists), Jerome, and Hilary of Poitiers ° There can be no doubt that this calculation also is of 1 Prol. Galeat. and Prol. in Lr. 2 Prol. in Psalm. 15. * On Apoc. iv. 7-10 (Migne, Pafr. Lat. v. 324). * Stud. Bibl, iii. 223. As the MS. in which this list is contained has now left this country, it is best to call it after the scholar who first called attention to it. = Purst, Kan. d. A. 7. Ὁ. 3. 6 See the tables in S/ud. Bibl, iii. 227-232. I 114 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. Jewish origin, as it is not only found in Palestine where Josephus learnt it and Melito went to seek it, but it is clearly adapted to the Jewish Canon and to the Hebrew alphabet. There is reason to think that the reckoning ‘twenty-four’ came not from Palestine but from Babylonia!; and besides the imposing list of authorities for the lower number, its equation with the Hebrew alphabet has every appearance of being older and more original than that with the Temple-watches. I do not think it has been noticed that behind this number ‘twenty-two’ there lay in the minds of those who first called attention to it a profound significance. The number ‘twenty-two, more particularly as repre- senting the Hebrew alphabet, played a prominent part in Jewish cosmological speculation. Dr. Eders- heim gives the following account of this, based mainly upon the Book Veészrah: ‘We distinguish the sub- stance and the form of creation; that which is, and - the mode in which it is... . In the Sepher Yetstrah these Divine realities (the substance) are represented by the ten numerals, and their form by the twenty- two letters which constitute the Hebrew alphabet— language being viewed as the medium of connexion between the spiritual and the material ; as the form in which the spiritual appears. At the same time num- ber and language indicate also the arrangement and the mode of creation, and, in general, its boundaries, ... If the ten Sephiroth (i.e. the numbers) give the substance, the twenty-two letters are the form of crea- tion and of revelation. “By giving them form and shape, 1 First, Kam di Ail, pas Critical Presuppositions. 115 and by interchanging them, God has made the soul of everything that has been made, or shall be made.” “Upon those letters, also, has the Holy One, Whose Name be praised, founded His holy and glorious Name.” These letters are next subdivided, and their application in all the departments of nature is shown. In the unit, creation: [in] the triad, world, time and man are found. Above all these is the Lord?’ Is it not obvious to see in these speculations as to the alphabet the middle link between cosmological theory and the Canon? And are we not at once reminded of Origen comparing the Four Gospels to the four elements and Irenaeus to the four winds and four quarters of the globe, if not of anticipations of both in the Shepherd of Hermas ? One more preliminary question remains to be answered before we embark on our larger inquiry. It is necessary for the inquirer to take up a definite attitude towards the criticism of the Old Testament. What is that attitude to be? What is the attitude which should be taken up by one who is not a specialist and can only claim to have studied the subject from without as conscientiously and as disin- terestedly as -he can? -Such an one, I cannot help thinking, will feel that the case for what is called the critical view of the Old Testament comes to him with great force. In England until quite lately, although we have had critical commentaries and 1 Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, ii. 692. I venture to correct an evident misprint of punctuation in the last sentence but one. I2 116 JT, The Old Testament in the First Century. monographs on portions of the Old Testament, we have not had any complete and connected presenta- tion of the critical theory as a whole. This we now have for the literature in Dr. Driver's well-known Introduction’, and for history and literature combined in the H7bdert Lectures for last year—a book which, though quite uncompromising in its criticism, wins upon us, not only by the charm of an attractive style, but by its evident candour and enthusiasm *. When we turn from these to the leaders of Continental opinion, Kuenen and Wellhausen, and compare their writings with those which maintain either the traditional view or a view but slightly modified from the traditional, it is impossible to resist the impression that the critical argument is in the stronger hands, and that it is accompanied by a far greater command of the ma- terials. The cause of criticism, if we take the word in a wide sense and do not identify it too closely . with any particular theory, is, it is difficult to doubt, the winning cause. Indeed criticism is only the pro- cess by which theological knowledge is brought into line with other knowledge; and as such it is inevitable. 1 Tt is right to add that besides a long list of works dealing with portions of the Old Testament, Dr. Cheyne also contributed to the Expositor for 1892 a brief but connected review of most of the points now in debate (now reprinted in Mounders of Old Testament Criticism, London, 1893). No divergence of opinion in connexion with this or any other recent work of his can obscure the debt which I owe to my old friend. ® My one complaint against the author would be that he follows some of his authorities rather too faithfully; but he is receptive of influences from a standpoint other than his own, and I question whether he will remain quite where he is. Critical Presuppositions. 117 And yet I cannot but think that the open-minded inquirer who retains his balance and is not simply carried off his feet by the set of the current, will not be able to avoid a suspicion that there is after all, especially in the way in which the critical case is presented on the Continent, something essentially one-sided. _Kuenen wrote in the interest of almost avowed Naturalism?, and much the same may be said of Wellhausen. But to do so is to come to the Bible with a prejudice, just as much as in the case of those who come to it with the determination to find in it nothing but Supernaturalism. Both alike are apt to force their views upon the Bible instead of being Τ 1 observe that Mr. Montefiore ( Jewzesh Quart. Rev., Jan. 1893, p. 305) demurs to a similar description of Kuenen’s view by Prof. Robertson (cf also Driver, Zn/rod. p. 194), on the strength of the opening sentences of the Peligzon of Israel, which do assert the rule of God in the world. It is true that the reservation is made, but it is kept very much indeed in the background. For instance, in regard to the subject before us, Dr. Kuenen expended a whole volume of 593 large octavo pages (Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, London, 1877) in proving that the prophets were of moved to speak by God, but that their utterances were all their own. The following extract will, I think, do justice to the position which Dr. Kuenen really held: ‘We do not allow ourselves to be deprived of God’s presence in history. In the fortunes and development of nations, and not least clearly in those of Israel, we see Him, the holy and all-wise Instructor of His human children. But the old contrasts must be altogether set aside. So long as we derive a separate part of Israel’s religious life directly from God, and allow the supernatural or immediate revelation to intervene in even one single point, so long also our view of the whole continues to be incorrect, and we see ourselves here and there neces- sitated to do violence to the well-authenticated contents of the historical documents. It is the supposition of a natural development alone which accounts for all the phenomena’ (Prophets and Prophecy, &c., p. 585). 18 7]. The Old Testament in the First Century. content to take them from it. And to one fallacy in particular I think we may say that both writers are exposed. It was natural that in pursuing a perfectly unfettered inquiry and correcting one by one the traditional dates of documents and _institu- tions, there should be a tendency to lay too much stress on the first mention of either; with the result of either confusing that first mention with the real origin of the document or institution, or at least allowing far too little for growth and not sufficiently considering what the process of growth involves. This is a direction in which it would seem that the researches of the critical school will bear to be sup- plemented. Kuenen and Wellhausen have mapped out, on the whole I believe rightly, the main stages of develop- ment in the history of Hebrew literature. The next thing to be done was to determine the corresponding steps in the history of the people and of the religion. But at each step there is an argument backwards as well as forwards. The question at each successive stage is, What does that stage imply? What are its antecedents ? How must it have been reached ? What an amount of religious preparation is implied (e.g.) in the writings of Amos and Hosea! Our own scholars have paid and are paying especial attention to this line of investigation. Foremost among them in this respect is one of the ablest and most independent of our theologians, Dr. A. B. Davidson of Edinburgh. In his steps has followed, perhaps rather more one- sidedly, Professor James Robertson of Glasgow, in Critical Presuppositions. 119 the Batrd Lectures for 18891; our own Professor of Hebrew in his Jxztroduction, and Dr. Robertson Smith, so long a leader in the vanguard of criticism, have shown themselves quite alive to this point of view ; and it is significant that just in this point the Hibbert Lecturer is distinguished—and distinguished to his advantage—from the Continental critics who would otherwise be nearest to him. But it can hardly as yet be said either that the balance of critical inquiry has been fully redressed or that the resources of a really scientific method for the study of the Old Testament have been exhausted. The true cure for a one-sided presentation of the facts is not to be sought in less of science but in more, not in laxer methods but in stricter. It remains to be seen how much of the current theories will be endorsed twenty years hence. Some of them I feel sure will have been pronounced impossible. In such a position of things it has seemed best to start from the critical theories, not as something fixed and absolute, but provisionally and hypothetically. In any case, whether they are true or not, it concerns 11 have experienced the same difficulty as Mr. Montefiore (wf sup. p- 304) in ascertaining what exactly is Prof. Robertson’s own critical position. He uses a number of arguments which seem to me good and sound in restriction of current critical theories, but they fall far short of restoring the traditional view in its integrity or with only such slight modifications as are proposed (6. g.) by Bp. Ellicott. I gather that Prof. Robertson would go some way further than this, but he does not make it clear how much further. If this represents a real suspense of judgment, I would be the last to find fault with him, 120 7). The Old Testament in the First Century. us to know how far a full belief in Divine revelation is compatible with them. We may reasonably say that what they offer to us is a mzxzmum which under no circumstances is capable of being reduced much further, and that the future is likely to yield data which are more and not less favourable to conclusions such as those adopted in these lectures. But if or in so far as that expectation should be realized, the argument which we are about to follow would be strengthened, and any confirmation of faith which it may bring would be more assured. In speaking of critical theories of the Old Testa- ment the layman may wish to be reminded what the crucial points in these are. Two may be described as general and two as particular. The general points are (i) the untrustworthy character of Jewish tradi- tions as to authorship unless confirmed by internal evidence; they are not in fact traditions in the strict sense at all, but only inferences and conjectures without historical basis: (ii) the composite character of very many of the books—the Historical Books consisting for the most part of materials more or less ancient set in a frame-work of later editing; some of the Prophetical Books containing as we now have them the work of several distinct authors bound up in a single volume; and books like the Psalms and Proverbs also not being all of a piece but made up of a number of minor collections only brought together by slow degrees. Two particular conclusions are of special importance: (i) the presence in the Pentateuch of a considerable element which in its Critical Presuppositions. 121 present shape is held by many to be not earlier than the Captivity!; and (ii) the composition of the Book of Deuteronomy not long, or at least not very long, before its promulgation by King Josiah in the year 621, which thus becomes a pivot-date in the history of Hebrew literature. To these positions, thus broadly stated, I must, so far as my present judgment goes, confess my own adhesion®. But the working * As to the extent of the document or group of documents there is very general agreement, but the agreement is less complete as to its date. Some writers of weight, Dillmann, Baudissin, Kittel (to whom may be added Buhl, Kanon u. Text, p. 8), still incline to place the main portion before the Exile. The substantial difference between the two views is however not very great. Reasonable supporters of the exilic or post-exilic date allow that many of the institutions of the so-called Priest’s Code are far older than the Code itself; and on the other hand, those who hold that the document is in the main pre-exilic, regard it as possessing a private and ‘ideal’ character, confined to a limited circle among the priests and not put into general circulation (see Driver, Jn/roduction, p. 134 f.). ? It is quite possible to hold this view as to the date of Deuteronomy and yet to give a natural sense to the word ‘found’ in 2 Kings xxii. 8, and to acquit Hilkiah and those who acted with him of a direct share in the composition of the book as well as in its publication, It is no doubt right to make allowance for the different conceptions of what is honourable current in different ages, but we ought not to widen the gap without a clear necessity and substantial evidence. These seem to me to be wanting for the view which has been put forward by Mr. Montefiore in the Hibdert Lectures, pp. 179-181, and Dr. Cheyne in the Expostfor, 1892, i. 95-99 (Lounders of O. T. Criticism, pp. 267-272). 3 With the view of the critical position given above may be com- pared another formulated with far more trenchant force by a Roman Catholic writer in the Contemporary Review for April 1893, p. 473 ἵν I doubt much whether some of the conclusions adopted by this writer will stand the test of time, but it cannot be denied that they have strong advocates at the present moment. 12 IT, The Old Testament in the First Century. out of them has not deprived the Old Testament of any of its value. On the contrary, stumbling- blocks have been removed; a far more vivid and more real apprehension of the Old Testament both as history and religion has been obtained; and, as I also hope to be able to show, the old conviction that we have in it a revelation from God to men is not only unimpaired but placed upon firmer foun- dations. Note to Lecture II, 123 NOTE A. On the Date of the Formation of the Jewish Canon. THE controversies as to the date of the formation of the Jewish Canon seem really to turn upon the ambiguity in the meaning of the word ‘Canon’ itself. If by ‘Canon’ we mean the estimate of certain books as sacred and inspired, then we have proof that the Canon of the Old Testament existed from the time of Hillel, Philo and the New Testament, if not from the time of the books of Maccabees and Ecclesiasticus. But if by the Canon we mean that this estimate was formally and authoritatively recognised and that a list of books was drawn up to which the estimate applied, then we cannot say that the Canon of the Old Testament was formed before the transactions at Jamnia at the end of the first and beginning of the second centuries. It is just as in the case of the New Testament; we may say that the Canon begins with the Muratorian Fragment or with the decree of the Council of Laodicea; and even then, whichever view we took, it would be rather arbitrary. The really essential thing both for the Old Testament and the New, is the authority with which the several books were invested. In the many cases where the authorship of the book is known, this authority can be traced up beyond the book itself to the person of the writer ; and in other cases where the authorship is not known it came to be attached to the book by analogy. Whenever a book is regarded as sacred, it is so in some sense and degree from the first. As it is the object of these lectures to trace especially this part of the process in question, it will not be necessary to dilate further upon it here. ΤΡ ΤΕ͵: THE GENESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. THE PROPHETIC “AND “HISTORICAL SBOOKS: ‘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 Wenn, and I cannot contain.’ —/Jeremiah xx. 9. ‘The purpose of God according to election.’ —Romans ix. 11. Art the back of all belief in Revelation or Inspira- tion there lies the still larger belief in an active Providence, to which the Hebrews gave a more signifi- cant and moving name, ‘the living God.’ If we think. of nature as an aggregate of blind forces, then there is clearly no room for communication of any kind between God and man. But the moment we assume that ‘this universal frame is not without a Mind,’ the moment we assume a real personal Will at the centre of all the infinite network of causation, the further assumption of some such thing as Revelation and its correlative Inspiration becomes easy, natural, and probable 1. * I may quote here the words of one who is more of a philosopher than I am, and I do so the more gladly as they repair an omission of mine by defining the relation of Inspiration to Revelation. ‘The idea of a written revelation may be said to be logically involved in the notion of a living God. Speech is natural to spirit; and if God is by Postulates of Inspiration. 125 We may treat it, if we will, in the first instance as a hypothesis, but it is one of those hypotheses which group together and explain such large tracts of pheno- mena that with most of us it holds a place among the established axioms of thought. Believing that there is a God, a Supreme Mind, a Personal Being, endowed in the highest perfection with attributes which we are compelled to conceive of as like our own, we find no difficulty in believing that this great all-ruling central Personality seeks to draw to Itself the multitude of puny personalities which Its Will has called into exist- ence—personalities as it might seem of infinitesimal moment when judged by their place in the material universe, but every one of which acquires a far higher value when we remember that it is made in the image of its Creator, that it is spirit face to face with Spirit, conscious of its affinity and earnestly desiring to realize that affinity so far as it may. There is an upward movement in the mind of man which takes away any surprise that we might feel at an answering con- descension on the part of God. We are prepared then to think that the Epicurean nature spirit, it will be to Him a matter of nature to reveal Himself. But if He speaks to man, it will be through men; and those who hear best will be those most possessed of God. This possession is termed “inspiration.” God inspires, man reveals: inspiration is the process by which God gives; revelation is the mode or form—word, character, or institution—in which man embodies what he has re- ceived. The terms, though not equivalent, are co-extensive, the one denoting the process on its inner side, the other on its outer’ (Dr. Fairbairn, Christ in Modern Theology, p. 496). The context shows that it is as correct to say, ‘God reveals’; but it is through man that the revelation takes concrete shape. 126 71]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. notion of gods holding aloof from men is inadequate ; we are prepared to find the finger of God traceable in human affairs; and we ask, if so, what is the method of its working ? One feature in that method seems to stand out very clearly. It is what St. Paul calls ‘a purpose or design, according to election (or selection).’ That vast Divine plan of which we see ‘huge cloudy symbols’ as it were projected into the universe takes a more definite shape as our gaze lingers upon it. We observe in it a progression. The light broadens as we descend down the ages. But this broadening light has not been diffused uniformly over all mankind. It has been concentrated or focussed in particular races, families, and individuals. Where it has spread in the world at large it has spread as a rule from these smaller centres. There is an apportionment of parts in the mighty drama. On the great world-stage different races have different functions. Functions . which are rudimentary or only slightly developed in the one are highly developed in another. It was not given to the Semitic race to lay the foundations of science. Its achievements were not great in art or law and political organization. The branch of it which has left the most enduring monuments of itself in these departments is the Assyrian, not the Hebrew. But for the Hebrew it was reserved beyond all other peoples to teach the world what it knows of Religion. From that point of view which we have seemed justified in taking we shall say that it was the instru- ment specially chosen of God for that purpose. We do not deny a Divine guiding in other races. Not Methods of Inspiration. 127 wholly in the dark did men of other nationality grope after an object of worship and of praise. But it is from the Hebrew stock that we have the Bible, and the Bible is by general consent the highest expression, the most perfect document, of Religion. Our survey of the ways of God predisposes us to think of the Bible as something more than a purely human product, a collection of idle fancies thrown out towards an irresponsive heaven. But if it is more than this, if it is the record of a real communication from God to man, by what processes has that communication been made? How has the necessary contact between the Spirit of God and the spirit of man been established ? What are its extent and limits? These are the questions which we are to set ourselves, so far as our analysis will carry us, to answer. And the first part of our answer will be that at which I have already hinted, that here too there is ‘a purpose or design of God according to selection.’ Just as one particular branch of one particular stock was chosen to be in a general sense the recipient of a clearer revelation than was vouchsafed to others, so within that branch certain individuals were chosen to have their hearts and minds moved in a manner more penetrating and more effective than their fellows, with the result that their written words convey to us truths about the nature of God and His dealings with man which other writings do not convey with equal fulness, power, and purity. We say that this special moving is due to the action upon those hearts and minds of the Holy Spirit. And we call that action Inspiration, 128 71]. [he Prophetic and Hrstorical Books. In claiming for the Bible Inspiration we do not exclude the possibility of other lower or more partial degrees of inspiration in other literatures!. The Spirit of God has doubtless touched other hearts and other minds (I use the double phrase because in these matters thought and emotion are in close union) in such a way as to give insight into truth, besides those which could claim descent from Abraham. But there is a difference. And perhaps our language would be most safely guarded if we were to say that when and in so far as we speak of the Bible as inspired in a sense in which we do not speak of other books as inspired, we mean precisely so much as is covered by that difference. It may be hard to sum up our defini- tion in a single formula, but we mean it to include all those concrete points in which as a matter of fact the Bible does differ from and does excel all other Sacred Books. I. I am to speak to-day of a class of Biblical writers in which this difference stands out as prominently as in any, the Prophets. Perhaps I may go a step further. For in truth the prophetic inspiration seems to be a type of all inspiration. It is perhaps the one mode in which the most distinctive features of Biblical Inspiration can be most clearly recognised. 1 1 had intended to throw into an Additional Note a summary view of the Sacred Books of non-Christian Religions, but this has been so excellently done by Bp. Westcott in Zhe Cambridge Companion to the Bible, pp. 15-21, that I content myself with referring to what he has written. The Earlier Prophets. 129 Not that even the Prophets are a class absolutely by themselves. On the contrary, they are a class to which there was a large amount of external analogy. And we need to consider the analogies before we can pro- perly appreciate the difference. Once again we have to look for the ‘ purpose of God according to selection.’ Let us begin by taking a section of the history of Israel, for which as it happens our documents are specially clear and vivid, and evidently animated by a fresh and faithful recollection of the events described. The Books of Samuel present us with the picture of an early stage in the development of Prophecy. Let us take it in three of its characteristic manifestations. Let us take first the Prophet under that name; then the Seer ; thena side on which Priest and Prophet are rather closely associated. On each of these sides we shall find a state of things which reminds us of the institutions of ethnic religions 1. We remember the scene in which Saul, seeking for his father’s asses, meets the company of prophets coming down from the high place of Gibeah with psaltery and tabret and pipe and harp before them ?; and how on another occasion—if indeed it is another and tradition has not made two separate incidents out of one*—the same Saul, pursuing a nobler prey, ? Professor Huxley has devoted a large part of a long essay (Zss. on Controverted Questions, pp. 132-198) to the discussion of these analogies. δὲν Sam, x. 5; 6, 10-13. 3. Both stories are told as explaining the origin of the proverb ‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’ K 130 77]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. penetrated into the midst of the school of the prophets at Ramah, andwas caught by their enthusiasm and cast off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel, and lay down naked all one day and night 1. Clearly the exer- cise of the prophetic gift was often accompanied by strong physical excitement. Music appears to have been sometimes used to produce this excitement. For when Elisha is called in by the allied kings of Israel, Judah and Edom, to save them from the straits of their war with Mesha, he must needs have a minstrel to play before him and so stir up the prophetic in- spiration 3. It is true that these instances mark the furthest limit which is reached in this direction by Hebrew prophecy; and the contrast is far more striking than the resemblance when we pass to the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel cutting themselves with knives and lancets in order to force the god to answer their - appeal *. Still we must recognise the fact that other races and religions have a prophetic order besides 1 y Sam. xix. 23, 24. It does not however appear that such a condition was in any sense characteristic of the ΠΡΟΣ We know that Saul was liable to attacks of madness. 2.2 Kings ill. 15. 3 It is a debated question how far (the lower kinds of) prophecy in Israel can rightly be compared with the fakirs and dervishes of the East: see on the affirmative side Schultz, Zheol. d. A. 7. p. 219 f., 249; Ryle, Canon, p. 39; Wellhausen and Stade as quoted by Robertson; and on the negative, Robertson, Barrd Lectures, Ὁ. 87 fi. ; Konig, Ofenbarungsbegriff, pp. 60-64. Kénig strongly opposes the; view of Kuenen and Wellhausen, accepted in part by Montefiore (Hibbert Lechires, p. 76 1), that Hebrew prophecy was of Canaanite origin. The Larter Prophets. 131 the Hebrew, and that the external phenomena of prophecy, though more violent and undisciplined, were not wholly dissimilar in kind. If we were to inquire into the mental condition of the prophet in receiving his revelations we should find much the same thing. Dreams are characteristic of the early narratives in the Book of Genesis!: their significance is assumed in the Book of Judges (Gideon, and the soldier's dream prognosticating the success of his attack on the Midianites)*; and it is in the form of a dream that Samuel receives the warning of the calamities which are to befall the house of Eli *. Again, it is assumed that the prophetic revelation 15 sometimes made through the medium of trance or ecstasy. The typical example of this is Balaam, fall- ing down prostrate* with the inrush of the Divine affiatus, though having his eyes open ὅ. In all these respects we seem to be at the level of the ideas current among ancient peoples generally. This too would be true of the description, so graphic in its details, of Samuel as a Seer—the kind of subject about which he is consulted, the fee or present which Gene ses 5 ἢ; XXVi, 12 fi. ; xxxvii. 5. τ; xl. 1 fi. 2 Judges vii. 13 f. 8 y Sam. iii. 3 ff. Ata later date however dreams are regarded as characteristic of false prophets: cf Jer. xxiii. 25; Konig, Offendar- ungsbegriff, il. το. * Num. xxiv. 4 (Q. P. B.). Although Balaam is not strictly a prophet of Jehovah he is in this instance regarded as inspired by Jehovah. 6 This again is a condition by no means characteristic of the higher prophecy: see Konig, Ofendarungsbegriff, i. 114 f,, ii, 48 £5 Montefiore, A/zbdert Lectures, p. 121. K 2 132 727]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. is usually brought by those who consult him, his answers, and the signs which his questioner is to meet with!. In all this we seem to have a still more homely version of the Teiresias or Phineus of Greek legend. Lastly, we have at the same period a still more elaborate consulting of the oracle associated with the priesthood. The full apparatus of such an oracle appears in the archaic narrative at the end of the Book of Judges of the household of Micah, with his shrine or chapel, his image, his ‘ephod’? and teraphim, and the Levite to serve them. These things seem to be all taken as matters of course, and the Danites set great store by the possession of them, although it is obtained by theft®, In like manner David welcomes Abiathar the priest when he comes to him ‘with an ephod in his hand’ and makes use of him to inquire as to the dangers which threaten him and the success of his designs*. Again, we do not feel that we are on the exaited platform of spiritual religion, but that we are rather moving amongst the naive ideas and usages of a primitive age. The religion of that age is of course not ex- tL Sain, ix. ὅπ. ΣΧ 2 Al, * The exact nature of the ‘Ephod’ is a point still much disputed, Not only Kohler, Kénig and Oehler, but Riehm and Nowack (Oehler, Theol. ὦ. A. T. p. 578, ed. 3), take it to be everywhere a part of the priestly dress (as in Ex. xxviii, 6 ff.): on the other hand, Wellhausen (Gesch. Isr, pp. 249, 297), Schultz (Adsest. Theol. p. 135 D., ‘keineswegs unwahrscheinlich’), and Montefiore (47d. Lect. p. 43) take it to be an image. 5. Judges xviii, 5, 10-13, xviii, 14-26, 4 χ Sam. xxiil. I-12, The Earher Prophets. 133 hausted by such ideas and usages. It had its deeper side, of which we shall come to speak later, but for the present we observe that they do exist, and that they form a real link of connexion between the people of revelation and its neighbours and contemporary peoples over a wide extent of the ancient world. When we follow out the fortunes of the prophets we find them under Samuel, perhaps for the first time’, congregating in settlements, in which their enthusiasm is fanned by companionship and sympathy. The next occasion where attention is called to these coenobitic communities is some two centuries later, in the time of Elijah and Elisha. It may be true that there are differences in the description of them at the two periods, but it seems wrong to press those differences to the extent of denying their identity. They are sufficiently accounted for by the changes which would come simply with lapse of time. Such an institution would naturally have fluctuations in its history. The communities would die down and revive again. In the time of David and his successors we hear more of individual prophets than of schools of the prophets. Still there are traces even then of prophets as a class and of the fellow-feeling existing between ‘its members *. Prophecy was really a profession; and not only through but beyond the days of the Monarchy it was 1 On the probability of this see Schultz, p. 217 f. * 1 Kings xx. 35, ‘a certain man of the sons of the prophets ’ (in the reign of Ahab); cp. the story of the old prophet of Bethel under Jeroboam (1 Kings xiv. 30, 31, &c.). 134 LI. The Prophetic and Historical Books. a profession strongly manned. In the persecution begun by Ahab and Jezebel Obadiah hides no less than 400 prophets in a cave. It is clearly a numerous body whom Ahab consults before he goes out to death. Jeremiah implies a number of prophets both in Jerusalem and among the exiles; and Ezekiel also evidently speaks of them as forming a considerable body 1. But where there is a professional class there are sure to be professional failings. All members of the order would not be equally sincere. There would be small natures among them as well as large. They would be apt to fall into conventional and unreal ways of speaking. They would be under a great temptation to adapt their prophecies to their own interests and to the wishes of their hearers. Thus the half-hearted prophet sinks a step lower still and becomes the false prophet. He will ‘speak smooth things and prophesy deceits,’ ‘saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace*®.’ Such are ‘blind watch- men, ‘dumb dogs, ‘greedy dogs,’ ‘shepherds that cannot understand *’; they have ‘seen vanity and lying divination’; they ‘daub with untempered mortar *,’ Will it be thought that in collecting all these par- ticulars I hold a brief against the Prophets and desire to say all I can in their disparagement ? God forbid. I only wish to look the facts full in the face, to blink nothing of all that can rightly be said against them, so tEzek. xiii. 2 ἢ: xxil. 25, 28) sc. els KEK. Τὸ ere vi. 14, cee 5 15 ΠΥ τὸ» Τα: * Ezek. xiii. 6, το, &c. 2 > 3 The Religions of Moab and Israel. 135 that with a clear conscience we may go on to speak of their great and imperishable services, and of the ample proof that they really spake.as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Once more let us think of the ‘purpose of God according to selection.’ Not all who wore the prophet’s mantle were true prophets; not all even of the true prophets always had the fullest insight vouchsafed to them. But before we finally turn down the page and pass over to the more positive side of our inquiry, let us first take an unique opportunity that is put in our way for forming a comparative estimate of the prophetic religion. One of the most notable discoveries of recent years was that of the so-called ‘ Moabite stone.’ Now this discovery gives us a most unexpected glimpse through an absolutely contemporary document of the religion of a people closely allied to Israel both in its origin and in its civilization. Perhaps the first thing that strikes us about it will be the superficial resemblance of the Moabite religion to that with which we are more familiar. We might almost imagine that we were reading, mutatis mutandis, a passage from the Old Testament. It will be remembered that ‘ Che- mosh’ is the national god of the Moabites. The inscription runs thus :— ‘I am Mesha son of Chemoshmelek (or Chemosh- shillek), King of Moab, the Daibonite. My father reigned over Moab for thirty years, and I reigned after my father. And I made this high place for Chemosh in QRHH, a high place of salvation, because he had saved me from all the kings (9), and 136 77]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. because he let me see my pleasure on all them that hated me. Omri was King of Israel, and he afflicted Moab for many days, because Chemosh was angry with his land. And his son succeeded him; and he also said, I will afflict Moab. In my days said he thus; but I saw my pleasure on him, and on his house, and Israel perished with an everlasting de- struction. And Omri took possession of the land of Mehedeba, and it (i.e. Israel) dwelt therein, during his days, and half his son’s days, forty years; but Che- mosh restored it in my days... And the men of Gad had dwelt in the land of ‘Ataroth from of old; and the King of Israel built for himself ‘Ataroth. And I fought against the city, and took it. And I slew all the people of the city, a gazingstock unto Chemosh, and unto Moab. And I brought back thence the altar-hearth of Davdoh(?), and I dragged it before Chemosh in Qeriyyoth.... And Chemosh said unto . me, Go, take Nebo against Israel. And I went by night, and fought against it from the break of dawn until noon. And I took it, and slew the whole of it, 7,000 men . . . and women and [men-servants ?], and maid-servants: for I had devoted it to ‘Ashtor- Chemosh. And I took thence the vessels of YAHWEH, and I dragged them before Chemosh,’ &c.! @here 15 reali piety in(thisy (hep kinemriss net strictly monolatrous, for he mentions a compound deity, ‘Ashtor-Chemosh,’ as well as ‘Chemosh.’ But his worship is practically concentrated on Chemosh, 1 The translation is taken from Dr. Driver’s Votes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, p. \xxxvii. The Religions of Moab and Israel. 137 quite as much we may believe as his opponent Ahabs would be concentrated upon Jehovah. To Chemosh he refers all his own successes and those of his people. It is the anger of Chemosh which caused their subjugation and his favour which gives them victory. The destruction of their enemies is pleasant to him. Chemosh, or the oracle of Chemosh, directs their attack ; and the king shows his gratitude by the dedication of offerings which are specially acceptable when they are taken from the sanctuaries of rival gods. In all this there is at least the foundation of a religious character. We cannot exactly say that the name makes no difference, because the name Jehovah (YaHwen) had for the Israelite a rich significance of its own. But if we look upon it as merely the symbol for God, the Supreme Power, that is what Chemosh stood for to the Moabite. And even one of the better sort of Israel’s kings could not speak in terms of greater loyalty and devotion. It is true that there runs through the inscription a vein of vindictiveness and cruelty; but to that parallels might be found westwards of the Jordan. The doctrine ‘ Love your enemies’ belongs to the New Testament, and only to a few of the most enlightened spirits, like the author of the Book of Jonah and of Isaiah xix. 18-25, in the Old. When however we come to take in other authorities the curtain is lifted from other sides of Moabite religion which shows what a gulf there was between it and the religion of Israel. We remember a fact 138 71]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. recorded in the Book of Kings of this very same Mesha which either falls after the date of the inscrip- tion or else is glossed over in it. We remember how when Mesha was hard pressed by the Western Powers he offered up his own son, who should have reigned in his stead, for a burnt-offering upon the wall’. It was no doubt a desperate case and the last tremendous sacrifice of a brave man struggling for liberty. But even so it would not have been possible at this time to a worshipper of Jehovah. It is perhaps probable that the blank which is mercifully left in the story of Jephthah’s daughter is to be filled up in a similar sense ® But Jephthah was a wild bandit chief in a backward region and a lawless age*; and in any case all suspicion of human sacrifices in the name of Je- hovah had long been left behind. The emphatic prohibitions of the Law and the horror expressed at the act of Ahaz and Manasseh, who made their. ne ings ii: 27: 2 This is still contested by Kohler (Lehrbuch d. Bibl. Gesch. A. T. ii. 100 ff.) and Kénig (Oehler, Zheol. d. A. T. p. 576, ed. 3). The main point is that she bewails her virginity (Jud. xi. 37) and not her life: it is argued that if dedicated to the service of Jehovah she could not marry, and that her life might be commuted for a money- payment (Lev. xxvii. 4). But there is an ominous correspondence between Jud. xi. 39 and 34. 8. The case in regard to human sacrifices is tersely summed up by Baudissin (Jahve εἰ Moloch, p. 60 f.): populus Israelitarum Jehovam colens semper immolationem hominum aversatus est. Solus Jephtha filiam immolavit ; sed τς trans Jordanem inier tdololatras vivens Jehovae cultum cum cultu gentili commiscuct, Among those who think that there are traces of human sacrifice in the Old Testament is Mr. Monte- fiore (H7bd. Lect. p. 40). οὐ The Religions of Moab and Israel. 139 sons to pass through the fire to Molech?, show in what estimation they were held. Then we turn to the story of Balaam and the scenes in the plains of Moab (Num. xxv. 1-9). The best modern opinion dissociates these from the worship of Baal-Peor?. They seem ‘rather to lead on to the idolatry than to be occasioned by it. But there is abundant evidence that like abominations were practised in the name of religion ὃ, It is part of the mystery of things that He who made of one blood all the nations of the earth and has nowhere left Himself without witness, more or less clear, should yet permit evil so to blend itself with good even in that which is most sacred. The great problem for the student of religions is why the religion of Israel alone should be so remarkably free from this baser mixture. Why was not the worship of Jehovah like the worship of Baal, or Tammuz, or Cybele, or Astarte, or Mylitta? Why was it not like the worship of a race so nearly akin to Israel as the Moabite? The Christian has a simple answer ready. He seeks it in that which is the subject of these lectures. He believes that there has been a special Divine influence at work, not making out of Israel an altogether new creation under wholly new conditions, but taking the conditions as they were, sifting and straining out of them something purer ΠΟΥ ZV 20, ἘΣ. 2, 2 Kings xvi. 3, xxi. 6. * See Baudissin in Herzog, Real-Encykl, ii. 33; Dillmann on Num. xxv. (p. 169). 8 Hos. iv. 14; Jer. ii. 20; 1 Kings xiv, 24, xv. 12; 2 Kings xxiii. 7. 140 71]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. and higher than they could produce of themselves, guarding the precious growth from contamination, guiding its upward progress, filling it with a vital and expansive power which none can give but God. And if we are asked to define the measure of this special influence, we can see it reflected in that wide margin which remains when the common elements of the Biblical religion and other religions have been subtracted and that which is peculiar to the Bible is left. There is a ‘ purpose of God according to selection’; there isan “election “or “selection “of erace’;” and the object of that selection was Israel and those who take their name from Israel’s Messiah. If a tower is built in ascending tiers, those who stand upon the lower tiers are yet raised above the ground, and some may be raised higher than others, but the full and unimpeded view is reserved for those who mount upwards to the top. And that is the place destined for us if we will but take it. We have spoken of the lower levels attained by the seers and professional prophets. From the fact that these classes are upon a lower level, we may be apt to do injustice to them. Samuel told Saul how he might find his asses; but he had a higher vocation in the world than that. A part of his vocation—no small part of it—was to find Saul himself, and so take the first step towards welding the loose collection of tribes into a nation. Another and even more im- portant part lay in the organizing of those ‘schools of the prophets’ which contained in themselves the The Lower Prophecy. 141 germs of such great things to come. Partly through them and partly in his own person Samuel wrought a reformation in the land, the fruit of which was seen under Saul’s successor. In the case of the prophets it is only natural that certain conspicuous figures should stand out and over- shadow the rest. We do not know how much of the solid basis of Israel’s religion may have been due to unnamed and unknown workers. The great advances no doubt came from the great men, and it was they who really deepened the roots of religious conviction. But at all times there must be disciples to mediate between the leaders and the crowd, It is not enough to propound a great truth: it must be spread abroad, and carried home, and hardened by iteration. Accordingly we can see that even the lower order of prophets must have had a very useful function. They were a sort of clergy, among whom would be found good members and bad; but yet if the average of Israel’s religion was better than the average of their neighbours’, it was largely their doing. They interpreted the great prophets to the multitude, and brought them into contact indirectly with many whom they could never have reached directly. Hence we are not surprised to find that those who are called relatively ‘false prophets’ are so not because their fundamental ideas are wrong in them- selves but because they are wrongly applied’, Their 1 I cannot go with Konig who in the work referred to below (i.33, &c.) insists upon an absolute opposition between the false prophets and the true, It is surely far nearer the mark to say with Montefiore 142 77]. [he Prophetic and Historical Books. fundamental ideas are really right but they are applied in a conventional mechanical way, and it is not seen how they are overruled by some deeper and larger principle newly enunciated. Thus, for instance, when Jeremiah bids the people not to trust ‘in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these!’ buildings, the splendid pile which Solomon had raised, it was perfectly true that the temple was the Lord’s and that it was under His protection. And when Micah com- plains that the prophets divine for money while they profess to ‘lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? no evil can come upon us%,’ it was not to be gainsaid that the Lord was really among them: so far, good: but the inference was a wrong one, that His hand contained no chastisements. Nowhere does the antithesis between the lower and the higher prophecy come out more clearly than on this very point. All this vain confidence is scattered to the winds by that magnificent paradox which is the (Ziibbert Lectures, p. 205 f.): ‘These prophets were not all of them either vicious or deceitful. Perhaps now-a-days the tendency is to rehabilitate these so-called “ false prophets” too easily, for the evidence of Ezekiel and Jeremiah cannot be lightly set aside. But there were clearly wide gradations of character among them, from the hypo- critical charlatan to the honest if deluded enthusiast.’ God does not act per sal/um in revelation any more than in nature; lower forms lead. up to higher, mixed forms to pure; the special influences at work in these latter do not involve any breach of continuity. This may also be taken as a reply to Kuenen (Prophets and Prophecy tn Israel), who goes to the opposite extreme of reducing true prophets and false to the same level. Jer. vii. 4. - : 2 Micah iii. 11. The Higher Prophecy. 143 main theme of the prophet Amos: ‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities 1. The lower prophecy had its function and its place; but by the Providence of God and by the guidance of His Spirit, only the products of the higher pro- phecy have come down to us in the shape of authori- tative writings. Here again there is a ‘selection.’ If we put aside the Book of Daniel, which is not exactly a prophetic work in the same sense as the rest and which had a different place assigned to it in the Jewish Canon, there can be no mistake as to the remainder of the Books which fill this section of our Bibles. The three so-called Major Prophets and twelve Minor are the central representatives of Israel’s religion, the culmination of all religion before the coming of Christ. It is noteworthy how as we rise in the scale of prophecy one by one the concomitants of the older and lower stages fall away. Ephod and teraphim are consigned to the owls and to the bats. The links which connected prophecy with mantic disappear. Every kind of physical stimulus is discarded. The prophet no longer seeks to work himself up into a state of physical excitement in order to court revela- tion. The revelation comes to him whether he will or no. We may almost say of these higher prophets, ‘Through no disturbance of the soul Or ‘strong compunction in [them] wrought, But in the. quietness of thought’ 1 Amos iii. 2. 144 71]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. they receive the motions of the Spirit. The hand of God may be heavy upon them, but yet they do not lose their full personality. Instead of being mere passive instruments their intelligence is active’. They are not a mere flute or lyre for the Spirit to blow through; or, if they are, there is a fine quality of tone which belongs to the reed or to the strings. The impulse is given, and all the faculties and powers of the man are stirred to uniwonted energy, in which how- ever, as if to give it the stamp of nature and reality, there mingles something of his weakness as well as of his strength. The prophets are before all things impassioned seers of spiritual truth and preachers of religion. They are often described as statesmen and as social re- formers. Some of them were statesmen, but not all— the figures of Isaiah and Jeremiah bulk so large that we are apt to take them as a type of the rest, even - where their circumstances were exceptional. More were social reformers”, But in either case it was only as it were incidentally in the discharge of a higher mission *, The fields of statesmanship and of social * “The lower the grade of prophecy, the more does the ecstatic condition become the normal one for inspiration; whereas in the higher and riper stages it occurs but seldom—principally in the initial revelation which constitutes the prophet’s call’ (Riehm, JZesszanic Prophecy, p. 25 E. T,; comp, Duhm, Theol. d. Proph. p. 86.) * The function of the prophets as social reformers has been recog- nised by others besides theologians: see J. S. Mill, Representative Government, p. 40 ff. (p. 17 popular edition). ® The pages (27. Z. pp. 150-153) in which this point is brought out by Mr, Montefiore form a striking passage in a striking chapter. The Prophetic Inspiration. 145 reform were but departments in that economy of life which took its shape from a true insight into the nature and attributes of God and the duty of man. This in- sight was granted to the prophet, and he followed it out into all its consequences. Especially in the crises of the national history he came forward to warn, to threaten, and to reassure—not because the nation as such was the first thing in his mind, though doubtless his kinsmen according to the flesh had a strong hold upon him, but because at such times a deeper view was obtained into the methods of God's working and a stronger incentive was given to the performance of human duty. Upon what grounds then are we to rest the authority with which the prophets spoke—an authority which still breathes in their writings? We remember that they too were not ‘like the scribes.’ They do not reason, but command. They do not conjecture, but announce. The moods which they use are the categorical im- perative and future. Their insight takes the form of intuition and not of inference. Whence did they come to have these characteristics ? What is it that lies in the background of their teaching? If we listen to them they will tell us. With one consent they would say that the thoughts which arose in their hearts and the words which arose to their lips were put there by God. But this only throws us back upon the further question, which forms the gist of the problem at the present day, What guarantees have we that they were not mistaken? How do we know that they are not L 146 III. The Prophetic and Hrstorical Books. projecting their own thoughts outside themselves and ascribing them to an external cause? This is the heart of the matter. And the one point on which we must firmly take our stand is the belief that in this contention of theirs the prophets were not mistaken, that their utterances had a cause outside themselves, a real objective cause, not to be confused with any mental process of their own. This I think is enough. We are not called upon to formulate a theory, for which the data are perhaps in- sufficient, as to the exact mode in which God conveyed His Will to them. In the most important work on the subject before us, a work of much learning and ability and starting from critical premises though perhaps applying them somewhat wilfully, it is con- tended that when the prophets say ‘God spake’ to them, what is meant is a literal and actual voice audible to the bodily ear, and when they say ‘ They saw,’ what . is meant is an actual literal sight presented to the waking eye?. I do not think that we are compelled to go so far as this. There is a great tendency in an age and in a state of civilization like that to which the prophets belonged to express the higher and more abstract processes of the human mind in terms of the lower and more concrete. The prophets chose the simplest expressions they could find, expressions which would convey the desired meaning so far as it could be apprehended to their contemporaries, but expres- 1 Konig, Offenbarungsbegriff d. A. T. ii. g ff., 142 ff. In criticism of this view see especially Riehm, J/esszanic Prophecy, p. 29 ff. ἘΣ ΕΙΣ The Prophetic Inspiration. 147 sions which are not intended to be judged from the standpoint of an advanced psychology, and which if they are so judged would certainly be pronounced in- adequate. But the essence of them consists in this, that the words which they repeat and the visions of revelation which they describe are not merely their own inventions, but are suggested and brought home to them from without in such a way that they were irresistibly attributed to God and given out as coming from Him. We believe that they were right, and we do so on a number of grounds which seem to us exceedingly strong. We believe it on the strength (1) of the glimpses which the prophets give us into their own conscious- ness on the subject ; (2) of the universal belief of their contemporaries ; (3) of the extraordinary unanimity of their testimony ; (4) of the difficulty of accounting for it in any other way; (5) ofthe character of the teach- ing in which this Divine prompting and suggestion results—a character which is not only not unworthy but most worthy of its source. (1) We may premise, in speaking of the witness which the prophets bear to themselves, that they are persons whose word may well be believed. They are persons as little likely to deceive as to be deceived. Their writings bear the stamp of singleminded veracity, and in the way in which they grapple with the evils around them they come before us as the wisest and sanest of their generation. But the case is one where considerations of this kind hardly need to be intro- duced; because we have not to do with a claim L2 148 71]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. which is denied and has to be made good, but with one which is generally acquiesced in and the references to which come in quite incidentally as if it were taken for granted. The sincerity of the prophets’ own belief cannot be called in question; and it will be allowed that in common matters they are competent witnesses ; the only question possible is whether they have analysed their consciousness correctly. But in regard to this we must observe that they have at least analysed it very strictly. It is remark- able what a clear and firm distinction they draw throughout between what comes from God and what comes from themselves. There are in their minds two trains of thought running parallel to each other, and they never seem to have the slightest hesitation as to which facts shall be referred to the one and which to the other. It is the characteristic of the false prophets to confuse the deceits of their own heart. with the word of the Lord?. The true prophet is never in any doubt. He may have to wait some time before a revelation comes to him—Jeremiah on one occasion waits ten days—but he does not antici- * Note (e.g.) in this connexion the dialogues which the prophets are represented as holding with the Almighty and the way in which they describe their own feelings: Amos vii. 2-9, 15, viii. 1, 2; Micah vii. I-10, 18-20; Isaiah vi. 5-12, XVi. Q-II, ΧΧΙ. 2-10, XXil. 4-14, XXV. I-5, Xxvi. 8-18, xxix. I1, 12, xl. 6, xlix. 3-6, 1. 4-9, lxiv. 6-12; Jeremiah i. 6-14, iv. 10, 19-21, v. 3-6, X. 19-25, ΧΙ], 1-6, Xiv. 7-9, 13-14, 18-22, xv. 10--21, xvii. 15-18, xviii. 18-23, xx. 7-18, xxxii, 16-25, &c. It is probable that some of the chapters referred to are not by the authors whose names they bear (see below, p. 240 f.); but that would only enlarge the range of testimony. 2 jer. xiv. 14. The Prophetic Inspiration. 149 pate the desired moment’. The prophets always know and very frequently set down the precise time when the word of the Lord ‘came to them.’ They are not endowed with any standing and permanent inspiration, but a special access of the Divine gift is vouchsafed to them for special purposes. (2) Nor is it as if they were conscious of this gift only within themselves; its presence is wzversally recognised by their contemporaries, Observe for in- stance the position which Isaiah holds both before court and people. The message of the prophet may be unwelcome; and in bad times he may meet with opposition from false prophets or from worldly coun- sellors who are determined to go their own way, and who think by suppressing the messenger to evade the message?; but his mission from God is not questioned. And just as men were aware when they had a prophet among them, so also they were aware when there was no prophet: ‘We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet; neither is there among us any that knoweth how long? And we have already seen how the Jews looked upon the cessation of prophecy as having taken place at a certain time, which the later writers regarded as regulating the limits of the Canon #4, (3) Another proof that the prophets were not the victims of hallucination is supplied by the extra- ordinary consistency of their language in regard to them- a) [ΕἸ Sil. 7; 23 Amos vii. 10-13 ; Jer. XXxxviii. 6. 5 Psalm Ixxiv. 9. 41 Macc, ix. 27; Joseph. c. Apion. i. 8; sup. p. 111. 150 77]. The Prophetic and Hrstorical Books. selves and their mission. If one prophet here and another there had supposed themselves to be sent by God and to have words put in their mouths by Him, it would not have been so surprising. But as it is we find the whole line of prophets, stretching over a succession of centuries, from Amos, from Nathan, from Samuel, from Moses, to Malachi, all make the same assumption. The formulae which they use are the same: ‘Thus saith the Lord, ‘The word of the Lord came,’ ‘Hear ye the word of the Lord” Such an identity of language implies an identity of psychological fact behind it; but, if an individual may be subject to delusions, it is another thing to say that a class so long extended could be subject to them—and to delusions with so much of method about them. From this group of arguments which turn ulti- mately upon the consciousness of the prophets we » pass (4) to another group which arise from ¢he dzffi- culty of accounting for that consciousness on any other hypothesis than its truth. First there are the cir- cumstances of the call of the prophets. We never hear of a prophet volunteering for his mission. It is laid upon them as a necessity from which they struggle to escape in vain. Moses pleads that he is ‘slow of speech and of a slow tongue.’ Isaiah tells us how he thought himself undone because he was a man of unclean lips and he dwelt among a people of unclean lips. Jeremiah shrinks back like a child when the call comes to him. He curses the day on which he was born... Ezekiel has The Prophetic Inspiration. 151 full warning of the kind of reception he will meet with: it will be as though briers and thorns were with him and he dwelt among scorpions. Amos had had no preparation for his mission: he was neither a prophet nor a member of any prophetic guild, but ‘a herdman and a dresser of sycomore trees'’ So far from circumstances leading up to the call of the prophets it was just the opposite. And when the prophet came forward to speak, in most cases it was with some paradox which seemed rather to traverse than to follow from the teaching of his predecessors ?. Again, if we take a wider range and ask, Whence did the prophets of Israel get this doctrine of theirs ? we cannot answer, as some have attempted to do, that it was from any special aptitude either of the Semitic race in general or of the Hebrew race in particular. It is sufficient refutation of this to point to the kindred nations Moab and Ammon. Here we see the picture of what Israel and Israel’s leaders and teachers would have been without any Divine intervention. Or if we look at Israel itself, we observe with what constant struggle and effort, how fitfully and uncertainly, the people were kept up even to the lower level of their own Monotheism. It is plain enough that their creed was no natural product, but rather one which went against nature; bestowed from without, and not generated from within. pi eaod. Iv. 10; 158. Vi. 5, Xx. 14; Jer. i. 63 Ezek. ii. 6;. Amos Vil. 14. 2 Amos iii. 2, v. 18 ff., 21 ff.; Isa. i. 12 ff.; Jer. vii. 4, &c. 152 III. The Prophetic and Historical Books. And yet once more, if we open out our horizon wider still, if we weigh the prophets’ work by the standard not of any special aptitudes of race but of the common aptitudes of men, we are obliged to con- fess that their teaching is not such as could have been arrived at by any of the ordinary methods current then or even by any of those which are current now. A perfectly just and holy and good God is not the result of any induction. The presence of evil in the world, of pain and sorrow and sin, prevents us from arguing directly from the character of the creation to the character of the Creator. It is a bold and masterful solution to say that there is evil in the world, and yet that God is good—perfectly good, and that if we hold fast to the belief in His goodness, it will verify itself to us in spite of all appearances to the contrary. But such a belief could not be given by any of the methods of science, ancient or modern. It is a splendid venture of faith, a far-darting gleam of intuition, shot through the gloom and tangle of existence, we may most surely believe at His instance and motion, Whom by His own help alone we can at all adequately search out and know. (5) This is what makes the teaching of the prophets so infinitely precious to us and stamps ἐξ with undying authority. ‘Ne want it as much to-day as ever it has been wanted in the past’. It is often assumed that * M. James Darmesteter has recently published an enthusiastic essay on the value of Hebrew Prophecy in the immediate present and future (Les Prophétes dIsraél, Paris, 1892). Its burden may be summed uy in few words. ‘Le réle et la mission du prophétisme . . . The Prophetic Inspiration. 153 Christianity has superseded the teaching of the Old Testament; but we really need the Old Testament to correct, I do not say Christianity itself, but the very imperfect conceptions which we are apt to form of it. It was an inevitable consequence of the Incarnation and of the contact of the Gospel with the Greek mind that recourse should be had to metaphysics. The Church of the early centuries employed the best metaphysics to which it had access; and it employed them upon the whole wisely and well. But in order to moralize our metaphysics, to fill them with warmth and emotion, we need to go back to the Old Testa- ment and to that part of the New which is not Greek but Hebrew’. Again, how much richer and deeper is the old prophetic idea of the ‘living God’ than our modern terminology, the Ab- solute, the Infinite, the Unconditioned, the First Cause, or than the eighteenth-century notion of the Moral Governor, which has indeed a certain gravity when it is used as Bishop Butler was wont to use it, but is bare and arid and comprehends but little of the attributes of the Father of spirits. ‘Jehovah, Jehovah, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow c’est de vivifier les deux religions de fait qui aujourd’hui se disputent la France et demain se la partageront en paix, celle de la science et celle du Christ. . . . Seul il peut rendre ἃ l’Eglise le souffle d’avenir, en lui rendant le sens des formules d’ot elle est sortie: et seul il peut donner ἃ la science la puissance d’expression morale qui lui manque’ (pp. xiii. f.). 1 This may, I hope, be taken to represent the measure of truth in the antithesis, which Matthew Arnold was so fond of drawing between Hellenism and Hebraism. 154 11]. The Prophetic and Historical Books. to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and _trans- gression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty. ‘Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite one. ‘For Thou art our Father, though Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel doth not acknowledge us: Thou, O Jehovah, art our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is Thy name. ‘Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed!’ Forgive me for reminding you by one or: two such familiar examples what wonderful things there are in the writings of the prophets®. The last passage recalls to us the part which they played in drawing πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως, ‘by divers portions and in divers manners, that unimaginable portrait which we have seen transferred from heaven to earth and realized in Christ. Let us stand back for a moment and without losing ourselves in details or remembering more than the salient features which their names bring back to us, let 1 Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7 (a prophetical passage) ; Isa. Ivii. 15 ; Ixiii. 16; iii. 4, 5. * See Additional Note A: Modern Prophets. Hebrew Historians. 155 us think what such names as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah mean, Looking at them so, and thinking also of the place which they have held in history and the spiritual nutriment which their writings have afforded to generation upon generation of the best of earth’s children, can we be doing wrong if we endorse the claim which they make, in no spirit of boastfulness or self-seeking, to be chosen vessels for receiving and transmitting the revealed Will of God? IT. It is well known that the Jews classed the Historical Books of the Old Testament among ‘the Prophets.’ The Books as they stand in our Bibles (with the exception of Ruth) from Joshua to the end of Kings are called by them the Former Prophets, in contra- distinction from the Latter Prophets, to whom we as a rule confine the name. The idea was that the history of each successive generation was written by a contemporary prophet; and as the prophetic literature in the narrower sense does not begin until the reign of Jeroboam II in Israel and Uzziah in Judah, the narra- tives of whose reigns fall in the second half of the Second Book of Kings, it was natural that the great bulk of the historical writings (Joshua—z Kings xiv.) should be roughly described as the work of the older prophets. There was a large element of truth in this Jewish tradition. The older historical writing was all of it the work of prophets. We may even go back beyond the Book of Joshua. The historical portions of the Pentateuch were also as we shall see very largely 156 Ill. The Historical Books. composed by prophets. And it is true that much of this historical activity was contemporary. I do not mean that the Historical Books as we now have them were written 2472 passu with the events, or were even in all cases based directly upon works so written. The character of these books in their different parts varies greatly: sometimes the narratives of which they are made up are nearer to the events, and sometimes they are more remote from them. But at least from the time of David onwards there must have been a very fairly continuous historical literature upon which our present histories are based, though in varying pro- portions, and in different degrees of directness. A wrong impression is apt to be conveyed in regard to these Hebrew histories from the associations with which we come to them derived from modern historical writing or from the classical historians of Greece and Rome. . In the first place, it must be remembered that Hebrew history was as a rule, and especially for the earlier periods, anonymous. The writers had not a literary object in the sense of seeking any fame or reputation for themselves. Their object was either simplyto record the facts, or else more often to draw a religious lesson from the facts. They might at times wish to advance the interests of a particular class or order; but all per- sonal interests, and in particular interests connected with literary composition, were not only in the back- ground, but were absolutely non-existent. No Hebrew historian thought either of himself or of his prede- cessors as possessing a right of property in their work. Characteristics of Hebrew Historians. 157 He was just as ready to have the products of his pen used by others as he was to use himself the stores which had come down to him. Secondly, we must remember that the Hebrew his- torians were very numerous. The writing of history was one of the functions of the prophetic order, and that order was recruited by a constant succession from Samuel to Malachi. It would of course be utterly mis- leading in speaking of the prophets to think only of the Four Prophets the Greater, and Twelve Prophets the Less, in our Bibles. As I have already said, the prophets were the clergy of their time, and although of course only a small proportion of them took up the writing of history, still the number who did so irom time to time cannot have been inconsiderable. At a later date the priests also took up the work of history-writing. But they too wrote under precisely the same conditions: the work is carried on not so much by single individuals as by successions of individuals partly going over old ground and partly entering upon new. Lastly, we have to remember that their writings did not take the form of printed books. They were not produced in wholesale editions, but by single copies at atime. And the writer of each new copy would not consider himself slavishly bound to the text of his pre- decessor. He would be something between a scribe and an author or editor. He was bound by no rules; and ke would either simply transcribe or add and sub- tract as he felt moved to do at the moment. Both his additions and subtractions would be due to different 158 Ill, The Htstorical Books. motives—sometimes to the use of other authorities, and sometimes to the particular religious interest which was dominant with him in writing. The best analogy for Hebrew historical writing would be not our modern literary histories or the works of ancients like Tacitus or Thucydides, but the monkish chroniclers of the Middle Ages. What we have to think of is works existing in few copies, and those copies exposed to many mischances from the violent and turbulent character of the times; passing often from hand to hand and enriched on the way by insertions and annotations; so that it would be the ex- ception for any of them exactly to reproduce the original from which it was copied. This would all be done in perfectly good faith; and although the result as it has come down to us may seem rather complicated, it is really simple in the way in which it has come about, and indeed natural and inevitable. Here it is that we have to dismiss our modern asso- clations, which are not at all relevant to the circum- stances. A prejudice may easily be created which ought not to exist. The prolonged attention which has been given to the Historical Books of the Old Testament and the skill of a series of investigators have succeeded to a very great extent in separating the layers of gradual accretion which have gone to make the books which we now possess what they are. But it must be confessed that the nomenclature which they have been compelled to use has about it some- thing rather repellent—‘first J ehovist,’ ‘second J ehovist,’ ‘third Jehovist,’ ‘first Elohist, ‘second Elohist,’ ‘ first Characteristics of Hebrew Historians. 159 redactor,’ ‘second redactor,’ ‘Deuteronomistic redactor,’ ‘priestly redactor, ‘interpolator’ here and ‘interpo- lator’ there’. All this has a formidable sound; and with us it would convey the idea of something not quite honest as well. We naturally think of a writer partly passing off his predecessors’ work as his own and partly tampering with it not very ingenuously. Any such idea must be dismissed. What it really means is only that as one hand laid down the pen, another— and in most cases a kindred and friendly hand—took 1 The following is the critical apparatus to the Pentateuch extracted from Cornill’s £7nlectung, which however, it should be said, goes perhaps to the furthest limits which have as yet been reached in this direction :— J} J? J® . successive contributors to the Jehovistic document. ΕἸ E? . . successive contributors to the Elohistic document. JE. . combination of J group with E group. D Db Dp. the author of ‘Urdeuteronomium,’ with two later re- dactors. JED. . combination of JE with Deuteronomy. P P! P? Px the author of the Priestly Code with its later additions (P==P*: ΒΕ ΒΕ &e.). Rj. .ς the editor who combines J and E. Rd, Rd’ . two authors or editors, the first of whom combines JE with P, contributes to Joshua and Judges, and writes most of Kings, while the second is a later redactor of that work. Rp. . . ἴδε editor who combines JED with P. It will be understood that the discrimination of so many different hands represents an enormous amount of labour, which will be apt to seem wasted. It may perhaps be wasted; it may perhaps carry refinement beyond the point which the evidence justifies; it may apply an unreal standard. But the antecedent improbability seems to be a good deal lessened by the considerations in the text. In the end the specialists must decide; and our own scholars may be trusted to decide judiciously. 160 Ill. The Historical Books. it up, each working after a manner which had become traditional. But another question will be asked, and it is my duty to attempt to answer it. Granting that no blame attaches to these successive narrators, can we claim for them any special inspiration? And if so, where does it reside? It is important to bear in mind the double function which belongs to every historian. He has not only to narrate events but to interpret them. In the histories of the Bible the first of these functions was’as a rule subordinate to the second, and a dif- ferent measure has to be applied to it at different periods, and according as it is regarded from different aspects. In the art of narrative as such the Hebrew historian has. no superior. Nothing can exceed the simple dignity of his style or the sureness of touch with - which he lays his finger on the springs of human emotion. Stories like those of Joseph or the revolt of Absalom are unsurpassed for beauty and pathos; the scenes of Elijah on Carmel and in the wilderness are solemn and moving in the highest degree. Among the ancients Herodotus probably comes nearest. Among the moderns those are best who, like our own Bunyan, conform most closely to the Biblical model. It is otherwise when we turn from the form of the narrative to its substance. Here there is a great variety, corresponding to the different degrees of nearness in which the historian stands to the events. Inspiration of the Hebrew Historians. τόι Here too we may say that the Hebrew historian at his best is very good indeed. In a story like that of Absalom we feel that we are being told the simple naked truth with the utmost clearness and impressive- ness. The familiar tale awakes in us at this day the very same emotions which the scenes themselves awoke among those who witnessed them. The reason is that the document on which this part of the narra- tive is based is an excellent one, a pure transcript of nature, drawn from fresh and vivid recollection. We cannot say as much for the story of Joseph, although that is equally lifelike, because there is not the same guarantee that the writer is near his subject. The beauty and delicacy of characterization may be due to the moulding influence of imagination, acting gradually upon traditional material. On all this side of history-writing it is difficult to claim for the Biblical historians inspiration in the sense of praeternatural exemption from error. The His- torical Books of the Old Testament have now for some time been examined with complete candour and very. closely. A final result may not have been obtained in all cases, but still the broad outlines may be regarded as fairly well ascertained. The different sources have been discriminated, at least with an approximate degree of accuracy, and it is possible to tell within rough limits in what sort of relation the record stands to the facts, where the interval is great and where it is small, and what sort of disturbing influences are likely to have intervened. If we take the results as we find them without any M 162 Ill. The Hrstorical Books. straining, it cannot be said that there is evidence in the case of the Biblical Histories of the suspension of ordinary psychological laws. An oral tradition which has travelled over several centuries cannot be trusted in the same way as the testimony of eyewitnesses and contemporaries. And it would be hard to deny that there are portions of the history of Israel which have no better foundation. Then again although we may acquit the Hebrew historian of many of the dis- torting influences to which his modern successors are liable, still it must in strict justice be allowed that he has some distorting influences of his own. If he is free from literary ambitions and egotisms, he is not wholly free from the tendency to idealize and glorify institutions of which he is proud, or to read back into the past the conditions with which he is familiar in the present. To escape such tendencies would at the date and under the circumstances under which some. of the Hebrew historians wrote have been something more than human, and however willing we may be to admit supernatural interference where the proof is sufficient the proof on this side of the facts is wanting. Rather, when candidly considered, the facts really tell the other way. It is not in this direction that we are to look for the signs of inspiration. For these we must turn to another quarter. We have said that the duty of the historian is not only to narrate but to interpret. It was this further duty of which the Hebrew historians were most keenly conscious and which brought them in contact with the spirit of Revelation. History was not with them a series Inspiration of the Hebrew Historians. 163 of disconnected annals of wars and dynasties. It was rather a gradual unfolding of the kingdom of God upon earth, or in other words of ‘the purpose of God accord- ing to selection. At two periods in particular this conception was very dominant. One was under the influence of the Book of Deuteronomy in the years which followed the publication of that book and among the schools by which it was most closely studied. The other was at the end of the Exile and immediately after the Restoration’. These were the periods during which the Historical Books of the Old Testament received their present shape. But it would be a mistake to regard the fundamental conception as present in those periods alone. It really stretches over the whole of the ground which Hebrew history-writing covers. Already as far back as the Jehovist we find a fully developed consciousness that the people to which he belonged and the beginning of which he was describing was one in which all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. Think for a moment of the significance of that single fact. It contains in itself implicitly if not explicitly the germs of Chris- tianity. What other nation ever had so high a sense of its vocation? What other nation ever retained such a sense on so slender a thread of national great- ness and prosperity ? How did it survive fire and water, the extinction not only of national liberties but as it seemed of national existence ? 1 For some instructive remarks on the characteristics ot these two periods see Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 231-234, 315 ff., and on the conception of history inthe Books of Chronicles, pp. 445-449. M 2 164 Ill. The Historical Books. We can see now why it was that the prophets of Israel were also its historians. It was in them that this consciousness of the true vocation of Israel burned most brightly. It was they who were commissioned to cherish and educate it and to fill it with contents of ever-increasing richness and fulness. Hence we must not be surprised if we do not always find the prophetic historians upon the same or upon the highest level. In this as in other things Revelation proceeds by way of growth, by develop- ment, by a gradual opening of the eyes to higher ranges of truth. To reach the highest summits of all we must go not to the Former Prophets but to the Latter, not to Genesis and Exodus or to the Books of Samuel and Kings, or even to those of Ezra and Nehemiah, but to Jeremiah and Second Isaiah, to the prophecy of the New Covenant and to the doctrine of the Suffering Servant. And yet, as in the body those members ‘ which seem to be more feeble are necessary, and our un- comely parts have more abundant comeliness,’ so also in Revelation: that also is an organism, a connected and coherent structure, fitly joined and compacted together. A continuity runs through it all, and even that which seems to be lower is necessary as a stepping-stone to the higher. Therefore it is wrong to speak in terms of disparagement even of that which seems to be humblest. The moral which holds good for the life of the individual holds good also on the grandest scale of the fulfilment of the Divine purpose. Inspiration of the Hebrew Historians. τό; ‘Our times are in His hand Who saith, “ A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid,” ’ There are vessels of greater honour and vessels of lesser honour ; there are riper products and products less ripe; but all alike have their place in the economy of Revelation. 166 Note to Lecture II. NOTE:A. Modern Prophets. ONE sometimes sees an estimate of certain modern writers which is so appreciative and indulgent as to place them prac- tically on a level with the Hebrew prophets. The chief names which would be mentioned in such a connexion in this country are those of Carlyle, Ruskin, Browning, and Tennyson. It would seem however in regard to these writers as if one of two things were true. Either what they say is based funda- mentally on the Christian Revelation, and their contribution to literature consists in restating portions of that revelation, clearing them from misunderstanding and objections, and applying them to modern life; or else it embodies individual views of the writer. This second element is of very doubtful - value. It would be most conspicuous in the writings of Carlyle and Ruskin. As to the former I would not deny that some of the truths of Christian morals—hardly the most recondite—are urged by him with real force and passion ; but even these are wrapped up in an amount of rhetorical declamation which has already begun to pall upon the public taste, and by the side of them is much that is positively false and misleading. The Gospel of the Strong Man is for instance a strange kind of revelation. And in regard to the other there is so much that is either overstrained or simply eccentric and erratic that a special gift of discernment is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff. Ruskin probably ap- proaches most nearly to the prophet when he least supposes himself to do so. All the four writers who have been named possess real charismata in different degrees of purity and strength, but to Note A. 167 compare them with the prophets and apostles shows only defective criticism on the one hand and imperfect appre- hension on the other. On the greatest points of all, those which relate to the character and attributes of God, the Bible is not only supreme but unique. The believer in the Bible has no need to exaggerate: he has but to state the facts as they really are. ΤΕΟΤΙΠΕΕ ΝΣ THE ΘΕΝΕΞΙΘ ΟΕ THE ΘΙΕ LESTAMENS. THE LAW AND THE HAGIOGRAPHA: ‘What great nation is there that hath a god so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is whensoever we call upon Him? And what great nation is there, that hath statutes and judgements so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day ?’—Deuteronomy iv. 8. ‘Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them !’—/Vumlers xi. 29. I. To the Jews the one primary revelation was the Law; all else was secondary. Even as far back as the Book of Ecclesiasticus, the Law as given by Moses was identified with Wisdom itself!. This idea was developed by the Rabbis, who regarded the Law as existing before the Creation, and saw in it the plan on which God had made the worlds?. No second revelation like it was possible. It had ex- hausted all the revelation which God could give to man. The passage in Deuteronomy (xxx. 12), ‘It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it?’ which St. Paul used to illustrate 1 Ecclus. xxiv. 23; of. ver. 1 ff. 2 Weber, Sys/em d. altsynagog. Theologie, p. 14. Estimate of the Law. 169 the nearness of the Gospel, was interpreted by the Jews to mean that the Law had been given once for all, and that there was no other revelation left in heaven like it’. If Israel had only kept the Law there would have been no need for Prophets or Fflagiographa®, None of the other books could com- pare in sanctity with the Law. It was not permitted to sell a copy of the Law and buy the other books with the price*. The usage of the Rabbis is not constant: although the other books are often quoted as Scripture, they are also frequently treated as on the same footing with the Kabbala or traditions of the scribes ἢ The same estimate prevailed at Alexandria as in Palestine. More than two-thirds of the extant writings of Philo are occupied with themes taken from the Pentateuch. According to him, Moses combined in his own person the four most perfect gifts possible to man, those of king, lawgiver, priest, and prophet. He is the greatest of all lawgivers, whose laws, unlike those of others which are being constantly overturned, will last as long as the sun and moon endure, as they have lasted unshaken through all the vicissitudes of Jewish history ὅ. We have seen that the Law was the first of the ’ Wildeboer, Het Ontstaan, &c., p. 83. 2 7014. 8 Robertson Smith, O. 7. /.C. p. 161, ed. 2. “ Wildeboer, p. 83 f.; Zunz, Dre gottesdienstl. Vortrége d. Juden, Pp. 46:n., ed. 2. ὁ Vit. Mos. iii, 23, ii. 3 (Mang. ii. 163, 136); ο΄ Drummond, PAzlo Judacus, i. 15. ὸ ὯΝ, The Law and the Hagiographa. three divisions of the Old Testament to attain to what we should call canonical authority; and it so overshadowed the other divisions that even in the New Testament the one name ‘ Law’ is used to cover the rest. Even our Lord, as reported to us, so far accepts the current formulas as to apply the term ‘Law’ both to Prophetical Books and Psalms. And yet Christianity was soon to work a change in this estimate of the Law. To the Christian the Old Testament was of value in proportion as it tes- tified to Christ. Hence we find that the books most largely quoted were Genesis, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Psalms. And the Book of Genesis was quoted, not as part of the Law, but as the record of an older and in some ways higher dispensation, inasmuch as it linked on more immediately and naturally to the age of the Messiah?; while from Deuteronomy just those parts were quoted which were least legal*, Our . Lord did not in set terms repeal the Law, though He showed that it was to be superseded by prin- ciples of greater simplicity and efficacy. And what He taught implicitly, St. Stephen and St. Paul taught explicitly. That Christ is the end of the Law as a means of making men righteous, that other and more powerful influences must be brought to bear if the world is to be regenerated, is the burden of the great Apostle. He succeeded beyond all expec- 1 The clear cases are St. John x. 34; xii. 34; XV. 25; 1 Cor. xiv, 21. * Rom. iv. 13, 143; Gal. iii. 17, 18. * Lig. Deut. vi 4; 5, XVill; Τὸν 185 Xxxo02—14. Estimate of the Law. 171 tation in effecting the change, less perhaps through any theoretic teaching, which was but imperfectly ap- prehended, than through the force of circumstances. The Gentile converts far outnumbered the Jewish, and it was natural that the Law should have but a slight hold upon them. The different parts of the Old Testament were treated as more upon an equality: or rather, by a silent process, Prophecy virtually took the place of Law, and it was just the prophetic element in the Pentateuch and the other books that came to be of most importance. Now in these latter days a like tendency is dis- cernible. The Prophets are once more placed before the Law, but in a different sense and on different grounds, It is no longer the predictive side of pro- phecy which is prominent. And the reasons which have brought the Prophetical Books once more to the front are in the first instance critical rather than doc- trinal. The world does right to insist on having docu- ments of unquestioned genuineness and authenticity. And such the Prophetical Books undoubtedly are. It is probable that in some cases, from causes which are little more than accidental, the works of two or more prophets may have come down to us under a single name, but that hardly detracts at all from their value. They are no less authentic as an expression of the prophetic spirit, and the name is but a small matter. It is otherwise with a book which is either directly historical or has a historical background. There everything depends upon the date and the relation 172 IV. The Law and the Hagiographa. in which the record stands to the facts. From this point of view the Pentateuch has been far more nearly affected by critical investigation than the Prophets. However much we may believe that there is a genuine Mosaic foundation in the Pentateuch, it is very difficult to lay the finger upon it and say with confidence here Moses himself is speaking. Perhaps it is as yet rather too soon to speak of the ‘results’ of modern criticism, but if not its ‘ results,’ at least its strongly pronounced tendency is to spread the composition of the actual Pentateuch as we have it over the period covered by the Monarchy and the Exile. If we ignore minor subdivisions, which are numerous, and look only at the broad distribution of the masses, the component parts of the Pentateuch may be said to be three: (1) a double stream of narrative, the work of prophets, variously dated be- tween 900 and 750 8B.c., which forms the greater part of the Book of Genesis, but also runs through Exodus and Numbers; (2) the Book of Deuteronomy, the greater part of which belongs to a date not very long before 621 B.c.; and lastly (3) the Priest’s Code, which either falls at the end of the Exile or else had a latent existence somewhat before it. The mere statement of these facts will explain why modern criticism in seeking to get at the heart of Israel's religion takes its starting-point from the Prophets and not from the Law. It cannot however do so without qualification: partly for a critical reason, but still more for a theological. Critically it is certain that the oldest parts of the Pentateuch, the Mosaic Element in the Law. 173 double stream of prophetical narrative just spoken of, the so-called Jehovist and Elohist, are older than the oldest of the writing prophets. And theologically those prophets imply a large inheritance of belief and practice, much of which is no deubt ultimately trace- able to Moses and the Mosaic age. It is satisfactory to find this Mosaic substratum so distinctly recog- nised even by the most critical of the critics, although we may question whether some of them refer to it quite so much as they ought’. Assuming then, provisionally and until future in- quiries confirm or refute it, that the critical theory of the composition and origin of the Pentateuch is in the main right, we have to ask, What is its bearing on the question of Inspiration? From this point of view we are reminded that there are three strains, so to speak, in the Pentateuch—a Mosaic strain, a prophetic strain, and a priestly. Each of these has the measure of inspiration proper to it. (1) At the head stands that which belongs to Moses. We have said that the strictly Mosaic element 1