^ ^^1 ; ;)*t - M.R. Vincent Exegesis BS476 .V77 '!..% <;vw .'J' »* BS47G Mil MiONia IBIHdWVd on ySt WarfkM Libre EXEGESIS Deliveeed at the Opening of the Autumn Term OF Union Theologicai. Seminary September 24, 1891 BY MARVIN R. VINCENT, D.D. PROFESSOR OF SACRED UTERATURE NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1891 EXEGESIS ^n gidclress Delivered at the Opening of the Autumn Term OF Union Theolo^jical Seminary September 24,1891 BY MAKVIN E. VINCENT, D.D. PROFESSOR OF SACRED LITERATURE NEW YORK CHAELES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1891 L_ u PEEFATOEY NOTE. In preparing this address for publication, I have added a few notes, and have slightly expanded several sections by the insertion of matter (chiefly quotation) which stress of time compelled me to omit in delivery. No essential feature is modified. M. R. V. October 8, 1891. EXEGESIS. I SHALL speak to-day of Exegesis, its principles, posi- tion and function, and its errors and abuses. Wliat do we mean by Exegesis ? Literally it is a leading forth, a leading of the way, as by a guide." It runs, therefore, easily, into the sense of explanation or inteiyretation, by means of Avhich one leads an inquirer to the fact or truth of which he is in search. In the twenty-first of Acts, the Avord is used of Paul's narrating to the elders at Jerusalem what things God had wrought among the Gentiles through his ministry, f John applies it in a somewhat startling way, which, neverthe- less, is true to its radical sense, when he says that " the only-begotten Son (or God) who is in the bosom of the Eather, hath given an exegesis of Him ; " ;j: in other A\ords, hath declared, set forth, interpreted Him to men, so that the}' might know the Father. Applied to a collection of documents like the Bible, exegesis is a development and exhibition of their contents and meaning : the explanation of the immediate and primary sense of the Avritings. * e|T)7eo/ia<, " to go first ; " "to lead the way." f i^Tiye'iTo Ka^' ey e/coffTOf, Acts xxi. 19, X (Kilvos (^riyf)«-*^ ^ — ^ tion. Nature, apart from God, is a riddle. It is Script- ^"^ '^.J^ ■ / ure which brings Nature and God together. Nature C^^'^M-^^^'^^-^ suggests something above and beyond itself ; but the "' /x. e^ • natural man gropes in vain after that something, and ^t^ LX^ /uPi{u>' erects altars to the unknown God, until the Word reveals ^7-; . «ji„ ^4-< ^- Him whom he worships not knowing Him. Scripture is the lens Avhich collects and focalizes the divine rays that flash from every part of the visible creation. The phe- nomena of mind, by themselves, provide no sufficient nor reliable data for a theology. They do not give us God. Nobody would ever have devised the ontological argument for the existence of God, if God had not been first re- vealed in some other way. The word co-ordinates mind and God. Natural science demonstrates order ; but it is from Scripture that we learn that " order is Heaven's first law." ^ 8 EXEGESIS. It is, therefore, I repeat, the function of Theology to take and build with what Scripture gives her. Theology is not a revelation ; it is a human structure, built upon the foundation and with the material of a revelation. Its dicta are not final. It systematizes and formulates re- vealed truth as fast as it is revealed. It throws its details into categories, develops their historical evolution, their relation and coherence, and deduces from them statements of principles and formulas of doctrine. And this is emphatically true of Theology at its very lieai-t. For a true Theology, like Scripture, is centred in Jesus Christ. He must be the true centre of Theology, because He is the centre and the key of Scripture. Here neither nature nor mind furnish Theology with material. Christ, as a historic personality, is revealed in Scripture alone. Nature provides no Redeemer, suggests none. Christ cannot be evolved by any process of pure reason. The result of Hegel's attempt — " An identity be- tween the kno^Ma and the knowing " — can hardly be said to be of the nature of a revelation, if revelation means " unveiling." Christ is a imique, historic fact, whose rela- tions to God, and to man's nature, character, and destiny are purely matters of scriptural revelation. If Theology deals with the divine-human personality of the Son of God, with His resurrection, His atonement, His priest- hood. His judicial function, and with the work of the Holy Spirit as interpreting Him — it must di-aw on Script- ure. To eliminate the scriptural revelation of Jesus Christ is to wipe out Theology. Theology, thus primarily dependent on Scripture, is not infallible. Its legitimate fads are eternal and im- EXEGESIS. 9 mutable. Its dediictiouH and cJanHiJication.s are not. Tlie Word is divine and human. Theology is human ; divine only as it borrows divinity from the Word. Based up- on revelation, it is based upon a progressive revelation. Like every other science, it must be a progressive sci- ence or forfeit the title. Its deductions and classifica- tions are affected by limitations of biljlical knowledge, by false principles of interpretation, and by faulty exegesis. Therefore, like every other human product, it requires revision and correction from time to time. New light is ever breaking from Scripture ; Theology must have her windows open and her watchmen upon her walls to dis- cern and proclaim it. The results of progressive exege- sis must modify or correct such statements of theology as are not identified with the eternal, fundamental truth of Scripture. And thus, however we may, for convenience's sake, draw the distinctions between exegetical, historical, systematic, and practical Theology, all theology is, in its last analysis, biblical. No dogma is authoritative which is not bibli- cal. The first question of Theology is a question of in- terpretation : What saith the Word ? There are questions which properly belong to Theology rather than to exegesis ; yet some of these questions Theology cannot answer without the aid of exegesis. If, for example, a theory of biblical inspiration is to be for- mulated, that work lies within the province of Theology and not of exegesis. Yet here Theology is helj)less with- out exegesis. If Scripture anywhere expressly asserts its own inspiration or defines its character, it is for ex- egesis to examine that assertion, and to tell us precisely 10 EXEGESIS. what it means and how much it covers. Again, a claim may be made for a particular characteristic of inspira- tion, the validity of which nothing but exegesis can de- termine. If it be claimed, for example, that inspiration involves Hteral, verbal inerrancy, the claim stands or falls by the tests of exegesis alone. It cannot be maintained on the basis of any a priori assumption, such as that in- spiration iintst, in the nature of the case, mean literal inerrancy ; that God must have given His written revela- tion in inerrant autographs. That is an opinion which any- one has a right to hold, but which no one has a right to lay down as a dogma or to erect into a test of orthodoxy, until he can j)roduce the original, literally inerrant autographs. We are compelled to deal with the Bible as we have it, and to form our conclusions about it from ivJiaf it is, and not from any assumption of what it must have been. Professor Sanday well says : " History is stre^^ii with warnings as to the mistakes in which we are involved the moment we begin to lay down what an inspired book ought to be and what it ought not to be. ... Is there any better reason for this than there was for those other assmnptions which Bishop Butler showed to be so untenable — that a revelation from God must be universal ; that it could not be confined to an obsciu'e and insignifi- cant people ; that a revelation from God must be clear ; that it could not be wrapt up in difficulties of interpreta- tion ; that its evidence must be certain and such as should leave no room for doubt ? " All these criteria had been actually put forward ; the Christian revelation had been * Analogj' of Religion, Part II., Chap. III. Z^tZZ; c-^^ /^r-^ /^^L^u^ «=^^ d--^^^ '^ ^^/.^^...^W; ? >^c.t-«x-/^-^^^ f-^^' ^ EXEGESIS. Ci^^ ^ ^ V- ;< i,^f6^ -op^^^iZ:^ tried by tliem and fouud ^vautiug. No one would think of ^ # ^ putting forward any such criteria now. Yet there is no ^^^^^L^^ "^' essential difference between the claim which was then *J ^ ^ ' - made for the revelation itself, and the claim which is still made for the book in which that revelation is embodied. . , . It is far better not to ask at all what an inspired book ought to be, but to content ourselves with the in- quiry what this book, which comes to us as inspired, in fact and reality is." * We must construct our formula of inspiration (if we deem it wise to attempt that task at all) from an actual and not from an immjiuary Bible. All that Ave can do is to study our Hebrew and Greek Bibles in the best texts which critical scholarship can give us, and to see for our- * W. Sanday, M.A., D.D., LL.D., Dean Ireland's Professor of Exegesis ; Fellow of Exeter College Oxford ; Preacher at AYhltehall. "The Oracles of God," 3d edition, pp. 35, 36. It has been asked : " Why raise this question at all, and so unsettle the Church's faith in the infallibility of Scripture ? " To this it may be answered : 1st. That whatever temporary unsettling may result from such discussion, it cannot be safe to allow any erroneous conception of Scripture to remain rooted in popular thought. 3d. That the un- settling will be more than compensated by a true and broader concep- tion. 3d. That the question is forced upon biblical apologists by the assailants of the Bible. 4th. That a defence of the Bible on untenable grounds is worse than no defence. 5th. That the attempt has been made to impose the doctrine of the absolute inerrancy of the original autographs of Scripture as a test of orthodoxy. In the Presbytery of New York, for several successive years, this test was applied to can- didates for licensure. The result was to send students to other Presby- teries or to Congregational associations for examination, and in two instances men of exceptional promise w^ere lost to the Presbyterian ministry, and in one instance to the ministry itself, through insistence upon this unjustifiable and extra-confessional test. y^*"^^^ selves whether the contents are literally accurate and con- sistent in date, quotation, and other detail. If, on such examination, we find errors or discrepancies, exegesis com- pels us to abandon, not ihefact of inspiration, but tltat jKLvticular theory of inspiration, and to seek for another which will agree with the facts. I shall surely not be understood to say that the pres- ence and the quality of ins^^iration are to be determined by critical exegesis alone. Inspiration, however we may ultimately define it, is the inbreathing of the Spirit of God into the writers of inspired Scripture ; and the same Spirit acts upon the minds and hearts of the readers. " The anointing of the Holy One " imparts perception and recognition of the di\dne quality of the Word. It goes Avithout saying that no Christian student can approach the Scrijitures without perceiving that the bush burns with fire ; that no Christian critic can attempt the exegesis of Scripture without a consciousness of a power, a depth, an energy, a verisimilitude, a discernment of the thoughts and intents of the heart, a spiritual elevation and majesty, which transcend all the results of critical processes and appeal to something far deeper than the critical faculty. Yet with the hearty admission of all this, I must affirm that the validity and inspiration of Scripture cannot be determined by subjective tests alone. Whatever impres- sion of divine quality the devout student may receive, he cannot, he must not, in simple loyalty to truth, remit the exercise of the critical faculty and the diligent use of critical appliances. I shall soon have occasion to recur to this point, and therefore leave it for the present. Having spoken of the EXEGESIS. 13 relative position and tlif fmiction of exegesis, let me now ask you to consider some of its characteristics. A sound exegesis is necessary : it is critical : it is pro- gressive : it is cuiira/jeous : it is patienf, modest, and can- did. I. — Exegesis is NECEssAitY. This proposition applies, not to the Bible only, but to all epoch-making books of remote ages, whether sacred or secular. We all know the necessity in the case of the Greek and Roman classics, and of the earlier English lit- erature. However clear the original sense may have been to the original hearers or readers, the thoughts of men change with the years, and the same thought strikes at a different angle and is reflected from a different surface. Ancient thought does not, at sight, co - ordinate itself with the conclusions, the discoveries, the knowledge, the points of \dew of a later time. "Words do not convey the same meaning as 'v\'lien first uttered. The aroma of an original partly exhales in translation. The setting of phrases is lost, as the customs or incidents which gave them meaning to contemporaries become obsolete or are forgotten. Changes take place even in a li\'ing language. The Greek of the New Testament is not the pui'e Attic of the Periclean age. The entrance of an Oriental influ- ence carries into the language a new imagery and turns its words to new uses. The later Greek is spoken by multitudes of men whose thought is cast in a Semit- ic mould ; so that, when we read biblical Greek, we need more than the grammar and lexicon which tell us what Greek words meant to Homer or Demosthenes 14 EXEGESIS. or Thucydides. We must discover what meaning those same Greek words carried to a Semitic mind, and how their meaning was colored by passing into a new moral and religious atmosphere. The same Greek word would express quite different moral conceptions to one whose gods dwelt on Olympus, and to one whose theistic ideas had been shaped by Moses and the prophets. Similarly, the proverb is wrought into the popular speech of every nation, and passes into its current idiom. The Spanish idiom, for instance, is largely proverbial. Cervantes's celebrated squire scarcely ever opens his mouth that a proverb does not drop out. Shakspeare abounds in them, and Hudibras cannot be understood without a thorough familiarity with English proverbial literature. The Bible bristles with them, and they are often on the lips of the Lord himself. But proverbs turn on familiar customs, on local usages and peculiarities; and it is easy to see how the meaning of large portions of popular speech and literature become obscured with the lapse of time. The proverb becomes bedded into the idiom of the language, while that in which it originated passes away and is forgotten, and so the proverb or the proverbial idiom is an enigma, until the exegete, by trac- ing it to its source, restores to it its life. Wliat is true of proverbs is true of idioms in gen- eral. They grow out of customs, traits, haljits of thought which pass away, while the idiom sticks. As might he supposed, the Bible is full of illustrations of this fact. Hebrew and Greek are dead languages, and multitudes of scriptural expressions take their rise in now obsolete and forgotten customs of vanished races. They are, more- EXEGESIS. 15 over, the products of unscientific ages. They are too narrow for the modern conceptions of the same things. It is not apparent to the modern reader where they fit into the wider knowledge and the new mould of thought. The exegete must discover the old setting. He must ex- hibit the truth or the fact under the forms in which they appealed to the hearer or reader of David's or of Paul's day, and then translate them into familiar forms of speech, and show how modern science and modem thought cor- rect or supplement them. The range of exegesis is therefore enormous. It in- cludes the knowledge of many tongues, of a vast range of history, of a voluminous literature. A book which is crowded with allusions and expressions shaped by tlie- history of extinct nations, by the religions and customs of ancient tribes, by the topography and architecture of vanished cities, by the local details of countries changed by years and by successive conquests, by social usages strange to modern life — a book which, in so many cases starts from stand-points of thought 'which have shifted, sometimes to the very antipodes, with the progress of knowledge — such a book cannot be made wholly intelli- gible, cannot be brought to bear with its full practical power, cannot appeal to the modem mind with its full vividness, without the aid of the trained exegete. II. — Exegesis must be Critical. An eminent and scholarly living divine is quoted in one of the daily prints as saying : " I see the divine author- ship of the Bible as plainly as I see the authorship of 16 EXEGESIS. God iu the stars ; . . . and when the critics pick away at the Bible, I say, ' well, it is no great matter : if it gratifies them, it does not hurt me. As long as all the universities in the world combined are not able to make another Bible that shall be so cosmical in its range of ap- peal, and so mighty in its power over men and women, over mind and heart and life, and over the growing civil- ization itself to which it ministers, I rest assm-ed that this is God's book and not man's.' " Why not ? Which one of us would hesitate for a mo- ment to indorse that statement so far as it relates to the power of appeal and to the evidence of divinity residing in the Bible itself ? No man would feel tlie truth of that utterance more keenly, and respond to it more sympa- thetically, than a devout critic. I apprehend, indeed, that this writer's sense of the direct appeal of the Bible is in- tensified by his rich culture and wide biblical study. Why then that side - cut at the critics, that attitude of benig- nant tolerance, as though the critic's fmiction were both superfluous and contemptible ; as though the biblical critic w^ere a presumptuous intruder into the Holy of Holies, laying curious and profane hands upon the ark ? Unfortunately this is a specimen of a large class of utter- ances from the religious press and from the pulpit, which go to create the popular impression that the critic is the enemy of Scripture. Must it indeed be assumed that the biblical critic is animated mainly or solely by the love of picking flaws ? Is the critic to be placarded as an intruder and his function as gratuitously assumed? Before I shall have finished, I hope to show, by facts of the history of exegesis, that the biblical critic has been EXEGESI^^. 17 made a necessity by the superstition, the ignorance, and the unhallowed ambition which have applied the wrench to Scripture, and have wrested it to the service of ecclesi- astical fraud, spiritual tyranny, and popular amusement. Ah ! the critic's work is not always the work which the critic himself courts. I have sometimes thought that there was danger of the Bible being spoiled for some of us, as Milton's " Paradise Lost " was, by our being forced to use it for parsing. I heard a veteran biblical critic say, not three weeks ago : "I wish they would let us preach the tnith there is in the Bible, instead of forcing us to treat it critically." But the necessity of criticism lies in the structiu-e of the Bible itself. Its fimction is construc- tive no less than destructive. The conception of the biblical critic as a mere flaw - picker, is a conception born of ignorance. The devout Christian criticism of the present century, if it be carefully studied, will be found (so far as it has been destnictive) to have been a picking of flaws, not in the Bible, but in the monstrosities of inter- pretation with which men have overlaid it. The critic's work has been, to an extent apj)reciated only by scholars, a clearing away of (Jcbris. If men, imder the j^ower of a mistaken reverance, have claimed for the Bible what it does not claim for itself, they have wounded Truth in the house of her friends ; and the critic is neither unneces- sary, irreverent, nor contemptible, who, by enabling the Bible to tell its own story and to voice its own claims, heals the woimd and exposes the clumsiness of the hands which have dealt it. I repeat, therefore, that a true exegesis is critical. Practically, criticism and exegesis are so bound up to- 2 18 EXEGESIS. getlier that it is impossible to sepai^ate them. Exegesis can advance hardly a step without applying the process- es or the results of criticism. Its very first question is the question of the text, which is a matter belonging to criticism. The Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews is a question of criticism ; yet the interpreta- tion of a disputed passage in that Epistle may turn upon whether the passage has a Pauline coloring and is to be considered from a Pauline standpoint. Baur's theory that the Gospel of John is a dogmatic tendency-document of the second century, will require a very different exegesis to that which starts from the evangelical position. If the book of Acts is a conciliatory treatise by a Paulinist, writ- ten in order to reconcile the opinions of Paul and Peter ; if the diary of an unknown companion of Paul has been in- corjiorated into a fictitious narrative, intended to disguise the early history of the Church, the splendid exegeses of Hackett, Meyer, and Gloag are comparatively useless. By " criticism " I mean the application of the canons of philology, history, and grammar to the determination and interpretation of the Scripture text. I mean that the same laws are to be applied to the Scriptures as to any other book. The Bible comes to men through the med- ium of human speech ; its utterances obey the ordinary laws of language ; its imagery is drawn from the familiar facts of nature and of human life ; its scientific state- ments are conditioned by the limitations of human knowledge at the time they were made ; it is a revelation given, as the wT.'iter to the Hebrews says, " by divers por- tions and in divers manners ; " * a revelation not made all * Heb. i. 1 : iroXv/jLepais Kol iro\vrp6vus. EXEGESIS. 19 at ouce, but by a long and gradual process, and through in- dividuals of different characters, attainments, and temper- aments. Inspiration does not obliterate these differences. It does not reduce the style of Scriptui'e to a monotonous uniformity. It does not make of the several Avriters mere transcribers of a copy or literal reporters of a verbal dictation. Their peculiar characteristics of mind, tem- perament, and culture are stamped upon their prophecies, gospels, epistles, and narratives. John differs from Paul, Paul from James, and Peter from all three. The med- ium of the revelation, I repeat, is hjimiin. It must be in order to be intelligible. A revelation through an mi- intelligible medium is a contradiction in terms. The written Word, like the personal Word, is " made flesh." As there is both a divine and a human element in the in- carnate Word, so the same elements exist and demand distinct recognition in the written Word. " The law," as Maimonides said, " speaks in the tongues of men." A David or a Sampson may be vehicles of the Spirit of God, yet liable to gross sins. Light is light, though it come to the eye through cracked or colored glass. Simi larly, the Spirit may speak through a human writer with- out eliminating his human characteristics. The impre- catory Psalms speak the language of human passion ; the vehemence of the apostle who cut off Malchus' ear is not absent from his epistles ; Paul betrays the influence of his rabbinical training in the discussion of Christian themes. The Spirit utters heavenly truth through illustrations which appeal to human knowledge of every-day facts ; the truth is cast in the mould of one age or another, and takes color from its local and temporary traits, and is ex- 20 EXEGESIS. poimdecl according to its literary methods. The trans- cendent character of Scripture, in short, does not reside in these details. From all this the inference is inevitable that the reve- lation in Scripture submits itself to critical tests and in\ites them ; that the human medium is subject to ex- amination according to those literary, grammatical, philo- logical, psychological, and historical la"os which we apply to other human productions. In a word, inspiration can- not refuse the tests appropriate to those human media through which it has chosen to transmit itself. _ _ This is not to say that portions of Scripture may not, lU^ 1 1 ^ ^^j^ ^ for the time, transcend the human understanding. Chi'ist "^ IaA"^ ^^>r_ did not scruple to say to His disciples things which they A > )'«:^l!:i2^^^ ^^i*-!^ iiot imderstand at the moment. Revelation is very J— ^ur^*^ ^ often germinal. Exegesis cannot explain ever^-thing. ^kj--'^'^ ^^ -^^^^ re^:elation is meant to be, ultimately, intelligible ; ^ and we are not passively to accept enigmas on the as- sumption that inspiration is essentially oracular and vague. " It is the spirit that is in man, and the inspira- tion of the Almighty Avhich giveth him understanding.'" * Bevelation is unveiling ; and while we must sometimes frankly admit and face the inexplicable, while the veil sometimes resists the human hand, far oftener it jdelds to the touch of reverent criticism. Beneath her veil Truth beckons ; and for criticism to refuse her in^dtation is as foolish as to refuse to cut the emerald or the diamond be- cause God has enwrapped them with hard ciiists. Equally there is a divine element in Scripture, This Avill not yield uj) its full significance to merely critical * Job xxxii. 8. EXEGESIS. 21 tests. Sometliing other and higher than the critical fac- ulty is needed. Christ is the analogue of Scripture — a ^^/u>. / ? ^-^ r~^ fact which demands much more attention and emphasis /O-x^ ' \/^o*^ > ^"'^^ than it has yet received. The disciples who could see iU^-^^-^ J ^ His face and touch His hand could not apprehend the fb^J^i'-^ . mystery of His divine })ersonality ; and there was an ele- )-<^*' ment in His words which, though felt, eluded their anal- ^' ysis. There is the same combination in the written Word. Therefore, I repeat, the office of the Divine Spirit in interpretation is to be distinctly recognized. It may be positively asserted that the Holy Spirit bestows spe- cial illumination and guidance upon the devout reader and student of Scripture. It must be admitted that, in certain cases, the insight thus imparted may be clearer and more direct and truthful than that of the mere critic. Those who are familiar with the great exegetes know what beautiful and fruitful results are evolved when the critical and the spiritual faculties work in concert and at their highest power. A notable illustration is furnished by Bishop Westcott, in his treatment of the writings of John. The secret of his power in unfolding the treasures of the Fourth Gospel lies, not only in his critical in- sight and rare analytic power, but also in his pervasion with the spirit of John's Master and Lord. It is a Avrit(^r who is regarded as very far from orthodox who says : " He is to be said to understand a writer who, in reading, thinks the same thing which he thought while he was writing." * All this is to be not only conceded but urged. I may quote at this point the lucid words of my colleague, Dr. * Kuenen. 22 EXEGESIS. Briggs : " The Scriptures must be interpreted as other human writings, yet their peculiarities and differences from other human writings must be recognized, espe- cially the supreme, determining difference of their inspi- ration by the Spirit of God, in accordance with which they require not only a sympathy with the human ele- ment, in the sound judgment and practical sense of the grammarian, the critical investigation of the historian, and the aesthetic taste of the man of letters, but also a sympathy with the divine element, an inquiring, rever- ent spirit, to be enlightened by the Spirit of God, with- out which no exposition of the Scriptures as sacred, in- spired writings is possible." * Yet with all this, I must frankly say that, in my judg- y^ , . ment, the " formal princii^le " of the Reformation needs 'T^ t^^ L, gi-^arding and qualifying. That principle is that the di- C^p^- ^ j5-- ; vine authority of Scriptm-e is self -evidencing, that the re- S^^ \, generate man needs no other evidence, and that only the /T {m^ I ^ -y . regenerate can appreciate the evidence. The principle is formulated in the Westminster Confession :f "The authority of Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be be- lieved and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but ivhoUij upon God, the author thereof." And again : " The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of coimcils, opinions of ancient "wiiters, doctrines of men, and private spirits are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture." * Biblical Study, p. 27. t Chap. I., Sec. 4, Sec. 10. qJix^ V pv EXEGESIS. 23 Now, if that priueiplc is to be nakedly accepted, uo other inference seems to me to be possible than that every man is his own judge and interpreter of Scripture ; and that, as Dr. Charteris says, "if the regenerate man do not feel the evidence of their contents, he may reject books claiming to be Holy Scripture." It is assuredly true, in one aspect, that the authority and credibility of Scriptui'e depend upon God. Scripture has no authority if it do not derive it from God. But are we to exclude Q^ *] 7V>*^^ the testimony of man, and of the Church, and of scholar- r", ^'^ ship as going to establish the authority of Scripture ? How did we get the Bible at all save through the Church? n^^^ t/L^iU T , /<4 , T\^10 determjned the canon of Scripture? On what do ^iv- ^Z*^"*^ the "Westminster Confession and the Thirty-nine Articles rest their list of canonical books, but on the testimony of r^ ~\ h the Fathers and the declarations__Qf Ch urch C oimcils ? ^ f Again, if Scripture reveals a divine authority which com- mends it to the universal acceptance and faith of believers, how does it happen that believers have never wholly agreed as to what is to be received as Holy Scriptm'e ? How comes it that Hebrews, the Apocalypse, second Peter, Second and Third John, James, and Jude, were so early and so persistently challenged and placed by high Church authorities among " antilegomena ? " How is it that the Apostolic Fathers appeal to the apocryphal writings as of inspired authority, and Iniild arguments upon them? That Iren?eus quotes Barucli and Bel and the Dragon as genuine scriptures, and Clement of Alexandria the Revelation of Peter and the Epistle of Barnabas ; and that Origeii distinguishes Hebrews from books manifesthj canonical? How came it, moreover, that 24 EXEGESIS. the third Council of Carthage, -which ratified the New Testament canon as at present received, under the direct influence of Augustine, included in its Old Testament canon, Tobit, Judith, and the two books of Maccabees? Beally these diversities among the early church fathers, between the Eastern and Western chui'ches, between Car- thage and Trent and Westminster, are not easy to explain on the assumption that the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Tes- tament furnish their own convincing demonstration that they are inspired and canonical. Now, it is true that the Holy Spirit is promised to be- lievers to give them knowledge of the truth ; and that devout, critical exegesis cannot evade the influence of that fact, as indeed it has no desire to do. Hence it may be true that, in certain cases, as has been said, the insight of a saint may be of more value than the skill of a gram- marian. But all this must be ofi'set and guarded by the distinction between fundamental, saving, practical truth and matter which, though equally inspired, lies outside of these categories. The most ignorant Bible - reader, approaching the Bible in faith, and in search of the ground of his salvation and the rule of his life, will find these there. But there are other things in Scripture concerning which the mere insight of a saint is worth little or nothing. I do not understand that the Spirit promises or undertakes to enlighten an unlearned reader on points of critical scholarship. God does not usually do for men what they can do for themselves. Only divine power can change the water into wine, but human hands can fill the jars with water. " The natural man discerneth EXEGESIS. "25 not the tilings of the Spirit of God ; " therefore he needs supernatm-al light to dispel the darkness that is in him ; and this the Spirit bestows. But the natural man do(,'S or may know his Hebrew and Greek grammars. He can discern the force of the aorist tense and of the subjunc- tive mood. He can Aveigh the evidence for a reading and detect and correct a mistranslation : and here the Spirit throws him upon his lexicon and grammar. The insight of a saint, apart from scholarly criticism, throws no light on the genuineness of the passage concerning the three heavenly witnesses, and of the first eleven verses of the eighth of Jolui ; nor upon the authenticity of the last twelve verses of Mark's Gospel, of Second Peter, of tlie Epistle to the Hebrews ; nor upon the meaning of bap- tism for the dead and the woman having power on her head because of the angels. Piety and orthodoxy, by themselves, are helpless in the presence of such questions. Therefore, whatever may be the self-evidencing authority of the Bible, it is bound up with intelligent exegesis at all points which fall within the range of critical scholar- shij). The doctrine of a spiritual sense in Scripture which is independent of exegesis has no foundation. There is no inspired Scripture which will not, ultimately, tally, in its spiritual sense and in every other sense, Avith the results of a sound exegesis. In short, the principle must be maintained, that the Bible cannot be coiTectly and adequately interpreted from a merely subjective stand-point. Whatever Adrtue may be conceded to the subjectiA'e insight, there must be object- ive standards of interpretation. The claim of final au- thority for subjectiA'e interpretation is compelled to face 26 EXEGESIS. and to deal as best it can witli the endless diversities of interpretation among men who may be fairly presumed to be alike sincere, reverent, and moved by the Holy Spirit. There is but one resource for us, unless we con- sent to fall back passively upon the principle of the ear- lier mediaeval exegesis, that the Church alone is the infal- lible interpreter of Scripture — and that is the consensus of devout and scholarly criticism, combined with the testi- mony of the Holy Spirit. The promise of the Spirit's illumination includes the illumination of the critical pro- cesses. The Spirit employs all human media. If, in cer- tain cases. He works through the imtraiued faculty of the milearned. He likewise works through the trained intel- lect, the rich knowledge, and the disciplined acumen of the scholar. For the docile and honest student of the Bible, the critical attitude will not impair the simplicity of heart to which God delights to reveal His truth. It will enhance that high and reverent esteem for Scriptui-e; that sense of " the heaveuliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, and the inany other incomparable excellencies." All these will come into clearer light and sharper definition, vindicating the profitableness of all inspired Scripture " for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in right- eousness, that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work." EXEGESIS. 27 III. — Exegesis is Peogeessive. That exegesis is progressive follows from what has been said as to its necessity, a nd also from the very nature of /cr-*W . revelation itself, which is progressive. It has not ceased to be true that God speaks "in many parts and in divers ways." Each part, each way unfolds new revelations. The possibilities of revelation through the manifestation of the Eternal Son, are as infinite as the Son himself. As i^velation does not be g in with the Bibl e^t does not ^ end witli Jthe Bible. Admitting that in the Bible are laid down the fundamental, spiritual, and moral princi- /i ^^ i.0^ c>^ pies to which every succeeding age must adjust itself, are ^ ^^t.juAv t'*'*'*^ we to deny the title and the character of revelation to the (y^ju^- '' ^ countless new phases and aj)plications of those principles ^('^ Cy^'^ which are exhibited in the later history of mankind? Ai-e we to limit revelation in history to the history of the Jews and of the primitive Christian Church, and to refuse to extend it to the vast and complex developments of later civilizations ? Is it too much to assert that modern sci- ence furnishes a new and magnificent revelation of the Creator, or that the later history of the Christian Church, with its vast and varied record of missionary enterprise and conquest, has for us no revelations which are not to be found in the biblical account of the Jewish the- ocracy, and of the churches of Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, and Colossae ? In Scripture, as in nature, God leaves much to be filled out and formulated by the advancing knowledge and experience of mankind. The work of exegesis is 28 EXEGESIS. never clone. " Light is sown." The successive ages reap new harvests of light from the furrows of the Word through the subsoil ploughing of devout criticism. Illus- trations of this truth are patent to the most superficial student. One need only compare the commentaries of former centuries with the best of to-day, to see the ad- vance, not only in the results, but in the methods, of exe- gesis. What a stride from the commentaries of Clement and Origen, founded on the principle that all Scripture is to be allegorically understood, or assuming a three-fold sense of Scripture answering to body, soul, and spirit in man; with their universal applications of isolated phrases ; with the absence of the historic sense ; with their constant assumption of an esoteric meaning ; with their mystic inferences from synonyms and repetitions ; with their admissions of apocryphal legends into New Testament story, and their intrusion of allegorical fancies into the simplest New Testament incidents ; with their loose and paraphrastic quotations, their different inter- pretations of the same passage, and their citations of verses which have no existence— what a stride, I say, to a monograph of De Wette, Meyer, Westcott, Lightfoot, Godet, or Weiss, on a gospel or epistle, with its full his- toric background, its accui'ate historic perspective, its vivid historic environment ; with its minute scrutiny of the text, its searching grammatical analysis, and its wealth of literary, historical, geographical, and archgeological illustration ! How nice the discrimination of shades of meaning ! What intimacy with the writer's modes of thought and peculiai* turns of expression ! What careful weighing of diverse interpretations ! What a \dgorous re- EXEGESIS. 29 jection of mystical and allegorical expositions ! What an untiincliiug facing of the naked Word in its literal sense ! What an imearthiug of the hidden treasures of etymology and synonym ! What a quick sense of idiom, as though reading a living tongue! It is like emerging from a jungle into a park. How much nearer to the original oracles has textual criticism brought us ! What an ad- vance from Erasmus, with his single mutilated manu- script of the Apocalypse, filling up the gaps in the text by translating the Vulgate into his own Greek, to the collations of the Vatican, Sinaitic, and Alexandrine cod- ices ; to chemistry and criticism joining hands for the restoration of the Codex Ephraem ; to the facsimiles of Aleph and B, and to the magnificent digests of Tischen- dorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort ! IV. — It Follows that Exegesis must be Modest and Patient. The exegete must frankly recognize in Scripture things which he cannot explain. The Apocalypse of John, on which the interpreters of every Christian generation have exercised their ingenuity, and which has been overlaid with wagon - loads of hermeneutical nonsense, is still, much of it, a riddle ; and passages emerge in almost every book of Scripture, where all that exegesis can offer is conjectiu'e. The right attitude toward such phenom- ena is not that of some earlier interpreters, who insisted that an interpretation must be given at all hazards, prac- tically assumed that onij interpretation was better than none, and took refuge from ignorance in allegory. Bather 30 EXEGESIS. is the exegete to say frankly, " There is no key in the bunch at my girdle which will fit this lock. Meanwhile there are open doors enough. I have only to wait." Might we not expect that the Word of which Christ is the centre and the inspiration should sometimes say to us, out of its very darkness, just what Christ himself said to His disciples : "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now ? " V. — But with all Modesty and Patience, Exegesis Must be Courageous and Candid. Perhaps we are never fully aware of the strength of the preconceptions and prejudices which we bring to the study of Scripture, until we come face to face with Scrip- ture which flatly contradicts them, and even strikes at what we have been Avont to regard as sacred and essential. The temptation then is either to shirk or to fight the plain meaning of the Bible, to persist in seeking for some explanation which will fit into our conception, and thus to be guilty of the sin of wresting the Scriptures. wUiy^^-^^ If the Bible is what we profess to believe it is, Ave must ^aj^t(ji.nc^ ^ _^ 4 Y^ "^ _^ i trust its plain, face- meaning. "We must assume that the sacred ark needs no Uzzah's touch to steady it ; that God's truth is entirely competent to vindicate itself. We are to march boldly up to it and to look it squarely in the face. If it does not say Avhat we thought it would say, or ought to say, we are to set about correcting ourselves and not the Bible. We are not to be scared AA^hen a correct exegesis tells us things which startle us. AVlien God opens a man's eyes, he beholds loondrous things out of EXEGESIS. :U His law.* A Calvinist has no reason for being frightened at an Arminian text, nor an Arminian at a Calvinistic text. The two species may be found side by side in our Lord's own words, f It is much more likely that Calvin and Arminius need revising and correcting than that Scripture does. John Newton said that when he struck a Calvin- istic text he was a Calvinist, and an Arminian when he came upon an Arminian text. Calvin's principle is sound to the very core : that it is the first business of an inter- preter to let his author say what he does say, instead of attributing to him what he thinks he ought to say. The failui'e to recognize and accept these principles has made the history of exegesis one of the most dis- heartening and humiliating records in the history of re- ligion. It was said by some one, of the Dutch people, that a sufficient proof of their greatness lay in the fact that they Avere above water at all; and it might, with equal truthfulness, be said that one of the strongest evi- dences of the divine origin and quality of the Bible is its survival of a host of its expoimders. The great distinct- ive fact which, along with much that is reverent, earnest, and scholarly, marks the history of exegesis down to the Reformation period at least, and which reasserts itself after the glorious break made by Erasmus, Luther, and Calvin, is the practical rejection of the actual Bible, and the persistent effort to cast it into the moulds of tradi- tion, mysticism, philosophical speculation, and ecclesias- tical dogma. The best and most devout modern criticism is a new protestantism, which faces the Bible as it is, and * Psalm cxix. 18. f For example, Matt, xi. 35-28. 32 EXEGESIS. places its authorit}' above that of councils, systems, dog- mas, and individual fancies. The Bible has been practi- cally turned against itself. It has fiuTiished ideas which men have developed after their own fashion, and to serve their own ends, and then have insisted that the Bible was constructed after that fashion and for those ends. Hence it is a familiar fact that the Bible has been cited in justi- fication of every conceivable monstrosity of speculation, of every refinement of cnielty, of every gross tyranny, of every vagary of crank or fanatic, and of every distorted moral hobby which has disfigured Christian history. The old Latin elegiac is sadly truthful : ' ' Hie liber est in quo quperit sua dogmata quisque : luvenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua."* " Few are, perhaps, aware of the avvful extent to which Scriptm*e has been distorted to e\-il purposes, and of the terrible and age-long injuries which these misaj)plications of Scripture by human ignorance and perversity have inflicted upon generation after generation of imhappy sufferers. The full record of those injuries would l^e the record of ' untold agonies, and bloodshed in rivers ; ' it Avould be the record of the lives of millions darkened and blighted by intolerable superstitions ; it would be the record of the deadliest violations of the eternal laws of morality committed in the name of religion by those who claimed to be its infallible defenders. . . . On misapplications of 'Honor the king,' have been built the ruinous opj^osition to national freedom ; on misap- *This is the book in wliicli each man seeks for his own doctrines, and each alike fiuds his own. EXEGESIS. 33 l)liccitions of ' Thou art Peter,' the colossal iisuipatioiis of papal t}T.'anny ; on misapplications of ' Cui'sed be Ca- naan,' the shameful iniquities of the slave-trade ; on mis- applications of ' Compel them to come in,' the hideous crimes of the Inquisition ; on misapplications of ' Thou slialt not suffer a witch to live,' the infuriated butchery of thousands of "svretched women. ... It would be the duty of one who vn:ote the story of Scripture inter- pretation to show what has been the reason why * Tlae devil can quote Scripture for liis jDurpose ; ' why it is that ' in religion What damned error but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament ' " * To review this history in detail would be most interest- ing, but is quite impossible within my present limits. A few illustrations must suffice. The Septuagint illustrates the remark of a modem scholar, that "even a translator has need of in\incible honesty if he would avoid the misleading influences of his own a priori conclusions." The Septuagint, or Greek version of the Old Testament, was the popular Bible of Christ's and of Paul's time. Paul's Old Testament quota- tions are mostly draAvn from it, as are many of the cita- tions ascribed to Christ by the Evangelists. It was the only Bible used by the Apostolic Fathers, and was held by * Archdeacon Farrar : " Wresting the Scriptures." Expositor, First Series, vol. xii., pp. 29, 33. 3 34 EXEGESIS. them, as by many of the later fathers, to be divinely in- spired.* But the Alexandrian translators, with the en- larged range of view consequent upon their contact with Greek cultui'e, were not proof against the temptation to modify their original Scripture, in order to evade its blows at their national pride, and to make it more agreeable and less incredible to the Gentile mind. They toned down the simj^le anthropomorphisms of the old Hebrew Bible, and they struck out expressions which seemed to reflect upon their leaders or to expose the moral delinquencies of their ancestors, such as the reference to Moses' " leprous " hand, and God's declaration that Israel was a "stiff- necked " people. f Passing on to the days of Christ, we find Scripture overgrown with that enormous mass of rabbinic inter- pretation which, beginning as a supplement to the wi'it- * Foi' instance, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Justin Martyr, Theo- dore of Mopsuestia, and Augustine. This belief rested largely upon the pseudonymous letter of Aristeas, which related that the seventy- two translators accomplished the entire translation in seventy-two days ; that each translator, independently, translated the whole Old Testament, and that these translations were found, on comparison, to he verbally identical. f Exod. iv. 6 ; xxxii. 9. They inserted rabbinical legends, as that the flint knives used for circumcision in the wilderness had been buried in Joshua'c grave (.Josh. xxiv. 30) ; that God set bounds to the people " according to the number of the angels of God " (Deut. xxxii. 8). See also Gen. iv. 4 ; Josh. xiii. 23 ; 1 Sam. xx. 30 ; Num. xxxii. 12. The merit of the translation is very unequal. It is thought that the work of fifteen hands may be discovered. The best sections are Leviticus and Proverbs. The Prophets are often quite unintelligible. Daniel was so bad that the later version of Theodotion was substituted for it, and the original version disappeared and was believed to be no longer extant, until it was discovered at Rome in 1772. EXEGESIS. 35 ten law, at last superseded and threw it into contempt. The plainest sayings of Scripture were resolved into an- other sense, and a rabbi declares that he that renders a verse of Scripture as it appears, says what is not true. Akiba assumed that the Pentateuch was a continuous enigma, and that a meaning was to be fomid in every monosyllable, and a mystic sense m every hook and flourish of the letters. The Oral Law, subsequently reduced to ^vi-iting in the Talmud, that encyclopaedia of all the sense and nonsense of the Kabbinical Schools, with its exaggerations, superstitions, and obscenities, its proverbs, allegories, and legends, its romance, poetry, and parable, completely overshadowed and superseded the Scriptures, so that Jesus was literally justified in saying, " Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect through your tradition." In the succeeding period of exegesis, that of the Alex- andrian Schools, we see indeed the culmination of Greek influence upon Jewish thought, but we also see the mis- chief of the rabbinical interpretation perpetuated and active in that distinctive feature of Alexandrian exegesis — the allegorical method, which, in turn, has transmitted its influence down to a very late period. Allegorical in- terpretation is not bom of biblical exegesis. The Brah- mins employed it upon the Vedas, the Sufis upon the Koran, and the Stoics upon Homer. It grew out of the desire to find a point of junction for an old faith with a new, wider, and more philosophic culture. It was the medium of a compromise between loyalty to tradition and the requirement of a broader intellectual outlook. It was an attempt to extract the new ideas from the old writings. 36 EXEGESIS. The Alexandrian Jew midertook to liarmonize the severe dogmas of the old Hebrew faith A^ith the Hellenic philosophy, and to find the teachings of Zeno and of Plato in Moses and the prophets. The only possible instni- ment of this jDrocess was allegory, which found its high priest in Philo. Under his treatment the LaAv of Moses and the histories of Scrij)ture became wellnigh unrecog- nizable. The fundamental thought of his great comment- ary on Genesis is, that the history of mankind as related in that book is nothing else than a system of psychology and ethics, the different individuals who figure in the history denoting different states of the soul. Abraham is the type of a Stoic seeking truth. Attaining the knowl- edge of God, he marries Sarah, who is abstract wisdom. Jacob, arriving at Bethel at sunset, is human wisdom coming to the divine Word, where the perceptive faculty is found to be useless. Moses is intelligence ; Aaron, speech ; Enoch, repentance ; Esau, iiide disobedience ; Rachel, innocence. " The most external occurrences of scriptural history," to quote the words of Schiirer, be- come in his hands mines of instruction concerning the supreme problems of human existence." The Bible is converted into a philosophical romance. Nor do the operation and the influence of this ^dcious method cease with the Alexandrian School. They appear in full and baneful vigor in the exegesis of the Fathers. The sincere and beautiful piety of Clement of Rome ; the catholicity, candor, and simplicity of Justin Martyr; the learning of Irengeus ; the intellectual vigor of Tertullian ; the culture of Clement of Alexandria ; the homiletic and ex]30sitory skill of Origen — none of these avail to pre- EXEGESIS. 37 serve their exegesis from the taiut of the rabbis and of Philo. They alter, they misquote, they introduce Jewish legends, they appeal to apocryphal writings as inspired, they resolve the plainest statements and narratives into allegory, they proclaim the words of the Septuagint to be the very words of the Holy Spirit, even when they differ most widely from the original Hebrew. In Clement and Origen, notwithstanding their larger learning and broader cultiu'e, the intiuence of Philo is apparent in their at- tempt to reconcile the Bible and Greek philosophy, and to vindicate a Christian (jnosis which penetrates to a hid- den, oracular, mystical sense of Scripture. On such a basis allegory runs rampant. With all Origen's depth of thought, grammatical knowledge, expository skill, and earnest piety, he is dominated by the theory of verbal ^^ dictation in its most pronounced form, and by the as- sumption that the Bible is throughout homogeneous and, in every particular, supematurally pei^fect. From the plain contradictions of Scripture to this position, the only refuge is allegory, and the doctrine of the threefold sense, literal, moral, and mystical. As the anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament could not be literally true ; as such stories as the di'unkenness of Noah and the incest of Lot w^ere immoral ; as some of the Old Testament precepts were manifestly unjust — these must all be interpreted in a mystical sense. The water-pots at Cana, containing two or three firkins apiece, mean the Scriptures, whicli were intended to purify the Jews, and Avhich sometimes contain two firkins — the moral and literal senses — and sometimes three, the spiritual sense also. The six water-pots indicate that the world was created in six 38 EXEGESIS. days. The ass on wliich Jesus rode into Jerusalem repre- sents the letter of the Old Testament, and the ass' foal, which was gentle and submissive, the New Testament, and the two apostles who go to loose them are the moral and mystical senses. Notwithstanding the hints of a sounder criticism and of a better method in Dionysius of Alexandria, in the school of Antioch represented by Theodore of Mopsues- tia and Chrysostom, and later still in Jerome, the exe- getic pendulum takes a backward swing in Augustine, far greater as a theologian and dialectician than as an exe- gete. He was ignorant of Hebrew and but poorly equipped in Greek. Li him the Rabbinic and Pliilo- nian method, and the superstitious reverence for the Sep- tuagint survive, and in him appears that widely-spread and most mischievous error of interpreting Scripture in accordance with dogmatic prepossessions, formulated in his rule that the Bible must be interpreted according to Church orthodoxy,* and expressed still more forcibly in his criticism of the Letter of Mani : "I would not be- lieve the gospel if I were not moved thereto by the authority of the Catholic Chui-ch," The victory re- mained for the time mth the allegorists. The Western theologians crushed Theodore of Mopsuestia, and the school of Antioch was anathematized. It is not my purpose to give even an outline of the history of exegesis. I shall not therefore detain you amid the di-eariness of the period from the seventh to the twelfth century, when the Papacy had established its des- • Scriptura nou asserit nisi fidem catholicum. — De Doctr. Christ., iii. 10. EXEGESIS. 39 potism over the minds of men ; when the church backed A\dth penal thunders her claim to be the sole, infallible interpreter of Scripture, and treated the study of its original tongues as little better than a crime. It is a re- lief to escape from the sombre shadow of that eclipse of learning ; from the huge piles of dogmatic tomes ; from the uncritical, second-hand, hap-hazard patristic compi- lations of Bede and Alcuin ; from the interlinear and marginal glosses of Strabo and Anselm of Laon, and from the grammatical and mystical platitudes of Hugo of St. Victor. Nor can I dwell upon the scholastic era, when the Bible served as the handmaid of Aiistotle ; nor upon the great exegetic revival under the auspices of Erasmus, Luther, and Calvin, a prince among exegetes ; nor upon the sad relapse of the post-Eeformation era, with its new scholasticism built upon party-creeds, and fettering and emasculating exegesis by an arbitrary and dictatorial con- fessionalism. In the brief time which remains, I can only summarize a few of the results of a false exegesis which the past has transmitted to later times, and against which the best biblical scholarship of this age is arrayed. First of all is the identification of inspiration with me- chanical, literal, verbal infallibility, a doctrine embodied in the seventeenth century formulas that the WTiters of Scriptures are " amanuenses of God," " hands of Christ," "scribes and notaries of the Holy Spirit," "li^dng and writing ^^ens." The extent to which this was pressed is well-nigh incredible. The Hellenic Consensus of 1675, dra^vn up by Turretin and Heidegger, asserted that the very vowel-points and accents of the Hebrew Bible were 40 EXEGESIS. divinely inspired. It was even discussed whether the vowel-points originated with Adam, Moses, or Ezra : the actual fact being that they originated with the Masorites, about the sixth century of the Christian era. The Wit- temberg faculty, in 1638, decreed that to speak of barbar- isms or solecisms in the New Testament Greek was blas- phemy against the Holy Ghost ; and the Purists of the seventeenth century maintained that to deny that God gave the New Testament in anything else than pure, classical Greek, was to imperil the doctrine of inspiration. Such absurdities have, happily, become obsolete, though their underlying principle still crops out in the modern Church. The doctrine of verbal inerrancy is in plain contradiction of the actual phenomena of Scripture. It necessitates as its corollary inerrant transmission and inerraut interpretation. It is based wholly upon an o, 'priori assumption of what insj)iration must he, and not upon the Bible as it actually exists ; it is contrary to the analogy of God's procedure in other departments of His administration ; it has no warrant in the teachings of the early Church, and it renders a true exegesis simply im- possible.* * It is difficult to avoid severe expressions concerning the attempts of certain divines, and writers in tlie religious journals, to stigmatize as unorthodox those who deny the verbal infallibility of Scripture, and to represent them as drawing their arguments from sceptical sources. The question of Christian courtesy, charity, and candor entirely apart, such utterances betray an ignorance which is unpardonable in men who assume to shape and direct public opinion. It ought not to be necessary to inform such that the denial of verbal infallibilit)^ is not only no new thing, but that it has been asserted by a host of Chris- tian scholars, of the first rank, since the days of Jerome, not to go EXEGESIS. 41 Next follows the principle of allegorical interpretatiou, which asserts itself with more or less power throughout the entire history of exegesis from the Rabbinical to the post-Reformation era, and which at once sweeps away all fixed standards of interpretation, and puts the reader at the mercy of each expositor's individual fancy. On its mischievousness in ignoring the element of growth in biblical history and reducing it to a dead level, I have not time to dwell. The allegorical applicaiion of Scripture, within reasonable limits, is, indeed, legitimate ; but that is quite another and a different matter from allegorical interpretation. The evil of this method appears in a cer- tain class of popular expositions, the atrocities of which would fill volumes, in which the preacher rides, Jehu-like, across country, some rampant fancy of his own, instead of following soberly and reverently in the track of the Word. There is, unfortunately, too much truth in the severe re- farther back. Among these may be named Luther and Calvin ; llich- ard Baxter and Samuel Rutherford ; Hooker, Chillingworth, Tillot- son, Doddridge, Warburton, Paley, Lowth ; Archbishop Whately, Bishops Thirlwall and Heber, Dean Alford, Bishops Lightfoot and Westcott, Archdeacon Farrar and Professor Sanday. The Church of Rome has never fully decreed the doctrine. It was denied by Car- dinal Newman ; and the Bishop of Amycla, assistant to the Arch- bishop of Westminster, asserts that ' ■ Catholics are under no sort or obligation to believe that inspiration extends to the words of Holy Scripture as well as to the subject-matter which is therein contained." Among the Germans may be mentioned the revered names of Tho- luck and Neander, with Meyer, Stier, Lange, and Dorner. Many oth- ers might be added to the list. The doctrine is nowhere stated in the "Westminster Standards. Their authors were content to assert the fact of inspiration without defining its mode and degrees. The same is true of the Anglican Articles. 42 EXEGESIS. mark of a living scholar, tliat " liomiletics have been, to an incredible extent, the PliyUoxcra vasfatrix of exegesis, iUid that preachers have become privileged misinterpret- ers." That the commentary, even down to a late period, has not escaped this nuisance, may be seen from Bishop Wordsworth's comment on the story of Jael and Sisera, where we are told that there is a parallel betAveen the tent-peg with which Jael shattered Sisera's skull, and the stake by which the Gentiles enlarge the church ; that there is a comparison of the tent-peg with the cross ; and that there is also a parallel between Jael and the Virgin Mary. Thirdly comes the exaggeration of the so-called " an- alogy of faith," a favorite phrase with the Keformers, and originally signifying that Scrij)ture should be explained in accordance with Scripture. The phrase itself was based on a mistranslation of Romans xii. 6 ; " and while it imposed a salutary check upon the practice of isolating passages of Scriptui*e, and carried the sound principle that individual passages should be interpreted according to the general tenor of Scripture, it soon passed, practi- cally, into the rule that interpretation must conform to correct dogma. Thus, as has been said, " it paved the way for the distortions and so2:)histries of the later Prot- estant scholasticism, and turned the Old Testament espe- cially into a sort of obscure forest, in which dogma and allegory hunt in couples to catch what they can." f The abuse of the principle links itself with the allegor- * KOTot T^jf avaXoyiav ttjs ■Kicrrews, "according to the JJJ'OJMrtion of faitli." f F. "W. Farrar : Bampton Lectures for 1885. EXEGESIS. 43 ical metliod, and -with the want of the historic sense in interpretation. It exaggerates the honiogeneousness of Scripture by making every part in every age have direct and designed reference to every other part. It thus ig- nores historical perspective, and makes the Bible like an Egyptian mural painting, Avliich is all foreground. To strike at the abuse is not to surrender the unity of Scripture. We may, for instance, firmly hold by the fact of Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament, with- out, as was said of Justin Martyr, applying all the sticks and pieces of wood in the Old Testament to the cross ; without, like Clement of Rome, construing Eahab's scar- let cord into a prophecy of redemption by blood; with- out, as Barnabas, making the "tree planted by rivers of water " mean the cross and baptism. While the Bible, as a whole, turns on Christ, it is even possible to abuse Luther's rule, that Christ is to be found everywhere in Scripture. Solomon's Song does not signify the love of Christ for His Church : yet this exploded allegorical in- terpretation underlies its citation in the " Westminster Confession," where passages from it are used as proof- texts of the doctrine of " eftectual calling," and of the statement that true believers may have the assurance of their salvation shaken by God's withdrawing the light of His countenance." And, while I am speaking of the " Confession," let me say that the revision of its proof- texts, already inaugurated, should go much deeper than the insertion or omission of a text here and there. The present system of proof-texts is framed according to the principles of interpretation current in 1647 ; and these * Chap. X. sect. 1 ; chap, xviii. sect. 4. 44 EXEGESIS. principles, and not merely the individual texts, should be examined and dealt with. When, as we have seen, " ef- fectual calling " is argued from a false, allegorical inter- pretation of a passage in Canticles; when the "the wages of sin is death," and, " for every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account," are cited in support of the statement that " no sin is so small but it deserves damna- tion ; " "" Avhen the statement that all the books of the Old and New Testaments "are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life," appeals to Revelation xxii. 18, 19, " If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book," etc.; f when the statement that the Hebrew and Greek originals of the Bible have been " kept pure in all ages " is backed by " Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled ; " -t when it is deduced from " The fomidation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His," that the number of the elect and of the reprobate is definitely and unchangeably fixed by tlie divine decree, § it is quite time that revision should go down to the basis of interpretation. Lastly, the subordination of exegesis to dogma, the baneful inheritance from Augustine, and from the post- Reformation era. Here devout criticism, scholarly intel- ligence, and the whole energy of the freedom with which Christ makes free must be concentrated in order to pre- serve the liberty of the individual Christian and the rightful supremacy of Scripture. I do not imdervalue * Chap. XV. sect. 4. f t'hap. i. sect. 2. X Chap. i. sect. 8. § Chap. iii. sect. 4. I EXEGESIS. 45 creeds, confessions, and theologies. They have their place and their work, and both are important ; but the time has fully come for the roundest and most practical assertion that the Scriptures are the only infallible rale of faith and practice^ — the Scriptures as I'ead with the Holy Spirit's guidance and light, and interpreted accord- ing to the canons of a reverent and scholarly exegesis : that no theological dogma is binding upon the Christian conscience, which is not based upon a fair and sound in- terpretation of Scripture as it stands. The time is past for the Church to be held to the horrible and unscriptui*- al doctrine of a divine predestination of a portion of man- kind to everlasting damnation, by the words " Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated," and by the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of Eomans, which have no more to do with divine predestination to eternal life or death than the Iliad of Homer or the Clouds of Aris- tophanes. Union Seminary holds by the Bible. It exalts its au- thority ; it accepts that authority as supreme ; it uncom- promisingly accepts the Bible as the only infallible rale of faith and practice ; as the only legitimate basis of gospel preaching ; as containing the only and sufficient revelation of Him whose name is above every name — the only Redeemer of mankind, the Head of the Church. Its faculty and its directors alike stake their salvation on its truth. Wliy will the Church not see that its teachers are the friends and the champions of the Bible, and not its carping critics ? That it is because of their love and reverence for it, because they see, better than the general religious public, the subtlety, power, and in- 46 EXEGESIS. tellectual aciTteness of the attacks aimed at it, that they are trying to save it from the wounds of its friends, from modes of defence which only expose it to deadlier thrusts ; trying to let the divine inspiration which is in it vindicate its own power and majesty ; trying to put its interj^retation upon a basis which will successfully resist the shocks of a godless rationalism ? It shall be, as it ever has been, the delight and the j)ride of Union Seminary to magnify the Bible before the eyes of men, and to assert its principles and its personal, divine centre, Jesus Christ, as the solution of all the great world problems, the mould and the inspiration of perfect character, the basis of a perfect society. It recognizes the need of the Holy Spirit's aid and light in the study of the Word. It has no sympathy with a cold and purely intellectual and scholastic criticism. But it will continue to stand, as it has stood from the fii'st, for the largest liberty of interpretation ; for the claim of scholarly exegesis to a respectful hearing ; for the right to limit to matters of faith and duty its subscrip- tion to the doctrine of the infallibility and authority of Scripture ; for a square, brave facing of the jjlain mean- ing of Scripture ; for the ascertainment and establishment of the objective historical sense of the Bible as against mere subjective speculations ; for the Bible first, and con- fessions after the Bible. In the eloquent words of the beloved and lamented Meyer : " It is just when exegetical research is perfectly unprejudiced, impartial, and free — and thus all the more consciously and consistently guided simply and solely by those historically-given factors of its science — that it is EXEGESIS. 47 able with genuine humility to render to the Church, so far as the latter maintains its palladium in the pure word of God, real and wholesome service for the present and the future. However deep may be the heavings of con- flicting elements within it, and however long may be the diu'ation of the painful throes which shall at last issue in a happier time for the Chiu'ch, when men's minds shall have attained a higher union, the pure word of Script- ure, in its historical truth and clearness, and in its world-subduing, divine might, disengaged from every addition of human scholasticism and its dividing for- mulae, must and shall at length become once more a wonderful power of peace unto unity of faith and love." "''' * Introduction to the Commentary on Romans. •V -s n Ni QBXNiyd m •*i li»!««?i^ «*i«£ta«i»Ma««>-_- , , ,. . - '4m& >** iKntMM^ 11^ 11 w ' -,«,--— ^ •-•«3i^ y^Mgaii^'; ana a^BQ •V 's -n Ni a^fit^^tSSSL «*;(»&a»j<«**<.»r^ iiei«Sg iiie'*"*^ ^*'^- ■ ' «Hiii 'iui^tamaftSiMMfmm-. ana a;Bci ' y. BS476 .V77 Exegisis : an address delivered at the Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library & hm\ '%T k.