\\sttv^^i 
 
 ot *« 
 
 '^^t Se, 
 
 2. S. £)Z 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 "•S 
 
 Shelf 
 
 Division 
 Section ____ 
 
 Number 
 
 SSSif 
 
REVELATION AND THE BIBLE 
 
By fhe same Atithor. 
 
 INSPIRATION AND THE BIBLE: 
 
 AN INQUIRY. 
 Jifth and Cheaper Edition, cloth, 3s. 6d, 
 
 "The work displays much earnest thought, and a 
 sincere belief in, and love of the Bible." — Morning 
 Post. 
 
 " It will be found to be a good summary, written in 
 no iconoclastic spirit, but with perfect candour and fair- 
 ness, of some of the more important results of recent 
 Biblical criticism." — Scotsjiiatt. 
 
 London : T. FISHER UNWIN. 
 
REVELATION 
 
 THE BIBLE 
 
 AN ATTEMPT AT RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 ROBERT F. HORTON, M.A 
 
 FORMERLY FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFOKD 
 
 Author of" Inspiration and the Bible " 
 
 gonhon 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN 
 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 MDCCCXCII 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book is the fidfilmetit of a promise made in the 
 preface to the second edition of Inspiration and the 
 Bible : tJiat ivork ivas an Inquiry^ and seemed to many 
 readers destructive ratJier tJian positive. As the tra- 
 ditional vieiv of the Bible gradually fades in the 
 clear light of knowledge a?id truth, those luho re- 
 hictantly surrender the antiqiie dogma naturally ask 
 for a definite faith to take its place ; they zuant to 
 k?iow at once how they ca?i admit the truth and yet 
 retain their Bible, how they can grant the Jmman handi- 
 work and yet grasp the Divine substance of the Book. 
 
 The following pages are a series of suggestions 
 towards this most hopeful work of reconstruction. The 
 spirit in ivhicJi they are ivritten may be best illustrated 
 by the folloiving transcript from life : — When that 
 distingtiished critic, M. Scherer, 2uas a theological 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 student at Strasburg he prepared for Professor Reuss 
 Class a very able essay, in zvhicJi he maintained his 
 faith in the plenary and literal inspiration of the 
 Sacred Canon. Against all arguments lie defended 
 the position, zvJiich was in his opinion vital, and zuith 
 indomitable energy repelled zvhat he considered the 
 dangerous 7iegations of his fellozv- students. At the 
 conclusion of the debate, Professor Reuss addressed 
 these zvords to the eager champion : — '* My dear 
 friend, the arguments of science do not affect you 
 because the subject in question is in your eyes a 
 matter of faith. Well, allozv me to say to you in 
 the name of the faith you propose to defend, that the 
 ground on zvhicJi you have taken your stand is an 
 extremely dangerous one. To identify faith in Christ 
 zvith the historical belief that is botuid tip zvith 
 Biblical documents is to enter on a path zvhich may 
 lead you very far. The least zveakening of your 
 theory of the Canon zvill shake the zvhole super- 
 structure of your Christianity, and the reaction may 
 be as subtle as it zvill be radical. Consider zvhether 
 it zvoidd not be prudent to establish your faith on 
 a more sure foundation, and remember that our 
 Reformers initiated the Theology zvhich you call 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 new" The professor was a prophet, as M. Scherer^s 
 subsequent intellectiial career proved. That vieiv wJiicJi 
 the studerit advocated must always lead to unbelief 
 if at any time a ray of scientific, historic, or critical 
 truth sJiould effect aii entrance into the mind wJiicJi 
 e7tte7'taijis it. That many entertain it, and yet 7'etain 
 their faith by vigor ottsly excluding all the truths 
 ivhich might threaten it, is a fact zvhich to truth- 
 loving men is quite irrelevant. 
 
 It ivill be observed that in dealing with the Old 
 Testament I have followed the lines which Professor 
 Driver has laid doivn in his Introduction to the 
 Literature of the Old Testament. As an old 
 pupil of his, though not i7i the 'present department of 
 study, I knoiv his mingled candour and caution. I 
 feel, therefore, much confidence in accepting his verdict 
 in the many cases zvhere I am myself not competent 
 to give an opinion. I ought also to gratefully acknow- 
 ledge the invaluable service which he has rendered 7ne 
 by revising the proofs, pointing out mistakes, and 
 making immmerable suggestions zvJiicJi have for the 
 7nost part been incorporated in the text. 
 
 In dealing ivith the New Testament literature^ 
 for the special purpose of this book, I have for the 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 most part started from the critical conclusions which 
 are given in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica, because that is a work accessible to all. 
 My whole position^ zvhich is that of a settled faith 
 in the Revelation of the Bible^ makes it a matter 
 of secondary importance what the conclusio7is of the 
 so-called Higher Criticism may be. To have accepted 
 the unproved assumptions of the orthodox tradition 
 would have been farther from the truth and less 
 fruitfid than to presuppose, in general, that the best 
 investigations of the best scholars have given us at 
 any rate an approximate account of the dates, author- 
 ship, and scope of the several books. But the method 
 of inquiry and argument which is here advocated 
 remains unaffected by the particular conclusions at 
 which Criticism may arrive. 
 
 Again let me say that this book pretends to be 
 nothing more than a series of tentative suggestions. 
 But any one who, making use of the Index, puts 
 together the definite statemettts about revelatiofi may 
 gather with some distinctness how the matter shapes 
 itself in my own mind. 
 
 R. F. HORTON, 
 
 HampsteAd, May, 1892. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION ..... I 
 
 II. THE TOLEDOTH OR GENESIS . . 26 
 
 III. THE TORAH OR THE LAW . . . 60 
 
 IV. THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS . . 9 1 
 V. THE ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM II 9 
 
 VI. THE PROPHETS . . . . I45 
 
 VII. THE KETHUBIM . . . . . 181 
 
 VIII. THE SUMMIT OF REVELATION . . 214 
 IX. THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS . . . 230 
 
 X. THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH . . 260 
 
 XI. THE PAULINE LETTERS .... 288 
 
 XII. ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY . . 315 
 
 XIII. JAMES, PETER, JUDE .... 342 
 
 XIV. THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS . . . 369 
 XV. SUMMARY ..... 403 
 
REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I N T R O D U C T I O N. 
 
 It is perhaps a proof of the revelation contained in 
 the Bible that large numbers of Christian men cannot 
 divest themselves of the idea that everything con- 
 tained in the Bible is revelation. But this hasty 
 inference, drawn no doubt with reverence and the 
 best intention, is not in the end serviceable either to 
 truth or to faith ; for let it be once roundly asserted 
 that every statement of the Holy Scripture must be 
 accepted as a fact or a precept or an idea proceeding 
 from the lips of the Unseen God, recorded for men 
 as an infallible authority which is to override all other 
 sources of knowledge, and the enemies of faith will 
 immediately select from the miscellaneous writings 
 in the Bible passages which are obviously incon- 
 sistent with the dogma, and will proceed to pin 
 
2 KRVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 US down to the consequences of that bold assertion. 
 " You maintain," they will say, " that the Bible is 
 throughout a revelation from God ; here are certain 
 parts of it which certainly do not come from Him ; 
 therefore, as you declare it all to be homogeneous, 
 none of it comes from Him." This is indeed the 
 main contention of Unbelief at the present time. 
 The dogma of Orthodoxy is pushed to its logical 
 conclusion. To the claim that the whole Bible is 
 Revelation is opposed the demonstration that parts 
 of the Bible are not, and the dogmatist has found no 
 better method of maintaining his ground than that of 
 shutting his eyes to fact and bitterly denouncing those 
 who are unable to do the same. But the time seems 
 to have arrived when this method appears unsatisfac- 
 tory to believers as it has long appeared contemptible 
 to unbelievers ; and earnest men are everywhere 
 asking themselves how it comes to pass that they are 
 perfectly clear in their conviction about the revelation 
 in the Bible, and yet other people are equally clear in 
 pointing out elements in the Bible which are not 
 revelation. We are all beginning to recognise that 
 we must distinguish and define. The truth has failed 
 to emerge because, from mistaken notions of rever- 
 ence, we have been content to leave the whole ques- 
 tion in confusion, and we have not perceived that 
 error itself is in such a case more favourable to truth ; 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 we have dreaded error ; at last we begin to dread 
 confusion almost as much. We are asking for dis- 
 tinct ideas. When we speak of Revelation, what are 
 we to understand by it ? When we say that the 
 Bible is a revelation, what exactly do we mean ? 
 When things are pointed out in the Bible which are 
 certainly not correct, not true, are we required by 
 Faith stoutly to declare that they are correct, that 
 they are true, and to maintain faith by believing a lie ? 
 Or is it possible to frankly and even joyfully admit 
 these new and demonstrated facts without surrender- 
 ing one scrap of our real faith in Revelation ? Such 
 questions as these, urged as they are with more and 
 more insistence by thoughtful minds, are most hope- 
 ful signs of the times. Here, as in many other 
 departments of inquiry, to put the questions correctly 
 is practically the main point. The answer glides 
 into the mind at the moment that the question issues 
 from it, or if no answer comes at once, we are at 
 least able to stand firm on the foothold which the 
 question has afforded us ; we do not maintain the 
 perilous position of " one foot on sea, one foot on 
 shore," which resulted from the old confusion of 
 ideas. 
 
 We may proceed at once to answer in a provisional 
 way the questions which have just been stated. 
 What is meant by Revelation ? The answer may be 
 
REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 very simple. By Revelation is meant a truth or 
 truths received from God into the minds of men, 
 not by the ordinary methods of inquiry, such as 
 observation and reasoning, but by a direct operation 
 of the Holy Spirit All truth that is reached by the 
 ordinary methods of inquiry comes in the last resort 
 from God, but there are things which eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, and which the reason of man is 
 not adequate to grasp ; these things, if they are to be 
 known at all, can be shown to us only by methods 
 which are out of the ordinary ; they must be revealed. 
 Now we must distinguish two uses of the word " reve- 
 lation." The process by which the truths just men- 
 tioned are delivered to men, whether it be a historical 
 evolution, an elaborate typology, the immediate com- 
 munication of the Spirit of God with the spirit of 
 man, or a Person containing in Himself the whole 
 circle of Truth, may be conveniently covered by the 
 term revelation^ but when we wish to use the word 
 with strict accuracy it is better to give it the- narrower 
 meaning of the truths which are ultimately revealed 
 by the process. In the loose sense of the word the 
 whole Bible is a Revelation, because it is the process 
 worked out through many centuries of human ex- 
 perience ; but in the exact sense of the word the 
 whole Bible is not, and cannot be, a Revelation, for 
 it contains, and must contain, historical and other 
 
INTR on UC TION. 
 
 materials which are obtained in the ordinary way ; it 
 employs scientific and philosophic conceptions which 
 were necessarily transient ; it includes, and must 
 include, the many guesses, glimpses, and foreshadow- 
 ings of truths not yet revealed, the broken lights 
 which were to merge into the clear day, the frag- 
 mentary arcs which would eventually be " a perfect 
 round." 
 
 The distinction which has just been drawn pre- 
 pares us at once for another. There is no mistake 
 commoner than that of mixing up the idea of revela- 
 tion with a very different matter, viz., historical or 
 scientific truth. On the one hand, the assailants of 
 the Bible think that they have discredited it if they 
 have pointed out a blunder in date or name or event, 
 or if they have shown that " Modern Science " has 
 exploded its scientific conceptions. And on the 
 other hand, the defenders of the Bible feel that they 
 are committed to show that no historical error occurs 
 in its pages, and that its scientific teaching squares 
 with the discoveries of Modern Science, or if not, is to 
 override the conclusions of Science. But all this is 
 mere confusion of thought. Historical facts are not 
 a subject of Revelation, for they are ascertainable by 
 the ordinary methods of human inquiry. The course 
 of events which history attempts to describe may, it 
 is true, be a revelation, and if the historical data 
 
RE VELA 77 ON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 should be so vitiated that the general results of those 
 events were lost, then the revelation might be lost, 
 but the ordinary infirmities of historical composition, 
 the uncertainty about points of detail, the occasional 
 confusion of names, or even the admission of certain 
 legendary or traditional elements, will not prevent us 
 from apprehending the facts and perceiving the reve- 
 lation which is conveyed by them. It does not prove 
 that a history in the Bible is inspired because it is 
 confirmed by an Assyrian inscription or an Egyptian 
 papyrus, nor does it prove that the history is un- 
 inspired because fresh historical discoveries enable us 
 to check, or even to correct, it. General credibility, 
 such as we demand in all historical writings, is all 
 that is necessary in the records of events which were 
 themselves a revelation of God to men. But further, 
 where the events themselves are not a revelation, 
 and where all confirmation of the events is necessarily 
 wanting, the stories which have come down through 
 tradition, and even the tales which form the folk- 
 lore of a people may in the hands of an inspired 
 writer become a vehicle of religious teaching ; the 
 element of revelation may be totally disconnected 
 from the accuracy or even the actuality of the story ; 
 of this we shall have illustrations in the next chapter. 
 It is better at once to get this position quite clear : 
 Historical Truth and Revealed Truth are essentially 
 
INTR on UC TION. 7 
 
 distinct. Historical Truth is not ipso facto revelation. 
 Revelation is not necessarily historical truth. A 
 parable may convey more revelation than the most 
 exact chronological table ; and a myth in the hands 
 of an inspired writer may teach more about God 
 than Darwin's Descent of Man. 
 
 And this leads us to observe that Scientific Fact is 
 not a subject of Revelation. The methods of science 
 are adequate to the needs of science. If the records 
 of Creation were written in the rocks, and if it was 
 possible by the patient investigations of successive 
 ages to correctly read the records, it would be at 
 variance with our first idea of Revelation that these 
 results should be forestalled by a supernatural lesson 
 in natural science ages ago. Scientific truth is of 
 inestimable value, and it is a legitimate subject of 
 speculation why Lyell and Darwin did not emerge 
 in the Mosaic^riod ; but it is no prejudice to Reve- 
 lation to admit that they did not, and therefore that 
 any religious truth which had to be revealed to men 
 would necessarily come by the vehicle of such 
 scientific conceptions as existed then. Certainly we 
 entirely misconceive the scope of Revelation if we 
 think to discredit it by scientific discoveries of a later 
 date which are at variance with it, or if on the 
 ground of the Revelation we decline to accept these 
 discoveries when they are supported by adequate 
 
REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 proofs. Here again it is well to get the position 
 clear at once. Scientific Truth and Revealed Truth 
 are essentially different. There is no indication that 
 God ever intended to reveal a scientific fact. There 
 is no indication that He rejected as instruments of 
 revelation men who were scientifically ignorant. 
 Just as to-day He has used men who probably know 
 nothing of science to civilise and to spiritualise and 
 to Christianise those inhabitants of Terra del Fuego 
 whom the greatest scientific man of his time pro- 
 nounced to be no better than the beasts, so in the 
 course of His self-revelation to men He used that 
 Semitic race which seemed, scientifically speaking, 
 the most backward, and made them the vehicle of 
 religious truth, while He made the Greeks the 
 pioneers of science and art, and the Romans the 
 leaders in political organisation. If Joshua and 
 Isaiah were ignorant of the solar system, and there- 
 fore referred certain phenomena to the wrong causes, 
 this does not in the least affect Joshua's historical 
 work as the conqueror of Canaan, or Isaiah's his- 
 torical work as the spiritual leader of his own gene- 
 ration, and the prophetic seer of a generation still to 
 come. If Peter, or the author of TJie Second Epistle 
 of Peter, held the ancient belief that the heavens 
 were a solid and tangible firmament overspanning 
 the earth, which could be rolled up and removed in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the great day of judgment, this scientific misconcep- 
 tion need not in the least affect the wisdom and force 
 of his moral appeals and his spiritual teaching. Na\% 
 if Biblical writers from first to last know nothing of 
 the Origin of Man as it is understood in the modern 
 sense, and are strangers to comparative biology, or to 
 comparative physiology, that is a totally irrelevant 
 argument in discussing the subject of Revelation, for 
 no one supposes that the laws of biology or physi- 
 ology would be given by Revelation, or that God 
 would wait for the arrival of modern biologists and 
 physiologists in order to convey through them the 
 truths which only Revelation could impart. 
 
 But without prolonging the discussion any further 
 in this direction, the distinctions which have been 
 drawn will enable us to grasp more firmly the defini- 
 tion of Revelation already given. Revelation, in 
 the strictest use of the term, is that body of truth 
 which is made known to man in a special way, 
 because the ordinary methods of discovering truth 
 would not suffice. Broadly speaking, then, the Reve- 
 lation in the Bible is precisely that which apart from 
 the Bible not only would not, but could not, have 
 been known. Thus they are not far wrong who say 
 that the only thing revealed in the Bible is God. 
 Much else is told in the Bible, much that is true, 
 and beautiful, and precious, but that mi^ht have been 
 
RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 told elsewhere or in other ways. But God, Creator, 
 Orderer, Sovereign, Saviour, Judge, of the world, is 
 revealed in the Bible — i.e., apart from the Bible we 
 could not know Him. They, too, are not far wrong 
 who speak of the Bible as the Book of God, though 
 of course it is a term foreign to the Bible itself The 
 Bible is the Book of God because it contains the 
 progressive Revelation of God. If the Bible were 
 obliterated and its truths forgotten, we might have 
 aspirations after God, surmises, glimpses, intuitions, 
 imaginations, but God would be unrevealed to us. 
 Here we have a clue, yet we must be careful how we 
 use it. Because this is the Book of God we have no 
 reason to say that everything said about God in the 
 Book is true. The historical and progressive charac- 
 ter of the Book gives no foothold for such unintelli- 
 gent and slumberous dogmatism. In the earlier 
 phases of the Revelation, for example, God is fre- 
 quently identified with one land ; it is assumed that 
 other lands have their gods as Israel has Yahv^h. 
 David speaks as if being driven from the borders of 
 the sacred land meant being banished from God 
 Himself.i This is evidently a phase in revelation, not 
 the completed truth. Or, look at another fact : some 
 
 ' I Sam. xxvi. 19, 20. Cf. Deut.iv. 19, where Yahveh is spoken of 
 as allotting the various objects of false worship unto all nations under 
 the whole heaven, but retaining Israel for Himself. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the most beautiful things said about God occur in 
 the speeches of Job's three friends, yet the Ahnighty 
 describes these very speeches as " darkening counsel. 
 Or again, the knowledge of God under the law is 
 denounced by the prophets, and still more by our 
 Lord, as little better than elaborate ignorance of 
 Him. Clearly in this case if we lose the historic 
 perspective, if we neglect to interpret the earlier by 
 the later, if we fail to see that it is the complete 
 Revelation, and that only, which gives us the com- 
 plete idea of God, our use of the Book may become 
 dangerous and misleading. God is revealed in the 
 Bible, not by selected texts, but in broad progressive 
 lines, by ideas which germinate and grow, by a light 
 which struggles from a brilliant dawn through 
 shadows to a perfect day. 
 
 But it may be said, Surely the Bible reveals much 
 else besides God. Does it not reveal, for example, the 
 future life, heaven with its rewards, and hell with its 
 punishments? This question can only be answered 
 very cautiously as wx proceed. In a certain sense 
 the revelation of God Himself involves many sub- 
 sidiary truths such as the doctrine of rewards and 
 punishments, but we have to distinguish carefully 
 between conceptions of a future world, which might 
 be current in any given age of revelation, and might 
 therefore be employed by the teacher as the clothing 
 
12 RE VELA riON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 of a truth which he wished to convey, and definite 
 revelations of the future world given expressly by the 
 specific methods of revelation. Even our Lord uses 
 the language of His own day when He speaks about 
 the Valley of Hinnom ^ with its ever-burning fires ; 
 and it is necessary to penetrate behind the veil of 
 language, and behind the mere tessercE of familiar 
 images before we can get at a truth, and say, " This 
 is a new revelation given us by God Himself" 
 
 On the whole it is perhaps safest to cling, at least 
 provisionally, to the idea that all Revelation is really 
 the revealing of God. What is human can be learnt 
 by human means ; what is Divine can be learnt only 
 by the Divine Spirit. And a great clearness comes 
 into our conception of the Bible directly we recognise 
 that its real gist is to show us God, whom otherwise 
 we could not know. With this clue in our hands we 
 can answer the second question which was mooted at 
 the beginning : When we say that the Bible is a 
 revelation, what exactly do we mean } We mean, 
 not that it is a general encyclopaedia of information, 
 a text-book of biology, a primer of physiology, a 
 synopsis of history, a prophetic forecast of the future, 
 but that it is a compilation of writings through which 
 God is revealed to us, not in a moment of time, but 
 in a historical evolution, not in a few proof texts, but 
 
 ^ Mark ix. 43. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in the whole connected mass of the two hteratures of 
 which the book consists. It is true, human life and 
 human destiny are incidentally revealed in this light 
 of a revealed God, but only incidentally. As a 
 treatise on ethics, or a Vade Mecum of practical 
 conduct, the book does not profess to serve. It pro- 
 fesses to reveal God and show us the way to Him. If 
 it does not do that for us, it does, in effect, nothing. 
 Since the consummate revelation of God is in the 
 person of Christ, the whole aim of the Scripture may 
 be said to be to bring men to Christ. If we search 
 the Scriptures without reaching that end, our search 
 is in vain. As a recent German writer has put it, the 
 Bible is " a collection of books which are written in 
 God's Spirit and in a Divine faith-power, out of life 
 for life, out of history for history: their unique 
 centre, the touchstone and end of the whole and of 
 its several parts is and remains the living historical 
 person of Jesus Christ." ^ 
 
 If now we have a provisional answer to the ques- 
 tions, What is Revelation, and in what sense is the 
 Bible a Revelation ? the other questions which were 
 raised will easily answer themselves. When the pro- 
 gress of knowledge casts some doubt on statements 
 contained in the Bible, Faith, so far from command- 
 
 ^ Bitterc IVahrhciteu, p. 77- Trof. Bornemann's most interesting 
 reply to Von Egidy's Ermte Gcdanken. 
 
14 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 ing us to reject these new facts as an assault, com- 
 mands us to investigate them, and if they are proved, 
 to receive them as a new light, on Revelation. Our 
 conception of Revelation is so situated and con- 
 structed that it is flatly impossible for any truth 
 which the human mind can discover to shake it. 
 Revelation is that truth which the human mind can- 
 not discover. The Bible itself, as every step in our 
 investigation must prove, is the consistent record of 
 later truths superseding earlier truths, and of primi- 
 tive notions becoming antiquated in the light of 
 broadening knowledge. The Book of the Law is 
 made up of frequent revisions of the Law as the 
 primordial community of Israel developed into the 
 Jewish Church. The prophets utter forecasts that 
 the whole system of the Law with its sacrifices and 
 ordinances was soon to pass away. The New Testa- 
 ment is the abolition, because the fulfilment, of the 
 Law. Nothing could be more instructive than our 
 Lord's own words upon this subject. He protests 
 that no jot or tittle of the Law shall pass before it is 
 fulfilled, but He sets His own ordinances over against 
 what " was said to them of old time," and as a matter 
 of historical fact that Law has passed away ; even 
 the Jews neglect all the elaborate ritual of the altar, 
 and the priesthood has ceased from Israel. What 
 does it mean ? Is it not clear that the old truth is 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 confirmed and fulfilled by merging into a new truth ? 
 And if our Lord treated the venerable ancient Scrip- 
 tures in this way, we who claim to have the mind of 
 Christ must apply the same method. We shall not 
 give to Scripture a finality which He refused to give ; 
 we shall not think we serve Truth by saying that no 
 jot or tittle shall pass away when He, the Truth, 
 Himself abolished the whole system of the Ancient 
 Law. We shall carefully avoid the tendency to crys- 
 tallise and stereotype those books which derived all 
 their value from being stages in a growth and imper- 
 fect preparations for a larger truth to come. 
 
 But if we are to apply the Spirit of Christ to the 
 interpretation of Scripture we must not hesitate to 
 apply it even to those New Testament writings which 
 speak most expressly of Him, and we must be pre- 
 pared for those direct manifestations of the Spirit to 
 the Christian consciousness which He Himself pro- 
 mised to His disciples. There were many things, He 
 said, which He could not tell them then, but when 
 He, the Spirit of truth, should come. He would lead 
 them into all truth. That power of the Spirit was to 
 effect greater things than even He Himself had done. 
 It is customary to limit these further revealings of 
 the Spirit to the Apostolic writings of the New Tes- 
 tament, but the Apostolic writings ^\\^ no counten- 
 ance to that limitation. Rather it is the tendency of 
 
REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 those writings, and especially of the latest, the most 
 matured of them, to turn our attention to the direct 
 influence of the Holy Spirit, and that sovereign way 
 of being taught and led. The idea, therefore, of a 
 Revelation confined to the Sacred Writings cannot 
 be said to be the idea of those Sacred Writings them- 
 selves. The textual and mechanical methods which 
 result from that idea are as foreign to the Spirit of 
 Christ as the Rabbinical methods of dealing with the 
 Old Testament were repugnant to Him when He 
 was in the flesh. Just in proportion as we see in 
 Him the bright flower and fruit of the Scriptures 
 shall we hesitate to exalt the Scriptures, root and 
 branch, deciduous leaves, and cast off membranes, to 
 an equality with Him. 
 
 And now, before bringing this introductory chapter 
 to a close, it may be well to sketch out the path 
 which will be followed in the present investigation. 
 We have already in broad lines defined the substance 
 of Revelation ; it remains for us to patiently deal 
 with the various parts of which the Bible consists, 
 and to each part to apply varying tests with a view 
 of determining what elements of Revelation it con- 
 tains. With each successive book in our hands we 
 should like to accurately discriminate how much of 
 this, and in what sense, and with what limitations, 
 should be literally regarded as Revelation, and what 
 
INTR OD UC TION. 1 7 
 
 parts of the writing or what modes of its setting must 
 be regarded as merely human ? 
 
 In pursuing this investigation, if we are to keep it 
 within reasonable bounds, it will be desirable to mass 
 the writings together in groups which are in some 
 sense homogeneous, for to take each of the books and 
 deal with it separately would, in a brief w^ork like this, 
 lead us too far afield. It will be necessary to deal with 
 the Book of Genesis by itself, because of the many 
 remarkable features, and the abiding interest, of that 
 book. But the rest of the Pentateuch may for our pur- 
 poses be handled together under the title of the Torah, 
 or the Law. We must then take in hand the Historical 
 Books of the Old Testament, breaking them into two 
 series : the first, which flows in a connected narrative 
 from Genesis up to the end of the Books of Kings, 
 and the second, which covers the same ground, 
 though with a different handling and a different 
 spirit, and then resumes the story after the Captivity 
 up to the time of Nehemiah ; this second series 
 includes the Paraleipomena, as they are called in the 
 Greek version, or the Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, 
 and the Book of Esther. We shall then consider the 
 all-important work of the Prophets which had so 
 much to do with the development of Israel's religious 
 life. And, to conclude the review of the Old Testa- 
 ment, we shall try to handle briefly the Hagiographa, 
 
 3 
 
1 8 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 or KetJmbim, which form the third division of the 
 Jewish Canon. When we pass to the New Testa- 
 ment we shall find that for our purposes the literature 
 can be best divided into the Memoirs of our Lord, 
 the Pauline Letters, the Early Pages of the Christian 
 History, the Minor Letters, and the Johannine 
 Writings. 
 
 As has just been said, varying tests will have to be 
 applied to these very different groups, and we must 
 not expect anything like an uniform method of treat- 
 ment. But one or two principles must guide our 
 study throughout, and with a statement of these 
 principles this Introduction may close. First, we 
 must constantly try to get the writing under discus- 
 sion in its right historical relations ; this cannot 
 always be done in a way to command an universal 
 assent, for about the question of dates and author- 
 ship in the case of many Old Testament, and some 
 New Testament, books sub jiidice lis est, but it may 
 be at once premised that, except in one or two 
 instances which may easily be distinguished, the 
 method need not be affected by these disputes of 
 the " higher criticism." Should the ultimate verdict 
 be other than that which is assumed in our treatment 
 of the book or books, a corresponding change in the 
 estimate will easily be made by one who has followed 
 the method of reasoning. It must be our constant 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 object to illustrate and to prove that the actual con- 
 tents of Revelation, as it has been defined in this 
 chapter, cannot possibly be affected by the disputed 
 authorship, or, in most cases even, by the difficulty in 
 fixing the period, of the composition. From this first 
 will naturally follow a second principle of inquiry. In 
 estimating the degree or quantity of revelation in a 
 given book it will be wise to compare it, not so much 
 with the finished results of revelation which are before 
 us in the New Testament, as with the notions, beliefs, 
 and practices which existed so far as we know among 
 contemporary, and especially contiguous, peoples, for 
 it is evident that a truth may have been a startling 
 revelation twenty centuries ago which has become to 
 us almost a commonplace ; it is a very common 
 observation that an original genius is often less 
 appreciated by posterity than might be expected, just 
 because he has been so successful in inoculating sub- 
 sequent generations with his ideas ; still more in the 
 course of revelation we are apt to forget that imper- 
 fect truths, given as men were able to bear them, 
 were once almost meteoric in their brilliancy by com- 
 parison with the surrounding darkness ; we now 
 remember only that they are imperfect, we forget 
 that they were truths, and such truths as could not 
 have been discovered unless God had lifted at least a 
 corner of the veil. 
 
20 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Once again, another principle must rule all our 
 study, a principle which seems at first sight almost 
 exactly contradictory to the one which has just 
 been stated. While we throw ourselves back into 
 the past and endeavour to judge it with the eyes of a 
 contemporary, it is necessary to carry with us the 
 motto, Respice Finem ; we must never for a moment 
 forget that all ended in a great consummation, Jesus 
 Christ. If the crown of God's self-revelation was 
 that perfect and unique personality, and if all pre- 
 vious revelation was a preparation for Him, we shall 
 be keen to recognise every filament and fibre of truth 
 which eventually works its way from dark subsoils of 
 history or of thought into that finished Flower. And 
 if we keep this principle always in view, at the same 
 time trying to avoid all extravagance and unreason- 
 ableness in its application, we shall be constantly 
 reminded of a fact which is among the most wonder- 
 ful in the many wonderful features of the Bible. The 
 broad historic development of Israel very obviously 
 leads up to Christ, and all the institutions of the Law 
 and of the Congregation point to that marvellous 
 spiritual completion ; the modes of thought, the 
 expectations, the aspirations of Israel's thinkers and 
 prophets no less clearly prognosticate the great 
 Person that was to be ; these historical and spiritual 
 elements of revelation even a careless reader will find 
 
INTR 01) UC TION. 
 
 it difficult to miss if he studies the Old Testament in 
 the light of the New. But there is something more 
 curious still : how comes it that one story after 
 another in the narrative parts of the Old Testament 
 lends itself to a typological treatment, so that the 
 events are, as St. Paul would say, aKK'r]<^opovy.eva,^ 
 allegories of things which were only realised centuries 
 later ? How comes it that a narrative like that of 
 Abraham and Isaac presents a startling illustration 
 of the great Sacrifice which was to be offered on, or 
 near, Mount Moriah, in a distant and unseen future ? 
 How comes it that in reading the story of Joseph, as 
 natural and simple a tale as was ever penned, the 
 Christian constantly receives the impression that even 
 in little details it is a veiled presentation of Jesus and 
 His saving work? How comes it that the first Joshua 
 is in name and function the counterpart, or rather the 
 foreshadowing, of that second Joshua, whom we call 
 by the Greek equivalent of the name, Jesus ? And 
 when this typical significance of events and names 
 and persons is carried on through century after cen- 
 tury of a national literature, in ways which no human 
 foresight or wisdom could possibly have devised, so 
 that a Christian taking up the Old Testament with 
 Christ as the key finds in his hands a series of pic- 
 tures, as it were, all representing with outline more or 
 
 ' Gal. iv. 24. 
 
:REVELATI0N AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 less distinct, and with colours more or less har- 
 monised, the Lord whom he has learnt to know, is it 
 not plain that we are here face to face with a mys- 
 terious element of Revelation which we must con- 
 stantly bear in mind and honestly seek to explain ? 
 The mere scholar is naturally impatient of this 
 typological element in the Bible ; he resents the 
 extravagances and absurdities to which, from Bar- 
 nabas to Swedenborg, the recognition of this element 
 seems to have predisposed interpreters ; he insists in 
 the cold dry light of reason on treating the literature 
 of the Bible merely as literature, and the history 
 merely as history ; on the other hand, an uncritical 
 pietist is outraged by the scholarly method, and in 
 the vindication of what he clearly sees to be the facts 
 of this typology he is apt to denounce the scholar and 
 to run into all lengths of absurdity in carrying out 
 the one method which is plain to him. But the 
 scholar and the pietist must meet on the common 
 ground of seeking to understand Revelation ; if either 
 is absent the investigation will halt ; two keys simul- 
 taneously applied are needed to unlock this ancient 
 casket. No researches of criticism have explained 
 away the mysterious typology of the Scripture. No 
 indignant protests of simple unlearned Bible students 
 have delayed the inevitable work of criticism. But 
 the time seems to have come when scholarship should 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 seek to explain the features of the Bible which it is 
 powerless to explain away, and when pietism should 
 discern in scholarship its best friend, although its 
 sternest judge. 
 
 It is, so we may surmise, the outstanding charge 
 against the scholars of the " higher criticism " that 
 they are blind to the religious interests involved in 
 their discussions ; in analysing the warp and the 
 woof of the tapestry they fail to observe or to 
 appreciate the design and the colour ; they appear, 
 for the most part, more anxious to deal a blow at 
 error than to build the fabric of truth ; they insist 
 on dealing with the Bible merely as literature when 
 the world is demanding it as religious food, and pious 
 people are sure that in it they have found the bread 
 on which the soul can live. It must be confessed 
 that the students who have been hitherto drawn 
 into the pioneer work of Biblical Criticism are not, 
 for the most part, rich religious natures ; compared 
 with the full-blooded and impassioned eloquence of 
 an unreasoning dogmatism, they may appear jejune 
 and halting. But that is no matter for surprise. The 
 question is, not. Are these critics trustworthy religious 
 teachers ? but rather, Are the truths which they have 
 brought to light consistent with the strong and vital 
 faith in God and Revelation which is essential to the 
 power and efficiency of the Church ? 
 
24 RE VELA riON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 The answer to this question appears to the present 
 writer by no means doubtful. If the simple recogni- 
 tion of established facts were to shatter our religious 
 faith, rob us of our God, and draw a line of erasure 
 right through our Bible, it would be a plain duty to 
 accept the established facts. Unless Truth seems to 
 us more valuable than our God, our God will certainly 
 not be the real God, for He is Truth. Unless we 
 feel the solemn responsibility of accepting proved 
 facts, whatever havoc they may make with our 
 beliefs, our beliefs never can be true, for if the beliefs 
 themselves are true we shall yet hold them untruly. 
 " Blind unbelief is sure to err," and so is blind Belief. 
 We take a step in the direction of Death whenever 
 we deliberately resolve to deny or ignore a Fact. 
 But the results of Criticism, and the admission of 
 scientific facts, do not and cannot rob us of our God 
 — and if they alter our way of regarding the Bible, 
 they take it from us only to give it to us again. 
 What they shatter is that hoary coating of prejudice 
 and superstition which always forms upon the Truth 
 during ages of sleepy dogmatism and intellectual 
 apathy. This book will have entirely failed in its 
 purpose if it leaves the reader in any doubt that the 
 Revelation of God is confirmed rather than shaken, 
 illumined rather than obscured, by the new methods 
 of dealing with the Scriptures which fresh study and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 2$ 
 
 accumulating knowledge have rendered necessary. 
 It is strange that we, who have regarded with 
 equanimity the fierce assaults of Deism, Atheism, 
 and Secularism upon the Sacred Book, should show 
 a timorous anxiety when Christian scholars them- 
 selves are dealing in no iconoclastic spirit with the 
 facts which gave a handle to those embittered 
 assailants.! It is not an edifying spectacle to see 
 the children of the Reformation seeking to silence 
 inquiry by abuse and misrepresentation. They who 
 think to protect the Bible by a Dogma must in 
 the end discredit it, for they imply that their Dogma 
 is really the foundation on which the Bible rests. As 
 a matter of fact, the Bible stood before that crude 
 dogma of infallible inspiration was invented, and the 
 Bible will stand when that dogma has passed away. 
 That it rests not upon dogma, but upon the solid 
 foundations of demonstrable fact, the following pages 
 seek to show. 
 
 ' As Professor Cheyne has recently said, "Among those who have 
 thoroughly studied the Old Testament from a modern point of view the 
 period of negation and destruction is past, and the work of gentle and 
 gradual reconstruction has begun." {J ids to the Devout Study of 
 Criticism, p. 72.) 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE TOLEDOTH OR GENESIS. 
 
 The first book in the Bible was always called among 
 the Jews by the word with which it begins, n^^^^K"!?- 
 Our English name for it is simply an exact trans- 
 literation of the Greek title in the Septuagint, Teveai^. 
 But if we would adopt a name which would be 
 descriptive of the contents, it might be well to utilise 
 the Hebrew word which is translated by Generations 
 (nn^in). To this Hebrew word perhaps the nearest 
 English equivalent is Oidgins. 
 
 This is the book of the Origins. Looking back to 
 its beginning, from its closing chapter it is clear that 
 the main purpose has been to describe the Origin of 
 the people called Israel ; but this people is seen 
 emerging out of the other peoples of the earth, and 
 accordingly the origins of these other peoples are 
 sketched in outline. The inquiry is pushed up to 
 the origin of the human race, and in the last resort 
 
 to that of the earth itself and even the heavens. 
 
 26 
 
THE " TO LE DOTH'' OK GENESIS. 27 
 
 When the main purpose of the book is thus con- 
 ceived we shall necessarily arrange the materials in 
 a perspective which is slightly different from that 
 which is commonly presented. Standing, as it were, 
 in the midst of Israel in Egypt on the eve of what 
 may be called Israel's national Genesis, we look back 
 to the beginnings, which lie behind like a land of far 
 distances where everything is not equally distinct, 
 and bounded by an horizon which is luminous with 
 golden mists rather than with sharply defined facts ; 
 such images as have the appearance of solid realities 
 are symbolical pictures in the cloud, not valueless, 
 rather infinitely valuable, but their value lies in their 
 symbolism, and not in their actualit.v. 
 
 Taking up the Book of Genesis, then, on the 
 principles defined in the Introductory chapter, with 
 the view of answering the question. Wherein does the 
 revelation of the book consist? we are obliged to 
 give in the first instance a broad answer, and to 
 avoid details which may have the same confusing 
 effect upon the mind as if in trying to comprehend 
 a picture worked in tapestry we were to occupy our- 
 selves with a minute investigation of the stitches. 
 There are two salient and striking elements of reve- 
 lation in the book : first, a God dealing plastically 
 with the world, with man, with history ; second, a 
 nation drawn out of remote and obscure beginnings 
 
28 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 by the will of the God, and shaped by an unceasing 
 discipline for a far-off destiny. These are the two 
 foci of the ellipse, and in the orbit of the ellipse all 
 the events move in simple orderliness. The nature 
 of the God is not fully explained — His attributes are 
 quite imperfectly presented. As might be expected 
 in dealing with very primitive traditions and pre- 
 historical events, the book gives us gleams of a 
 Divine Being and echoes of a Divine voice, as they 
 might be perceived in the childhood of the world, 
 rather than any adequate portraiture of the Eternal 
 God. The origin of the nation, too, is given only in 
 sketches ; the book struggles with the manifold diffi- 
 culties of a remote antiquity, a varying tradition, 
 historical sources which do not always agree. As 
 we experience elsewhere in the origins of a nation, 
 so here we find the historical elements seem often to 
 be reached by stripping old stories of their mythical 
 elements, or by grasping the kernel of fact in developed 
 legends. But about one point there remains no 
 shadow of doubt : both the God and the providential 
 development of the nation appear as a distinct revela- 
 tion ; for the God is definitely the Being who is 
 manifested in the subsequent development of revela- 
 tion, growing clearer and clearer until the full-orbed 
 light is reached ; and the nation advances from these 
 shadowy origins to a historical completeness, and in 
 
THE " TO LE DOTH'' OR GENESIS. 29 
 
 its changing experiences of suffering and achievement 
 finally realises the promise contained in its germ. 
 The more steadily this broad revelation in the book 
 of the Origins is contemplated, and the more com- 
 pletely the light of subsequent facts is brought to 
 illustrate and illuminate it, the mind grows more and 
 more convinced of the essential fact, and more and 
 more indifferent to the secondary details. It becomes 
 impatient alike of the attacks made upon the details, 
 and of the defence of them offered by apologists, 
 when both attack and defence are essentially irrele- 
 vant, diverting attention from the bold contours and 
 the broad issues of the book. 
 
 But if we are prepared to hold firmly to the great 
 truths which are revealed in the book as a whole, we 
 may with safety and profit descend to test the degree 
 or the kind of revelation contained in the several 
 parts. Let us review in succession the five primeval 
 Toledoth : (i) The generations, or origins, of the 
 heaven and of the earth. ^ (2) The generations, or 
 origins, of Adam.^ (3) The generations, or origins, 
 of Noah.3 (4) The generations, or origins, of Noah's 
 sons.4 (5) The generations, or origins, of Shem.5 
 Then we can proceed to glance much more cursorily 
 at the five Patriarchal Toledoth of Terah, of Ishmael, 
 
 ' Gen. ii. 4. - Gen. v. i. 3 Gen. vi. 9. 
 
 "• Gen, X. I. 5 Gen. xi. 10. 
 
30 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 of Isaac, of Esau, of Jacob, with which the rest of the 
 book is concerned. 
 
 First of all, the Origins of the Heaven and the 
 Earth. The existence of two narratives lying side 
 by side in the first and second chapters of Genesis is 
 very interesting and full of suggestion so soon as the 
 bearing of the fact is understood. It would take us 
 too far away from the present purpose to give even a 
 brief sketch of the literary analysis to which scholar- 
 ship has subjected the Pentateuchal literature, but it 
 may be said at once and in a word that one half of 
 the acknowledged difficulties of the Pentateuch dis- 
 appear when these established literary facts are dis- 
 tinctly recognised. The series of books from Genesis 
 to Joshua is, in the form that is familiar to us, the 
 work of the scribes who reverently compiled and 
 edited the Law after the return from Exile. The 
 earliest materials in the Hexateuch are as old as 
 Moses ; the latest come from the period when his 
 institutions had achieved their utmost development 
 and assumed their final form. The literary strata in 
 the Work can be determined with some degree of 
 certainty by literary and historical tests which it is 
 impossible to recapitulate here. Suffice it to say that 
 the sublime passage with which the Bible opens 
 belongs to that latest stratum of the literature 
 which represents the completest form of the Mosaic 
 
THE " TOLEDOTH'' OR GENESIS. 31 
 
 Law.i The second account of the origins of the earth 
 and of man (Gen. ii. 4<^-iii. 24) is taken from the pro- 
 phetic writer of the Southern Kingdom, who is called 
 the Yahvist, because of his preference for the sacred 
 name nn» (Yahveh or Jehovah) in his writings. 
 
 When the author or editor of Genesis puts two 
 different accounts of the Creation side by side without 
 any attempt to harmonise them, or to remove the 
 discrepancies which are visible from the different 
 standpoints, we seem warned at once that we are 
 not to seek the Revelation in the details of either 
 narrative, but rather in the spiritual conceptions or 
 the ethical lessons which both the narratives pre- 
 suppose. And this first impression is confirmed by 
 every step of subsequent inquiry. The attempt to 
 square either of these accounts with the results ot 
 Modern Science is labour thrown away. If they 
 were scientifically correct it would not prove that 
 they were revealed ; if they are scientifically crude 
 and inexact it does not show that there is no revela- 
 tion contained in them. A far more remunerative 
 field of investigation lies in the direction of Com- 
 parative Mythology. If we can place these Origins 
 
 ' This Priestly Code, as it is now usually called, is designated P by 
 our latest English scholars, but Wellhausen uses the letter Q, and 
 Dillmann the letter A as its distinctive mark. All, however, are agreed 
 that the Priest's Code is the framework of the Hexateuch, into which 
 the other materials from the Yahvist J, the second Elohist E, and the 
 Deuteronomist D are fitted in. (Driver's Introduction, p. 9.) 
 
32 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 of the world and of man side by side with the 
 Cosmogonies of the Ancients, noticing where agree- 
 ment betrays the existence of common human tradi- 
 tions, and where disagreement suggests that a Divine 
 element has entered in, we shall find ourselves on 
 the track of determining what revelation is contained 
 in these narratives. And strange to say, the researches 
 of our own day have put the materials of comparison 
 into our hands. The clay tablets found by George 
 Smith in the library of Assurbanipal, on the site of 
 Nineveh, have revealed the conceptions of the Creation 
 which prevailed in Babylon, not only at the time of 
 the Exile, but at the time of Moses, and probably 
 centuries before. Two passages translated by Prof. 
 Sayce from this Babylonian account of the Creation 
 will enable the reader to see at any rate the principle 
 of the comparison suggested. The first of these 
 passages is taken from the Fourth Tablet, which 
 describes the battle between Bel and Tiamat : — 
 
 At that time the heaven above had not yet announced, 
 
 or the earth beneath recorded, a name ; 
 
 the unopened deep was their generator, 
 
 Mummu Tiamat ^ was the mother (bearer) of them all. 
 
 Their waters were embosomed as one, and 
 
 the cornfield was unharvested, the pasture was ungrown. 
 
 ^ The connection between Mummu Tiamat (the chaos of the sea) and 
 the Dfnn. of Gen. i. 2 will strike every reader of the Hebrew Bible. 
 It is obvious, too, to connect the \x\2, of Gen. i. 2 with the woman 
 Baau, who, in our version of the Phoenician Cosmogony, appears as 
 
 Night. 
 
THE " TOLEDOTH'' OR GENESIS. 
 
 At that time the £jocls had not appeared, any one of them, 
 
 by no name were they recorded, no destiny (had they fixed). 
 
 Then the (great) gods were created, 
 
 Lakhmu and Lakhamu issued forth (the first), 
 
 until they grew up (when) 
 
 Ansar and Ki-sar were created. 
 
 Long were the days, extended (was the time, and) 
 
 the gods Anu. (Bel and Ea were born). 
 
 Ansar and Ki-sar (gave them birth). 
 
 The Other passage is taken from the Fifth Tablet, 
 which describes the creation of the heavenly bodies: — 
 
 He (Anu) illuminated the Moon-god that he might watch over the 
 
 night, 
 and ordained for him the ending of the night that the day may be 
 
 known, 
 (saying) Month by month without break keep watch (?) in thy disk; 
 at the beginning of the month kindle the night, 
 announcing thy horns that the heaven may know. 
 On the seventh day, (filling thy) disk, 
 thou shalt open indeed its narrow contraction.^ 
 
 The impression of similarity to the first chapter o{ 
 Genesis is enhanced by noticing that the creative 
 work is recorded on seven tablets, and that the 
 Babylonians divided their days into sevens, and called 
 the seventh " sa-bat-tu," treating it as a day of repose. 
 
 But while the resemblances between the Chaldean 
 and the Hebraic cosmogony are striking and interest- 
 ing, the differences are far more significant. The 
 account just quoted from the Fourth Tablet is clearly 
 a myth ; the origin of the world is materialistic, for 
 that Tiamat which precedes the creation of the gods 
 
 ' Sayce's IlUd'crt Latiirc, p. 3S4, 6v:c. 
 4 
 
34 RE VELA riON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 is simply Chaos personified. It may be observed, 
 too, that other passages of the account, if we may 
 trust Berosus, represented this primeval Chaos as 
 swarming- with monstrous living creatures. In a 
 word, according to this mythology, the gods did not 
 create the world, but rather the world created them. 
 The distinctive note of Gen. i., on the other hand, is 
 that " in the beginning " there was God, and He 
 created the whole universe. Again, the Sabbath of 
 the Babylonian records does not appear as a Divine 
 institution, while in Gen. i. it seems only to be men- 
 tioned in order to enforce by the example of the 
 Creator the observance among men of the seventh 
 day of rest. 
 
 If it were possible to extend our survey and to 
 institute a comparison with the cosmogonies of other 
 religions, the impression made by reference to this 
 Babylonian document would be deepened. On the 
 one hand, it is clear that there are some elements in 
 Genesis, chap, i., which occur in the common tradition 
 of kindred peoples, not to say in the traditions of 
 other branches of the human family. Thus the 
 general scheme of Creation in seven periods, 
 the notion of a primeval chaos, the introduction of 
 a God speaking, the eulogy on the several stages of 
 creation, the mention of the heavenly bodies as 
 placed to determine the year, are features of this 
 
THE " TO LE DOTH'' OR GENESIS. 
 
 35 
 
 Chaldean Cosmogony which has accidentally been 
 brought to light in our own day. We can 
 hardly maintain that these details are a revelation 
 in the Book of Genesis without admitting that they 
 are a revelation in the clay tablets of Assurbanipal, 
 which go back to an older date, as well. And 
 according to the principle of our inquiry we shall 
 rather conclude that in these and similar details 
 the Biblical writer simply uses the notions which 
 came to his hand, the primitive conception of the 
 world's origin which prevailed in the plain of 
 Mesopotamia at the time when he wrote. But, 
 on the other hand, the further the comparison with 
 other religious systems is carried, the more con- 
 vincing is the conclusion that the whole tenor of this 
 first chapter of Genesis is unique. God is at the 
 beginning. He has no equal, no rival. The spiritual 
 beings with whom He consults, " Let us make man," 
 are not other gods, but merely " ministers of his that 
 do his pleasure." The whole Creation proceeds from 
 His will and the word of His mouth. Further, the 
 stages of the Creation are distinctly marked, and if 
 the writer is ignorant of the scientific connection 
 between the several orders of beings, he is at least 
 aware of the position which man holds in the scale 
 as the crown and summit of created things ; he is 
 able to say, *' God created man in his own image, male 
 
36 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 and female created he them." This clear and firm 
 conception of God as the Creator, and of man as the 
 image of his Creator, is in itself sufficiently wonderful, 
 and can leave no doubt on the mind of the student 
 of Comparative Mythology that in this point lies 
 the essential revelation of this chapter. If the 
 chapter had been composed for the first time to-day 
 — in the schools of Darwin or Haeckel, for example — 
 it would be a revelation ; it would be, not a scientific 
 statement, but the assertion of two consummate 
 truths which science is not able to discover. 
 Positivism cannot say, " In the beginning God 
 created the heaven and the earth," or, " God created 
 man in his own image." If these truths are not 
 revealed they cannot be known, and yet when they 
 are revealed they become the key to all the science 
 of God, or Theology, and to all the science of Man, 
 or Anthropology. But if this chapter would be a 
 revelation, coming for the first time into the world 
 to-day, how much more was it a revelation, issuing 
 from the little company of those who preserved the 
 Law in the midst of the corruptions and defilements 
 and idolatries of Babylon ! When the position is 
 correctly stated and cleared from false issues, it is 
 questionable whether even the Positivist will not 
 come to perceive that here is, indeed, not perhaps a 
 scientific truth, but yet a truth, a truth of Revelation: 
 
THE " TOLEDOTH'' OR GENESIS. 37 
 
 And if we are right in regarding this chapter as a 
 product of the Captivity, how profoundly significant 
 is the absence of all mythological elements from the 
 stately record ! ^ Those sad-eyed exiles, surrounded 
 by the most prolific mythologies, and breathing the 
 air, speaking even the language, of a people that 
 were .steeped in the myths of their religious litera- 
 ture, yet, under the guidance of the Spirit, could 
 thus conceive and describe the Supreme God at 
 work in the making of the world and in the 
 generation of His son, Man. 
 
 Second, the Origins of Adam. The other version 
 of the Creation, contained in chap. ii. 4, ct seq., is 
 frorh the literary point of view older than chap. i. 
 It is more picturesque, but less sublime. The order 
 of the Creation is very different. Man is made 
 before the vegetation, then come the beasts of the 
 field, and finally woman. No reference is made to 
 the heavenly bodies. There is a beautiful local 
 colour in the narrative, and while every detail 
 reminds us that we are here dealing not with history, 
 but with allegory, we are conscious that the con- 
 
 ' The trace of the myth of the world-egg in the nSflTp of 
 Gen. i. 2, and the reference to the Sun-god ruHng the day in 
 Di*n n?E^'Ppp of verse 16, as also the Dinri and -iriB, alluded to in a 
 previous note, are simply linguistic, and are no more to be treated as 
 marks of a mythological belief than our names for the days of the 
 week imply a belief in Wodin or Thoror Freyda. (Delitzsch, Genesis, 
 vol. i. p. 63. T. and T. Clark.) 
 
38 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 ceptions come from a time when the ideas of God 
 were far more primitive, and more anthropomorphic 
 than those implied in chap. i. It might be thought 
 that the very expressions " tree of Hfe " and " tree of 
 the knowledge of good and evil " would immediately 
 show to an intelligent mind that the story is sym- 
 bolical. The four rivers, again, issuing from one 
 source, especially when two of them are identified as 
 the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the other two are 
 most probably the Indus and the Nile, seem to warn 
 us of themselves against looking for any literal accu- 
 racy in the narrative. The Garden of Eden would 
 have to be ^s large as a continent to contain the 
 widely-parted sources of these historic streams. The 
 origin of woman, too, from the rib of a man is 
 evidently a symbolical conception, which is paral- 
 leled in other mythologies, ^ Further, a serpent 
 that speaks proclaims itself to be in the region of 
 fable. In the Babylonian mythology the serpent was 
 connected with the god of wisdom, " more subtil 
 than any beast of the field " which had been created 
 in the land of Edina.^ And so in the Persian 
 mythology the serpent Dahaka is the creature by 
 whose means Ahriman destroys the first-created land 
 
 ^ One of the magical texts of the Assyrian tablets says of the seven 
 evil spirits, "The woman from the loins of the man they bring forth." 
 (Sayce, Hibbert Lecture, p. 395.) 
 
 ^ Sayce, Hibbert Lectuj-e, p. 2S2. 
 
THE " TOLEDOTH'' OK GENESIS. 39 
 
 of Ormuzd, and Ahriman himself is represented as 
 appearing in a serpent form. These are but a few of 
 the more obvious indications that this second version 
 of the Creation is not even meant to be historical. 
 
 Does it therefore cease to be a revelation } 
 Because it differs entirely from the magnificent 
 presentation of chap, i., does it contain no truths 
 which may be described as revealed } That is the 
 question which confronts us, and the answer is over- 
 whelming and conclusive. Once take the view that 
 we are here dealing with a pictorial representation of 
 the Origin of Man and of Woman, and the Origin of 
 human sin, once lay aside the childish misinterpreta- 
 tion that would treat the story as literal fact, and 
 immediately the whole passage begins to glow with 
 religious significance, and the note of inspiration 
 strikes upon the ear. Man is appointed as the lord 
 of the earth : he is placed in a garden of joy to be 
 tried : woman is made as his companion, and mono- 
 gamy is recognised as a divine thought : the origin 
 of sin is found in a temptation from without, a 
 suggestion of a malignant power, not a natural 
 inclination of man's own heart, so that man in his 
 very sin is still redeemable : the temptation lies in 
 the direction of leaving the path of obedience to 
 God, and entering on a life of independent moral 
 development ; the punishment lies in the expulsion 
 
40 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 from the garden of simple and untried felicity ; the 
 redemption is promised in a distant victory which 
 shall be attained by the " seed of the woman." ^ These 
 are the religious truths conveyed through the story. 
 They are truths which are confirmed by all sub- 
 sequent knowledge. No thinker, no scientist, has 
 given a better account of man's origin, of woman's 
 relation to man, of the origin of evil and the promise 
 of victory over it, than this which, in a half-poetical, 
 half-allegorical form, is furnished by Gen. ii. Here 
 is the Man, the creature of the ground, ^"J^ ; here is 
 ^\^, the " life-mother " ; here is their essential relation 
 to God and to one another ; here is the trial, the fall, 
 the hope of humanity, told in a tale of simplicity 
 which the sage cannot fathom, yet the child can 
 understand. How came these truths into a Hebrew 
 myth } Granted that as a myth it hides rather than 
 displays the physical origin of man, how comes it 
 that on the veil of the myth are delineated these 
 moral and spiritual lessons which it behoves us all as 
 men to know and to ponder 1 There can be but one 
 answer : this is revelation ; the Yahvist, or whatever 
 else you may call this author, spoke and wrote under 
 the instruction of a Holy Spirit of truth, and told 
 
 ' See Dr. Lyman Abbott's Evolution of Christianity, p. 225, for a 
 fine description of the way in which the Story of Eden is repeated in 
 the life of every human being. 
 
THE " TO LE DOTH'' OR GENESIS. \\ 
 
 the world what the world, but for such teaching, 
 might not recognise even now. 
 
 In the account of the immediate descendants of 
 the Man (Dns) we have first the narrative given by 
 the Yahvist, chap, iv., and then the same ground 
 covered by an extract from the author of chap. i. 
 or P. A careful comparison of these two chapters, 
 iv. and v., is very instructive in showing us the 
 difference between the two sources. The Yahvist 
 preserves one of the most ancient pieces of song in 
 the world (iv. 23, 24). P gives a dry genealogical 
 list, broken only by a clause of sublime beauty 
 (v. 24). But there is no need to dwell upon these 
 chapters in our present study, and we must hasten 
 on to the third of our primitive Toledoth. 
 
 Third, the Origins of Noah. It will be self-evident 
 to any student of comparative religions that it is 
 vain to seek for any revelation in the mere recorded 
 fact of a Deluge. Every primeval religion in Asia, 
 Africa, and America, contains in one form or another 
 the same fact. One of the most interesting primitive 
 traditions of that disastrous event is that which 
 Assyriologists have deciphered in the clay tablets 
 from Nineveh. This story, we are assured, dates 
 from Accadian times, two thousand years before 
 our era. In many respects it corresponds v/ith the 
 version of Berosus, which has been familiar to the 
 
42 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Church for centuries through the Chronicon of 
 Eusebius. But the eleventh tablet of the Isdubar 
 Epic, containing the Chaldean account of the Flood, 
 comes to us not through the questionable channels 
 of a Church historian ; it starts into life from the 
 ruins of a forgotten city. It was in 1872 that 
 George Smith gave to the world this remarkable 
 fragment in which Hasisadra relates to Isdubar 
 how he escaped the flood by building a vessel, and 
 bringing into it what living creatures he could get. 
 The flood rose for six days and seven nights, then 
 it began to abate. When his vessel stranded on the 
 mountain in the land of Nizir he let out the dove, 
 which, finding no foothold, returned ; then the 
 swallow, which also returned ; but the raven, though 
 wading in the water, refused to come back. When 
 he issued from the ship, Hasisadra erected an altar 
 on the summit of the mountain and offered a sacri- 
 fice, and " the gods sucked in the scent, the gods 
 sucked in the well-smelling scent ; the gods gathered 
 like flies over the sacrificer." Bel was angry because 
 any one had escaped the flood ; but the other gods 
 soothed him, saying that it was unjust to punish the 
 innocent with the guilty, so that he went into the 
 vessel, blessed Hasisadra and his wife, and declared 
 that they should be forthwith raised to the gods.^ 
 
 ' Schrader, Die Keilinschriften icnd das Alte Testament, 1883. 
 
THE " TOLEDOTH'' Ok GENESIS. 43 
 
 This close and interesting resemblance between 
 the narrative in the Book of Genesis and the far 
 more ancient narrative from the Assyrian tablets, 
 shows us that it cannot be in the record of the event 
 that we must seek for the element of revelation. It 
 may be said that the clay tablets confirm the 
 historical reality of the Flood : that is quite pos- 
 sible, but as they bring the event into the region 
 of historical tradition, they demonstrate that as a 
 narrative of fact it is no longer to be regarded as 
 a revelation. That there was a great Deluge in the 
 Mesopotamian valley, from which only a handful 
 of human beings escaped, may be regarded as a 
 fact ; but the narrative of that fact occurring in the 
 Book of Genesis would not of itself constitute a 
 revelation, while — paradoxical as it may sound — 
 the narrative in Gen. vi.-ix. would constitute a 
 revelation, whether such a flood had happened or 
 not : for it is in the handling of the tradition and 
 the religious interpretation of the catastrophe that 
 the Biblical narrative appears to differ entirely from 
 the records of similar deluges in other religious 
 sources. It is the same One God, in whose presence 
 the crow^ding figures of the Babylonian Pantheon 
 disappear ; it is the same prevailing motive of 
 righteousness, the same relation between sinful man 
 and his Creator, the same Divine purpose of re- 
 
44 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 demption, that we have already seen in the opening 
 chapters of Genesis. When the story lies side by side 
 with the Isdubar Epic, and one comes to carefully 
 compare the two, then the decisive sense in which 
 this is a revelation begins to appear. But this does 
 not mean that we are at liberty to press the details 
 of the story, or to claim that revelation has been 
 invoked in order to tell us the dimensions of the 
 ark, the numbers of the animals, the duration of the 
 flood, or the other features which had come down 
 in the tradition. The careful analysis of the literary 
 sources has saved us from this truly grotesque mis- 
 take by showing us that these four chapters are 
 made up of a very skilful combination of two 
 distinct narratives — one, the version of that Priestly 
 Code which is by scholars designated P ; the other, 
 the version of the Yahvist (J). When these two 
 narratives are distinguished, as they easily may be 
 by a little careful study,^ it is found that, according 
 to P, two animals of each kind, a male and a female, 
 were saved, while J says, that of the clean beasts 
 
 ^ Let the reader underline in his Bible (R.V.)the following passages, 
 which are from J: — chap. vi. i-8 ; vii. 1-5, 7-10 (with the exception 
 of the clause contained in ver. 9), 12, 16 (from " and the Lord," &c.), 
 17, 22, 23; viii. 2 (beginning "and the rain," &c.), 3 (to "con- 
 tinually"), 6-12, 13 ("and Noah . . . ground was dried"), 20-22; 
 ix. 18-27. And then let him read the parts which are not underlined 
 from P, and he will quickly see the cogency of the statement made in 
 the text. 
 
THE " TO LE DOTH'' OK GENESIS. 45 
 
 seven of each kind were taken Into the ark. Again, 
 according to P, the duration of the flood, or at any 
 rate the residence in the ark, was a whole • year, 
 (vii. II and viii. 14), while J speaks definitely of the 
 flood lasting forty days, and of two periods of seven 
 days during which the waters abated and the ground 
 became dry. There is something quite sad in re- 
 membering how much ingenuity has been spent on 
 trying to make the Holy Spirit responsible for the 
 details of a narrative like this, when a careful study 
 of the Hebrew original could so easily show that 
 the writer himself had two versions of the story 
 before him ; and also when the real elements of 
 Revelation — the direct and actual work of the Spirit 
 — are so evident and so independent of the mere 
 traditional materials which w^ere employed. 
 
 Four, the Origins of the Sons of NoaJi, In the 
 most interesting table of the nations, which consti- 
 tutes chap. X., there is certainly no theological or 
 religious end to be served by asserting that the 
 names are given by a direct revelation from God, 
 and not by the ordinary methods of historical 
 tradition. Nothing but the unnatural methods of an 
 erroneous theory of inspiration could have led men 
 into the abj^urdity of maintaining that here we have 
 an exhaustive account of the various families of the 
 human race. Such a contention gives at once a 
 
46 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 point of attack for the philologist and the ethnolo- 
 gist, invites their criticism, and provokes their con- 
 demnation. If we approach this chapter, however, 
 with no presupposition, and no theory to maintain, 
 we find, along with many students of our own day, 
 that this fragmentary account of the various races 
 included in a circle, the centre of which is placed 
 at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, and 
 the circumference of which sweeps round Persia, 
 Asia Minor, Ionia, and the more distant parts of the 
 Mediterranean, Egypt, and Arabia, is among the 
 most valuable sources of the kind that ethnologists 
 have at their disposal. It is, we have every reason 
 to believe, thoroughly trustworthy. It has been 
 pronounced by Dillmann " an unquestionable his- 
 torical, geographical monument," though it covers 
 only the Caucasian race in Blumenbach's divi- 
 sion of the human family into the Caucasian, 
 Mongolian, Malayan, American, and Ethiopian, and 
 omits even those original stocks in Palestine, the 
 Amalekites, Rephaim, Emim, and Zuzim, which 
 would have been, we might have thought, within 
 the purview of the writer. To claim for this list the 
 authority of revelation is to obscure and to destroy 
 its unquestioned authority as a fragment of ethno- 
 graphical and historical information. 
 
 Passing on to the account of Babel in the opening 
 
THE ''TOLEDOTH" OK GENESIS. 47 
 
 verses of chap, xi., we may content ourselves with 
 quoting an illustrative passage from an Assyrian 
 tablet concerning — so Professor Sayce believes — the 
 Tower of Babel. It is speaking of a leader of 
 rebellion who, when "the thought of his heart was 
 hostile, . . . had wronged the father of all the gods." 
 He hurried to seize Babylon, and his host were 
 " mi7igling the mound when the divine king of the 
 illustrious mound, Anu, lifted up ... in front, and 
 prayed to his father, the lord of the firmament." 
 " In his wrath he overthrows their secret counsel ; in 
 his fury he set his face to mingle their designs, he 
 gave command, he made strange their plan." ^ The 
 word '' mingle," italicised in this quotation, is the 
 very word in Assyrian which is rendered " confound " 
 in Gen. xi. 9. Once again the Babylonian version of 
 a story stands side by side with the Biblical to 
 remind us how far the two agree, where they differ, 
 and to enable us to perceive in what sense we are to 
 regard the Biblical narrative as a revelation. 
 
 Five, the Origins of SJieni. In following the brief 
 genealogical tree up to Terah, there are two observa- 
 tions to be made which may help us to conceive 
 more clearly the limits which must be put to finding 
 revelation in every detail of the record. The LXX. 
 insert another name in the list at ver. 12. "Arphach- 
 
 * Sayce, Hihhert Lecture, p. 406. 
 
48 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 sad lived five and thirty years, and begat Kainan : 
 and Arphachsad lived after he begat Kainan four 
 hundred years, and begat sons and daughters, and 
 died. And Kainan lived one hundred and thirty 
 years, and begat Shelah," &c. St. Luke in his 
 genealogy (iii. 36) follovvs the LXX. We are obliged 
 to face the question : Is the Septuagint version which 
 St. Luke adopted the correct one, or is our Hebrew 
 text to be accepted ? It is not, of course, material to 
 decide, but it is very important to note that we have 
 no authority to insist on the accuracy of these details, 
 and the attempt to do so, especially if our view of 
 Revelation is practically bound up with this notion 
 of unerring accuracy, must necessarily shake the faith 
 in revelation itself The other observation is of a 
 kindred nature. The chronological calculations 
 based on such numbers as occur here are of the 
 most precarious character. The LXX. make the 
 period between the birth of Arphachsad and the 
 migration of Abram 1245 years ; our text makes 
 it 365 years. And yet we know that the New 
 Testament, as a whole, follows the LXX. chrono- 
 logy rather than that of the Hebrew text. The 
 difficulties connected with the agelong lives of these 
 primitive men have led even so conservative an 
 expositor as Delitzsch to conjecture that the whole 
 sum of years between the Flood and Abram is 
 
THE '' rOLEDOTH'' OR GENESIS. 49 
 
 divided among the individual patriarchs as repre- 
 sentatives of successive epochs in this period. If 
 such a conjecture is probable, we must certainly 
 abstain from laying stress upon what the great com- 
 mentator calls this " motley jumble of numbers," 
 and we must discard from the contents of revelation 
 those schemes of chronology which were based on 
 the assumed infallibility of these dates. The proofs 
 which Geology has furnished of the remote antiquity 
 of man on the globe do not really come into collision 
 with Revelation, for most assuredly these figures are 
 not revealed^ they are simply the result of the 
 defective methods of reckoning time which charac- 
 terise ail early histories, and which we have no reason 
 to suppose that God would remedy by supernatural 
 means. 
 
 The remaining part of the Book of Origins must 
 necessarily be dealt with in a more cursory manner. 
 The chosen race is henceforth disentangled from the 
 collateral branches. The father of the faithful 
 emerges into a clear light, and a detailed history of 
 his life is given, though the same principle of briefly 
 mentioning and then leaving on one side the col- 
 lateral lines is still followed for a time ; the Toledoth 
 of Ishmael arc hastily dismissed in order to follow 
 Isaac's generation more particularly ; and again, the 
 Toledoth of Esau are passed rapidly over, that all 
 
 5 
 
50 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 attention may be fixed upon Jacob. When the 
 writer reaches the generations of the Twelve Tribes 
 the purpose of the book is attained. 
 
 Is it possible for us to particularise the revelation 
 which is contained in these incomparable narratives ? 
 Granting that the main gist of the revelation of God 
 lies in the historical selection and preparation of 
 Israel as a people, can we lay our hands with any 
 certainty upon the elements of revelation contained 
 in the several parts of the story ? Can we do this 
 without sliding into the easy but fallacious assump- 
 tion, that because the revelation is in these chapters 
 so broad and beautiful a light, therefore all the details 
 or all the facts are guaranteed to us on an infallible 
 authority ? This is the problem before earnest Bible 
 students of the present day. Only an outline of the 
 answer can be attempted here. 
 
 It may be at once asserted 'that the work of 
 archaeologists in the past thirty years has all tended 
 to show the historical accuracy of the pictures con- 
 tained in these chapters. In the most impressive 
 way the forgotten inscriptions of Assyria and the 
 undeciphered papyri of Egypt came to light like a 
 witness stepping out of the tomb to reaffirm the 
 truthfulness of our records, just when a pitiless 
 Biblical Criticism was disposed to resolve the names 
 into solar myths, and the facts into idle legend. For 
 
THE " TOLEDOTW OR GENESIS. 51 
 
 example, scholars have hesitated to press the his- 
 torical reality of chap. xiv. In the absence of con- 
 firmatory evidence, the invasion of the West by these 
 Mesopotamian kings seemed highly doubtful, and 
 the mysterious appearance of Melchizedek, king of 
 Salem, suggested an explanation other than the 
 historical one. But the annals of Sargon of Accad, 
 in the clay tablets of the British Museum, show that 
 Babylonian kings made expeditions to the Mediter- 
 ranean 3800 years before Christ. The name of Eri- 
 Aku, king of Larsa, occurs on one of the bricks, 
 and he describes himself as the son of Kudur-Mabug 
 of Elam. This first name seems to remind us of 
 Arioch of Ellasar, and the Kudur, meaning "servant," 
 of the god Mabug, illustrates Chedor-laomer, or 
 servant of the god Laomer. Still more direct is the 
 witness of the cuneiform tablets found at Tel-el- 
 Amarna, in Egypt, to the historical reality of Mel- 
 chizedek. From them we learn that Ebed-Tob was 
 a priest-king in Jerusalem at that early period, 
 inheriting his dignity not from father or mother, but 
 by the oracle of Salem, the god of peace, whose 
 temple stood where afterwards the Temple of 
 Jehovah was built. ^ This is certainly a highly inte- 
 resting reminder that underneath this chapter of 
 
 ^ See a paper in The Expository Times of December, 1S91, by Prof. 
 Sayce. 
 
52 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Genesis lie historical traditions which must have 
 come down from very ancient times. 
 
 Again, the decipherment of the Egyptian hiero- 
 glyphics has revealed in a most remarkable way the 
 truthful colouring of the whole story of Joseph in 
 Egypt. Almost every detail receives illustration 
 from the monuments. The narrative contains 
 Egyptian words which have only become intelligible 
 by the recovery of this forgotten language. For 
 instance, Mr. Le Page Renouf has suggested that 
 Joseph's Egyptian name, Zaphnath-paaneah, would 
 signify " Storehouse of the house of life." ^ It has 
 become quite plain that the two authors, the Yahvist 
 and the Elohist, whose narratives are combined in 
 these chapters, certainly had at their disposal 
 authentic materials of the period about which they 
 were writing. Such verisimilitude, such correctness 
 of local colour, such embodiment of Egyptian words, 
 which could not be in use — perhaps would not be 
 intelligible — among the contemporaries of the writers, 
 can only be explained by the existence of these 
 authentic sources, which furnished the matter of the 
 narratives. 
 
 There is an evidence, too, of quite another kind to 
 
 ^ A convenient and accessible summary of the confirmation given by 
 Egyptology to the Biblical narratives is given in Mr. Budge's Dtvellers 
 on the Nile. (R.T.S., Bye-Paths of Bible Ivnowledge.) 
 
■ THE " TOLEDOTH" OR GENESIS. 53 
 
 the truthfulness of these narratives. It may be called 
 a ps)xhological evidence. The late Charles Reade 
 once wrote some papers on Bible Characters, and 
 showed, from the standpoint of a novelist, what 
 miraculous truth there is in these Scriptural delinea- 
 tions. The supposition that Abraham, for instance, 
 is a solar myth breaks down in face of the fact that 
 he is a most perfectly drawn human character. Shak- 
 spere could not be more consistent than are these 
 two writers (J and E) in the language and actions 
 ascribed to the patriarch. Jacob is equally distinct 
 and recognisable. Judah, the frail and sinning, but 
 just and generous man, is a perfect portrait. His 
 speech before Joseph in chap. xliv. is either literally 
 true, or the work of a consummate dramatic artist. 
 Still more remarkable is the whole presentation of 
 Joseph. Homer has left us no such flawless picture. 
 It is here that the recognition of separate sources, 
 which Orthodoxy once resented as a dishonour, has 
 become a confirmation and an evidence to Scripture. 
 When it is quite easy to detect a double narrative 
 coming from two quite distinct authors, who differed 
 considerably in the details of their story, the perfectly 
 consistent human character resulting from a com- 
 bination of the two, is a clear proof that they both 
 were speaking about a real person. One may say, 
 on this psychological ground, if ever there was a 
 
54 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 genuine biography in the world, this biography of 
 Joseph is genuine. 
 
 Another most interesting evidence of genuineness 
 occurs in the prophecy of Jacob concerning the 
 Twelve Sons, which occurs in chap, xlix. Look at 
 the words spoken concerning Levi and Simeon. 
 Jacob pronounces a curse upon them, and speaks of 
 their being scattered in Israel as a penalty of their 
 sins. Then look at the very ancient " blessing of the 
 tribes " in Deut. xxxiii. There Simeon is not men- 
 tioned, but Levi is recognised as the teacher of all 
 Israel. How inconceivable it is that this prophecy of 
 Jacob could have been composed after Levi had thus 
 become the priestly tribe ! Equally striking is the 
 oracle about Zebulun (ver. 13), for it was a prophecy 
 which received no fulfilment. Zebulun, as we learn 
 from Josh. xix. 10-16 (P), did not reach the coast of 
 the sea.i And thus the very failure of the prophecy 
 is a proof of its antiquity and genuineness. 
 
 These converging proofs of the antiquity and cor- 
 rectness of the records on which the narratives are 
 based give a strong historical credibility to the book. 
 We may say, with a confidence which a few years 
 ago would have seemed to be temerity, that we are 
 here dealing with a trustworthy history. Now, it has 
 
 ^ Cf. Deut. xxxiii. 19, where the prophecy also points to a seaboard 
 for Zebukin, 
 
THE '' TOLEDOTIV OR GENESIS. 55 
 
 been already pointed out that historical trustworthi- 
 ness and revelation are by no means to be confused 
 together. In a sense they are the opposite of one 
 another; for what is historically known and confirmed 
 by sufficient historical proofs is so far not revealed. 
 We shall not, therefore, seek the revelation of these 
 chapters in their historical trustworthiness. There 
 would be a good deal of recognisable revelation in 
 them if they were merely tales that emanated from 
 the religious consciousness of Israel. But in propor- 
 tion as we are entitled to treat the story as a correct 
 presentation of the main facts, the facts, as facts, 
 show themselves as a true revelation. The writings 
 are a revelation because they come from the pens 
 of men imbued with true and vital religious ideas, 
 but the events which lie behind the records are in 
 themselves a revelation, and would be a revelation 
 though it were recorded by a heathen. 
 
 For what is the gist of the facts recorded } 
 Abram, an inhabitant of a city devoted to the 
 worship of the Sun-god on the lower reaches of 
 the Euphrates, is led out by the voice of God to 
 be the father of a very peculiar and significant race. 
 By methods which are not without their parallel 
 in later times God reveals Himself to the man. No 
 one supposes that this primitive revelation of God 
 to the patriarch was, or could be, in any sense 
 
56 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 complete ; we must expect limitations and imper- 
 fections both in the revelation itself and in the 
 apprehension of it. Biit no one who is not com- 
 mitted to the unproved dogma that God cannot 
 reveal Himself to men, need doubt, or indeed can 
 doubt, that the distinctive note of Abram's life 
 was precisely a revelation of God to him. Follow- 
 ing the commandments of that inner voice, Abram 
 went out and entered a strange land, convinced that 
 he would some day possess it, and that his remote 
 progeny should be a divine blessing to all families 
 of mankind. This germ of revelation and this 
 susceptibility to Divine guidance pass on to Isaac, 
 and from Isaac to Jacob, and from Jacob to Joseph. 
 Nowhere is it possible to touch these narratives 
 without eliciting a spark of revelation. God is 
 with the men. It is the first authentic account 
 of a walk maintained with God, or of men from 
 generation to generation becoming the subjects of 
 the Unseen Providence, and the instruments of the 
 Unseen Will. While this guiding truth presides 
 over our reading of the narratives all is instructive 
 and full of spiritual significance ; we only lose the 
 clue when we turn aside to say that because the 
 facts recorded are so wonderful, the record is itself 
 infallible. Nor is this all. These lives so divinely 
 ordered, so consciously lived in relation with God, 
 
THE " TOLEDOrir' OR GENESIS. 57 
 
 become in a quite startling way t\'pe.s and symbols 
 of abiding spiritual things. How far they were 
 capable of serving this purpose at the time we 
 have no means of judging ; but with the subsequent 
 development of the kingdom of God before us we 
 cannot fail to see the mysterious foreshadowings of 
 the end even in the beginning. The offering of 
 Isaac, for example, on Mount Moriah seems like a 
 tale told to children to teach the Eternal Sacrifice 
 of the Son of God. The experience of Jacob at 
 Bethel and Penuel reads so much like an allegory 
 of the Christian life, that it requires an effort to 
 realise that the narratives date from a period which, 
 on any supposition, is ages before the Christian era. 
 Or, again, the story of Joseph, which is, as we have 
 seen, a model of realism, is yet a curious prefigura- 
 tion of Christ ; so much so that few ways of pre- 
 senting the great salvation are more effectual than 
 that of veiling it in the matchless tale of that great 
 saviour of his ungrateful brethren. This unmis- 
 takable symbolism of the Old Testament narratives 
 seems to admit of but one explanation. There is 
 a Providence that shapes our ends. The events of 
 history do not happen at random. Where men 
 hear the voice of God, and obey, they are led by a 
 way which they know not, towards an end which 
 they can only surmise, and their words and deeds 
 
58 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 under this divine leading become, as it were, pro- 
 phetic ; the story of their lives is a revelation of 
 God. 
 
 Now, to bring this chapter to an end, the Book 
 of the Toledoth or Origins, written as it was in 
 the late period of Hebrew history, but based on 
 far older works, which in their turn were compiled 
 from narratives of great antiquity, derived in many 
 cases from contemporary records, is a revelation, 
 because in the first place it sets the origin of the 
 Universe and of the Human Race in the burning 
 light of Monotheism, and knows, whatever else it 
 is ignorant of, that God made all things, and man 
 in His own image. But, in the next place, it is a 
 revelation because it presents us with the origins 
 and early developments of Israel, a people which 
 had this distinctive mark, that it was chosen by 
 God for a great service to the world, and knew 
 it : thus it is in a remarkable degree the story of 
 men who, one after another, were called and directed 
 by God, and moved through life, not at haphazard, 
 but following a guidance from Him who knows the 
 end from the beginning. The story of these men 
 is a story of revelation, and the deeds of these 
 men have a revealing power of their own, for 
 they point forward to the ultimate development of 
 God's redeeming purpose for the world. 
 
THE " TO LE DOTH'' OK GENESIS. 59 
 
 If this revelation does not seem sufficient for us, 
 but we feel called upon to invent an unfounded 
 dogma that the book is, as it were, written by God, 
 or at least guaranteed against all errors, scientific, 
 chronological, historical, or literary, we must re- 
 member the responsibility which we incur : the 
 attacks on revelation which are made on the 
 ground of that fictitious theory are attacks of our 
 own creation. If, on the other hand, we will allow 
 this Book of Genesis to be precisely what it is, 
 without claiming for it anything more than it evi- 
 dently claims for itself, we shall find that the 
 quibbles of Infidelity will fall silent, and while 
 historians and even scientists stand amazed before 
 this ancient treasure, seekers after God will hail 
 the manifest, though elementary, manifestation of 
 Him that the book contains, with reverence and 
 gratitude. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE TORAH OR THE LAW. 
 
 "What bard . . 
 
 At the height of his vision, can deem 
 Of God, of the world, of the soul, 
 With a plainness as near, 
 As flashing as Moses felt, 
 When he lay in the night by his flock 
 On the starlit Arabian waste ? 
 Can arise and obey 
 The beck of the Spirit like him ? " 
 
 Matthew Arnold, The Future. 
 
 It has been too readily assumed that the work of 
 the Higher Criticism in the Book of Moses is an- 
 tagonistic to the Revelation contained in it. Or- 
 thodox believers have regarded the critics as rash 
 and daring iconoclasts who were laying violent 
 hands upon the Ark of the Covenant. But there 
 is quite another way of regarding their work, and 
 every year of calm investigation and prayerful 
 thought brings more adherents to this other view. 
 The conclusions of the Higher Criticism, so far as 
 they have been reached on purely literary lines, and 
 
THE TO RAH OR THE LA IF. 6i 
 
 not biassed by preconceived objections to a Super- 
 natural Revelation, have tended rather to clear up 
 the difficulties of the Pentateuch than to disturb 
 the revealed truths contained in it. How serious 
 those difficulties are is not perceived by those who 
 deem it an impiety to recognise or examine any 
 defects in the Sacred Writings ; but students have 
 long been constrained to face them, and the ad- 
 versaries of the Faith have not been slow to seize 
 them with relentless pertinacity. Now it may be 
 still a surprise to some Christian people to learn 
 that the Higher Criticism, so much dreaded by 
 pious souls, is furnishing a conclusive answer to 
 the untiring opponents of Revelation. 
 
 The object of the present chapter is, therefore, 
 to show two things : in the first place, how the 
 acknowledged difficulties of the Pentateuch may be 
 met by the frank acceptance of the proved con- 
 clusions at which Criticism has arrived, and, in the 
 second place, how the body of Revelation in T/ic 
 Law is not vitally or even seriously affected by 
 this complete change in our way of conceiving the 
 literary vehicle through which it has come down 
 to us. For scholars, pure and simple, such an 
 argument is superfluous : they are not concerned 
 with vindicating the revelation in the books, they 
 seek only such light as they can find upon their 
 
62 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 structure, their origin, and their date ; but very few 
 of us are scholars, while all of us are men who need 
 a foundation on which our religious life can rest ; 
 and the unconcern of scholarship about the questions 
 which are so vital to the spirit, is among the reasons 
 for that unaccountable suspicion with which the 
 religious mind regards the scholar. For the Church 
 as a whole, therefore, the investigation on which we 
 are entering is far from being superfluous. 
 
 Now, to begin with, the difficulties which any 
 student of the Pentateuch who reads with open 
 eyes must inevitably confront are these : There is 
 the most unexampled repetition of the same things, 
 and there is the most inexplicable variation in the 
 repetitions. The same laws are constantly reiterated, 
 sometimes word for word, sometimes in different 
 language. How, the student is forced to ask, could 
 any author, compiling a connected code of legisla- 
 tion, fall into the habit of saying the same thing 
 again and again, each time as if it had just come 
 fresh from his authority ? And yet this is a slight 
 matter compared with the other. How could dif- 
 ferent regulations about the same things emanate 
 from one legislator, who was, in the course of his 
 forty years' work, establishing a religious community 
 on the basis of a written law ? If it be granted that 
 in the course of those forty years he saw reason to 
 
THE TOR AH OR THE LA IV. 6], 
 
 make alterations, a teacher like Moses would have 
 corrected the previous ordinances, or in any case 
 he would not have left them side by side in his 
 code without any indication as to which was the final 
 and authoritative edict. 
 
 It may seem an ungrateful task to point out in 
 detail difficulties of this kind, and if there were no 
 solution of them at hand the present writer would 
 not be concerned to do so. But let any Bible 
 reader take Exodus xx., and place it side by side 
 with Exodus xxxiv. 14-28. In each of these 
 passages there is a version of the Ten Command- 
 ments which were engraven on the Stone Tables. 
 The familiar words in chap. xx. appear in chap. 
 xxxiv., but in a very different form. Several of 
 the commandments are identical in their main gist, 
 but several of them are quite different, and it does 
 not require a very acute observer to see that the 
 version in chap. xx. is, spiritually and morally 
 speaking, very far in advance of the version in 
 chap, xxxiv. Bible readers for the most part only 
 recognise this spiritualised version ; and it is easy 
 to imagine the consternation with which a Christian 
 congregation would be seized if a clergyman read 
 out from the communion table the Ten Command- 
 ments as they are given in the later chapter, in- 
 cluding, *' Thou shalt not offer the blood of my 
 
64 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 sacrifice with leavened bread," and, " Thou shalt 
 not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." And yet 
 it is evident from xxxiv. 27, 28, that " these words, 
 the words of the covenant, the ten commandments," 
 were to be written upon the new tables, and from 
 verse i it appears that they were the same words 
 which were written on the first tables. Now, it is 
 quite unnecessary to repeat the explanations and 
 reconciliations which have been offered for these 
 two versions of the Ten Commandments. But it 
 must be evident that the explanation offered by the 
 Higher Criticism is far more honouring to God and 
 to the idea of revelation than any defence which 
 assumes that Moses wrote both these passages and 
 incorporated them, unreconciled, in his book. The 
 Higher Criticism, working on lines which will be 
 more fully explained presently, unhesitatingly declares 
 that in these two chapters we have extracts from 
 two different literary sources, just as in Deut. v. 6-21 
 we have the Ten Commandments from a third 
 authority. Let any candid mind consider : here are 
 the fundamental laws of a great religious system 
 represented as coming down from God and being- 
 engraved upon tables of stone ; beyond all question 
 there are two very different versions of these laws, 
 and a third which verbally varies considerably from 
 either, occurring in tlie one Law Book ; which is the 
 
THE TO RAH OK 7HE LA IV. 65 
 
 more probable, the more reverent, the more religious 
 explanation, to say that Moses wrote them all three, 
 or to say that they were recorded by three different 
 autliors at different periods and in different places, 
 and afterwards combined in the Corpus Legiiin of 
 the Nation ? This is but an example. Take another 
 instance of a different kind from the Book of Exodus. 
 Chaps, xxv.-xxxi., containing a series of injunctions, 
 are repeated almost word for word in chaps, xxxv.- 
 xl., which describe the execution of the orders. The 
 condition of these latter chapters in the LXX. 
 suggests that when the Greek Version was made 
 the Hebrew text was not in the form that we at 
 present possess. And this in itself points to the 
 conclusion that the elaborate repetition of all the 
 details was the work of a much later hand. And 
 can any one doubt that this is a much more probable 
 explanation than the theory that Moses repeated 
 himself in this unnecessary way ? And is not this 
 argument from repetition greatly strengthened by 
 the fact that " The Law of Moses " was so simple 
 and brief a code that it could be written upon the 
 stones of an unhewn altar ] ^ 
 
 When we pass into the third section of the 
 Pentateuch, which the Jews call, from its opening 
 word, ^7i?-^-, but we, from its contents, Leviticus, it 
 
 * Joshua viii. 32. 
 6 
 
66 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 is almost unnecessary to go into detail. Any careful 
 reader will observe how distinct chaps, xvii.-xxvi. 
 are from the rest of the book, and how constantly 
 repetitions occur. For example, look at Lev. xi. 
 43-45, and compare it with Lev. xx. 25. Such 
 examples can be indefinitely multiplied. If we 
 insist on regarding Moses as the author of the 
 book, we put it into the hands of any opponent 
 to declare that he was a most confused and diffuse 
 writer ; but the Higher Criticism has taught us to 
 recognise that we have many different documents 
 combined in the so-called " Books of Moses," and 
 in showing us the composite character of the work 
 it has vindicated the intelligence of Moses. 
 
 The fourth book of the Pentateuch teems with 
 difficulties on the Orthodox supposition of its origin. 
 A few examples may be given of the solution which 
 criticism has offered of these difficulties. In chap, 
 vii. we are, without any explanation, carried back a 
 month earlier than the date which is specified in chap. i. 
 The book opens with " the first day of the second 
 month" (i. i), but the day on which Moses set up 
 the tabernacle was, eiccording to Exod. xl. 57, the 
 "first of the first month" (vii. i). It maybe said 
 of course that the erection of the tabernacle had 
 occupied the month ; but that is not a solution of the 
 difficulty, for the question is, if Moses wrote the Book 
 
THE rORAU OR THE LA IV. 67 
 
 of Numbers, as a Journal — and this is the contention 
 of those critics who resist the later origin of the 
 Pentateuch — would he not have made the dates clear? 
 If this trifling error were the only one of the kind 
 little need be said, but how are we to explain the leap 
 which is made, without a word of notice, from the 
 third year of the Exodus to the fortieth in chap. xx. 
 22 ? I The only real solution is that which meets 
 both the slight and the grave inaccuracies of date, — 
 the Book of Numbers is a compilation of sources 
 which are not always harmonised completely into a 
 successfully simple narrative. We need not lay the 
 blame on a single writer like Moses ; it is the inevitable 
 infirmity of any composition written long -after the 
 events, when minute accuracy of detail is unattainable. 
 A more obvious instance of the need which the 
 student feels for an explanation such as really 
 explains, may be found by a comparison of Num. iv. 
 3) 23, 30, where the period of service for the Levites 
 is fixed between the age of tJiirty and that of fifty, 
 with Num. viii. 24, where the age is fixed differently, 
 the inferior limit being tic cnty- jive. We are told in 
 I Chron. xxiii. 17, and again in 2 Chron. xxxi. 17, 
 Ezek. iii. 8, that this limit was subsequently reduced 
 to twenty, and the change is by the Chronicler referred 
 to David. The difference between Num. iv. 3, &c., 
 
 ' See Inspiration and the Bible ^ p. 186 {2nd edition). 
 
68 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 and viii. 24, is certainly most explicable on the supposi- 
 tion that we have a later usage, which marked a stage 
 in a gradual change, inserted in the Pentateuch. 
 
 It would perhaps take us too far afield to examine 
 in detail the evidence of a double narrative in the 
 account of the spies ; but a careful reader will 
 observe that the narrative itself displays its composite 
 character by the fact that sometimes it includes 
 Joshua with Caleb as the bearer of a good report 
 from the land, while sometimes it seems to imply 
 that Caleb was alone. And a glance at Josh. xiv. 7, 
 where Caleb is addressing Joshua, shows that accord- 
 ing to the narrative there Caleb was certainly not 
 thinking of Joshua as his fellow spy. The Higher 
 Criticism here comes to our aid and clearly dis- 
 entangles the account, showing that an older narrative 
 stated that the spies started from Kadesh (xiii. 26^), 
 and went as far as Hebron (ver. 22), and Caleb 
 alone brought an encouraging report (ver. 30), while 
 another and much later narrative said that the spies 
 started from the wilderness of Paran (xiii. 3) and went 
 through the whole land as far as Hamath (ver. 21), 
 and Joshua united with Caleb in the report which he 
 gave concerning the land (xiv. 6, &c.).i Immediately 
 we recognise that we are dealing with a composite 
 narrative all difficulties disappear, but on the supposi- 
 
 ' Driver's Introduction, p. 58. 
 
THE TOR AH OR THE LA W. 69 
 
 tion that Moses wrote it, we can only close our eyes 
 to the difficulties, we cannot solve them. 
 
 A similar difficulty and a similar solution will be 
 found in the story of the rebellion in chap. xvi. No 
 ingenuity could explain the confusions of this story 
 until Criticism showed that an older narrative, 
 describing the rebellion of two Reubenites, Dathan 
 and Abiram, and their punishment by the opening of 
 the earth to devour them, had been combined with a 
 later narrative of a Levite, Korah, who, according to 
 one account, protested against the exclusive claims 
 made by the Levites, and according to another 
 reviled the Aaronic family for excluding the Levites 
 as a whole from the Priesthood, and was punished by 
 fire coming forth from the Lord and devouring him 
 and his abettors (xvi. 35).^ 
 
 But this example of the composite character of the 
 Pentateuch very fitly leads us to more substantial 
 difficulties which it is the great merit of the Higher 
 Criticism to explain. No student of the whole 
 Pentateuch can help seeing that in many salient 
 features of the Torah there are several different strata 
 of laws, which indicate different periods and develop- 
 ments in the institutions of Israel. For example, 
 Exod. XX. 22-xxiii. 33 forms a little code by itself 
 
 ^ Observe that in Deut. xi. 6 only Dathan and Abiram are mentioned, 
 which indicates that the story of Korah was woven into Num. xvi. at a 
 date subsequent to that at which Deuteronomy was written. 
 
70 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 It is a very simple and compact set of regulations, 
 and it is referred to in xxiv. 7 as " The Book of the 
 Covenant." According to this primitive system " an 
 altar of earth " might be raised in any place where 
 the Lord should cause His name to be remembered, 
 just as was done in patriarchal times, and just as was 
 done in the early days of the Kings ; it would seem 
 that any Israelite might offer a sacrifice (xx. 24-26), 
 and this is the practice actually found in the Book of 
 Judges ; nothing is said about the priests or the 
 Levites ; and finally, three feasts were appointed to 
 be observed, feasts which connect themselves with the 
 three points of the agricultural year : the Feast of the 
 Unleavened Bread,^ the Feast of the Harvest, and 
 the Feast of the Ingathering (xxiii. 14-17). 
 
 Fixing our attention only on these regulations of 
 the Book of the Covenant, we may observe what a 
 different condition of things is assumed in the Book 
 of Deuteronomy. In Deut. xii.-xxvi. we have another 
 Code which is complete in itself The essential feature 
 of this Code is that there is to be One A //ar only, 
 and to this shall every sacrifice be brought. This 
 second Code constantly refers to " the Priests the 
 Levites " as a special order of officiating ministers 
 at the Central Altar to which all Israel is to come. 
 But still the three Annual Feasts retain something 
 
 ' The Feast of Mazzoth was at the beginning of Barley Harvest. 
 
THE TOR AH OR THE LAW. 71 
 
 of their simplicity (Deut. xvi.), though the Feast of 
 Ingathering is now called the Feast of Booths. Few- 
 people, setting the two Codes we have just referred to 
 side by side, can fail to remark the striking difference ; 
 it is a difference as striking as that which is to be 
 found, in Roman Law, between the Law of the Twelve 
 Tables and the Code of C. Julius Caesar. 
 
 But still more amazing is the difference between 
 the Law in Deuteronomy and that body of regulations 
 which occupies the main bulk of Exodus, Leviticus, 
 and Numbers. With the regulations of the Book of the 
 Covenant concerning the Feasts fresh in the memory, 
 let us turn to Lev. xxiii. and see how elaborate 
 the institution has become ; and then turn to Num. 
 xxviii.-xxix., where the whole matter is dealt with 
 again in even fuller detail. That wc arc here reading 
 about a later usage is clear not only from this high 
 elaboration, but also from the incidental feature of 
 the eighth day added to the seven of the Feast of 
 Booths. In Solomon's time there were still only seven 
 days (i Kings viii. 66) ; nor was it till after the Exile 
 that this eighth day was observed (Nehem. viii. 18 ; 
 2 Chron. vii. 9). 
 
 These are but examples of facts which present 
 themselves at every turn in the Book of the Law. 
 Directly attention was drawn to them they demanded 
 explanation. Virtually there were but two lines on 
 
72 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 which an explanation could be sought. One of these 
 lines was that of the general tradition that Moses was 
 the author of the Pentateuch, and on this supposition 
 many attempts have been made to defend the curious 
 phenomenon which the book presents. But it never 
 was possible, and never can be, to really explain the 
 facts on this supposition without arriving at con- 
 clusions which would seriously shake the belief in 
 Inspiration. If we are to maintain that in the course 
 of one man's life-time all these miscellaneous and 
 ill-arranged regulations were given by the mouth of 
 Jehovah, with constant variations and constant repeti- 
 tions so that totally different practices would be 
 commended at one and the same time, we must not 
 only bring a charge against Moses of confused 
 arrangement and absolute inability to state clearly 
 and simply what was really required, but we must 
 suppose that God Himself proceeded in this irregular 
 and perplexing way ; and gradually but surely the 
 idea of Revelation must be lowered to suit this 
 contention of Orthodoxy. The other line of explana- 
 tion is that which the style of criticism, inaugurated 
 by Jean Astruc, and developed with ever-increasing 
 certainty of results by Vatke, George, Ewald, Graf, 
 Wellhausen, Kuenen, Driver, has put into our hands. 
 This explanation — such is the present contention — 
 not only meets the difficulties which a study of the 
 
THE TO RAH OR THE LA IV. JZ 
 
 books suggests, but by clearing and strengthening 
 our conception of Revelation, enables us to speak 
 with greater confidence of the Inspiration of the 
 books. In the light of this explanation the very 
 facts which before were difficulties become the most 
 valuable witnesses to the methods and course of 
 God's Revelation in the Law. What is the explana- 
 tion offered by the Higher Criticism ? 
 
 Disregarding minor points oi difference which will 
 be settled, we may be sure, by further study, we may 
 summarise the theory which is to be our help and 
 guide in this way : — The six first books of our Bible — 
 for Joshua is in a literary sense continuously joined 
 to the rest, presenting just the same leading features 
 as the other five — form, in the shape in which we 
 possess them, a work which was the starting-point, 
 not of Ancient Israel, but of the Judaism which came 
 into existence after the return from Captivity. This 
 work, containing the Origins of the nation and of its 
 religious institutions, the law of its ritual and practice, 
 and the records of the conquest and possession of the 
 promised land, was not the product of a single age, 
 but the slow growth of time. It contains things which 
 were hoary with antiquity in the time of Moses, and 
 much which was not written until a thousand years 
 after his death. The work was very suitably called 
 after Moses, because with him began the Law which 
 
74 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 forms its kernel, and so reverently was the Law 
 associated with its founder that by a practice which 
 was more intelligible to antiquity than it is to us, 
 every development or change in the evolving system 
 which he started was scrupulously referred to him. 
 An illustration, though a very imperfect one, may be 
 found in the Early English habit of referring the body 
 of Laws which was constantly increasing to an Alfred 
 or an Edward the Confessor. In a word, these six 
 books present us with the Law of Moses ///// grozvn, 
 the completed Thought which had its origin in the 
 inspired leader who led his people out of Egypt and 
 made them a nation, but reached its maturity only 
 after many vicissitudes of religious experience, of 
 political shocks, and of Divine discipline. 
 
 The primitive TovaJi, or Tordth (nnin), were 
 probably quite simple ; they were judgments given 
 under the circumstances described in Exod. xviii. 20; 
 they would include no doubt some clear conceptions 
 of God and of His will, but they would consist for the 
 most part of very practical regulations about life and 
 property, slaves, cattle, crops, money-lending, and so 
 on, such as are contained in the Book of the Covenant 
 (Exod. xx. 22-xxiii. 33). That the body of Mosaic 
 Law at the time of the entrance into Canaan was 
 still comparatively small, is shown, as we saw just 
 now, by the fact that Joshua could have it all written 
 
THE TOR AH OR THE LA W. 75 
 
 on an altar of unhewn stones. In the ages after 
 Moses, as each addition to the law or the usage of the 
 people was made, it took its place in what we should 
 call the Statute-book ; and the interest of the work 
 which criticism has done is that it enables us to mark 
 with some distinctness the stages of growth in the 
 developm.ent of the primitive Mosaic legislation. 
 
 There are several very distinct strata, representing 
 different periods in the national life, welded together 
 in the Book as we possess it. The most convenient 
 way to appreciate this fact is to put ourselves, let us 
 say, in the position of Ezra and his fellow-workers, 
 and to imagine in what way these inspired men dealt 
 with the Law Book of their nation. The institutions 
 of the Temple, the Priesthood, and the Kingship had 
 all been suspended for nearly a century. But the 
 spiritual leaders of the people had not been idle ; 
 Ezekiel in particular had seen visions, and had in 
 fancy restored the Temple and its services ; amongst 
 other things he had been directed to separate between 
 the Levites and the priests. If we turn to Ezek. 
 xliv. 6-16 we see the exact point and occasion of 
 this remarkable step. It would follow that a leader 
 like Ezra had the task, by then made familiar to the 
 priestly leaders of the people, of incorporating into 
 the Law Book the last results of Revelation on the 
 question of the Law. This final recasting of the 
 
76 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Mosaic System appears in those passages which form 
 the Ground-Work of the Pentateuch. Scholars have 
 given to this work the name of TJie Priestly Code (P). 
 To it belongs Gen i.-ii. 3, and the stratum thus desig- 
 nated runs, now thicker, now thinner, all through to 
 the end of Joshua, where Josh. xxi. 1-42 forms the last 
 considerable piece of the document. The later part 
 of Exodus, all Leviticus, and the legislative parts of 
 Numbers, consist mainly of P with insertions from 
 other sources. Here at once we get the explanation 
 of the sharp distinction between Priests and Levites, 
 of the important and significant Day of Atonement 
 added to the primitive festivals, of the Jubilee Year, 
 the Levitical cities, the Sin-offering, the special 
 sacrifices prescribed for particular days. AH these 
 are the latest developments of the Mosaic Law, 
 which had been gradually delivered to the people by 
 prophet, priest, and king during the long period of 
 national disaster, punishment, and purging. Here we 
 get the clue to the otherwise perplexing fact that 
 these institutions were not apparently known in the 
 times of the monarchy, and are ignored in other 
 parts of the Law Book. 
 
 But now steadily recognising that our Book, as we 
 have it, is the work of the Post-Exile period, we may 
 proceed to trace out the other constituent elements. 
 There is a section of Leviticus (chaps, xvii.-xxvi.) 
 
THE rORAH OR THE LAW. 77 
 
 which stands by itself and bears a close resemblance 
 to the phraseology and general spirit of Ezekiel. We 
 may safely place this as the earliest stratum of the 
 Priestly Code itself But pushing back a little 
 farther, we come upon a document which is curiously 
 distinctive. In style and substance it constitutes a 
 work by itself Scholars have designated this source, 
 from the fact that its author is responsible for the 
 fifth book of the Pentateuch almost in its entirety, 
 D, which stands for Deuteronomist. The same style 
 occurs in many parts of Joshua {e.g., chaps, i., xii., 
 xxiii.) ; these parts emanate from a writer who had 
 breathed the spirit of the Deuteronomist. Now this 
 most beautiful and flowing section of the Pentateuch 
 is probably the version of the Law which some in- 
 spired man was commissioned to produce in the days 
 of Josiah, half a century before the Exile, as the 
 medium of that king's great reformation. The 
 supposition is that by earnest study of the Ancient 
 Law, and by seeking the direct guidance of God, this 
 unknown Prophet — for surely he must have been 
 a prophet — composed this wonderful homily, putting 
 it into the mouth of the great Lawgiver, Moses. 
 On this supposition the very striking differences 
 between P and D receive a clear explanation : D is 
 the Mosaic Code in the stage of development which it 
 had reached after the work of the great prophets in 
 the middle of the Seventh Century B.C. 
 
78 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 But in Deuteronomy itself there are some passages 
 which the writer derived from an older source, notably 
 the long section (xxxi. 14-xxxiii.i) which gives the 
 Song and the Blessing of Moses. These magnificent 
 compositions were preserved in a national history, of 
 which large sections are incorporated into the Penta- 
 teuch. This history is a cord twined of a double 
 thread. Many indications point to the fact that a 
 version of the events was kept in Ephraim, or the 
 Northern Kingdom, and another version was pre- 
 served in Judah, the Southern Kingdom. The history 
 as we have it in these six books is sometimes from 
 one, sometimes from the other, and often a careful 
 compilation of the two. From the prevailing habit 
 of the first of these documents, which generally 
 designates God as Elohim, it has been distinguished 
 by scholars as the Elohist ; from the prevailing habit 
 of the other, which generally employs the Divine 
 name translated in our Bibles as Jehovah, it has 
 been distinguished as the JeJiovist, or more correctly 
 the Yahvist ; or briefly the one is called E and the 
 other J, and the combination of the two is called JE. 
 This complex narrative comes from the early days of 
 the monarchy, though it does not seem possible to 
 give it a more exact date. It was compiled some- 
 w^here between 900 and 750 B.C. It is almost un- 
 
 ^ Or more strictly, xxxi. 14-22 ; xxxii. 1-44 ; xxxiii. 
 
THE rOKAH OR THE LA W. 79 
 
 necessary to say that the sources used by this 
 Narrative are much older than the Narrative itself ; 
 and it is in this considerable stratum of the Book 
 that we must look for those actual writings of the 
 great Lawgiver, which doubtless formed the kernel 
 of the Law. The Book of the Covenant (Exod. xx. 
 22-xxiii. 33) occurs in J, but it is quite possible that 
 it was originally the composition of Moses. There is 
 excellent reason for believing that whatever Moses 
 actually wrote was preserved, and found its way into 
 the earliest national compositions which are repre- 
 sented to us by J and E. 
 
 That this critical analysis of the Hexateuch is the 
 final explanation of its complex phenomena no one 
 would be rash enough to maintain. All that is here 
 contended is that it is an explanation which tends 
 rather to vindicate than to discredit the book. But 
 several very earnest objections to the view just re- 
 capitulated deserve a brief notice. Two difficulties 
 at least ought to be met by those who are making 
 so serious a change in the traditional view of the 
 Law. In the first place it is said that such methods 
 of composition as have just been referred to are not 
 distinguishable from forgery, and fix on the writers 
 the charge of deliberate dishonesty. And in the 
 second place it is said that if our historical sources 
 are thus far removed from the events which they 
 
So RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 describe, and not the work of contemporaries, they 
 cannot be accepted as authoritative testimonies to 
 the facts. These objections are not to be Hghtly 
 dismissed, though perhaps the only sound way of 
 meeting them is to set over against them the much 
 more serious objections which the traditional view 
 suggests, the confusion and the contradictions which 
 on that view must be charged to the inspired writer, 
 Moses. But it should be borne in mind that 
 a chronicle of Institutions is not to be judged quite in 
 the way that we should judge an ordinary historical 
 composition. The Mosaic Law zvas expanding and 
 developing from age to age, and those who were 
 engaged in administering it would frequently not 
 know in the insensible changes of usage how much 
 was due to modification or addition. When, for 
 example, the law of the One Altar had become 
 admitted, and the local high places were regarded 
 as idolatrous in the truly religious circles, the 
 preacher of righteousness would in all good faith 
 attribute the institution of the Central Altar to 
 Moses ; or when the great penitential idea of the 
 Day of Atonement and the Sin-Offerings had 
 entered deep into the heart and the practice of 
 earnest men, a reviser of the Code would enter the 
 practice of the Temple into the Law Book, and would 
 naturally ascribe it to the same origin as the rest of 
 
THE t6rAH or the LA IV. 8] 
 
 the Laws. This charge of forgery betrays a complete 
 want of the historic sense, and, it may be added, 
 a singularly artificial view of revelation ; it assumes 
 .that God could not have revealed things to the 
 historic community in the quiet development of 
 ages, but could only give a real revelation by telling 
 every detail to Moses at the beginning. At any rate 
 those who call the writers of the Pentateuch forgers 
 must bear the odium of the charge they make ; 
 certainly the scholars who have described the pro- 
 bable origin of the work would never think of 
 bringing the charge ; they are too familiar with the 
 usages of Antiquity to thus misjudge the well-known 
 tendency to ascribe all the developments of a growing 
 institution to its founder. 
 
 The other objection may be frankly admitted, but 
 we should remember that if it presents a difficulty it 
 also to the modern mind brings a great relief There 
 are many narratives in the Pentateuch which are 
 distinctly deficient in probability, and many really 
 religious minds have rejected the book as a religious 
 authority on this account. Take, for instance, the 
 story in Num. xxxi. : here we are told that 12,000 
 Israelites slew all the males and married women of 
 Midian, took captive 32,000 virgins, and drove off 
 800,000 head of cattle. Now there is, no doubt, a 
 type of orthodoxy which believes that our Christian 
 
 7 
 
82 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 faith and hope are bound up with the accuracy of this 
 appalling act of barbarity. If this was not com- 
 manded by the Lord, some people would argue, there 
 is no word of God given to men. But there are 
 many more, and an ever increasing number, who, so 
 far from feeling it necessary to prove the truth of 
 such a narrative as this, long for some way of re- 
 garding it which will save them from believing its 
 truth, and yet enable them to retain what is true in 
 the book in which it occurs. Such a help is given 
 by the very fact which is urged as an objection. 
 Num. xxxi. is not a contemporary narrative, it 
 occurs in a work (P) which is at the least a thousand 
 years later than the events, and though it shows that 
 the Priestly writer in the fierce times which followed 
 on the Exile could conceive that such a narrative was 
 true, it shows nothing else except the very wise and 
 fair regulation which existed in the armies of Judaism 
 for the distribution of spoil. 
 
 It must constantly be remembered that the crux of 
 the religious problem at the present day is not how to 
 substantiate the Divine Origin of all that is recorded 
 in the Bible, but how to vindicate the Holy and 
 Lovely name, the God who is revealed to us in Jesus, 
 from things which have been, in cruder religious 
 periods, attributed to Him. The results of the 
 Higher Criticism have put within our hands the 
 
THE t6rAH or the LAW. S3 
 
 means of such a vindication. The analysis of the 
 documents, the right historical perspective, allowance 
 for the colouring of the imagination and the oblitera- 
 tion of forgetfulness operating on the records of distant 
 events, the inevitable tendency of every writer, not 
 excluding orthodox writers of the present day, to 
 read the religious notions of his own time into the 
 period of which he treats, break in upon the student 
 as a light and a relief, a genuine vindication of God's 
 ways to men. 
 
 But it is quite time to turn from these merely 
 critical questions to that which is the main purpose 
 of the present chapter. We must try to apprehend 
 that, if we take the right point of view, tJie actual 
 body of permanent revelation ivJiich is given in the 
 Hexateiich, or let tis say in the Torah, remains entirely 
 nnaffected by the different viezus of the Jnstoi'ical origin 
 and the historical composition of the Book. This truth 
 would surely have been perceived long ago but for 
 the shock and the panic which naturally come from 
 the proposal to change a long-cherished idea. We 
 look at this Book as the Law Book of Judaism : no 
 Christian supposes that its ordinances are obligatory 
 upon us : the wildest advocate of literalism does not 
 propose to enforce the rite of Circumcision, or the 
 distinction between clean and unclean foods ; no 
 believer in revelation known to the author refuses to 
 
RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 84 
 
 eat hare because it is divinely prohibited in the Law. 
 This is, then, admittedly an archaic Book, the record 
 and chronicle of a system which has, or ought to 
 have, passed away. It is valuable to us not as 
 a direct guide to faith and conduct, but for very 
 different reasons, which may be thus stated : — It is 
 the narrative of God's dealings with a peculiar people 
 which was called to fulfil a notable function in the 
 history of religion ; it is the manual of a religious 
 practice imposed upon this people as the " shadow 
 of good things to come " ; it contains certain great 
 religious truths revealed to Moses and to his suc- 
 cessors as the foundation of an ultimate revelation 
 which still lay in the future. Now whatever practical 
 value may attach to these contents of the book is, in 
 every vital sense, unaffected by the changed view that 
 has been here presented. How great and rich the 
 contents of the book are, the vast homiletical literature 
 of the Christian Centuries even more than the 
 reverent study of the Rabbis sufficiently demon- 
 strates. A very brief exposition will furnish a guide 
 to those who wish to carry the investigation on these 
 lines further. The origin of the Jewish People is, 
 whatever imperfection may exist in the historical 
 record of it, a revelation^ a miracle, a direct act of 
 God. That the people sojourned in Egypt, and came 
 out of that ancient land "with a high hand and 
 
THE TOKAH OR THE LAW. 85 
 
 a stretched-out arm," is as historically certain as 
 anything in the distant past can be. The new 
 science of Egyptology is a running commentary on 
 all the story of Jacob, Joseph, and Moses in Egypt. 
 Every detail of the narrative receives independent 
 confirmation, and the history not obscurely indicates 
 where and under what circumstances the Exodus 
 occurred.^ 
 
 The very plagues which are recorded in the Book 
 of Exodus receive a curious confirmation from a more 
 intimate knowledge of that mysterious Land, its 
 river, and its climate. The catastrophe at the Red 
 Sea, preserved in the ringing songs of Israel for all 
 after ages, is in the opinion of some Egyptologists 
 marked by the significant silence of the Egyptian 
 records. The details of the story which describe 
 the wanderings in the desert and the occupation 
 of the promised land, are given, we must remember, 
 in the transfiguring light of fervent faith and 
 glowing confidence in God. The facts themselves 
 were a revelation of the Divine Will and Power, the 
 record of it is an inspiration of the Divine Spirit, 
 not that the details are in any sense vouched for by 
 God, but that they are told, or rather chanted, in the 
 enthusiasm of religious belief, and thus contain, and 
 always must contain, the specific elements of religious 
 
 ^ This is shown in a simple and popular way by Mr. Budge in The 
 Divclkrs on the Nile (Bye-paths o{ Bible Knowledge Series). 
 
S6 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE, 
 
 inspiration. When we lay stress and insistence upon 
 the accuracy of the story we are very apt to miss the 
 point ; the point is not its accuracy, but the solid fact 
 which lies at the foundation of it all, and the religious 
 interpretation of which it is susceptible. 
 
 Still clearer is our view of the Revelation in the 
 Law. We cannot, it is true, regard the Law, in the 
 complete form in which we possess it, as given en bloc 
 from Sinai ; but the Law as we possess it, the growth 
 of many ages, is an unquestionable revelation. Try it 
 by its main religious ideas, or by its specific regula- 
 tions for life and conduct, and it justifies the delighted 
 question of the Deuteronomist, " What great nation 
 is there that hath statutes and judgments so righteous 
 as all this law?" (Deut. iv. 8.) The Book of the 
 Covenant is a monument of humane legislation com- 
 pared with any Code known to us of the same period. 
 The regulations for the health of the community, if 
 carried out to-day, would transform the unsanitary 
 condition of our towns. The moral precepts growing 
 purer as the ages roll, and separated by degrees 
 from their ceremonial and unethical elements, reach 
 in the Ten Commandments (Exod. xx.) the 
 standard of a guide to conduct which Christians 
 of to-day require to study and to practise.^ . And 
 further, the more specific regulations of the Worship 
 
 ' Cf. the Golden Rule in Lev. xix. 1 8 and 34. 
 
THE TOR AH OR THE LAW. 8; 
 
 are full of revelation in that peculiar sense referred to 
 
 in chap. i. as the Typical. 
 
 The organisation of the Temple worship, as it was 
 finally fixed, in the interval between the Exile and 
 the Advent of our Lord, had become a complete and 
 instructive Symbol. When a teacher like the writer 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews wished to present the 
 person and the work of Christ, it was possible for him 
 to describe it all in terms of the ancient ritual. The 
 lamb offered morning and evening, the priest who 
 offered it, the High Priest who might enter into the 
 Holy of Holies, the Mercy Seat or propitiatory within 
 the veil, were all types, and in combination they stood 
 for Christ. If they were removed at the coming of 
 Christ it was only because their work was accom- 
 plished ; the finger-post could be taken down when 
 mankind had found the real Temple of God. Now, 
 when we come to reflect, it is this typical quality of 
 the Mosaic Institutions which both in theory and 
 in practice is most serviceable even to-day as 
 a vehicle of revelation : and, as every consideration 
 which has been urged tends to show, this typical 
 element remains unaffected by the view that is now 
 taken of the Law and its growth. It is the Law 
 Book as we possess it which forms such a speaking 
 prophecy of Christ, and the fact that this Law Book 
 only attained its present development four, instead of 
 
88 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 fifteen, centuries before Christ, cannot possibly affect 
 the value of this pecuHar kind of revelation contained 
 in it. The essence of the matter is not that the reve- 
 lation as a whole was given to Moses, but that the 
 revelation zvas given. The aeonian process of its 
 delivery may enhance, but it certainly cannot lessen, 
 the wonder, the interest, and the helpfulness of it. 
 
 But now we must guard against an inference which 
 the mere scholar is too apt to suggest, if he does not 
 actually draw it himself Because the revelation in 
 the Law was not all given to Moses, it is by no 
 means necessary to conclude that no revelation was 
 given to him. Quite the contrary; few things may be 
 accepted as more certain in religious history than 
 that the man whom tradition regarded as the founder 
 of this peculiar people was himself the recipient of a 
 remarkable communication from God. We may go 
 further and say that, in germ, the whole Mosaic Law 
 was given to Moses. That Law springs from a deep 
 conviction that the Eternal and Self-existent God 
 had revealed Himself to Israel, elected Israel for a 
 unique religious purpose, and charged Israel with a 
 specific function. Moses spake with God face to face. 
 The history of Israel may be said to demonstrate 
 this from its first page to its last. Whether we read 
 the version of this prophetic call and Divine Revela- 
 tion which is given in the mingled narrative of JE, 
 
THE TO RAH OK THE LAW. S9 
 
 Exod. iii.-vi. i, or study the same event in the much 
 later verson of P, Exod. vi. 2-vii. 13 ; whether with J 
 we beheve that the signs were wrought to convince 
 Israel that the Lord had appeared to Moses (Exod. 
 iv. i), and that they immediately recognised the truth 
 (iv. 31), or take the view of P that the signs were to 
 convince Pharaoh (vii. 8-13), and the people would 
 not hearken at first to their appointed deliverer (vi. 
 9), there is no reason to question the fact that the 
 peculiar distinction of Moses among the children of 
 men is that God revealed Himself to the man's mind 
 and conscience as nin^ (Yahveh) — "I am that I am" 
 (iii. 14 and vi. 3). Equally clear is it that this reve- 
 lation was accompanied by a spiritual power which 
 enabled Moses to lead out his people from Egypt, 
 and in the antique sacred Mountain of Semitic worship 
 to formulate the foundation laws and precepts of his 
 new community. Men who, themselves incredulous 
 of direct dealings between God and man, attribute all 
 the belief in such dealings to illusion, will doubtless 
 deny the revelation given to Moses ; but they who 
 by a living spiritual experience commune with God 
 and submit to the guidance of His Spirit, will not 
 only firmly believe that God appeared to Moses, but 
 will be grateful for that critical and historical method 
 of dealing with the records which brings the expe- 
 rience of Moses more into line with their own. They 
 
90 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 will take up these ancient writings with the feeling 
 that it is no part of their religious life to accept in 
 detail all the versions of the events which the fond 
 memories, the fervent songs, the picturesque fancies 
 of later generations have gradually woven, but that 
 it is an essential part of their religious faith to feel 
 their way through the golden mists of antiquity to 
 that marvellous origin of a people, and that glorious 
 revelation to a man. Time and space would fail 
 to trace all that was involved in the revelation of 
 Yahveh to Moses. The Hexateuch, as a whole, grew 
 out of that pregnant germ ; the prophetic writings 
 were its flower ; the New Testament was its fruit. 
 The subsequent history is the best proof how imper- 
 fect was the revelation given to Moses ; it contained 
 no hint of eternal life for the individual ; it did not 
 even establish the much later truth which goes by 
 the name of Monotheism ; it left a dangerous source 
 of error in the imperfect distinction made between 
 ritual and righteousness ; and though some of these 
 defects were remedied in the course of ages and have 
 been more or less obliterated from the Law Book 
 as it has come down to us, the whole work of the 
 Prophets and of the Messiah is the best proof that 
 the Law was essentially imperfect, a tutor to lead 
 the childhood of religion to school, a tutor which 
 could be dismissed into honourable retirement when 
 the School of Christ was reached. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 
 
 " I have found David my servant ; with my holy oil have I anointed 
 him." — Ps. Ixxxix. 20. 
 
 No one is concerned to deny that the labours of 
 Criticism on the Historical Books of the Old Testa- 
 ment have materially modified the traditional view 
 of them ; but in the present investigation it cannot 
 be too frequently repeated that Criticism has solved 
 far more difficulties than it has suggested, and gives 
 us back the books which it has handled, not only 
 intact in themselves, but accompanied by a genuine 
 explanation of their apparent flaws and imperfections. 
 No reader whose mind has not been soothed into the 
 lethargy of credulity could read the Book of Judges, 
 for example, without many disturbing thoughts. How, 
 he must have asked himself, is this ancient tale of 
 blood and force and fraud and treachery to be re- 
 garded as inspired by God ? Granted that the crimes 
 recorded in the book are not entirely approved, yet 
 
92 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 how comes it that they are not more emphatically 
 condemned, if the writing in any sense comes from 
 God ? Or if we are to treat the events themselves 
 rather than the narration of them as the revelation 
 from God, what genuine light from heaven can be 
 said to shine through the ruthless massacres, the 
 unspiritual biographies of men professedly inspired 
 of God, the hideous record of crime and confusion 
 contained in the last three chapters of the book ? 
 Did we not even as children wonder how Gideon, 
 who had received a direct revelation from God, could 
 encourage the idolatry of the ephod ? or how Samson, 
 whose strength came from the Spirit of God, should 
 practise immoralities ? Did we not wonder whether 
 the lie and the treachery of Jael could be as pleasing 
 to God as it seemed to be to Deborah ? And are 
 there not innumerable unbelievers who date their 
 repudiation of a religious faith from the uprising of 
 these unanswered questions in their minds ? Or 
 again, are there many readers of Samuel and Kings 
 who have not been confronted with difficulties which, 
 on the received view of the books, admitted of no 
 solution ? Why does the narrative of Saul's anoint- 
 ing as king appear to waver between two different 
 views of the monarchy, now treating the demand for 
 a king as a rebellion against the theocracy, now 
 implying that it was the Lord's purpose to appoint 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 93 
 
 a king from the first, as the rule of the kingdom is 
 contemplated in the Book of Deuteronomy? (Deut. 
 xvii. 14-20). How is it that in the story of Saul 
 and David we find David, in i Sam. xvi. 18, intro- 
 duced to Saul as " a mighty man of valour and a 
 man of war," and yet, at the end of chap, xvii., Saul 
 inquires of Abner whose son David was, as if he had 
 never seen him before, speaks of him as " a youth " 
 and " a stripling," and can get no information from 
 Abner about him ? And is it possible that any one 
 has read the Book of Kings without an occasional 
 sense of confusion ? The dates do not admit of being 
 accurately set down ; we are suddenly startled by 
 such a passage as i Kings xiv. 9, where the familiar 
 formula for describing the wickedness of a king, 
 " Thou hast done evil above all that were before 
 thee," is addressed to Jeroboam, who was the first 
 of his line, and indeed the first king of the separated 
 Israel ; or we are perplexed by the curious judgment 
 passed on the several kings : all the kings of Israel 
 are declared to have done evil, a few kings of Judah 
 did well, but nevertheless the high places were not 
 removed : why, we continually ask, did not these 
 good kings who were set on the ways of the Lord 
 remove the high places, and so rise to the 
 standard of religious excellence which seemed to be 
 demanded ? 
 
94 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Now it is no part of the author to point out or 
 to suggest the difficulties which these books present, 
 though every one who has looked into the literature 
 of popular Secularism will know how these difficulties 
 are the material with which the Secularist or the 
 Infidel is constantly working, deriving untold support 
 in his attack by the persistent attitude of many 
 believers who cut the knot by stoutly maintaining 
 that the difficulties do not exist ; but the contention 
 here made is that the work of Criticism sympa- 
 thetically and frankly accepted, while it admittedly 
 alters our way of regarding the literature, cuts at one 
 stroke the ground from underneath those who assail 
 the Bible from this convenient foothold. A brief 
 exposition will probably make this clear, even to 
 those who are not very careful students. Criticism 
 has, in one word, revealed the nature of these 
 historical compositions, showing approximately the 
 materials which go to their making, and the period 
 of their compilation ; it has traced the several strata 
 of religious sentiment which are represented in them, 
 and by demonstrable facts it has warned us against 
 placing too much reliance on such things as the 
 exactness of Chronology, or the strict sequence of 
 events, or the minute accuracy of particular state- 
 ments. 
 
 Thus, in the matter of Chronology, if you add 
 
THE fUDGES AND THE KINGS. 95 
 
 together the dates given in the Book of Judges, it 
 would seem that the book covers 410 years, but in 
 I Kings vi. i the whole period from the Exodus to 
 the fourth year of Solomon is given as 4S0 years, 
 which would leave for the Book of Judges not 
 410, but 349 years. One of these calculations may 
 be right, but one must be wrong : and if one, then 
 both may be wrong, and the conclusion of Criticism, 
 after examining all the attempts at reconciliation, is 
 that, in spite of the apparently definite chronological 
 details, " an exact chronology of the period is un- 
 attainable." I 
 
 But it is not only in chronology that it is necessary- 
 to set limits to the accuracy of our book. The most 
 careless reader will be struck in passing from the end 
 of the Book of Joshua into the ty-st chapter of Judges 
 by the different point of view which is implied. At 
 the end oi JosJiiia the conquest of the land is regarded 
 as virtually accomplished ; at the beginning of Judges 
 the main part of the conquest is yet to do. Now 
 here Criticism comes to our help, and gives us a ready 
 solution. The writer of Judges evidently utilised 
 some account of the part which each Tribe took in 
 the conquest of the land : this Tribal history care- 
 fully described how far the work was carried on, and 
 how far the old inhabitants of the land were unsub- 
 
 * Driver, Introduction, p. 152. 
 
96 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 dued. Now the author of the parts In the Book of 
 Joshua which foreshorten the conquest of the land, 
 Hving many generations after the events, not un- 
 naturally treated it in general terms, very much as 
 ordinary English Histories have been accustomed to 
 deal with the Saxon Conquest of England ; but the 
 Record from which Judges i. is taken is a narrative 
 written much nearer to the time, and presents the 
 story very much as Mr. Green's Conquest of England 
 presents the similar period in English History. The 
 wavering fortunes of the conflict are described, a 
 contemporary light shines on the events, and it is 
 found that the Conquest which appears foreshortened 
 in the tract of time as a swift and decisive action 
 was really a protracted and, at times, even a doubtful 
 struggle. And it is interesting to note that even the 
 Book of Joshua itself betrays frequently the exist- 
 ence of this other source, though the scattered notices 
 derived from it are more or less merged in the pre- 
 vailing character of the book.^ 
 
 The stories of the Judges proper (chap. ii. 6-xvi.) 
 are old Tribal traditions which owe their present form, 
 
 ^ The reader would do well to carefully look up the following passages 
 in Joshua, and compare them with the similar passages in Judges, noting 
 how together they contrast with the prevailing tone of the first book : 
 Josh. XV. 63 (in Judges i. 21 it is Benjamin, and not Judah, that 
 failed), xvi. 10, xvii. 12, 13. See also xvii. 14-18 and xix. 47, which 
 represent the general point of view of Judg. i. Compare also Josh. xv. 
 14-19 with Judg. i. 10-15, which are virtually the same passage. 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 97 
 
 to an editor who may be described as Deuteronoviic, 
 because he betrays always the same point of view as 
 the Book of Deuteronomy, the same point of view, 
 too, as the author of those later and more optimist 
 passages in the Book of Joshua. Now, when once 
 this literary fact is realised, a perceptible relief is 
 given to our way of conceiving the narratives. The 
 condition of Israel in the period that followed the 
 conquest of Canaan was that of a barbarous and 
 unorganised people. As we saw in the last chapter, 
 the Law was in a very primitive stage. The influence 
 of Moses and the revelation given to him was felt, and 
 w^as operative, but we must be careful to distinguish 
 between that solitary ray of religious light, accom- 
 panied by the very elementary Toroth which the 
 great leader had left, and that highly developed and 
 intrinsically noble Mosaic Law which was the growth 
 of ages. If the Pentateuch had been known in Israel 
 at the time of the Judges, the condition of things 
 described in the book would have been impossible. 
 The conduct of even the very best of the Judges 
 stands condemned in the light of the completed 
 Mosaic Law. But though Israel was as yet bar- 
 barous and ungoverned, though every man as )-ct 
 did what was right in his own eyes, and there was 
 no king, and, as the book shows, no properly organised 
 priesthood, God was yet at work among His people, 
 
 8 
 
RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 and the Deuteronomic writer, reading the history 
 centuries after, very properly endeavours to show 
 how this Divine Hand was really using such savages 
 as the Judges, such untrained and unspiritual warriors 
 as Gideon or Samson, to accomplish the great end of 
 moulding the people into a self-conscious and religious 
 community. 
 
 The two narratives contained in chaps, xvii.-xxi. 
 seem inserted in order to draw in the deepest and 
 darkest lines the state of the people in the days 
 before the settled monarchy and the settled priest- 
 hood. At the beginning of chap. xvii. the story 
 seems to imply that the worship of Jehovah was as 
 yet an idolatrous worship, readily admitting a silver 
 image, an ephod, teraphim, and the other symbols of 
 Semitic worship. In those days the term Levite was 
 not apparently the name of a Tribe, but rather that 
 of an office, for the Levite (ver. 7) is declared to be 
 a man of Judah, and that, too, though in xviii. 30 he 
 seems to be described as the son of Gershom and the 
 grandson of Moses. Again, it appears, notwithstanding 
 the statement in Josh. xix. 47, that the tribe of Dan 
 had not yet obtained its inheritance (Judg. xviii. i). 
 This archaic narrative, throwing so much light on the 
 state of Israel after Moses, and the enormous period 
 which had to be traversed before the advanced prin- 
 ciples of the Pentateuch could be arrived at, is all the 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 99 
 
 more significant because, as is evident from xviii. 30, 
 it was edited and inserted in the book after 722 B.C., 
 " the day of the captivity [lit, exile] of the land." 
 
 Chap. xix. gives a still more terrible picture of the 
 morals and habits which prevailed in Israel at that 
 early period. We may well hope, as ver. 30 says, 
 that this sickening atrocity stood alone in the annals 
 of the people, and even in the history of the world. 
 This narrative bears all the marks of antiquity, as 
 also does its conclusion in chap, xxi., relating the 
 curious rape of the maidens of Shiloh to supply wives 
 for the Benjamites, but chap. xx. is unmistakably 
 a very late story, and it is only by realising that the 
 writer is speaking of events in a distant past that we 
 can understand the highly improbable figures. The 
 40,000 warriors of Deborah's day (Judg. v. 8) here 
 appear as 400,000, and the Benjamites, 25,700 strong, 
 slay in two days 40,000 of them. But in the third 
 day's fight 25,100 Benjamites were slain, or, accord- 
 ing to another version — for it will be noted that vers. 
 36/^-46 are a duplicate of vers. 29-36^', and not a con- 
 tinuation as they appear to be in our book — 18,000 
 men of valour fell. According to this chapter, too 
 (ver. 47), the war of extermination was carried on to the 
 bitter end, and all but the remnant of 600, for whom, 
 in chap, xxi., wives had to be provided, were ruthlessly 
 slain. All this free handling of figures is a sign of 
 
REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the remoteness of the narrative from the events which 
 are described. It reminds us afresh that we have in 
 these historical books ancient traditions, coming down, 
 perhaps, in a written form, perhaps orally, handled by 
 religious writers of a far later date. 
 
 On the whole the simplest way of conceiving 
 the element of Revelation in the Book of Judges 
 is to regard the narrative as a tolerably correct 
 picture of the Israel which God had called out 
 of Egypt, the son whom He had to shape for His 
 uses ; it shows us unflinchingly the rock whence 
 the holy people were hewn, the hole of the pit 
 whence they were digged (Isa. li. i). That God 
 should choose such a people, that He should bear 
 with their corruptions, their cruelties, their lusts, 
 their follies, that He should hold out His light to 
 such darkened eyes and wait for the seeing ones to 
 see, may be indirectly a revelation of His character 
 and His methods of dealing with men ; but we have 
 to carefully guard against the very common delusion, 
 that the conceptions of God indicated in such a book 
 as this are in any sense an authoritative delineation, 
 or even a veritable glimpse, of Him. And when 
 the simple truth of the matter is perceived, the idea 
 that the Book of Judges is inspired in that sense 
 will be maintained, not as now by the friends, but 
 only by the enemies, of Divine Revelation. 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 
 
 Turning now to the book which records the 
 foundation of the Monarchy and the real beginning 
 of Law and Order in Israel, the book which, divided 
 into two parts, takes its name from Samuel, the 
 remarkable man to whom, humanly speaking, the 
 kingship was due, we shall again find that the 
 accurate determination of literary form and the 
 discrimination of differing sources are no inconsider- 
 able help in the right appreciation of what is meant 
 by the revelation of the book. It becomes obvious 
 to every careful reader that the book combines in- 
 \ formation from various sources, and most of the 
 narratives consist of two or more versions of the 
 events welded together. There is no very elaborate 
 attempt to harmonise these versions when they dis- 
 agree ; and it is a constant clue to be carried in 
 the hand during the study of the book that the 
 writer always had to compose his narrative out of 
 traditions which betrayed considerable variations 
 one from another. This fact steadily borne in mind, 
 and proved afresh by every careful perusal of the 
 book, will save us from the too common mistake of 
 seeking the revelation of the book in the accuracy 
 of the historical facts recorded. The difficulties 
 which the compiler had to contend with may be 
 judged from one or two examples. In one place 
 he found that the Philistines were subdued at 
 
REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Ebenezer, and came no more within the borders 
 of Israel during Samuel's lifetime (i Sam. vii. 13); 
 while in another place, which described the appoint- 
 ment of Saul, the Philistines had garrisons within 
 the land (x. 5) ; in chap, xiii., still in the lifetime 
 of Samuel, the Philistines effect a very formidable 
 invasion, and at the end of that chapter it appears 
 that Israel was practically in a state of complete 
 bondage to them. Our author, with such a difficulty 
 before him, sets down both the contradictory state- 
 ments, and makes no attempt to reconcile them. 
 Still more perplexing was the difficulty that two 
 views of the Monarchy were current in Israel. The 
 primitive view was that the king was a gift of God, 
 a more permanent and effectual Judge, able to unite 
 all Israel in one. This simple view is developed in 
 chaps, ix., X. 1-16, xi., xiii., xiv. There is no Divine 
 censure in the appointment, and the first shadow 
 falls on the new institution with the disobedience 
 of Saul. But long after, a different view of the 
 matter prevailed ; the rejection of Saul cast its 
 shadow backward, and the whole movement to 
 elect a king was regarded as a rebellion against 
 God. This thought is developed in chap. vii. 2-17, 
 viii., x. 17-27, xii. According to this narrative 
 Samuel was a judge of the old Divine type — see 
 the curious connection of his name with those of the 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 103 
 
 older judges in a speech put into his own lips, 
 xii. II — and the demand for a king seemed the 
 repudiation of the truth that " the Lord your God 
 was your king " (xii. 1 2). This later view seems to 
 point to a time when the monarchy had become 
 corrupt, and tended constantly to lead Israel away 
 from his God. But the compiler of our book, con- 
 fronted with these two different views, combines 
 them in one narrative, and leaves them to reconcile 
 themselves, which they seem to have done so effectu- 
 ally that many readers do not observe that the 
 narrative is duplex. 
 
 In the history of David, on the other hand, and 
 especially that part of it contained in 2 Sam. ix.-xx , 
 we have a narrative which, by its unity and its singu- 
 larly beautiful literary form, seems to show that it 
 is practically a composition of the period just follow- 
 ing the events which it narrates. Thus in precisely 
 the part of the story which it is most important for 
 us to understand, the stream of narrative flows most 
 clearly and evenly. 
 
 On the whole this book of the origin of the 
 kingdom may be conceived thus : — It was written 
 in its present form not later than 700 U.C, and 
 contains some passages — e.g., Hannah's song,i the 
 
 ' That the song is a later composition put by the historian into the 
 mouth of Hannah is sufficiently evident from its concluding distich. 
 
104 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 more recent narrative of Saul's appointment already 
 referred to, chap, xv., and 2 Sam. vii. — which origi- 
 nated in the period that has been described as 
 Deuteronomic ; but the materials preserved in the 
 book are, for the most part, more ancient, and in 
 many cases almost contemporaneous with the events 
 described. 
 
 Making allowances for the inevitable uncertainties 
 of history, especially where the habits of exact 
 chronology and accurate chronicling have not been 
 cultivated, we may regard the events as sufficiently 
 authenticated. It is not, however, in any exceptional 
 correctness of the record, but in the nature of the 
 events themselves that we are to look for the revela- 
 tion in such a book as this. Israel's kingship had a 
 Divine origin ; the rejection of Saul and the election 
 of David are alike laden with religious significance, 
 and the traditions of these early kings contain that 
 singular adaptation to a typical handling which has 
 made the story of David read like a prophecy of 
 Christ, and that of Saul seem like a symbol of the 
 human will which has to be supplanted by Christ. 
 
 If Hannah had sung " He shall give strength unto his king " in 
 those days before the monarchy was thought of, her son would hardly 
 have felt the serious difficulty in appointing a king which our nar- 
 rative records. It is probable that the thought in ver. 5 was what 
 made this poem appear suitable in the mouth of the triumphant 
 mo ther. 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 105 
 
 In the line, therefore, where the Revelation of the 
 book is to be sought — and this is the point on which 
 stress is here laid — the conclusions of Criticism have 
 made, and can make, no difference at all, while they 
 have furnished a sufficient explanation of those con- 
 fusions and discrepancies which, according to former 
 views of the composition, presented insurmountable 
 difficulties. 
 
 If we leave aside the last four chapters of Samuel, 
 which are of the nature of an appendix, we shall 
 observe that the Book of Kings is a continuation of 
 the former historical work, carrying on the narrative 
 of the Monarchy to the time of its collapse. To this 
 Book of Kings we now turn our attention. It is 
 the almost unanimous opinion of scholars that the 
 book was practically completed before the Exile — 
 let us say about 600 iiC, and such notices as that 
 with which the book closes, bringing the date down 
 to the middle of the Exile, must be regarded as 
 additions made by a subsequent editor. Here, then, 
 in this very small compendium we have the history 
 of Israel for four hundred years, written towards the 
 close of the period. But for the rash claim that 
 the work is something more than history, no compe- 
 tent critic would have been tempted to prove that 
 it is something less. It is history, nothing more nor 
 less. The writer has done his best to discover and 
 
io6 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 to state the facts ; if he has failed, the history as a 
 whole is no more invalidated than any other history 
 is invalidated by the infirmities incident to every 
 human composition. No sensible person will attach 
 undue weight to these infirmities ; and it is only when 
 the essentially irreverent statement is made that God 
 wrote this history and not man, that religion is en- 
 dangered by the frank recognition of certain errors, 
 confusions, and inconsistencies. As we recede from 
 events they inevitably assume a different aspect ; 
 the broad features of the story become more apparent, 
 but the details become more uncertain. A shadowy 
 splendour gathers round the antique names, and the 
 facts which seemed sufficiently commonplace to 
 contemporaries are swathed in golden mists for later 
 generations. Just as the rude simplicity of King 
 Arthur and his court has grown, through Sir Thomas 
 Malory, to the gorgeous pageantry and the magic 
 numbers of TJie Idyls of tJie King, so the state of 
 Solomon grows upon the imagination as it falls back 
 into a distant past, and as political decay and 
 national misfortunes encourage a contrast with what 
 seems by comparison a Golden Age. But this play of 
 the imagination does not destroy or even essentially 
 obscure the history of a people ; nay, in a certain 
 sense it brings out the ideal elements which were too 
 little apprehended in the mean surroundings of the 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 107 
 
 men who wrought, and of the things they did. There 
 is a sense, for instance, in which Shakspere's plays are 
 truer history than the Worcester or the Malmesbury 
 Chronicles. The details which occupy a large place 
 in the eyes of contemporaries are often immaterial, 
 while the broad issues only appear later on. The 
 Book of Kings is history, and should be dealt with 
 honestly and seriously as we deal with the early 
 chronicles of any ancient people. The writer in 
 I Kings iv. 24, who, by his description of Palestine 
 as " the region beyond the river," shows that he is 
 writing in the Exile, is of course removed by five 
 hundred years from the reign of Solomon, and, not 
 unnaturally, he takes a gloomier view of Solomon's 
 idolatries than would be taken by contemporaries, 
 who had not yet received the lessons of Elijah, 
 Micah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. .And this severer 
 judgment sometimes appears in a somewhat per- 
 plexing way, as in i Kings iii., where the writer 
 severely condemns " the high places " in vers. 2, 3, 
 and yet the narrative proceeds from ver. 4 to tell 
 how Solomon at " the great high place " received 
 the most wonderful revelation of God. The simple 
 fact seems to be that in what we may call the pre- 
 Deuteronomic period the scattered sanctuaries or 
 high places were regarded as legitimate, and this 
 view is reflected in the main narrative of Solomon's 
 
io8 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 reign. After the reformation of Josiah all the sanc- 
 tuaries except the one at Jerusalem were regarded 
 as idolatrous, and this view runs through all the 
 later passages of the book. It is this later view 
 which colours the harsh judgment on the Kings of 
 the Northern Kingdom, who ipso facto were dissi- 
 dents from the One Altar and the One Sanctuary ; 
 and it must be borne in mind as the explanation of 
 many comments made in the course of the narrative. 
 This tendency to judge earlier events in the light of 
 later convictions, this unmistakable intrusion of ideas 
 which sprang from the great reformation of the 
 Seventh Century B.C. into the simple records of the 
 primitive monarchy, must be allowed for if we would 
 read the book aright ; but, when allowed for, it cannot 
 be said to invalidate the historical value of the record. 
 The religious ideas of 600 B.C. were the goal to 
 which all the events were moving, and if the events 
 are read in that newer light we ought to say that 
 they are interpreted rather than obscured. 
 
 But granting that our book is History, we must 
 now observe that it is history written in a special 
 way, by a special style of chroniclers, and with a 
 special object in view. Every Bible reader is familiar 
 with the constant references made throughout the 
 Book of Kings to the Chronicles of the Kings of 
 Judah and of Israel. In fact, we may say that for 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 109 
 
 all detailed information about most of the reigns we 
 arc referred to those now-lost records. In a word, 
 the writer of our book is evidently not writing a 
 political history, for he directs his readers to these 
 chronicles of the Royal Recorder for all purely 
 political facts. Pic is rather, we may say, writing 
 a Religious History, which touches on the kings and 
 their doings only from the religious standpoint. It 
 is, in a word, a history written in the Schools of the 
 Prophets, and the compiler is, as we have seen, a 
 m-an imbued with the prophetic ideas which formed 
 the burden of Jeremiah's ministry, and gave the 
 impulse to the reformation under King Josiah. It 
 is in accordance with this prophetic origin of the 
 history that the tradition of the prophet Elijah forms 
 so large a part of the first half, and the tradition of 
 the prophet Elisha occupies so large a place in the 
 second half, of the book. These familiar and striking 
 narratives preserve for us the first emergence of the 
 Ncbiini, or Seers, in the Israel of the Ninth Century 
 B.C. In every line we perceive the pulsing faith and 
 passionate reverence of those schools of religious 
 teachers who, in the Northern Kingdom, tried to 
 preserve and carry on the work of their great 
 founders. This does not of course imply that all which 
 is recorded of Elijah and Elisha is guaranteed to us 
 as authentic by the finger of God. It would rather 
 
RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 show the reverse of this. As Wellhausen strikingly 
 observes of Elijah, " In solitary grandeur did this 
 prophet tower conspicuously over his time ; legend 
 and not history could alone preserve the memory of 
 his figure." ^ When the writers of the Sixth Century 
 wished to include in their history the lives of 
 Elijah and Elisha, those commanding names of three 
 centuries before, they were in the same position as 
 a writer of the Seventeenth Century attempting to 
 record the lives of St. Francis of Assisi and St. 
 Catherine of Siena. Around the unquestionable 
 facts of their history, and around the truly miracu- 
 lous personalities, loving and wondering stories of 
 their Divine Power and their supernatural deeds 
 would necessarily have gathered. We may well be 
 thankful that those writers of the Sixth Century 
 recorded the story just as they got it from the Ninth, 
 and did not attempt the hopeless task of rationalising, 
 or discriminating, or explaining away. We who 
 read the narrative in the light of the Christian 
 faith are in a better position than even the writers 
 of the Sixth Century B.C. to exercise a moral and 
 spiritual discrimination without touching the integrity 
 of the story as a whole. The fierce spirit of the 
 Prophetic Schools which gloated over the story in 
 2 Kings i. is no longer ours ; and we are not required 
 
 ^ History of Israel^ p. 462. 
 
THE lUDGES AND THE KINGS. 
 
 to believe, nay, we are even required to deny, on the 
 authority of Jesus our Saviour,^ that this savage 
 vindictiveness of the great prophet was in harmony 
 with the Spirit of God, the "spirit we are of." We 
 are not called on to accept, we are even called on to 
 gravel}^ question,^ the notion that the raid of the 
 bears on the children was God's way of gratifying 
 the vindictiveness of Elisha (2 Kings ii. 24). We 
 have to constantly bear in mind that this is the 
 story of two men of God, as it struck the minds of 
 their contemporaries, who were as yet ignorant of the 
 Evangelic Ethics, and had not even learnt the great 
 moral principles of the Prophets. 
 
 But when all allowance has been made for the 
 medium through which the legends of Elijah and 
 Elisha have come down to us, no safer ground could 
 be occupied by those who are seeking to vindicate 
 the Revelation in this history, than the ground of 
 these two prophetic lives. Facing as fairly as we can 
 the history of the monarchy which is before us in the 
 Book of Kings, we see the little kingdom, of David 
 and Solomon fall into two separate states, which, now 
 in friendly rivalry, and now in deadly opposition, 
 always present a weakened and wavering front to 
 their neighbours and to their more distant enemies. 
 The kingdom which has its throne at Samaria is far 
 
 ' See Luke ix. 54, seq. ^ See Luke xiii. i. 
 
RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 more considerable than that which is centred at 
 Jerusalem ; indeed, when an able monarch like Ahab 
 or Jeroboam II. appeared, it became a real factor in 
 the political life of Western Asia. Ahab, for instance, 
 as the cuneiform inscriptions inform us, entered into 
 alliance with Syria and fought at Karkar against 
 the Assyrians with a force of 2,000 chariots and 
 10,000 infantry. But the sacred tradition of the 
 Mosaic Law and of Jehovah who revealed Him- 
 self to Moses was in this Northern Kingdom very 
 imperfectly kept. No inconsistency was perceived in 
 worshipping the national god and the nature-gods of 
 Phoenicia, at one and the same time, and with rites 
 identically the same. When Ahab, for instance, 
 brought to his harem the Pha:;nician princess, Jezebel, 
 from Zidon, he did not hesitate to give her a chapel 
 in the palace for the worship of her national god. 
 And then suddenly from the wild country of Gilead 
 appeared the man who was known by the name, " My 
 God is Yah " (Elijah), a name which in itself was a 
 prophetic message. In this deep and passionate 
 heart was working the same spirit that worked in 
 Moses : Yahveh — " I am that I am " — was to him no 
 less than to Moses the Mighty One above all the 
 nature forces personified in Baal or Ashtoreth, the 
 Holy One who could not share His glory with 
 another. Strong in this burning conviction, he 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 
 
 regarded the toleration of Baal worship as a fateful 
 compromise, and spent his days in an unwearied 
 protest which was to have far-reaching consequences. 
 Passing in some mysterious and impressive way 
 from the sight of man, his mantle fell on Elisha and 
 then on those other prophets who are the great 
 distinctive mark of Israel's life as a people. The 
 long line of inspired men worked, by different 
 methods, but alwa\'s with one aim, to vindicate the 
 sole claim of Yahveh, the Mighty One, the Holy One, 
 the God of Israel, but the God also of the whole 
 world, and the Lord of the unnumbered hosts 
 (Sabaoth). For that Northern Kingdom the heathen 
 forces, as our book shows, proved too strong, and in 
 spite of the great seers who appeared among them, 
 political strength went hand in hand with religious 
 feebleness, and the kingdom was plunged into the 
 irretrievable ruin of the Assyrian Conquest in the 
 year 722 ij.c. Heathens, indeed, were brought to 
 occupy the land which had always, in spite of the 
 religious forces at work, been essentially heathenish. 
 Meanwhile a curiously different fate befel the much 
 smaller and more insignificant kingdom at Jerusalem. 
 The national chroniclers naturally give a certain glory 
 and importance to this little state ; but, politically 
 speaking, it is evident that it was too insignificant to 
 be a factor in the great movements, the rise of the 
 
 9 
 
114 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Assyrian power and the sweeping campaigns of con- 
 quest, which filled the horizon of the Seventh and 
 Sixth Centuries. But what was wanting in political 
 importance was more than supplied by the religious 
 development which took place at Jerusalem. As we 
 have before observed, the progress of events is a little 
 obscured at first by the tendency of the historian to 
 read the thought of his own time into the earlier 
 periods which he is describing, but the general trend 
 of the history is unmistakable. The message of such 
 prophets as Elijah found an echo in many hearts 
 at Jerusalem. The reigning dynasty at Jerusalem 
 during the two centuries from Elijah to the captivity 
 of Samaria, if we except the reign of Athaliah, 
 844-838 B.C., was in the main desirous of receiving 
 the word of the Lord, and gave a patient hearing 
 to the prophets who appeared from time to time. 
 Jehoshaphat and Joash, Amaziah and Uzziah, Ahaz 
 and Hezekiah "did that which was right in the 
 eyes of the Lord." The idea of a centralised worship 
 was not yet accepted, and therefore the " high places " 
 were not taken away ; but in spite of many human 
 infirmities and faults of judgment, these sovereigns 
 were under the prophetic guidance. Then came a 
 dark period in the history of Judah. The Northern 
 Kingdom was no more, and the Southern Kingdom 
 seemed to court the same terrible doom. For half a 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 115 
 
 century Manassehled his people into sin and rebellion 
 against God, and so stamped the mark of his infamy 
 upon Judah that the fate of Captivity was irrevocably 
 decreed for the nation, and it became the duty of one 
 prophet after another to announce it. But if the 
 punishment was the same, there was a great difference ; 
 and that difference was determined by the event 
 which occupies so prominent a place in our history. 
 God had not forgotten Judah ; He was prepared to 
 set another David upon the ancient throne. The 
 grandson of Manasseh coming to the throne at the 
 age of eight was evidently a chosen instrument in 
 God's hand. With a sensitive zeal Josiah set about 
 the restoration of religion. The prophet-priest Jere- 
 miah was his contemporary, and some inspired writer 
 whose name has perished had produced that mighty 
 homily on the Ancient Law which we call Deutero- 
 nomy. In this great document it was urged that 
 the people should " not do after all the things that 
 we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right 
 in his own eyes " (Deut. xii. 8), but the central House 
 of the Lord at Jerusalem should become the one 
 shrine of worship, and the scattered sanctuaries with 
 their questionable pillars and symbols and priests 
 should be abolished. With Divine eloquence it was 
 contended that the Law of Moses, applied to the new 
 time, should be revived and kept. 
 
1 16 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 How strange and significant it is that this Refor- 
 mation, thus powerfully advocated, and carried into 
 effect by the royal authority, was not to avert the 
 threatened Captivity, but was only to form a point of 
 departure from which the Exiles might work towards 
 a really renovated religious State. It was the tragic 
 fate of Jeremiah, whose spirit must have breathed in 
 all that reformation movement, still steadily to fore- 
 tell the captivity of Jerusalem, and to dissuade her 
 feeble kings who succeeded Josiah from seeking to 
 avert the Divine doom. 
 
 It is in this strange and unexampled course of 
 events from the time of the occupation of Canaan by 
 the fugitive children of Israel to the day of their 
 expulsion from the land in the successive captivities 
 of Assyria and Babylon, that we must seek that which 
 we call Revelation. It is a stirring and pathetic story 
 stretching over six hundred years ; it is the making 
 of a nation which had to play a unique part in the 
 religious training of the world. It was indeed a poor 
 and misleading notion which turned men's attention 
 from this revelation in history to a minute and petti- 
 fogging defence of the literary channel through which 
 the main facts have been preserved. There is some- 
 thing which might almost raise a smile in the sight 
 of earnest religious men seeking to vindicate the 
 inerrant accuracy of contradictory statements and 
 
THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS. 117 
 
 the infallible certainty of events which, if not impos- 
 sible, are certainly in a high degree improbable and 
 often far from honouring to God, because it was 
 thought that the great things of history could not be 
 substantiated unless the writers of history were super- 
 naturally secured against error. Such a misguided 
 idea has never been allowed to intrude into any other 
 department of historical inquiry, and there is some- 
 thing quite paradoxical in the fact that a zeal for 
 religion should be the means of discrediting the 
 history of religion. We can learn the history of 
 Greece without asking that Herodotus and Thucydides 
 should be infallible. The stories of Herodotus are 
 often surprisingly confirmed by new discoveries, but 
 we did not wait for this confirmation, or regard its 
 absence as important, in using the historical materials 
 which he presented. Thucydides is often obscure — 
 he suffers the views of his time and his country to 
 shape his judgment of events — he freely invents 
 speeches for his heroes, captains, and statesmen, but 
 his history is history, true and trustworthy in spite of 
 these incidental drawbacks. It is the same with the 
 history in Judges, Samuel, and Kings ; the infalli- 
 bility of its authors was not needed to guarantee its 
 truth. It stands, we may say, in its own truth, and 
 when Criticism has done its best to sift the materials 
 and to shape the events and the course of them as 
 
ii8 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 nearly as possible in accordance with what actually 
 happened, it is the Great Fact itself, this story of 
 God's dealings with His nation, this changing record 
 of encouragement, of reproof, of blessing, of chastise- 
 ment, this moulding of a monarchy, this rejection of 
 it, this sending unto the people prophets, men pre- 
 pared with a Divine message, to guide and to correct 
 their rulers, this steady growth of religious ideas, as 
 the Being of God and His mighty attributes become 
 clearer, this shaping of all incidents and accidents to 
 one far-off Divine event, which forms the Revelation 
 of the History Book. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 The title at the head of this chapter is the designa- 
 tion which Reuss has happily given to the historical 
 work which now comes under review. In the English 
 Bible its parts are called, the first and second Books 
 of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, but these are only 
 four divisions of one volume. The unity is entirely 
 unbroken by the divisions ; one thought runs through 
 the whole, one purpose is manifest on every page ; 
 and though the writer has availed himself, as we shall 
 see, of several historical sources, and has embodied in 
 his book extensive quotations from other authors, his 
 own style is quite unmistakable from the beginning 
 to the end. The Hebraist has no difficulty in identi- 
 fying the writer, who, though unknown by name, is 
 known by his work ; and even an English reader 
 paying close attention to the rendering in the 
 Revised Version will soon begin to perceive that 
 certain recurring phrases, certain well-defined modes 
 
REVELA710N AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 of regarding the events, certain general marks of 
 style, make the Chronicler, if we may so call him, 
 almost as distinct a personality as the Author of 
 the Epistolcc Obscurorinn Vironnn, or that famous 
 Junius whom all the world can recognise after the 
 perusal of a few pages, but whom no one has 
 succeeded in identifying. 
 
 Now if we wish to appreciate the degree and nature 
 of Revelation conveyed through this work, we must 
 take particular pains to mark its characteristics, to 
 set it in its right historical connection, and to accu- 
 rately define its relation to the other Old Testament 
 literature. We are approaching a very difficult but 
 a very interesting task. In no part of the Bible are 
 we so smitten with amazement at the unobservant 
 and unintelligent treatment of Scripture which alone 
 has rendered the old theory of Inspiration and Reve- 
 lation possible for thinking men. 
 
 To begin with, the period covered by these eighty 
 pages in the Oxford Bible is enormous. Its gene- 
 alogies rapidly traverse the space from Adam to 
 David. With David the dry lists of names pass into 
 a narrative, more or less full, of the Davidic monarchy. 
 When that monarchy dolefully terminates in the 
 exile, the seventy years of suspended national life are 
 passed over in a clause (2 Chron. xxxvi. 21b), and 
 immediately the story of the return from Babylon 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM. 121 
 
 begins. The first return under Zerubbabel (B.C. 536) 
 is described ; then we rapidly go to the mission of 
 Ezra seventy-eigiit years later (B.C. 458), and the two 
 visits of Nehemiah (B.C. 444 and 432). But this is 
 by no means the latest date mentioned in the book. 
 The High Priest Jaddua (Neh. xii. 11) brings us 
 down to the date B.C. 351-331 ; and the genealogy of 
 Zerubbabel's family followed out for six generations 
 in I Chron. iii. 17-24 may imply a later date still. ^ 
 
 Here we have, then, a historical work, composed in 
 the Fourth Century B.C., about the time when Philip 
 of Macedon and his greater son Alexander were the 
 leading powers in the world, and sketching a special 
 line of historical development from the earliest time 
 to 432 B.C. In the time of the writer the tennimis 
 a quo was far back in antiquity, and even the ter- 
 ininiLS ad qiicvi was already a century old. We 
 have to do with an author who is reviewing the 
 history of the people to whom he belonged in the 
 time of the Restoration, when the Jewish Church was 
 already an accomplished fact, a completed institution. 
 Bearing this point in mind, we begin to understand 
 the scope of the work. Writing in Jerusalem, under 
 the shadow of the new Temple, surrounded by all 
 the practices and the ideas of that fully-developed 
 Torah, which in the chapter on the Torah was called 
 
 ' Driver's Introduction, p. 486. 
 
REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 The Priestly Code, the author, not unnaturally, regards 
 all the events of the past as leading up by inevitable 
 steps to the condition of things which he sees around 
 him. He writes no longer the history of Israel, such 
 as we have seen in the older history {)ook, but the 
 history oi Judaism. Here for the first time the Jew, 
 as distinct from the Hebrew or the Israelite, emerges 
 on the field of history. For this writer, accordingly, 
 that Northern Kingdom, the Israel of the Book of 
 Kings, the Ephraim of the Prophets, the " House of 
 Omri " of the Assyrian Inscriptions, the powerful 
 secular state, has no existence : in his view of 
 history it is quietly ignored. Everything centres 
 in Jerusalem and in the house of David. And not 
 only so, but, in the history of Judah itself, the all- 
 important matter is the Temple and its ordinances. 
 Compare, for example, the description of the king's 
 palace in i Kings vii. 1-12 with the brief and 
 incidental allusion to it in 2 Chron. ii. i : " Now 
 Solomon purposed to build an house for the name 
 of the Lord, and an house for his kingdom.'' For the 
 Chronicler the kingship itself has disappeared, and 
 the theocracy of a developed priesthood has taken 
 its place. In the eyes of the Chronicler this priest- 
 hood, though a comparatively late development in 
 the form in which he knew it, has already acquired 
 the appearance of an unbroken and an unchanged 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM. 123 
 
 continuity from Aaron downwards. In i Chron. vi. 
 1-15 he gives the pedigree of the high priests from 
 Aaron, as it was kept in the priestly circles at Jeru- 
 salem. The pedigree includes several names which do 
 not occur in the older history, and, on the other hand, 
 that famous line which held the priesthood in the 
 days of the early monarchy, Eli, Phinehas, Ahitub, 
 Ahimelech, Abiathar, is passed over. 
 
 Now this standpoint of the writer, and his prevail- 
 ing thought in writing, should be firmly emphasised 
 and patiently realised, in order to vindicate his good 
 faith. We have to recos^nise considerable deviations 
 from the facts narrated in the older books ; but let it 
 be distinctly understood that the writer is not guilty 
 of fraud, or deliberate perversion, in making these 
 changes ; the older books were before him, and would 
 be before his readers ; he writes in accordance with 
 his convictions ; reading the thought of his own time 
 into the past, using materials which were in his hands, 
 side by side with those Books of Samuel and Kings 
 which have come down to us, he states what he 
 believed to be true : where he took a view different 
 from the contemporary historian, he only dealt with 
 history as Mr. Gardiner might do when, from a 
 comparison of his materials, he deviates from the 
 narrative of Clarendon. The only difference in this 
 comparison is, that in the absence of the Historic 
 
[24 KEVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Sense, which is a modern growth, the Chronicler 
 must be regarded as less historical than the earlier 
 writer. Where a collision occurs we must go by the 
 older and not by the later authority. We have 
 sufficient evidence of the circumstances and temper 
 of mind in which the Chronicler wrote to know that 
 he would almost inevitably give his own subjective 
 colouring to the facts with which he was dealing. 
 When, for example, in the account of Solomon's 
 relations with Hiram (i Kings ix. 12), the older 
 historian says that Solomon gave to Hiram twenty 
 cities in the land of Galilee, and the Chronicler 
 (2 Chron. viii. 2) speaks of " the cities which Hiram 
 had given to Solomon," we are to conclude that the 
 later author, dazzled with the glory of the great king, 
 could not credit the story that Solomon had handed 
 over cities in his own land to a stranger, and assumed 
 that the transaction had been precisely the other way. 
 We may be sure that the Chronicler wrote in perfect 
 good faith ; he stated what he believed to be in 
 accordance with historical credibility ; he may even 
 have had some document on which he based his 
 reversal of the older story ; but we may be equally 
 sure that the Chronicler was misled by his view of the 
 situation. Writing seven hundred years after the 
 events, and when that land of Galilee was no longer 
 part of Jewish territory, and all trace of the cities 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OE JERUSALEM. 125 
 
 had disappeared, he was less capable of arriving 
 at the truth in such a matter than the author of 
 Kings, who was three centuries nearer to the events. 
 
 But before going into the differences between the 
 Chronicler and the older work, we may try to conceive 
 the historical materials with which he had to deal. 
 First of all he would have before him the Political 
 Chronicles of Israel and of Judah, which we have 
 seen were used by the authors of the older history. 
 Then he would have the older history itself Every 
 careful reader is aware that large passages are 
 excerpted from the Books of Samuel and Kings, and 
 inserted unchanged into the Chronicles. Further, 
 there is a work which he refers to as '' The Book of the 
 Kings of Israel and Judah," which was not identical 
 with our Book of Kings, but probably was a work of 
 the same kind composed with the help of the Political 
 Chronicles. I Other authorities actually referred to 
 are " The Acts of the Kings of Israel " (2 Chron. 
 xxxiii. 18), "The Midrash of the Book of Kings" 
 (xxiv. 27), and the "words" of certain prophets, Samuel, 
 Nathan, Gad, i\hijah, Iddo, Shemaiah, Jehu, Isaiah, 
 Hozai (i Chron. xxix. 29; 2 Chron. ix. 29, xii. 15, 
 xiii. 22, XX. 34, xxvi. 22, xxxii. 32, xxxiii. 19). 
 When the author comes to the Return from the 
 Exile he has a good number of contemporary docu- 
 
 ' 2 Chron. xvi. 11, xxv. 26, xxvii. 7, xxviii. 26, xxxii. 32, xx.xv. 27, 
 xxxvi. 8 ; cf. xx. 34, xxxiii. 18. 
 
126 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 ments, some in Hebrew, some in Aramaic ; there are 
 copies of the edicts issued by the Persian Kings, and 
 genealogies of the people who returned and settled in 
 the land ; but his most serviceable materials were 
 certain memoirs written by Ezra himself, which our 
 author employs and largely quotes in Ezra vii -ix., 
 and Nell. vii. 74<^-x.,i and the very similar memoirs of 
 Nehemiah which appear in Neh. i.-vii. 73^, xii. 27-43, 
 xiii. 1-31. 
 
 Now where the Chronicler is traversing the same 
 ground as our own Canonical Books of Samuel and 
 Kings it is clearly our duty to institute a close com- 
 parison between the two narratives. No one can 
 speak with any authority on the precise nature of 
 accuracy in historical details through the Old Testa- 
 ment histories who has not been at the pains to 
 make this comparison complete. But for our pur- 
 poses a few illustrations selected from many will 
 suffice, and perhaps they may induce readers of this 
 book to carry out the method for themselves. 
 The Chronicler had found in his authorities that 
 King David made provision for the building of the 
 Temple before he died. The older book does not 
 mention this. But by the time of the Chronicler 
 tradition had swelled this provision to enormous pro- 
 
 ^ At least probably; Ewald and other writers consider that this pas- 
 sage is Ezra's. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM. 127 
 
 portions, and David is made to say, " I have prepared 
 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 talents of silver " 
 (i Chron. xxii. 14). The dream has certainly grown 
 in the shadows of gathering time. In i Kings x. 14 w^e 
 find it mentioned with some admiration that Solo- 
 mon's revenue w^as 666 talents of gold. So that, 
 according to the Chronicler. David had accumulated 
 in gold alone as much as 150 years' revenue of his 
 far wealthier son. This is an example of a difference 
 which appears all through the Chronicles ; the num- 
 bers and sizes are considerably larger than those in 
 the corresponding places of Samuel and Kings, and 
 the exaggerations are easily understood when we 
 remember the writer's point of view. 
 
 Let us turn now to an equally significant instance 
 of another kind. First read the account of David 
 bringing up the ark from Kirjath-jearim in 2 Sam. 
 vi. It is a tolerably full account. The procession 
 was a very simple affair : Uzzah perished because he 
 put out his hand to steady the ark. This was the 
 traditional explanation of the familiar name Perez- 
 Uzzah in the Eighth Century B.C. But now look at 
 the narrative in the Chronicle of the Fourth Century 
 B.C., I Chron. xv.-xvi. There is a most elaborate 
 train of Levites and Singers. It is expressly ordained 
 that the Levites shall bear the ark, and the " breach," 
 or Perez-Uzzah, is explained in this way : " Because 
 
128 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 ye, the Levites, bare it not at the first, the Lord our 
 God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him 
 not according to the ordinance." David has on an 
 ephod of fine Hnen, and the Psalms (cv., cvi., xcvi.), 
 which had in the Chronicler's time but recently been 
 composed, are put into David's mouth. It is evident 
 that the Chronicler, full of the Temple arrangements 
 familiar in his own day, made no question that they 
 had existed in David's day too, and accordingly he 
 draws an imaginary picture of this Davidic proces- 
 sion in the terms and colours of the Temple usage as 
 he knew it. Thus in these two chapters he employs 
 three words which were the product of his own time, 
 used to express the new institutions of the Temple 
 service.! When " the chosen men of Israel " of 
 2 Sam. vi. i become in i Chron. xiii. 2 " our brethren 
 with whom the priests and Levites are," we may say 
 that the change is an illustration of the truth main- 
 tained in our chapter on the Pentateuch. In David's 
 day the priests and Levites were not yet distinguished, 
 and they occupied a position of simplicity and insig- 
 nificance which was entirely incredible to one who, 
 like the Chronicler, was living in the time of a com- 
 pleted Priestly System, and under a regime in which 
 
 ' These terms are— (i) Qn-|b'P,for "singers" (xv. i6) ; {2) CD^Fl^VP, 
 for " cymbals " (xv. 16) ; compare with D vVpVj used for " cymbals " in 
 2 Sam. vi. 5, and (3) !lD''"iyti', for "gate-keepers" of the Tabernacle 
 or Temple (xvi. 38), none of which occurs in any book before the Exile. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM. 129 
 
 the Priests were not only the highest, but indeed the 
 only, national rulers. 
 
 A comparison between 2 Sam. xxiv. 1-25 and 
 I Chron. xxi.-xxii. 2 not only illustrates afresh the 
 Chronicler's habit of raising the figures, but also 
 shows (xxi. 29, 30) how he feels the necessity of 
 explaining the king's action in raising what would 
 have been in the Chronicler's time an unauthorised 
 altar — an action which, when 2 Sam, xxiv. was written, 
 required no explanation, because the Deuteronomic 
 Law was not yet in existence. 
 
 It will perhaps enable the reader to form a truer 
 conception of the variations which occur in the two 
 narratives if we set down two parallel passages in 
 columns side by side, selecting a case where there are 
 no very serious or noticeable divergences : 
 
 I Kingsv.2-9, ii,vii. 13, 14, runs : 2 Chron. ii. 3-16 runs : 
 
 And Solomon sent to Hiram, And Solomon sent to Huram 
 
 saying, Thou knowest how that the king of Tyre, saying, As thou 
 
 David my father could not build didst deal with David my father, 
 
 an house for the name of the Lord and didst send him cedars to build 
 
 his God for the wars which were him an house to dwell therein, 
 
 al)OUt him on every side, until the even so deal with me. Behold, I 
 
 Lord put them under the soles of build an house for the name of the 
 
 his feet. But now the Lord my Lord my God, to dedicate it to 
 
 God hath given me rest on every him, and to burn before him 
 
 side ; there is neither adversary, incense of sweet spices, and for 
 
 nor evil occurrent. And, behold, the continual shewbread, and for 
 
 I purpose to build an house for the burnt offerings morning and 
 
 the name of the Lord my God, as evening, on the sabbaths, and on 
 
 the Lord spake unto David my the new moons, and on the set 
 
 father, saying, Thy son, whom I feasts of the Lord our God. This 
 
 10 
 
130 
 
 J^E VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 will set upon thy throne in thy 
 room, he shall build the house 
 for my name. 
 
 Now therefore command thou 
 that they hew me cedar trees out 
 of Lebanon ; and my servants shall 
 be with thy servants ; and I will 
 give thee hire for thy servants ac- 
 cording to all that thou shalt say : 
 for thou knowest that there is not 
 among us any that can skill to hew 
 timber like unto the Zidonians. 
 
 And Solomon gave Hiram 
 twenty thousand measures of 
 wheat for food to his household, 
 and twenty measures of pure oil : 
 thus gave Solomon to Hiram year 
 by year (ver. ii). 
 
 And it came to pass, when 
 Hiram heard the words of Solo- 
 mon, that he rejoiced greatly, and 
 said, Blessed be the Lord this day, 
 which hath given unto David a 
 wise son over this great people. 
 And Hiram sent to Solomon, 
 saying, I have heard the message 
 
 is an ordinance for ever to Israel. 
 And the house which I build is 
 great : for great is our God above 
 all gods. But who is able to 
 build him an house, seeing the 
 heaven and the heaven of heavens 
 cannot contain him ? who am I 
 then, that I should build him an 
 house, save only to burn incense 
 before him ? Now therefore send 
 me a man cunning to work in gold, 
 and in silver, and in brass, and 
 in iron, and in purple, and crimson, 
 and blue, and that can skill to 
 grave all manner of gravings, to 
 be with the cunning men that are 
 with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, 
 whom David my father did pro- 
 vide. Send me also cedar trees, 
 lir trees, and algum trees, out of 
 Lebanon : for I know that thy 
 servants can skill to cut timber in 
 Lebanon ; and, behold, my servants 
 shall be with thy servants, even to 
 prepare me timber in abundance : 
 for the house which I am about to 
 build shall be wonderful great. 
 And, behold, I will give to thy 
 servants, the hewers that cut 
 timber, twenty thousand measures 
 of beaten wheat, and twenty 
 thousand measures of barley, and 
 twenty thousand baths of wine, 
 and twenty thousand baths of oil. 
 Then Huram the king of Tyre 
 answered in writing, which he 
 sent to Solomon, Because the 
 Lord loveth his people, he hath 
 made thee king over them. Huram 
 said moreover. Blessed be the 
 Lord, the God of Israel, that 
 made heaven and earth, who hath 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 which thou hast sent unto me : I 
 will do all thy desire concerning 
 timber of cedar, and concerning 
 timber of fir. IVIy servants shall 
 bring them down from Lebanon 
 unto the sea : and I will make 
 them into rafts to go by sea unto 
 the place that thou shalt appoint 
 me, and will cause them to be 
 broken up there, and thou shalt 
 receive them : and thou shalt 
 accomplish my desire, in giving 
 food for my household. 
 
 And king Solomon sent and 
 fetched Hiram out of Tyre. He 
 was the son of a widow woman of 
 the tribe of Naphtali, and his 
 father was a man of Tyre, a 
 worker in brass (vii. 13, 14). 
 
 given to David the king a wise 
 son, endued with discretion and 
 understanding, that should build 
 an house for the Lord, and an 
 house for his kingdom. And 
 now I have sent a cunning man, 
 endued with understanding, of 
 Huram my father's (marg., even 
 Huram my father), the son of a 
 woman of the daughters of Dan, 
 and his father was a man of Tyre, 
 skilful to worlc in gold, and in sil- 
 ver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and 
 in timber, in purple, in blue, and 
 in fine linen, and in crimson ; also 
 to grave any manner of graving, 
 and to devise any device : that 
 there may be a place appointed 
 unto him with thy cunning men, 
 and with the cunning men of my 
 lord David thy father. Now 
 therefore the wheat and the barley, 
 the oil and the wine, which my 
 lord hath spoken of, let him send 
 unto his servants : and we will cut 
 wood out of Lebanon, as much as 
 thou shalt need : and we will bring 
 it to thee in floats by sea to Joppa ; 
 and thou shalt carry it up to 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 To this comparison, which tells its own tale, we 
 may add that in i Kings v. 13 Solomon sends a levy 
 of 30,000 men out of Israel to do the work, while the 
 Chronicler (2 Chron. ii. 17) insists on it that these 
 hewers of wood, &c., were strangers, and he gives 
 their number exactly the same as the passage in 
 Kings, which suggests that he purposely corrects the 
 
132 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 impression that native-born Israelites would be 
 employed on such corvee-work. 
 
 The student who takes the pains to set the two 
 narratives in parallel columns throughout will quickly 
 find light breaking in upon the problem. As he 
 finds a quotation from the post-exilic Psalm (cxxxii. 
 8, 9) put into the mouth of Solomon (2 Chron. vi. 
 41, 42), and notes the statement of which the narra- 
 tive in Kings says nothing, that " fire came down from 
 heaven and consumed the burnt offering " (2 Chron. 
 vii. i) ; as he finds the king of Judah, Abijam, whom 
 the elder historian briefly condemned with the words, 
 *' He walked in all the sins of his father which he had 
 done before him" (i Kings xv. 3), raised by the 
 Chronicler into a religious hero, using the most pious 
 language, and gaining a great victory over Israel 
 (2 Chron. xiii.) ; as he finds the Carites and the guards 
 of 2 Kings xi. 4 replaced by the Levites with the 
 injunction, " Let none come into the house of the Lord 
 save the priests and they that minister of the Levites " 
 (2 Chron. xxiii. 6) ; as he finds the much greater 
 prominence given to the prophets ^ and to their 
 personal relations with the Kings ; and as furthermore 
 
 ^ For this action of the prophets compare the following passages with 
 their parallels in Kings : 2 Chron. xii. 5-8, xv. 1-15, xvi, 7-10, xix, 
 1-3, XX. 14-17, 37«, xxi. 12-15, >^xiv. 20, XXV. 7-9, 15 f., xxvi. 5, 
 xxviii. 9-15- And see for a fuller explanation Driver's Lnti'oduction, 
 P- 494- 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM. 133 
 
 he observes that all the additions to the older narra- 
 tive betray, by their style and language, that they 
 belong to the latest period of Jewish literature, he 
 gradually reaches a conclusion which it is now our 
 duty to formulate. 
 
 The author of this book is not attempting to write 
 history in the sense in which we now understand that 
 term. His work is rather what he would perhaps 
 have called a MidrasJi.^ That is to say, historical 
 facts are freely handled with the purpose of pointing 
 certain religious lessons. The value of the book 
 must be sought not in the facts — they are given with 
 a greater approach to accuracy in Samuel and Kings 
 — but in the teaching which is conveyed through 
 the facts. When we make the claim that all the 
 details given by the Chronicler are authenticated by 
 the Spirit of God, and are therefore to be treated as 
 revelation, to use the inexact term, of things that 
 had happened centuries before, but had been over- 
 looked by previous historians, we are certainly doing 
 our best to confuse the idea of revelation and to 
 discredit the historical books of the Bible. Such 
 a claim could only be advanced by some careless 
 pietist who has never been at the trouble to carefully 
 collate our two parallel history books. We miss the 
 whole position if we fail to notice how the Chronicler 
 
 ' 2 Chron. xiii. 22, xxiv. 27. Translated in R.V., " Commentary." 
 
134 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 — in perfect good faith, but without any historic 
 justification— reads into the story of the ancient 
 monarchy the ideas and practices of his own time, 
 or if we lay stress on the correctness of his description 
 of the Passover in Hezekiah's time, which is not 
 mentioned in the Book of Kings, or on that of 
 Josiah's time, which in Kings is only briefly referred 
 to. It is essential for our understanding of the book 
 to admit that these full ceremonials arc what the 
 author saw in his own day, and not what had been 
 in Jerusalem before the Captivity. The glowing 
 colours and magnificent exaggerations of the wealth 
 and military power of the early monarchy must be 
 recognised as the fond imagination of a writer who, 
 very naturally, conceives the great days of Israel's 
 past in the light of what he knew of the vast empires, 
 Babylon, Persia, or Macedonia, which were before his 
 own eyes. The perfect good faith of the writer, on 
 which we cannot lay too much stress, is established 
 among other things by this, that when he comes to 
 events which were, comparatively speaking, within 
 his immediate purview — the return from the Captivity 
 and the reorganisation of the Temple and its services 
 — events not much more than a century old when he 
 wrote ; when he uses historical materials fresh and 
 trustworthy, like the memoirs of Ezra or Nehemiah, he 
 tells his story in a plain unvarnished way. It is idle 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OE JERUSALEM. 135 
 
 and foolish, therefore, to bring charges of dishonesty 
 against a writer because, in the manner of all authors 
 in antiquity, he felt at liberty to dress the story of 
 bygone and ancient days in the garb and the 
 colouring of his own surroundings and his own 
 preconceptions. 
 
 But it may be objected, and by people whose 
 judgment is numbed by the acceptance of an un- 
 intelligent dogma concerning Scripture frequently is 
 objected : If we are not able to accept this Chronicle 
 as historically correct, if the author cannot be trusted 
 to tell us facts, how can we regard it as revelation, 
 how can we pay any deference to anything that he 
 says? Unhappily for many honest minds the ques- 
 tion of revelation is entirely identified with that 
 of historical accuracy supernaturally guaranteed 
 against errors of fact. The disastrous result of 
 holding such a position is that when the historical 
 accuracy of a scriptural book is, as we have seen in 
 this chapter, disproved by the Bible itself, the scared 
 and illogical mind immediately throws away the 
 belief in all revelation. Let it, therefore, be firmly 
 and confidently stated that the Revelation contained 
 in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah,— the revelation, 
 that is, in the sense that we have defined it in our 
 present investigation, — is not affected in the least by 
 the admissions which candour has compelled us to 
 
136 KEVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 make. In a word, the MidrasJi of the Chronicler 
 derives its value from the fact that it presents the 
 religious faith and conceptions of the Jews after the 
 Exile, in that period of history when, according to 
 the old notions about the Bible, our records are silent. 
 Here we may learn what Judaism was, and what Jews 
 believed about their own history, and how Jews were 
 shaping their religious institutions a century after 
 the days of Malachi. The Chronicle, as its position 
 at the end of the Hebrew Bible indicates, is the 
 connecting link between the Old Testament and the 
 New. If the Chronicler had simply repeated the 
 Books of Samuel and Kings, his work would have 
 been useless ; if his revised versions of the history 
 are to be accepted as themselves history, we are 
 confronted by a hopeless riddle of contradictions ; but 
 directly we perceive that his additions and emenda- 
 tions and his whole method of handling the ancient 
 story throw a flood of light on the religion of the 
 Restored Temple and the complete institutions of 
 Judaism, we are in a position to rightly value the 
 work. 
 
 And when our materials are thus handled in the 
 right critical spirit, need it be said that the revelation 
 which emerges before our eyes is of a singularly 
 striking and wonderful character ? What may be 
 called by a Germanism the Moses-revelation, and 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM. 137 
 
 what Professor Duff^ calls the David-revelation, and 
 what may be broadly designated the Prophetic 
 revelation, were all consummated in that Jewish 
 Church of the Restoration, which remained as the 
 egg out of which was to come in due time the 
 kingdom of God, includincr the Church of Christ. 
 Judaism, as distinct from Ancient Israel and its 
 inchoate institutions and evolving history, Judaism 
 was a Revelation from God, the highest Revelation 
 that had been given before Christ came ; and our 
 Chronicle is the most complete and authentic docu- 
 ment concerning Judaism which has come down to 
 us. The passion of the Temple, the rushing enthu- 
 siasm of its services, the glory of its " priests clothed 
 with salvation, and the saints rejoicing in goodness," the 
 mighty ritual of Sacrifices and of Feasts, the solemn 
 sense of God manifested in these visible ordinances, 
 the worship, the prayer, the confession, which 
 gathered round the sacred hill, the religion which 
 Ezekiel was called on to preach, and which the 
 Psalmists have clothed in glowing hymns — all this 
 was, and still is, revelation. And it is surprising how 
 any one who has read the Chronicle which was 
 written in the atmosphere of that noble institution 
 can fail to perceive the revelation contained in it. 
 It is not too much to say that the religion of the 
 
 * OH Testa7)icni Theology, i. p. 64. 
 
1 38 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Chronicler is distinctly in advance of that which is 
 entertained in the greater part of Christendom to-day. 
 The Temple, the Priesthood, the sacrifices in which 
 he gloried are nearer to the mind of God than the 
 similar institutions which appear in the grosser forms 
 of Christianity ; and it only requires the application 
 of that key which Christ holds in His hand to see the 
 secret of that great religion unveiled, and to read 
 the ideas of the Chronicler as a beautiful symbolical 
 presentation of the faith which was to be. They 
 who still believe that the writer is discredited because 
 he wrote a Midrash of history instead of history pure 
 and simple, they who deem it part of their religious 
 faith to square the Chronicles with Samuel and 
 Kings, will probably still labour in their hopeless 
 and uninspiring task, but they will not gain so noble 
 and lofty an idea of the Revelation of this book as 
 that which dawns on the student, in his faithful 
 acceptance of the manifest critical and historical facts. 
 But now, in closing the brief review which has been 
 attempted in this and the. previous chapter of the Old 
 Testament Histories, it is desirable for us to definitely 
 raise a most interesting question. What is it that 
 gives a distinctive note to these records of Israel ? 
 Comparing them, for example, with the story of 
 other ancient nations, with the narratives of Herodotus, 
 Thucydides, and Xenophon, or with those of Poly- 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM. 139 
 
 bius, Livy, and Tacitus, what is this difference which 
 is so seldom defined and yet is so perfectly plain? 
 The Hellenic writer is not less patriotic, and he is even 
 less ready to narrate the shady parts of his people's 
 history ; the Roman writer is not less enthusiastic in 
 tracing the origins of his Eternal City, nor is he less 
 faithful in lashing the vices of the Empire and de- 
 nouncing the ruin which they portend ; but Greek 
 History and Roman History stand in very striking 
 contrast with these writings which form the history 
 of the Old Testament. Does the difference lie in the 
 fact that this is religious and those are secular ? 
 But all these ancient authors are religious. Their 
 narratives all teem with theophanies, oracles, signs, 
 sacrifices, and manifold intercourse, in the earlier 
 periods, between men and their gods. Does the 
 difference, then, lie in the superior moral tone of 
 the Israelitish history ? We cannot honestly say 
 that it does. No grosser stories are told in Hero- 
 dotus than those which are narrated in Judges and 
 Samuel. The Brasidas and Nicias of Thuc}'didcs 
 arc not less, but more, moral than David. The 
 noblest portraits in Roman History, the Horatii, the 
 Curii, the Fabricii, the Fabii, the Scipios, fall no whit 
 behind the best and greatest men described in these 
 Old Testament Books. 
 
 It is only when we press this comparison closely 
 
I40 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 and force ourselves to give an answer that we begin 
 to see distinctly in what a very decisive sense the 
 History of Israel is a Revelation, while the histories 
 of other ancient peoples, which are equally true, and 
 equally valuable in their way, neither are nor can 
 claim to be anything of the kind ; we begin to see 
 how in the one case men are shown, in the other God 
 is revealed. Now the full truth of this observation 
 can only be perceived when we have studied the 
 prophets and fitted their work into the frame of the 
 history, and when we have caught the inspiration of 
 the Psalms and the other Hagiographa of Israel ; 
 nay, the truth of the observation in its entirety can 
 only be appreciated when we have considered the 
 Christian revelation which had its root in the Jewish. 
 But even from our present standpoint we are able to 
 see how truly it may be said, in speaking of the 
 history of Israel, " The Lord hath not dealt so with 
 any nation " (Ps. cxlvii. 20). What works through- 
 out the story like an energetic spirit, and manifests 
 itself in spite of all the imperfections and confusions 
 of the records, is the vivid sense that God is dealing 
 with this people all along, and has always a definite 
 purpose in His dealing. However incomplete the 
 history may be, as a piece of literature, the history, 
 as a gradual and connected development, is as com- 
 plete and as finished and as striking as a Greek 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM 141 
 
 Statue of the golden age. Nor does this ideal 
 completeness and its religious significance ever come 
 out so clearly as when the critical views advocated in 
 the present discussion arc frankly accepted. Let us 
 glance over that period of 1200 years from the 
 Exodus and the occupation of Canaan to the definite 
 formation of the Jewish Church ; what is, in broad 
 outline, the gist of the story ? 
 
 An oppressed people is led out of Egypt by a 
 leader who has come into a remarkable relation with 
 God, and has learnt to apprehend the nature and 
 being of the Invisible One as Yahveh. At the holy 
 Mount this people acquires a sense of revelation, and 
 under the leadership of Moses approaches the posses- 
 sion of their ancestral land as men who are obeying 
 the voice of God. The process of conquering the 
 land is slow, and the unity of the desert march is 
 lost in the fractional interests and detailed struggles 
 of the various clans. It is a dark period in the 
 memory of after days. For four centuries the great 
 truth which Moses grasped made no advance, and 
 even seemed in danger of perishing among the 
 confused idolatries which haunted the Phoenician 
 seaboard. The only form of Yahveh's manifestation 
 amongst the people was in the persons of rough and 
 vigorous warriors, who, with little ethical principle 
 and no spiritual life, yet conceived their feats of 
 
142 KE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 prowess as a service to the God of Moses. But God 
 had not forgotten this feeble people which He found 
 in the wilderness, and in the last of the Judges He 
 sent them the first of the Prophets. Samuel comes 
 with the kind of direct inspiration from Yahveh which 
 made Moses so commanding a figure, and succeeds 
 under the guidance of his God in establishing a 
 genuine kingship, which unites in one the scattered 
 clans of Israel. A series of striking historical events, 
 resulting in the rejection of Saul and the choice of 
 David, shows what manner of man Yahveh would 
 have to rule over his people. The man is morally 
 far from an ideal character, but he has the root of 
 the matter in him, and he carries the revelation of 
 God a step further than Moses had done five 
 centuries before ; he believes that Yahveh is the 
 supreme Lord over all other gods, kings, and 
 peoples. The Ideal Unity of the Nation and the 
 absolute Sovereignty of Yahveh are asserted and 
 established as two related truths. 
 
 The son of David is called upon to provide for the 
 religious cultus of his people. But unfortunately 
 wealth and luxury unfit him for his task. Another 
 period more distressful than that of the Judges 
 supervenes. The nation falls asunder ; the greater 
 part of it, sinking deeper and deeper into the ways 
 of other nations around it, trembles towards decay. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CHRONICLE OF JERUSALEM. 143 
 
 Great teachers — Elijah, EUsha, Amos — are sent to it 
 in vain. In vain are the oracles of Hosea and Isaiah 
 rung out in its ears. Four hundred years after David 
 it has entirely disappeared. 
 
 Meanwhile a similar, and yet a widely different, 
 fate is worked out for the tiny kingdom which has its 
 centre in Jerusalem. Under the guidance of the great 
 teachers, of whom Isaiah and Jeremiah are the best 
 known to history, a new religious organisation is 
 developed ; a central place of worship at Jerusalem 
 is secured, and an order of ministers, called Levites, is 
 appointed ; but, as was only too natural, the elabo- 
 rated ceremonial and the Temple worship were easier 
 of accomplishment than purity of heart and righteous- 
 ness of conduct, and the great prophets perceived, 
 each one with greater clearness than his predecessor, 
 that Yahveh was above all Holy, and His demand was 
 not for outward worship, but for actual goodness. 
 
 The refusal of monarch and people to accept this 
 " word of Yahveh " brings upon them the great catas- 
 trophe of the Captivity. The monarchy is finally 
 suppressed ; the Temple and its ordinances are 
 destroyed ; the leaders of the people are carried 
 away into Babylonia. Here, according to all human 
 probability, would be an end of this insignificant 
 people. How are we to account for the fact that 
 the Captivity, instead of destroying, created the 
 
144 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 people of God ? How are we to explain the obvious 
 fact that Babylon perished and Judaism survived ? 
 I'hose great men, Jeremiah and Ezekiel — perhaps we 
 should add Second Isaiah and the author of Job — 
 were the instruments through which the God of Israel 
 realised His unexpected purpose. The men of the 
 Captivity came back, purged of their ancient ideas, 
 and bringing with them the plans of a New Jerusalem 
 and a New Temple. Under the leadership of men 
 like Ezra and Nehemiah and the Chronicler, the Old 
 Law was rewritten and completed ; the Old History 
 was recast and thrown into an ideal light ; the new 
 Church, as it has been justly called, was organised 
 and established. 
 
 The Church of the Restoration, produced and 
 shaped by this remarkable series of events, carried in 
 its very framework the forecast of another and a 
 wider church which was to come, and carried in its 
 very heart the expectation of an Anointed One who 
 should sit on the throne of David and found a new 
 and greater and everlasting Kingdom. 
 
 Looking steadily at the Judaism of the Third 
 Century B.C., considering its character, its implica- 
 tions, its faiths, its hopes, its destiny, we can hardly 
 fail to see the Revelation of God in the chequered 
 course of events which led up to its establishment. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE PROPHETS. 
 
 " No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. For no pro- 
 phecy ever came by the will of man ; but men spake from God, being 
 moved by the Holy Ghost." — 2 Pet. i. 20, 21. 
 
 The closing paragraphs of the last chapter have 
 shown how necessary it is for us now to take in hand 
 the work and the writings of the prophets. The 
 history, as we have seen, must have been largely 
 shaped by their activity ; the completed Law Book is 
 as much their production as the writings which go by 
 their name ; the historical books which we have just 
 been considering not only came from the pens of 
 prophets, but record the ministry of prophets, and 
 show by what human agency God spoke to His 
 people and moulded their development ; now we 
 turn to the books, which in some cases are autograph 
 works, and in all cases bear the immediate personal 
 stamp of the most influential of the prophets. 
 
 II 
 
146 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 In no part of the Bible has the labour of modern 
 scholarship been more fruitful than in the prophetic 
 writings. Until the steady light of the historical 
 spirit was turned upon the subject, and the necessity 
 of properly placing the several utterances in their 
 appropriate historical situations was convincingly felt, 
 these invaluable documents were handed over to the 
 caprice of " private interpretation," and the grand 
 and unique ministration of the prophets was reduced 
 to a book of riddles, allegories, and obscure oracles 
 worthy of the tripod at Delphi or the oaks of Do- 
 dona. The editing of these documents, if we may 
 use a very modern term, is for the most part very 
 unsatisfactory. Whatever authority we must charge 
 with the arrangement and distribution of the writ- 
 ings, whether the author himself or a later editor, the 
 result seriously hinders the prophets from being under- 
 stood. So hopeless and confusing was the method 
 in which the Scribes preserved and interpreted their 
 treasure of Divine words, that there is good evidence 
 for supposing that in the days of our Lord and His 
 Apostles it would have required a superhuman effort 
 to understand the prophets aright. Disposed in 
 cumbersome " rolls," with inaccurate titles, without 
 any attempt at chronological arrangement, uneluci- 
 dated by historical notes or trustworthy dates, these 
 words of ancient prophecy were in much the same 
 
THE PROPHETS. 147 
 
 condition as the vaticinations which the Sibyl of 
 Cumae wrote upon leaves, to be the sport of every 
 wind. It \\\\\ be remembered how the Evangelist 
 attributes to Jeremiah a saying which occurs in our 
 Book of Zechariah,! which may quite possibly mean 
 that in the Roll which he had been accustomed to 
 read the prophecy, Zech. ix.-xi., xiii. 7-9, a passage 
 certainly not Zechariah's, was included among the 
 works of Jeremiah. It will be remembered, else- 
 where also, how the Evangelists, especially Matthew, 
 make quotations from the Prophets which show that 
 they had little or no acquaintance with the context 
 or the original significance of the prophetic books. 
 The reader of the English Bible is at this advantage 
 as compared with the Evangelists, that he has the 
 writings in a compact form and furnished with 
 abundant references ; but the English reader is still 
 at a great disadvantage as compared with even a 
 moderate scholar who has learnt the elementary 
 facts of the imperfect way in which the ancient 
 writings were edited by the men who are in the 
 Talmud called The Great Synagogue. The intricate 
 confusion of the Prophetic Books, which criticism has 
 had to disentangle, must now be briefly described 
 before we try to read the revelation of these inspired 
 Seers. 
 
 ' Matt, xxvii. 9; Zech. xi. 12, 13. 
 
148 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 To begin with, there is hardly any attempt to 
 arrange the books in a right chronological order. In 
 the Hebrew Canon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel 
 seem to be placed first as the greater prophets, 
 because the books which bear their names are the 
 longest : Daniel is not reckoned among the Prophets 
 at all, but among the Kethtibim, or miscellaneous 
 writings, possibly because of its later date ; and all 
 the other prophetical writings are treated as one 
 work, massed together without much concern for 
 order or connection. But the very first condition of 
 understanding the work of the prophets is to properly 
 date them and see them in their appropriate his- 
 torical circumstances, and the second condition is to 
 put them in their right order so that the progress 
 of the Divine Word in their ministrations may be 
 appreciated. 
 
 Yet in stating this broad fact of ill-arrangement we 
 have only touched the border of the faulty editing. 
 There was evidently no criterion for determining the 
 authorship of individual prophecies, and in cases 
 where a prophecy did not contain the name of the 
 prophet it was sometimes attached to the Roll of 
 some other prophet without any indication that a 
 break occurred. The most familiar instance of this 
 is in the Book of Isaiah, where to the work of a great 
 Eighth Century Prophet is added a wonderful anony- 
 
THE PROPHETS. 149 
 
 mous Prophecy which dates from the middle of tlie 
 Sixth Century. Another, though less recognised, 
 example of the same confusion occurs in Zechariah, 
 where to the eight chapters of the prophet's own are 
 added six other chapters which bear the marks both 
 of an earlier and of a later period, but certainly do 
 not belong to Zechariah. 
 
 Nor when we have detected this confusion have we 
 by any means reached the end. . Except in a few 
 cases where the prophet seems to have edited his own 
 book, the writings which come from one author are 
 frequently arranged in the most provoking order. 
 The Book of Jeremiah is the most flagrant example 
 of this, chronological inexactness. The writing of the 
 book is fixed in the fifth year of Jehoiakim (604 B.C.). 
 But chap. X. 1-16 presents the situation of the exiles 
 in Babylon some years later, and must, therefore, if it 
 is Jeremiah's at all, be inserted from a subsequent 
 collection of prophecies. Again, chap. xxi. i-io 
 suddenly passes to the year 587 B.C. Chap. xxv. 
 reverts to 604 B.C. Chap. xxvi. carries us back to 
 608 B.C. Chaps, xxvii.-xxix. pass forward to the 
 year of the Captivity, 597 B.C. Chap. xlv. refers to a 
 date (604 B.C.) long before chap. xliv. Then chaps. 
 1. and li. are evidently a later composition, written 
 just before the return from the Exile (538 B.C.), and 
 added to the Book of Jeremiah because of its con- 
 
150 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 nection with Jeremiah's message to the exiles ^ (h. 
 
 .59-64)- 
 
 Evidently it was necessary, before any correct 
 appreciation of the prophetic work could be possible, 
 to attempt some careful editing ; and this the scholars 
 of our own day have been doing, with the result that 
 the prophets live before our eyes. The utterances 
 which seemed to be obscure become plain when their 
 historical setting i^ recovered. A new and wonderful 
 conception of the men and their work has been 
 obtained ; and if it is necessary to relinquish the old 
 semi-pagan idea of their inspiration, it has been found 
 still more necessary to recognise in them an inspira- 
 tion which is quite unique. There is nothing in any 
 nation or any age parallel to this prophetic ministry 
 among the chosen people. As we distinctly define 
 what that ministry was, as we carefully trace the 
 moral and spiritual forces that worked in it, and the 
 religious truths which were manifested through it, 
 and as we set this amazing phenomenon in contrast 
 with more or less similar phenomena in other 
 religions, we cannot remain in much doubt that here 
 indeed was Revelation ; nor will it be very difficult to 
 define the character, the quality, and the limitations 
 of the Revelation which is admitted. 
 
 ^ Driver, Introduction, p. 252, who expressly attributes the passage 
 to a disciple of Jeremiah's, and vindicates its character as a genuine 
 prophecy. 
 
THE PROPHETS. 151 
 
 Before we approach this task, however, we may 
 remind ourselves that here in the writings of the 
 prophets, if anywhere, we may expect to come across 
 the true nature of Inspiration. There is a kind of 
 autograph authenticity about the books which was 
 quite wanting in the Law and the Histories. The 
 prophets show us their own inner hfe, and allow us to 
 see in what way the Spirit of the Lord came upon 
 them ; they describe to us visions which they actually 
 saw ; they do not hesitate to display the tumult of 
 feeling and the burning of thought which must result 
 from a conscious contact with God. The word of the 
 Lord comes to them ; and often with reluctance and 
 agonising protest they are compelled to utter it. No 
 men that ever lived are more human than these 
 prophets, but no men ever spoke such superhuman 
 things. While the books were in obscurity, and for 
 English readers not intelligible, the humanity and 
 the Divine Inspiration of the men were alike missed ; 
 but such works as Professor Robertson Smith's 
 Prophets of Israel, Professor Driver's Isaiah, and 
 Professor Duff's enthusiastic book on Old Testament 
 Theology have put within the reach of ordinary readers 
 the best results of an earnest and conscientious 
 scholarship, and it is our own fault if w^e do not see 
 the Prophets very much as they were seen by their 
 contemporaries, and if we do not rightly interpret 
 
152 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 their utterances in the light of the facts which were 
 around them, and in the further Hght of the great 
 events which came after them. 
 
 We may now proceed to group the prophetic 
 writings, not according to the unintelHgent order of 
 our Canon, but on a principle of chronological and 
 historical arrangement ; and as we form the groups 
 we may estimate the substance and the nature of the 
 Revelation which these great men were enabled to 
 give to their fellows. Broadly speaking, the prophetic 
 writings fall into three groups: — i. There are the 
 utterances before the Exile of the Northern Kingdom, 
 and those which followed on that disaster, but pre- 
 ceded the similar punishment of Judah. 2. There 
 are the utterances which denounced and interpreted 
 the Babylonian Captivity of Judah, and then prepared 
 the exiles for their restoration to Jerusalem. 3. There 
 are the utterances of the men who directed the re- 
 storation, and the scattered voices of spiritual teachers 
 in those centuries of waiting when the disappointment 
 of the restored community gradually shaped the 
 expectation of the Messiah. To these groups we 
 may attach three general definitions of time. Group 
 I. falls between 760 and 700 B.C. Group II. falls 
 between 660 and 540 B.C. Group III. falls within the 
 century 520-420 B.C. ; though if we are to include 
 Daniel among the prophets, and to take note of some 
 
THE PROPHETS. 153 
 
 indications in the latter part of Zechariah, we may 
 say that the scattered voices of this last period occur 
 at intervals down to 167 B.C. We first have a period 
 of Sixty Years, during which the noblest of Hebrew 
 prophets laboured and spoke. Then we have a 
 period of One Hundred and Twenty Years, during 
 which the highest spiritual truths were gained by 
 men in themselves not quite so interesting. Finally 
 we have a period in which prophecy has become 
 prosaic, and the spiritual enlargement seems arrested ; 
 but, as in the dark hour before the dawn, the expecta- 
 tion of the great Day is cherished and defined. The 
 first period is predominantly poHtical, the second is 
 predominantly ecclesiastical, the third is marked by 
 an indistinct conviction that hope lies not along 
 political or ecclesiastical lines, but in the advent of a 
 new Spiritual Power. 
 
 Let us approach these groups in succession. First 
 Period, 760-700 B.C. Professor Duff has admirably 
 depicted the interest of this period in the history of 
 the world. It was the time when the Greeks began 
 to chronicle their national life by Olympiads, and 
 when the mythical builders of Rome were laying the 
 foundations of the Eternal City. In the kingdom 
 which had its throne in Samaria, Jeroboam II. had 
 carried his people to a culminating point of material 
 prosperity, while in the poor and insignificant moun- 
 
154 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 tain princedom of Judah the reign of Uzziah had 
 brought some sense of peace and security. Amos 
 and his younger contemporary, Hosea, were charged 
 with a message to Israel ; Isaiah, the man of the city 
 and the court, and Micah, the man of the countryside, 
 were entrusted with a ministry to Judah. The mes- 
 sage of Amos, the herdsman of Tekoah (760-746 B.C.), 
 may be summed up in a sentence — God is righteous, 
 therefore man must be righteous. The true Israel, he 
 preached, were the good. The salvation he promised 
 was the destruction of the bad, and the restoration of 
 the good. The revelation of Amos lies in the identi- 
 fication of God with goodness, which is a truth only 
 to be derived h'om God Himself; and familiar as it 
 has become to us, we must remember that to the 
 other acknowledged religions of antiquity it remained 
 always unknown or unrecognised. Hosea, vyhose 
 prophetic activity follows on the death of Jeroboam 
 II. (746 B.C.), reiterated the denunciation of judgment 
 on Sinful Samaria, but notwithstanding the disjointed 
 character of the book, which is more like a collection 
 of prophetic texts than a report of connected dis- 
 courses, it is very clear that the God revealed in this 
 prophet is one whom men may love. " I am God, 
 and not man, I will not return to destroy," is the new 
 beautiful message. We are brought face to face with 
 a Divine Being who pleads with His people as an 
 
THE PROPHETS. 155 
 
 injured husband might plead with an offending wife 
 whom he loves. Such a moving appeal to sinners, 
 such a call to repentance, such a passion of yearning 
 and love, such a promise of resurrection, as occur in 
 the closing chapters of the book, remain for ever as 
 a picture of God which it is difficult to surpass. If 
 Amos said, God is righteousness, Hosea said. He is 
 grace. 
 
 While we thought that the Pentateuch had been 
 written by Moses, we could never understand the 
 startling revelation contained in these two Prophets, 
 a revelation which indeed contributed to the making 
 of the Pentateuch. The Torah to Amos ^ and to 
 Hosea 2 was a simple moral law, and not an elaborate 
 ceremonial or a developed Theology. Amos had 
 coniie to see that Yahveh was the God of other 
 nations besides Israel, but he probably had no theory 
 of monotheism ; and Hosea, so far from understanding 
 the view of idolatry which prevails in the completed 
 Law, regarded it as a terrible punishment to be with- 
 out the pillars and the teraphim, the symbols of 
 religious worship which in the next century became 
 the object of severe condemnation. 3 The recovered 
 understanding of the Hebrew literature has enabled 
 us to appreciate the real revelation in these prophets 
 without stumbling at those blind spots in their vision 
 
 ' V. 21-24. - iv. 6, vi. 6, viii. i, 12. 5 Hosea iii. 4. 
 
1 56 RE VELA TtON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 that prevented them from seeing things which yet 
 remained un revealed. 
 
 Meanwhile two prophets were beginning their work 
 in Judah whose names are imperishable as their utter- 
 ances, the poet-preacher, Isaiah I (740-701 B.C.), and the 
 earnest moralist, Micah (730-697 B.C.), in whose book 
 occurs one of the loftiest passages in the whole range 
 of inspiration, chaps, vi. and vii.^ Isaiah's ministry 
 was an earnest wrestle with the political problems of 
 his time. The vision of God came to him as a boy ; 
 and in the strength of that great revelation he was 
 required to shape the counsels of the weak prince 
 Ahaz, and of his nobler successor, Hezekiah. It was a 
 critical period. Threatened first by a combination of 
 Israel and Syria, and afterwards by the invasion of 
 the Assyrian Kings who swept the Northern King- 
 dom into captivity, the petty mountain-state of Judah 
 had to be encouraged to hope in God and to prepare 
 
 ^ In what follows the position is frankly accepted that the actual 
 utterances of Isaiah can only be found in chaps, i.-xii., xiv. 24-xxiii., 
 xxviii.-xxxiii., xxxvii. 22-32, of the book called by his name. The 
 revelation of the prophet Isaiah is distinguished from the revelation 
 of the Book of Isaiah. But it must be distinctly understood that in 
 the opinion of the present writer these critical conclusions arrived at on 
 historical or literary grounds, so far from lessening the Revelation of the 
 book, have brought it into a clearer light by restoring the perspective 
 and adding the appropriate colouring. 
 
 ^ Ewald attributed chaps, vi. and vii. to another author writing in 
 Manasseh's reign ; but later scholars have very justly pointed out that 
 Micah may easily have lived to write this magnificent passage, even 
 assuming the latest date to which it can fairly be attributed. 
 
THE PROPHETS, 157 
 
 to fulfil her great destiny. The Holy One of Israel 
 was manifested to the prophet in the Sanctuary at 
 Jerusalem, and it became his function to declare that 
 Zion should not only escape the threatened invasion, 
 but, conscious of a present God, Immanuel, should be 
 the centre and pledge of a purified religious life. No 
 poet has ever sung in more beautiful language the 
 promise of a better time to be than this prophet of 
 Jerusalem in those days of peril and foreboding. If 
 we to-day wish to conceive a new heaven and a new 
 earth we turn instinctively to those thrilling descrip- 
 tions of a true religion, and a righteous ruler, and the 
 whole pacified world gathering around one sacred 
 place.i If this firm conviction of the prophet's was 
 not an inspiration given by that God who was to him 
 so near a presence and so dear a friend, we shall seek 
 for inspiration in vain ; and if the reader of Isaiah's 
 writings does not become aware how the revelation of 
 God involves the revelation of moral duty for man, no 
 words can make it plain to him. The Being who is 
 revealed in the prophecies of Isaiah is essentially the 
 Being whom Christians worship with one limitation 
 only, that He is intimately associated with the Sanc- 
 tuary and the Solemnities on Mount Zion, and is not 
 yet recognised in the width of His spiritual manifes- 
 tations. 
 
 ' See Isa. ii. 2-4, iv. 2-6, ix. 1-7, xi. i-io, xvi. 4/;, 5, xxix. 18, xxx. 
 21-26, xxxii. 1-8, 15-1S, xxxiii. 5, 20. (Driver, Introduction, p. 216.) 
 
1 58 RE VELA riON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 We should indeed be captious and ungrateful if 
 with this real and lovely revelation in our hands we 
 complained that Isaiah was not endowed with an in- 
 fallible knowledge of the future, that in some respects 
 his forecasts were falsified by the events, and that 
 even in the great matter of Zion's inviolability it 
 became the duty of subsequent prophets to reverse 
 the hope which his rapturous eulogies had inspired. 
 He did not know the extraordinary vitality of the 
 city of Damascus when he uttered the oracle in chap, 
 xvii. I. He appears to have underestimated the 
 usefulness of Egypt.^ And that noble thought of an 
 Egypt united with Assyria in worship, and forming, 
 with Israel as the third, a great people of God (xix. 
 23, 24), was not destined to be fulfilled in a literal 
 sense ; for Assyria long ago perished from the earth 
 without entering into the heritage. 
 
 The prophet Micah affords a very favourable illus- 
 tration both of the nature and of the limits of the 
 prophetic revelations. His general line of thought 
 is essentially the same as Isaiah's ; he utters from the 
 standpoint of the people what Isaiah expresses from 
 the standpoint of the statesman. Micah, like Amos 
 and Hosea, in the early days of his ministry (730 B.C.), 
 foretold the downfall of Samaria, which he seems to 
 have regarded as a schismatic sanctuary (Micah i. 5), 
 
 ' Duff, Old Testament Theology, p. 223. 
 
THE PROPHETS. 
 
 159 
 
 but he also saw the punishment impending over his 
 own country (ver. 9), and so far diverged from Isaiah 
 as to regard the sanctuary at Jerusalem as an offence 
 against God, corrupt like Samaria. ^ But he, like 
 Isaiah, quotes the prophecy which foretold the ultimate 
 restoration of Zion (Micah iv. 1-3 ; cf. Isa. ii. 2-4), and 
 announced a Divine Ruler who should be a defence 
 against the Assyrian (vers. 2-5). Under this new David 
 he believed the golden age of his country and his 
 faith would dawn. With a passion which moves even 
 us, who read his words only in an English garb, he 
 denounces the moral evils of the existing nobles, the 
 rulers of Israel (chap, iii.), and he seems to complete 
 the teaching of the two prophets of the Northern 
 Kingdom who identified religion with moral integrity, 
 and taught the world to regard God as the righteous 
 One demanding righteousness. 
 
 Now it is this intensity, this insight, of Micah's 
 faith, which causes the astonishment of the modern 
 reader in finding that this prophet had not yet risen 
 to the conception which we call Monotheism. It 
 seems that to Micah God was only revealed as the 
 supreme sovereign of the gods, the Holy One of 
 Israel, whom an Israelite was bound to treat as the 
 God of the nations and of the earth, but not to 
 
 * Micah i. 5. It would seem that the LXX. read nXtSn for HlD^l ". 
 " What is the sin of Judah ? is it not Jerusalem ?' 
 
i6o REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the exclusion of other deities. Micah closes one of 
 his loftiest utterances with the forecast — 
 
 *' All the peoples will walk, every one in the name of his god, 
 And we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and 
 ever" (iv. 5). 
 
 We could scarcely have a more instructive reminder 
 of the gradual progress of Revelation. The greatest 
 minds of the Eighth Century B.C. had not yet per- 
 ceived what is familiar to every child "in the kingdom 
 of heaven," even to those lapsed children of the king- 
 dom, the followers of Mohammed, that there is but 
 One God, and that Yahveh of Israel is indeed the 
 Supreme and Only One. It is not even quite clear 
 that Micah entertained that dislike of the images and 
 the pillars and the Asherim which is manifest in the 
 completed Torah ; the tone of chap. v. 10-15,^ and 
 the way in which the cities and strongholds are 
 coupled with the symbols of worship, would suggest 
 that Micah regarded the destruction of them rather 
 as a punishment to be endured than as a purification 
 to be welcomed. 
 
 But perhaps the clearest idea of the limitation of 
 the prophetic revelation, as compared with the com- 
 plete revelation of the Gospel, may be obtained by a 
 comparison of the magnificent passage in Micah vi. 
 1-8, with the answer which St. Paul would give to the 
 
 ' Cf. Hosea iii. 4, 
 
THE PROPHETS. i6i 
 
 question, What does God require of us? Micah was 
 able to see that the sacrifice of animals and libations 
 of oil could not propitiate God, and he could reject 
 the barbarous Semitic notion that the offering of the 
 firstborn child would purchase the pardon of the 
 parents' sin : he could grasp the noble conception that 
 only moral goodness, justice, mercy, and a humble 
 piety, could really be acceptable to God. But as yet 
 it had not dawned upon even the most inspired of 
 prophets that God not only demanded these virtues, 
 but would in His grace create them in the hearts of 
 His people through a living faith in His Son, Christ 
 Jesus. Isaiah and Micah are so truly great, and the 
 revelation which they brought to their own day was 
 so wonderful and startling, that we are apt to over- 
 look the comparatively low place which they occupy 
 in the progress of God's revelation : they stand but 
 half way up the golden stair which scales the heights 
 of the Kingdom of Heaven. The refusal to recognise 
 their mistakes and their limitations is one of the main 
 hindrances to understanding the work of Him, who 
 fulfilled the Law and the Prophets by realising and 
 completing their imperfect conceptions. 
 
 Second Period, 660-540 B.C. The writings which 
 form the Second Group of the prophets are, in the 
 order of date, Nahum (664-607 B.C.), whose grand 
 conception of God ruling over and punishing Nineveh 
 
1 62 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 is quite Isaian in its tone, and forms a convenient 
 transition from the prophets, whose horizon was 
 occupied by the conquering Assyria, to those who 
 had to deal with Babylon and the Babylonian cap- 
 tivity of Jerusalem; Jeremiah (626-586 BC), the 
 greatest personality of this period, and Obadiah, his 
 contemporary; Zephaniah (before 621 B.C.); Habakkuk 
 (608-598 B.C.) ; Ezekiel (592-570 B.C.) ; and last, but 
 in some senses most inspired of all, that great utter- 
 ance which forms the second part of our l^ook of 
 Isaiah (chaps, xl.-lxvi.), which we may date approxi- 
 mately 549-538 B.C.,together with chaps, xxxiv.-xxxv., 
 which will at any rate not be earlier than the begin- 
 ning of the Captivity, and chaps, xiii.-xiv. 23, which 
 belong to the close of the Exile, say about 549 B.C.^ 
 
 The work of these prophets covers, and contributes 
 to, the most crucial period of Hebrew history : the 
 period of the great reformation under Josiah, with the 
 promulgation of the Deuteronomic law (621 B.C.) ; the 
 period of the doom which, notwithstanding the refor- 
 mation, was fulfilled in the capture of Jerusalem by 
 Nebuchadnezzar (604-586 B.C.) ; the period of the 
 formation of the Jewish Church in the Exile and the 
 promise of return and restoration. The first condition 
 of understanding the revelation which was conveyed 
 through these inspired men is to distinctly realise the 
 
 ^ Isa. xxiv.-xxvii. must be assigned to the Third Group. 
 
THE PROPHETS. 163 
 
 immediate object and effect of their ministr)'. It was 
 their solemn task to accept the centralised Sanctuary 
 and the purified worship of Zion which Isaiah had 
 proclaimed, but only in order to denounce a punish- 
 ment which superficial hearers of the former prophet 
 might have hoped to see averted. Their hard lot was 
 to appear as the enemies of their own nation; patriots 
 who loved their countr)' and their city with a pathetic 
 fervour, they yet had to side with her enemies, to 
 dissuade her kings from seeking deliverance, to make 
 their people submit patiently to the overthrow of 
 Jerusalem and the transportation to Babylon ; and 
 only when this doom was fulfilled were they allowed 
 to speak comfortably to Zion, to place the term of the 
 exile, to promise the rebuilding of the Temple, and to 
 prepare the highw^ay in the desert for the return. No 
 severer burden was ever laid on His servants by the 
 Holy One of Israel ; but in the faithful fulfilment of 
 their historic task and the brave utterance of the word 
 which was given them to speak, they became the 
 means of realising the highest revelation of God 
 which could come before Christ, and they were en- 
 abled to foreshadow and announce Him with a ful- 
 ness and a clearness to which there is no parallel in 
 the earlier period. 
 
 The spirit of the time breathes in the brief oracles 
 of Habakkuk : the Chaldean is swooping down upon 
 
1 64 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the country ; yes, but the Chaldean is only in God's 
 hand ; the just shall be preserved ; in times of judg- 
 ment and trial this prophet has a vision of God which 
 fills him with joy — a vision which has proved a light 
 and revelation not to the men of that .day only, but 
 to earnest and troubled souls ever since. 
 
 Jeremiah's ministry cannot be easily summarised in 
 a few words, but when his utterances are arranged in 
 their right chronological order, and when the work, 
 which was mainly of contemporary interest — the 
 pleading with kings and people to amend their ways in 
 order to avert the doom of Jerusalem, the denuncia- 
 tion of the exile, and the promise of return after seventy 
 years — when this transitory element is subtracted, we 
 become aware that in this prophet, who breathes the 
 same atmosphere as the writer of Deuteronomy, this 
 patriot-priest whose life was a continual martyrdom 
 to duty and to God, we reach the highest stage of 
 Old Testament religion. He, like Isaiah and his 
 school, predicts the advent of a New David, and 
 sees Israel becoming the real Servant of the Lord 
 (xxx. lo); but in language of thrilling spiritual 
 insight he passes beyond all material conceptions 
 of an' earthly kingdom, and striking a louder and a 
 clearer note from the same chord which Hosea first 
 set vibrating, he foretells a New Covenant, a law 
 written in the heart, a spiritual principle working 
 
THE PROPHEIS. 165 
 
 from within and bringing the life into holy obedience 
 to God. The whole passage (xxx.-xxxiii.) is a 
 sublime and beautiful revelation, and by virtue of 
 its profound moral passion and its far-reaching 
 spiritual aspiration, it forms a specific prophecy, a fore- 
 cast of that consummate religion which the Servant, 
 the Branch, Jesus Christ, would one day introduce. 
 
 Ezekiel, notwithstanding the far greater coherence 
 and orderliness of his book, which he seems to have 
 arranged and edited himself, is not so immediately 
 intelligible as Jeremiah. One of the captives carried 
 away in the first reduction of Jerusalem (597 B.C.), 
 from the banks of the Chebar he had to announce 
 the certain and complete destruction of his beloved 
 city. When this prophecy was fulfilled in 586 B.C. he 
 won the ear of his fellow exiles, and was able to 
 preach in the land of the Captivity the restoration of 
 his people, while Jeremiah was still alive to predict 
 the same event in Jerusalem or among the fugitives 
 at Tahpanhes in Egypt. He has the same glorious 
 gospel of cleansing as came to Jeremiah ; he is even 
 more specific than Jeremiah in promising the restora- 
 tion of Ephraim as well as Judah (xxxvii. 15-28). 
 But while he proclaims this bright future for his 
 people with unswerving confidence, that the world 
 may know that Yahveh is what His prophets have 
 represented Him to be, he puzzles the modern reader 
 
1 66 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 by what seems to be a certain retrogression from the 
 high spiritual conception of the older prophet. His 
 closing chapters are occupied with an elaborate 
 description of the restored Temple and its ordi- 
 nances. This little treatise has many points of 
 connection with that " Law of Holiness," as it has 
 been called, contained in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. Now, 
 according to the traditional view of the Pentateuch 
 and of the Israelitic religion, this phenomenon in one 
 of the late prophets is certainly very embarrassing. 
 But if we accept the view which is throughout as- 
 sumed in these pages, the difficulty immediately 
 disappears. The restored Community would not be 
 able to enter upon that Spiritual heritage which 
 Jeremiah proclaimed, until the times were fulfilled and 
 Christ should come. It was necessary that some 
 provision should be made for the half-millennium 
 which must elapse before the great event. The 
 Deuteronomic Law, though, spiritually speaking, the 
 highest development of the Mosaic Torah, was not 
 the law of a priestl}' community, but rather that of 
 a theocratic monarchy, with a central Sanctuary at 
 Jerusalem. It was necessary, therefore, that the 
 Mosaic Law should be developed afresh in the 
 direction of a complete Temple Ritual, to be carried 
 out by an order of priests distinguished from the 
 general body of Levites. Ezekiel was the inspired 
 
THE PROPHETS. 167 
 
 instrument through whom this requisite development 
 was accomplished. A priest himself, and well ac- 
 quainted with the priestly practice before the Exile, 
 he was called upon to define and elaborate that 
 practice a little further ; he was inspired to proclaim 
 to the exiles : " My tabernacle shall be with them, 
 and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 
 And the nations shall know that I am the Lord that 
 sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the 
 midst of them for evermore" (xxxvii. 27, 28). That 
 new sacred place at Jerusalem was to be inviolable 
 in a w^ay that Solomon's temple had never been 
 (xliii. 7-9). The visions of Ezekiel on this subject, 
 while they seem to presuppose the " Law of Holi- 
 ness " in Leviticus, formed the starting-point for 
 the fully developed system of the Temple and 
 the Priesthood which appears in the latest stratum 
 of the Pentateuch. It is at this point, then, of 
 the prophetic writings, in these chapters which 
 formerly appeared so perplexing, that we get the 
 clearest view of the way in which the prophetic- 
 priestly work gradually developed the original Law 
 of Moses. And though we may justly say that no 
 development of Judaism is so advanced as that 
 Kingdom of God which Jeremiah, and even Isaiah, 
 foresaw, yet we may with equal justice say that the 
 careful definition of the Jewish Church given through 
 
[68 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Ezekiel was an Indispensable step in fulfilling that 
 more glorious future. Judaism was necessary, and 
 Ezekiel was its prophet. 
 
 The third great voice of the Period now under review 
 is that which may be described as the Voice crying 
 in the Wilderness. First of all there is the beautiful 
 passage (Isa. xxxiv.-xxxv.) which contrasts the fate 
 of Edom, who gloried in the fall of Zion (586 B.C.), 
 with the splendid future of Zion herself when the 
 ransomed of the Lord shall return to her with sing- 
 ing. Then, there is the great prophecy of the ap- 
 proaching fall of Babylon, which must have been 
 uttered just on the eve of the return from exile 
 (xiii. 2-xiv. 23). And then comes that great 
 connected prophecy (xl.-lxvi.) which has enchained 
 the imagination and moved the heart of God's 
 people for twenty-five centuries. No one can well 
 mistake the revelation in this mighty utterance. 
 Th^ restoration of Israel from Babylon to Zion 
 is to come along a highway of holiness. With 
 the true notes of inspiration the prophet describes 
 at first this restored Israel as the Servant of Yahveh ; 
 but as he dips into the future he sees that the Servant 
 is not the mixed multitude of the people, the righteous 
 and the sinners alike ; one Figure separates in the 
 shadowy vista of the days from the people to whom 
 He belongs; there is a Servant now who is faithful and 
 
THE PKOrHETS. 169 
 
 obedient, but He bears the marks of suffering, and it 
 appears that the sins of His people are upon Him. 
 He passes through unspeakable travail of soul, but 
 His work brings forgiveness and righteousness ; He 
 not only bears the sins of His people, but He bears 
 them away. What a wonderful utterance it is! The 
 king of whom all previous prophets had spoken 
 is no longer named ; in his place there is this 
 righteous, suffering, Servant of Yahveh. God is with 
 us, then, — Immanuel — not as Isaiah supposed, in a 
 successful monarch breaking the power of Israel's 
 enemies, but in a son of man, marred and chastised, 
 bearing away Israel's sins ! The Infinite God, in- 
 habiting eternity, and taking up the earth as a little 
 thing, whose wonder and power are chanted in these 
 chapters, in language which seems to have fallen from 
 Heaven and to be the manner of the song before the 
 throne, is revealed as approaching the humble and the 
 contrite, as a Saviour that stoops to enter the heart, to 
 bear iniquity, to revive the bruised and broken spirit. 
 That Jesus Christ fulfilled in His own person the 
 more rudimentary conceptions of the earlier prophets, 
 as the scion of the House of David, and the King of 
 the Jews, and at the same time fulfilled this profounder 
 and more marvellous conception of the Lord's Servant 
 pouring out His soul unto death and numbered with 
 the transgressors, is one of those miracles which no 
 
170 REVELA7I0N AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 criticism has been able to explain away. And, 
 indeed, it is only when criticism has thoroughly 
 done its work in showing the real conditions of the 
 problem, that we adequately realise what a miracle it 
 is. If that anonymous speaker of the Exile spoke 
 his own words, if he was not the mouthpiece of God 
 Himself, who alone knows the end from the begin- 
 ning, and has marked out the lines of His working 
 amongst men, how, we may well ask, and on what 
 conceivable theory, can the quite obvious facts of 
 these chapters (Isa. xl.-lxvi.) be explained ? 
 
 lliird Period, 520-420 B.C. The writings which 
 fall into this group may be briefly cited and described 
 thus: First of all come Haggai and Zechariah, whose 
 prophetic work consisted in the encouragement of the 
 returning exiles to undertake the task of rebuilding 
 the Temple (520-518 B.C.). The former of these two 
 is severely practical, and introduces no imaginative 
 light into his work ; but Zechariah evidently sees in 
 the civil ruler Zerubbabel and in the priest Joshua a 
 mysterious foreshadowing of that ideal King whom 
 the prophets at the beginning of the Exile had led the 
 people to expect (vi. 12, 13), and in the ordinances of 
 the restored Temple he recognises a spiritual mean- 
 ing, for even the fasts are to be feasts of truth and 
 peace (viii. 19). Next in chronological order comes 
 the great prophecy (Isa. xxiv.-xxvii.), which may be 
 
THE PROPHETS. 171 
 
 safely ascribed to these early days of the restoration 
 (500 B.C.). With all the varied imagery and passionate 
 lyric beauty of an Isaiah this prophet sings the faith 
 and hope of the restored Community in a way which 
 Haggai and Zechariah could never have done. One 
 might say to those who would know what inspiration 
 is, Read these four chapters ; and to those who imagine 
 that the Higher Criticism is injurious to the idea of 
 revelation the question may fairly be put : Does not 
 this clear and earnest utterance gain in power and 
 significance when it is placed in its right connection 
 and understood as the Spirit of God animating and 
 directing His nascent Church in the moment of its 
 troubled and doubtful attempts to reform its life after 
 the depression of the Babylonian captivity? It is an 
 instructive exercise in the understanding of revelation 
 to compare these writings of the years 520-500 B.C. 
 in Israel with the teaching of the great Chinese sage, 
 Confucius, who was approximately a contemporary 
 (558-478 B.C.). The contrast between the severe 
 morality, accompanied by a complete religious 
 Agnosticism, which formed the most vital force in 
 the vast Eastern Empire, and the intense belief in a 
 living God as the spring of all moral conduct (cf. Isa. 
 xxvi. i-io), which burned in the heart of this hand- 
 ful of " feeble Jews " in the rebuilt Jerusalem, suffi- 
 ciently illustrates the difference between natural and 
 
172 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 revealed religion. From Confucius has sprung China 
 as we know it to-day ; from Haggai, Zechariah, and 
 the unknown author of Isa. xxiv.-xxvii., has sprung 
 Christendom, with its inner principles of progress, its 
 trust in God, its belief in the Resurrection (cf. Isa. 
 xxvi. 16-19). 
 
 After 500 B.C. prophetic voices are silent for half a 
 century or more, and then come several brief writings, 
 which are hardly understood by us because of the 
 imperfect editing to which they have been subjected. 
 Grouping them around the year 430 B.C., which may 
 be regarded, curious to say, as the middle point of 
 Buddha's ministry in the East (480-400 B.C.), we may 
 arrange them thus : " Three Burdens of the word of 
 the Lord," which appear in our Bible as (i) Zech. 
 ix.-xi., xiii. 7-9; (2) Zech. xii.-xiii. 6, xiv. ; (3) 
 Malachi. The first of these " burdens " is very difficult 
 to rightly place ; its general character seems to point 
 to the circumstances of the Eighth Century, while 
 Ephraim and Judah were still in a sense a brother- 
 hood (xi. 14). On the other hand, the mention of 
 Greece (ix. 13) suggests a much later period than 
 430 B.C. But this burden contains the forecast of 
 the lowly King who was one day to come to Zion, 
 and the denunciation of the false shepherds, the 
 corrupt rulers who were to precede the coming of the 
 rightful King (xiii. 7-9). Whenever it was written, 
 
THE PROPHETS. 173 
 
 or by whom, matters comparatively little. It is full 
 of Divine foresight and beauty. The Second Burden 
 is a somewhat obscure forecast of the coming supre- 
 macy of Jerusalem, against which the nations, in- 
 cluding Judah, rage in vain. A great spiritual revival 
 was to come, accompanied b}' a mourning for the 
 Pierced One (xii. 10, &c.) ; prophecy was to vanish 
 along with idolatry (xiii. 2-6) ; waters of cleansing 
 were to issue from Jerusalem (xiii. 8, xiv. 8), and 
 holiness of worship was to become universal (xiv. 
 16-21). If we are right, with Professor Driver, in 
 regarding this as an utterance from the later period 
 of the restored community, we can hardly fail to see 
 that the approach of the Lord Jesus Christ was 
 already casting a light before it. The Third Burden, 
 attributed to Malachi {i.e., "My messenger," iii. i), 
 gives a sad picture of the religious laxity and in- 
 difference which prevailed in those days of expecta- 
 tion. This prophet also was expecting the "coming 
 of Yahveh to his temple ; " it appeared to him as a 
 great and terrible day, a season of purification and 
 vengeance. But the singular feature of the prophecy 
 is its insistence on the ritual of the Temple. It 
 reveals to us the very striking fact that even the 
 latest and fullest revelation of God before Christ 
 Jesus came had not disentangled the idea of God as 
 a Spirit from the symbolic manifestations of God in 
 
[74 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the forms of sacrifice and worship. The work of 
 these " last utterances " of ancient prophecy is so 
 remarkable that we may freely admit the limitations 
 which only the Son of God Himself would be able 
 to remove. 
 
 But, to complete our review of the writings which 
 belong to this period, we are perhaps justified in re- 
 garding Joel as a prophet whose function it was to 
 repeat the message of the older prophets to the men 
 of his own day (after 430 B.C.), when the land was 
 threatened and ravaged by an unusual swarm of 
 locusts, which was to him the symbol of the judgment 
 on his people. His was a time when the worship of the 
 Temple was regularly performed, and the priests were 
 held in deserved estimation ; but it was given to 
 him to foretell a day when the Outpouring of the 
 Holy Spirit would be manifested in Jerusalem, when 
 the hostility of the nations should be overcome, and 
 the healing waters of which Zech. xiv. speaks should 
 flow out from Jerusalem. In common with all these 
 lat^r prophets he creates a sense of expectation ; a 
 time of spiritual refreshing is yet to come. 
 
 To this later period of Jewish Prophecy we must 
 assign two books which differ from the autograph 
 writings of Prophets in being historical tractates, in- 
 cluding perhaps the utterances of the men whose 
 doings form their subject, Jonah and Daniel. The 
 
THE PROPHETS. 175 
 
 dates of these books are approximately fixed b}' the 
 language ; the Aramaisms of Jonah determine its post- 
 exilic origin ; while a number of converging proofs, 
 historical and linguistic, go to show that the Book 
 of Daniel was written in the Greek period of Jewish 
 history, and probably as late as the time of Antiochus 
 Epiphanes, 167 B.C. It is the recognition of the dates 
 at which these books were produced that at once 
 enables us to appreciate their value in the history 
 of revelation. The author of the first of these books 
 takes a traditional story about Jonah, the prophet 
 who lived at the beginning of the Eighth Century B.C., 
 in order to convey through it a theological lesson of 
 the utmost value, viz., the concern and the love of 
 God for His children who were outside the borders of 
 His chosen people. The Divine pity for Nineveh, and 
 the reluctance of an Israelitish prophet to recognise 
 and welcome such saving compassion, form a theme 
 which is a stepping-stone from the Old Testament to 
 the New. While we have no reason for regardino- 
 the historical part of the book as a narration of 
 facts, we have every reason for treating the theology 
 of the book as a revelation of God. 
 
 The author of Daniel has treated the stories which 
 were current in the Jewish community concerning the 
 famous child of the Captivity in a similar way. His im- 
 mediate object in writing the book was to bring hope 
 
176 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 and encouragement to his distressed people in the 
 cruel times of persecution under Antiochus. We 
 need not be disturbed that the historical details in 
 the book are inexact, and that the strenuous efforts 
 to elucidate them have failed. It is not as history 
 that the book is valuable,^ but as a picture of the 
 Theological beliefs which had become the precious 
 possession of the Jewish Church ; it shows us that 
 the coming of the Messiah, the expectation of a 
 judgment on the world, the faith in a resurrection of 
 the righteous, had been revealed to the men of the 
 Second Temple ; and in this way the Book of Daniel 
 serves an invaluable purpose in the Canon of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures. 
 
 After thus briefly reviewing the three groups of 
 prophetic writings, we may attempt to characterise in 
 general terms the revelation which they convey. If 
 we accept the later date for the Book of Daniel, these 
 writings extend over a period of six hundred years 
 (760-160 B.C.) ; and what do they contain ? First of 
 all they contain the record of a Divine dealing with 
 the people of Israel to which there is no parallel in 
 the history of any other nation. For the guidance 
 and instruction, the moulding and development, of 
 
 ^ Prof. Sayce, in Expository Times, Dec, 1891, shows how the 
 " historical " chapters of Daniel are merely examples of Jewish 
 Haggadah. 
 
THE PROPJIETS. 177 
 
 this people a series of men appear who can use the 
 authoritative lanjruage, " Thus saith the Lord " ; men 
 who do not derive their message or their power from 
 poh'tical or ecclesiastical sources, but from a direct 
 communication with God, maintained sometimes by 
 vision and trance and dream, sometimes by the more 
 ordinary channels of the understanding, the judg- 
 ment, or the imagination. Now listened to with 
 respect, now rejected with scorn, these spiritual 
 leaders of their people maintain through the centuries 
 the fixed belief that Jehovah is the God of Israel, and 
 has in store for His nation a great and wonderful 
 destiny. When at last the prophetic voices grow silent, 
 Israel is left in an attitude of expectation, waiting for 
 what was called " The Hope of Israel," the person so 
 constantly sketched in the language of the prophets, 
 and described by the Targu mists as the Anointed 
 One, or Messias. 
 
 But in the next place this progressive revelation/;w;/ 
 God implied a progressive revelation of God. With a 
 firm hand these prophets, from the first to the last, 
 trace the lineaments of the Unseen Being that *' in- 
 habits eternity " ; with ever-increasing clearness they 
 identify Him with Righteousness, declare His purpose 
 of punishing sin, and as time goes on. His wonderful 
 intention of saving the sinner. We can never say, 
 even in the highest thought of the Prophets, that God 
 
 13 
 
178 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 is revealed as He was afterwards revealed in the In- 
 carnation of the Son, but there are frequent adum- 
 brations of that supreme revelation which are startling 
 in their beauty and power ; and all through, the God 
 of the Prophets is a Being removed by an immeasur- 
 able distance from the noblest conceptions of their 
 greatest contemporaries, Confucius, Buddha, or Plato. 
 
 And once more, with this progressive revelation 
 of God is naturally combined a clearer and keener 
 ethical judgment. The laws of human conduct are 
 stated with remarkable authority. In some depart- 
 ments of life, especially in social and political 
 ideals, the prophets reach a level which even 
 Christian nations have not yet attained. If the law 
 of the Inward Life could not be fully understood 
 until the New Covenant was made, and the writing 
 of the law on the heart could only be effected by the 
 Spirit, the law of the communal life, including the 
 conditions of a happy and prosperous state, is laid 
 down in a way which can hardly be explained except 
 by admitting the direct inspiration of God. 
 
 Finally, with the fuller definition of the Divine 
 Nature, and of human conduct, comes the gradual 
 apprehension of a future state, a resurrection from 
 the dead, and the final glory of the righteous. How 
 far this is to be included in the idea of revelation is 
 open to some question ; for no Old Testament 
 
THE PROPHETS. 179 
 
 writer is so explicit about the Rewards and Punish- 
 ments in the next world as Plato, for example, is, in 
 the Gorgias and the Republic. But in the brief and 
 simple expressions concerning the resurrection, which 
 we find in Isa. xxvi. 19, or in Dan. xii. 3, we cer- 
 tainly get an impression of a revelation rising like a 
 star above the horizon, which affords a striking con- 
 trast with the elaborate mythology in which Plato 
 clothes the same kind of doctrine. And the very 
 reticence of the Prophets on the subject— for they 
 confine themselves almost entirely to forecasts of an 
 earthly paradise and a state of blessedness to be 
 realised in a human society with its centre in Jeru- 
 salem — lends a peculiar emphasis to this tiny dew- 
 drop of distinct belief which distils from the body of 
 their utterances. 
 
 On the whole it may be said that the new way of 
 treating the Scriptures which has resulted from the 
 Hig-her Criticism has enhanced rather than lessened 
 the significance, the wonder, the revelation, of the 
 Prophets. One almost pities our fathers for the com- 
 paratively feeble light which was derived from these 
 wonderful writings by those who only found in them 
 a few crude verbal references to details in the life of 
 our Lord, and — in the Book of Daniel at any rate — a 
 very confusing attempt to forecast the future events 
 of history. If the prophets had been what our 
 
i8o REVELATION AND THE BIBLR. 
 
 fathers supposed them to be, they would not have 
 been nearly so remarkable as they are. Astrologists 
 and modern almanack-makers have often been singu- 
 larly successful in foreshadowing or even foredating 
 events in a distant future. But no other religion and 
 no other literature exhibits the Divine marks which 
 we have traced in the writings of the Prophets. As 
 the leaders of a unique and chosen people, as the 
 revealers of the One and Holy God, as the Spiritual 
 Seers of eternal truths, as the teachers of the highest 
 laws of human conduct, they stand on an elevation 
 from which, we may safely say, nothing is able to re- 
 move them, nothing, that is, except it be the blind 
 and unintelligent dogmatism of religious partisans 
 and opinionated apologists. We may well say, in 
 the words which the Chronicler places in the mouth 
 of Jehoshaphat, " Believe in the Lord your God, so 
 shall }'e be established ; believe his propJieis, so shall 
 ye prosper" (2 Chron. xx. 20). 
 
CHAPTER VII, 
 
 THE " KETHUBIM. 
 
 The uncouth title at the head of this chapter is the 
 Hebrew word for Writings, and is the term employed 
 in the Jewish Canon to cover the third division of the 
 Old Testament books, of which the Law and the 
 Prophets are the two first. We have already made an 
 inroad into the KetJiiibiin, or Hagiographa, as they 
 were called in Greek, by classing the Chronicles and 
 Daniel among the histories and the prophets. It is 
 significant of the estimate which the Jewish Scribes 
 formed of those two works that they were included 
 in the third, and the avowedly less authoritative, 
 section of the Scriptures. We are now to review 
 the contents and try to estimate the revelational 
 quality of the remaining works which are included 
 in this Third Volume, as we may term it, of the Old 
 Testament. We have eight different writings to deal 
 with, and they are so various in their character and 
 
 ^8^ 
 
1 82 REVELATION' AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 their quality that it is difficult even to group them. 
 If we arrange them according to their literary form, 
 we may say five of them, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the 
 Song of Solomon, and Lamentations, are poetry ; two, 
 Ruth and Esther, are idyllic passages of history ; and 
 one, Ecclesiastes, is a species of didactic prose, which 
 at times passes into poetry. But a more convenient 
 division for the practical purpose which we have in 
 view will be this :— first, the Psalms, or the National 
 Hymn Book of Judaism ; second, the Wisdom Litera- 
 ture, Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes, which may 
 represent the Philosophical writings, as they would 
 have been called in Greece, of Judaism ; third, the 
 four remaining works, which can only be classified by 
 a very general name, the Miscellanea of the Old Tes- 
 tament, The Song, Ruth, Lamentations, and Esther.^ 
 The general place of inferiority which the Jews 
 assigned to these writings is not countenanced by the 
 Christian judgment. If among them are included 
 some of the least valuable, it is quite clear that they 
 embrace some of the most priceless utterances, of the 
 Old Testament, And it may serve as a warning to 
 
 '^ In the Jewish Church these four and Ecclesiastes were simply entitled 
 the Five Rolls (Megilloth), because they were publicly read at the follow- 
 ing festivals : — The Song of Solomon, at the Passover, in March (Nisan) ; 
 Ruth, at Pentecost, in May (Sivan) ; Lamentations, at the Commemora- 
 tion of the Destruction of Jerusalem, in July (Ab) ; Ecclesiastes, at 
 the Feast of Booths, in September (Tisri) ; Esther, at the Feast of 
 Purim, in February (Adar). 
 
THE '' kethubim:' 183 
 
 lis never to be guided by the Jewish estimate of these 
 ancient writings if we remember that in Jewish opinion 
 the Prophets were of inferior authority to the Law, 
 and the Hagiographa quite subordinate to both ; or if 
 any exception was to be made, it was the Book of 
 Esther, which claimed a position of pre-eminence, and 
 might rank even before the Prophets.^ The way in 
 which the Jews regarded the Scriptures was, as our 
 Lord told them, misleading and perverted. The fact 
 that they esteemed books highly may generally be 
 regarded as an argument /^r contra. Without hesita- 
 tion Christianity has reversed their decisions, and 
 probably we should all be agreed in placing the 
 Psalms in the forefront of Old Testament Revelation, 
 while the Prophets and the Law would close up the 
 ranks immediately behind. Let us turn, then, to the 
 Book of Psalms. 
 
 Now it is one of the strangest illustrations of the 
 way in which the Church allows herself to be led by 
 the Synagogue that she has in times past constantly 
 confused the question of the Revelation in the 
 Psalms with the very secondary matter of their 
 authorship. The Scribes and Pharisees, working with- 
 out any critical acumen, and with the pedantic spirit, 
 the arbitrary dogmatism, and the irrational exegesis, 
 which are sufficiently characterised and castigated in 
 
 Driver, Introduction, p. 452. 
 
1 84 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the New Testament,had ascribed a large number of the 
 Psahns to the great national hero, David. They were 
 not content with idly asserting his authorship ; they 
 even in some cases wrote in the titles the circum- 
 stances in which the poems had been composed. By 
 the curious and unintelligent confusions of tradition 
 these titles and worthless critical scholia of the 
 Jewish literati became identified with the text ; and to 
 many a worthy Christian even to-day it appears as 
 if the repudiation of these glosses was a denial of the 
 Psalms, and a refusal to admit their inspiration. It 
 is important, therefore, for us to broadly state that 
 the nature of the revelation contained in the Psalms 
 is of such a character that it cannot possibly be 
 affected by the doubt concerning their authorship. 
 Many of the most beautiful Psalms are confessedly 
 anonymous, others are attributed to authors whose 
 names are known to us mainly because of this attribu- 
 tion ; and the Psalms which an uncritical speculation 
 ascribed to David remain precisely what they were if 
 we see reason to dispute his authorship. The ques- 
 tion, then, Who wrote the Psalms, and when were they 
 written ? may be dismissed at once as entirely irrele- 
 vant to our present inquiry. 
 
 The nature of the Revelation contained in these 
 unique compositions may be defined by an illustra- 
 tion. In a reflector-telescope the heavenly bodies are 
 
THE '' kethubim:' 185 
 
 thrown upon a mirror at the bottom of the great 
 tube, and the astronomer studies them by gazing not 
 at the stars themselves, but at the image which lies 
 before him in his instrument. In much the same way 
 the personality of the psalmist receives into itself the 
 reflection of the Heavenlies, and especially of God 
 Himself, and we, like the astronomer, are permitted 
 to study the Divine images presented in these human 
 minds. Or in order further to illustrate the process, 
 let us suppose that we are endeavouring to form some 
 conception of the Heavens by looking into lakes 
 and streams among the hills ; there will be many 
 varieties of correctness and completeness ; now the 
 troubled wave will show the trembling image of a 
 planet, broken and variable ; now the still mountain 
 tarn will reveal in its bosom the perfect orb like a 
 moveless lamp ; sometimes the crisping wind which 
 sweeps the surface of the water will blot out, as with 
 a tumult of passion, the whole of the reflected sky ; 
 sometimes, again, the gentle waves will show no 
 image, but only the broad sheen of the sunlight or 
 the moonlight. Now borrowing from the idea of the 
 telescope the conception that the psalmists are not 
 ordinary persons, not even ordinary poets, but singu- 
 lar and gifted personalities that mirror God more 
 distinctly than the common human sight can see 
 Him ; and borrowing from the simile of waters the 
 
1 86 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 truth that the moods, the changes, the defects, of these 
 personaHties constantly modify the image of Divine 
 things which is reflected in them, we may form a not 
 wholly inadequate notion of the religious qualities in 
 the Psalms. There are many memorable passages 
 where the still, receptive soul of the poet throws back 
 the well-nigh faultless image of God, and we can con- 
 template with wonder and gratitude the face which no 
 man has seen. There are many other passages where 
 the poet submits himself to the Heavenly Light, and 
 reveals to us a human being filled with God, exultant 
 in the sense of union, of dependence, of peace, and 
 of rapture. There are other Psalms in which the 
 poet takes into his heart his whole nation, sets him- 
 self to speak of its history, its triumphs, its punish- 
 ment, its healing, or sings of the King and the 
 Throne, the Temple and its services, the Law and its 
 precepts ; and here the God-filled soul presents in the 
 Divine Light the deep significance of these things. 
 The suffering nation, as in Second Isaiah, becomes, 
 mysteriously and unconsciously, a forecast of the 
 Saviour ; the records of national history become 
 a type of God's dealings with the Church ; the 
 songs of the King chant the Ideal King, such a 
 king as never was until Jesus came ; and " the songs 
 of degrees," sung by the worshippers in the Second 
 Temple, express the praise not only of Christians 
 
THE ' ' KE THUBIMr 1 87 
 
 assembling on earth, but of the multitude whom no 
 man can number before the throne. In a word, these 
 lyric minds, when clean and polished, reflect the very 
 Being of God, and His thought for His people and 
 the world, with a richness and a beauty to which 
 there is hardly a parallel even in the writings of the 
 Prophets. The Revelation of the Psalms is only 
 difficult to define because it is so manifest and vast ; 
 like the light, it dazzles the eyes which attempt to 
 contemplate it. 
 
 But our illustration enables us to understand the 
 inequalities in the Psalms. There are some passages 
 in which the subjective medium disturbs the clearness 
 of the Divine image, passages where human passion 
 struggles with Divine Revelation, passages which 
 rather present the desire for God than the realisation 
 of Him. Not infrequently the cry of distress turns 
 the psalm into a dirge, though sometimes the progress 
 of the poem displays the gradual recovery of peace 
 and trust in God. In some psalms the fierce impre- 
 catory vengeance of a persecuted man, or nation, 
 breaks out in a way which is the exact opposite of 
 what our Lord requires in His followers, so that 
 Christians who attempt to sing these psalms as the 
 expression of their own religious life justify afresh the 
 complaint of our Saviour, " Ye search the Scriptures, 
 , . . but ye will not come unto me." If there are 
 
1 88 REVELATION AND 7 HE BIBLE. 
 
 phases of spiritual life and visions of Divine Truth 
 in the Psalms which make us feel that even the New 
 Testament can carry us no farther, there are also 
 represented in this Hymn Book passions, moods, 
 doubts, fears, which it is the object of the Gospel to 
 correct rather than to encourage. If now and again 
 in the light of God a psalmist rises to the great con- 
 ception of an immortality beyond the grave, in other 
 places the dark vail which overhangs the tomb is 
 unpierced, and the poet still believes that death 
 means the silence and the bloodless inactivity of 
 the Shades, according to the general conception of 
 Antiquity. It is, then, in this book, where revelation 
 is most unmistakable, that the mechanical notion of 
 revelation is m.ost inadmissible. Without a criterion, 
 without a spirit of discrimination, we not only lose 
 the real religious teaching of the book, but we hope- 
 lessly confuse what we do not lose. By putting upon 
 precisely the same level the lyric utterances of men 
 who are full of the Spirit and those of men who are 
 only imperfectly subjected to that Divine Influence, 
 and by calling the poems of both kinds the Word 
 of God, we make it almost impossible for the simple 
 mind to understand what the Word of God is. 
 Nothing could be farther from the truth than to 
 describe Psalm Ixxxiii., for example, as the Word 
 of God ; it is by its very form the word of men, of 
 
TIIE " KETHUBIM:' 189 
 
 men, too, who have not entered very deeply into the 
 counsels of God ; it is in all probability a stirring cry 
 from the time of the Maccabees,^ when the Jewish 
 Communit}' was seeking to re-establish the ancient 
 spirit of national independence ; it breathes all the 
 strength, all the nobility, all the high religious con- 
 viction of that important era ; it is inspired by a 
 passionate faith in Yahveh, and by a genuine desire to 
 drive all nations into the confession and worship of 
 the supreme name ; but to confuse this impassioned 
 national sentiment, this fierce hatred of the nation's 
 enemies, this wild imprecation, 
 
 O my God, make them like the whirHng dust, 
 As stubble before the wind, 
 
 with the thought or the heart of the Eternal, is not 
 reverence to God, though it has sometimes been 
 regarded as respect to the Bible. And if the ques- 
 tion is asked. How, then, are w^e to know which parts 
 of the Psalms are revelation and which are not, or by 
 what test can we measure the degree of revelation 
 and the admixture of merely human feeling in any 
 particular composition ? the answer may be very 
 confidently given : The Word of God authenticates 
 itself ; it does not rest upon the authority of the 
 Scriptures, as some people strangely seem to think, 
 
 ' Prof. Cheyne, in his BaniptoH Lectures, may be said to have proved 
 the Maccabean date of this Psalm. 
 
I90 KEVELAriON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 but the Scriptures derive all their authority from the 
 Word of God which speaks in them. The difficulty 
 is not so great as the defenders of a rigid orthodoxy 
 would represent. Light is manifest of itself, and is 
 not the less manifest because of the shadows which are 
 made when it falls upon the various objects in its 
 path ; the Light of God is similarly manifest, and to a 
 candid mind that Light streams through the Psalter, 
 and is not really liable to any confusion or obscura- 
 tion because of the human elements which stand as 
 objects in its way. And for the Christian, for one, 
 that is, who has found in Christ the interpretative 
 Word of God, the Psalms deliver their message with- 
 out any serious stammering on account of the human 
 tongues which speak them. We use Psalm li. for our 
 confession, Psalm xxxii. for the joy of our pardon, 
 Psalm ciii. for the utterance of our sanctification. 
 Psalm xxiii. for the expression of our joyful rest in 
 our Redeemer, and so on, without any temptation to 
 take upon our lips the words of gloom or doubt, the 
 cries of anger and revenge, or the imperfect views of 
 God which occur in other parts of the book. It can- 
 not be too often repeated that the difficulties in 
 grasping the Revelation contained in Scripture are 
 not created by the Scriptures themselves, which are 
 singularly self-evidential and self-discriminative, but 
 by the Theory of Revelation which was borrowed 
 
THE '' KETHUBIMr 191 
 
 from Judaism and incautiously adopted by the 
 Christian Church. ^ 
 
 But, secondly, \vc are to look at the Wisdom 
 Literature, three specimens of which appear amongst 
 the Hagiographa. We say specimens only, because 
 there are outside the Canon two books at least, 
 belonging to the same class, which are excluded 
 for reasons which it would be hard to formulate. 
 But the Book of Wisdom is not only of great 
 intrinsic value ; it affords a most interesting link 
 in one phase of revelation, viz., the connection 
 between the personified Wisdom of Proverbs viii. 
 and the Wisdom of God, Christ Jesus.^ And 
 Ecclesiasticus is, as a treatise on ethics, superior 
 to the book which bears a similar name in our 
 English Bible. We are not, however, engaged in 
 estimating the Revelation of books outside our 
 Canon, and we may therefore confine our attention 
 to the three works in the Bible which may be classed 
 among the Wisdom Literature. 
 
 Now it may be at once observed that the very 
 
 ' Professor Driver's terse description of the religious qualities of the 
 Psalter, in his Introduction (p. 346), though it says nothing about the 
 criterion by which the reader is to distinguish the religious truths from 
 the religious half-truths, or errors, in the Psalms, sufficiently shows how 
 entirely the spiritual value of this most precious part of the Old Testa- 
 ment remains unaffected by the frankest treatment to which Criticism 
 has subjected it. 
 
 ^ It is from this book that the striking expression in Heb. 1. 3 is 
 borrowed. 
 
192 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 nature of Wisdom as it is understood in Hebrew 
 writings is in distinct antithesis to Revelation in the 
 more specific sense of the word. Wisdom, or 
 Philosophy, is the result of exercising the thoroughly- 
 human faculties of observation and reasoning upon 
 the world, man, and human life. Of course every 
 Theist admits that in the last resort all truth may be 
 traced up to God. But truth derived through the 
 medium of the ordinary perceptions and judgments 
 is not what we usually intend by Revelation. If we 
 were to give this loose and inaccurate connotation 
 to the word we should be obliged to include Plato, 
 Aristotle, Cicero, Confucius, among inspired writers. 
 In the Wisdom Literature, as such, we have those 
 observations of moral truth, and those interpreta- 
 tions of life, which may be reached by any earnest 
 and reflecting mind ; and wherein the course of these 
 books we encounter truths or ideas which may be 
 regarded more specifically as revelation it is safe to 
 say that they appear as part of the common stock 
 of beliefs which the writers held as members of a 
 specific religious community rather than as particular 
 revelations delivered to them. The Philosophy of 
 Judaism was necessarily tinged with the great truths 
 which are contained in the Prophets, the Psalms, and 
 the Law, but as Philosophy, or human speculation, 
 it must be very sharply distinguished from Divine 
 
The '^kethubim:' m 
 
 Revelation. It is the more necessary to insist on 
 this because there are some statements and opinions 
 contained in these three books which can only be 
 ascribed to God at the cost of lowering our whole 
 conception of Him. Great indeed is the responsi- 
 bility of teachers who have led ignorant people to 
 suppose that all the prudential maxims of the 
 Proverbs, all the frenetic arguments of Job, and all 
 the pessimistic enda^monism of Ecclesiastes are to be 
 considered, as a matter of faith, the specific words of 
 God. 
 
 It may, however, be said : If these Wisdom Books 
 are merely human philosophy, what place have they 
 in a book of Divine Revelation ? The answer will 
 perhaps appear plainer after we have briefly glanced 
 at the contents of the books ; but it must be very 
 distinctly affirmed that the notion of all the writings 
 which are included in our Hebrew Canon, being a 
 Revelation, or even of a revelational character, is 
 quite arbitrary and unsupported by any satisfactory 
 authority. If there are writings in the Old Testa- 
 ment which are not revelation, they are not made 
 revelation by being bound up in the volume. It is a 
 matter of specific inquiry, which must not be pre- 
 judiced by any foregone conclusion, to determine 
 whether these writings are or are not revelation. 
 
 Now, looking at the Book of Proverbs, we observe 
 14 
 
194 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 at once that its several parts differ considerably from 
 one another in religious quality. There are large 
 tracts of the book {e.g., chaps, xxv.-xxix., chap. xxx. 
 10-33, chap. xxxi. 1-9) which contain only a remote 
 or an occasional reference to ideas of a specifically 
 religious character. On the other hand, the main 
 body of the book, x.-xxiv., is full of religious 
 references, and of sound moral teaching ; it is like 
 the splendid revelations of the Prophets broken up 
 into current coin for daily circulation ; while the 
 Introduction, chaps, i.-ix., is among the most wonder- 
 ful passages of the Old, Testament. It is almost 
 impossible, while we follow the grave and stately 
 eloquence of the writer, to resist the conviction that 
 his moral earnestness is becoming a vehicle of 
 revelation, and his eyes are lifted up to see under 
 the form of Wisdom, — a personal agent, the first- 
 born child of the Creator, standing beside Him and 
 directing Him in the work of Creation, afterwards in 
 history inspiring kings and princes with their best 
 thoughts, delighting in the sons of men, and promis- 
 ing abundant reward to those who will commit 
 themselves to her guidance, — that Word of God who 
 was one day to become flesh and save the men whom 
 He loved. 
 
 The Higher Criticism, in teaching us to distinguish 
 not only between different aphorisms in the collection. 
 
THE -'KETHUBIMr I95 
 
 but also between the body of the book and this 
 magnificent Introduction, has enabled us more firmly 
 to grasp the revelation of such a passage as this 
 without committing ourselves to a judgment on all 
 the scattered precepts which form the collections of 
 proverbs. We are able to hear the voice of God 
 speaking to us in such places as x. 27, 29, xv. 33-xvi. 
 9, XXV. 21, 22, XXX. 5, 6, without perplexing tender 
 consciences by telling them that xxvii. 22 is a word 
 of God, that xxx. 15, 16 is an inspired utterance, or 
 that xxxi. 6, 7 is a precept emanating from the lips 
 that spoke the Sermon on the Mount. It is on the 
 ground of the Revelation in the book, a revelation 
 plainly perceptible to the religious reader, that we 
 may vindicate its place among the Old Testament 
 writings, but we are not entitled to say that its place 
 there gives to all its contents the quality of revelation. 
 The Proverbial Philosophy of the Hebrews bears 
 innumerable traces of the comparatively high spiritual 
 ideals in the midst of which it grew up, and the book 
 containing it happened to be edited by an inspired 
 writer who was able to wTite the immortal Introduc- 
 tion ; but if we would appreciate the revelation in it 
 we must read with a discriminating spirit. 
 
 The second book of the Wisdom Literature, Job, is 
 one of the most fascinating works in religious, or, 
 indeed, in any literature, and we must exercise a 
 
[g6 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 severe restraint in not enlarg-ing our study of it out 
 of proportion to our present inquiry. Here is 
 philosophy robed in the many-coloured mantle of 
 Poetry. Here is one of the gravest problems of 
 human life discussed in a half-dramatic form, and 
 with a wealth of language, a splendour of imagery, 
 and a fine tumult of thought, to which no other 
 composition in the world affords an exact parallel. 
 But how far is this Philosophy a Divine Philosophy } 
 How far does the inspiration overstep the limits of a 
 poetical afflatus and become the voice of God speak- 
 ing through human lips } What are the solid grains 
 of imperishable truth given as revelation, not to be 
 given in any other way, through this immortal poem? 
 These are the questions before us. First of all, it is 
 necessary to remind ourselves of the date and the 
 character of the book ; for through overlooking these 
 most important considerations the whole scope of 
 the revelation in it has been misapprehended. 
 Scholars are practically agreed to-day that both on 
 linguistic and theological grounds the date must be 
 sought in the Exile ; and a new beauty and meaning 
 are discovered in the book when one realises that 
 Job is in the author's mind a personification of the 
 suffering Israel, and a companion picture to the 
 similar representation in the contemporary prophet, 
 ii. Isaiah. The old and crude notion that, because 
 
THE " kethubim:' 197 
 
 the condition of society depicted in the book is 
 patriarchal, the author lived in or near the patriarchal 
 times, is no more conclusive than if one were to argue 
 from Paradise Lost that the author lived in Paradise 
 or shortly after the expulsion from the Garden. 
 For this leads us to observe that the Book of Job 
 is a Poem of the same literary type as Milton's 
 Epic. All except chaps, i., ii., the introduction, 
 chap, xxxii. 1-5, and the closing paragraph, chap, 
 xlii. 7-17, is in the metrical form of Hebrew Poetry. 
 An attentive reader with any literary sense would 
 no more dream of committing the author to the 
 assertion that the things which he described really 
 happened than ot charging Milton with unveracity 
 for describing the Battle in Heaven or the con- 
 versation between Raphael and Adam. Literary 
 men and scholars of all kinds have understood this 
 ever since the dawn of modern Biblical Scholar- 
 'ship, but the difficulty is to get ordinary reli- 
 gious people to see that this perfectly obvious fact 
 may be admitted without destroying our belief in 
 revelation. It is of course quite possible, and even 
 likely, that the story is founded on tradition. The 
 man of Uz was no doubt a type of patient endurance; 
 but the great unknown poet who wrote the book used 
 the tradition just as Tennyson has used the legend of 
 Arthur in the Idyls of the King. The very form of 
 
198 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the narrative shows that he does not even wish to 
 make his story seem a hard and Hteral record of fact. 
 The numerical statement of Job's possessions, the 
 methodical account of his bereavements, and the 
 exact duplication of the property in the day when 
 " the Lord turned the captivity of Job," show that the 
 details are simply the product of poetic composition. 
 The poet conceives his own conditions, and presents 
 the scenery and properties in his own way, for his 
 object is not historical or biographical, but didactic 
 and ethical. To gravely argue, therefore, that the 
 Prologue of this Poem is to be accepted as a revela- 
 tion of what takes place in Heaven, a revelation that 
 the sons of God and Satan meet there before the 
 Lord, is not only a most misleading religious dogma, 
 but also a childish and grotesque literary misconcep- 
 tion. This unimaginative literalism is of a piece with 
 Babbage's suggestion that the Poet Laureate should 
 correct the famous verse which occurs in the Vision 
 of Sin, and, in the interests of mathematical accuracy, 
 read : — 
 
 For every moment dies a man, 
 And one and a sixteenth is born. 
 
 When the literary facts are fully understood, the 
 kind of arguments which have been reared on the 
 poetical properties of the Book of Job will seem 
 hardly less amazing than this. 
 
THE '' KETHUBJMr 199 
 
 But now, fully realising that we are studying a 
 great and noble poem written in the Captivity by an 
 Israelite who was seeking to understand the mystery 
 of sorrow, and the explanation of the calamity which 
 had befallen the chosen people, we may proceed to 
 state in a few words the gist of his thought. He 
 labours, in the dialogue between Job and the friends, 
 to demonstrate that suffering is not necessarily the 
 penalty of sin ; it may be the test and the trial of 
 righteousness. God is not merely a Judge who 
 awards punishment to sinners. He is also a Father 
 who would make His sons perfect through suffering, 
 and will bring them through temptation to a more 
 prosperous and happy issue than could be reached by 
 any less painful way. The poet does not hesitate to 
 put into Job's mouth the wild and almost desperate 
 conflict of thought through whicii the severe con- 
 clusion is at least reached. We are permitted to hear 
 the sufferer charging God with injustice, vehemently 
 declaring his own innocence, and almost sinking 
 under the intolerable weight of the current theory 
 that suffering is always penal, until deliverance comes 
 in an escape from this narrow and incomplete view of 
 God and His dealings with men. As this passionate 
 argument proceeds, one great truth after another is 
 struck out like sparks from the impact of steel on 
 flint. Sometimes in the mouth of Job, sometimes in 
 
20O REVELATJON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the mouths of the friends who '* darken counsel," come 
 brilh'ant flashes which deserve, if ever anything uttered 
 by human h'ps deserved, the name of Revelation. It 
 is not Job, or Eliphaz, or Zophar, or Bildad, that 
 speaks ; it is always this great unknown poet who 
 has searched into the very heart of things ; nay, it is 
 not he, but God, the God who has been revealed to 
 him in his earnest and passionate search. Thus here 
 for the first time in Scripture is portrayed the action 
 of Conscience (xv. 20 ff ) in language which finds an 
 echo in Juvenal, the greatest ethical poet of Rome.^ 
 And if, on the principle of definition we have adopted, 
 we hesitate to describe as revelation a truth which is 
 so necessarily perceived in " the conscious breast " of 
 man when he comes to reflect, we can hardly refuse 
 to give the term revelation to that magnificent 
 assurance of a future life and a Divine Vindicator 
 which is borne in upon the sufferer when human 
 friends fail to understand him (xix. 23-27). It is 
 true that Plato taught a similar doctrine, and a belief 
 in a future life plays a greater part in ancient literature 
 generally than in the Old Testament writings, but the 
 point to observe is the nature and ground of the 
 conviction which leads to the faith. Job is represented 
 
 Evasisse putes quos diri conscia facti 
 
 Mens habet attonitos el surdo verbere credit, 
 
 Obscurum quatiente animo tortore flagellum ? 
 
THE " KETHUBIMr 
 
 as literally battling his way through doubt and mis- 
 giving to a belief in a beneficent God (x. 8-12), and 
 thence to an idea of reconciliation with God (xiv. 
 13-15), finally to win through to the conviction 
 that God will clear him and manifest his innocence 
 (xvi. 18), and he himself shall see God in the glad 
 after life (xix. 25-27). The revelation seems to lie 
 not so much in the hope of immortality as in the 
 method by which that hope grows to a certainty in 
 the poet's heart. But looking at Revelation in the most 
 specific sense we are bound to confess that God is 
 revealed in this book with a fulness which marks in 
 some respects an advance beyond the highest teaching 
 in other parts of the Old Testament. Nowhere else 
 in any literature has the Revelation of God in Nature 
 been presented with such impressive magnificence 
 or such a musical diapason of imagery and rhythm. 
 Even the grandeur of ii. Isaiah and the lyric inspira- 
 tion of Psalms civ. and cxxxix. fall below the highest 
 notes of the Book of Job. And the peculiar and 
 striking conception o^ the God revealed in Nature as 
 identical with the Father of mankind who orders all 
 human events for glorious moral ends, is one of those 
 precious truths which once gained can never be lost. 
 The writing which first withdrew the veil and enabled 
 human eyes to see it is indeed in the strictest sense 
 of the term a revelation. The ethical teaching of the 
 
REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 book which aims at producing holy conduct as the 
 best substitute men can find for that wisdom which in 
 its fulness belongs only to God, is secondary to the 
 teaching about God Himself; but merely as a vivid 
 light on human life, as a guide to conduct, as a 
 powerful inspiration to justice, purity, truth, and 
 mercy, the Book of Job must rank among the words 
 of God which are a lamp to our path. 
 
 The questions, therefore, which were raised by this 
 particular book receive no doubtful answer when the 
 study of the book is completed : the Philosophy of 
 the- book is human, but it is the struggle, and the 
 successful struggle, of human thought to reach the 
 Divine thought, and if the struggle is human the 
 issue is Divine. And because of this Divine action 
 which plays throughout the poem in the thought of 
 the writer we have to candidly admit that this is no 
 mere poetical inspiration. Here is poetry of a high 
 order, but there is more than poetry here ; this poet 
 is speaking from experience when he says : — 
 
 Now a thing was secretly brought to me, 
 And mine ear received a whisper thereof, 
 In thoughts from the visions of the night 
 When deep sleep falleth on man. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Then a spirit passed before my face. 
 
 A form was before mine eyes, 
 Silence — and I heard a voice, 
 Shall mortal man be more just than God ? (v. 12-17). 
 
THE " KETHUBIMr 203 
 
 And because of this immediate trafficking of the 
 poet's spirit with the Spirit of his God truths are 
 manifested, truths which come only from God ; the 
 Eternal Being, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, 
 passes before us, and we too see Him with our eyes, 
 as well as hear Him with our ears ; and in the 
 light of His self-manifestation, our life on earth, with 
 its inexplicable sorrows, receives a new interpreta- 
 tion. Not only is the captivity of Israel turned, but 
 the captivity of the Human Race is as it were 
 visited, and to it is given the promise of a Redemption. 
 The third book of the Wisdom Literature, which is 
 known in Hebrew as QoJieleth, a feminine or neuter 
 noun signifying " that which preaches," and in the 
 Greek Version, and thence transferred to our Bible, 
 as Ecclesiastes^ is a work of the latest times before 
 the coming of Christ. We may safely say that it 
 owes its place in the Canon to the fact that the 
 writer wrote under the name of Israel's early king, 
 Solomon, and also to the orthodox touches which 
 were put to it later, as has been supposed, by 
 one who wished to save its reputation. ^ Otherwise 
 this most irreligious of religious books would never 
 have been regarded as revelation. To speak of it 
 
 ' Cheyne, yi?/-" and Solomon, p. 204, who points out that xii. \a^ and 
 xii. 13, 14, are additions quite out of harmony with the general spirit of 
 the book, and hence argues that they are probably additions. 
 
204 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 as the Word of God is an impiety. The author's 
 radically false theory is " that there is nothing better 
 for a man than that he should eat and drink and 
 enjoy life" as well as he can under the miserable 
 circumstances (ii. 24-26, iii. 16-22, viii. 10-15, 
 ix. 7-10, xi. 9). In his opinion " all is vanity and 
 the pursuit of wind." His sweeping condemnation 
 of women (vii. 28), his idea that man is on a level 
 with the beasts (iii. 16-22), his craven counsel to 
 submit to a despot even after his frank recognition 
 that the despot is bad (x. 20), are illustrations of the 
 writer's human and uninspired point of view. And 
 yet if we are prepared to fully recognise that this 
 piece of Wisdom is not revelation at all, we may 
 rejoice that it is included in our Bible, for it expresses 
 the hopelessness and emptiness of human life without 
 revelation ; and considering that it sprang from a 
 nation which had the Law and the Prophets, we may 
 infer how much man needed One who was greater 
 than they. 
 
 Our treatment of Ecclesiastes has already taken us 
 over into the third group of the Hagiographa, and we 
 may pass at once to that beautiful composition which 
 like Ecclesiastes bears the name of Solomon, the Song 
 of Songs. The Jews interpreted the little poem as an 
 allegory, and in the Targum it is supposed to cover 
 the history of Israel from Moses to the Messiah. The 
 
rilE '^ K'ETIIUBlMy 205 
 
 early Christian Fathers read the allegory in a new 
 way, and saw in the Love Song a description of the 
 passages between Christ and His Church. The 
 sobriety of modern taste shrinks from applying these 
 rather voluptuous expressions to that high spiritual 
 relation, and except in a few beautiful and familiar 
 quotations the little book has almost dropped out 
 of present-day Biblical Teaching. But here again 
 Criticism has been rendering true service to religion, 
 and has restored the book to us, reading afresh its 
 beautiful lesson while frankly admitting that there is 
 no revelation in it at all. This conclusion of Criticism 
 must not be misunderstood. When Origen determines 
 to use these exquisite cadences as the language 
 between Christ and the soul there may be a true 
 spiritual insight, a veritable inspiration, in such an 
 application. A great Shakspere student might turn 
 Romeo and Juliet to a similar account ; but we must 
 clearly distinguish between the original character or 
 intent of the composition and the use which a sub- 
 sequent religious teacher m^y make of it. Now 
 viewed in itself, the Song of Songs is one of the most 
 exquisite poems in any language ; it probably dates 
 from an early period in the Northern Kingdom, when 
 literature flourished at the royal court of Samaria. If 
 we may accept Ewald's interpretation of its somewhat 
 obscure movements — obscure, because the speaker is 
 
2o6 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 in no case distinctly marked, but left to be inferred as 
 in Browning's dramatic lyrics — a Shulamite shepherd 
 girl has won the admiration of King Solomon, who 
 has seen her on a royal progress ; but the girl clings to 
 her rustic lover at home, and when she is brought to 
 the king's seraglio her thoughts turn to the past, and 
 she yearns for the wooer who had won her heart 
 before. The interpretation is by no means beyond 
 question, but it yields a beautiful result ; it makes the 
 plot turn on the fidelity of the maiden who will not 
 be seduced by the splendour and authority of a king 
 to forget her humble and faithful swain, and the poem 
 ends with the restoration of the sunburnt shepherdess 
 to her country home and her country love. Here is 
 foundation for a very pretty allegorising, if we are to 
 follow the Targum and Origen ; we may read into the 
 song the faithfulness of the soul which has chosen 
 Christ rather than the world, and will not give Him 
 up, though it is wooed by all the pomp and attrac- 
 tions which the world can offer. But probably most 
 thoughtful minds to-day will feel some irreverence in 
 this crude kind of allegorising, and will prefer to 
 accept the lovely little poem with its delicacy, its 
 passion, its breath of flowers, and its triumph of loyal 
 hearts, simply on its own merits, nor concern them- 
 selves with the questionable task of showing that it is 
 a Divine Revelation. 
 
THE '' KETHUBIM:' 207 
 
 A similar method of dealing with the little book 
 oi Riith will suggest itself. Revelation in the strict 
 sense the book does not contain ; it simply gives an 
 idyllic picture of a link in the chain of David's 
 ancestry, showing how a Moabitess found a home in 
 Israel's religion, and a place in the royal line. It does 
 not attempt to tell us anything fresh about God or 
 about Divine things. But it is so beautiful in its 
 delineation of simple human virtues, it breathes so 
 touchingly the spirit of religious dutifulness in daily 
 life, and in addition to this it has such an indefinable 
 charm of its own, that we are in no mood to quarrel 
 with it for being no more than it professes to be ; 
 nor can any laboured claim for a more recondite 
 interpretation of it commend it more to our attention 
 or secure it more surely in our affections. 
 
 The Book of Lamentations comes in a different 
 category. Though the authorship of Jeremiah is a 
 tradition which rests only on the LXX. and the 
 Targum, there is no reason to question that the five 
 poems which form the book spring from the age of 
 Jeremiah ; they are dirges which give expression to 
 the mingled sorrow and hope of the exiles who were 
 carried into captivity on the fall of Jerusalem (597- 
 586 B.C.). The central poem of the five, chap, iii., 
 throbs with the truth which was revealed to the 
 sufferers in that dark hour of trouble, and it remains 
 
2o8 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 for ever as an interpretation of the mystery of pain 
 which could come only from God Himself 
 
 There remains only the Book of Esther. It was 
 hinted at the beginning of this chapter that the Jewish 
 estimation of the book was higher than ours would 
 be. As a record of national triumph over a dangerous 
 foe it would naturally be dear to patriotic readers, and 
 it would be kept in perpetual memory by the recitation 
 of it at the Feast of Purim year by year, for which no 
 doubt it was composed. But no ingenuity of those 
 who are bent on maintaining that every word of 
 Scripture is given by inspiration of God has been 
 able to show in what sense the Book of Esther is a 
 revelation, or even contains a revelation. There is no 
 evidence to show that the details are historically 
 correct, and though the general character of Xerxes 
 (Ahasuerus) in our other authorities is not unlike that 
 which is delineated here, it is singular that no other 
 authority mentions Esther as his queen. But if the 
 details are correct, this only goes to enhance the 
 moral difficulties of the book. The fierce Jewish 
 vindictiveness, which slaughters thousands of innocent 
 people in so-called self-defence, breaks out in an 
 aftermath of unnecessary carnage. Happily the name 
 of God is not only never invoked, it is never even 
 mentioned in the book. The only religious exercise 
 referred to is that of fasting. Thus we can cherish 
 
THE '' KETHUBIM:' 209 
 
 the hope that nothing quite so dreadful ever happened 
 and the certainty that if it did, God had no other part 
 in it than that general forbearance with the violence 
 and savagery of His people which often evokes our 
 wonder, and sometimes drives us to the appeal ot 
 prayer. And if the theology of the book is im- 
 perceptible, its moral tendency bad, and its historical 
 truth questionable, we may well ask, What is revealed 
 in it ? The heroism of the Jewish maiden. But there 
 is a similar heroism in the Book of Judith. The 
 frustration of schemes formed against the enemies 
 of God ? Yes, but the book does not attribute 
 the frustration to God, nor is the Feast of Purim 
 recognisable as a religious occasion. On this subject 
 the book, whatever it may incidentally show, reveals 
 nothing. 
 
 We have had to pass the Kethubim in review 
 seriatim because there is more difficulty in estimating 
 the revelation of miscellaneous writings than in grasp- 
 ing the broad effects of such works as the Law or the 
 Prophets. We have seen that here the greatest 
 varieties occur. In the Psalms, Job, and Proverbs 
 we find the high-water mark of Old Testament 
 Revelation ; in Ecclesiastes and Esther we find 
 books which cannot be described as Revelation at 
 all. 
 
 But now placing the division of the Old Testament 
 15 
 
RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 that we have just been examining along with the two 
 other divisions which occupied us in previous chapters, 
 let us try to gather together the main lines of Revela- 
 tion which result from the Old Testament books as 
 a whole, and let us distinctly conceive the position of 
 Revelation in that solemn pause which occurs between 
 the Old Testament and the New. First of all there is 
 Judaism. The net result of fifteen centuries of the 
 Divine manifestations and exceptional dealings, which 
 constitute the history of Israel, was to produce a 
 unique religious State, with its centre in the restored 
 Temple at Jerusalem. The ritual of the worship, the 
 books of the Law, the splendid forecasts of prophets, 
 the memory of great kings and wide dominions, all 
 conspired to give to this little community of Jews a 
 conviction that it was made and preserved for an 
 end which was as yet unrealised ; everything about it 
 seemed to be an anticipation and a prophecy ; it was 
 a shadow of good things to come, and its chosen 
 spirits were constantly expecting a Messias who 
 should give the touch of completeness to that which 
 was felt to be great, but incomplete. 
 
 This preparation of a symbolic people nourishing 
 a sublime hope was in itself sufficient to vindicate 
 the term " revelation " as applied to the history and 
 records of the people ; but it was not all. Two 
 other revelations had been fjrowine from a dim 
 
THE ' ' KE THUBIM." 2 1 1 
 
 twilight towards a dawn through all the long period 
 of the national development One was the Nature of 
 God, the other was a true conception of ethics in its 
 relation to religion. The gradual growth of these 
 revelations has been obscured until Criticism has 
 taught us to put the Old Testament Literature in 
 its right perspective ; but the gross result of these 
 revelations is perfectly plain, and always has been, 
 in the book as it stands. It had been clearly revealed 
 by the time of which we are speaking, that God is 
 One, Invisible, Almighty, Holy, Righteous, and that 
 as the Father of Israel He was bent on bringing 
 all nations into His obedience and fear. The God 
 revealed in the Old Testament is parted by an im- 
 measurable distance from any other conception of 
 God which man had then formed ; and if He is more 
 fully revealed in the New Testament, that does not in 
 the least discredit the grandeur and truth of the reve- 
 lation in the Old. It had been clearly revealed, too, 
 in a hundred marvellous utterances of prophets, priests, 
 philosophers, and poets, that the righteous God 
 required righteousness — yes, inward righteousness ; 
 that no outward ritual could take the place of heart- 
 cleanness ; and that the righteousness which God 
 required was not only a right relation to Him, but a 
 right relation between man and man ; indeed the 
 Social Ethics of true reliq-ion is stated with such 
 
212 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 fulness in the Old Testament that it requires no 
 addition and little repetition in the New. Finally, it 
 had been revealed, rather in the elaborate symbolism 
 of the Temple Sacrifices than by any very distinct 
 spiritual teaching, that, if sinful men were to be 
 righteous as the righteous God required them to be, 
 there was need of an Atonement, 2^ work, a fact, larger 
 than anything which could be expressed by Temple, 
 Altar, Priest, and victims all together : and many 
 obscure utterances of the Prophets had hinted at the 
 nature of this Atonement, which would have to be 
 a Person, a Servant, a Branch, a King, a Victim, a 
 Sufferer, a Conqueror. In a word, the Problem of 
 Atonement had been revealed, but not its solution, 
 and the Jewish Church was left, consciously or 
 unconsciously expecting its solution. The latest Old 
 Testament writing, the Book of Daniel, expresses 
 this eager expectation — the appointed time would be 
 accomplished, and then would come that which was 
 "to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, 
 and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring 
 in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and 
 prophecy, and to anoint the most holy" (Dan. ix. 24). 
 That was the attitude in which the Revelation of the 
 Old Testament left religious minds in the middle of 
 the Second Century before Christ came. 
 
 And we may end our study of these Ancient 
 
THE '' KETHUBIM:'' 213 
 
 Scriptures with the remark that they who do not 
 perceive the Revelation in them can hardly have 
 studied them, or must have studied them only with 
 the veil of a mistaken dogmatism over their eyes, 
 which has obscured their vision and excited a most 
 unnecessary antipathy. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SUMMIT OF REVELATION. 
 
 "Jesus, the surety of a better testament." — Heb. vii. 22. 
 
 The first impression in passing from the Old 
 Testament to the New may very well be a feeling 
 of disappointment. The Old Testament literature 
 is so great and so varied, and in its higher flights so 
 far transcends all other writings which have come 
 down to us from antiquity, that the New Testament, 
 written in degenerate Greek and almost entirely 
 without pretensions to literary form, may give to 
 the mere scholar a shock of repulsion, and may 
 even be to him a stumbling-block. Here are no 
 artistic poems like those which we meet with in the 
 Psalter ; here are no systematic Law Books, and no 
 flights of human eloquence like Deuteronomy- or 
 ii. Isaiah ; here are simply some plain, unvarnished 
 annals of a life which was once lived on the earth, 
 some fragmentary Acts of a few earnest propa- 
 gandists of a new faith, a collection of letters from 
 
THE S UMMIT OF RE VELA TION. 2 1 5 
 
 the same men, and a striking Apocalypse written in 
 ungrammatical Greek. But a closer study modifies 
 the first impression ; it begins to appear that the 
 literary imperfections are an earthen vessel con- 
 taining a priceless treasure, and the idea spon- 
 taneously arises that the meanness of the vessel is 
 not undesigned, but is rather appointed in order that 
 the excellency of the glory may be of God. As 
 the vastness of the treasure is gradually perceived a 
 curious reaction takes place ; the literary medium is 
 sanctified by that which it conveys ; a feeling steals 
 over the Church that every line of it, every word of 
 it, must be Divine, and eventually not only is the 
 imperfection of the form forgotten, but the very 
 flaws of the earthen vessel are treated with a super- 
 stitious reverence, and it is held as an impiety to 
 point out that the syntax, the vocabulary, the style of 
 the writings are far from perfect. Our object in the 
 present chapter is to realise the marvellous Revelation 
 which has thus shed a kind of glamour over the books 
 in which it is contained ; and our object in the rest 
 of this volume must be to disentangle the revela- 
 tion from its medium, lest a false reverence for the 
 earthen vessel should ultimately — as has sometimes 
 happened in the past— discredit the treasure which 
 has been delivered to us in it. 
 
 The Summit and Crown of Revelation is Jesus 
 
2i6 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Christ. All the Old Testament writings which we 
 have been reviewing pointed forward to Him : their 
 essential object was to create a community in which 
 He should appear, to prepare a people through 
 which He could work upon the world, to raise and 
 maintain an expectation of His coming, to so far 
 define the manner of His appearing that they who 
 waited for the hope of Israel would be able to 
 recognise Him when He came. As He said, all the 
 Scriptures spoke of Him. When at last He came, 
 and men beheld His glory as of the only begotten of 
 the Father; when the Scriptures were fulfilled in Him, 
 and He was seen to be the end of the Law, in His 
 personal appearing and in His work. His death, His 
 resurrection ; the revelation of God was completed. 
 And this completed revelation of God was preserved 
 to the world by the mighty gift of the Holy Ghost, 
 who was to take of the things of Christ and to show 
 them to men, and to realise His manifestation 
 amongst His believing people even to the end of 
 the Age. 
 
 It is necessary to conceive distinctly that the crown 
 of God's revelation is a Person, and that the con- 
 tinuance of this crowned and perfected revelation of 
 God is secured by a supernatural operation of God 
 on human hearts which is very appropriately de- 
 scribed as the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Only 
 
THE S UMMIT OF RE VELA TION. 2 1 7 
 
 when this great truth Is firmly grasped are we able to 
 see the right place and significance of the New Tes- 
 tament writings. It is not, we may hope, un- 
 charitable to say that there is a faith in the 
 Scriptures which is the counterpart of a singular 
 unfaith in God. Christian men are heard speaking 
 as if the existence of Christ and the work of the 
 Holy Spirit depended upon the" New Testament 
 Scriptures ; they seem sometimes to imply that if 
 the New Testament were destroyed — if, for instance, 
 Diocletian's imperial purpose of entirely rooting out 
 the Scriptures from the Church had been realised — 
 the Lord Christ would have no existence, and the 
 operations of the Spirit would cease. Such reasoners 
 do not seem to observe that the whole object of the 
 New Testament writings — again and again ex- 
 pressed — is not to exalt themselves, but to lead us 
 to a living experience of a spiritual life determined 
 by the indwelling of Christ. If that fact of ex- 
 perience is not effected, the New Testament is for 
 us a failure ; but if it is effected, it should lead us to 
 the discovery that Christ Himself is among us, as 
 He promised that He would be, and God will by no 
 means take His Holy Spirit from us. Nay, strange 
 to say, the Christians, of whom we speak, do not 
 even notice that the New Testament is itself a record 
 of the Christian faith being propagated at a wonder- 
 
21 8 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 fully rapid rate without a New Testament at all. 
 Peter had no writings to appeal to, except the Old 
 Testament Scriptures; Paul preached "his gospel" 
 without any reference to a written gospel, and never 
 hinted that the further preaching of the faith should 
 depend even on his own Epistles. It may as well be 
 frankly stated that the frantic and superstitious faith 
 in the Apostolic writings, a faith going far beyond 
 what they claim or suggest themselves, may be simply 
 the outcome of unbelief. People who are sunk in 
 this kind of Bibliolatry often do not believe in the 
 things which the New Testament itself teaches : they 
 do not believe that Christ, in the operations of His 
 Holy Spirit, is actually present in the world ; they 
 do not believe in that " unction from the Holy One " 
 which, John said, would lead us into all truth. 
 Radically incredulous of spiritual realities, without 
 any real trust in a living and present God, they find 
 a refuge from their infidelity in the letter of Scripture, 
 and like those Thibetan Buddhists who have found a 
 Bible and set it in a shrine and burn incense before 
 it, they really worship the Scriptures instead of the 
 living God, and make a slavish and unreasoning 
 acceptance of all that is written take the place of an 
 inward subjection to God, and a realised experience 
 of His personal manifestation to the believing heart. 
 Now it is in this irrational and indeed irreligious 
 
THE SUMMIT OF REVELATION. 219 
 
 treatment of the Scriptures that the greater part of 
 modern infidelity strikes its roots ; from it the anti- 
 Christian attacks derive their weapons. The faith in 
 our Lord Jesus Christ of which the New Testament 
 speaks is a thing so real, so transforming, so opera- 
 tive, that no unbeliever can say anything against it. 
 Regenerate lives, the epistles known and read of all 
 men, can be questioned by none. But the faith in 
 the New Testament writings, firmly and unintelli- 
 gently held, gives openings for a thousand attacks. 
 Different interpreters take different views of their 
 exegesis ; variant readings leave the meaning of 
 certain passages doubtful. In these writings there 
 are many things which are easily wrested, and if a 
 certain method of interpretation is adopted, may be 
 made to countenance the most misleading errors. 
 Seizing, as untrained and ill-balanced minds are apt 
 to do, on precisely the most questionable and am- 
 biguous passages, and giving to them an unjustifiable 
 prominence, many so-called " Bible-students " will 
 create more difficulties and suggest more doubts in a 
 few discourses than an ordinary Christian can hope 
 to settle in a lifetime. Every absurdity professing 
 to rest upon the Word of God discredits the Word 
 of God in the eyes of thoughtful men ; and fanatics 
 who appear to be made into fanatics by their study 
 of Scripture seem like a woeful warning to sober 
 
220 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 minds against the study which seems to produce such 
 results. It is noticeable, therefore, that the New 
 Testament never demands faith in itself, but only 
 faith in Christ ; it nowhere speaks of itself as a whole ' 
 which is to be accepted a priori by those who would 
 come to God, but always unites its differing but con- 
 cordant voices in entreating men to seek a personal 
 reconciliation with God, a direct enduement of the 
 Power, and an inward assurance from the Witness, 
 of the Spirit. It is one of the most significant 
 of facts that in many parts of the orthodox Protes- 
 tant Church a claim is made for the New Testament 
 which it never advances for itself, and in consequence 
 the truth which the New Testament does proclaim is 
 constantly becoming obscured and discredited. And as 
 this claim is one which is entirely unsupported by any 
 authority, the people who prefer it are proportionately 
 angry when it is questioned. People who rest on the 
 assured facts of the Spiritual Life are quite calm 
 when their principle is attacked, for they know that 
 it cannot be shaken ; but people who rest on the 
 dogma about the Inspiration and Infallibility of the 
 New Testament writings are rendered violent and 
 denunciatory by the slightest question of their posi- 
 tion, because they have a suspicion that they have 
 no proof to offer except their own assertion, and they 
 think' that their assertion is made stronger by the 
 
THE SUMMIT OF REVELATION. 221 
 
 use of anathemas and horrified expressions of pious 
 reprobation. 
 
 But it may be asked, Have we not in what has just 
 been said been constantly referring to what the New 
 Testament teaches ? Is it not the witness to the 
 spiritual reahties which rest on a faith in Jesus ? Is 
 it not above all things the book of the Holy Ghost, 
 the record of the Spirit's coming, the handbook of 
 the Spirit's operations, the interpreter of the Spirit's 
 work in our hearts ? And we may at once reply, Yes, 
 that is precisely what the New Testament is ; but the 
 danger comes in when, admitting that it is this, we 
 begin to say that it is more than this. The New 
 Testament is a collection of writings from the pens 
 of a group of men who had just been the witnesses 
 and recipients of the great crowning phase of God's 
 revelation to the world. The principle on which these 
 writings were collected and preserved, to the exclu- 
 sion of many other writings which seemed super- 
 ficially to be of the same kind, was, we may surmise, 
 that every line should be kept from the men who 
 had "seen the Lord," the men who had lived with 
 Him in the flesh, or received a direct apostleship 
 from His lips ; they are essentially the records, or 
 such records as survived in the middle of the Second 
 Century, of those who had been the chosen witnesses 
 of the Supreme Manifestation. 
 
REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 What we seem to want in the present day is the 
 clear understanding that Christ Himself was the 
 revelation, Christ " after the flesh," and still more the 
 Christ after the Spirit. The writings which preserve 
 the records of that revelation must not be confused 
 with the revelation itself. So far as they have faithfully 
 kept it for the after ages, so far as they are suffused 
 with the Person of whom they speak, they may them- 
 selves be called in a secondary sense Revelation ; but 
 we must remember that they make no pretence to be 
 infallible ; in most cases the writers imply that they 
 are writing as other authors write, and where they 
 are conscious of delivering a special truth which has 
 been communicated to them by God, they generally 
 say so expressly, in order that they may not mix up 
 with the revelation which they are conveying the 
 things which they " speak as men." 
 
 Now if it does not sound too paradoxical a state- 
 ment, Christ does not depend on the New Testament 
 writings, but the New Testament writings depend on 
 Him. There is a great event which comes between 
 the Old Testament and the New ; it is the fulfilment 
 of the Old, and out of it the New Testament springs. 
 That event, the coming of Christ, was preached to all 
 nations under heaven, as an apostle says, and is yet 
 being preached to all nations under heaven, not be- 
 cause it is written about in a certain book, but be- 
 
THE SUMMIT OF RE VELA TION. 
 
 cause it is a fact which verifies itself in human hearts 
 and human lives. The New Testament is only part 
 of the evidence on which that event rests, nor can it 
 be called the most important part : the actual work 
 of the Spirit must be recognised as more important 
 than even the writings which were produced under the 
 influence of the Spirit many centuries ago. But if 
 the evidence of the New Testament is unduly exalted, 
 still more if it is represented as the sole evidence of 
 the great event, there necessarily follows a numbness 
 to the spiritual facts which are put within the reach 
 of believing souls ; and the appeal is made not to 
 them, but only to the book. The truth is we need a 
 criterion in reading the New Testament just as the 
 writers needed a criterion in writing it. That criterion 
 is Christ Himself And we must now present to our 
 minds that Supreme Person, who was and is, and is 
 to come, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and 
 the Omega, as He is shown and demonstrated to us 
 by all the evidence at our disposal. And when this 
 Revelation of God is perceived and welcomed into 
 our hearts and lives we can deal fairly with the New 
 Testament writings just as the Apostles approached 
 their composition in the realised experience of Him 
 who had promised to be, and was, with them always. 
 The Scriptures are meant to lead us to Christ, and in 
 combination with a living presentation of Christ in 
 
224 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 preaching and in the Christian society, they will 
 accomplish their end ; but when they have led us to 
 Him He will enable us to estimate them. 
 
 What, then, is Christ ? Let us answer the question 
 by developing and articulating the facts. A simple 
 peasant living at Nazara in Galilee, sprung of the 
 ancient kingly stock of Israel, manifested as He grew 
 up certain religious characteristics which made a deep 
 impression on those who knew Him. His life was 
 brief, and in the main uneventful, but He betrayed to 
 those whom He chose as His friends the conscious- 
 ness that He was the Messias, or Anointed One, 
 whom His nation was expecting. To His intimates 
 He also showed that He was one with the invisible 
 God in a way which was quite new in religious ex- 
 perience ; He identified Himself with God, and en- 
 couraged His friends to believe that seeing Him 
 they saw God. After two or three years of life among 
 His disciples whom He instructed in ethics and re- 
 ligion. He was crucified. Everything connected with 
 His death. His foreknowledge of it, His conduct 
 during the tragedy, and His words at the last, entirely 
 convinced His followers that He was the Suffering 
 Servant of whom the prophet had spoken, and that 
 He was the antitype of the paschal lamb and all the 
 sin-offerings of the Temple worship. They saw at 
 once that He had come to give His life a ransom for 
 
THE SUMMIT OF REVELATION. 225 
 
 many ; they found a "new covenant in His blood," a 
 redemption which might be offered to all who would 
 accept it. But what gave point to this conviction 
 was the fact that He rose from the dead, appeared 
 and spoke to them, and told them to preach what 
 they had seen. These men, after a memorable period 
 of waiting and a striking spiritual experience, set 
 about the task which had been put into their hands 
 But now a very remarkable manifestation began 
 to repeatedly occur. Those who received the mes- 
 sage of pardon and peace through the crucified and 
 risen Jesus came into a personal relation with Him, 
 which, though independent of the senses, was perfectly 
 distinct to consciousness, and produced upon them 
 an effect which was to them blissful and to others 
 unmistakable. The Risen One appeared in lives 
 transformed ; and so obvious was this that the best 
 evidence that He was risen seemed to be in these 
 persons who were, so it was described, " risen with 
 Him." I This inward experience of a cleansing from 
 
 ^ The following passage from Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, 
 chap. XXX., illustrates the way in which Christians of the Third Century 
 conceived the argument for Christianity : "If, as a matter of fact, one 
 who is dead can effect nothing, but his influence lasts to the tomb and 
 then ceases — deeds and actions affecting men belonging only to the 
 living ; then let who wills see and be judge, acknowledging the truth 
 from what is seen. For since the Saviour is effecting such great things 
 among men, and is daily invisibly persuading so great a number on all 
 sides, both from the dwellers in Greece and foreign lands, to embrace 
 His faith, and all to be obedient to His teaching ; has any one still any 
 
 16 
 
226 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 impurity and a power over sin could only be con- 
 ceived as Christ dwelling in the heart ; and the main- 
 tenance of the spiritual life by faith in Him could 
 only be typified as bread of life and living water 
 constantly received. This life lived by faith in the 
 Son of God was perceived to be a life hidden in God, 
 and the knowledge that they who had seen Christ had 
 seen the Father was daily developing in the Christian 
 experience, until the only way of adequately describ- 
 ing the God whom the Christian knew was to declare 
 that He was the Father, the Son by whom the Father 
 was revealed, and the Spirit taking of the things of 
 Christ and showing them to the soul. The practice 
 of a Christian life thus produced, with the consequent 
 purifying of the moral nature and enlightenment of 
 the understanding, led to clearer and firmer faith in 
 the Being who had thus come to dwell in the souls of 
 
 doubt that the resurrection has been accomplished by the Saviour, and 
 that Christ lives, or rather is Himself the Life ? Is it, indeed, the part of 
 a dead man to be piercing through the minds of men, so that they deny 
 Iheir ancestral laws and reverence the teaching of Christ? Or how, 
 if at least He is no longer working (for this is the property of one dead), 
 does He stop the working of those who are working and living, so that 
 the adulterer no longer commits adultery, and the manslayer no longer 
 commits murder, and the unrighteous no longer is avaricious, and the im- 
 pious for the future becomes pious ? Or how, if He did not rise again, but 
 is still dead, does He drive away and persecute and cast down the false 
 gods deemed by unbelievers to be alive, and the daemons they worship ? 
 For where Christ is named, and His faith, there all idolatry is destroyed, 
 and every deceit of daemons is refuted, and no d^raon even endures the 
 name, but on merely hearing it flees and departs. Now this is not the 
 work of a dead man, but of a living — aye, of God." 
 
7 HE SUMMIT OF REVELATION. 227 
 
 His believing disciples. The conviction grew that 
 the Redeemer of men would also be their Judge, and 
 that the Maker of regenerate spirits was also the 
 Creator of the world, in whose image man had really 
 been made. Men were assured of their own resurrec- 
 tion from the dead by their experience of His, and 
 they anticipated a future life which would consist in 
 an eternal union with Him. From this conclusion 
 concerning what is to be naturally followed the dis- 
 covery of what had been, and the last, completing, 
 touch of this new Truth was the doctrine that the 
 Christ who had been among men in the flesh was 
 the Word of God who had been in the bosom of 
 the Father before the creation of the world. 
 
 To the question, then. What is Christ, as He is 
 known from all the sources of evidence open to us ? 
 the answer may be given, Christ is the Redeeming 
 and Saving Power of God manifested, as the ancient 
 revelation dimly foresaw, in a human life of sacrifice 
 and suffering, and operating now through a Spiritual 
 Agency in the continual regeneration and perfecting 
 of human souls. It may be said, of course, But this 
 definition is just what you would gather from the 
 New Testament. Certainly ; but that is only because 
 the writers of the New Testament had received it 
 from experience— an experience which is equally 
 open to us. And it is important to recognise that 
 
228 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 it is derived, not so much from the New Testament 
 as from the Source whence the New Testament 
 derived it, because then we obtain a definite and 
 real fact to serve as a criterion in judging the New 
 Testament itself. It is the accordance of the New 
 Testament with this spiritual reality that gives it its 
 authenticity, and where in some comparatively un- 
 important points that accordance fails, there the 
 authenticity of the writing disappears. 
 
 The writer is painfully aw^are how iconoclastic this 
 view must appear to those who are bound fast in a 
 dogma of inspiration. Such men require us all to 
 admit their dogma before they will argue with us. 
 Concede, they say, that the Scriptures are God's 
 word, infallible, authentic, and complete, or we will 
 have nothing to say to you. But, the perplexed 
 inquirer says, will you give me proof of your great 
 axiom ? No, is the answer, we will not ; you shall 
 accept it as the first condition of the argument. With 
 people in that position it is obviously impossible to 
 reason ; but it is perhaps time to tell them with all 
 earnestness and frankness that they are taking not 
 only an irrational, but an unscriptural ground, and 
 that they are raising a grave doubt in many minds 
 whether they have any real faith in the things which 
 they so confidently affirm. Let this simple question 
 be addressed to them : Do you really believe that 
 
THE SUMMIT OF REVELATION. 229 
 
 Christ is a living Person to whom whosoever will 
 may come, and that the Holy Spirit is a real Power 
 working immediately on the hearts and the con- 
 sciences of men ? For, if you actually believe this, 
 how can you hesitate to admit that the Lord Himself 
 takes precedence of the book, and that the book is to 
 be estimated by the living Spirit that is with us ? 
 These sturdy champions of an unreasoning dogma 
 are not asked to give up their Scriptures, but only to 
 recognise that He of whom the Scriptures speak is 
 more real, more living, more infallible, more imme- 
 diate, more present than any, even the best, writings 
 can be, and that He is indeed the censor and the 
 interpreter of the writings themselves. 
 
 Now they who have grasped the distinction which 
 has been made, and therefore understand the cer- 
 tainty and reality of Christ Himself, can turn with a 
 quiet and a candid mind to an impartial examination 
 of the several New Testament writings, and try to 
 estimate how much, and in what way, each one of 
 them contributes to the manifestation of Christ, who 
 Himself is, as we have been urging, the Crown of 
 God's revelation, the supreme and sufficient mirror 
 in which the nature of God and the ideal nature of 
 man are reflected and blended ; who is for this reason 
 the Light of the World, the Way and the Truth and 
 the Life ; and who must therefore be the standard 
 by which we try even the books that testify of Him. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS. 
 
 " I esteem the Gospels to be thoroughly genuine, for there shines 
 forth from them the reflected splendour of a sublimity, proceeding from 
 the person of Jesus Christ, of so Divine a kind as only the Divine could 
 ever have manifested upon earth." — Goethe. 
 
 Between thirty and forty years after the Crucifixion 
 of Jesus — the exact date it is not possible to ascer- 
 tain — the apostles and apostolic men perceived the 
 necessity of writing down the memorials of their 
 Master's life and death. At first the things which 
 He had said and done seemed so vivid in their 
 memory, and the call to be constantly proclaiming 
 them seemed so good a security of their preservation, 
 that written records would appear superfluous. ^ 
 
 ^ Cf Eusebius' statement about John : 'Iioavvijv (paal tov Travra 
 Xpovoi' aypdcpqj Ki')(pi)iitvov Krjpvyi-iaTi tsXoq IttI ti)v ypacpT^v tXOth'. It 
 is necessary to remind ourselves that to publish a book was not so 
 obvious an undertaking in the peasant circles of Galilee or Jerusalem 
 as it is to us. The notes of the Lord's doings and sayings had, we may 
 surmise, been long put down by the apostles for their private use before 
 any one of them thought of collecting and editing them in a connected 
 form. 
 
 230 
 
rilli MEMOIRS OF JESUS. 231 
 
 According to the earliest tradition it was Matthew 
 who took the initiative in compih'ng memoirs of his 
 Master ; he had preached chiefly to Jews, and when 
 he saw his way to proclaim the gospel amongst 
 people of a different kind he committed the substance 
 of his preaching to paper in the Hebrew language. 
 He wrote out, we need not question, the way in which 
 he was accustomed to preach Christ from the Ancient 
 Scriptures by showing how this and that prophecy 
 had been fulfilled in Him, and he wrote out a number 
 of the Lord's discourses which were imprinted almost 
 word for word on his own memory and on the minds 
 of many others who had seen and heard the Lord. 
 We may surmise that Matthew's preaching had never 
 attempted to set forth a chronological account of the 
 life, nor had it marked very distinctly the occasion or 
 circumstances of each event or discourse. It was 
 such an utterance or series of utterances as one might 
 expect from a fervent disciple who was neither a 
 profound student of the ancient Scriptures nor an 
 accomplished literary workman, but was overwhelm- 
 ingly charged with the spirit and power of the Lord 
 who had commissioned him to preach. It is gene- 
 rally supposed that our Gospel according to St. 
 Matthew is the Greek version of this first evangelic 
 narrative. It certainly bears some marks of such an 
 origin as is here suggested. 
 
232 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Our second Gospel had, we may gather from the 
 fragment of Papias quoted by Eusebius,i a similar 
 origin. Its author was one who served the Apostle 
 Peter as an interpreter, and jotted down his remi- 
 niscences of the Lord's life as he was in the habit of 
 narrating them in his preaching. The interpreter 
 probably translated the Apostle's Aramaic vernacular 
 into the Hellenistic dialect, which was the lingua 
 franca of the time. 
 
 Our third Gospel sufficiently describes its own 
 origin in its opening sentences ; it is a painstaking 
 compilation of the several memoirs and reminiscences 
 of those who had seen and known Jesus, made by 
 one who had enjoyed good opportunities of commu- 
 nication with these earliest witnesses. The fourth 
 Gospel may be left for a later stage in our investi- 
 gation. 
 
 We see, then, what the three Synoptic Gospels are 
 according to their own claims and the assertions 
 made about them by primitive writers. They are, 
 as Justin Martyr generally calls them in his apolo- 
 getic writings, Memoirs of the Lord.^ They do not 
 profess to be accurate in a chronological or a 
 
 ' Hist. Eccl. iii. 39. M«p>fOf juir tpi-iijvevTiiQ Wkrpov yefufjet'og, uaa 
 Ij^ivtmoi^evfrei', hkoiISmc typccipei> ov fdvToi to^ei rd vvo tov •^pirrTov i] 
 XtX^ivra if TrpaxOtvra. 
 
 - E.g., ApoL i. chap. 66, p. 98 B. 0} yap (nroaToXoi tv toIq yn'o^d- 
 voiQ VTTavTMV UTTO^vi^ixov^v^aaiv, it KctKiiTca ivayyf-\ia, o'vtmq TrapfZioKav 
 
 K.T.X. 
 
THE MEMOIRS OE JESUS. 
 
 historical sense, still less do they lay claim to be 
 divinely guaranteed against error ; nay, they do not 
 even make any pretence to inspiration in any special 
 sense. They present themselves to us as authentic 
 memoirs written, as Justin Martyr says, by the 
 Apostles or their immediate successors.^ 
 
 All the difficulties which have been found in the 
 Gospels during the last half-century of stormy 
 criticism, and all the scepticism which has been 
 excited concerning them, must be attributed to the 
 well-meant endeavours of the Church to represent 
 the Gospels as something more than they claim to 
 be. The evangelists have been represented as the 
 mere amanuenses of the Spirit of God ; their infalli- 
 bility has been made a point of faith ; to question it 
 has been represented as undermining the Gospel 
 itself. The intention was good ; the idea was that 
 in honouring the writers we should be honouring 
 Him of whom they wrote, and that by artificially 
 surrounding their authority with a mysterious sanc- 
 tion of inspiration we should protect and establish 
 the truth which they deliver. It is as if some ardent 
 Cromwellians, eager to secure the reputation of their 
 hero, had insinuated the dogma that Carlyle's life of 
 him was infallibly inspired. But the well-meant 
 
 ^ Dial. c. 103, p. 331 D. 'Ytto -ii'V nTroan'iXMv avrov Kni tud' tKfh'oig 
 irapaKoXuvd^aavTuiv, 
 
234 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 endeavour has entirely failed of its object. Well 
 meant, no doubt, it was, but it was unnecessary, and 
 has proved to be mischievous. For every fault of the 
 narratives, every obscurity, or trivial contradiction, 
 has thus been charged upon the Holy Ghost, and 
 antagonists of the faith, instead of being confronted 
 with the obvious truths contained in the Gospels, 
 have been encouraged to lay hold of the difficulties 
 in them, and to rest their rejection of the whole on 
 their dubiety concerning a part. In our own day a 
 well-known scientific writer has been allowed to draw 
 the attention of multitudes from the essential issues 
 by criticising the possession of the swine at Gadara, 
 and orthodoxy, committed to its great dogma, has 
 felt bound to vindicate the story against the criticism 
 with the desperate feeling that, if one statement in 
 the Gospels is challenged, Christ and His salvation 
 are called in question. Indeed, few dogmas could 
 have been more unfortunate than this dogma about 
 the infallible inspiration of the evangelists. For at 
 last the quiet question is put, even by reverent 
 believers. What proof have you of this infallible 
 inspiration } Do the writers claim it themselves } 
 No. Do other writers of the New Testament, St. 
 Paul, or St. Peter, claim it for them .? No. On 
 what, then, does it rest ? And at last the poor 
 and insufficient answer is forced to come out, We 
 
THE MEMOIRS 01- JESUS. 235 
 
 have no reason to give except the arbitrary dogma 
 of the Church, and we suppose the dogma was 
 invented as a security for the truth of Jesus. 
 
 Nou^ the simple fact seems to be this : the record 
 of Jesus, His Person, His ways, His words, His 
 works, is so marvellous, so unique, so Divine, that 
 it has cast its glory over the recorders. Writings 
 which tell so mighty a tale must themselves be 
 mighty. The vehicle of such a revelation must 
 surely be itself a revelation. This is where the 
 mistake has arisen. But the wisdom of God has 
 decided far otherwise. The greatest revelation of all, 
 the Person and Life and Death of Jesus, the Son of 
 God, requires for its record nothing but the simple 
 witness of those who saw and heard. There is no 
 need of an Isaiah, nor even of a Paul. The splendour 
 of human genius, the interposition of exceptional 
 gifts, would here be out of place, and would obscure 
 rather than illustrate the matter in hand. Let the 
 great Fact — so the wisdom of God seems to say — be 
 simply reflected in the unimaginative, uncreative minds 
 of a few unlettered men ; let their limited intelligence 
 be burdened only with the task of remembering, and 
 let their memories find a way into writing as time 
 goes on, so that the portrait of the Saviour, taken as 
 it were unconsciously, may in this artless way pass 
 down to posterity. That portrait shall not be the 
 
236 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 work of great painters, but rather a photographic 
 impression, drawn by the finger of Hght on the 
 hearts of those who were exposed to His loveHness, 
 hoHness, power, and love. 
 
 In taking this view of our Synoptic Gospels, in 
 placing them on the plane of unsophisticated and 
 unreflective historical memoir, we are, it is to be 
 observed, only following such indications as they 
 give themselves. In surrendering the far more 
 imposing dogmatic assumptions which have come 
 down to us by tradition, we not only return from 
 tradition to Scripture, but we quietly slip by all those 
 criticisms and questions which have in recent years 
 been directed, not against the Gospels themselves, 
 but against the theory of the Gospels gradually 
 developed by the Church. But those who slumber 
 in the lethargy of dogmatism start up with a cry. If 
 the evangelists are not divinely inspired, we have 
 lost our Lord ; we know Him only in these records ; 
 how shall we be assured that the records are true 
 unless we are first convinced that they are written by 
 God ? The answer to this cry of alarm, which 
 it is the object of the present chapter to give, 
 may be summed up in three brief statements, 
 afterwards to be enforced and developed. 
 
 First, the Lord is not taken away, but truly pre- * 
 sented in authentic contemporary records. Second, 
 
THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS. 237 
 
 the truth of the picture is guaranteed not by the 
 writers, but by the picture itself. Third, the whole 
 gist of the testimony given by these records is that 
 the subject of them is alive and is among His people 
 now, and therefore we are brought to a very plain 
 issue, which is this : if He is alive and active and 
 recognised among us now, how can it be said that 
 His reality rests on the authority of any ancient 
 yvi'iters ? And if He is not alive and active and 
 recognised among us now, of what avail is a writing, 
 even infallibly inspired, which bears it as its constant 
 burden, that He should live and be with His people 
 to the end of the world ? 
 
 In a word, the answer to the terrified cry of a 
 disturbed dogmatism is briefly this : the Gospels are 
 a historical witness to a Living Christ ; their revela- 
 tion consists of the picture which they present of 
 Him ; they are verified by Him, not He by them. 
 
 First of all, then, let us steadily realise that we 
 claim nothing for the Three Gospels now under 
 consideration, but that they are the honest reports 
 delivered to posterity by those who saw it of the 
 most memorable life ever lived upon earth. There is 
 in them, as all readers who are not hardened aeainst 
 them by dogmatic presuppositions have observed, a 
 simplicity and directness which admit of only one 
 explanation. There is no trace of the art which is 
 
238 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 constructing a work of the imagination ; there are 
 none of the familiar marks of legend ; the idea that 
 the stories were the gradual growth of legend had to 
 yield to the hard fact that between the events and 
 the records there was no time for a legend to grow. 
 Never was there a more sober historical document than 
 the Gospel of Luke. Using all the materials which 
 are in his hands, the author sits down to compile as 
 complete a record of the life as he possibly could. 
 The Gospel of Mark — we may well challenge the 
 judgment of every unbiassed mind — is transparently 
 drawn from the life. Let any one sit down in a quiet 
 hour and read through without stopping this brief 
 harmonious story of the public life lived by Jesus dur- 
 ing the three years of His ministry, and the impres- 
 sion cannot be avoided — not only the subject matter, 
 but the very modes of expression, the minute touches 
 of verisimilitude, the little flashes of observation 
 that occur only to those who have been present and 
 have seen, confirm it — that this is a faithful tale drawn 
 from the facts themselves. And though Matthew 
 has neither the vividness of Mark, nor the historical 
 manner of Luke, it carries an unmistakable authen- 
 ticity of its own ; it teems with Xo^ia, as Papias 
 called them, the utterances of Jesus, and we may well 
 ask of any critic. How could these discourses have 
 come into existence ? Could they be invented by a 
 
THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS. 239 
 
 writer of the calibre of this evangelist? Are they 
 ingenious products of the study and of the literary 
 hack ? The question answers itself. The very sub- 
 stance of the first Gospel is the proof that the writer 
 is simply the recorder of what was said and done. 
 
 Indeed the authenticity of these unsophisticated 
 biographies would never have been challenged if we 
 had not asserted of them that they are something 
 more than they are. They would have stood on the 
 same unquestioned footing as the other biographical* 
 notices which have come down to us from antiquity, 
 if we would have let them occupy that ground, and 
 they would have delivered their witness to Him of 
 whom they speak without distracting any attention 
 from Him to themselves ; they would have remained 
 in their joyful self-effacement, anonymous, unpre- 
 tentious, pointing with simple unanimity of heart to 
 Him. Nothing better could be wished for them than 
 that they might come to us afresh, among the 
 writings of Josephus and Philo, or side by side with 
 Seneca' and Suetonius, asking us simply to examine 
 them as writings of antiquity; and immediately the 
 surpassing splendour of their contents would take 
 captive this present age, as it did that Second Century 
 in which they first became widely known. 
 
 But it may be said, apart from all extravagant 
 claims which have been made for the verbal and 
 
240 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 infallible inspiration of the writings, the miraculous 
 element in them would have ensured their rejection 
 by modern scientific minds. Is this, however, quite 
 so certain as it seems? When a scientifically trained 
 man is asked in a bare and bald way to accept a 
 miracle like that of feeding the Five Thousand on 
 the ground that a document is divinely inspired, it is 
 quite possible that he may inquire very severely into 
 the inspiration of the document, and when it appears 
 that the belief in its inspiration rests only on an 
 unsupported dogma, may impatiently push aside the 
 document and the miracle which it records. But 
 supposing he is asked to take up these biographical 
 documents and to form a fair conception of the 
 Person described in them, to piece together His 
 teaching, His conduct, the effects of His work, His 
 influence in subsequent history, and then to consider 
 whether He is not Himself a Supernatural Fact, a 
 Being who in His uniqueness presents Himself as a 
 revelation of God, it is by no means a foregone 
 conclusion that our scientific man, supposing him to 
 be perfectly candid and logical, will dismiss the 
 miracles in that summary way ; it is not impossible 
 that he may regard the miracles, in the light of the 
 Person, not only as probable, but as inevitable. 
 
 The settled a priori conviction that a supernatural 
 manifestation of God to His creatures is impossible 
 
THE MEMOIRS OE JESUS. 241 
 
 cannot of course be met by any argument or any 
 proof. If a man has once accepted it as an axiom 
 his mind is no longer open to any processes of 
 reasoning, and even tangible facts presented to him 
 as proof would only be thrust aside as illusions. It 
 is a condition of mind parallel to that of one who 
 has set his heart against his own child, and is further 
 exasperated by every attempt at reconciliation, in- 
 terpreting every advance of affection or desire as an 
 added proof of perversity, and a new ground of 
 displeasure. But the point to be remembered is 
 this, that where the scientific mind is still open and 
 not committed to this irrational prejudice, the most 
 probable way of convincing it is to present these 
 records of the life of Jesus simply as records, on the 
 ground of their admitted authenticity of date and 
 scope and authorship, claiming for them nothing 
 more than they claim for themselves, and then to leave 
 the story to produce its own effect. Immediately the 
 candid and logical mind is struck by the Person 
 presented in the records. Following out the influence 
 of the life in the history of the world, he feels the 
 necessity of explaining the results which flowed 
 from a cause so apparently simple. And as he 
 comes to grapple seriously with the problem he is 
 led to admit the supernaturalness of Jesus, and 
 incidentally the possibilit}- of His miraculous works 
 
 17 
 
242 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 and His Resurrection, in order to escape the hopeless 
 mental predicament in which he must be landed if 
 he denies them. 
 
 But while we may fearlessly contend for the 
 authenticity and historical veracity of these three 
 memoirs, it is obvious to any reader who carefully 
 compares them with one another that they are sub- 
 ject to many of the infirmities which are incident to 
 all human compositions and to all human testimony. 
 Even in so vital a matter as the Beatitudes of the 
 Kingdom the first and the third evangelists give 
 decidedly different versions. In describing the cure 
 of a blind man at Jericho one account represents the 
 single blind man as two. The very inscription on 
 the Cross is differently worded by the different 
 writers. And, when we come to the records of the 
 Resurrection, every careful student is aware how 
 difficult it is to piece the several versions together 
 into anything like a consistent narrative. But when 
 we have frankly admitted and firmly grasped the 
 fact that these are memoirs, such recollections of 
 the events as would be current among the disciples 
 of the first and second generation after Jesus, these 
 marks of ordinary biographical and historical writings 
 will occasion the believer no difficulty, and will not 
 allow the unbeliever to question the substantial truth 
 of the record as a whole. Here is an illustration ready 
 
THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS. 243 
 
 to hand. Writing in a current magazine, a war corre- 
 spondent,^ Mr. Archibald Forbes, who was present 
 at the battle of Sedan on September i and 2, 1870, 
 mentions how completely at variance the several 
 accounts of the battle are. After the lapse of twenty- 
 two years it is impossible to determine with accuracy 
 innumerable points of detail. The eye-\vitnesses, the 
 official reports, the notes of correspondents, disagree. 
 The order of events, the precise time of the several 
 incidents, the exact number of people present on 
 a given occasion, cannot be determined. And yet 
 what person would be foolish enough to question the 
 historic fact of Sedan because of these divergent 
 testimonies ? The battle was fought ; the German 
 Empire of to-day, and the sore feeling in France 
 about Alsace and Lorraine, are witnesses which 
 would outweigh a thousand discrepancies in the 
 narrative. And so it is with the accounts of the 
 Resurrection. The great fact is not disturbed by the 
 somewhat incoherent description of its incidents. 
 The power of the Risen One ; the world transformed 
 by His influence ; myriads of living persons who are 
 conscious of being risen with Christ through faith 
 in His resurrection which happened centuries ago, 
 would outweigh many more difficulties than are 
 actually found in the narrative. 
 
 ' Nineteenth Century^ March, 1892. 
 
244 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 We may regard with a certain detachment of 
 feeling the fierce discussions about points of detail 
 in the Gospels. It is quite possible we may say that 
 St. Luke, for example, may have made a blunder 
 about the date of Quirinius' procuratorship of Syria,i 
 and have supposed that, because he was commis- 
 sioner for the enrolment of nam.es in the year when 
 Q. Sentius Saturninus was the presses of Syria, he 
 was already presses himself, though history shows us 
 that he did not occupy that position until ten years 
 later, viz., 6-1 1 A.I). The birth of our Lord at the 
 time of that enrolment is not discredited because 
 an author, writing half a century later, had forgotten, 
 or had no document at hand to show, that Quirinius 
 
 ' Mommsen [Res gesiie Augusti, 125) indulges in a sneer at the 
 theologians who try to show that this census took place at all in the 
 year 4 B.C. And for this a recent writer in France, Pere Didon, takes 
 him to task (see Jesus Christ, A pp. A., p. 817); but this brilliant 
 Catholic author furnishes fresh material for the historian's sarcasm 
 when he tries to show that the clause in Luke ii. I, riyenovivovTog 
 TiJQ 'S.vpiag Kvpi]viou, meant, "When (Quirinius was the special com- 
 missioner for the enrolment in Syria." No doubt, as Meyer shows 
 in his commentary on the passage, that is the actual fact, but that is 
 not what St. Luke says. He says that the enrolment was made while 
 Quirinius was the pnescs of Syria ; and that position he did not hold 
 till ten years afterwards. It is the perversity of the false dogmatism 
 on the subject of inspiration which leads even a candid mind like Pere 
 Didon to rescue the historical accuracy of Luke by maintaining that 
 his words, which say one thing, distinctly mean another. On this 
 method of interpretation all writers are infallible. If one attributes 
 an event of 1S34 to Queen Victoria's reign, it may be justified as 
 meaning that it means the fifteenth year of her age, though King 
 William was on the throne. 
 
THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS: 245 
 
 was not at the time Augustus' kgatiis for the 
 government of Syria, but only his agent for the 
 holding of a provincial census. The idea that the 
 Holy Ghost would supply a writer with an accurate 
 chronology, and would make careful historical re- 
 search unnecessary, or correct the errors where the 
 research had been insufficient, is one entirely im- 
 ported into the question by irresponsible dreamers. 
 The preface of St. Luke's own Gospel shows that he 
 never entertained such an idea ; and we may surmise 
 that if. he himself were confronted with the facts 
 which are known to us, and asked to explain his 
 statement, " this enrolment was made when Ouiri- 
 nius was governor of Syria," he would say at once, 
 " I made a mistake; of course his pnesidiuin of Syria 
 did not begin till ten years later." 
 
 But we may pass now to the second point which 
 may be advanced to reassure the trembling believer 
 who thinks that we are taking away his Lord because 
 we have no ground for asserting that the evangelists 
 are infallible. The truth of the picture is guaranteed 
 not by the writers who depict the life of Jesus, but by 
 the picture itself A few flaws in the plate or in the 
 printing of the cartes do not affect the image which 
 the light draws in a photograph. No fallibility of the 
 witnesses, no infirmity of their memory or of their pen, 
 can materially affect the picture which, as it seems 
 
246 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 almost involuntarily, they present of their Lord. 
 Their simplicity, their artlessness — nay, we might 
 almost say their rusticity, against which clever critics 
 have frequently railed, are themselves the guarantee 
 that they are simply telling what they saw and 
 handled. They could not have invented, for it is all 
 they can do to imperfectly depict, that Person, His 
 matchless beauty and goodness, and the power which 
 breathed from His word and work. The supreme 
 value of these very humble witnesses is that with all 
 their minor divergences, and with all their obvious 
 limitations of understanding and expression, they do 
 put us at a point of view from which we can with 
 unclouded eyes see Jesus, as He came and passed 
 through the few brief years of His earthly life. Thanks 
 to them and to God's Spirit, working through them, 
 impelling them to write and quickening their memory, 
 we find ourselves at small disadvantage as compared 
 with those who saw with their eyes and heard with 
 their ears Jesus in the flesh. 
 
 Now it is this Person, the tout ensemble of His life 
 and character, which is the great Revelation of God. 
 It is this Person who, patiently studied and under- 
 stood, seems to step out of the simple pages and 
 approach the reader with a majesty which commands, 
 and a tenderness which allures, all but the hardest 
 and most corrupt of human hearts. Men brought up 
 
THE MEMOIRS OF [ESUS. 247 
 
 like John Stuart Mill in a traditional contempt for 
 the religion of Jesus have even in a time of most un- 
 imaginative materialism been arrested by the Person 
 in these Gospels and constrained to say that they could 
 think of no better rule of life than so to act as would 
 win the approval of Jesus. Light-hearted litteratmrs 
 like Ernest Renan have, along the lines of simple 
 historical inquiry, met the Person in these Gospels 
 and been compelled to utter a cry of admiration and 
 love, and to sing His praises in prose, which owing to 
 the subject seems to rise into verse, with an ardour 
 which would evidently pass into faith but for the 
 arbitrary presupposition in the mind of the investigator 
 that whatever in the great Person is Divine and 
 therefore saving, must be quietly put aside as in- 
 credible. And men who have not been poisoned by 
 the baseless dogma of Science that the Supernatural 
 does not exist, and therefore all that is supernatural in 
 Jesus is fiction, men who with open heart have sub- 
 mitted themselves to the impression which the Person 
 of the Gospels makes have found themselves obliged 
 to exclaim with one or another of the disciples in the 
 record, now, " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 
 O Lord ; " now, " Thou art Christ, the Son of the living 
 God ; " now, " Lord, to whom shall we go t for thou 
 hast the words of eternal life ; " now, after a moment 
 of misgiving or doubt, " My Lord and my God ; " and 
 
248 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 now in a passion of surrender, " Lord, thou knowest 
 all things, thou knowest that I love thee." It would 
 be vain to make an attempt to enumerate all the 
 people on whom the Gospels have produced this 
 powerful effect. The Person in the written pages 
 speaks to them as a real and living voice, and sways 
 them as a seen and acknowledged Lord. The words 
 are read — " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest " : we lose sight 
 of the book and of the writer, we attend only to Him 
 who speaks. We come to Him, and He gives us rest. 
 Now it is not a little extraordinary that a vehicle 
 apparently so inartistic and so incomplete should 
 produce such an effect on following generations of 
 men. We can point to no other records of a life, 
 even though they may be far more finished, more 
 detailed, more exact, which have the vital result of 
 bringing us into spiritual contact with the Person of 
 whom they speak. Many of us have read with tearful 
 eyes the Memorabilia of Socrates, or the great de- 
 scription which the gifted disciple gives of his 
 master's death in the PJicsdo ; but while we lovingly 
 admire the noble and indomitable sage, it does not 
 occur to us to come to him ; indeed, it did not occur 
 to him to invite us. Or to take a much more modern 
 instance, we have studied that curious and fascinating 
 picture of a beautiful soul drawn from within, the 
 
THE MEMO/RS OF JESUS. 249 
 
 Journal of Amiel ; his exquisite words haunt the ear, 
 and the story of his pensive life, his pure meditations, 
 liis wise and critical observations, the tragic over- 
 clouding of his declining days, touches us with a tender 
 human sympathy, and makes us reach out yearning 
 hands of brotherhood to his melancholy shade ; but 
 which of us thinks of coming to him ? Wise coun- 
 sellor and sober teacher in many delicate issues of 
 life we may admit him to be, but he does not draw 
 us. He dies a kind of silent martyrdom, but it gives 
 us no hope in our hours of need. The marvellous 
 and inexplicable fact about the Person of the Gospels 
 is, that it draws us ; we find ourselves unconsciously 
 in the crowd trying to touch the hem of His garment ; 
 we involuntarily take a place at His feet and feel that 
 we have chosen the good part which cannot be taken 
 away ; His death told in simple but impressive detail 
 holds us with a singular spell ; like the little children 
 to whom Robert Elsmere tells the story of the Cross, 
 we break into sobs and tears — we know it is for us ; 
 we go to the tomb, and unlike the curiously insensible 
 disciples, we feel that it was not possible for Him to 
 be holden of death ; the brief cry, " He is risen," 
 penetrates our heart with a subtle hope ; He seems 
 risen for our justification, and a quickening faith 
 enables us to be crucified and buried with Him, and 
 to rise also with Him to newness of life. 
 
250 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 We take up these dear records of His life and 
 death again and again ; we read and re-read the words 
 that He spoke ; we meditate afresh upon His many 
 works of healing and mercy, His few works of severity 
 and judgment. What is there in them? We thought 
 we knew them almost by heart ; they are familiar to 
 us as the sky and the woods and the sea ; but they 
 are always new. Some miracle or sign which once 
 seemed difficult to believe is constantly passing into 
 the category of the credible as our understanding ot 
 Him rounds and grows. If there are some things 
 which still seem to us incredible we can leave them 
 cheerfully aside, for we count it an irreverence to at- 
 tribute to the Person whom we are getting to know 
 anything which is out of harmony with the character 
 as we know it. The Cross is always breaking upon us 
 in new aspects and new phases, like a mountain peak 
 which is eternal, but never the same for two hours 
 together in the passing of cloud or the outbreak of 
 sunshine, the gathering of the treasures of the snow 
 or the unsealing of the fountains which are to water 
 the vale. His words too — they are spirit and life, and 
 we are always saying with a fresh emphasis, " Never 
 man spake like this man." Some simple apophthegm 
 of His is constantly piercing down to the roots of our 
 life, or some lovely parable will quietly unveil a 
 spacious landscape of unnoticed truth. We study 
 
THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS. 251 
 
 the Sermon on the Mount for a lifetime, and in the 
 second sight and brightening intuition of an old age 
 which has passed from godliness to godliness, we 
 begin to perceive with awe that we have understood 
 but the surface of it, and have never sounded its 
 depths. We turn back again and again to His 
 summary of the Law and the Prophets, and with 
 every sorrowful failure, every painful discovery how 
 little we love, how little we seem capable of loving, 
 we come back to Him and say, Master, Thou hast well 
 said : to love God with all our hearts and our neigh- 
 bour as ourselves is the clearness and joy of heaven ; 
 Lord, teach us to love. And how often, when with a 
 foolish optimism and a shallow misconception of the 
 solemn facts which form the underground of life, we 
 have thought to minimise or explain away some of 
 His searching severities. His words about the fire 
 which is not quenched and the worm which does not 
 die, we have been constrained to come humbly back 
 to His feet with the surprised confession that He knew 
 best ! 
 
 Now it is this Person of the Gospels — and not merely 
 the sketchy portrait of Him — which is the great reve- 
 lation of God. " All things have been delivered unto 
 me of my Father, and no one knoweth the Son save 
 the Father ; neither doth any know the Father save 
 the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to 
 
252 RE VELA TlON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 reveal him " (Matt. xi. 27). It is the Person who 
 could say this, who could realise, too, what He said 
 that strikes all criticism dumb. All that is told about 
 Him gathers round what He is. Miracle and sign 
 are not given as proofs of what He is, but they seem 
 to flow by a kind of inner necessity from Him who 
 uttered those wonderful w^ords. We do not believe in 
 the Divinity of Jesus because of the miraculous con- 
 ception mentioned in the first chapter of Matthew ; 
 rather we are forced by the conviction of His 
 Divinity to believe in that manner of His birth. If 
 He was born in the common way of human generation 
 the miracle of what He is seems too transcendent for 
 human faith. 
 
 It is indeed a strange conceit that any artificial 
 guarantee is needed for the Person presented in these 
 Gospels. To prop His authenticity by a dogma about 
 the infallibility of the evangelists is like trying to 
 shore up Mont Blanc, and to keep it from falling 
 with a {q.\n pine logs hewn from its ridges. We may 
 joyfully anticipate the day when Christians will 
 surrender their puerile apologetics, their attempts to 
 verify the eternal Truth by a paltry fiction which is 
 pricked like a bubble by the first touch of inquiry. 
 
 Non tali auxilio, non defensoribus istis 
 Tern pus eget. 
 
 Some day we shall let the evangelists again tell 
 
THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS. 253 
 
 their own tale, without our impertinent prehide of 
 tales about them ; and an astonished world will see 
 again in these Memoirs of Jesus the unmistakable 
 reflection of the Jesus whom the disciples saw. 
 
 But still the strongest answer to a timorous belief 
 remains. The abiding reason why the frank admis- 
 sion of what the Gospels are cannot take away our 
 Lord is this : the Person of whom the Gospels tell is 
 nothing if He is not a living and active presence 
 now. All that is said of Him, and all that He is 
 reported to have said, is naught unless He gave the 
 distinct promise that wherever two or three were 
 gathered in His name there He would be in the 
 midst of them. The Gospels are mere waste-paper, 
 or at least of no more practical religious value than 
 the Mcnwrabilia of Xenophon or the Jouriial of 
 Amiel, unless we may accept literally the assertion, 
 " Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the 
 world." Did He say that ? Does He fulfil that 
 saying ? That is the vital question, and not, whether 
 Matthew was a sacred penman miraculously guaran- 
 teed against the possibility of error. Now we may 
 conceive the three Gospels as in effect three witnesses 
 from the age after the Resurrection, eagerly asserting 
 that the Lord had risen, had appeared to one or 
 another of His disciples, had finally disappeared, but 
 only on such terms that His presence with His people 
 
254 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 would be perpetual and unbroken. If the Gospels in 
 asserting this are maintaining a lie, let them be ruth- 
 lessly thrown aside. Some good Christians seem to 
 think that the only proof they have of the assertion 
 is the statement of the evangelists, and their timid 
 anxiety to maintain the infallibility of the Gospels 
 arises from a fearful conviction that if those books 
 were lost the Living Christ would be lost. Orthodoxy 
 of this type, it is almost unnecessary to repeat, rests 
 on a profound and radical unbelief. Its champions 
 are sceptics who can attach no meaning to the great 
 saying, " I am with you," except this, that a written 
 word is with them, a Book infallibly inspired and 
 miraculously preserved. But what we may call the 
 orthodoxy of the first Christian century — the century 
 before the New Testament was written — is becoming 
 again the orthodoxy of the Nineteenth Century, the 
 century in which the cramped doctrine of Biblical 
 infallibility has become doubtful. Men are be- 
 ginning to believe again the mighty truth that 
 Jesus lives and is with them even now. A hard 
 and incredulous materialism, created largely by a 
 hard and essentially sceptical Christianity, says still 
 with a sneer, Where is your Lord ? Show Him to us 
 if He indeed be alive. And we answer not by an 
 appeal to documents which unbelief will not accept 
 as an authority, but by an appeal to facts which 
 
THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS. 255 
 
 unbelief itself may ignore but cannot deny. We 
 may boldly venture all on the fact that Jesjis lives 
 ayidis among 11s now. If the doubter will not take 
 the trouble to examine the details of religious history, 
 if he will not test the reality of Christ's saving 
 presence in the lives which have been redeemed by 
 Him, in the miserable rescued by Him from their 
 misery, in the bad turned by Him into the good — we 
 must at least insist upon it that he should try for 
 himself whether Jesus lives before he commits himself 
 to his arbitrary negation. The first apostles went to 
 convert the world not with a New Testament in their 
 hands, for it was only their labours which resulted in 
 the production of the New Testament, but with the 
 risen Christ in their hearts, and with a power not 
 their own, which was able to bring Jews and Gentiles 
 alike into a personal contact with this living Saviour. 
 That is precisely the method which is needed to-day. 
 If these pages fall under the eye of an unbeliever, of 
 one who is a stranger to Christ, they have a message 
 for him, direct and simple as that which Peter 
 preached at Pentecost. This message thrusts aside 
 as irrelevant the thousand and one pleas and objec- 
 tions which unbelief is accustomed to urge, and comes 
 at once to the point. Jesus, the living Saviour, bids 
 you come unto Him with the promise that He will 
 save you. " But how.'*" you say; " I cannot see Him " 
 
256 RE VELA TTON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 No, but as a spiritual presence He is at hand and 
 accessible to your spirit. " But," you object, " I do 
 not believe in His Divinity." No, but what He asks 
 is that you should believe in Him, and He puts no 
 metaphysical tests in the way of your accepting Him. 
 " But I do not believe in the miracles, the story of 
 the birth, and the rest." He is here, not speaking of 
 these, but of His power to save you ; will you come 
 unto Him that you may receive life ? If you ivill^ He 
 gives you life ; if you will not, you are without life. 
 " But," still you exclaim, " I do not believe in the 
 atonement." When He bids you come unto Him He 
 does not demand a theological definition or the 
 acceptance of a religious formula. He says that He 
 came to serve, and to give His life a ransom for 
 many. He says that His blood was shed for you 
 and for many for the remission of sins. The question 
 is, will you trust the love of God, will you accept the 
 remission of sins which Jesus offers, will you take 
 your position as a pardoned and reconciled child of 
 God in Christ Jesus ? 
 
 Where a man has learnt his own weakness and 
 sinfulness and need, where in consequence he 
 humbles himself as a little child, he comes to Jesus 
 in one brief and heartfelt prayer. Jesus is unseen, 
 but His presence is acknowledged, and He is 
 received. And as many as receive Him get power 
 
THE MEMOIRS OF [ESUS. 257 
 
 to become the sons of God, even as many as believe 
 on His name. Now, the whole of our subsequent 
 investigation of the New Testament writings will tend 
 to show that the very essence of this Gospel was the 
 proclamation of a living Christ, whose living power 
 was ordinarily manifested in the persons of men and 
 women who gave admission to Him. If the value of 
 these first three memoirs of the Lord is that they 
 present us with a tolerably accurate picture of Jesus 
 as He lived and died upon earth, and rose again from 
 the grave, and ascended into heaven, they are only 
 the introduction to a series of writings which derive 
 all their value from the witness they give to this 
 resurrection life of Jesus. " And it came to pass, 
 while he blessed them he parted from them, and 
 was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped 
 him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and 
 were continually in the temple, blessing God." That 
 is how the third and latest of the three closes the 
 narrative. The Risen One has left His disciples, 
 and yet He has not left them disconsolate. There is 
 an attitude of expectation ; there is a breathless 
 pause. He has gone, but He is not far away ; He 
 will be with us still. The following books of the 
 New Testament show in a variety of ways how this 
 expectation is fulfilled. If the first three Gospels are 
 a revelation of God in the person, the human person, 
 
 18 
 
258 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 of Jesus, they lead immediately up to the revelation 
 of Jesus Himself, prolonged in the work, the ex- 
 perience, the faith of His chosen disciples and their 
 successors. The memoirs of Jesus were closed, 
 nothing more could be added ; nothing has been 
 added except a {(tx^^ trifling recollections preserved by 
 St. Paul, and the treasure of reminiscence in the 
 Gospel of St, John. The brief beautiful life on earth 
 was rounded and set like a triple cameo-image in a 
 simple frame, to last as long as man is on the earth. 
 But the saving life of Jesus was only just beginning ; 
 it manifested itself in certain normal and sufficient 
 ways in the apostolic days, and the New Testament 
 writings are the record of it. It still manifests itself, 
 for the most part strictly along the lines of that New 
 Testament literature, but by no means necessarily 
 confined to them. The revelation of God in the face 
 of Christ Jesus is perpetuated in the life of the 
 Church, the saints in whom He has dwelt, the 
 teachers, the martyrs, the heroes, whom He has 
 inspired. And by a not unnatural figure the whole 
 sum total of redeemed beings in whom He has mani- 
 fested, or will still manifest. Himself to the end of 
 time, may be treated as the body, the limbs, of which 
 He is the head. 
 
 Perhaps it was with some glimmering conscious- 
 ness of this that one of the evangelists, the one who 
 
THE MEMOIRS OF JESUS, 259 
 
 echoed Peter's teaching, gave to his brief record of 
 the human life the singular title, " The beginning of 
 the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." A 
 beginning indeed, and yet if we may be pardoned 
 the paradox, a complete beginning. 
 
 In closing this chapter it may be permissible to 
 appeal to the guardians of the letter of Scripture, 
 and to ask them whether the truth does not begin to 
 dawn upon them that God has provided a more 
 substantial protection of His revelation than the 
 traditional dogmatisms which once seemed strong, 
 but now are sufficiently worm-eaten and insecure. 
 Would not believers in Christ commend Him best to 
 the world if they really believed in Him, and ven- 
 tured to fall back on the promises which He has 
 given ? Arc believers quite sure that they are not 
 themselves the main cause of the world's unbelief? 
 Have they not demanded faith in a book, where 
 Christ meant them to demand faith in a Person ? 
 Have they not led the world astray in a weary 
 conflict about literary details, with dull reiteration 
 declaring that that is the word of God which is not 
 the word of God, so that men have not seen the true 
 Word of God that was with God from the beginning, 
 and became flesh, and tabernacled amongst us ? If 
 they would only understand that Jesus lives, and 
 present Him living to the weary and sinful humanity 
 around them, would not all men be drawn to Him ? 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Ads of the Apostles is the record of the found- 
 ing of the Church. Its opening words connect it 
 with the third Gospel. There is no reason to ques- 
 tion that the two works proceed from the same pen, 
 or that the same method of historical research and 
 collation prevails in the later book which was 
 deliberately adopted by the author, according to his 
 own statement (Luke i. i, &c.) in the earlier. The 
 evangelist had done his best to give a full and par- 
 ticular account of all that Jesus began to do and to 
 teach, and in this supplementary history he endea- 
 voured to show what Jesus continued to do and to 
 teach after He was received up into heaven. But it 
 may be at once noticed that this opening passage 
 which forms the point of juncture between the two 
 works, gives us a clear indication that the author lays 
 
 no claim to infallibility. In the simplest and most 
 
 260 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 261 
 
 natural way he corrects himself. When he wrote the 
 Gospel he had been under the impression that the 
 Ascension had taken place immediately after the 
 Resurrection. If we observe the marks of time in 
 chap. xxiv. — " that very day," ver. 13;" that very 
 hour," ver. 33 ; "as they spake these things," ver. 
 36 ; " and he led them out," ver. 50 — we cannot 
 doubt that the author looked on all these events as 
 compressed into a {(^\v hours. When he approached 
 his second treatise he was better informed, and knew 
 that for six weeks or so after the Resurrection the 
 Risen Lord manifested Himself to His disciples, as if 
 to accustom them to the idea of His continued life, 
 before He passed into the invisibility of His heavenly 
 reign. Where an author thus corrects himself, and 
 admits new information to modify a statement that 
 he has previously written, we certainly learn to trust 
 him more as an honest writer, but we feel at once 
 the absurdity of ascribing the qualities of infallibility 
 and inerrancy to his work. Now, if our author had 
 laid claim to infallibility, if he had professed to 
 receive his information from the lips of God, as 
 Mohammed does in the Koran, we should certainly 
 be in a great dilemma. A mistake in historical 
 statement, a contradiction, an inaccuracy, would be 
 appalling, for it would mean that either God had 
 made the error or the author was an impostor. But 
 
262 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 how gratuitous it is, when Luke is so perfectly 
 humble, transparent, and simple in his claims, to 
 raise other claims for him, and to overwhelm him 
 with confusion by declaring that he is what he never 
 pretended to be, when the facts show that what he 
 pretended to be he is ! Whatever handle Scep- 
 ticism or Rationalism has found in assailing the 
 book, has been put into the hand of the enemy 
 by the gross and baseless theory of the dogma 
 that declares the supernatural authorship of the 
 Biblical books in defiance of all the d-eclarations 
 and obvious facts of the Bible itself. The frank 
 surrender of that hurtful dogm.a will be the be- 
 ginning of a new era of faith in the Bible and its 
 revelation. 
 
 St. Luke — for we may give the author the familiar 
 name which an unbroken tradition has preserved — 
 comes before us as an honest historian wishing to 
 tell us the story of the first thirty years after his 
 Divine Lord had left the earth. The earliest 
 reference to the book in ancient literature is made 
 by Irenseus, writing towards the end of the Second 
 Century (182-188 A.D.) ; and this is the gist of the 
 claim advanced for it — Luke told the truth, and no 
 one can convince him of unveracity.^ Irenaeus says 
 
 ' Neque Lucam mendaccm esse possunt ostendere veritatem nobis 
 cum omni diligentia annuntiantem. {Co/if. Hcrcs. iii. 15, § i.) 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 263 
 
 nothing of a miraculous guarantee that every fact 
 narrated should be correct. Inspiration, as modern 
 theologians have conceived it, is not the basis of 
 Luke's authority. But speaking of Luke, just as we 
 might speak to-day of Dr. Johnson or any other 
 well-known writer who lived a century ago, Irenaius 
 says that he was truthful, and his veracity was not 
 open to dispute. It may be said with much reason 
 that "to announce the truth with all diligence" is due 
 to inspiration, and that all truth comes from Him 
 who is the Truth ; but the point to insist on is that 
 neither Luke himself, nor the first witness to Luke in 
 Christian literature — Irenseus — is concerned to claim 
 anything more for the Acts of the Apostles, than such 
 veracity as a diligent and honest man can manifest in 
 collecting and compiling the events of the generation 
 to which he himself belongs, or of the one imme- 
 diately preceding it. There is, however, an excep- 
 tional guarantee for correctness in this narrative — at 
 all events, in the later parts, where we arc permitted 
 to accompany St. Paul in his apostolic journeys. 
 This guarantee is referred to by Ireneeus in just the 
 same way that we should attribute an additional 
 authority to an honest writer who had actually been 
 present, let us say, at the occurrences of the French 
 Revolution. Luke, in the simplest way, betrays the 
 fact that he w\as a companion of St. Paul in parts of 
 
264 REVELATION AISlD THE BIBLE. 
 
 his work.i He joined the Apostle at Troas in his 
 first missionary enterprise beyond the borders of 
 Asia (Acts xvi. 10), and was with him at intervals 
 during the remainder of the story until the arrival 
 and settlement in Rome. 
 
 Here, then, is a historical memoir, written by one 
 who saw some of the things which he narrates, and 
 must have had ready access to materials for telling 
 the rest of his story. Without attempting to deter- 
 mine the date of the composition, for which we have 
 no satisfactory evidence, except the abrupt and 
 apparently inconclusive termination of the narrative, 
 combined with the fact that the author was a witness 
 of the later part of his story, we may say : This is 
 the way in which the early story of the Church was 
 conceived in the last quarter of the First Century of 
 our Era. That many events v/ere already obscured 
 by distance is only natural ; that some had to rest 
 on more or less imperfect evidence is inevitable ; 
 that the views and beliefs of the generation in which 
 the book saw the light occasionally obtrude them- 
 selves on the narrative, need not be denied. But the 
 
 ^ Omnibus his cum adesset Lucas diligenter conscn]:)sit ea uti neque 
 mendax neque elatus deprehendi possit. {Cont. Hures. iii. 14, § i.) 
 The "neque elatus " seems to refer to the modesty in marking his own 
 part in the ApostoHc history by simply using the word " we " where he 
 was present himself. And certainly this self-suppressing simplicity is a 
 rare reason for trusting a man. 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 265 
 
 book is history in the sense that Thucydides is his- 
 tory, and probably no one would have been audacious 
 enough to say that it was anything less if the Church 
 had not been foolish enough to declare that it is 
 something more. When the Church maintained that 
 it was not history at all in the ordinary sense of the 
 word, but a work proceeding from God, written by 
 the Holy Ghost, the simple basis of truth was left, 
 and the way was prepared for the indignant assaults 
 of disillusionised critics. Orthodoxy was not content 
 to treat the book as historical, but would maintain 
 that it was miraculous ; it regarded the epithet " his- 
 torical " as almost a slur on the supernatural origin of 
 the work. Heterodoxy, not unreasonably, agreed with 
 orthodoxy in considering it not historical, and tried 
 to explain its origin in a naturalistic way. But now 
 it is to be hoped that both wings are coming to one 
 conclusion. The book is history. It has the merits 
 of history ; it has also its defects. It is true, as 
 history is true ; it is fallible, as history is fallible. 
 We may believe it — nay, we must believe it, as we 
 believe all history— but we are not called upon to 
 believe it, and, indeed, we are only superstitious if we 
 affect to believe it, in any other way. It is, as we 
 shall see very soon, the history of a great revelation, 
 and therefore, as a correct narrative, it is itself a 
 revelation. But the history of a revelation is not of 
 
266 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 itself anything more than history. Boswell may give 
 a faultless picture of Johnson without being in any 
 sense assimilated to Johnson, and a man may tell the 
 story of those wonderful years which saw the begin- 
 ning of the Christian Church without being himself 
 any more than a painstaking and accurate observer. 
 
 Now, in order to get the right point of view in 
 understanding this relation of the writer to his 
 work, and to grasp the kind of revelation which we 
 can find in the book, it is desirable, ungracious 
 though the task may seem, to briefly indicate the 
 limitations and the inaccuracies of our author, limita- 
 tions and inaccuracies not more or less than we find 
 in other historical compositions of antiquity. To 
 begin with, it is very curious to set side by side the 
 three narratives of Saul's conversion (chaps, ix., xxii., 
 xxvi.). They are not irreconcilable, it may be said, 
 but they are certainly very different in their details. 
 A modern writer in so brief a book would either not 
 repeat the same thing three times, or would reduce 
 the three versions to a close conformity. But St. 
 Luke has no concern In the matter. When, in chap, 
 ix., he tells the story in his own words, he docs not 
 feel it necessary to make it correspond with the story 
 which later on he will put into the mouth of Paul 
 himself. A general correctness, a summary of the 
 events, and a casting of the central thoughts into 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 267 
 
 the best form that occurs at the time, are all that 
 he deems desirable. By historical accuracy he does 
 not mean verbal exactitude ; he means rather the 
 best interpretation of the events which he is at the 
 moment able to give. This furnishes the clue to 
 understanding the various speeches which he records. 
 He has no intention of giving a verbatim report of 
 what was said. If he gives what appears to be a 
 verbatim report, it is only for the sake of vividness 
 in narrative. The speech of Paul on Areopagus, for 
 example, was not limited to one minute and a half, 
 which is about the time that the reported words would 
 take to deliver ; but the historian throws into his own 
 words and gives in a very condensed form the sub- 
 stance of what we can easily see was one of the 
 grandest sermons ever preached. We never charge 
 Thucydides with ill faith because he composes 
 speeches for Pericles, Nicias, or Brasidas ; and yet 
 we never understand by those reports in his great 
 work that he commits himself to the verbal accuracy 
 of those speeches. It was the habit of all historians 
 in antiquity — and the habit survived even to the era 
 of Macaulay — to give the spirit and movement of 
 the story which they were relating by expressing in 
 so many words the ideas or emotions which were 
 presumably in the minds of the actors. St. Luke 
 had often heard St. Paul preach ; he would be quite 
 
268 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 familiar with his style ; a few notes jotted down on 
 a special occasion would give him a cue to the dis- 
 course, and he would find no difficulty in composing 
 the general line of argument without deviating from 
 the spirit of the speaker, yet without remembering 
 the very words he used. The discourses of other 
 apostles, such as Peter's sermons, or the apology of 
 Stephen, or the speech of Gamaliel, would rest most 
 likely on more uncertain materials. But their sub- 
 stantial accuracy may be accepted just as we accept 
 the substantial accuracy of similar reports in other 
 ancient historians. 
 
 When this simple historical view is secured, there 
 is something quite puerile in taking exception to 
 points of detail in these speeches. Supposing 
 Stephen actually stated the period of Egyptian 
 bondage as 400 years, instead of 430, according 
 to Exodus xii. 40, there is no great matter for 
 quibbling ; ^ but Stephen may have been pedantically 
 accurate in his dates, and yet the report may not 
 have been quite exact — we are not dealing with a 
 speech in Hansard, but with a speech composed on 
 the recognised principles of ancient historical nar- 
 rative. A great deal has been made of the 
 anachronism in Acts v. 36, where the historian 
 
 ^ St. Paul's historical inaccuracy is more striking in Gal. iii. 17, 
 where he refers the 430 years to the period from the cov^enant with 
 Abraham to the giving of the Law. 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 2lo^ 
 
 makes Gamaliel refer to the uprising of the sicarii 
 under Theudas — an event which did not happen until 
 ten years after the time at which Gamaliel was 
 speaking.^ It is not possible, therefore, that Gamaliel 
 could have referred to this event as an illustration 
 of abortive insurrections. But it is possible, and 
 quite natural, that our author, in composing the 
 speech of Gamaliel, should put together the two 
 examples which were most familiar to him and to 
 his contemporaries, without knowing or remembering 
 that Theudas was, not before, but a generation later, 
 than Judas of Galilee. If we suppose that Gamaliel's 
 speech is supernaturally recorded by the Holy Ghost, 
 then we charge upon God this historical error ; but 
 we must remember that St. Luke never dreams of 
 resting his statements on such infallible authority. 
 If some one more versed in the obscure story of 
 Jewish insurrections had pointed out to him that 
 Theudas was later than the time of Gamaliel's speech, 
 he would have unhesitatingly corrected his mistake, 
 as he did the impression about the Ascension. ^ 
 
 ^ Josephus, Ant. xx. 5. i, where the date is fixed by the procurator- 
 ship of Crispins Fadus, which was in the reign of Claudius, and not 
 before 44 a.d. 
 
 2 Holtzmann has tried to show that vSt. Luke had before him the 
 passage in Josephus which records the uprisings of Judas and Theudas, 
 and has argued ingeniously that other parts of St. Luke betray a know- 
 ledge of this passage. From this he has argued that the Acts must 
 have been written after 93 A.D., the date of the publication of the 
 Antiquities. But is it not fair to assume that if St. Luke had read the 
 
270 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 But the general fallibilities and inexactnesses which 
 are incident to all historical composition are revealed 
 most unmistakably by a comparison between the 
 story of St. Paul in the Acts and the letters of the 
 Apostle which have happily come down to us. It 
 illustrates how even a close and constant com- 
 panion — a companion who on one occasion at least 
 remained with his friend when all other friends 
 had forsaken him ^ — could fail to learn the minute 
 details of his life or even to exactly express the drift 
 of his teaching. When once the idea of supernatural 
 infallibility in the writing of the history is laid aside 
 there is nothing in this to cause us surprise. It is the 
 commonest thing in the world to find that even a 
 near friend is not fully posted in the dates and 
 transactions of another man's life ; and it is the 
 almost universal experience that the disciples of a 
 great teacher more or less misrepresent the position 
 of their master. Sensible people, therefore, will think 
 none the less of the Acts because we certainly should 
 not have gathered from that memoir the same view of 
 St. Paul's visits to Jerusalem and relation with the 
 
 passage of Joi-ephus, he would not have made the bUinder of putting 
 Theudas before Judas, and the anachronism of ascribing the reference 
 to Gamaliel on this occasion? It is curious how all the interested 
 attempts to bring down the date of the Acts to a period when the 
 witness of a contemporary would be nullified are shattered by some 
 irresistible fact, and mole sua rinint. 
 ^ 2 Tim. iv. II. 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 271 
 
 Apostles there which his own letters have taught us 
 to regard as the correct one ; or because the narrative 
 of the Acts betrays no sign of the impassioned 
 polemic which the Apostle of the Gentiles maintained 
 with the Apostles of the Circumcision, makes no 
 reference to the conflict between Peter and Paul, and 
 leaves a general impression that it was Peter who 
 advocated the extension of the Gospel to the Gen- 
 tiles, and Paul who was tender to Jewish prejudices 
 and rigid in exacting at least the essentials of the 
 Law\ 
 
 To deny this slight incongruit}^ between Luke's 
 writings and St. Paul's Epistles is an expedient very 
 congenial to those who have a theory to maintain ; 
 but those Bible students who wish to see and to face 
 the facts will shrink from such a method of apologetic 
 as dishonouring to the Bible and disastrous to their 
 own mental honesty. Such students will find a great 
 relief in seeing that they are not called upon to shut 
 their eyes and to deny obvious facts, but that the 
 Acts is a historical work which, notwithstanding the 
 unimpeachable honesty and diligence of its author, 
 cannot possibly give so close a transcript from fact as 
 the letters of the man who was the chief actor in the 
 events. 
 
 The question which naturally arises from the 
 recognition of this position — the question whether 
 
272 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 everything in the book is to be accepted as actual 
 and trustworthy — may be remitted to the closing part 
 of the present chapter ; and indeed it cannot be 
 profitably discussed until we have turned our atten- 
 tion to the general contents of the book. We are 
 prepared, so we may assume, to admit that we have 
 before us a narrative of events which is historical and 
 deserving of a general credence. It has been already 
 hinted that these events themselves were a revelation 
 of God. Not the narrative itself — so runs our formula 
 — but the things narrated constitute the revelation. 
 
 It is incumbent upon us now to handle these 
 things narrated, not in detail, which would be a 
 very lengthy process, but in the mass. We must, 
 with the help of our historian, look at the events 
 which he describes ; we must grasp the facts as facts; 
 we must see what they imply ; we must endeavour to 
 state with as much exactness as possible what is the 
 precise revelation which such facts convey. It will not 
 be possible to compare these events with similar 
 events in the history of other religions, because there 
 are no similar events in other religions. The ideas 
 and truths presented in the events cannot very well 
 be tested by the consideration of other ideas and 
 truths, for they stand essentially alone. But another 
 method of weighing the revelation contained in the 
 book is happily at hand. We shall be able to ask. 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 273 
 
 and to some extent to determine, how far the reve- 
 lation contained in the book is still continued in 
 experience, how far the events recorded are repeated 
 in the history of the church. We may find that the 
 verification of the book is nearer at hand than we 
 thought. 
 
 When the life of Jesus was ended — when the brief 
 experience of the resurrection days was over — when 
 the mysterious body of the risen Lord had been 
 taken up into heaven, a cloud receiving it out of 
 human sight — the great question was this, Is the 
 work of Jesus done, and must its continuance be 
 sought simply in the careful record of the things 
 which the disciples saw and heard while He was 
 among them ? Was the message of Christianity to 
 be the story of " the sinless years that passed beneath 
 the Syrian blue " — the perpetual iteration of what 
 happened once, of things which from the nature of the 
 case must recede year by year into the mists of 
 distance, and be seen only through the legendary veil 
 of a tender memory ? Was the Gospel to be 'merely 
 a biography of a life that began in the manger and 
 ended in the Ascension ? If this was to be the 
 message of Christianity we may well pause to ask 
 whether it contained in itself the elements of con- 
 tinuance. It may freely be granted — as almost all 
 competent judges have asserted — that what M. 
 
 19 
 
274 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Renan calls " the legend of Jesus " has a charm and 
 a value of its own. No one is now found to deny that 
 His words are vital, His teaching unequalled, and His 
 character impressive and morally stimulating. But 
 could a progressive religion be constructed out of 
 these elements ? Mr. Lecky has declared that 
 Christianity has in the character of its Founder 
 preserved a lasting power of Regeneration. But can 
 any character known only through the imperfect 
 medium of historical records be relied on to reach 
 men who are not accustomed to study — men who, 
 when accustomed to study, are more likely to bring 
 their critical powers to bear on the narrative than to 
 be powerfully influenced by the character depicted ? 
 Or, to throw ourselves back into the position of those 
 simple men who had just seen their Master disappear 
 from their midst, granted that they had the liveliest 
 memories of His word and work, granted that their 
 emotions were deeply stirred by the circumstances of 
 His death, granted even that they were firmly con- 
 vinced of His resurrection, what resources had they 
 for making their story an influence of regeneration in 
 the world } They admittedly had no power of a 
 political or social kind ; and even if they had been 
 powerful in their own nation, their own nation was 
 insignificant and uninfluential in the world at large ; 
 nay, if they had been in the position of Marcus 
 
THE POUNDING OF THE CHU^RCH. 275 
 
 Aurclius or Julian, what chance had they of con- 
 vincini^ the world of their faith any more than those 
 great and earnest emperors were able to make their 
 religious principles a power among their own sub- 
 jects ? These disciples of Jesus were not even men 
 of learning or culture ; we can hard!)' affirm with 
 certainty that any one of them was a man of talent. 
 We have only to turn to the way in which the 
 first of the evangelists quotes the ancient prophecies, 
 and to the many instances of inexact citation and 
 arbitrary interpretation which occur in the New 
 Testament writers generally, to discover the mental 
 limitations and the insufficient literary erudition of 
 these men. Without means, without learning, with- 
 out social or political influence, without any striking 
 natural gifts, the handful of people who had com- 
 panied with Jesus were looking into the future and 
 considering how they could be witnesses of the things 
 which they knew. 
 
 Now it requires only a careful consideration to 
 discover that they were, on the terms which have 
 been supposed, committed to an impossible task. 
 When modern critics speak in their easy way of the 
 disciples shaping the legend of Jesus, propagating the 
 faith in the strength of their own innocent illusions, 
 and changing the face of society and the course of 
 the world's history by a creed, the chief strength of 
 
276 REVELATION AND 7'HE BIBLE. 
 
 which lay in its romantic and imaginary elements, 
 these critics do not appear to notice that they are 
 ascribing to the first disciples the accomplishment of 
 an impossible task. Let us propose only one simple 
 question to them. Can they show any single life 
 within the range of their experience transformed, 
 changed from bad to good, by the mere statement of 
 a fiction ? To speak of changing the world in a 
 moral and spiritual sense by the zealous proclamation 
 of an untruth is simply to attribute an effect to that 
 which is not a vera causa. 
 
 But if the disciples and their followers actually 
 effected the results which are now historically indis- 
 putable, it is necessary for every careful student to 
 seek for the power or the instruments which made the 
 impossible task possible. The book which we are 
 now considering is the statement from one who was 
 a contemporary, and in some cases an eye-witness, 
 of the influence that was at work, of the unexplained 
 elements which changed the simple narrative of the 
 life of Jesus into the story of the Church. 
 
 We saw in the last chapter how the promise of His 
 continued presence even after His death in the midst 
 of His disciples was a large feature in the teaching 
 of Jesus. He was to return to them when He had 
 left them. The manner of His return was not very 
 explicitly described ; but there was a " promise of the 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH a-jy 
 
 Father;" and as at the beginning of their discipleship 
 they had been baptized with water, they were now 
 shortly to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with 
 fire (Acts i. 5). About six weeks after the Crucifixion, 
 on the day of Pentecost, this promise was realised ; 
 they received /^a'tv, and were able to be the witnesses 
 of Jesus, first to Jerusalem and the home provinces, and 
 afterwards to the uttermost parts of the earth. The 
 description of this event, which was the turning-point 
 in the histor}- of Christianity, is given in very pic- 
 turesque language, as it was currently described and 
 received among believers in the writer's own day, fifty 
 or sixty years after it happened. We must remember 
 that we are dealing with a spiritual fact ; the rushing 
 wind and the tongues of fire are symbols of a spiritual 
 experience which is even now not readil}' rendered 
 into the bare language of prose, and at its first occur- 
 rence transcended all ordinary modes of linguistic 
 representation. \Vc are in some ways better able 
 than St. Luke to describe what happened, for the 
 issue of a great event is often the best interpretation 
 of its beginning. The disciples, waiting together, 
 prayerful and expectant, were one and all possessed 
 by a new spiritual influence ; an inward illumina- 
 tion revealed to them with convincing clearness the 
 things of Christ ; they saw His life, His death, His 
 resurrection in a new light ; they apprehended 
 
278 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 that He was exalted to give repentance and remis- 
 sion of sins, and that through faith in His name 
 whoever beheved should be immediately saved. 
 Not only did the facts present themselves in this 
 distinct and salvatory way, but with the new realisa- 
 tion had come a new and conscious power of ex- 
 pression ; they found themselves able to speak the 
 things which hitherto they had not been able even 
 to conceive ; they were possessed with the conviction 
 that a message was given to them which could and 
 must be delivered to every nation under heaven. 
 There was an end of faltering and weakness — here 
 was the great power of God. Not in their own 
 strength, any more than in their own wisdom, they 
 might step out to proclaim Jesus. He was indeed 
 back with them again, not visible, not audible, but 
 manifest inwardly, His character unchanged, His 
 powers enlr.rged because the fleshly limitations were 
 removed, His saving work made applicable to all 
 who would believe and receive Him. This was the 
 baptism of the Hoi}' Ghost — an experience which 
 not unnaturally is described by those who have 
 passed through it otherwise than by those who 
 simply see the outward effects. That little company 
 of unlettered men immediately began to speak with 
 '' tongues of fire." Their words were human words, 
 words not in themselves very extraordinary, but 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 279 
 
 they came with a startling power. Alen who heard 
 were pricked to the heart ; with strange and un- 
 expected emotion they asked, " What must we do 
 to be saved ? " with eager faith they accepted Jesus, 
 and in accepting Him were baptized with the same 
 spiritual Power. Changed inwardly, new creatures 
 in Christ, they gathered together in societies, and 
 manifested in their work and worship, in their lives 
 and in their speech, the same transforming spiritual 
 energy which had transformed them. It all seemed, 
 in looking back upon it, miraculous ; indeed, it all 
 was miraculous. It was entirely a new experience 
 in the history of the w^orld and the development of 
 religion. This power of a mere message, a Ki]pvryfjLa, 
 as it was called by the Greeks, to break the hard 
 heart, touch the seared conscience, open the spiritu- 
 ally darkened eyes, and change the whole inner 
 nature, was so unexampled that all who saw it felt 
 that they were living in a region of miracle ; every 
 spiritual fact seemed to be confirmed by signs 
 following. The Risen Lord was certainly with His 
 own, as He had promised to be, doing greater 
 things than He had done in the flesh because He 
 had gone to the Father. It is not difficult to con- 
 ceive how the doings of those first glad days were 
 treasured up in the memories of those who had 
 seen them. With what awe they would speak of the 
 
28o REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 mysterious influence which was at work not only 
 on mon's minds, but on their bodies ! With what 
 wonder would they repeat in after days how the 
 common religious experience led to a common life, 
 and a communism of property; how two disciples had 
 with a word of mighty faith healed a lame man in 
 the Temple ; how persecution broke out ; how two 
 members of the community who had deceived the 
 apostles mysteriously expired ; how that guileless 
 and enthusiastic Stephen died — the first martyr ; 
 how news began to come in to Jerusalem from 
 those who were scattered abroad by the persecu- 
 tion ! Philip's strange experiences at Samaria and at 
 Azotus ; Saul's sudden change from a persecutor to a 
 believer ; Peter's work at Joppa, and admission of a 
 Gentile — yes, actually a Roman — into the community 
 of the Holy Ghost, would pass from lip to lip. And 
 with gratitude it would be told how Peter was in a 
 sweet and impressive way delivered from prison ; and 
 then how the new convert, Saul, was becoming a 
 mightier preacher of the faith than any of the first 
 apostles, carrying the blessed name far out among the 
 Gentiles. In the Acts of the Apostles we have the 
 faithful record of all these facts as they were con- 
 ceived by the churches of the following generation. 
 It is the story of the first operations of the Spiritual 
 Christ in the world, the story of the Holy Ghost. 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 281 
 
 Now men who to the present day do " not so much 
 as know that there is a Holy Ghost " pass Hghtly over 
 the whole book and relegate it to the region of fable, 
 because it is a record of the miraculous. But it is for 
 this very reason that we assign it a place in history. 
 The essential features of the story have been repeated, 
 and are constantly to-day being repeated, in the history 
 of the Church ; and if this book is not history we are 
 indeed without a clue to the marvels which pass before 
 our eyes. We ma}- freely admit that those who deny 
 the veracity of these present realities are logically 
 bound a fortiori to reject the Acts of the Apostles ; 
 but the same kind of logic demands that we who 
 know the reality of the spiritual things which happen 
 to-day should believe in the veracity of the Acts. 
 We may freely admit that where our experience 
 to-day docs not confirm events recorded in that 
 early book we are bound to hold the truth of those 
 events with a loosened conviction, and to candidly 
 allow at least a possibility that some mistake has 
 crept into the tradition. But the essential features 
 of this story arc ever vivid and fresh in the expe- 
 rience of the Church : such things are enacted before 
 our own eyes. The baptism of the Spirit is no 
 miracle of a bygone age, it is a miracle of to-day. 
 To-day assembled disciples, and often disciples in 
 solitude and isolation, receive the mighty impact of 
 
282 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the Spirit. To-day they speak simple words which 
 break h*ke a mighty rushing wind over assembhes 
 of men, and shake the stubborn will, the hardened 
 heart, the deadened conscience, of the godless. To- 
 day more things are wrought by prayer than the 
 world cares to understand. To-day every mission 
 field has its own story to tell of events which are 
 in every essential respect identical with those which 
 are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. When, in 
 the little river near Ongole, Dr. Clough and his assis- 
 tant, working from morning to night, baptized between 
 two and three thousand converts in a day, the story 
 of Pentecost was practically repeated. When the 
 ignorant Karen tribes hailed the arrival of the mis- 
 sionaries because tradition told them of a Heavenly 
 Father, the knowledge of whom they had lost through 
 their sins, some of Paul's experiences amongst the 
 more susceptible heathen in Galatia, or the more 
 candid Jews in Beroea, were repeated. Nay, strange 
 as it may sound, the story of the persecution in Mada- 
 gascar, and the miraculous propagation of the faith 
 when the missionaries were expelled from the Island, 
 and all believers were being ruthlessly martyred, is 
 far more wonderful than any story told in our book. 
 Fiji and the South Seas, Hawaii and New Guinea, 
 have added, if we may use the expression which has 
 lately become common, chapters to the Acts of the 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 283 
 
 Apostles surpassing in interest any of the earlier 
 chapters incUided in the Canon. It is ahvays a vain 
 thing to recite the miraculous events in the history of 
 the Church to the unspiritual world, which does not 
 mean to believe ; the miracles are not for the purpose 
 of convincing unbelievers, they are the outcome of a 
 faith in God which has already been otherwise estab- 
 lished ; but it is only stating a simple fact to say 
 that authentic and unquestioned missionary literature 
 — and it must be remembered that the missionary 
 work is the parallel in the modern world to the history 
 of the Acts — teems with events which are miraculous 
 in the only sense in which any of us wish to maintain 
 the reality of miracles — that is, events which admit 
 of no other explanation than that God acts immedi- 
 ately and unmistakably in and for His people when 
 they are engaged in carrying on the work which He 
 gives them to do. 
 
 But here it may be said, and with much force, no 
 present-day experience gives us any example of a man 
 being spirited away from one place to another as 
 Philip was, or of dead people being brought to life 
 as Lydia and Eutychus were, or of the sick being 
 healed by contact with cloths and garments, as is de- 
 scribed in the Acts. We grant, some thoughtful and 
 impartial observers will say, that the cure of disease 
 through strong religious faith is not uncommon, that 
 
2S4 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 a direct guidance of the Spirit such as Paul received 
 again and again in his work is frequently met with in 
 the biographies of devoted men like Stephen Grellet 
 or John Wesley, and that the overruling of physical 
 events, winds and storms and the like, in the interest 
 of God's servants, is as manifest in such a book as 
 John Paton's life as it is in the Acts of the Apostles ; 
 but these other miracles, of which we have no kind of 
 experience, are not credible. The dead are not raised ; 
 and such magical prodigies as the healing of the sick 
 by touching relics, or the transportation of a body 
 through the air, are dishonouring to the general tone, 
 the high and spiritual tone, of the narrative. Now 
 the whole of this chapter has been quite in vain if 
 it has not established the position that the book with 
 which we are dealing is a history — that is, a narrative 
 v^^hich is certainly true on the whole, but is not 
 guaranteed to be infallibly correct in detail. A wise 
 man, then, will feel no difficulty in accepting its 
 record in the main, while reserving his judgment about 
 special points. That is the way in which we are 
 bound to deal with all historical documents. And it. 
 has been already granted that the kind and degree of 
 belief with which we accept facts such as have never 
 come within the range of our experience must always 
 be very different from the certitude with which we 
 accept things which are verified by proofs before our 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 285 
 
 eyes. It is therefore quite open to any of us in 
 reading the book to take out the stories to which we 
 are now referring, to set tliem aside, and to say, 
 " Upon the truth of these points I suspend judg- 
 ment ; " and it is quite conceivable that the faith of 
 many men will be the stronger for not being en- 
 cumbered with demands which strain the reason, if 
 they may accept and hold fast the great spiritual 
 verities without turning aside to consider material 
 miracles which are a distraction rather than a reve- 
 lation ; the great story of the Church's initiation, of 
 the new power introduced into religious life for the 
 purpose of proclaiming the Risen Lord and winning 
 a reluctant world to Him, may stand out clear and 
 convincing apart from all these questionable details. 
 We are bound, indeed, to make it clear that the accep- 
 tance of Jesus as our Saviour, and the reception of 
 pardon and peace through Him, do not in the least 
 depend upon the reality of these miracles recorded 
 in our book. If Lydia and Eutychus had never 
 existed — or having died were not raised — it does not 
 in the least alter the fact that Jesus lives, and is the 
 power of God unto salvation to every one that 
 believeth. And it is almost childish to imply that 
 we cannot be born again by the Spirit unless we 
 believe that Philip was transported through the air 
 after lie had baptized the Eunuch, and that the touch 
 
286 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 of St. Paul's garments was a curative influence on the 
 sick. In this matter where the Spirit of the Lord is 
 there is liberty, and a sincere believer will shrink very 
 much from casting a mental stumbling-block in the 
 way of his brother. 
 
 But at the same time the present writer may avow 
 his own conviction. To his mind it seems perfectly 
 evident that the historical veracity of our book is so 
 established, that it puts a great obstacle in the way of 
 denying what may be called so flagrant a fact as a 
 raising from the dead. The whole story is too much 
 in the atmosphere and spirit of the time to permit us 
 to understand how a legend of such a nature could 
 have grown up. And, on the other hand, the actual 
 raising up of a dead person to life was a manifestation 
 of Divine Power which had a peculiar significance in 
 a Gospel which had for its object to declare that all 
 the dead should one day rise to judgment. Taking 
 these larger considerations into account, one might 
 say, these narratives are not what one may call 
 proved, but they are probable. On the other hand, 
 the transport of Philip through the air and the 
 magical healing of the sick by handkerchiefs which 
 had touched the Apostle ^ are not at all in the same 
 category : should they be questioned or even rejected, 
 that would afford no safe reason for discrediting facts 
 
 ' Acts xix. 12. 
 
THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH. 287 
 
 which are supported by considerations of the kind 
 just ahuded to. 
 
 To sum up in one word, the story of the Acts is 
 the narrative of a mighty revelation, the revelation of 
 the Holy Ghost, which has this peculiar property, that 
 it was only the beginning of a revelation which was 
 continued, and is present with us in undiminished 
 vividness and power to-day. 
 
 There may be some to whom the traditional view 
 of revelation is so necessary that, if the view is shaken, 
 revelation is lost. Such persons would say naively 
 enough that if diseases were not healed by the means 
 of the handkerchiefs and aprons, then they have no 
 ground for believing in Pentecost or the reality of the 
 Holy Ghost. But there must be many in our day to 
 whom a disentanglement of ideas will come as a 
 relief, and they will welcome the possibility of 
 receiving the great spiritual realities on the ground 
 of history and experience, and yet holding with a 
 loose hand things which in the light of history and 
 experience seem deficiently supported by evidence. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE PAULINE LETTERS. 
 
 " I forbear, lest any man should account of me above that which he 
 seeth me to be, or hearcth from me." — 2 COR. xii. 6. 
 
 " The exceeding greatness of the revelations." — 2 CoR. v. 7. 
 
 It might seem almost impossible to exaggerate the 
 inspiration of St. Paul's writings, or the significance 
 of the revelation which has been given to the world 
 through him. Surely there could be no fear that 
 any one, by making such an exaggeration, would 
 end in discrediting the work and the writings of this 
 Apostle. Yet this almost impossible result the 
 dogmatism which has prevailed in the Reformed 
 Churches has very nearly achieved. From the 
 obvious position that revelations of exceeding great- 
 ness were made to St. Paul, the dogma passed to 
 the conclusion that every word he uttered, or at 
 any rate every line he wrote or dictated, must be 
 a revelation ; it demanded as an article of faith that 
 every opinion he expressed, every doctrine he formu- 
 lated, every regulation he made, must be accepted as 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 
 
 the utterance of the mind, and even of the mouth, of 
 God, It was just the same kind of inference which 
 we have observed repeatedly in our investigation :' 
 " Here certainly is a distinct revelation, therefore 
 everything here is revelation." The fear of the 
 Apostle has been amply justified. Inconsiderate 
 men have "accounted of him above that which 
 they heard from " him, with the result ' that they 
 have brought his authority into question ; insisting 
 on a quality of infallibility in all that he wrote, as 
 the fallibility of a part has been established, they 
 have led many to conclude that none is infallible. 
 The indiscriminate judgment has not only been 
 misguided, it has been misleading, for it has involved 
 in an equal suspicion all the things which it refused 
 to distinguish. Where dogma insists that the whole 
 is Divine, and will admit of no separation or appraisal, 
 scepticism is sure one day to accept the premiss that 
 the whole is indivisible, and must stand or fall 
 together, but to draw the conclusion that, as parts 
 are evidently human, there is in the whole nothing 
 that is Divine. 
 
 The traditional dogmatism has contrived also to 
 crystallise another element of obscurity. Not un- 
 naturally the great name of Paul gave rise to many 
 pseudepigraphical writings — that is to say, teachers of 
 a later date, wishing to ^w^ colour to their teaching, 
 
290 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 couched it in the form of a Pauline letter. Employ- 
 ing in some cases no doubt fragments of the Apostle's 
 thought or language, they elaborated their material 
 and produced a composition which might easily be 
 mistaken for his. Whether we have in our Canon 
 any writings of this order is a matter of question. 
 But the old orthodoxy foreclosed the question, and 
 was eager to treat it as a matter of faith or of un- 
 faith ; it demanded that as a preliminary of reading 
 the New Testament every reader should concede that 
 every Pauline letter was written by St. Paul. Thus 
 not only was it necessary to believe that every word 
 of Paul's was a word of God, but it was also required 
 that every word attributed to Paul when the Canon 
 of the New Testament was made should be treated 
 unquestioningly as his. No more unfortunate claim 
 could be imagined ; for while some of the letters are 
 admitted by every authority to be genuine products 
 of the Apostle's pen, others present most serious 
 difficulties. The solid dogma which would give 
 precisely the same degree of authenticity to the 
 Romans and to the First Epistle to Timothy 
 succeeds only in casting over the former the shadow 
 of suspicion which undoubtedly rests on the latter. 
 And again, when dogma has decided that these letters 
 must all be Paul's, or else be treated as spurious 
 and unworthy of attention, it virtually deprives us 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 291 
 
 of these most valuable writings directly a historical 
 or critical inquiry has led us to question whether 
 they could really have come from the pen of the 
 Apostle. 
 
 It is evident, then, that in trying to estimate the 
 revelation in the Pauline letters we must attempt to 
 distinguish ; we must avoid the lethargic methods of 
 dogmatism, and cease to study these writings with 
 half-closed eyes. In the first place, we want to 
 determine as accurately as possible what was the 
 revelation conveyed to mankind by the Apostle 
 Paul ; in the second place, we want to discriminate, 
 in order to see where the revelation in his writings 
 blends with that which is not revelation ; and lastly, 
 we have to consider what kind of revelation is, or 
 may be, contained in letters which bear the Apostle's 
 name, but cannot be with complete certainty at- 
 tributed to him as their immediate author. 
 
 It is difficult to confine this threefold inquiry 
 within the prescribed limits ; but it will help us to 
 be concise if we begin by grouping the thirteen 
 Pauline letters in the following way : First, the two 
 to the Thessalonians which were written during the 
 second missionary tour, in 52 or 53 A.D. Second, 
 Galatians, i and 2 Corinthians, and Romans, which 
 were the product of that prolonged stay in Ephesus, 
 or the following year, let us say 57 or 58 A.D. TJiird, 
 
292 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, which may be 
 plausibly attributed to the period of imprisonment 
 at Caesarea (Acts xxv. 27), let us say between 59 
 and 61 A.D. Fourthly, Philippians, which was written 
 during the imprisonment in Rome, between 62 and 
 64 A.D. (Acts xxviii. 30). Lastly, the three Pastoral 
 Epistles, which present this, among many other 
 difficulties, that it is impossible to determine at what 
 period in the Apostle's life, as it is known to us, 
 they could have been written ; they must therefore 
 either be accepted as an authority for events and 
 conditions of which otherwise we have no informa- 
 tion, or be relegated to the class of literature which 
 has been mentioned above as pseudepigraphical. 
 
 It will thus be observed that the letters which have 
 come down to us as St. Paul's belong to the twelve 
 closing years of his life. The earliest of them must 
 have been written eighteen or nineteen years after 
 his conversion ; the latest of them may be regarded 
 as the outcome of some four years of more or less 
 solitary confinement. Any difference which may 
 appear in the tone or the method, the subject or the 
 doctrine of the Epistles, may be sufficiently explained 
 by referring to these facts. 
 
 We may now approach the first part of our three- 
 fold inquir}^ — the first, and from the standpoint of the 
 present book by far the most important — What, in 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 293 
 
 broad outline, was the revelation conveyed to the 
 Church by the Apostle Paul ? 
 
 To begin with, the faith of Jesus was destined to 
 last long after those who had seen the Lord should 
 have passed away. It might seem, therefore, to be 
 an open question whether the effect which had been 
 produced in the hearts and lives of the disciples by 
 their experience of Jesus could be produced in those 
 who had not seen, and now never could in ordinary 
 human life see Him. Was the apostleship to be a 
 unique office strictly and finally limited, or was the 
 Lord who had risen from the dead to be at large 
 in the world, able to approach and to master, to 
 claim, to ordain, and to commission, men who, except 
 in the Spirit, could not know Him ? It was indeed 
 a vital question. If the Saviour was to be merely a 
 personal memory or a tradition, if He was to be 
 merely the subject of a few biographical sketches, 
 a lovely but shadowy frontispiece to a book which 
 must after all be only human, there certainly would 
 be no element of permanence in the new faith. As 
 our experience in these recent days has shown, the 
 records of the evangelists, notwithstanding their 
 simplicity and directness and candour, would not 
 be enough in themselves to establish the existence 
 of so remarkable a Being as Christ. Was flic Risen 
 Lord, then, one who could be revealed in human 
 
294 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 hearts by the direct action of the Spirit ? Could 
 His presence be received to change the character, 
 to master the will, to fill with Divine power one who 
 believed? Could His life be manifested in human 
 beings who had not known Him after the flesh ? 
 Could a direct witness be given that He was a 
 Saviour by a saving work carried on inwardly, by 
 a new creation issuing in a renewed and a sanctified 
 human life ? These questions, or rather this question, 
 for they are all one, received a striking and im- 
 pressive answer in the person of Paul. His letters 
 arc in the first place autobiographical. With a 
 curious ruggedness of diction, with a palpitating 
 reality of self-confession, he shows us the inner 
 being of one who had never seen Jesus in the flesh, 
 but was entirely possessed by Him, one who seldom 
 dwelt upon those brief years of earthly life, with 
 their wonders and their teachings, but was over- 
 whelmingly occupied with the life of Christ produced 
 and worked out in himself — it was no longer he that 
 lived, but Christ that lived in him. What Paul 
 was may be very clearly gathered from an attentive 
 perusal of his letters, and no one can question that 
 the portrait so unconsciously drawn by the painter 
 of himself is one of the most remarkable figures in 
 history : it is that of a man on fire with the love of 
 God and the love of men ; it is that of a man who 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 295 
 
 seems to be an irrepressible fountain of self-sacri- 
 ficing activity ; it is that of a man who is intensely 
 human and yet essentially superhuman. In a word, 
 Paul is a man in whom the dominating principle 
 is Jesus Christ. It is no exaggeration for him to say 
 that for him to live is Christ. He has not only 
 entered into the life and death of Jesus, so as to be 
 crucified, buried, and risen again with Him, and so 
 as to be constantly filling up the measure of His 
 sufferings, and bearing about in his body His marks ; 
 but the life of Jesus has entered into him. There 
 is nothing at all like it in the world's history before. 
 In a certain sense Socrates entered into Plato, and 
 lived again idealised in the works of his great 
 scholar. But to Plato, Socrates was at most a master 
 and an example. To Paul, Christ is not a master 
 or an example, except in a secondary sense ; He 
 is an indwelling person, a power that brings every 
 thought into subjection, strengthens every weak- 
 ness, and subdues every sin. Wilful, weak, and 
 sinful as he was by nature, Paul can yet say with 
 perfect truth that his will is entirely constrained by 
 Christ, he can do all things through Christ which 
 strengtheneth him, and sin has ceased to have 
 dominion over him. 
 
 The first, and in many ways the most important, 
 significance of Paul's letters is that they are the 
 
296 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 authentic picture of this Christ-filled personality, 
 this personality in which Christ, no longer present in 
 the flesh, is yet manifestly revealed. And the signifi- 
 cance is largely derived from the fact that what Paul 
 was any one of us may become. We cannot be what 
 John was or what Peter was, for they saw the Lord 
 in the flesh, and we did not. Had we been shut up 
 to their testimony we might always have imagined 
 that their peculiar privilege was the indispensable 
 condition of their experience. But if it pleased God 
 to reveal His Son in Paul, it may please Him to make 
 a similar revelation in us. If Paul became possessed 
 with that Divine Being, and received that witness of 
 the Spirit by which he was assured of sonship with 
 the Father, we may have a similar experience, for we 
 are exactly in his position. Our advantages are the 
 same — for he expressly disclaims as an advantage 
 anything which he derived from intercourse with the 
 apostles, " they added nothing to him " — our disad- 
 vantages he had to face, and even more than ours, for 
 he had to approach the acceptance of Christ with all 
 those deep-rooted prejudices which were ingrained in 
 the Judaism, and especially the Pharisaism, of that 
 day. 
 
 We may say, then, to begin with, that the revela- 
 tion in the Pauline letters is that of the Christ living 
 in a human heart, living and working, working and 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 297 
 
 producing Divine results, though the person in ques- 
 tion knew Him not by sight, but only, as he would 
 say, by faith. 
 
 But from this characteristic immediately follows 
 another. When the experience of a personal in- 
 dwelling Christ began in him, Paul did not confer 
 with other believers, but went, we are told, into soli- 
 tude, and spent a period of time which we may com- 
 pute to be something like ten years in conceiving and 
 shaping what he calls his "gospel." During long soli- 
 tary hours of meditation and prayer he brought out 
 into distinct consciousness all that was implied in the 
 Christ that was revealed in him. Again and again he 
 refers to what he had received from the Lord. Start- 
 ing from the experience which had transformed his 
 own life, he developed genetically the meaning and 
 the method, the results and the effects, of his Saviour's 
 earthly life, death, resurrection, and risen life. From 
 this mental activity working in the plastic material 
 of his own rich spiritual growth was produced what 
 might be called a tentative theology, a doctrine of 
 redemption, a theory of sin, a view of history, and 
 even a prophetic eschatology ; tentative, we are bound 
 to admit, because we are able to trace certain develop- 
 ments and variations in the Epistles which have come 
 down to us belonging to those twelve fruitful years ; 
 not final or complete, for nothing which St. Paul says 
 
298 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 gives an idea that theology was to close with him, or 
 that the same Spirit that worked mightily in him, re- 
 vealing the things of Christ, would cease to work in 
 the Church and in other Christian men after he had 
 gone ; but while tentative, progressive, and incom- 
 plete, the interpretation of the Christian facts which 
 this inspired thinker gave remains to this day, if we 
 except the Johannine writings, the best we have. 
 Partly, it may be, because subsequent thinkers have 
 been overshadowed by his authority, and have hesi- 
 tated to step beyond his modes of thought, but chiefly, 
 we may suppose, because the great truths with which 
 he dealt are not susceptible of a fuller definition than 
 that which came to the first illuminated and conse- 
 crated mind ; — in any case it is true to say that, if we 
 wish to travel outside the bare fact of our redemption, 
 if we wish to form some idea of the relation between 
 Christ and God, or of the nature of the Holy Spirit, 
 if we wish to examine into the mode by which the 
 work of Christ secures our pardon and salvation, if 
 we wish to know what is to be the course of human 
 affairs or the manner of the End, we have no writer 
 to consult half so complete, so suggestive, so fruitful, 
 as this wonderful man whose brief occasional letters 
 have been treasured up and handed down through 
 these many centuries. It is from Paul we have learnt 
 what we know of the nature of sin ; from him we 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 299 
 
 have discovered the futility of the Law and the Sacri- 
 fices ; from him we have been able to gather at least 
 in vague outHne the transcendent fact of that atone- 
 ment which takes the place of the ancient sacrificial 
 system. It is Paul who, looking back upon the Cross, 
 perceived the meaning of it, which they who actually 
 saw it never more than surmised. He saw in it the 
 reconciliation between God and man ; he saw in it 
 the marvellous means by which God could Himself 
 take away the sin of the world, could be just and at 
 the same time justify sinners, not imputing their 
 iniquities to them. He saw, too, in that undreamed- 
 of way by which God would save mankind, the death 
 of the Law, the removal of the barrier between Jew 
 and Gentile, the drawing together of all men into one 
 great redeemed family — nay, even the restoration of 
 the whole creation to that harmon}', peace, and joy 
 which poets had fabled in a Golden Age. And it was 
 his peculiar discovery — a discovery which he had 
 made in his own experience — that the marvellous and 
 transforming benefits of this redemption were not, 
 could not be, earned, but are the free gift of God to 
 every one that will take them by faith. 
 
 It would appear, then, that a second sense in which 
 the Epistles of Paul contain a revelation, is that they 
 give us the nearest approach we have yet made to a 
 systematic explanation of the facts of redemption. 
 
300 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Now when we speak of the manifestation of Christ 
 in the person of Paul, or of that sublime presentation 
 of Christ as the image of the invisible God, the first- 
 born of all creation, which is given in no doubtful 
 outline throughout the Apostle's writings, we are 
 evidently touching on Revelation in the most accurate 
 sense of the word, and we may dwell without exag- 
 geration on "the exceeding greatness of the revela- 
 tions " which are thus conveyed to us. But there is a 
 great deal in St. Paul's writings which, without being 
 revelation in this strict meaning of the term, is yet of 
 inestimable value. So great has the value appeared to 
 the successive ages of the Church that the temptation 
 has always been present to give the stamp of revela- 
 tion to these utterances which are commingled with 
 much that rightly claims that name. A few examples 
 may make this distinction plain. The Epistles of St. 
 Paul are our chief authority for the constitution, the 
 methods, the conduct of the early societies, or 
 Churches, which resulted from the preaching of the 
 gospel. From them we learn how "the saints and 
 faithful brethren in Christ " were gathered together 
 into communities with the object of ministering to 
 one another in spiritual, and even in temporal, things ; 
 how the various gifts of the Spirit were bestowed 
 upon the members of these communities for mutual 
 edification ; how the assemblies for worship, and 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 301 
 
 Other ministrations of the society, were ref^ulated ; 
 how these beautiful brotherhoods were marred by 
 quarrels and divisions, by gross immoralities, by 
 intolerance and exclusiveness, by erroneous doc- 
 trines about this life and the life to come. Such a 
 picture of the Primitive Church, as it existed in the 
 decade 52-64 A.D., is of absorbing interest and of 
 incalculable value. But it is not revelation. It is a 
 transcript from the facts which were before the 
 Apostle's eyes, and the facts themselves were not in 
 their totality a revelation. For while the various opera- 
 tions of the Spirit, the prophecies and tongues, the 
 exhortations, the miracles, and the governments, were 
 undoubtedly a striking revelation of the new mys- 
 terious power which was at work since Pentecost, the 
 abuses and extravagances which it was the object of 
 the Apostle to correct were far from being a revela- 
 tion ; they were simply the outcome of human frailty, 
 or, as Paul himself would perhaps say, of diabolical 
 delusion. 
 
 Or again, the Epistles of Paul contain a body of 
 ethical precepts which for purity, beauty, and com- 
 pleteness have never been surpassed. The law of the 
 Sermon on the Mount is translated into the practice 
 of the new Christian communities. Now, so far as 
 this new Ethic is connected with the new principle of 
 redemption, and is shown to be the necessary outcome 
 
302 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 of the indwelling Christ, we may say that we have 
 here a great and incalculable revelation. The truth 
 that the good life was not to be made the condition 
 of acceptance with God, but that the position of for- 
 giveness and reconciliation through the sacrifice of 
 Christ was to be the starting-point of the good life, 
 was part and parcel of the doctrine which we have 
 already considered as a revelation delivered through 
 St. Paul. But the individual precepts of right con- 
 duct — regulations, for example, about meat offered 
 to idols, or about women praying with their heads 
 covered — are to be regarded as inferences which the 
 Apostle draws from his own understanding of Christ. 
 Their value lies rather in their demonstrable truth, 
 commending itself to the conscience in the sight of 
 God, than in their a priori authority. We certainly 
 misunderstand the Apostle, and raise an entirely false 
 issue, when we give to this moral teaching with which 
 his writings abound that note of finality and that sug- 
 gestion of infallibility which would preclude the free 
 operation of the Spirit in revealing other things to us, 
 as the ages roll by (cf Phil. iii. 13-16). The revelation 
 implied in the root principle of the Pauline Ethic 
 must not lead us to assume that every application 
 which the teacher makes of his principle is an infallible 
 oracle of God. 
 
 Or once more, in no respect has the group ot 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 303 
 
 ]^auline letters been of more interest to the Church 
 than in those ghmpsesof the Apostle's human person- 
 ality maintained in conjunction with- the indwelling 
 Christ. The infirmities of Paul, his limitations — his 
 passionate utterance, his deep feeling, his vehement 
 denunciations — all those characteristics which lead 
 him to exclaim from time to time, " I speak as a 
 man," or "I speak in foolishness," or " I speak as one 
 beside himself," are intensely interesting and attrac- 
 tive, but they are not in any sense revelation, as we 
 have defined the term. They show us the man, they 
 endear the man to us, they give us a fellow-feeling 
 with him, they are among the hooks by which he 
 grapples us to him while he communicates his mes- 
 sage ; but we give to language a strange and mislead- 
 ing sense when we speak of all these peculiarly human 
 utterances of a strong individuality as " the word of 
 God." 
 
 But in thus indicating some of the valuable 
 elements in St. Paul's writings which are yet not to 
 be described as revelation, we have insensibly passed 
 over into the second part of our inquiry — how to 
 discriminate where the Epistles are human, and where 
 they are Divine, Sometimes St. Paul says very 
 candidly that he speaks " not of commandment " 
 (I Cor. vii. 6, 12,25,40; 2 Cor. viii. 8), and once 
 even he says, " I speak not after the Lord, but as in 
 
304 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 foolishness " (2 Cor. xi. 17). It maybe said, of course, 
 that such disclaimers in special instances only em- 
 phasise the tru-th that elsewhere he does speak " by 
 commandment " and " after the Lord." And every 
 consideration must be given to this argument. But 
 there are evidently many passages in the Epistles 
 where he is not, to use a technical expression, speak- 
 ing ex cathedra. To suppose that there is any Divine 
 revelation in the command to bring the cloke, and 
 the books, and especially the parchments which he 
 had left at Troas, is a reductio ad ahsurdum of the un- 
 reflecting view which dogmatism has taken. Or the 
 fatherly counsel to Timothy to take a little wine for 
 his stomach's sake : it is a kind of travesty of inspira- 
 tion to maintain that St. Paul was the mouthpiece of 
 God in giving such advice, and one can imagine the 
 vehement indignation with which he would learn that 
 his words had been often cited as a Divine authority 
 for maintaining the destructive drinking practices of 
 modern society. In the case of his celibate pre- 
 cepts he frankly confesses that he is following his 
 own judgment, so much so that when he does speak, 
 as it were ex cathedra, on the subject of marriage, in 
 the Ephesians, he gives, in direct contradiction of 
 his own practice, the most exalted and sanctifying 
 view of that Divine ordinance to be found in all 
 literature. But when he mentions his own practice 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 305 
 
 of forbidding women to speak in the church it is 
 certainly very gratuitous to invest his words with a 
 perpetual Divine power for silencing the inspired 
 utterances of gifted women. It is true that many 
 good women who believe in the Divine absoluteness 
 of every word of Scripture, following the guidance 
 of the Spirit, freely violate these restrictions (i Cor. 
 xiv. 34 ; I Tim. ii. 11, 12) ; but there arc others, more 
 logical or less inspired, who, bound by this accidental 
 opinion of St. Paul's, have remained silent where their 
 speech might have been the power of God to the 
 salvation of men. 
 
 It certainly is our own fault if we misread and 
 wrest St. Paul. Never was any man more human, 
 more candid, more unpretentious ; he makes no affec- 
 tation of speaking as an oracle whenever he opens 
 his mouth ; and he trusted to the common sense of 
 his readers, instructed by the Spirit, to distinguish 
 between the things, which he delivered by revelation 
 with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 
 and the mere obiter dicta of a free and open corre- 
 spondence. He did not expect any one to think him 
 inspired when he commanded his followers to greet 
 one another with a holy kiss, or to attach mysterious 
 meanings to the affectionate and thoughtful saluta- 
 tions with which he closes his Epistles. If many 
 good people in the present day are unable to draw this 
 
3o6 REVELATJON AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 distinction, or to see any difference between human 
 speech and Divine revelation, this obtuseness must 
 be charged to the numbing effect of the mechanical 
 theory of inspiration which has so long oppressed 
 the Church. 
 
 When we turn from the mere human elements in 
 St. Paul's writings to his actual mistakes we enter 
 upon a very difficult and uncongenial task ; but it is 
 very important to realise that even St. Paul, notwith- 
 standing his extraordinary experience, his striking 
 gifts, and his undoubted inspiration, was by no means 
 clothed in the mantle of infallibility which would be 
 assumed, so he declared, by the man of sin and not by 
 the servant of God. 
 
 No one, for example, can study carefully the use 
 which he makes of the Old Testament without ob- 
 serving the inexactness of his quotations and the 
 interpretation, often quite unjustified by the original 
 context, which he puts upon the venerable words. To 
 cite him as an exegete of the ancient Scriptures would 
 be obviously absurd. His method of using them is 
 essentially rabbinical — that is, he regards the writings 
 through the medium of an interpretation ; he will 
 quote from the Septuagint, for example, if that inac- 
 curate Greek version serves his purpose better than 
 the Hebrew original ; or he will cite a mere tradition, 
 as when he refers to the names of the magicians who 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 307 
 
 withstood Moses, Joannes, and Jambres. Or he will 
 employ a Targum, as it were, on a text, and thereby 
 read into it a totally irrelevant meaning ; as, for ex- 
 ample, when he quotes the beautiful humane law of 
 Deuteronomy (xxv. 4), which showed God's care for 
 oxen, and in the eagerness of his application implies 
 that the injunction did not refer to the oxen at all, 
 which would be beneath the notice of God, but was a 
 metaphorical way of sanctioning the principle that 
 the preacher of the gospel should live by the gospel 
 (I Cor. ix. 9). I 
 
 But the most striking of the mistakes into which 
 the Apostle, owing to the necessary limitations of 
 the most inspired teachers, fell, was the conviction 
 that the Parousia, or second coming of the Lord, was 
 to be in that generation. In his first letter which has 
 come down to us, referring to that great event, he 
 implies that he himself would be living when it 
 happened (i Thess. iv. 15-17, " tt'^ which are alive"), 
 and though in his second letter to Thessalonica he 
 sought to remove the erroneous impression that the 
 
 ' It is a curious fact that the one section of Christians which is most 
 emphatic in maintaining the Divine infallibility of " every scripture," 
 to use their own term, yet rejects this inference of St. Paul's in favour 
 of a paid ministiy. But this is only another illustration of the way in 
 which a hard dogmatic theory of inspiration is constantly combined with 
 the most glaring violation of Scripture teaching. In practice, those who 
 hold most firmly to the Bible being the Word of (Jod, whole and un^ 
 broken, are as far as any one from acting upon their untenable theory. 
 
3oS REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 day of which he had spoken was actually upon them,i 
 yet at the end of his life he still dwelt fondly on the 
 belief that " the Lord was near" (Phil. iv. 6), and he 
 left an impression behind him that though he himself 
 had gone, that generation would not pass away 
 without seeing the great Return. It is this limitation 
 ' —let us say this veil drawn over the very face of 
 revelation — this inability of one who saw so much to 
 see this also — that will deter all thoughtful readers 
 from dwelling unduly on St. Paul's forecast of what 
 is to happen at the end of the world. It may prove 
 some day that all he says on the subject was indeed 
 a literal apocalyptic prophecy ; but only the event 
 can show. The one distinct test by which we can 
 judge the Apostle's prevision tends to show that it 
 was not for him, any more than for the Twelve, to 
 know the times and the seasons ; and if we read 
 aright all that he has written we shall probably feel 
 that nothing was farther from his intention than to 
 encourage those idle prognostications of the future 
 which from his day to ours have done nothing but 
 cover the framers of them with confusion, and the 
 truth which they are supposed to confirm with dis- 
 credit. It is open to any of us to notice that Paul 
 anticipated a certain course of events : a time of 
 defection, the manifestation of an antichrist, the in- 
 
 ^ 0-1 lv'caT\]Kn> f) t'lfifpa too Kvpiov (2 Thess. ii- 2). 
 
THE PAULIXE LETTERS. 309 
 
 gathering of Israel, the appearance of the Lord in the 
 
 heavens, and the catching up of the saints into the 
 air. But those who have learnt the true genius of 
 Scripture, and the real meaning of prophec}', will be 
 most careful to distinguish between these dips into 
 the future and the assured Revelation of God, and 
 they will remember the salutary principle which is 
 laid down in the Old Testament, that the only test of 
 a real prophecy is whether it comes to pass or not. 
 For prophecy is not given for private interpretations, 
 or to satisfy the curiosit}' of dreamers, but in order 
 that when the events have happened students of 
 Scripture may see how they were foretold, and thus 
 gather the way in \\'hich the increasing purpose of 
 God runs and works through all the development of 
 history. 
 
 There still remains the third branch of our inquiry. 
 Every student is aware that the authenticity of the 
 Pauline Epistles has not been allowed to pass without 
 question. In the above considerations we have 
 assumed that all the letters are from the pen or from 
 the tongue of the Apostle. And with regard to ten 
 of them the assumption is tolerably safe if we re- 
 member that the four Epistles which formed our 
 second group are the most certainly his, while the 
 first group,, the third, and the fourth afford at any 
 rate ground for inquiry. But the last of our groups, 
 
3IO REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the three Pastoral Epistles, as they are called, i and 
 2 Timothy and Titus, cannot be passed by with this 
 quiet assumption. " The differences between the 
 Pastoral Epistles," to quote the verdict of the late Dr. 
 Hatch, I "and the other Epistles in respect of the cha- 
 racter of their contents, their philological peculiarities, 
 the difficulty of reconciling the historical references 
 with what is known from other sources of the life of 
 St. Paul, the difficulty of finding any known form of 
 belief which precisely answers to the opinions which 
 they attack, and the further difficulty of believing 
 that so elaborate a debasement of Christianity had 
 grown up in the brief interval between St. Paul's first 
 contact with Hellenism and his death," have led the 
 majority of modern critics to question or deny their 
 authenticity. It is not necessar}/ here to cite names, 
 for great authorities are often as biassed in their 
 judgments as the simplest country clergyman ; but no 
 one can weigh the arguments advanced by Holtzmann 
 without reaching the conclusion that there are at any 
 rate grave difficulties in the way of believing that 
 these three letters come from the hand of St. Paul. 
 Now assuming that these difficulties are decisive, and 
 on the supposition that we have here an example of 
 a kind of religious writing common in antiquity, but 
 unknown among us, are we to dismiss the idea of 
 
 ^ Encycl. Brit. (eel. ix.), vol. xviii. 3^1. 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 311 
 
 revelation in connection with these compositions, or, 
 if we may retain it, what complexion will it wear ? 
 
 Let us face this possibility. Some years after the 
 death of Paul, a follower of his — it may have been 
 Timotheus or Titus, who knows ? — found himself 
 confronted by difficulties of doctrine and Church 
 organisation which he did not know how to meet. 
 He had by him, we will suppose, some fragments of 
 letters which the great Apostle had written to his 
 two lieutenants during a temporary absence from 
 them, when the one was at Ephesus and the other was 
 in Crete. He publishes these fragments with addi- 
 tions, incorporating precepts pertinent to the present 
 crisis, and laying down regulations which quite 
 possibly had been committed to Timothy or to Titus 
 during the Apostle's lifetime. The result is, not of 
 course a composition of St. Paul in the literal sense 
 of the word, but yet, very intelligibly, a Pauline 
 letter. 
 
 Supposing this conjecture of the origin of these 
 letters be accepted, what difference does it make to 
 our idea of the revelation contained in them ? It 
 must be owned, very little. So far as the teaching 
 is marked by what may be called the note of Paul, it 
 carries its own authentication with it. The truths 
 are not less true because they are incorporated in a 
 composition which had the origin we have supposed. 
 
312 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 On the other hand, where the teaching of these 
 Epistles deviates from the tone and spirit of the 
 Apostle, as, for instance, in the insistence on ''a form / 
 of sound words," and " a faith " which is in effect a 
 creed, or in the new conception of the Church as an 
 organised society which contains the good and bad 
 alike, vessels unto honour and vessels unto dishonour 
 (l Tim. ii. 20), or in the explicit regulations for the 
 appointment of elders and deacons, we may be con- 
 strained to admit that this is no longer Paulinism ; but 
 we are by no means forced to the conclusion that it 
 is not revelation. The development of the faith and 
 of the Church in this direction may have been carried 
 out by the operation of the Spirit and transmitted 
 through the medium of these brief letters, though the 
 pen of St. Paul was never used, and his name was 
 only employed because of his personal connection 
 with Timothy and Titus. Indeed, it is curious to 
 observe the perversity and confusion of thought that 
 would decline to accept even the revelation of God 
 unless it should be conveyed in literary channels 
 which conform to modern standards and modern 
 usage. 
 
 And now in passing on from the subject of the 
 revelation contained in the Pauline letters, we may 
 allow ourselves a closing observation. The revelation 
 of Paul is above all things one that must be taken in 
 
THE PAULINE LETTERS. 313 
 
 its entirety. Until his whole position, his whole 
 experience, his whole personality, his whole teaching, 
 is understood, nothing can be made of him. To quote 
 an isolated fragment of his writings is almost certainly 
 to misquote him. His words are not like the words 
 of Jesus — deep wells of truth by which you may sit 
 down and draw out new and wonderful meanings 
 continually — but they are links in a continuous chain. 
 Almost every heresy which has divided the Church 
 may be traced to the misguided habit of seizing on 
 some text out of St. Paul and treating it, regardless 
 of its connection, as an axiom from which a system 
 of theology may be deduced. The great Churchman 
 Augustine was the greatest of offenders in this abuse 
 of St. Paul's writings, though a notice in 2 Pet. iii. 16 
 shows how the evil began almost from the first. Men 
 who have, like Luther, seized some central and essen- 
 tial thought of the great Apostle's, have been the 
 most salutary and powerful influences in the history 
 of Christendom ; but they who have, like Calvin, 
 seized on some incidental thought, and without any 
 criterion for determining the delimitation of the 
 human and the Divine, have constructed a system of 
 theology on a side issue of the great Apostle's argu- 
 ment, have realised the very misgiving which evi- 
 dently sometimes haunted the writer, lest men should 
 account of him above that which they heard from 
 
314 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 him. To quote from Paul is easy, to understand him 
 is difficult. To apply scraps of his discourse to 
 modern controversies demands little study, but to 
 penetrate into those ancient controversies, the col- 
 lision between Christianity and Judaism, the contrast 
 between the apostles at Jerusalem and the Apostle of 
 the Gentiles, the danger which threatened the infant 
 Church from the intrusion of a rash and groundless 
 method of speculation, the controversies out of which 
 almost all St. Paul's letters arose — this demands much 
 patience and thought and a tincture of the historic 
 sense. Thus to this day St. Paul is by many almost 
 as often misused as used, and the great revelation 
 delivered through him which we have, in this chapter, 
 been endeavouring to outline, has been too often 
 missed, in the confusion of questions which arise out 
 of those parts of his writings that should not be 
 treated as revelation at all. A saner method of 
 treating St. Paul's writings will assuredly result in 
 a far clearer conception of their revelation. He is 
 among the many great men of the past who have 
 more cause to reproach his friends than his enemies 
 for the harm which has been inflicted upon him. 
 The abuse and persecution in his lifetime did not 
 hinder him half so much as the unthinking and 
 servile adulation to which his letters have been 
 subjected since his death. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 In the Epistle to the Hebreivs we have a most inte- 
 resting ilkistration of a fact which the traditional 
 view of the Scriptures has been too slow to recog- 
 nise, viz., that the spiritual or religious value of a 
 book does not necessarily depend on a knowledge of 
 the author's personality or even of his name. No 
 composition in the New Testament has more obvious 
 marks of inspiration upon it, and very few contain 
 more distinct and valuable elements of revelation, 
 than Hebrews, and yet it is quite anonymous. In the 
 complete absence of any clue to the identity of its 
 author, prudence would suggest that its anonymity 
 should be recognised as the starting-point of all 
 inquiry. It chances that the completely uncritical 
 writers of Alexandria assigned the work to Paul.^ 
 Tertullian, with equal authority, though this is saying 
 
 ' Clement Alexand., Strom, ii. 2. 4, vi. 8, 
 315 
 
3i6 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 very little, assigned it to Barnabas.- Luther, with as 
 much reason as his predecessors thirteen centuries 
 before, assigned it to Apollos. But it is open to any 
 ingenious person to assign it to Luke or to Aquila or 
 to any other of the circle which surrounded the great 
 Apostle, for the one point which is clear in the 
 matter of its authorship is that it comes from one 
 who was conversant with St. Paul's friends 2 and was 
 familiar with St. Paul's writings.3 M. Renan still 
 favours the view of Tertullian, and believes that the 
 eloquent and flowing style is very appropriate to the 
 stately personage who is presented to us in the Acts 
 under the name of Barnabas. English divines have 
 in late years accepted Luther's opinion, and have 
 seen a special appropriateness in ascribing the com- 
 position to one who was " mighty in the Scriptures." 
 Some of these divines now speak as if the author- 
 ship of Apollos were a settled fact, and build up 
 arguments after their manner on this hypothetical 
 foundation. Why not ? Anything is better than the 
 dogmatism of the received Canon, which ascribes 
 the Epistle to St. Paul. We cannot be certain 
 that it was not ^^'ritten by Barnabas ; we cannot 
 
 ^ De Pudicitia, ch. 20. = Ileb. xiii. 23. 
 
 3 Heb. X. 30 is, it will be noticed, a quotation of St. Paul's *' scrip- 
 ture " in Rom. xii. 19, a scripture which does not occur in any book 
 known to us, but was probably a general summary of two or three 
 expressions (Lev. xix. 18 ; Deut. xxxii. 35 ; Prov. xxiv. 29) such as is 
 not uncommon in St. Paul's letters. 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY, 317 
 
 be certain that it was not written by Apollos ; if 
 any one chooses to maintain that it was written by 
 Demas, no decisive refutation can be offered. But 
 we can be quite certain that it was not written by St. 
 Paul. The substance, the style, the method, all forbid 
 it ; not to mention that if it had been St. Paul's it 
 would not in Eusebius' day have been ranked with 
 the Books of Wisdom and Ecclcsiasticiis, &c., as one 
 of the Antilcgoincna.^ Nor has this false ascription 
 only the disadvantage of being- wrong ; it has the 
 greater disadvantage of destroying one of the most 
 valuable features of the book. It is just because the 
 w^ork is not Paul's that it is of such special interest. 
 It is as an inspired, though unnamed, voice from the 
 Apostolic times that we can claim it as a fresh witness 
 to the facts which were then most surely received. 
 By merging this witness in Paul we miss the confir- 
 mation which is derived from a multiplicity of writers, 
 and we lose the demonstration of this interesting fact, 
 that " Paul's Gospel " was not only his, but was re- 
 ceived and accepted, and in some degree assimilated, 
 by many other minds. If the author, in order to give 
 weight to his argument, had thrown it into the form 
 of a Pauline letter, and had written it in St. Paul's 
 name, we should still have been bound to admit that 
 it was not Paul's — we should have ranked the letter 
 
 ' Eiiscb. II. E., vi. 13. 
 
3l8 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 with the P seiidepigraphical Literature. But in this 
 case we are not required to make this step in classifi- 
 cation, for the author makes no pretence to be St. 
 Paul, or to be any one but himself, and it is for us 
 simply to accept this remarkable work from Apostolic 
 times as anonymous, and to reverently investigate the 
 revelation, — its kind, its degree, its limitations, — which 
 is in this way conveyed to us. In proportion as we 
 really believe that the Spirit of God speaks through 
 these New Testament writings we shall hold lightly 
 to the mere traditions concerning authorship, circum- 
 stance, and interpretation, which have unfortunately 
 been permitted to grow about the book as the mean 
 and irrelevant buildings have been suffered like 
 excrescences to grow on the walls of the great 
 cathedral at Antwerp. 
 
 Now we may observe at once a note of difference 
 between our author and St. Paul. He does not draw 
 upon the immediacy of Revelation, as his great 
 master did. Revelation to him is not so much 
 subjective as objective. St. Paul always gives us the 
 impression that he was in the habit of retiring into 
 the Spirit's secret cell, where he received of the Lord 
 the things which he communicates to men. It is not 
 so with the author of Hebrezvs. His revelation belongs 
 rather to the category of intellectual illumination. 
 He brings, if we may say so, the power of sanctified 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 319 
 
 thought to play upon the facts of the Incarnation and 
 the Atonement. His letter is the bemnninir of Chris- 
 tian speculation. He no longer, like the apostles 
 themselves, speaks what he has seen or what he has 
 heard, but rather what he has thought. This is at 
 once his strength and his weakness ; his strength 
 because the activity of thought is one of God's most 
 effective ways of revealing himself to men, but his 
 weakness too, because about all thought there is a 
 fallibility and a limitation. When St. Paul speaks 
 about the Christ revealed within, he is touching on 
 an infallible certainty and on an illimitable, an inex- 
 haustible, source of revelation. But when our author 
 touches upon the interpretation of Christ's historical 
 advent, and of Christ's relation to the Old Covenant, 
 he is moving in a field where finality and infallibility 
 are no longer possible, and the reader is obliged to 
 recognise that at some shadowy line he is carried 
 over from pure revelation into the region of human 
 speculation. Thus the revelation of the Hebreivs is 
 of a different quality from that in St. Paul ; it is not 
 so verifiable ; its certainty rests rather on its proba- 
 bility to the individual reader than on the immediate 
 witness of the Spirit. One may learn more from 
 Hebrezus than from Galatians, but what we learn is 
 not so vital : it ranks rather with the teaching with 
 which God has enriched the Church in the writinjrs 
 
320 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 of its great doctors than with those startling revela- 
 tions which are given in the person of St. Paul, and 
 still more in the word and work of the Lord Himself. 
 Now what, in brief, is the revelation of this book ? 
 The Temple, we may suppose, was destroyed, or its 
 destruction was imminent : the fateful year 70 A.D. 
 was in sight, just approaching or just past. The 
 religion which had found its centre in Jerusalem 
 since the days of Ezekiel and Ezra was to be 
 submerged ; its priesthood was to disappear ; its 
 sacrifices were to cease ; its Law, if it should be 
 kept at all, was no longer to be kept in the old 
 way, for its central idea of a ritual which symbolised 
 its spirit would be no longer capable of realisation 
 in practice. The Christians who drew their inspira- 
 tion from Jerusalem were Jews also, and regarded 
 the Old Covenant with as much veneration as the 
 New ; they had been continually in the Temple, 
 and they had not severed themselves from its 
 institutions ; they had kept the Law, as James 
 informs St. Paul in the Acts. Now St. Paul's 
 attitude towards this large body of believers was one 
 of an indulgent but rather impatient toleration. He 
 did not know what they had to do with these 
 " rudiments of the world." The Law had as an 
 obedient slave brought them to Christ. Now let 
 it be dismissed ; after all it was a poor instrument 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 321 
 
 of terror rather than a means of grace ; it was 
 alHed rather with the sin which it evoked and 
 emphasised than with the righteousness, the un- 
 attainable righteousness, which it demanded.^ In 
 his eager polemic the Apostle of the Gentiles had 
 treated the Law as a mere episode, added for trans- 
 gressions, which rather obscured than illustrated the 
 Old Covenant of faith made with Abraham.^ AH 
 this was very irritating, and by no means edifying, 
 to the Jewish Christians, who saw in James of 
 Jerusalem their ideal and their leader. And when 
 the shock actually came, and the venerable institu- 
 tions of the Law and the Prophets were submerged 
 beneath the tides of war and revolution, they were 
 not likely to derive much comfort from the great 
 Apostle, who had been for thirty years foreseeing 
 and anticipating the event by building his system 
 of religion on a new foundation which practically 
 ignored the old. But obviously a more conciliatory 
 voice was needed in this epoch of change ; and it 
 was to come, not from St. Paul, but from his circle, 
 from a man who had imbibed St. Paul's ideas, but 
 yet had, by what we may call a breadth of culture, 
 the power to sympathise with the old order that 
 was changing, and the insight to see its relation 
 with the new order that had come. He possessed 
 
 ' Gal. iii. 23-iv. 11. = Gal. iii. iS. 
 
 22 
 
322 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the spirit which is essential to a mediator between 
 extreme schools of thought. There is something 
 in his eloquence which soothes the listener. His 
 argument is the more persuasive because it is felt 
 as an undercurrent in a general exhortation rather 
 than directed ostentatiously to the people who are 
 to be convinced. His main theme is introduced 
 almost as an episode or an illustration in what 
 appears to be simply a call to holiness and watchful- 
 ness. His main theme evidently is that the Old 
 Covenant was imperfect — a shadow of good things 
 to come — but that Christ was the substance which 
 had been thus foreshadowed. The Old Covenant 
 had been a copy of things in heaven, a visible and 
 therefore imperfect transcript, but Christ and His 
 work were the invisible and perfect pattern from 
 which the copy had been taken. The seen was 
 passing away ; but the unseen had now been revealed 
 to the eye of faith, and might be practically grasped 
 by this master faculty of knowing. The burden of 
 his message is therefore the incompleteness of the 
 Law ^ and all its institutions, the perfection and 
 completeness of the New Covenant through Christ, 
 in which the Law has been fulfilled. But this which 
 is evidently his main theme is not obtrusively 
 presented. There is no disparagement of the Old, 
 
 * Heb. vii. 19; ix. 10; x. i. 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 323 
 
 no impatience with it. Rather the Jewish Christian, 
 viewing the matter in this h'ght, would feel that the 
 Old Covenant was bettered in the New, and would 
 cease to regret that the shadow was passing since 
 now the substance was revealed. Christ is our 
 peace, as St. Paul would say ; and no writing of the 
 New Testament more beautifully illustrates the truth 
 than this. In Him the zealot of the Law could 
 justify the zeal of the Law by becoming zealous 
 for Him. How could one better glorify the vener- 
 able system of Judaism than b}^ seeing in it an 
 age-long prophecy of the supreme revelation ? 
 
 But there are some more specific features in the 
 book which the Christian consciousness has in all 
 times recognised as revelation in the purest and most 
 literal sense. Among these may be mentioned first 
 of all the mode in which the ancient Scriptures 
 are used. The whole Epistle teems with quotations 
 and allusions. Like a true Hellenist, the author 
 seldom refers to the Hebrew Bible, but uses the 
 Septuagint translation, and some of his most beau- 
 tiful applications are derived from that translation, 
 or sometimes mistranslation, of the Scriptures ; as, 
 for instance, where he quotes the 104th Psalm to 
 show the position of the angels.^ But what a won- 
 
 * The translation of tlic LXX., o tcoi&v tovq ayy6\oi;<j avTov 
 TTvtvuaTa, is a beautiful misrendering of the poet's thought. The 
 
324 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 derful turn he gives to many of these quotations ! 
 As long as we remember that this is not exegesis, 
 but simply a free use, or a conventional interpreta- 
 tion, of familiar words, what a power there is in 
 this imperious application of the Scriptures to the 
 matter in hand ! This writer has taught us to use 
 many of the Psalms and Proverbs in a new sense, 
 as the language which might be appropriate in the 
 lips of Jesus ; and if he has not shown that the 
 authors had any such thought in their minds, he 
 has at least helped us to see how the thought of 
 God is able to work through the thoughts of men, 
 and to make unconscious utterances of His servants 
 a prophetic prelude of His highest self- manifestation. 
 Never was this constructive interpretation put to 
 nobler account than in the magnificent use which 
 our author makes of Melchizedek, the King of 
 Salem. Employing the mysterious reference of a 
 Psalm to this primitive king as a bridge between 
 the person of Christ and the ancient record in the 
 Book of Genesis, he makes the very fragmentari- 
 ness, the shadowy outline, and the historical inde- 
 terminateness of Melchizedek a startling illustration 
 of the Supernatural Priesthood of our Lord. And 
 so again, no New Testament writer has made such 
 
 Psalmist meant that God makes winds into His messengers. The Alex- 
 andrine translator took it to mean that God made His angels spirits. 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 325 
 
 use of that prophecy of Jeremiah, which was, as we 
 saw, the very summit of Old Testament prediction 
 (Heb. viii. 8-13, x. 16). It was reserved for our 
 anonymous author to climb the loftiest height of Old 
 Testament Messianic expectation, and to say, point- 
 ing to Jesus, " See how it is now fulfilled." 
 
 And this leads us to another feature of revelation 
 in our book, which, but for the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, would have been very imperfectly under- 
 stood. Our author sets Moses, the Levitical priest- 
 hood, the Altar, Sacrifices, Veil, Mercy Seat, &c., 
 of the Old Covenant in distinct contrast with 
 Christ, and he shows, in a detailed argument, the 
 value of which is even yet scarcely apprehended, 
 how all these features of the older worship are 
 combined in that Divine Person, and how, to under- 
 stand Him, it is necessary to bring together all the 
 ideas which were typified by these various forms. 
 Moses was great, but he was only as a steward who 
 dealt with the copy ; Christ is the Master of the 
 house, and is Himself the pattern from which the 
 copy was taken. The Levitical Priesthood had 
 its place as a witness, and the sacrifices and the 
 altar were all shadows of spiritual truths ; but 
 Christ is the Priest and the Sacrifice, and, by a 
 kind of afterthought, the altar too.^ Nay, by a 
 
 ' Heb. xiii. 10. 
 
326 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 straining of metaphors, His flesh is the veil of the 
 inner sanctuary, and His Spirit within is the Mercy 
 Seat or propitiatory, which in the old dispensation 
 could only be approached by the priest, but now 
 can be touched by every one who believes in Jesus. 
 
 The careless reader is apt to see something fanciful 
 in this seeming allegory. A spirit of rationalism 
 which regards the Old Covenant as a mere growth 
 of human institutions will see in the argument an 
 apology for Judaism which is essentially a product 
 of reverent reflection. But for the Christian — and 
 it is for a Christian, be it observed, that such a 
 letter as this is written — here is evidently the true 
 note of revelation, the revelation which consists in 
 interpreting God's revelation to men. There is the 
 Divinely-given system of Judaism — that in its time 
 was a revelation of God. Here is the Divinely-given 
 Son, the supreme revelation of God. Our author 
 shows distinctly how the former foreshadowed the 
 latter, and how the latter has fulfilled the former. 
 The firmness and distinctness with which the argu- 
 ment is conducted, and the light which breaks in 
 upon these ways of God to men, may be called a 
 revelation, can indeed be called nothing less. 
 
 We might say, too, that the idea of faith — as the 
 substantia speratoruin^ as the proof of the Unseen — 
 is, in its illuminating force, a revelation, or, at any 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 327 
 
 rate, the presentation of the instrument by which 
 revelation is made. This idea is not, needless to 
 say, St. Paul's. Even a very hasty reader is soon 
 aware that in reading Heb. xi. he is not moving in 
 quite the same groove of thought as when he is 
 studying Rom. v. But because St. Paul gave to 
 the word irlarL^ a peculiar and almost technical 
 meaning, there was the more need for one Apostolic 
 writer at least to develope the broader and simpler 
 sense of the word. We must all have felt an almost 
 overstrained subtilty in St. Paul's way of identifying 
 Abraham's faith, which was counted to him as 
 righteousness, with the saving faith of which his 
 Epistle is all along speaking. There seems only the 
 connection of a name between the spiritual attitude 
 of trusting God in a crisis of life such as that which 
 is recorded of Abraham, and that inward principle 
 assimilating the whole life and work of Jesus, which 
 the Apostle regards as the essence of his evangel. 
 But in our author we are no longer mystified. Faith 
 becomes a very simple matter, and we can see its 
 identity in Abraham, ]\Ioses, and all the ancient 
 saints, with that which is manifested in the Christian 
 believer. Where faith means the firm assurance 
 that God is, and that He is the rewarder of them 
 that diligently seek Him, and the resulting habit 
 of walking as seeing Him that is invisible, we have 
 
328 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 a platform of approach for many minds to whom 
 the deeper thought of Paul is at present unin- 
 telHgible. 
 
 There is, then, very Httle difficulty in discerning 
 the elements of revelation which present themselves 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews ; there is no possi- 
 bility that a careful and unprejudiced reader, taking 
 into account all the conditions of the problem, could 
 fail to see that our anonymous author is inspired, 
 and that God has used him to convey to the Church 
 truths of inestimable value, which would not have 
 been known to us apart from this operation of the 
 Spirit. If the truths are not of the supreme import- 
 ance of those which we have traced in the Gospels 
 and in the Pauline Epistles, they are yet, as comple- 
 mentary and interpretative to those supreme truths, 
 quite invaluable. We all unhesitatingly give our 
 verdict with the Church of all ages which has 
 counted the book as a part of revelation ; though 
 we were bound to question the dogmatism of the 
 Alexandrian fathers, and the subsequent tradi- 
 tionalism of the Canonists in attributing the Epistle 
 to St. Paul. 
 
 But as the positive revelation of the book is thus 
 secured by a candid inquiry, the same kind of inquiry 
 compels us to observe the limitations, the imper- 
 fections, and even, it may be, the mistakes which 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 329 
 
 are incident to all human instrumentality. Here, 
 as in all the books of the Bible, we have to recognise 
 that a statement is not true because it occurs in the 
 Bible ; it occurs in the ])lble because it is true ; 
 and as the truth conveyed through human minds 
 is necessarily mixed with the qualities of the medium, 
 we best serve the cause of truth by trying accurately 
 to distinguish what is Divine truth and what is 
 human imperfection. No greater disservice to truth 
 can be imagined than that which has too often 
 been rendered, when theologians, starting from the 
 position that every utterance of an inspired writer 
 is infallibly inspired, have proceeded to build up a 
 whole system of dogma on precisely the most 
 questionable parts of the Scripture. It has been 
 characteristic of much amateur theology, that it has 
 made the most of all those books in the Bible, and 
 all those passages in the books, which betray the 
 infirmities or limitations of the authors, while the 
 broad and unmistakable lines of their revelation 
 have been practically ignored. The relevancy of 
 this remark appears, directly we turn to some of the 
 incidental features of our book. 
 
 For example, the author, like St. Paul and St. 
 Luke,i refers to the rabbinical interpretation of 
 Deut. xxxiii. 2, which represented the Law as given 
 
 ' Cial. iii. 19 ; Acts vii. 53. 
 
330 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 to Moses by the mouth of angels (Heb. ii. 2). Now 
 on the traditional plan of interpreting Scripture 
 these passing references to that belief are regarded 
 as a declaration, vouched for by the Holy Ghost, 
 that this was the method of the giving of the Law 
 to Moses. According to the simpler, and, we may 
 add, saner, view of inspired writing, these references 
 only show that the writers were acquainted with the 
 Jewish tradition on the subject, and alluded to it 
 without any intention of passing a critical verdict 
 on its veracity. But if this Is the right way of 
 regarding the matter, we shall not be at liberty to 
 accept the statements made in Heb. xi. about 
 Abraham and the other worthies as additional 
 historical facts with which we may supplement 
 the narratives of Genesis, Judges, &c. All we can 
 conclude Is that our author was saturated with such 
 writings as abounded In Alexandria, which sought 
 to read into those early records a rich spiritual or 
 theological significance. If Phllo elaborates the 
 story of Abraham In this manner no one thinks 
 that he is giving historical details ; he is simply 
 treating the subject homiletlcally. Our author uses 
 the old materials in the same way. We cannot 
 treat these references as a religious vindication of 
 Rahab, or Gideon, or Samson, or Jephthah. We 
 can only say that the spiritualised version of the 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 331 
 
 stories concerning them gave to the writer a series 
 of illustrations which showed what faith is, just as 
 in xi. ij^ 38 he refers to the sufferings and martyr- 
 doms which are recorded in the Book of Maccabees. 
 His reference to this last book does not prove that 
 it was inspired or infallible, nor does his reference 
 to similar books, in which the traditions of Abraham 
 and the rest were treated in an edifying way, put 
 the stamp of history upon those stories. The way 
 in which allegorisers were accustomed to deal with 
 these narratives in the Ancient Scriptures comes 
 out in the handling of the Melchizedek episode. 
 We must not mistake for Divine inspiration the 
 thoroughly Alexandrine method of our author by 
 which he shows that Levi in a sense paid tithes to 
 Melchizedek, because he was in the loins of his 
 father (vi. 9, 10). It was a religious truth of the 
 highest value — a revealed truth, indeed — that the 
 priesthood was to yield to Christ, and pass away 
 before His fulfilment of its functions ; but the fanciful 
 attempt to maintain that this was prefigured in the 
 offering made by Abraham to Melchizedek does not 
 add force to the truth, and if it be mistaken for some- 
 thing more than a trait of that Alexandrine mode of 
 dealing with the Scriptures, to which reference has 
 been made, may even in thoughtful minds create a 
 prejudice against the truth. It is necessary always to 
 
332 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 remember that an author, even when he is inspired, is 
 not Hfted completely out of the atmosphere of the 
 age in which he lives ; and even when the curtain 
 rises and he sees as in a vista great new truths, the 
 proscenium, and the wings, and much of the scenic 
 apparatus of his vision, will still belong to his own 
 time, and must be distinguished from the revelation 
 which he sees. 
 
 We enter, of course, far more questionable ground 
 when we come to criticise any of the positive and 
 deliberate truths taught by such an inspired writer as 
 this. But it is necessary to be on our guard in in- 
 terpreting the well-known doctrine of Heb. vi. i-8, 
 X. 26, 27. And if the doctrine itself did not give us 
 pause, the use which has been made' of it, and the 
 effect which has often been produced by it, might 
 constrain our consideration. Our author is through- 
 out imbued with the stern spirit of the Old Law. To 
 him Christianity itself appears as a transfigured 
 Judaism, and the echoes of Old Testament severities 
 are constantly in his ears. In realising the untold 
 blessings of the New Covenant and the great con- 
 trast between Mount Zion and Mount Sinai, between 
 the Old Congregation and the New Church, he leaves 
 nothing to be desired ; but when he comes to deal 
 with those who are outside the Covenant the stern- 
 ness of Judaism reasserts itself. Thus in the severe 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 333 
 
 sentence, " If we sin wilfully after that we have 
 received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth 
 no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful 
 expectation of judgment " (x. 26), we seem to 
 hear an echo of the priestly excommunication in 
 Num. XV. 10, 31, "The soul that doeth aught with 
 a high hand, . . . the same blasphemeth the Lord, 
 and that soul shall be cut off from among his 
 people." It is as if our author were quoting the 
 ancient anathema without quite realising how much 
 more terrible it is, when applied to the final judgment 
 of souls, than when it refers only to exclusion from 
 the national covenant of Israel. 
 
 Now we cannot deny that this sentence and the 
 more explicit statement in vi. 4-6 put a strait 
 limitation upon the mercy and even the power of 
 God. They imply that a Christian who has fallen 
 away cannot be restored. They would even coun- 
 tenance the position taken up by Tertullian and his 
 party, who refused to receive apostates back into the 
 Church. Not only does this doctrine present God in 
 a Jewish rather than a Christian aspect, but strange 
 to say it seems at variance with the teaching and 
 practice of St. Paul. One of the most striking 
 episodes in the Letters to the Corinthians is the case 
 of a Christian who had fallen away, and had sinned 
 wilfully. The Apostle insists on the excommunication 
 
334 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 of the offender ; but he equally insists later on that 
 he shall be restored. In the First Epistle of John 
 — which, curiously enough, recognises that there may 
 be a sin unto death, for which we must not pray — 
 occur the words, " My little children, these things 
 write I unto you that ye may not sin. And if any 
 man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus 
 Christ the righteous" (i John ii. i). This is incon- 
 sistent with our author, who says that if we sin 
 voluntarily — and an involuntary offence is certainly 
 not the sin of which John speaks — after we have 
 known the truth, there remains no more a sacrifice 
 for sin ; Jesus is no longer a propitiation for us ; we 
 have nothing to expect but " the fierceness of fire." 
 But the most serious difficulty of all is, that 
 the history of Christianity has not confirmed this 
 statement, and the most earnest believers in Christ 
 have not acted on its teaching. For — we may thank 
 God — it has been no uncommon thing for men and 
 women, after a Christian experience which accords 
 quite accurately with the expressions in vi. 4, 5, 
 though they have fallen into sin, and become oppo- 
 nents of the Gospel, and have done despite to the 
 Spirit of Grace, yet afterwards to be brought to repent- 
 ance, to be moved again by the pardoning love of 
 God, and to lay hold afresh of the covenant which 
 they seemed to have counted an unclean thing. The 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 335 
 
 Church has never consented to leave apostates and 
 backsliders to their fate, but has always felt that in 
 seeking them and winning them to a new repentance 
 she has been carrying out the will of her Lord, who 
 delighted to dwell on the great property of God, 
 which had been described in the prophets, the pro- 
 perty of mercy and forgiveness, not merely to seven 
 times, but to seventy times seven. 
 
 Here, then, is a very serious issue. Our author 
 advances a doctrine which seems at variance with the 
 Idea of God given to us elsewhere in the New Testa- 
 ment, with the direct teaching of St. Paul and St. 
 John, with the practice, and even with the experience, 
 of the Christian Church ever since — a doctrine which 
 has only been seriously held by certain extreme sects, 
 and has then resulted in a cruel and unpardonable 
 fanaticism. From this issue arises a crucial question. 
 Is this doctrine, advanced by the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, to be regarded as a direct revelation of the 
 will of God, because the Epistle is found in our 
 Canon, and the doctrine occurs in the Epistle ; or 
 are we to treat it as a judgment passed by the writer, 
 a judgment which, however sincere, can claim no 
 more infallibility than other judgments which are 
 passed by good and earnest men ? Strange to say, 
 the theory of Orthodoxy would decide in favour of 
 the first alternative, but the practice of even Ortho- 
 
336 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 doxy itself has always decided in favour of the 
 second. 
 
 In answering this crucial question — a question 
 which is typical in our dealing with the subject of 
 revelation — we must try to be perfectly clear, per- 
 fectly candid with ourselves, and perfectly willing to 
 accept even an unwelcome conclusion if conviction 
 leads us in that direction. To begin with, there are 
 at least three passages in the teaching of our Lord 
 Himself which give a certain colour to the doctrine 
 here advanced (see Matt. v. 13, xii. 31, 32, and 45). 
 The Lord said that believers who had been the salt 
 of the earth, if they lost their savour, became useless 
 and fit only to be trodden under foot of man. The 
 Lord said that there is a blasphemy against the Holy 
 Ghost which cannot be forgiven in this age or the 
 next. The Lord said that when the evil spirit had 
 been cast out of a man, if it took other spirits worse 
 than itself and returned, the last state of the man 
 would be worse than the first. Nothing can exceed 
 the solemnity of these statements ; nothing can 
 exceed their reasonableness ; nothing can be truer to 
 experience. Is it possible that our author had them 
 in mind when he wrote Heb. vi. 1-8 and x. 26 } If he 
 had, then he has made a significant addition in the 
 way of exposition. He has identified this condition 
 of savourlessness, this blasphemy against the Holy 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 337 
 
 Ghost, this rc-possession of the unclean spirit, with 
 simply " falling away" or " sinning," and he has con- 
 cluded from the words of our Lord that the Saviour 
 would not or could not renew such backsliders to 
 repentance. Now if this is the explanation of the 
 passage before us, the simple question is whether this 
 application of the Lord's thought comes from the 
 Lord Himself through the author of the Epistle, or 
 is simply an interpretation which the writer gave on 
 his own responsibility. 
 
 The answer which the general course of our inves- 
 tigation suggests is this : If we are right in under- 
 standing the author to mean, that voluntary sin, after 
 a true conversion, is a final bar to a new repentance 
 and to new belief in the propitiation which has been 
 made for sin — the sins of the whole world, — then we 
 can only conclude that his teaching is not a revela- 
 tion, for it is not reconcilable with the whole gist of 
 the revelation of God in Christ. We must suppose that, 
 deeply impressed with the heinousness of apostasy, 
 and probably having before his eyes the recklessness, 
 the blasphemies, the effrontery of certain individuals 
 who had deserted the faith, he drew a general in- 
 ference that repentance after such a fall was impos- 
 sible ; an inference which a larger knowledge of the 
 Divine pity and patience and power shows to be 
 incorrect. Here, then, is a case in which, so far from 
 
 23 
 
33^ l^E VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 believing that a doctrine must be a Divine revelation 
 because it occurs in the New Testament, we are forced 
 to the opinion Ihat //it occurs in the New Testament 
 it is not a revelation, but merely a view of the 
 author's, imperfect and limited as the judgments of 
 even inspired men are apt on occasion to be. In 
 other words, the Revelation of God as a whole, the 
 Revelation in its crowned completeness, must be used 
 as a criterion for determining the value of individual 
 passages in the Scriptures ; it can never be admitted 
 that a single passage or even a small group of 
 passages, teaching a special doctrine, may override 
 the truth in its entirety when its full development is 
 reached. 
 
 But while this answer is given unhesitatingly, as an 
 illustration of the way in which we are bound to deal 
 with Writings, human in form and accident, though 
 Divine in spirit and general purpose, it must be 
 observed that the verdict is quite hypothetical — it is 
 " if this doctrine is taught in the New Testament, 
 if it occurs in the passage before us." It is open for 
 us to maintain that our author does not mean what 
 has usually been thought. And if we arrive at such 
 a conclusion without any bias, without any pre- 
 conceived purpose to twist his words into harmony 
 \^'ith the truth as a whole, without any wilful deter- 
 mination to maintain our view of revelation and its 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 339 
 
 infallibility, even at the cost of all honesty in 
 exegesis, then we may still answer our question 
 in accordance with that first alternative, and may 
 still regard the passage as revelation. Now having 
 vindicated the perfect freedom of the spirit in a 
 question of this kind, we may perhaps, as a matter 
 of exegesis, point out that quite conceivably our 
 author's thought is very different from what is 
 commonly supposed, and his statements in these 
 passages are not so much a revelation as the 
 assertion of an overwhelmingly important but ob- 
 vious truism. It is quite conceivable that his idea 
 is simply to assert, that unless our faith in Christ is 
 accompanied by the victoiy over sin, our so-called 
 faith is not only without saving power, but is even 
 a hindrance to our receiving the faith which saves. 
 It may be freely admitted that the expressions 
 and the use of the participles are so ambiguous that 
 no certainty can be attached to this or any other 
 interpretation : and in this sense it is somewhat un- 
 meaning to describe the passage as a revelation, for a 
 truth, which is not even unambiguously stated, cannot 
 be said to be revealed. But at any rate the pos- 
 sibility of this interpretation relieves us from saying 
 that the doctrine which has been derived from the 
 passage is part of revelation. Let us just re-read 
 the passage in its simple literalness. Our author 
 
340 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 says that we, as Christians, must make iox perfection 
 (reXeiorrj^i), />., the condition of mastery over sin on 
 which the Apostle Paul so frequently dwells ; because 
 " it is impossible, if we continue in sin after our 
 enlightenment and our experience of the heavenly 
 gift (i.e., of salvation), and our share in the Holy 
 Ghost, and our experience of God's word and the 
 powers of the future life, for us to be again renewed 
 to repentance ; we have fallen away ; under the 
 impression that we are Christians, and therefore 
 not in the way of seeking salvation, we are really 
 living a life which crucifies the Son of God, and 
 maligns Him to the world." In other words, a 
 spiritual experience, as it is called, apart from an 
 actual victory over sin, is the one effectual bar to 
 a real conversion. Unless justification implies sancti- 
 fication, it is a decisive hindrance to a real repentance. 
 And then it is said further, in x. 26, "For if we 
 continue to sin voluntarily " (it is a present par- 
 ticiple, not an aorist), " after receiving the knowledge 
 of the truth" — i.e., if after we have accepted the 
 atonement of Christ we yet remain in our sins, the 
 one way of being saved, which is faith in Christ's 
 sacrifice, -is foreclosed against us. Our faith, which 
 is no faith, has no saving power, and though we 
 shelter ourselves, as we should say, under the Cross, 
 unsaved, uncleansed, sinful, and defiled, we have 
 
ALEXANDRINE CHRISTIANITY. 341 
 
 nothing to expect but the judgment and the penalty 
 which will fall on the avowed adversaries of God. 
 
 The present writer by no means ventures to affirm 
 that this is the meaning of the passage ; all he would 
 suggest is that if this should be the meaning, the 
 passage might be regarded among the most vital 
 parts of revelation, while if the generally accepted 
 interpretation is correct, the passage must take its 
 place among those opinions or speculations on Divine 
 things which are not confirmed by experience. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 JAMES, PETER, JUDE. 
 
 The well-known judgment which Luther passed 
 on Janies^ as a book which was undeserving of 
 a place in the Bible, will not be accepted by any 
 competent authority to-day, but it is of great 
 value and interest nevertheless. It reminds us 
 how free the great reformer was from the bondage 
 in which many Protestants at the present time 
 are held. Luther never for a moment thought 
 that the rejection of a book from the Bible was a 
 rejection of the Bible ; and how sternly would he 
 have rebuked the rash and baseless dogmatism 
 which says that to question a part of the Scripture 
 is to shake the authority of the whole ! He was led 
 to question the Epistle of James precisely because 
 he felt that the authority of the whole was imperilled 
 by its inclusion in the Canon. He saw clearly what 
 many orthodox persons to-day profess that they do 
 not see : he saw that there is a contrast amounting 
 
/AMES, PETER, JUDE. 343 
 
 to antagonism bciwecn the presentation of the 
 Gospel in the Epistles of St. Paul, and the pre- 
 sentation of the Gospel in the Epistle of James. 
 A larger view may embrace the two opposites in 
 one rounded thought and find the circle of truth 
 extended by the very conflict of different opinions ; 
 but it is evidently better, with Luther, to reject one 
 of the opposites from the Canon than to juggle with 
 language and to hoodwink ourselves b}- maintaining 
 that there is no real opposition between them. 
 
 That eloquent and ingenious writer, Archdeacon 
 Farrar, for example, in his Early Days of CJiristianity ^ 
 reconciles St. Paul and St. James by showing that 
 the two writers use the words " faith," " works," 
 and ''justify," but give to them each a connota- 
 tion of his own. St. Paul uses them in a technical 
 sense, and St. James uses them in the ordinary 
 sense. Thus the statement of the one, that we 
 are "justified by faith, and not by works," is quite 
 reconcilable with the statement of the other, that 
 we are "justified by works, and not by faith" — 
 each statement is equally a revelation from God, 
 and equally inspired by the Holy Ghost — because 
 when Paul saj-s " faith " he does not mean what 
 James means when he says " faith " ; when Paul 
 speaks of "works" he is dealing with an idea which 
 was not in the mind of James at all ; and when the 
 
344 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 two use the term "justify" they are not referring 
 to the same process or the same result All this may 
 be, and indeed is, perfectly true ; but it does not 
 help the plain person to form a clear idea of in- 
 spiration, for it evidently suggests the inquiry, If 
 the Holy Ghost had been the author of both the 
 passages in question, would He not either have used 
 different terms to express different ideas, or at 
 least have reconciled the antagonism by showing 
 that a new meaning was put into the common 
 language? 
 
 But from the point of view which we are at present 
 occupying, the whole of this harmonistic method is 
 unnecessary and irrelevant. We are not concerned 
 to force these two books of the New Testament 
 into a truce and to cover them with the decent 
 mantle of a harmony. Our simple inquiry is this : 
 The Epistle of James occurs in our canon of 
 Scripture ; in what sense is it a revelation of God, 
 and what are the elements of revealed truth con- 
 tained in it ? 
 
 To begin with, this Epistle, like the one we were 
 examining in the last chapter, does not come from 
 an Apostle. Tradition says that the author was that 
 James, the brother of the Lord, whom we find in 
 the Acts at the head of the Church in Jerusalem. 
 But our author describes himself merely as a " slave 
 
JAMES, PETER, JUDE. 345 
 
 of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." If he was the 
 brother of Jesus, or the " bishop " of Jerusalem, he 
 evidently declines to base his authority on these 
 facts. He writes simply as a Christian man. 
 Again, his letter is addressed not to a Christian 
 Church or to the Christian churches in general, 
 but to the Jewish people as such, or at any rate 
 the Jewish people outside of Jerusalem. ^ But what 
 is so striking in this composition is that there is 
 hardly any reference to the peculiarly Christian 
 doctrine which formed the burden of St. Paul's 
 teaching. There is a remote reference to the New 
 Birth in i. 18, but this "begetting by the word of 
 truth " is not connected with Christ, and indeed that 
 dear name, which teems in every other Apostolic 
 writing, is mentioned but twice (i. i, ii. i), and then 
 only in a somewhat allusive manner. The moral 
 maxims which in St. Paul would have been directly 
 connected with the truth of the new status in Christ, 
 the new creation demanding new products, are by 
 St. James impressed upon his readers purely from 
 what one may call an Old Testament standpoint, and 
 connected with an Old Testament motive. If he 
 
 ^ "The twelve tribes which are of the dispersion" (James i. i) is, 
 according to some interpreters, the writer's May of describing the 
 scattered Christians. This would be very much as if a Protestant 
 writer, appealing to Protestants, were to address them as "the 
 members of the Rornan Catholic Church " — that is, his object would 
 evidently be, not to be understood. 
 
346 
 
 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 wants an example of patience or of prayer, he goes, 
 not to Jesus, but to the Prophets, Elijah, Job. 
 
 But there is a feature of this letter more singular 
 still. It teems with allusions to two books which we 
 do not count " Scripture " at all — Ecdesiasticiis and 
 the Book of Wisdom. It may be worth while to show 
 in detail this relation of our Epistle with the Apo- 
 crypha by putting the references in parallel columns : — 
 
 James i. 5 : " God, who giveth 
 to all liberally, and upbraideth 
 
 not." 
 
 James i. 8, 10: "A double- 
 minded man unstable in all his 
 ways," " brother of low degree." 
 
 James i. 10, 11 : "As the flower 
 of the grass he shall pass away ; 
 . . . the flower thereof faileth." 
 
 James i. 13 : " Let no man say 
 when he is tempted, I am tempted 
 of God." 
 
 James i. 17: "No variation, 
 neither shadow of turning." 
 
 James i. 19: "Let every man 
 be swift to hear." 
 
 James i. 23 : The looking glass. 
 
 James i. 26 : Bridling the tongue. 
 
 James ii. 21 : "Was not Abra- 
 ham oui father justified by works, 
 
 Ecclus. XX. 15 : " The fool 
 giveth little and upbraideth much"; 
 and xlii. 22: "After thou hast 
 given, upbraid not." 
 
 Ecclus. i. 28 : " Distrust not the 
 fear of the Lord when thou art 
 poor, and come not unto him with 
 a double heart." 
 
 Wisd. i. T,'^: "Let no flower 
 of the spring pass by us, let us 
 crown ourselves with rosebuds 
 before they be withered " ; vii. 8 : 
 "What hath pride profited?" 
 
 Ecclus. XV. II: " Say not thou 
 it is through the Lord that I fell 
 away ; for thou oughtest not to 
 do the things that he hateth." 
 
 Wisd. vii. 18 : " The alterations 
 of the turning (of the sun)." 
 
 Ecclus. V. II: "Be swift to 
 hear, and let thy life be sincere." 
 
 Ecclus. xii; II: "Thou shalt 
 be unto him as if thou hadst wiped 
 a looking glass." 
 
 Ecclus. XX. 7: "A wise man 
 will hold his tongue till he see 
 opportunity." 
 
 Wisd. X. 5: " Moreover (Wis- 
 dom) found out the righteous and 
 
/.-/ I\[ES, PR 1 'E R, JUDE. 
 
 347 
 
 in that he offered up Isaac his son 
 on the ahar ? " 
 
 James iii. 5, 6 : The passage 
 about the tongue : ' ' How much 
 matter is kindled by how small a 
 fire ! " 
 
 James iii. S: "A restless evil, 
 full of deadly poison." 
 
 James iv. 14 : "Ye are a vapour 
 that appeareth for a little and 
 then vanisheth. " 
 
 James v. 1-6 : The rebuke of 
 the rich oppressors : "The cries 
 of them that reaped have entered 
 into the ears of the Lord of 
 
 Sabaoth." 
 
 preserved him blameless unto God, 
 and kept him strong against his 
 lender compassion towards his 
 son." 
 
 Ecclus. xxviii. 10: "As the 
 matter of the fire is, so it burneth " ; 
 ver. 12 : "If thou blow the spark 
 it shall burn"; ver. 18: "Many 
 have fallen by the edge of the 
 sword, but not so many as have 
 fallen by the tongue"; ver. 19: 
 " Well is he that is defended from 
 it, and hath not passed through the 
 venom of it." 
 
 Wisd. v. 13, 14: "As soon as 
 we were born we began to draw 
 to our end, . . . like as the smoke 
 which is dispersed here and there 
 with a tempest." 
 
 Wisd. ii. 1-24 : The rich deter- 
 mine to oppress the righteous man 
 who " professeth to have the 
 knowledge of God, and calleth 
 himself the child of the Lord, . . . 
 and maketh his boast that God is 
 his Father." 
 
 To these numerous reminiscences of the Apocrypha 
 we may add the quotation which James introduces 
 with the expression, "Think ye that the Scripture 
 speaketh in vain } " {\\\ 5), for the words w^iich he cites 
 are not contained in any Scriptures that have come 
 down to us, nor is it possible for us to definitely fix 
 their meaninc:.^ 
 
 ' llpor <pdovQv iTrnroGH ro Trvht fia o KaToiKtfrev h> -iff-ilv. As we do 
 not know the original context of the passage we can only determine its 
 application by the connection in which it is quoted. The idea seems to 
 
348 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE, 
 
 Our letter, then, is from the pen of a Jewish 
 Christian, in whom Judaism retains an equal balance 
 with the new faith ; it is addressed to Jews as such ; 
 it does not advance any distinctively Christian doc- 
 trine, but rather applies and expounds the Old 
 Testament writings, including certain valuable books 
 which have not found their way into the Canon of 
 the Protestant Churches. And further, as was 
 implied in the beginning, a brief passage (ii. 14-26) 
 is introduced which seems expressly written to cor- 
 rect the onesidedness of St. Paul's mystical and 
 inspired doctrine, that we are saved not by works, but 
 by faith. 
 
 Now, facing the problem as it is thus presented to 
 us, we certainly should find it difficult to say what 
 revelation was given in this Epistle which was not 
 given in other ways through other inspired men. 
 In some respects we cannot help feeling that the 
 whole tone of the Epistle is lower than the teaching 
 of St. Paul ; it lacks that burning sense of Spiritual 
 Truth which supplies an impulse, as well as a direc- 
 tion, to right moral conduct. Christ crucified as the 
 power of God unto salvation is conspicuously absent, 
 
 be that God is a jealous God, and can tolerate no rival in the heart — 
 "jealously yearns the spirit which he put to dwell in us." This idea is 
 so beautiful and so replete with New Testament significance that we 
 can only regret the mischance which has robbed us of the Scripture 
 whence it is c^uoted. 
 
JAMES, PETER, JUDE. 349 
 
 and we cannot resist the feeling that when the author 
 puts the question, " Can that faith save him ? " he 
 has a very shadowy idea indeed of what St. Paul or 
 St. John would have meant by "saving faith." In 
 any sense, therefore, that this Epistle might be cited 
 as an authority to override the fuller truths of the 
 more mature teaching in the Scriptures we must 
 unflinchingly deny \.o James the quality of revelation. 
 He has told us no truths which we should not have 
 known without his letter ; and the truths on which he 
 dwells are rather of a rudimentary order, truths which 
 for the Christian are only absolutely valid when they 
 are seen in the light of the Cross and its associated 
 ideas. But because it is not revelation, as St. Paul's 
 greatest utterances are revelation, it by no means 
 follows that we should Vv'ith Luther throw the book 
 aside as "a letter of straw." It has an inspiration of 
 its own— it has the practical value of a good sermon 
 —and while it distinctly disclaims the infallibility 
 which a foolish dogmatism has attached to it,i if 
 we take it on its merits and read it for the truth 
 which it contains, we shall find it, like other writing's 
 in the Bible, "profitable for teaching, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction w^hich is in righteous- 
 ness." 
 
 It teems with allusions to the teaching of our 
 
 Chap. ii;. 2, — oXXa y«|0 TTTaiu/Aev inravTic. 
 
350 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ^ Its precepts about patience, 
 practical g-odliness, the restraint of the tongue, the 
 essential equality of men in the Church, prayer and 
 its answers, are invaluable. And its fearless denun- 
 ciations of rich men who use their power to oppress 
 the poor are in the spirit of the ancient prophets, and 
 afford an admirable example for modern preachers to 
 imitate. On the whole we cannot be sufficiently 
 grateful that the doubt which existed about the 
 genuineness of the Epistle even in the time of 
 Eusebius, and the un-Pauline tone of its contents 
 which excited the antipathy of Luther, have not 
 availed to exclude it from our Canon ; and if candour 
 requires us to admit that it adds nothing to the body 
 of revealed truth, gratitude impels us to maintain 
 that it presents, with inspired eloquence and power, 
 truths which arc or ought to be familiar, but were 
 and still are shamelessly neglected. 
 
 We may now turn to the Ef)istles which have 
 come down to us under the name of Peter. We are 
 at once confronted with a contrast between the letters 
 of Paul and those of Peter. \\\ St. Paul's case we 
 know the man from his letters, and cannot hesitate to 
 correct our impressions drawn from other sources by 
 these autograph records. In St. Peter's case it is 
 
 ^ There are at least forty-two quotations from, or references to, the 
 sayings and doings recorded in the Gospels. 
 
FAMES, rETEK, JUDE. 351 
 
 different ; we know him best from the Gospels and 
 the Acts of tJic Apostles, and his writings do not 
 tend to throw any h'ght upon his personaHty. Quite 
 the contrary : an obvious difficulty is suggested by 
 them. Peter in the Gospels is within the inner circle 
 of the Lord's disciples ; received in the first instance 
 by the Master with a new and significant name, he 
 became in a very real sense, as the first to frankly 
 confess Christ, the Rock on which the Church is 
 built. It is true that he was guilty of a base denial, 
 and St. Paul's allusion to him in Galatians reminds 
 us that the rock was not naturally a very solid or 
 rigid substance ; but in the first days of the Church 
 he was the chief preacher at Pentecost, the earliest 
 to recognise the application of the Gospel to the 
 Gentiles, and an indefatigable missionary of the 
 good news to his own people. Under these cir- 
 cumstances we may confess to some disappointment 
 in reading the Epistles that bear his name. They 
 contain no new light on the Person of the Lord, with 
 whom Peter was in daily contact throughout His 
 ministry ; they contain no new witness to the 
 mystery of the work accomplished on Calvary ; they 
 do not in any way let us into the secret which led 
 the Lord to choose Peter in so striking a manner, or 
 led Peter to become the foremost of the disciples. 
 Looking at the first of the two Epistles, we are 
 
352 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 bound to admit that when we subtract all that is an 
 echo of St. Paul, and all that seems a reduplication of 
 expressions in St. James, there is comparatively little 
 left which is distinctive, and nothing of the kind 
 which might have been expected from the Peter who 
 is depicted in the Gospels and Acts. It was from 
 this tenuity of substance that Semler, and after- 
 wards Cludius, at the beginning of this century, came 
 to the conclusion that the Epistle could not be the 
 work of Peter, but must be regarded as a Pseudepi- 
 graphical work originating from the earliest age of 
 the Church. A Christian of the present day might 
 be more disposed to raise an objection on the ground 
 of the general argument which dominates the Epistle. 
 The great work of Redemption is referred to more 
 than once, but it is referred to incidentally. The 
 sufferings of Christ are cited as an example ^ of 
 patience and endurance for Christians who are in 
 the midst of persecution. Where St. Paul would 
 dilate with glowing gratitude on the great redemp- 
 tion, and on the love of God in Christ and the 
 answering love of the purchased inheritors of grace, 
 this author states the facts, and draws from them the 
 conclusion, that we should "arm ourselves with the 
 same mind " that was in Christ, and accept readily 
 the fiery trial which is sent to prove us. 
 
 ^ Chaps, i. T^-"]^ 13; ii. 21 ; iii. 22 ; iv. 12, 13. 
 
JAMES, PETER. JUDE. 35; 
 
 But this kind of objection based on internal 
 qualities of the Scripture books is very arbitrary. 
 There is no sufficient ground for questioning that 
 this is really the writing of St. Peter. St. Peter was 
 not St. Paul. He had not the same gifts of mind, or 
 the same power of expressing himself in letters. He 
 was not a great thinker, but only an earnest worker. 
 To use the familiar distinction, he does not belong to 
 the few voices, but to the many echoes, which are 
 found in the Church and in the world. Notwith- 
 standing his personal intercourse with the Lord — 
 whose words, by the way, the Epistle shows, were 
 constantly in his mind — he derived much of his 
 Christian thought and of the language in which he 
 expressed it from James, who had been during 
 Christ's lifetime an unbeliever, and from Paul, who 
 had never known Christ after the flesh. Perhaps 
 the real significance of this letter is the limitation 
 which is imposed by the personality of the vehicle 
 on the revelation which the Spirit of God conveys to 
 men. 
 
 Making full allowance for the disappointment to 
 which allusion has been made, we may remark that 
 this Letter of Peter's, if not as eminent among New 
 Testament writings as its author was among New 
 Testament men, is unquestionably an inspired and 
 an invaluable work. Supposing it stood alone, the 
 
 24 
 
354 I^E VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 sole literary product of Apostolic times, we could 
 infer all the essential truths of Christianity from it. 
 Unlike the Epistle of James, which is silent on the 
 central truth, the Epistle of Peter so far presupposes 
 it as to make it the subject of certain secondary 
 applications. It presents the ethics of the Gospel 
 in the purest and most beautiful light ; for the new 
 birth through the word of God is made the ground of 
 a fervent mutual love, and from this brotherly love 
 all the graces of the Christian life are seen to flow. 
 Even St. Paul has not more powerfully connected the 
 household duties of servants and masters, husbands 
 and wives, with the great motive of the Cross. 
 
 Then it is to this Epistle we owe a doctrine which 
 may indeed be described as a revelation, a revelation 
 so startling and brilliant that the Church has not yet 
 opened her eyes to its significance. The bearing of 
 this revelation is only fully understood when the 
 peculiar position of the writer is taken into account. 
 St. Peter certainly occupied a position of eminence 
 among the Apostles. The words which Jesus 
 addressed to him were destined to be the proof 
 text of a vast sacerdotal system. His unique 
 apostolical position was to give the plea for the 
 most powerful hierarchical monarchy which the 
 world has ever seen. St. Peter is the first Pope 
 according to the Roman Church, and to all the 
 
/AMES, PETER, JUDE. 355 
 
 priestly churches he is the fountain-head of the 
 Apostolic succession, of the " three orders of minis- 
 try," and of that idea of the Church which lays the 
 whole stress on a clcrus, or clergy. It is this which 
 gives such a singular emphasis to the veritably 
 inspired — because obviously superhuman — doctrine 
 of I Pet. ii. i-io, V. 1-4. It is Peter, of all the 
 apostles, who maintains that Christian men, as such, 
 form the " spiritual house, the holy priesthood, to 
 offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God 
 through Jesus Christ." It is the people of God, 
 and not a special order among them, that may be 
 called " an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy 
 nation." It is Peter, of all the apostles, who, so far 
 from mentioning three orders of ministry in which 
 he would rank with the first, treats the whole Church 
 as divided into Presbyters or Elders, and juniors or 
 Deacons, and describes himself as a " fellow Pres- 
 byter." And it is Peter who, instead of exalting a 
 clems, or clergy, above ordinary Christians, gives 
 that title to all the Christian community, and 
 specially exhorts the Elders not to lord it over this 
 chosen race, but to exercise their authority by means 
 of suasion and a good example.^ It is Peter, finally, 
 that claims the title of Bishop for the Lord as the 
 Chief Shepherd of the sheep (ii. 25), and reminds us 
 
 ' I Pet. V. 3, /.<»}("' w^' Kar aKV^y'ivovTic, tmv K-Xj/pwr, 
 
356 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 how the true Episcopacy consists in feeding and 
 tending the flock of the Chief Shepherd. 
 
 It is difficult, then, not to see in this letter of 
 Peter's, which has been preserved for us, a warning 
 made by the Spirit of God against those perversions 
 and assumptions and claims which were one day 
 to appear in the Church, and, curiously enough, to 
 base themselves on the name of the Apostle, whose 
 one undisputed work was the anticipatory condemna- 
 tion of them. 
 
 There is another strikingly original allusion in this 
 First Epistle, on which a distinguished living author 
 thinks we may rest a doctrine of future probation.^ 
 The statement in i Pet. iii. 19, 20, and iv. 6, that 
 Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison, 
 viz., the dead, stands alone in the New Testament. 
 Its meaning, so far from being clear, is open to many 
 interpretations. If it be safe to infer from it that 
 those who were disobedient in the days of Noah, 
 received in Hades a visit from the Risen Christ — 
 though the expression " while the ark was a pre- 
 
 ^ Farrar, Early Days of Christianity, vol. i. pp. 126, 140. Arch- 
 deacon Farrar claims this as a revelation, and only complains that Peter 
 " unintentionally limited the fulness of his revelation" by speaking as 
 if the only spirits in prison who received the preaching of the Risen 
 Lord were those who perished in the flood of Noah. Such a mode of 
 speech shows that so far as Peter's allusion can be called a revelation 
 it only reveals that the unhappy Antediluvians received a call to repent- 
 ance in the under-world. 
 
JAMES, PETER, JUDE. 357 
 
 paring" implies rather that Christ "in the Spirit" 
 pleaded with the sinful men before the Flood — it is a 
 far cry indeed to conclude from this doubtful allusion 
 that all who die unrepentant will be evangelised in 
 another world. If we could be sure that Peter meant 
 this, it would still be open to question whether his 
 authority could be accepted against the teaching 
 of other apostles ; but it is by no means clear that 
 this was his meaning. The fact is that he, like the 
 other apostles, was left in complete darkness about 
 the ultimate destiny of the lost. And how forced 
 the inference drawn from this one passage is, may be 
 seen by looking only to the end of chap, iv., where 
 Peter himself utters one of the most ominous of Bible 
 utterances on the subject of the future — " If the 
 righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly 
 and sinner appear?" Dr. Farrar's exuberant demon- 
 stration of his doctrine from this isolated passage is 
 an excellent illustration of the arbitrariness to which 
 the old doctrine of Inspiration and Revelation lent 
 an authority. But it is not enough to get an isolated 
 and doubtful text from a Biblical writer, to invest it 
 with infallibility as the word of God, and then to 
 proceed with the erection of a dogmatic system on 
 this assured foundation. Even an inspired writer, 
 the first of the apostles, may be in the dark about 
 many things, as the very verse following the one we 
 
358 REVELATION ANb THE BIBL^. 
 
 have been considering shows (i Pet. iv. 7: "The 
 end of all things is at hand "). Revelation is not a 
 mechanical structure presented in oracular utterances, 
 out the great truth of God manifested through the 
 imperfect medium of human minds and human 
 tongues. If St. Peter was wrong in supposing, as 
 other apostles did, that the end of the world was 
 quite near, he may also have been wrong in supposing 
 that " Christ preached to the spirits in prison." In 
 the one case his opinion was refuted by time ; in the 
 other his opinion remains incapable of proof or 
 refutation. But the fact to be firmly apprehended 
 is, that fallibility on such questions as these does not 
 invalidate the truth of that which forms the main 
 burden of the Epistle. The truth of the new birth, 
 which is a fact of experience to all those who believe 
 in Jesus as the Saviour ; the essential result of the 
 new birth in a life of love and service and patience ; 
 the motive which our Lord's sufferings supply for 
 longsuffering in the midst of trial ; and the solemn 
 assurance that even for believers who are in " the 
 house of God " a judgment according to their deeds 
 is inevitable ; — remain as an explicit revelation of 
 God's will which shines all the more clearly when it 
 is disentangled from certain doubtful questions pro- 
 ceeding from the limitations of the author. 
 
 From this First Epistle of Peter, which may be 
 
JAMES, PETER, JUDE. 359 
 
 accepted as the work of the Apostle, we turn to the 
 Second Epistle, which presents many serious difficul- 
 ties. It is impossible to appreciate these difficulties 
 without a close study of the original. The style and 
 the phraseology are totally different from what are 
 found in the First Epistle. The general situation is 
 different from that which prevailed in the lifetime of 
 Peter. Further, Dr. Abbott has shown with great plau- 
 sibility that the author had read and studied Josephus, 
 which carries us again beyond the limit of Peter's 
 life. In accordance with these internal marks is the 
 doubt in which the early Church found itself as to the 
 genuineness of the letter. Even in the time of Eusebius, 
 who tells us that Origen accepted it as authentic, it 
 was still regarded as disputable. Jerome accepted it 
 as Peter's, but felt the internal difficulty so strongly, 
 that he adopted a good makeshift explanation, that 
 Peter composed it only indirectly, the actual writer 
 being one of his amanuenses.^ Under these circum- 
 stances nothing could be more perverse or unintelligent 
 than to make the acceptance of this as a genuine letter 
 of Peter's an article of faith. Those who like to accept 
 it without facing the difficulties which it presents 
 should be careful not to condemn more thorough 
 
 * Dux epistolcTS qux feruntur Petri stilo inter se et charactere discre- 
 pant structuraque verborum. Ex ([uo intelligimus pro necessitate rerum, 
 diversis cum usum interpretibus. (Jerome, Epist. cxx., ad Hedebiam, 
 Q. xi.) 
 
36o RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 inquirers who consider the difficulties insuperable. 
 In the opinion of the present writer the origin of the 
 letter is probably this : A convert of Peter's who 
 possessed a letter of the Apostle's, in the generation 
 following his master's death, issued it with certain 
 applications of his own, suggested by the new circum- 
 stances of the time. There were false prophets 
 among the people, Antinomians who turned their 
 Christian faith into an occasion of sin ; there were 
 others who pointed to Peter's assertion that the end 
 of the world was at hand, and made the refutation of 
 that assertion by the facts a basis of scepticism ; there 
 were others who were making the same kind of use 
 of the Epistles of St. Paul as has been made so often 
 in later times. This letter, issued in the name of 
 Peter, was designed to meet these abuses. It is evident 
 that the recipients did not for a moment regard it as 
 Peter's, and hence it failed to attain a place among 
 undisputed Scriptures. The author had no intention 
 to deceive when he wrote in the name of his august 
 master. To call him a falsarius is a very gratuitous 
 condemnation. There was enough in his letter 
 actually the product of Peter's mind and word to 
 justify his procedure ; and if a later generation, entirely 
 ignorant of the conditions which prevailed in Apostolic 
 times, was to one day claim the whole letter as Peter's 
 on the strength of these Petrine elements, and if a 
 
JAMES, PETER, JUDE. 361 
 
 later generation still was to make it an article of the 
 Christian faith that Peter actually wrote the whole 
 letter, that was not the fault of this humble disciple, 
 who, writing in the name of the master that was dead, 
 had no intention whatever of imposing on his readers, 
 who knew as well as he did that Peter was dead years 
 ago. 
 
 Now while this is the opinion of the present 
 writer, he wishes to attach no undue importance 
 to his opinion. The only vital point is to recog- 
 nise that we are not compelled by our faith in the 
 Bible to accept a tradition which has no sufficient 
 support, but that we may judge impartially of the 
 revelation which is contained in this letter even on the 
 supposition that it had such an origin as has been 
 suggested. The opening passage of our letter — 
 whoever wrote it — is as inspired as anything that ever 
 came from a human pen, and i. 12-21 contains none 
 of those ctTraf \€<y6fieva^^ which make it difficult to 
 believe that Peter was the author of the second 
 chapter. This second chapter derives none of its 
 vehemence or value from its authorship. Whether 
 Peter wrote it or not, it remains precisely the same, 
 a vigorous and even magnificent attack upon pro- 
 fessing Christians who from interested motives turn 
 
 ' Unless h> Ttj irapovay aXijOtiif (i, 12) must be treated as distinctive 
 of a separate author. 
 
362 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the truth of God into a He. The passage iii. 1-7 may, 
 it is true, be a fragment of a letter of Peter's, but the 
 amount of authentic revelation in it is not increased 
 by this admission. Whoever wrote it was under the 
 unscientific impression that the heavens were a solid 
 substance capable of being destroyed by fire. On the 
 other hand, the warning inserted in these crude cos- 
 mological conceptions, vers. 8, 9, is a revelation of the 
 utmost value. If Peter wrote it, we learn from it that 
 he had altered his opinion since he wrote i Pet. 
 iv. 7. If, on the other hand, it was a disciple cor- 
 recting his master, it gives us an illustration that God 
 can use even an obscure and anonymous person to be 
 the messenger of an inestimable truth. Whoever was 
 first led to see that possibly a millennium or more 
 would pass away before the Second Coming, was 
 certainly taught of God, and has been instrumental in 
 keeping the lamp of faith and expectation burning 
 during these long ages of hope delayed. 
 
 And once again, whoever wrote the closing words 
 of the Epistle, 2 Pet. iii. 16, is the earliest witness 
 which Christian literature affords of the position which 
 the Epistles of Paul were to take as Scriptures, on a 
 level with the oracles of the Old Testament. If the 
 view of criticism does not allow us to cite this passage 
 as a testimony from St. Peter to the inspiration of 
 Paul, it at least gives us permission to see in this 
 
JAMES, PETER, jUDE. 363 
 
 Statement the proof that in the generation which 
 immediately followed the death of Peter there was 
 already an incipient New Testament Canon, so that 
 Christian men could speak of " St. Paul's Epistles and 
 the other Scriptures." 
 
 An attentive reader of 2 Peter will be left in little 
 doubt that the author had before him and freely used 
 the Epistle of Jude (see especially 2 Pet. ii. 11, and 
 Jude 9). In fact one may almost say that Jude is em- 
 bodied in 2 Peter. The violent denunciation of false 
 teachers is the same, and couched in many of the iden- 
 tical, and very unusual, terms. Just as i Peter used and 
 quoted the Epistle of James, 2 Peter uses and quotes 
 the Epistle of Jude. The Epistle of Jude is quite a 
 companion to the Epistle of James. The authors 
 were evidently brothers (Jude i). Neither of them was 
 an apostle, and indeed Jude speaks almost as if the 
 apostles belonged to a former generation (ver. 17). 
 When we take also into account that the author quotes 
 as an authority the apocryphal Book of Enoch (vers. 14, 
 15), and as it is supposed the apocryphal Assumption 
 of Moses (ver. 9), we are at first surprised to find the 
 little Epistle admitted into the Canon at all. In the 
 days of Eusebius it was, with the Epistle of James, 
 reckoned amongst the doubtful books (avriXeyofieva) , 
 though recognised by the majority of Christian 
 Churches. Possibly the idea already implied by 
 
364 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Origen that the work was from the hand of the 
 Apostle Jude secured its acceptance among Canonical 
 books. But it is at least open to argument that this 
 tiny production [pXi^oaTi^ov, as Eusebius calls it) 
 won its way by its intrinsic merit. It is certainly 
 " filled with the fortified words of the heavenly 
 grace." ^ We may be permitted to think that in spite 
 of the author being unapostolic, and perhaps even 
 dubious, and in spite of the uncritical citation of 
 apocryphal literature as if it were historically trust- 
 worthy, this eloquent utterance was so obviously 
 inspired by the Holy Ghost, that it could claim and 
 maintain a place among the Holy Scriptures. It is no 
 wonder that the author of 2 Peter used it. It will 
 never become obsolete as long as the Church sojourns 
 in this present evil world, exposed to the seductions 
 of false and interested teachers. It remains as the 
 vehement and indignant repudiation for all time, of 
 ungodly men who creep into the Church privily, 
 "turning the grace of our God unto lasciviousness, 
 and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." 
 On the old and orthodox idea of revelation the 
 Epistle would be discredited ; for it is impossible to 
 attach authoritative value to the implication that 
 apocryphal works like the Book of Enoch and the 
 
 ^ Eusebius, Couunent in Matt. {Migne, vol. iii. p. 877), TrETrhjpojutvipf 
 TMV Trjg oi'ipcwiov x^piTog tppojixevujv Xoyojv. 
 
JAMES, PETER, JUDE. 365 
 
 Assiuiiption of Moses are worthy of credit ; and if 
 every Bible writer must be infallible, and this Epistle 
 were to be quoted as a proof that those compositions 
 were trustworthy, there would be no course open to 
 us but that of ejecting Jiidc from the Canon. But 
 the truer and deeper view of revelation has rescued us 
 from this necessity. We can freely admit that the 
 author was mistaken in his quotation from the apo- 
 cryphal works, we can admit that his reference to the 
 events mentioned in vers. 6-9, 14-15, far from giving 
 the stamp of historicity to them, only implies that he 
 used examples from current literature as illustrations 
 of the theme in hand ; and yet we may stoutly main- 
 tain that the Epistle utters an authentic note which 
 cannot be mistaken. Not only does the terrific 
 denunciation, which detonates through these few sen- 
 tences, hold good and applicable, a veritable word of 
 God, but the few opening and closing verses are 
 precious gems of inspired utterance and of revealed 
 truth. The designation of Christians as " beloved in 
 God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ," the exhor- 
 tation " to contend earnestly for the faith once for all 
 delivered to the saints," the beautiful idea of building 
 ourselves up on our most holy faith, the expression 
 " praying in the Holy Ghost," the command to keep 
 ourselves in the love of God, the exquisite compassion 
 and desire to save expressed in vers. 22, 23, and the 
 
366 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 glorious commendation to God with which the letter 
 closes, are glimpses of the things unseen, interpreta- 
 tions of that supernatural life which is produced in us 
 by faith in Christ Jesus. And considering the singular 
 brevity of the Epistle, and the special object of 
 denouncing false teachers with which it was written, 
 we may say that nowhere in all the Apostolic writings 
 is more truth of revelation to be found in so small a 
 compass, than in this fragment from the unknown 
 Jude. As long as we are defending a theory that 
 Jude is an apostle, for which there is no foundation, or 
 another theory that if any work obtained a place in 
 our Canon it is necessarily infallible in all its teaching 
 and even in all its casual references, candid men will 
 be so impressed with the weakness of the theory that 
 they will hardly take the trouble to look at the Epistle 
 itself. But directly we let the Letter speak, making no 
 claim for it but what it makes for itself, the note of 
 genuine inspiration in it, and the priceless gem of 
 revelation which it contains, tell their own tale and 
 leave us in no wonder that Jude found a place in the 
 Canon of Scripture. 
 
 The subject of this chapter is of peculiar interest. 
 We have had to deal with literature which has been 
 " spoken against," not only by the unspiritual 
 criticism of modern rationalists, but by the voice 
 of the primitive Church ; literature which it is 
 
JAMES, PETER, JUDE. 367 
 
 certainly possible for us to reject from the Canon 
 without in the least repudiating our faith in the 
 Bible as a whole. But we have made the important 
 discovery that, approaching these books with an 
 open mind and with no desire to maintain a pre- 
 conceived theory, we are able to distinguish very 
 clearly the intrinsic qualities which led the early 
 framers of the Canon to include them in the collection 
 of Sacred Scriptures. We have felt no inclination 
 to reject any one of these books, though we have 
 seen reason to alter some traditional opinions about 
 them. We find in brief, as has been already said, 
 that the books are not true because they are found 
 in the Bible, but they are in the Bible because they 
 are true. Their truth is by no means that of in- 
 fallibility. They do not make the claim for them- 
 selves, and only their unconscious enemies would 
 make it for them. Theirs is truth of a different 
 kind — it is self-evidential truth, which dawns upon 
 the candid mind and the open heart of those who 
 peruse them ; truth like the light which breaks 
 through the barriers of cloud and mist and finds 
 a ready entrance wherever prejudice has not drawn 
 its impenetrable veil. 
 
 We conclude our survey of these briefer Epistles 
 with a sense of some astonishment that men and 
 churches who professed to believe in them still had 
 
368 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 such a radical doubt, and even such an active un- 
 belief, that they considered it to be the only way 
 of protecting their defencelessness to rear a gigantic 
 breastwork of dogma, which should forbid all inquiry 
 and hinder all approach except on the condition 
 of a blind and unquestioning admission of the dogma. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 
 
 There is a general consensus of opinion that the 
 writings which have come down to us under the 
 name of John form the latest development of 
 revelation, and utter the last voice of direct in- 
 spiration in Holy Scripture. In these writings we 
 are to see the coping-stone of a great structure ; here 
 the truth of God attains a completeness which 
 justifies the faith of Christendom, that the Bible 
 contains all things necessary to salvation, and 
 constitutes in its entirety a book apart, a great 
 Word of God, or, to use the common term, a 
 Revelation. But this consensus of opinion is rather 
 on the surface than fundamental, for it covers a 
 great difference of view which must at once be 
 admitted. One set of Christians regard John as 
 the last voice of revelation because the Apocalypse 
 is the last book in the Bible, and affords a super- 
 natural forecast of the events which were to fill 
 
 25 369 
 
370 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the interval between the foundation of the Church 
 and the end of the world. Another set of Christians 
 give to John this attribute of finality on the ground 
 of the Fourth Gospel and the Three Epistles, which 
 represent the highest development, and the most 
 spiritual and far-reaching interpretation, of the central 
 doctrine of Christianity — the doctrine of the Person 
 and the Work of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Now the weightiest considerations forbid a recon- 
 ciliation of these two views, and make it necessary 
 for us to choose between them. According to the 
 first view the Apocalypse was written in the reign 
 of Domitian — that is, in the last decade of the first 
 century.^ This means that it was written at the 
 same time as the Fourth Gospel or later. Now this 
 view seems to be on literary and psychological 
 grounds quite untenable. The only hypothesis on 
 which the two works can be attributed to the 
 same writer is that an interval of years gave time 
 for the unexampled change in the style and the 
 thought of the two compositions. Each of them 
 is as distinct in its character as anything in literature. 
 Thomas Carlyle and Mr. Froude arc not more 
 marked than the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel 
 
 ^ This view rests mainly on the opinion of Irenaeus, quoted by 
 Eusebius. The Apocalypse, said that father, oh Trpo ttoXXow xpdvov 
 kopdOr], dWd ax^^ov trri Ttjg ruxtrepag yevEcig Trpbg rtp reXei rrjg 
 AoiAiTLUPov dpxng- (Eus., Hist. EccI, v. 8, p. 220.) 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITlJStGS. 37 f 
 
 The only supposition, therefore, on which we can 
 imagine that a piece of Froude came from the pen 
 of Carlyle is that time has elapsed between the 
 Froude and the Carlyle. If we are to hold that 
 the Apocalypse was written by the writer of the 
 Fourth Gospel, we must adopt the view to which 
 all internal evidence points — that it was written early 
 in the life of the author, we must push it back to 
 the earliest date that the facts seem to admit of 
 
 The investigation on which we are now to embark 
 starts, therefore, from the position accepted by almost 
 all modern scholars, that the Apocalypse stands in 
 date somewhere between the Epistles of Paul and 
 the Fourth Gospel. It starts also from the position 
 that the Fourth Gospel and its little satellites, the 
 three Epistles, came into existence at the very 
 end of the first century, ^ as the coping-stone of 
 New Testament revelation. If this position seems 
 to the reader arbitrary, it need not be pressed ; but 
 the same method which is here employed in estima- 
 ting the revelation of these Johannine Writings may 
 
 * It is well to remind the reader that the passage from Ilippolytus 
 {Ref. H(£r. vii. 22), which cites BasiHdes as quoting the Fourth 
 Gospel in these terms, rh Xeyofitvov iv roTg evayyfXion;, ^Hv to (putt: 
 TO dX)]9n'bv o <pujTiCeL Trorra dvOpojiroj' tp\oiX€Vov €Jt; top koo^ov, 
 shows that about the year 125 B.C., that is, in the first quarter of the 
 Second Century, our Fourth Gospel was recognised among the Gospels ; 
 while Papias (70-140 A.D.), on the testimony of Eusebius {Hist. Ecd.^ 
 iii. 39) quotes from the First Epistle of John, which must have been 
 written after the Gospel. 
 
372 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 be applied to them on the traditional supposition. 
 The present writer confesses that the view which 
 treats the Apocalypse and the Gospel as coming 
 from the same pen about the same time would seem 
 to him too improbable to deserve discussion ; but the 
 essential qualities of the revelation contained in the 
 two books would not, as the discussion will show, 
 be materially affected even by so entirely gratuitous 
 and unscholarly a hypothesis. 
 
 Our first inquiry, then, is into the nature of the 
 Apocalypse, or, according to the traditional title, " The 
 Revelation of John the Theologian." Now it is 
 essential for the understanding of this remarkable 
 book to remember that it does not stand alone in late 
 Jewish and early Christian literature. It is one of a 
 class. The Book of Daniel is the noblest type of 
 this class before Christ, the Apocalypse of John is 
 far the greatest of this class after Christ.^ The 
 general characteristic of these Apocalyptic writings 
 was that a writer, in times of great trial and tribu- 
 lation, put into the lips of some well-known 
 personage forecasts, visions, consolations, and exhor- 
 tations, couched in more or less symbolical language, 
 and avoided the dangers of prosecution or anim- 
 
 * See Article on Apocalyptic Literattire in Encyl. Brit. (Ed. ix.), 
 where the contents are summarised of (i) The Book of Enoch; (2) 
 The Fourth Book of Ezra ; (3) The Book of Jubilees ; (4) The Assump- 
 tion of Moses ; (5^ The Sibyllines ; (6) The Apocalypse of Baruch, &c. 
 
THE JOHANNINE WKiriNGS. 373 
 
 adversion by the use of cryptograms and allegorical 
 names. It is now generally supposed that the Book of 
 Daniel was issued to support the faith of the Jews in 
 the terrible times of Antiochus Epiphanes. In the 
 same way it appears that the great Apocalypse of 
 John was issued when the first waves of persecution 
 and calamity began to break over the primitive Chris- 
 tian Community. But while there are certain charac- 
 teristics common to all these Apocalypses, there is 
 one feature of the Apocalypse before us which dis- 
 tinguishes it sharply from all that were purely Jewish, 
 and gives it a notable pre-eminence among those 
 which, like Enoch and the Sibyllines, contained many 
 Christian elements ; the Jewish Apocalypses had not 
 and could not have any actual knowledge of the 
 Messiah whom they foretold as the solution of Israel's 
 difficulties ; but the Apocalypse of John centres round 
 the Crucified Lord, who was at once "the Lamb 
 slain from the foundation of the World," and the 
 Risen Judge of the Earth which He died to save. 
 " The author knows " — so writes Professor Harnack 
 — " whom he and the Christian Community have to 
 expect ; to him Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the 
 Omega, the first and the last, the Lord of the world 
 and of history." It is in this distinguishing feature 
 that we are to seek for the revelation which shines 
 through the somewhat obscure and undecipherable 
 
374 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 imager}^ of the Book. It is, in a word, as the open- 
 ing sentence says, " a revelation of Jesus Christ " ; 
 it is a manifestation of the Risen One, which is in 
 some ways an advance on that which was made to 
 St. Paul, and leads us on to the supreme manifesta- 
 tion which is made in the Fourth Gospel. The sig- 
 nificance of Calvary is displayed in the image of "the 
 Lamb that had been slain before the foundation of 
 the world," in whose blood the saints have washed 
 their robes and made them white. But the Conquer- 
 ing Saviour who, having died to save, returns to over- 
 throw His enemies and secure His victory, seems to 
 take precedence of all other conceptions. In one 
 passage the teaching of the Fourth Gospel is antici- 
 pated ; for this Conquering Saviour is called, " The 
 Word of God." ' The manifestation of God, which 
 was made in the human person of Jesus, receives a 
 further development — an advance even on St. Paul's 
 experience of Him — in this inspired conception of the 
 Lamb, slain for the sins of the world, yet the firstborn 
 from the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth, the 
 
 ^ It is the opinion of Harnack that this clause, kox icsicXj/rrti to ovofia 
 dvTOi) 'O Xoyog tov Qeov, was inserted by one who had become familiar 
 with the Fourth Gospel. This is plausible, for the preceding verse 
 (xix. 12) had just stated that the name of the rider on the white horse 
 was unknown to any one but himself. Apart, however, from this sup- 
 posed interpolation, it will be admitted that Christ, as He is presented in 
 the first chapters of the Apocalypse, is in many respects an anticipation 
 of the presentation which is characteristic of the Fourth Gospel. 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 375 
 
 King of kings and Lord of lords. The fulness and 
 certainty of His victory over the world, the glory of 
 His redeemed, and the Heavenly City which He has 
 gone to prepare, are depicted in a glowing and 
 rapturous language which stands quite by itself in the 
 New Testament. What the seer saw we are enabled 
 to see ; and the ultimate triumph of our Lord has 
 been graven on our hearts as an article of faith by 
 this rich and moving imagery. A comparison, then, 
 of the Revelation of John with the other Apocalypses 
 which have come down to us should leave us in 
 no doubt about the question, in what its revela- 
 tion consists. To put the answer briefly, the revela- 
 tion consists in showing the complete triumph of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ achieved in spite of, and even 
 through, the persecutions, trials, and calamities to 
 which His servants and saints are exposed in the 
 present difficult world. Beyond the tumult there 
 is peace. Above the warring states and sovereigns 
 is the Great White Throne. Before the King of 
 kings all powers and dominions, nay, even the 
 heaven and the earth, must flee away and find no 
 place. It is the paean of redemption ; it is the exult- 
 ing certitude of a new heaven and a new earth in 
 which dwells righteousness. If it is said that this is 
 an aspiration rather than a demonstration, a fervent 
 and eager demand rather than a fulfilment, it may be 
 
376 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 answered that the revelation Hes precisely in this, 
 that a heart, which like John's is entirely possessed 
 with the Lord who has loved him and loosed him 
 from his sins through His blood (i. 5), receives an in- 
 ward assurance which will on occasion shape itself in 
 outward visions, that the Saviour, who has wrought so 
 powerfully in one, must go on conquering and to 
 conquer until the Enemy is bound and cast for ever 
 into the burning lake (xx. 10). The revelation rests 
 on the most sure word of prophecy, the inward 
 witness of the Spirit to a heart that is washed and 
 saved. 
 
 But when we turn from this general truth of revela- 
 tion to inquire how far the details may be pressed, we 
 are at once involved in many difficulties to which the 
 conflicts of interpreters are a striking witness rather 
 than a satisfactory solution. The author speaks of 
 the things which he records as " shortly coming to 
 pass " (i. i). "The time is at hand," he says (ver. 3). 
 And when he puts down the pen he repeats this con- 
 viction (xx. 10, 12), and even speaks as if the events 
 were so near that no time remained for repentance : 
 the unrighteous must remain unrighteous, and the 
 holy must remain holy, for the chance of change is 
 as good as past. By this strong language at the 
 beginning and at the end of the book we seem shut 
 up to two alternatives : either we must regard the 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 377 
 
 things described in the book as having in the main ^ 
 already come to pass, or we must admit that the 
 author was mistaken in his anticipations, sharing with 
 Paul and Peter the belief that the return of the Lord 
 would be " within the generation," the belief which, 
 wc have already observed, had to be modified during 
 the time covered by the New Testament writings. 
 While these seem to be the two alternatives, there is 
 a compromise between them which is certainly worth 
 stating. It is possible that the main outline of the 
 prophecies was sketched and filled in from events 
 which were passing before the writer's eyes, but that, 
 quite in the manner of the Old Testament prophets, 
 the seer saw the Last Things, the judgment and the 
 victory of the Lamb, just over the horizon of his own 
 range of vision, and thus described the ultimate issue, 
 which was far enough away, as near at hand, because 
 in his mind's eye it filled the heavens, above the 
 immediate objects which occupied his foreground, 
 with stupendous images. Let us suppose, for example, 
 that he wrote in the first instance just at the time 
 when " the great beast," the Roman Empire, had 
 reached its lowest depth of licentiousness, cruelty, and 
 blasphemy in the person of Nero ; when the first 
 
 * In the main, we say, because the mention of a period of a thousand 
 years shows that though the evolution of events was to begin ** quickly " 
 it could not be finished quickly. 
 
37S RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 martyrs had been slain, including, if tradition is to 
 be trusted, Peter and Paul ; and shortly after the 
 monster himself, the fifth of the Roman Emperors 
 who claimed to be God, had received his death- 
 stroke, but was almost universally believed to be 
 hidden away, and about to return to vanquish his 
 contending successors and establish himself as the 
 eighth Divus Caesar. ^ He saw before his eyes the 
 blasphemous Empire (xiii. 5) engaged in persecuting 
 the saints of Jesus (xiii. 7, xvii. 6, xviii. 20-24), ^.nd 
 all his view of the sufferings of Christians and his 
 hope of deliverance would be coloured by these 
 events. If we may suppose that the book was not yet 
 finished in 70 A.D., then chap. xi. may be based on 
 the unspeakable sufferings which were endured in 
 the siege of Jerusalem (ver. 8). Thus his prophetic 
 denunciations always point to the destruction of the 
 great city, Rome, which had been wearing out the 
 saints of the Lord (see chaps, xiv. and xvii.). After 
 the judgment of this pitiless and corrupt Babylon the 
 triumphant Saviour appears ; the beast, with the false 
 prophet, is destroyed ; and Satan, whose vicegerent 
 on earth the beast had been, is cast into the abyss for 
 a thousand years. Beyond that blessed period during 
 
 ^ The cryptogram 666 seems to be the equivalent of C?esar Nero 
 in Hebrew, thus : p = lOO, D = 60, "I = 200, J = 50, 1 = 200, 1 = 6, 
 I = 50 the sum total = 666. 
 
THE JOHA.WNINE WRITINGS. 379 
 
 which the martyrs, who had resisted the beast, should 
 reign with Christ, Satan is seen finally overthrown, 
 and the New Order appears under the imagery of a 
 perfect city descending- out of Heaven. 
 
 How impossible it is to press the literal meaning of 
 the imagery is seen from chap, xiv., where the " first- 
 fruits unto God and the Lamb " are described as 
 144,000 (presumably the same as those in chap, vii.) 
 men who had abstained from marriage (ver. 4). In that 
 number St. Paul could be included, but not St. Peter. 
 Or if we are to look for these " purchased out of the 
 earth " in later ages, or in our own, we know no autho- 
 rity for attaching this singular importance to virginity, 
 except the authority which the Roman Church has pre- 
 sumably derived from this passage. But a still more 
 striking difficulty in the way of accepting with any 
 literalness the language of the book occurs in its 
 references to the eternal punishment of the persons 
 who worship the beast (xiv. 11, xx. 10, 15). Nothing 
 seems more explicit than these statements that the 
 devil and the beast and the false prophet shall " be 
 tormented day and night for ever," and all who are 
 not found written in the book of life shall be cast into 
 the same lake of fire. But in the very midst of these 
 expressions occurs a curious symbolic statement 
 which makes us hesitate to read the language in any 
 literal sense ; at ver. 14 not only are the devil and the 
 
38o REVELATION AND THE BIBLE, 
 
 beast cast into the lake of fire, but Death and Hades 
 share the same fate. And if we may use this as a 
 key it will seem doubtful whether the writer is think- 
 ing of persons at all, and whether he is not speaking 
 all the time in allegory. 
 
 But the interpretation of details does not affect the 
 broad conclusion at which we arrived. However 
 we may mistrust the elaborate systems of prophetic 
 forecasts which have been tortured out of the book 
 the book itself is certainly a " revelation of Jesus 
 Christ," and to it we owe a view of Him and a know- 
 ledge of Him which we should hardly have gained 
 from Peter, Paul, and the Fourth Gospel, if " John the 
 Theologian " had not written, or if, with Luther, we 
 were to set his Apocalypse aside as valueless. 
 
 We now come to the other Johannine Writings, the 
 Gospel and the three Letters, which tradition has 
 attributed to the Apostle John. Notwithstanding the 
 numerous interesting questions which arise in connec- 
 tion with this little group of books, there should be 
 little difficulty in distinguishing the sense in which 
 they are a revelation of God. According to the view 
 which is here taken, they form the last word of Bibli- 
 cal revelation. Though in bulk they are little more 
 than a thirty-sixth part of the Bible, intrinsically 
 they are the most precious and most momentous of 
 the whole. They are, if we may use a metaphor, the 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 381 
 
 golden cross on the summit of the stately pile, the 
 highest and the nearest to heaven of all that has been 
 written for our instruction and our salvation. The 
 message in them is in a certain sense independent of 
 their authorship, and he who has learnt to understand 
 them has been able to watch with a quiet heart the 
 controversy which has raged for the last few decades 
 about the question whether the Apostle John was the 
 writer. 
 
 Looking for a moment at the Gospel by itself, we 
 may notice two facts which form the two poles of the 
 discussion. On the one hand it is patent that here is 
 a book which stands alone, not only in literature as a 
 whole, but even in the specific literature which we 
 call Scripture. A broad divergence from the Synop- 
 tical Gospels is obvious to the most hasty reader. 
 The style of the writer is so unique that even in the 
 briefest quotation it is immediately recognisable. 
 The whole book, too, is cast in the same style ; it 
 matters not whether the words are in the mouth of 
 Jesus, or of John the Baptist, or of the Jews, or of 
 Pilate, or whether they are simply part of the narra- 
 tive, it is always the same mind that shapes the 
 phraseology and sets this distinctive stamp upon the 
 language. It is this strongly subjective character of 
 the whole that has led many critics to question whether 
 it could be accepted as anything but an imaginative 
 
382 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 creation of a decidedly original mind. But, on the 
 other hand, the opposite pole of the discussion is this : 
 no narrative in Scripture or outside of Scripture is 
 more distinctly marked by verisimilitude. There is 
 a certain minuteness and accuracy in detail, there is 
 a careful observance of a chronological framework, 
 there is even an air of deliberately correcting the 
 wrong impressions made by previous narratives, and 
 an attempt to give cohesion and distinctness to the 
 scattered memoirs of the Lord, all of which seem to 
 indicate a writer who saw and heard the things of 
 which he speaks. 
 
 There is a further characteristic of the book which 
 throws an interesting light on the question of author- 
 ship. While other disciples are mentioned directly by 
 name, John, the brother of James, is always referred 
 to by a periphrasis ; sometimes it is '' the disciple 
 whom Jesus loved," sometimes " the disciple which 
 lay on Jesus' breast," sometimes " the disciple which 
 was known unto the high priest." In the appendix 
 of the book (xxi. 24) it is expressly said that this un- 
 named disciple was actually the author and the wit- 
 ness of the things contained in the Gospel. Now it 
 may be a matter of small importance to say that the 
 Gospel was written by John, for after all " the author 
 of the Fourth Gospel and the Epistles " is better 
 known to us than " John, the son of thunder." But 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 383 
 
 where a writing so distinctly and yet so modestly 
 claims to be written by an eyewitness (see especially 
 xix. 35) it is necessary to bring far more evidence than 
 has ever yet been brought to upset its authority and 
 value. Considering the unbroken tradition coming 
 down from the end of the Second Century that John 
 is the author, we may at any rate assume that this 
 eyewitness was the well-known Apostle until some 
 decisive evidence has been brought to show that he 
 was not. And even if that evidence is some day 
 brought we shall still be bound to maintain, in the 
 absence of direct refutation, that the work is from the 
 pen of an eyewitness who " testified that he had seen." 
 It is not often that early traditions throw any very 
 specific or credible light upon these literary questions, 
 but the language in which the Muratorian Canon 
 (160-170 A.D.) describes the origin of our Gospel, 
 if not true to historical fact, at any rate gives a very 
 plausible account of the characteristics which dis- 
 tinguish this Gospel from the other three. " The 
 [author] of the Fourth Gospel," says the Canon,i " was 
 John, one of the disciples. At the exhortation of 
 his fellow-disciples and bishops he said : Fast with 
 me for three days, and let us tell one another what 
 
 * Dr. Charteris has deciphered the text of Tregelles with great care, 
 but it is only right to say that the translation cannot claim to be more 
 than probable. {Canonicity , A. H. Charteris, D.D., p. 6.) 
 
384 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 may be revealed to each of us. The same night it 
 was revealed to the Apostle Andrew that, with the 
 revision of them all, John, in his own name, should 
 write the complete narrative. . . . What wonder, 
 then, if John so frequently introduces details with 
 the personal claim, zvJiat we saw with our eyes, and 
 heard with our ears, and our hands touched, this have 
 zve written to you. For thus he claims to be not only 
 an eyewitness and an auditor, but a consecutive 
 writer of all the wonderful things of the Lord." 
 
 The gist of this tradition, then, is that John 
 became, after a solemn spiritual preparation, the 
 spokesman of the apostles in committing to a per- 
 manent record this life of Jesus. We are carried 
 down to a late period in the First Century, when the 
 Apostolic band must have been thinned by death, 
 and when the new generation were anxious to con- 
 serve every fragment of the life and the doings of 
 the Lord which still lingered in the minds of the sur- 
 vivors. And now, not laying any undue stress on 
 this matter of authorship, but taking this Gospel, 
 and the kindred Epistles, simply as the latest utter- 
 ance of the circle which had known Jesus in the 
 flesh, we may proceed to estimate the nature and the 
 volume of the revelation thus given to us. 
 
 At the end of the First Century, when the Fourth 
 Gospel and the First Epistle saw the light, the 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 385 
 
 Church had ah-cady travelled far from the time and 
 the conditions of the Pauline letters. In Alexandria 
 and in Asia there was within the circle of the 
 faithful a ferment of new ideas ; the philoso- 
 phical speculations which had flowed from Neo- 
 Platonism, and the turgid dreams which haunted 
 the imagination of the East, met in the nascent 
 Christian communities. St. Paul, the most potent 
 name in Asia Minor, had, by his speculative methods 
 and his love of mysticism, taught men to dwell on 
 the idea of a transcendental Christ, a Christ whom 
 he did not know "after the flesh," but only as an 
 indwelling power, a Christ to whom the details of 
 the earthly life had become almost irrelevant. St. 
 Paul, it will be remembered, never refers to any 
 incidents of the Gospel History except the supreme 
 fact of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. The 
 whole process of redemption was presented in St. 
 Paul's later writings in what one may almost call an 
 a priori light. " By revelation was made known 
 unto me the mystery," he wrote to the community 
 in which the Apostle John was living,^ " as I wrote 
 afore in few words, whereby, when ye read, }-e can 
 perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ." 
 He conceived this mystery which angels desired to 
 look into as a conflict wrought out between Christ 
 
 ' Eph. iii. 3, 4. 
 26 
 
386 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 and the spiritual powers of darkness, principalities 
 and dominations, in the upper air. In these grand 
 but shadowy modes of thought was found a fruitful 
 soil for the germ of Gnosticism, as it was called, to 
 find a lodgment. There was much in the Pauline 
 doctrine which, to use the expression of the Petrine 
 writer, " the ignorant and unstedfast " could easily 
 "wrest" (2 Pet. iii. 16). And already before the 
 First Century was passed there were professing 
 Christians who had pressed the idea of " not knowing 
 Christ after the flesh " to the point of denying the 
 fleshly life of Christ altogether. Docetism was 
 teaching that the earthly body and the earthly life 
 were only an appearance ; the real Son of God was 
 not, and could not be, in the flesh. Here was a peril 
 indeed for the infant Church. To spiritualise Christ 
 as St. Paul had done was necessary — it was the special 
 mission of St. Paul to do this in his own person and 
 in his teaching ; but to spiritualise Him aivay, as 
 Docetism threatened to do, to reduce the Incarnation 
 to a phantasmal pageant, was to cut at the very root 
 of the saving doctrine. Not one jot of St. Paul's 
 transcendentalism must be surrendered — it was all 
 vital — but, on the other hand, the simple go.spel 
 narrative, the human life that was lived, the mani- 
 festation of mercy and power in Him who spoke 
 with human lips and looked through human eyes. 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 387 
 
 must be maintained and vindicated. What was 
 needed seemed to be this : to bring the Spiritual 
 Christ and the Historical Christ into a clear and 
 manifest relation to one another — to show, what 
 previous Memoirs had hardly attempted to show, 
 that He who was " the firstborn of all creation, and 
 the image of the invisible God " (Col. i. 15), according 
 to St. Paul's doctrine, was also that Jesus of whom 
 the Evangelists had written ; to show how that 
 experience of " Christ being revealed within " the 
 believer, and of the life becoming no longer the 
 individual that lived, but Christ who lived in him, 
 was really the outcome of all that Jesus "began both 
 to do and to teach " in the days of His flesh. 
 
 This is the task of the Fourth Gospel. It is the 
 rewriting of the earthly life of Jesus in the light of 
 that Divine and spiritual life which now for two 
 generations He had been living in the hearts of 
 believers. It is the reconsideration of the Person 
 and the Work and the Words of Jesus, after a 
 matured religious experience had revealed the 
 significance of what He had been, and what He had 
 done. While He was yet in the flesh there were 
 necessarily " many things to say to the disciples 
 which they could not then bear" (John xvi. 12). 
 Many things were done which they could not know 
 at the time, but should understand after ^xiii. 7). 
 
388 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 Such a promise as that which the Memoirs recorded, 
 that where two or three should meet in His name 
 there He would be, and that He would be with His 
 own unto the end of the world, was inevitably a dark 
 and untried saying at the time of its utterance ; and 
 while He was yet with them the disciples would take 
 such an image as that of the Vine and the Branches, 
 or such a truth as that of the Bread from Heaven, to 
 be only a strong facon de parler. It was only after 
 He had gone, and indeed long after He was gone, 
 that believers were in a position to estimate that 
 Spiritual indwelling and continued Divine activity in 
 the heart which the Lord had promised when He 
 said, " I will not leave you desolate, I come unto 
 you" (xiv. 1 8). "The Comforter, even the Holy 
 Spirit, shall teach you all things, and bring to your 
 remembrance all that I said to you " (xiv. 26). The 
 great characteristic of the Fourth Gospel is that it 
 grasps in one hand the Philosophy of the Gnostic, the 
 teaching about the Eternal Word that was from the 
 beginning with God, and was God, and in the other 
 hand the simple facts of the life of Jesus, and brings 
 them together in a harmonious whole. It starts in the 
 transcendental regions, and shows the Word becoming 
 flesh, but proceeds at once to show how this mar- 
 vellous manifestation, " full of grace and truth," was 
 seen and heard and handled, even if at the time he 
 
THE fOHANNINE WRITINGS. 389 
 
 was not understood. It is obvious that the incidents 
 which are narrated are only a selection (xxi. 25). 
 From a memory which retained a vast multitude of 
 particulars, a few facts and discourses are selected, 
 which, unlike the events given in the Memoirs almost 
 at random, all directly bear on the one theme. The 
 key to every chapter and verse is the great truth of 
 the Prologue. The purpose of every narrative is quite 
 specific — it is that the reader may believe that the 
 man Jesus is the Messias, the Son of God, and that 
 believing the believer may have life in His name 
 (xx. 31). Each passage is like a shaft taken from 
 the armoury, but the arrow head is always the same ; 
 it is to penetrate the shield of unbelief, and bring 
 each person to the personal acceptance of Jesus as 
 the Saviour. It may be worth while to hastily 
 glance at the selection of topics to see how unified 
 and concentrated this crowning treatise of the New 
 Testament is. 
 
 In chap. i. is the simple record of the first disciples 
 coming to Jesus as the " Lamb of God that taketh 
 away the sin of the world." That distinctive testi- 
 mony of John the Baptist, omitted in the popular 
 memoirs, was not likely to be forgotten by the author, 
 who was presumably one of the two disciples sent 
 by that announcement in humble inquiry to Jesus 
 (i. 37). If the expression was not intelligible until 
 
390 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 the tragedy of the Cross was finished, it shone Hke 
 a star in the memory of one who had experienced 
 now for many years how " the blood of Jesus Christ, 
 God's Son, cleanseth from all sin" (i John i. 7). 
 In chap. ii. is a truth which passed unobserved in 
 the records of the tradition, that Jesus, from the first 
 days of His ministry, set about " the cleansing of 
 the temple," and declared the certainty of His 
 resurrection. In chap. iii. comes at once the inner 
 secret of the change which is made by belief in 
 Jesus, the new spiritual birth, and the confirming 
 testimony that God is true ; the " eternal " life which 
 at once begins when any one " receives " Jesus. In 
 chap. iv. the Messias is seen revealing Himself to a 
 sinful nature and transforming it, while He announces 
 the passing of Judaism into the new Spiritual Order, 
 which admits no more of earthly temples and sacred 
 places. In chap. v. the healing of an infirm man 
 is made the occasion for asserting the relation 
 between the Son of Man and the Omnipotent, 
 life-giving God : " As the Father hath life in himself, 
 even so gave he to the Son also to have life in 
 himself" (ver. 26). In chap. vi. the miracle of 
 multiplying the loaves is made the occasion for 
 teaching the master-doctrine of a personal faith in 
 Jesus as the means of sustaining from day to day 
 the Divine life given in the new birth. In chap. vii. 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 391 
 
 the same truth is reinforced under the imaj:^e of the 
 living water, "the Spirit which they that behevcd on 
 liim were to receive." 
 
 Omitting the beautiful episode in viii. i-ii, which 
 comes from the ordinary memoirs, and is inserted 
 here because it is an illustration of the illuminating 
 influence of Jesus in dealing with the conscience, we 
 have in chaps, viii. and ix. the truth which was 
 mentioned in the Prologue (i. 4), drawn out in the 
 explicit statement, and the miraculous deed, of the 
 Word, who shows in what way He is the Light of 
 the World. In chap. x. Jesus is presented as the 
 Good Shepherd — the Being spoken of in Ezek. 
 xxxiv., who was to come and gather together His 
 scattered sheep, and save them from the hireling 
 shepherds that fed not the flock, but themselves. 
 In chap xi., with a minuteness of detail which 
 challenges history, Jesus appears as " the Resurrec- 
 tion and the Life," whose voice can summon the dead 
 from the graves, the culminating earthly manifesta- 
 tion of the Word made flesh. Chap. xii. presents the 
 solemn spectacle of the Word passing to the doom 
 inflicted by His own that received Him not, "the 
 Lamb of God " led to the slaughter. Chaps, xiii.- 
 xvii. are the unveiling of the inner consciousness of 
 Jesus at the moment when He had finished the work 
 which God had given Him to do, and was just return- 
 
392 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 ing to the glory which He had with the Father before 
 the world began ; and the remaining chapters repeat, 
 with numberless little details which the current 
 narratives had overlooked, the events of the cruci- 
 fixion and the resurrection, in which the Good 
 Shepherd " laid down his life and took it again " 
 for the people whom He had come to save. The 
 Word was made flesh, lived for a time in the Taber- 
 nacle of Humanity. Even His intimate friends at 
 the time saw rather the Tabernacle than the 
 inmate, and only gradually did the Divine Nature 
 of the Son of Man become clear to them. The 
 current traditions recorded the outward facts of this 
 incarnation and the dense misunderstanding of the 
 observers. But seen in the light of a growing 
 spiritual experience, explained by the Spirit that 
 the Lord had sent as His witness, even the 
 details of the earthly life were all instinct with the 
 great truth. The Tabernacle became transparent 
 in the intuition of memory, and the life lived in the 
 flesh could be presented as, what it was, the Divine 
 and the Spiritual life which is capable of transforming 
 the flesh, calling it from the grave, and raising it up 
 at the last day. 
 
 This restating of the Earthly life through the 
 medium of a spiritual experience of one who had 
 been an eyewitness, and afterwards for many years 
 
THE JOHAXXIXE JVR/T/XGS. 393 
 
 had lived with the Spirit, constantly taking of the 
 things of Christ and revealing them to him, is the note 
 or the characteristic of the Fourth Gospel. With this 
 key to the position one can see at once why the 
 Fourth Gospel should seem to the Christian the most 
 priceless of our possessions, the true chart of the 
 inward life, the keenest weapon for attacking unbelief 
 and bringing sinners into the faith of our Lord ; and 
 at the same time should seem to minds like John 
 Stuart Mill's, minds that are strangers to the expe- 
 rience of an indwelling Christ, a sad declension from 
 the clearness and the simplicity of the S}'noptical 
 Gospels. Men who are determined to see in Jesus 
 nothing but a human being will find the Fourth 
 Gospel a sealed book. But it is really the great 
 witness, historical and spiritual, that the human 
 being, Jesus, was the Eternal Son of God, who 
 became flesh in order that all who believe on Him 
 should share His eternal life. It is the consum- 
 mate revelation of God ; but of course it must 
 remain unintelligible to those who have settled it 
 with themselves beforehand that such a consumma- 
 tion of His revelation shall on no conceivable terms 
 be accepted. It is the supreme and all-sufficing 
 Light on human life and human destiny ; they who 
 avert their eyes from the Master-light of all our 
 seeing will not unnaturally remain in darkness, and 
 
394 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 in their darkness will try to show that the light which 
 they have rejected is unauthentic, that the author 
 of the book which presents it is a mere impostor, 
 that his simplicity is the cloak of his imposition, 
 and his transcendent truths are the proof that he 
 is a liar. After all, as Jesus says in this Gospel, 
 if men refuse the revelation here given there is 
 nothing more to be offered to them ; if they 
 have not had the light there is hope for them ; 
 but if they have seen the light and call it 
 darkness, "if they have both seen and hated both 
 me and my Father," what remains ? When men 
 reject the Sun as the source of light they must 
 indeed be sore put to it for an illumination. 
 
 But when we have thus apprehended the main 
 revelation of these Johannine Writings, the identi- 
 fication of the human Jesus with the invisible 
 God who is Light (i John i. 5, and John viii. 12), 
 and the human sonship of God, which is produced 
 by faith in the revealed Son of God — we have only 
 touched the fountain-head ; there are, if we may 
 so express it, streams of revelation which flow out 
 of it in many directions. To understand this we 
 must return to the conditions which prevailed in 
 the Church at the end of the First Century, when 
 the books were written. The magnificent absolute- 
 ness of Paul's teaching had been misunderstood 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 395 
 
 in another important respect. The doctrine that 
 we are saved by faith and not by works had 
 been " wrested " into the notion that if we have 
 faith, our conduct does not matter. The attempt 
 of James to stem this misconception was not 
 successful because he did not sufficiently grasp 
 St. Paul's grand principle of the Divine Person 
 who is the object of faith. We saw how the 
 Epistle of James was essentially a Jewish writing ; 
 it lacked the cardinal inspiration of the New Faith. 
 But our author, in the First Epistle of John, stems 
 the misconception in a far more effectual way. 
 Repeating with clear emphasis the mighty principle 
 of Paul that Jesus "is the propitiation for our sins, 
 and not for ours only, but for the whole world " (ii. 
 2), and bringing into distinctness his own beautiful 
 doctrine that the believer in Christ is really a new 
 birth, something which is " born of God," he pro- 
 ceeds with irresistible logic to show that every 
 one who is begotten of God must do righteousness : 
 if any one professes to be born of God and yet 
 continues in sin, he disproves his own claim ; he is 
 really nothing but a child of the devil (iii. 8). The 
 whole purpose of Christ's manifestation was to 
 destroy the works of the devil and to produce a 
 new progeny of sinless beings. By thus identifying 
 the New Birth with the victory over sin, and 
 
396 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 showing that faith in Christ was necessarily a 
 means of overcoming the world and living in 
 obedience to that Heavenly Father who has be- 
 gotten us anew, this closing utterance of the New 
 Testament set the whole Christian life on the 
 supernatural basis where alone it can be main- 
 tained. The polemics of the Pauline and Pctrine 
 and Jacobean letters are left far behind ; and in 
 sentences of crystalline simplicity which might have 
 come from the lips that preached the Sermon on 
 the Mount, the vital truth is asserted for all time, 
 and the manifold errors of x\ntinomianism are pro- 
 phetically refuted. We saw how some of St. Paul's 
 regulations were not entirely free from the spirit 
 of casuistry, and we had to find the revelation of 
 his ethics rather in the connection of moral 
 precepts with the root principle of redemption 
 than in the infallibility of his decisions in special 
 cases. But in the Johannine Writings moral con- 
 duct is exhibited in the clear light of revelation ; 
 for the Unction of the Holy One, the operation 
 of the Spirit in the heart, is presented as the 
 power that leads the believer into all truth, and 
 even raises him above the dependence on an 
 earthly teacher (i John ii. 27). This is the great 
 principle concerning conduct which was practically 
 realised, no doubt, by St. Paul in his life, but was 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 397 
 
 never explicitly shaped in his Epistles — the Christian 
 who is " clean by the word which the Lord speaks 
 to him " is grafted into the person of the Lord 
 like a branch in a vine, and brings forth what 
 St. Paul calls "the fruit of the Spirit," not by a 
 studied imitation of another, even though that other 
 be Christ Himself, but by the actual assimilation 
 of the life of Christ through faith, by that super- 
 natural development of the " new creation " which 
 God carries on in the life that is completely 
 surrendered to Him. All this, it may truly be 
 said, is implicitly taught in the other Epistles of 
 the New Testament ; but in the Johannine Writings 
 it is explicitly revealed and put into phraseology so 
 direct and convincing that even a child can under- 
 stand it. 
 
 Or if we wish to follow another of the streams of 
 revelation which flow from this abundant fountain- 
 head, we are borne along to the ultimate truth 
 about God, which is also the ultimate truth of 
 human conduct. When the fact is once established 
 that Jesus and the Father are one, so that he who 
 has seen Jesus has seen the Father, the inference is 
 already close at hand that God is not only the all- 
 powerful, not only the Holy and Righteous One, but 
 is also Love. This was the truth which religion had 
 laboured to establish. The Law and the Prophets 
 
398 RE VELA TION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 were alike In travail with It. But it came only 
 in demonstration and power by Jesus Christ. While 
 it Is correct to say that there Is no proof of it apart 
 from Christ, It is also correct to say that with Christ 
 before us and in us we need no further proof The brief 
 statement made in i John Iv. 8, i6 — made so quietly 
 because it Is so inevitable an outcome of the whole 
 teaching of the Epistle and the Gospel — Is indeed the 
 crown of Revelation. God is Love. No one can 
 say any more about Him ; apart from this supreme 
 revelation no one has said, or could even now say, 
 as much. From those first authentic Divine mani- 
 festations which we examined In the Book of 
 Genesis, through all the slow developments of Sinai, 
 ZIon, Babylon, the Temple, the Altar, and the Law, 
 this mighty truth was dawning, at last to break 
 into the full day in the face of Jesus Christ. And 
 as from the fact that God Is righteous flows the 
 necessity that they who are born of God should be 
 righteous too, so from the fact that God is love 
 flows the great new commandment that we should 
 love one another. " He that abldeth in love 
 abideth in God, and God abldeth In him." St. Paul 
 and St. Peter had taught the same truth in another 
 way ; it was reserved for this Epistle to present it 
 with the absoluteness of a self-evident principle, 
 and the cogency of a revealed Image of God, 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 399 
 
 Notwithstanding the fiery appeals of St. Paul, and 
 the beautiful canticle of i Cor. xiii., notwithstand- 
 ing the gentle exhortations of Peter, there were 
 still men like Diotrephes (3 John 9), who loved to 
 have the pre-eminence, who would not receive the 
 brethren, and who cast out of the Church those 
 who would : it was still supposed that you could 
 be a child of God and harbour hatred in your 
 heart, or that correctness of faith would pass as a 
 substitute for brotherly love. These latest utterances 
 of the New Testament annihilate that delusion for 
 ever. "We know that we have passed from death 
 unto life because we love the brethren. He that 
 loveth not abideth in death" (i John iii. 14). People 
 who have fed their minds upon apocalyptic litera- 
 ture, and have learnt to pass their time in decipher- 
 ing the records of the future, are disposed to regard 
 those doubtful prophecies as the summit of Revela- 
 tion. But it is more in harmony with the whole 
 gist of Revelation to claim this truth about Love 
 as the summit of God's self-manifestation. God 
 is love ; if, then, you are born of God you will 
 love : and love will be the witness to you of 
 your new birth. How simple it seems ! Yet Reve- 
 lation is completed in this assertion, its claim is 
 justified precisely so far as the Divine Miracle is 
 wrought out in practice, and men know that we 
 
400 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 are the disciples of Jesus because we love one 
 another. It is not the least of the signs by which 
 we know that the old view of the Bible is not the 
 right one, that it tended constantly to hide from 
 the eyes of those who held it this final truth of 
 revelation. If the Dutch Boers exterminated the 
 Hottentots on the authority of the Book of Judges, 
 other orthodox persons have made the doctrine 
 of Biblical Infallibility an excuse for many of the 
 most uncharitable judgments that were ever passed, 
 and for some of the most malignant feelings that 
 were ever cherished. And it is one of the greatest 
 recommendations of the view of Revelation which 
 has been advocated in this book, that when we see 
 how all revelation grows from less to more, and 
 finally finds its consummation in the Truth that 
 God is Love, and in the precept, " See that ye love 
 one another," we are able to bring all theories and 
 doctrines to the test of this final touchstone, and 
 to know that everything in religion is wrong which 
 lessens love, and that no orthodoxy can be admitted 
 which does not lead the orthodox to love, not only 
 one another, but even those who differ from them. 
 
 It may be urged, however, that the Second Epistle 
 of John contains in ver. lo the very statement which 
 has been made the authority for some of those un- 
 charitable judgments that Christians have been 
 
THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS. 401 
 
 accustomed to pass. And this leads us to observe 
 that the Second and Third Epistles of John do not 
 stand at all on the same basis as the First Epistle 
 and the Gospel. Only very late did they obtain 
 a recognition in the Canon. Out of the thirteen 
 verses of the Second Epistle eight are only echoes of 
 the First Epistle, and there is no new truth contained 
 in these brief documents which would entitle us to 
 call them revelation. The command given in 2 John 
 1 1 has been misunderstood and wrested. At the 
 most it was a caution, under the circumstances, to 
 a lady of influence, not to give the weight of her 
 sanction to false teachers who were upsetting the 
 faith of the Church. It is no authority for abstaining 
 from kindly social relations with those who differ 
 from us in matters of faith. But the correct view of 
 these Epistles is probably this : they come from the 
 private correspondence of the " elder" who wrote the 
 Gospel. Their chief point is, to say that they ab- 
 stained from saying anything, because the writer 
 hoped to see his correspondents shortly. And if 
 we are right in including them in the Canon because 
 the author is the canonical author John, we are also 
 right in remembering the reluctance with which they 
 were admitted as a reason for not attaching to them 
 an undue importance. 
 
 We have thus passed in review all the writings 
 27 
 
402 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 which have come down to us under the name of 
 John, and we have seen reason for assenting, though 
 on grounds different from those which are frequently 
 maintained, to the belief that in these books we have 
 the end of the revelation of God, which began in the 
 admonitions given to the Patriarchs, w^as continued 
 in the formation and organisation of the Mosaic 
 people, gathered body through the prophets, and 
 was consummated in Jesus Christ, first in His 
 historical manifestation in the flesh, and afterwards 
 in His prolonged existence and activity, through the 
 work of the Spirit in the heart of His Church. In 
 the beginning was the Word — by gradual and pro- 
 gressive preparations the world was made, humanity 
 came into being, and its long education was effected, 
 until the Word became flesh, and dwelt amongst us, 
 since when He has been continually operating to 
 produce in that which is flesh the spiritual or 
 Eternal life, that His ransomed ones may be with 
 Him where He is. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 The whole of this book is nothing more than the 
 briefest summary of the great question. And yet 
 it may be well to summarise in a few words the 
 summary itself. It is not unlikely that a reader, 
 who beforehand was unacquainted with the work 
 of Biblical scholarship which has been busily prose- 
 cuted in England during the last decade, may feel 
 for a moment that his view of the Bible has been 
 destroyed by what he has read ; he may have the 
 forlorn sensation that he is standing in the midst of 
 ruins ; and in the shock of the discovery he may feel 
 bitter against the author for telling him the truth. 
 But this, he will find, is merely an illusion. Let him 
 look round ; he will find that the vital truth by which 
 alone the religious principle within him is maintained 
 stands unshaken, and all the firmer because it no 
 longer even seems to rest upon questionable assump- 
 tions. Dealing with the Biblical literature in the 
 
404 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 freest and frankest way, trying not to shut our eyes 
 to any of the facts, we have found the essential truth 
 and the intrinsic vahie of one part after another 
 reasserted and demonstrated. The long history 
 stands out as history, the authentic word of the 
 Lord delivered to prophets maintains its authen- 
 ticity. Everything points to Christ as truly, though 
 not quite in the same way, as our fathers used 
 to think. Christ is not disproved. Witnessed by 
 trustworthy contemporary books, He Is still more 
 effectually witnessed by Himself, and by the actual 
 and provable manifestation of Himself in us who 
 believe. If the infallibility of the New Testament 
 in a minute and verbal sense has to be surrendered, 
 it is only that we may realise more keenly the 
 Unction of the Holy One, which is given not only 
 to the writers of Scripture, but to all who will in 
 humility and faith receive it. If we are left with our 
 eyes in some degree averted from the Book, it is only 
 that they may be the more concentrated on the 
 Person. 
 
 And if it is asked, But when once the letter of 
 Scripture is found not to be ipso facto infallible, how 
 are we to distinguish which part is authoritative and 
 which is not ? The answer is very simple, Come to 
 Christ, accept Him as your Saviour, and receive from 
 Him the Holy Spirit. With Him as your teacher 
 
srjn/AA'v. 405 
 
 you are likely to discern more satisfactorily than 
 under the guidance of an a priori dogma invented 
 by men who supposed that only by such a fiction 
 could the authority of Scripture be guaranteed. 
 Or if it is still urged, What is one to do who 
 is not a believer, but a heathen, an infidel, or an 
 agnostic ? the answer is simpler still, Let us, who 
 believe, not prejudice his mind by enforcing a theor}- 
 of the Bible as the condition of his reading it ; let us 
 leave him alone with the Book, and pray for him ; 
 the truth will find him, and the difficulties will not 
 be a hindrance to him, for, indeed, all the difficulties 
 are really made by the false theory about the Word 
 of God. 
 
 It is quite possible that a man may read the 
 opening chapter of the Bible, and be turned to God 
 by the sublimity and force of the truth which it 
 delivers; but if you insist that it is a scientific account 
 of the Creation, which is meant to override the truths 
 which Science has revealed, you at once seal the 
 mind of an educated man against its influence. It 
 is quite possible that the Book of Jonah may by its 
 obvious inspiration reach the conscience of a reader 
 and turn him to God ; ^ but if you start with the 
 demand that the episode of the fish is a matter of 
 
 ' Indeed St. Jerome tells us concerning Cyprian, the famous bishop 
 of Carthnge, " Audisse sermonem Jonoe et ad pwnitenliam conversum." 
 
4o6 REVELATION AND THE BIBLE. 
 
 faith you at once close the book and its message to 
 the modern mind. And so on throughout. We have 
 been led in our investigation to see that the Bible, 
 left to itself, is its own best interpreter, but that the 
 theories about it, and the buttresses constructed to 
 support it, are generally the great hindrance to its 
 work. We have seen that the Scriptures are they 
 which testify of Christ, but that when they are placed 
 before men as the authority that guarantees Christ, 
 we dishonour Him, and by a false reverence to them 
 we endanger their otherwise impregnable position. 
 It was the complaint of our Lord against the men of 
 His own day that "they searched the Scriptures 
 because they thought that in tJiem they had eternal 
 life, but would not come to Him that they might 
 have life." I And it is surely a complaint which He 
 still has to urge against many of us. We have 
 exalted the Scriptures above our Lord so as to make 
 Him Himself seem to be dependent upon them : with 
 a mistaken zeal we have given them the very title, 
 viz.. The Word of God, which is His own ineffable 
 name. In our blindness we have attached such 
 sacred significance to everything which is contained 
 
 ^ John V. 39; the R.V. gives the obvious sense of the original. It is 
 not a httle significant that the passage most frequently quoted as an 
 authority for Bible study is indeed a warning against the substitution 
 of Scripture, which is a mere witness, for the Saviour to whom it is 
 meant to bear witness. 
 
SUMMARY. 407 
 
 in the Biblical literature, that stories and facts, 
 opinions and beliefs, occurring within these covers 
 are invested all with a like authority, and presented 
 all alike as the revelation of God, so that discrimina- 
 tion vanishes, and Christ is no longer permitted to be 
 the criterion of the writings which existed to witness 
 about Him. It is from this dangerous, and in the 
 last resort, idolatrous perversion of Christianity, that 
 the line of argument pursued in the foregoing pages 
 is intended to deliver us. And if even one soul is led 
 out of the comfortable but suffocating prison-house of 
 the received dogma into the open air of the true 
 Revelation, the author will not have toiled in vain. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Ahbott, Dr., 359 
 
 Abraham, 56 
 
 Acls of (he Apostles, 260; xi.\. 12, 
 286 
 
 Adam, 37 
 
 Ahab, 112 
 
 Ale.Kandrine methods of interpreta- 
 tion, 331 
 
 Allegory, 38, 205, 326 
 
 Amos, 154 
 
 Angels, 323 
 
 Anonymous literature, 315 
 
 Antichrist, 309 
 
 Antiochus, 176 
 
 Apocalypse, The, 370 
 
 Apocrypha, 346, 363 
 
 ApoUos, 316 
 
 Apostleship, 293 
 
 Ascension, The, 261 
 
 Athanasius, 225 
 
 Atonement, 212, 225, 299 
 
 Augustine, 313 
 
 Babel, 47 
 
 Beatitudes, The, 242 
 Bibliolatiy, 218 
 Bishop, 355 
 Buddha, 172 
 
 Chaldean Cosmogony, 32 
 Creation, The, 36 
 
 Christ, foretold, 169, 170, 172, 194, 
 210, 322, 324 
 ,, the end of Revelation, 13, 
 
 20, 161, 204, 216 
 ,, Earthly life of, 231 
 ,, Historical reality of, 246 ; 
 
 descent into Hades, 357 
 ,, Divinity of, 252 ; who lie 
 
 is, 224, 227 
 ,, the Word of God, 387 
 ,, lives now, 253; in His dis- 
 ciples, 295 
 ,, in the Apocalypse, 374 
 ,, the interpreter of Revelation, 
 190, 223 
 Chronicles^ 119, 181, compared 
 
 with Kings, 127, et scq. 
 Chronicles, i, ch. vi. 1-15, 122 
 Chronological difficulties, 48, 95 
 Church, The, 258, 260, 300, 312 
 Clough, Dr., at Ongole, 282 
 Colossians, 292 
 
 Commandments, The Ten, 63, 86 
 Confucius, 171 
 Corinthians, 291 
 Covenant, Book of the, 70, 79 
 ,, The New, 164, 322 
 
 Daniel, 17s, 373 
 David, 93, 103, 184 
 Delitzsch quoted, 48 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Deluge, The, 41 
 
 Dculcrono/iiy, 115, 162; xii.-xxvi., 
 70 ; xxxiii., 54 
 
 ,, XXV. 4 explained, 307 
 
 Docetism, 386 
 Driver, Prof., 151, I73. ^91 
 Duff, Prof., quoted, 137, I53 
 
 ECCLESIASTES, 203 
 
 Ecclesiasticus, 191, 346 
 Elijah, 109, 112 
 Elisha, 109 
 Elohist, The, 78 
 Ephesiaiis, 292 
 Eschatology, 308 
 Esther, Book of, 183, 208 
 Ethics of the New Testament, 301 
 Exodus, xviii. 20, 74; xxv.-x^xi. 
 discussed, 65 
 ,, The, a historic fact, 85 
 Ezckiel, 74. 162, 165 
 
 Faith, 326, 343, 349 
 
 Fall, The, 40 
 
 Farrar, Archdeacon, quoted, 343, 
 
 356 
 Feasts, The, 70 
 Figures, Inexact, 100 
 Future world, 357 
 
 Galatiaxs, 291 ; quoted, 321, 351 
 
 Gamaliel, 269 
 
 Gnosticism, 386 
 
 God, the real object of Revelation, 10 
 
 Gospels, The, 231, &c. 
 
 ,, The Fourth, 231, 380 
 
 Habakkuk, 162, 164 
 Haggai, 170 
 Harnack quoted, 373 
 
 Hatch, Dr., quoted, 310 
 
 Hebrews^ 3^5 ; vi. 1-8 discussed, 
 
 332 
 High places, The, 107 
 Higher Criticism, 18, 23, 60, ']'i^, 
 
 82, 94, 105, 171, 195, 211 
 History and the Bible, 5 
 
 ,, in Acts, 264 
 Historiesof the Bible, 106, 117 
 Hosea, 154 
 
 Immortality in Old Testa- 
 ment, 179, 188, 200 
 
 Inconsistencies, 102 
 
 Infallibility distinct from Revelation, 
 50, 233, 245, 261, 289, 306 
 
 Inspiration, 151, 263, 349 . 
 
 Irenoeus quoted, 262 
 
 Isaiah, Book of, 148, 162, 168, 171 
 ,, the man, 154, 156 
 
 Israel, 58 
 
 ,, Kingdom of, 113 
 
 James, 343 
 
 Jehovist, The, 78 
 
 Jeremiah, 115, 147, 149, 162, 164 
 
 Jeroboam II., 154 
 
 Jews, The, 84 
 
 Job, Book of , 195, &c. 
 
 Joel, 174 
 
 John, 369, &c. ; Hrst epistle, 395 
 
 second, 401 ; third, 399 
 Jonah, 175, 405 
 Joseph, 53 
 
 Joshua, 73; viii. 32, 65 ; xix. 47, 98 
 Josiah, ']'], 108, 115 
 Judah, Kingdom of, II4 
 Judaism, 122, 137, 168, 210, 323 
 Jude, 363 
 Judges, The, 92, &c. 
 
 ,, xvii.-xxi., 98 ; xviii. i, 98 
 
INDEX. 
 
 41 
 
 Kethubim, 14S, 181, c\:c. 
 Kings, Book of, qiiolcd, 71, 105 
 I K. xiv. 9, 93 
 
 ,, 2 K. i., no 
 
 ,, 2 K. ii. 24, III 
 Korah, Rebellion of, 69 
 
 Lamexjatioxs, 207 
 Law, The, 60, 74, 1 55 
 ,, its origin, 80, 166 
 „ revelation in, S3 ; typology of, 
 320 
 Lecky, Mr., quoted, 274 
 Legends, no 
 Levites, 67, 98, 325 
 Leviticus, 66 
 
 ,, xvii.-x.wi., 76, 166 
 ,, xix. 18, 34, 86 
 Love, the end of Revelation, 39S 
 Luther, 342, 380 
 Lttke, 232, 260 
 
 Maccabees, The, 331 
 Alalachi, 172 
 Manasseh, 115 
 A/ark, 232 
 Marriage, 304 
 Matthciv, 231 
 
 ,, v. 13, xii. 31, quoted, 336 
 Megilloth, The, 182 
 Melchizedek, 51, 324 
 Memoirs of Jesus, 231 
 Messiah, The, 152, 177, 210, 224, 
 
 325 
 Micah, 154, 158 
 Midrash, 133 
 Milton, 197 
 
 Miracles, 240, 279, 283 
 Missions, illustrate the Acts, 282 
 Moses, Revelation to, 88 
 Muratorian Canon, 383 
 Myths in Revelation, 7, 34, yj 
 
 Naiium, 161 
 Nero, ^77 
 
 New Testament, The, 214, t.\:c. 
 criticism of, 15 
 ,, defined, 221 
 
 Noah. 45 
 Numbers, 67 
 
 ,, xxxi. 81 
 
 ! OBADIAU, \(i2. 
 
 ' Orders, Three, 355 
 
 Parousia, The, 307 
 Pastoral Epistles, 292, 3 10 
 Paul, Conversion of, 266 ; revelation 
 i to, 293 
 
 ; ,, as represented in Acts, 271, 
 • 280 
 
 ,, his letters, 288, 292 ; person- 
 ality, 303 
 ,, relation to James, 343 ; quoted 
 in 2 Peter, 363 
 Pentecost, 277 
 Perfection, 339 
 Peter, 350, <S:c. 
 
 ,, 2 Peter iii. 16, 313 
 Philemon, 292 
 Philippiaus, 292 
 
 ,, iv. 6, 308 
 
 Philo, 330 
 Poetry in the Old Testament, 182, 
 
 196 
 Priesthood, The, 75, 128, 167, 325 
 Priestly Code, The, 76, 167 
 Progressive Revelation, 14 
 Prophets, wi, 132, 145, &c. ; bad 
 
 editing of the books, 
 
 1 r \ r 
 
 146 ; three groups of, 
 
 I 152 
 
 j ,, Limitations of, 158, 174 ; 
 
 I their hard task, 163 
 
412 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Prophets, Unique work of, 176 ; 
 
 social ideal of, 178 
 Proverbs, Book of, 194 
 Psal/ns, Book of, 183 ; authorship 
 
 immaterial, 184 
 Pseudepigraphical literature, 290, 
 
 311, 352,360 
 
 quirinius' census, 244 
 
 Renan, 247, 273, 316 
 
 Repentance, 337 
 
 Resurrection, Historic truth of, 242 
 249 
 
 Revelation, 4, 9, 58, 100, 104, 116, 
 139, &c., 150, 154,156 
 (note), 165, 169, 175, 
 177, 187, 192, 193, 
 200, 210, 215, 246, 
 265, 272, 296, 302, 
 312, 319, 326, 338, 
 349> 353. 358. 362, 
 365, 372, 381, 397, 
 398 
 ,, The summit of, 214 
 
 Romans, 291 
 
 Kiith, 207 
 
 Sacerdotalism, 355 
 Samson, 330 
 Samuel, loi 
 
 ,, I S. ix., X., &c., 102 
 
 ,, 2 S. xxiv., 129 
 Satan, 198 
 Sayce, Prof., quoted, 2)'->^ 47 
 
 Science and the Bible, 5, 8 
 Scriptures, The, in New Testament, 
 
 323 
 Shem, 47 
 Social ethics, 211 
 Socrates, 248 
 Solomon, 107, 124 
 Song of Solomon, 205 
 vSpies, The, 68 
 Spirit, The Holy, 16, 174, 216, 277, 
 
 388, 396 
 Stephen, his apology, 268 
 Synagogue, The Great, 147 
 
 Temple, The, 87, 166, 170, 173 
 
 ,, destroyed, 320 
 Tertullian, 333 
 Theology of St. Paul, 297 
 Thcssalonians, 2gi 
 
 I Th. iv. 15-17, 3C7 
 Truth before dogma, 329 
 Typology, 21, 57, 87, 104 
 
 Wisdom Literature, 191, 202 
 204 
 ,, Book of, 191, 346 
 Women speaking, 305 
 Word of God, 188, 204, 303 
 
 Yaiiveh, 10, 89 
 Yahvist, The, see Jehovist. 
 
 Zechariah, 147, 149, 170, 172 
 Zephaiiidh, 162 
 Zion, 157, 163 
 
 UNWIN BKOTHKKS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, CHILWORTH AND LONDON. 
 

 
 Date Due 
 
 1 
 
 Ki -L _ 
 
 I 
 
 
 "^,^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 --^-^^^^^r; I 
 
 
 
 .^^.^^^t^^m"^ ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 

 'filWm 
 
 BS511.H82 
 
 Revelation and the Bible : an attempt at 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1012 00046 5817