BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 MESSAGE OF THE NEW 
 
 AN EFFORT TO CONNECT MORE CLOSELY THE TESTAMENTS; 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED A SERIES OF PAPERS ON 
 
 VARIOUS OLD TESTAMENT BOOKS 
 
 AND SUBJECTS 
 
 BV 
 
 anson bartie Curtis, b.d., ph.d. 
 
 Instructor in Hebrew in Tufts College Divinity School 
 
 "ftlAY** 1894*) 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 universalist publishing house 
 
 30 West Street 
 
^ 
 
 Q* 
 
 i> 
 
 Copyright, 1894, 
 
 BY 
 
 Univkrsalist Publishing House, 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY BY C J. PETERS & SON, BOSTON. 
 PRINTED BY F. H. GILSON CO. 
 
TO 
 
 THE PARENTS OF MY WIFE, 
 
 AND TO 
 
 MY OWN FATHER AND MOTHER, 
 
 WHOSE UNTIRING TOILS WERE MY^ 
 OPPORTUNITIES, 
 
 E ffldrtcate tfjis 3Soofe 
 
 IN MEMORY OF PLEASANT SUMMERS IN 
 MICHIGAN. 
 
" For out of the oldfieldes, as men saithe, 
 Cometh all this new cor ne fro to yere to yere. 
 And out of old doo&es, in good fait he, 
 Cometh al this new science that men lere, 
 But now to purpose, as of this mattere, 
 To rede forth it gan me so delite, 
 That all the day me thought it but a lite." 
 
 Chaucer. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 "The obstinate insisting that tweedledum is not 
 tweedledee is the bone and marrow of life. . . . The 
 process of history consists in certain folks becoming 
 possessed of the mania that certain special things are 
 important infinitely, whilst other folks cannot agree in 
 the belief." So Prof. W. James has written. And 
 the statement may be taken as an apology for any lack 
 of originality that may be discovered in these chapters. 
 If they contain anything new, it is the emphasis. 
 And the excuse for the book is the obvious fact that 
 some things have to be said again and again, in various 
 styles and with different spirit, before their full lesson 
 is finally learned. 
 
 Some of the following chapters were originally pub- 
 lished in religious papers and magazines, and others 
 have been given as addresses ; but one purpose runs 
 through the whole, which is also still further illustrated 
 by the rambles in Old Testament Books and Subjects 
 with which the volume closes. 
 
 The method of study here adopted, it is hoped, will 
 serve a double purpose. It brings to each Testament 
 
 5 
 
6 PREFACE, 
 
 the support of the other for all in it that is of positive 
 and permanent value ; and it helps to eliminate from 
 each Testament its transient and temporal teachings by 
 offering the other as its corrective and supplement. 
 The New Testament religion is a reaction against a 
 dogmatic apprehension of the Old. We ought not, 
 therefore, to expect perfect completeness and poise in 
 either Testament. This can only come from the union 
 of the two. Each, in fact, corrects, supplements, and 
 illustrates the other. 
 
 The reason the God of the Hebrews is in this work 
 called Jahveh is the simple fact that Jehovah is not a 
 word and means nothing. As a further help to the 
 reader I may say that, in the references to the Bible, 
 parts of verses are often indicated by the letters a y b> c, 
 immediately following the verse figure. The letter a 
 indicates the first part of the verse, b the second part, 
 and so on. 
 
 My authorities have been, so far as practicable, in- 
 dicated in the footnotes. 
 
 A. B. C. 
 
 Tufts College, Mass., Feb. 17, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 i. Our attitude towards the unsolved problems. 2. Our attitude towards 
 the critics. 3. Three stages in the life of the Bible student : illustration. 
 
 Pages 15-21 
 
 Chap. I. Back to the Old Testament. 
 
 1. "Back to the Past:" Paul the first to raise the cry. 2. The common 
 method reversed. 3. The relations of the Testaments. 4. The enduring 
 character of Old Testament religion. 5. A revival of Old Testament study 
 is already at hand, but it is limited. 6. The Old Testament needs no defence. 
 7. The student should follow behind the critics. 8. The Old Testament reli- 
 gion rests upon a series of divine revelations. 9. The Old Testament a book 
 of examples; the New of precepts Pages 25-34 
 
 Chap. II. Back to the Old Testament for its own sake. 
 
 1. The religion of the civilized world is from the Jew. 2. What Israel 
 did not do. 3. What Israel did do. The Bible deserves its place as a reli- 
 gious classic. 4. Ignorance of the Bible inexcusable. 5. Internal obstacles 
 to Bible study. 6. External obstacles. 7. Historical obstacles. 8. These 
 overcome. The value of technical Bible study. 9. Literary masterpieces in 
 the Bible. 10. The greatness of the Bible. 11. The value of the Bible to 
 the Christian believer Pages 37-48 
 
 Chap. III. Back to the Old Testament for the Doctrine 
 of Inspiration. 
 
 1. A pair of pictures. 2. The doctrine of inspiration the result of the 
 primitive socialism. 3. The teaching of the Old Testament concerning in- 
 spiration. 4. Growing accuracy in details as minds and morals develop. 
 
 5. The Old Testament writers do not claim infallibility: growth of ideas. 
 
 6. The New Testament supports the Old. 7. The evils of erroneous ideas of 
 inspiration and revelation. 8. It is expedient that the old view be given up : 
 new meanings for old words. 9. The proof of inspiration. 10. Influence of 
 the doctrine of inspiration : it contains implicit the doctrine of the immanent 
 God Pages 51-57 
 
 7 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap. IV. Back to the Old Testament for a Valid Proof 
 of God's Existence. 
 
 i. Relations of the proofs of God to God in history. 2. Apologetic value 
 of the growing consciousness of God in the Old Testament, 3. Origin of 
 the Jahveh cult. 4. Moses as leader and organizer of his people. 5. Moses 
 as judge and prophet. 6. As lawgiver and religious teacher. 7. The theology 
 of the Song of Deborah. 8. Jahveh at first a tribal or national God. 9. Jahveh 
 and the calves of Bethel and Dan. 10. Jahveh as the God of righteousness. 
 11. Spiritual monotheism and practical atheism. 12. God a spirit, and man 
 morally free. 13. Isaiah and "God in History." 14. Conclusion. 
 
 Pages 79-95 
 
 Chap. V. Back to the Old Testament for a New Concep- 
 tion of the Messiah. 
 
 1. Unnatural and natural Messianic prophecy. 2. The beginnings of the 
 Messianic idea. 3. Jeremiah and Ezekiel. 4. Changes in the national hope. 
 Isaiah and the exilian writers. 5. Haggai and Zechariah : Malachi and Joel. 
 6. Daniel and the Apocrypha. 7. The Messiah a priest. 8. The Messiah 
 a prophet. 9. Revival of the kingly Messiah of the early prophets. 10. The 
 number of Messianic passages increased by scribal exegesis. 11. The com- 
 bining of various ideas. 12. The Messiah a prophet and teacher, not an 
 atoning sacrifice. 13. The New Testament fulfilment . . . Pages 99-122 
 
 Chap. VI. Back to the Old Testament for the Way of 
 Salvation. 
 
 I. EARLY IDEAS OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 i. Does the O. T. doctrine of sacrifice look forward to Christ? 2. Early 
 sacrifices. 3. The Passover. 4. The sacrifice a feast. 5. Self -mutilation 
 not atonement. 6. The sacrifice a gift to the gods. 7. The expiatory offer- 
 ing. 8. The ransom Pages 125-129 
 
 II. EARLY REACTIONS. 
 
 9. The prophets Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, decry the popular 
 views of sacrifice. 10. Prophetic scheme of forgiveness and reconciliation. 
 11. The reaction of the sages. 12. The reaction of the poets. 13. The 
 Buddha's idea of sacrifice Pages 130-136 
 
 III. THE PRIESTLY COUNTER REFORMATION. 
 
 14. The priest-prophets. 15. The Levitical doctrine of the sacrifice. 
 16. The sin of ignorance and its consequences. 17. The scapegoat and day 
 of atonement Pages 136-141 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 IV. THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 18. Paul's doctrine of the sacrifice of Christ. 19. The death of Christ 
 abrogated, not fulfilled, the law. 20. Looseness in the N. T. ideas of Jesus' 
 sacrificial death. 21. Paul's view really a return to prophetism. 22. Support 
 of this view in early Christian literature. 23. Ballou its first advocate in this 
 country Pages 142-150 
 
 Chap. VII. Back to the Old Testament for the Suffering 
 Christ. 
 
 I. THE SOCIAL VIEW OF ATONEMENT ACCORDING TO SECOND ISAIAH. 
 
 i. Human sacrifice in early Israel. 2. The atoning powers of the right- 
 eous. 3. The mission of the righteous servant in Isaiah liii. 4. The servant 
 as the nation or righteous portion of the nation. 5. The servant a guilt- 
 offering for the world. 6. The ideas of " law " and of " sacrifice " spiritual- 
 ized. 7. The servant's preparation for his work. 8. Second Isaiah's view of 
 the unity of the race : a social view of atonement Pages 153-167 
 
 II. SECOND ISAIAH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 9. The ideas of Messiah and suffering righteous are kept distinct : Jewish 
 developments of the thought of Isaiah liii. 10. Ideas which tended towards 
 a Messianic interpretation of the same. n. The quotations from Isaiah liii. 
 in the New Testament, as a rule, disappointing. 12. Jesus' own view of his 
 sufferings and death. 13. New Testament passages that clearly teach the 
 social view of atonement Pages 1 68-1 81 
 
 III. APPENDIX ON SECOND ISAIAH. 
 
 i. The theory of the three Babylonian Isaiahs. 2. Chapter lii. 13 to 
 liii. 12 a dialogue, notes on the section. 3. Isaiah liii. in the Targums. 
 
 Pages 1 81-184 
 
 Chap. VIII. Back to Both Testaments for their Recon- 
 ciliation. 
 
 1. The Christ as Messiah, as sacrifice, and as suffering servant. 2. Was 
 Jesus the Christ ? 3. Different views of the relation of prophecy and fulfil- 
 ment. 4. Prophecy must be studied in the light of its own age. 5. Signifi- 
 cance of Jesus' adoption of the Jewish Messianic idea. 7. Jesus the true 
 Messiah in the light of Jeremiah's promised " new covenant." 8. The recon- 
 ciliation : true religion is found in either Testament . . . Pages 187-195 
 
IO CONTENTS, 
 
 Chap. IX. Back to the Old Testament for its Sociology. 
 
 i. The broader modern view of society. 2. Sociology defined. 3. The 
 Scriptures have been too exclusively studied on the side of their theology. 
 4. Sociological value of the Hebrew history. 5. Chronologically arranged 
 the Bible is the best text-book on sociology. 6. An outline of Biblical 
 sociology. 7. The family. 8. The nation. 9. Land. 10. Labor. 11. 
 Rich and poor. 12. Education. 13. Religion : Biblical sociology is soci- 
 ology with a soul Pages 199-213 
 
 Chap. X. Some Ancient and Modern Estimates of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 1. The Old Testament in the Jewish Church. 2. The Old Testament in 
 the New. 3. The Old Testament in the early Church. 4. Estimates from 
 classifications. 5 . The German Idealists, Kant, Hegel, Schelling, and Lotze. 
 
 6. Newman Smyth and Professor Ely : Haeckel and the scientists : Dillman. 
 
 7. The need of adapting our view of the Bible to the facts. 8. The Biblical 
 authors were religious, not scientific, specialists Pages 217-229 
 
 Chap. XI. Evolution and the Old Testament. 
 
 1. Difficulties in the way of a definition of evolution. 2. Twofold mean- 
 ing of the word " origin." 3. Evolution the manifestation of a consciousness 
 eternally the same. 4. Lessing and the education of the human race. 5. Why 
 not accept evolution as a method ? 6. Difficulties. 7. Robertson Smith and 
 the evolution of Old Testament religion. 8. Edward Caird and the evolu- 
 tion of the absolute religion Pages 233-247 
 
 Chap. XII. Leisurely Rambles in the Old Testament with 
 Some of its Friends and Admirers. 
 
 I. PROFESSOR RYLE AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 
 
 i. Mr. Ryle's point of view. 2. Significance of the threefold division. 
 3. The formation of the canon a slow process. 4. The first canon completed 
 by Ezra. 5. The second canon two hundred years later. 6. The third canon 
 still open in the time of Christ Pages 251-258 
 
 II. THE LIBERAL PREACHER AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. 
 
 1. Mistaken views. 2. Higher criticism defined. 3. Progress in 
 mechanics and theology compared. 4. Heber Newton and Newman 
 Smyth. 5. Criticism is not rationalism Pages 258-264 
 
CONTENTS. 1 1 
 
 III. PROFESSOR TOY AND THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 i. The uselessness of much of the older literature. 2. Professor Toy's 
 religion of Israel. 3. The need of a bird's-eye view at the outset, Pages 264-266 
 
 IV. W. ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE JEWISH BIBLE. 
 
 i. The Old Testament in the Jewish Church. 2. Need of more scientific 
 methods of Biblical study. 3. Textual errors. 4. Material at hand for 
 textual criticism. 5. Early Hebrew written without vowels: Jahveh. 6. 
 Hebrew history reconstructed Pages 266-271 
 
 V. PROFESSOR DRIVER AND OLD TESTAMENT INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. The work itself. 2. The Book of Judges. 3. The Book of Deuter- 
 onomy. 4. Isaiah. 5. Isaiah xiii., xiv. 6. Isaiah xv., xvi. 7. Isaiah xxiv- 
 xxvii. 8. The effect of Driver's book as a whole .... Pages 27 1-27 7 
 
 VI. THE MEN OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 i. History from biography. 2. Jeremiah and Moses. 3. The biographical 
 sermon Pages 277-280 
 
 VII. PROFESSOR GENUNG AND THE BOOK OF JOB. 
 
 1. The problem of the book. 2. The author's aim not to prove, but to 
 show. 3. Job, not the Book of Job, solves the problem. 4. The date and in- 
 tegrity of the book. 5. The character of the composition. 6. Genung's 
 translation Pages 281-286 
 
 VIII. RENAN : HIS LIFE AND HIS WORK. 
 
 1. A sketch of the life of Renan. 2. The character of his work. 3. Read 
 Renan ! Pages 286-292 
 
 IX. PROFESSOR TOY'S JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 I. Professor Toy's position. 2. The theology of the Jews. 3. Sociology 
 and religion. 4. The significance for religion of the great man. 5. Particu- 
 lar and universal religions. 6. Professor Toy's method comprehensive. 
 
 Pages 292-298 
 
 X. CANON CHEYNE AND DEVOUT CRITICISM. 
 
 i. The higher critic as a preacher of the gospel. 2. David in history and 
 in tradition. 3. The Psalms do not lose in fervor by being placed after the 
 exile Pages 298-302 
 
12 CONTENTS. 
 
 XI. PROFESSOR DRIVER AS A PREACHER. 
 
 i. Misapprehension of the methods of Driver and others. 2. The help- 
 fulness and reasonableness of " Sermons on the Old Testament." 3. Perma- 
 nent elements in the Old Testament Pages 302-306 
 
 Chap. XIII. Hints for the Pulpit and Devotional Use 
 of the Old Testament. 
 
 1. The great preachers have been Old Testament students. 2. The need 
 of a book of wise selections from the Old Testament : an expurgated Bible. 
 3. That the Church has a right to make such a book of selections appears 
 from the history of the formation of the canon. 4. A list of readings sug- 
 gested for pulpit or devotional use Pages 309-314 
 
 Chap. XIV. An Inexpensive Old Testament Library. 
 
 1. Commentaries in general. 2. A list of the best English commentaries 
 on the Old Testament. 3. Introductions to the Old Testament. 4. Theolo- 
 gies. 5. Histories. 6. Expositions, running commentaries. 7. The late 
 books and the inscriptions Pages 31 7-322 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
"How truly its central position is impregnable, religion has never adequately 
 realized" 
 
 Herbert Spencer. 
 
 " It is by no means impossible that the world, tired out by the constant bank- 
 ruptcy of liberalism, will once more become Jewish and Christian?* 
 
 Ernest Renan. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 i. This is an age in which we are encountering 
 myriads of unsolved and perhaps insoluble questions. 
 Some of these questions are vital and practical, others 
 are ideal and theoretical. All alike are important. 
 And so far as we can it is our duty to solve them. 
 
 But when we have done our best, there will still re- 
 main a large field of truth touching the very founda- 
 tions of the intellectual, moral, and religious life that 
 cannot be wholly explored. There will always be un- 
 solved problems, there will always be unproven truths. 
 What shall be our attitude towards these? Shall we 
 treat them indifferently because they are unproved ? 
 Shall we turn agnostic, and exalt our ignorance into 
 a philosophy ? Shall we go to the other extreme, at- 
 tempt the impossible, and labor to prove what God 
 never intended should be proven by human reason? 
 Evidently none of these questions implies the correct 
 answer. The rather do we turn to the lines of Tenny- 
 son, which John F. Genung has recently emphasized, — 
 
 "For nothing worthy proving can be proven 
 Nor yet disproven; wherefore, then, be wise, 
 Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, 
 And cling to faith beyond the forms of faith.' ' 
 
 " This ever-present faith in faith," says Professor 
 
 *5 
 
1 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Genung, "gives a marvellous uplift to all Tennyson's 
 poetic work." It will give a marvellous uplift to the 
 work of any man, no matter what his calling. It is 
 faith, rather than the forms of faith, that is the 
 important thing. 
 
 What is this sunnier side of doubt in regard to Old 
 Testament questions ? In the first place, the sunny 
 side of doubt is never found in those who cling to old 
 exploded notions. By this means a man may make 
 himself the contemporary of his great-grandfathers,, 
 but he can never thus become the teacher of his 
 grandchildren. No, the sunnier side of doubt consists 
 in searching out and emphasizing the old faith that 
 lies hid in the new truths. For the race has hold 
 of something real and eternal in its religious faith. 
 That was a profound remark of Kant's in which he 
 proclaimed that it is only the permanent that can suffer 
 change. The fact, then, that religious faith can and 
 does adapt itself to new conditions is a sign of its 
 permanence. The sunnier side of doubt, therefore, is 
 never timid, never rash, never sentimental, but full of 
 love for the truth, and faith in the truth. 
 
 2. The discussion presupposes throughout the gen- 
 eral correctness of the views of Driver, Cheyne, Briggs, 
 Robertson, Smith, and others. But at the same time 
 our effort is not to establish those results, but to show 
 in some detail how the Christian religion has gained in 
 authority, in attractiveness, and in spirituality by an 
 appeal to the New Bible. I have not added to the 
 Decalogue, as a learned translator of Sophocles has 
 recently suggested, this new commandment, "Thou 
 shall not covet the German's knife, nor his readings, nor 
 
INTRODUCTION. I J 
 
 his meters, nor his sense, nor his taste, nor anything 
 that is his." But I have felt free to accept suggestions 
 from the Germans, or from any other scholars, when 
 they appealed to reason and common-sense. 
 
 A word of warning may not be out of place for some 
 readers. We remember the story of those who cast out 
 devils but "walked not with us." And we remember 
 also the advice of Gamaliel regarding the treatment of 
 those not in perfect accord with the religious notions 
 of the ruling authorities. History points us many 
 lessons, and none with more emphasis than this, that 
 it is the easiest thing in the world to mistake the sup- 
 ports upon which our religion stands. This is appar- 
 ently a part of our common human nature. She who 
 suffers a great sorrow is sure, while the bitterness of 
 her grief is upon her, that she can never be happy again ; 
 yet time revives the springs of joy. He who suffers a 
 great defeat is sure, in the moment of his chagrin, that 
 he can never again lift up his head ; yet rest brings pur- 
 pose and assurance once more to his relief. So when 
 Jesus began to preach, the honest Jews said he violated 
 the law and robbed religion of its authority. But Jesus' 
 teachings have prevailed, and religion glows with more 
 fervor than ever before. When it was found that the 
 earth is really round, and revolves about the sun, the 
 church said the Bible is in peril, and it threw itself in 
 the face of the telescope and the geometer. Science 
 prevailed, and a larger world was given to the God of 
 the Bible, and a more intelligent church. There was 
 quaking at the discovery of the sun spots, the circulation 
 of the blood, the medical art, at the marvellous advances 
 of geology, biology, and the recent evolutionary science. 
 
1 8 IN TROD UCTION. 
 
 Yet, amidst all these, religion holds its own, and its 
 central position becomes ever more impregnable. Let 
 us be very careful, then, what we say about the modern 
 critics, lest we be found fighting against God. Modern 
 methods of reconstructing the Old Testament history 
 and religion are, it is admitted, a kind of reasoning in 
 a circle. And there are many lacunae in the circum- 
 ference. Yet I believe that the circle is one beyond 
 which no facts lie that possess the power to do other 
 than make the circumference more regular and more 
 complete, and its centre, which is the divine love, more 
 resplendent and more life-giving. ^ 
 
 3. The Bible student who goes on unto perfection is 
 very liable to have to pass through three well marked 
 stages. These may be well illustrated by an instance 
 given, I think, by J. Clark Murray in his Psychology. 
 
 It is related of a certain man born blind, whose sight 
 had been restored, that a picture was shown to him, and 
 he was asked to tell what he saw. He said he saw an 
 object of divers colors, some bright, others dull, ar- 
 ranged in heterogeneous order upon the canvas. That 
 is all the picture meant to him. He looked at it as all 
 upon one surface without perspective. Then he was 
 asked, " Do you not see a house, and behind it a barn, 
 and farther back still a forest ? Do you not see men and 
 horses and boys in the yard, and various objects in and 
 about the fields ? " He looked again carefully. Yes, 
 he saw it all now, and put forth his hand to thrust it 
 into the picture, and touch the forest and barn. He 
 thought it all real now. The barn he supposed did stand 
 several inches behind a miniature house built four 
 square. But the touch soon disclosed to him his error. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 9 
 
 He was surprised a second time, for he found all these 
 objects on the same surface. Now for the first time 
 our man born blind is ready to begin a study of the 
 picture. 
 
 So it is with the Bible reader. 
 
 At first every statement is on a level with every 
 other ; the history and the human nature lie hid ; it 
 is just a conglomeration of isolated statements, whose 
 loneliness is rendered all the more oppressive by the 
 ordinary division of the Bible into chapters and verses, 
 which often inserts a dead stop in the very middle of 
 a paragraph, or divides into different verses what only 
 a comma should separate. The occasional reader of 
 the Bible, unless his eyes have been opened by sermons 
 and lectures and criticisms, can get no more out of 
 the Bible than the restored blind man got out of his 
 picture. 
 
 There are bright colors, but there is no idea at all 
 of the meaning of the whole. All is seen, yet noth- 
 ing is seen, because nothing is seen in its true rela- 
 tions. It may even be supposed that the dull colors 
 are put about the bright colors to enhance their 
 brilliancy. To the minister who is in this condition 
 the Bible is a book of texts, and these are purposely 
 hid amidst what is uninteresting to discourage habits 
 of idleness. 
 
 The second stage in the process is also clearly 
 marked. Things begin to appear in their relations. 
 It is seen that history, prophecy, and poetry somehow 
 imply each other. But still the idea of perspective has 
 not been grasped. Now all is real. If the statement 
 is made that the mountains clap their hands, they must 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 really have hands to clap. The stories of Abraham, of 
 David, and of Elijah, are not of any value at all unless 
 they are real. The Pentateuch is valueless and worse, 
 if Moses did not write it. Such a student sees nothing 
 unless he is permitted to believe that he is dealing with 
 the veritable revelation of God and not its history. If 
 he has not the thing, he will not admit that he has its 
 lesson. He even reduces the whole to an absurdity if 
 his way is not the right one. The house is, as he sup- 
 posed at first, but a daub of colors, if it is not built four 
 square. 
 
 But at last something happens, and our Bible student 
 puts forth his hand to touch the story of Abraham or of 
 Daniel. He reads a little profane history. He delves 
 into the mysteries of the Hebrew lexicon and grammar. 
 He learns the story of the foundation of the Old Testa- 
 ment canon. He is getting the idea of historical per- 
 spective. He touches the "morals of David. ,, They 
 are beautiful in their place in the picture. Out of their 
 connection they are cruel and bloody and harsh. He 
 touches the motive that gave the later portions of the 
 Pentateuch to Moses. There was a consciousness of 
 the real facts and yet no consciousness of wrong. For 
 would not Moses in the later age have approved what 
 they approved ? So at last our Bible student comes to 
 a correct view of things. But alas, hosts of us have 
 never touched the Bible. And we have not learned 
 how to appreciate the divine masterpiece. This is not 
 wholly our fault. There has been a widely prevalent 
 notion that the Bible must not be studied as are other 
 books, and that its lessons must somehow be kept apart 
 from our unholy secular life. What we need to do is to 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 touch the Bible with our every-day experience, look at 
 it in the light of the common places as well as of the 
 uncommon places of our existence. And it is evident 
 also that we must make free and large use of the helps 
 placed in our hands by recent discoveries. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
" With the righteousness of the prophets, from Amos to Jeremiah, Chris- 
 tianity might at once have joined hands." 
 
 Hermann S. Schultz. 
 
 " The blood is said to be the life ; it is therefore the spirit or life of the law 
 
 which does away sin. . . . The gospel is nothing but the spirit of the law, which 
 
 is the word, or logos, spoken in the law, brought forth from the shadows of the 
 
 old dispensation" 
 
 Hoska Ballou. 
 
BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BACK JO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 I. Ours is an age in which the cry is, more or less, 
 " Back to the Past ! " In philosophy the cry some 
 years ago was heard everywhere, " Back to Kant ! " 
 And this was met by the counter-cry, "Back to his 
 Interpreters ! " In theology we hear the cry, " Back 
 to Luther and the Reformation ! " And we hear 
 alongside it, " and this means ' Back to Christ and 
 the Apostles ! ' " 
 
 In Christian history, so far as I know, Paul first 
 raised this cry. He saw in Christianity the overthrow 
 of Judaism, and the revival of Old Testament Prophet- 
 ism. And so he raised the cry among his Christian 
 brethren, "Back to Abraham and the Prophets ! " We 
 have Paul's word for it that Christianity was a return 
 to the ideals of the classic period of Hebrew religion. 
 The law, he argued, came in as a side issue, necessary 
 because of man's weakness, but interrupting the direct 
 line of development which in Christ is restored and 
 given by unmistakable proofs the fulness of the divine 
 approval. 
 
 Now, if Paul thus goes back to the prophetic portions 
 of the Old Testament for his starting-point, and other 
 
 25 
 
26 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 New Testament writers just as obviously take their 
 start from the legal side of the Jewish Scriptures, we 
 ought frankly to admit that the new religion may here 
 and there have limitations which are due entirely to 
 the limitations of the past, out of which it came. And 
 to recognize this is to free ourselves from the bondage 
 of dogmas that are no longer helpful to our religious 
 development. We can say, with truth, that Christi- 
 anity took these as a part of its inheritance from Juda- 
 ism, but that they are no more a part of Christianity 
 than are tunics, girdles, and sandals. These were worn 
 by the early Christians, not as a part of their religion, 
 but because they were in style. 
 
 Not only does a return to the Old Testament reveal 
 to us with trenchant force the temporal character of 
 certain doctrines and customs that the Church has bur- 
 dened itself with in the past, but it also shows that 
 many misinterpretations of the Old Testament have 
 been handed over to the New Testament to vitiate 
 also its message. The fundamental New Testament 
 doctrines, in fact, have been very largely corrupted by 
 a misunderstanding of the real nature of the Old 
 Testament and its relation to the New. 
 
 2. The fact is, the common method must be re- 
 versed. We have been wont to interpret the Old 
 Testament in the light of the New. We have seen in 
 it nothing but Christian doctrine. What we need to 
 do now is to go to the Old Testament not only for 
 illustrations of the New, but for a more full and com- 
 plete understanding of its essential doctrines. Out of 
 the modern movement, which has restored the Old 
 Testament to us, will come, I doubt not, a new point 
 
BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 2J 
 
 of view, which will restore the New Testament to us 
 with a fulness and completeness of meaning that it 
 never before had. Back to the Old Testament as a 
 book of history, of ethics, of religion, and of sociology ! 
 This is our message and our "hobby." The preaching 
 of the Old Testament to our own age is truly great. 
 And this is due not alone to the fact that it is an able 
 defender raised up out of the past for the doctrines of 
 the Christ. It is this, but it is more : it is also their 
 divinely called Creator and Teacher. 
 
 The thesis suggested by our title is one which can- 
 not, in any adequate way, be treated in a small volume. 
 It will be best, therefore, to eliminate as far as possible 
 all side issues, and confine ourselves to a few New 
 Testament doctrines which are fundamental, and which 
 at the same time have their roots and their high-water 
 mark of meaning in the Old Testament. 
 
 3. Some, of course, may incline to doubt whether 
 any important New Testament doctrine is taught with 
 equal insight in the Old. Indeed, there may be some 
 of us who, like Schleiermacher, have been wont to deny 
 that there is any vital and organic connection between 
 the Testaments. It may be that we have been able to 
 see only an accidental and external relationship, due to 
 the fortuitous course of the history. Or it may be that, 
 with Kant, we have denied to Judaism, as it existed in 
 the days of Christ, the name of a religion, and have 
 seen in it only a hodge-podge of senseless ritual, to 
 which has been added, as the only redeeming feature, 
 a code of purely statutory laws. 
 
 That such a view is arbitrary and unphilosophical is 
 evident from a multitude of considerations. As Prof. 
 
28 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Edward Caird correctly maintains, all new movements 
 have their roots in the past, and a new movement 
 which denies every thesis of its predecessor is depen- 
 dent upon its predecessor for the number and form of 
 its denials. It may use all the rhetoric, all the logic, 
 all the passionate and holy denunciation of its rival, by 
 simply going through and inserting the negatives. But 
 the dependence is more far-reaching than even this. 
 Extremes meet. In the higher mathematics a positive 
 infinity passes at a single bound to a negative infinity. 
 A number increasing by minute additions from one to 
 infinity, by the same minute addition passes from in- 
 finity-affirmative to infinity-negative. Anything carried 
 to its limit is at the nearest possible point to its oppo- 
 site. It is even as we so often say, " Extremes meet/' 
 Brahminism must produce Buddhism by inevitable 
 decree. And the relation between them is a vital one. 
 Jewish legalism carried to its logical conclusion is Paul- 
 inism. And a part of the conclusion in each case is 
 the glorification of the person who stands as the type 
 of the new law written on the heart ; the persons, I 
 say, of the Buddha and of the Christ. 
 
 4. But not only is Judaism a preparation for Chris- 
 tianity, a stage in the development of the most perfect 
 and complete religion, but it has also certain permanent 
 elements that can never be superseded. In certain 
 lines Hebrew religion reached to well-nigh the summit 
 of human aspiration. Newman Smyth, in his "Christian 
 Ethics," regards Judaism as the second greatest religion 
 of the' world. And if we take it in its logical develop- 
 ment up to the present time, who can deny that this is 
 so? In the same vein Schultz says, "Christ and his 
 
BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 2Q 
 
 apostles do not regard the Old Testament religion as a 
 mere outward historical preparation for Christianity, 
 but as a form of piety which could and would continue 
 to be the foundation even of Christian piety." In this 
 opinion he is correct, but he follows this with a remark 
 that ought not to be accepted without limitations. He 
 says, "The Old Testament religion can be understood 
 only in connection with, and as an essential part of, 
 Christianity." 1 This has been the bugbear of Old 
 Testament scholarship. It has been said that the real 
 meaning of a prophecy or a doctrine hung fire until its 
 New Testament fulfilment. And that the real meaning 
 of an Old Testament writer is in every case to be de- 
 termined by an appeal to its analogue in the New Tes- 
 tament. I affirm that just the reverse is true. The 
 meaning of a New Testament writer is to be determined 
 by an appeal to the religious notions upon which he 
 was working, and which gave the form, and to a greater 
 or less degree the content, of his thought. It is not 
 true that the Old Testament must be understood in the 
 light of the New with half the emphasis that it is true 
 that the New must be understood in the light of the 
 Old. The very existence of modern Judaism, and its 
 rank among the religions of the world, shall be my evi- 
 dence for this statement until I have furnished other 
 and better proof. 
 
 5. Not only have many things happened in recent 
 years to suggest our theme, but much has come to pass 
 that has seemed to prove its fundamental thesis. There 
 has been a marvellous revival of Old Testament study 
 
 1 O. T. Theol. i. 51, 52; with which Smend also seems to agree [A, 
 T. Rel.]; each $6.00. Geschichte, P. 6, ff. 
 
30 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 within the last few years. Much has been done in 
 churches, schools, and colleges to create a more cheer- 
 ful and sympathetic study of the Old Testament. There 
 was need enough of the enthusiasm that has been ex- 
 pended, and fortunately we are already reaping the har- 
 vest. Yet much remains to be desired. There are 
 many superficial judgments passed upon the Jewish 
 Scriptures that are unworthy the men that express them. 
 They show an utter misapprehension of God's plans in 
 the history and education of the race. Nor are these 
 judgments the sole possession of the sidewalk philoso- 
 phy. Not by any means ! They come from the Chris- 
 tian home, and even from the pulpit. But so intimate is 
 the connection between the Testaments that the Church 
 can scarcely hope to find the world reverencing the New 
 when the churchman pronounces hesitatingly on the 
 Old. When the Church says, "We do not know about 
 the Old Testament ; it seems to be pretty well upset 
 by recent criticisms/' it must not surprise us if the 
 world begins to say the same of the New. It is a mis- 
 take to ignore Old Testament questions, and think 
 thereby to gain time and energy for the defence of the 
 Christian revelation. I know there are many who 
 think that it would be a gain to Christianity if it could 
 give up the Old Testament. They say it has proved 
 vulnerable in so many places that it costs more to 
 defend it than it is worth. 
 
 6. But all this proceeds upon erroneous ideas. The 
 Old Testament needs no defence. What it craves 
 from the hands and hearts of its friends is an oppor- 
 tunity to be known in its true nature, and viewed in 
 the light of its aims and its times. The treatment 
 
BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 3 1 
 
 which the Old Testament receives from many Chris- 
 tians is neither honest nor wise. Had Christianity 
 sprung up as a new and independent growth, we might 
 allow those who desire to do so to degrade the Old 
 Testament to a level with the scriptures of the ethnic 
 religions ; but that independence, however rashly as- 
 sumed and passionately defended, does not exist. Old 
 and New Testaments are parts of one grand whole. 
 And for this reason an interest in the Old Testament 
 must be revived. An enthusiasm to learn what it 
 can teach us better than any other book must be 
 aroused, or Christianity has rashly thrown itself in 
 the path of its destroyer. No institution can be half 
 understood when studied merely as a segment of his- 
 tory. As the Old is imperfect without the New, so the 
 New is an enigma without the thought-form and moral 
 heritage of the Old. 
 
 7. He who would search for the beauties of the 
 Hebrew religion must not ignore the critics, but neither 
 must he feed upon them alone. He must be content 
 to follow behind them. They may be radical and 
 destructive ; he must be conservative and constructive. 
 It were better to hold to the old views of the Old Tes- 
 tament than to have absorbed only the negative and 
 baldly intellectual side of the newer movement. In- 
 deed, it is a question whether the cause of true religion 
 is not injured more by those who swallow the higher 
 criticism without digesting it, than by those who con- 
 tinue to plod along in the old exegesis, but yet see in 
 the Hebrew Scriptures their rich vein of spiritual 
 meaning. Many a man whose principles of criticism 
 are right fails to apprehend the first A B C of the reli- 
 
32 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 gious consciousness of the Jews ; while many others 
 who do not know the first word about the methods 
 and aims of the critics, yet commune with God face 
 to face through the medium of an Old Testament 
 story or song or sermon. 
 
 Let the old tradition stand until it is overthrown by 
 the manifest facts of science. On the other hand, so 
 far as the positions of the old views were assumed, let 
 them be held lightly, as all assumptions should be. 
 When, however, the tradition is based upon fact, let it 
 be defended with all the logic and learning possible. 
 For when the sifting shall all have been done, enough 
 of fact will surely remain to warrant us in affirming 
 that the Old Testament had its origin in a series of 
 divine revelations. Had not God revealed himself in 
 a unique manner through towering personalities we 
 are assured that we should have had no Bible. It is 
 not out of existing institutions alone that society grows. 
 It is in the hidden and innermost depths of inspired 
 souls that " human society has its secret and myste- 
 rious roots " (Wellhausen). 
 
 8. When we have decided to place the Old Testament 
 upon a series of revelations, we have made ourselves a 
 laughing-stock to the age unless we define our position 
 more in detail. " Any one," it may be said, " can 
 reveal as much of moral and religious truth as Amos 
 or Hosea or Habakkuk. ,, This Kind of criticism, and 
 it is all too prevalent, wholly ignores historical perspec- 
 tive, and is alien to the scientific spirit. The question 
 is not whether a Christian citizen, in whose veins are 
 the habits and aspirations of nineteen Christian centu- 
 ries, could surpass Amos. But the question is whether 
 
BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 33 
 
 an Aztec or a Zulu can equal him or even approach his 
 grandeur of soul. Nay, the question is not whether 
 an Aztec could equal Amos, but whether an Aztec race 
 could follow an Amos with an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, and 
 an Ezekiel, a John Baptist, a Jesus, and a Paul. The 
 question involves all this. 
 
 9. I raise, finally, the cry of back to the Old Testa- 
 ment, because it teaches by example the lessons which 
 the New so often only gives in precept. 
 
 A reason why we should regard the Old Testament 
 as a part of the Christian Bible is the fact, widely 
 recognized, that the Old Testament is one of the 
 richest books in all literature, in its broad, honest, and 
 sympathetic views of human nature. The New Tes- 
 tament is weak upon the human side. It is replete 
 with dogma, but deficient in character painting. It is 
 sketchy. Two lives only are traced for us in detail, 
 and these but for short periods. Character does not 
 develop before our very eyes. The New Testament 
 glistens with inspirations, with insights into the divine. 
 It abounds in pictures, carefully drawn of men caught 
 in the sublimest attitudes of . which a human soul is 
 capable. I speak of the rash self-assertion of Peter's 
 denial, of Stephen's martyrdom, of Paul's conversion, 
 his trial before Agrippa, his parting with the elders of 
 Ephesus. But the Old Testament is richer and more 
 full on this same human side. To speak of the whole 
 Bible as an epic, we may call the Old the setting which 
 gives the New its interest and its meaning. Here 
 love-song and story, poetry and poetic prose, history 
 and annals, worldly wisdom and religious fervor, the 
 pessimistic wail of the sensualist and the buoyant 
 
34 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 laughter of shepherd and shepherdess, all commingle. 
 We are kept in intimate relations with great characters 
 for long intervals. We trace the growth of mind, and 
 the development of soul. We learn all one's foibles. 
 We come to see in what his strength consists. We are 
 not limited to the one man, however, or to his age. We 
 can study man in his relations. The development of 
 national character, as well as of individual character, is 
 portrayed. We can trace the growth of the idea of 
 God, of sin, and of salvation, from rude beginnings to 
 enviable perfections. Reforms go on gathering mo- 
 mentum as time multiplies in years, with here and 
 there a backsliding whose causes may or may not 
 appear. We can watch the effect upon the national 
 and individual life of manly wrestlings with the knotti- 
 est problems of all time. In one age, it is between a 
 spiritual and a sensuous deity ; in another, it is the 
 question of heredity and individual responsibility ; in 
 still another, it is between virtue and happiness, as 
 always united or as united only sometimes and in some 
 lives. Then there is that internecine struggle with 
 practical atheism and moral indifference, voiced in so 
 many of the Psalms. In all of these, the highest genius 
 of Israel was victorious, and the power of God as a 
 Saviour of his people was vindicated. 
 
 Is it necessary to say more in this direction in order 
 to convince one of the grandeur of the Old Testament 
 revelation ? 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR ITS 
 OWN SAKE. 
 
" The Old Testament possesses distinctive characteristics of its own, which 
 must ever secure for it a permanent position and influence in the Church" 
 
 " Truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, justice, humanity, philanthropy, generos- 
 ity, disinterestedness, neighborly regard, sympathy with the unfortunate or the 
 oppressed, the refusal to injure another by word or deed, cleanness of hands, 
 purity of thought and action, elevation of motive, singleness of purpose, — these 
 and such as these . . . are the virtues which, again and again, in eloquent 
 and burning words, are commended and inculcated in the pages of the Old 
 Testaments 
 
 S. R. Driver. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR ITS OWN SAKE. 
 
 I. No subject of study can be more interesting and 
 profitable, considered even from a secular point of view, 
 than the history of the Hebrew people from the earliest 
 times to the close of the first Christian century. The 
 history of Israel has taught the world, inspired the 
 world, moralized the world, as has no other history 
 under heaven. To Judaism and Christianity the civil- 
 ized world goes for its religion and its ethical ideal. 
 It is here that we meet with the greatest statesmen, the 
 purest preachers, and the noblest lives. It is here that 
 we meet not only men who lived nobly, but men who 
 refuse to be satisfied till their brothers and sisters also 
 live nobly with them. It is in Hebrew history that to 
 a marked degree we find God in history. Hebrew his- 
 tory is the story of human progress under the guidance 
 of the Spirit of God. And the Bible is written with this 
 end in view. It shows that God is the teacher of the 
 race. 
 
 The Jews were indeed a peculiar people. And at the 
 first sight, as we glance over an outline of their civil 
 and political progress, we are almost forced to the con- 
 clusion that a nation so peculiar, so small, and so insu- 
 lar in its habits, can by no possibility have greatly 
 
 37 
 
38 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 influenced the course of the world's history in succeed- 
 ing ages. Yet the very exclusiveness and littleness of 
 Israel fitted it in a special way to become the teacher 
 of the world for all time. Israel does not teach us 
 many lessons, but it teaches one lesson well. And we 
 need not be long in deciding what that lesson is. 
 
 2. Let us note briefly some of the things that Israel 
 did not do. It did not produce a great world conqueror. 
 There were times when the Hebrews were ambitious to 
 rule. The empire of David was not inconsiderable, 
 and three hundred years later Jeroboam II. enlarged 
 the borders of the nation, and forced the surrounding- 
 nations to submit to his rule. But at no time was this 
 extended sway enduring. Indeed, it was always de- 
 pendent upon the misfortunes of the great Semitic em- 
 pires in the heart of Asia ; and when, finally, shortly 
 after the death of Jeroboam II., the arms of Assyria 
 began to be successful, Israel lost its political independ- 
 ence, never again to regain it for any considerable 
 time. 
 
 Neither did the Hebrew people produce a philosophy. 
 There is some dealing with abstractions in the Book of 
 Job. There is some theorizing in Proverbs and Eccle- 
 siastes. But no system of philosophy appears like that 
 of Greece. Even the God of the Hebrews is accepted 
 as a matter of course. He is named, but not defined. 
 His attributes are nowhere catalogued. The intellec- 
 tual process whereby we conceive him is nowhere 
 outlined. 
 
 The Jews have left us no works of art. Some of the 
 utensils used in the temple service were artistically de- 
 signed ; but they were of foreign models, as was also the 
 
FOR ITS Wtf SAKE. 3 9 
 
 temple of Solomon itself. There was no sculpture, no 
 painting. The teraphim, or household images, were 
 perhaps busts of deceased ancestors. But they were 
 rudely carved, and do not deserve to be classed as works 
 of art. Something was done by the Jews in music, 
 but what and how much is unknown. The musical 
 terms which occur in the Book of Psalms are untrans- 
 latable. 
 
 Neither were the Jews lovers and careful students 
 of nature for its own sake. There is a late tradition 
 that Solomon was a botanist ; but it is of little value. 
 While the poets and prophets display a considerable 
 knowledge of their native surroundings, they have left 
 us nothing that may be claimed as in the faintest de- 
 gree suggestive to the student of natural science. So, 
 then, we must search farther if we would find the true 
 value of Hebrew history. 
 
 3. We need not read a whole book of the Bible, in- 
 deed a chapter is sufficient, to convince us that to the 
 Jew everything is subordinate to religion. What patri- 
 otism, philosophy, science, and art are to the nations, 
 religion is to the Jew. Jahveh is the nation's God and 
 king. For him they will live or die. The fear of him 
 is the beginning of wisdom. To know him is the high- 
 est philosophy. His holiness is the most perfect beauty. 
 His will is the highest good. 
 
 The Hebrews were adepts in religious literary art. 
 But they have not even here a wide range ; they must 
 make up in intensity where they are deficient in 
 breadth. The writings of their prophets are unique. 
 Prophecy is the creation of the Hebrew spirit ; no other 
 literature has anything like it, or nearly like it. And 
 
40 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 it is this very part of the Hebrews' contribution to 
 modern culture that has been the chief inspiration of 
 all the world's greatest and best loved reformers. The 
 Bible, then, is the world's greatest text-book on religion. 
 The civilized nations are Jewish and Christian in their 
 religion. 
 
 A large body of men and women in these civilized 
 lands continue, like the ancient Hebrews, to subordi- 
 nate all else to their religion. Their religion is their 
 philosophy. It is their science, their poetry, and 
 their music. Draw them in conversation away from 
 their religion, and they are lost. Ask them a question 
 upon which they cannot bring their religion to bear, 
 and they have no answer. We, as minister, lawyer, 
 doctor, or man of the world, are going to meet these 
 and similar people. Some of these we will desire for 
 friends. It behoves us then as a matter of general 
 information, if for no other reason, to acquaint our- 
 selves with the book which is the religious teacher of 
 the masses. 
 
 But we have by no means said all when we have said 
 thus much. The Bible is not the book it is by chance. 
 The world did not choose it by lot. The Bible is the 
 text-book on religion of the civilized world because it 
 deserves to be. The religion of the Bible is so strong 
 on the practical and moral side, that even he who half 
 disbelieves in religion may study the Bible, when he has 
 been shown the way, with a real zest. 
 
 There is no greater moral and practical civilizing force 
 in the world to-day than the Hebrew and Christian 
 Scriptures. This fact is very widely admitted. This 
 being so, it follows, as a matter of course, that a knowl- 
 
FOR ITS OWN SAKE. 4 1 
 
 edge of the nature and contents of these Scriptures 
 will greatly augment a man's influence, whatever be his 
 vocation. A knowledge of Biblical ideas and ideals will 
 at once put a man in touch with the general line of ad- 
 vance. Along with progress in medicine and law and 
 mechanics goes progress in religion, and vice-versa. The 
 Bible is a book that has ever been interpreted as on the 
 side of advance. The Bible is a book which illustrates 
 the law of evolution as does no other. The doctrine of 
 the atonement has shifted as often as our ideas of crim- 
 inal law have been amended. So everywhere, a few 
 years ago, the Bible was made to favor individualism : 
 modern books bristle with quotations placing the em- 
 phasis on the side of solidarity : on the practical side 
 the Bible is the most complex and versatile book in our 
 libraries. Not an age since the Christ but has ignored 
 some part of it. In other words, no age has quite suc- 
 ceeded in living up to the good, and casting away that 
 which is effete. When we study the individual Christian 
 life we find the same to be true. No one lives a life 
 quite so rich and complex as the perfect life outlined 
 by the Bible. 
 
 4. In view of these facts, it is to be deplored that 
 the people of the Christian world are ignorant of the 
 Bible. We owe it to the Bible that we are what we 
 are. It is the Bible history that we are completing and 
 carrying on to its glad consummation. Some may have 
 come to think that there is no Bible history. That 
 criticism has destroyed the belief in the historical vera- 
 city of the Old and even of the New Testament. This 
 is not so. The highest proof of the divinity of the 
 Christian religion lies in church history, and more 
 
42 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 especially in the life of the Church to-day. So the 
 religion of the Old Testament is an historical religion. 
 It was developed in connection with the Hebrew 
 history. It finds its proof and its divinity in the fact 
 that it produced and directed that history, and thus 
 produced the mother soil out of which Christianity 
 grew. 1 If, then, it is the Bible histpry that we are 
 completing, shall we not fail or work amiss if we ignore 
 our guide ? Still, there is a bright side. The Bible is 
 more widely read and better understood than ever 
 before. The number of those who can appreciate and 
 enjoy its ethics and religion is multiplying rapidly. 
 Colleges are taking up the Bible as a text-book, and 
 supplementing the work of the home, the church, and 
 the Sunday-school. It is also to be expected that the 
 masses will remain ignorant of certain parts of the 
 Scriptures for some time to come. The Bible is a 
 library, and most of us have our favorite authors there. 
 Jehu, Ahab, Jeremiah, and Haggai are but names to 
 multitudes who love Job, while a man of considerable 
 intelligence might read the Book of Job, and entirely 
 miss its underlying thought. Job is the work of a 
 master hand, and great works necessarily address them- 
 selves to the few. The great thoughts of the world are 
 a rich mine yet to be discovered and utilized by the 
 masses. But the progress of the world depends upon 
 this very discovery. It therefore becomes the duty of 
 those who can, to assist their brothers in the search 
 after the true gospel of the world's great prophets. 
 
 5. The Bible teacher need not be discouraged by the 
 fact that his #text-book contains chapters that are not 
 
 1 Smend's Alttestamentliche Religions-Geschichte, S, 6. 
 
FOR ITS OWN SAKE. 43 
 
 only little read, but less understood. All noble litera- 
 tures contain books that speak to the few. Virgil and 
 Homer, Dante and Shakespeare, are mere names to 
 people who ought to know them by heart. It cannot, 
 then, be a misplaced enthusiasm which urges that the 
 Bible, as well as the other classics, be read more and 
 more carefully. These are the books that ought to pro- 
 foundly influence the world, rather than those built 
 upon the shifting sands of the present. These good 
 old books have momentum. They are the world's true 
 sustenance. They cost its life-blood. They voice the 
 greatest struggles ; they mark the highest ideals. They 
 come to us with a divine glow, with a genuine inspi- 
 ration. 
 
 But inspiration is nothing without life, and life is 
 nothing without personality. The Bible is inspired be- 
 cause there are inspired men to-day, who, guided by it, 
 once more bring its thought to us fresh from God. 
 The influence of no book can be judged merely by the 
 extent to which it is read. There are living epistles, 
 inspired by these written ones, which are known and 
 read by all men. There is a descending line through 
 artist, teacher, and pupils ; and one of our own poets has 
 said, " Artists are few, teachers are thousands, and the 
 world is large." The pupils may not know the artist, 
 while yet a faithful teacher has inspired them with his 
 spirit and his thought. I suspect that in this way the 
 influence of the Bible far surpasses computation. But 
 while this is a fact to be thankful for, it is hardly the 
 result with which we can be satisfied. If the Bible is 
 good at second hand, it is better at first hand. And all 
 may become artists. Most of us have the time ; but we 
 
44 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 spend it with inferior books, we go to inferior teachers. 
 "Too seldom do the best of us read the best books. ,, 
 To desire from the heart the best things is a lesson not 
 easily learned. 
 
 6. There is also an obstacle of an external sort in 
 the way of appreciative Bible study. The classics are 
 the products of a former age. A foreign language 
 shuts their thought away. The people we meet with 
 are clad differently, think differently, and feel differ- 
 ently, from any now living. To derive a real benefit 
 from their inspirations we must learn their ways and 
 habits. We must transplant ourselves into their age. 
 As the centuries roll by this task becomes at once 
 harder and more easy ; harder because our ways are 
 constantly becoming more unlike those of the past, 
 easier because with added culture we are becoming 
 more versatile and sympathetic. It is easier, on the 
 whole, because of the remoteness of the Scriptures, to 
 give up to the burning questions of the day. This is 
 largely right. We ought to throw ourselves into the 
 current, and fight manfully the battles of the moment. 
 Here and now our task is set. Our real work is for 
 our own age. But no life is stable that is not rooted 
 in the past. The hot, impassioned present is unstable 
 and fleeting. Eternity is not here, permanence is not 
 here. The world's true culture cannot be obtained 
 from this source. It is the present become past, frozen 
 in the grasp of some great classic, some Holy Scrip- 
 ture, — it is this that has the true culture value. And 
 it is as thus cultured that we are best able to make 
 history in the present. 
 
 7. A great deal of Biblical study in the past has 
 
FOR ITS OWN SAKE, 45 
 
 been unproductive. It has laid false emphasis upon 
 details. It has been made subservient to old-time 
 prejudice and assumption. A great deal of Biblical 
 study in the present is likewise unspiritual, because the 
 great prophet who shall re-tell for the soul the story of 
 Israeli history in the light of modern scholarship is 
 yet to appear. Already, however, much healthy recon- 
 structive work has been done. Some of it is of an en- 
 during order. Very rapidly the permanent is being 
 separated from the transient. All that was inspiring 
 and instructive in the old exegesis yet remains intact. 
 The new principles are getting pretty well established. 
 In the leading schools the study of the Bible is scien- 
 tific. It should be scientific everywhere. It may easily 
 become so. For this kind of study has been popularized. 
 The processes and results have both been given to us. 
 Every teacher, every educated person, may now know 
 how to interpret the Bible if he will. 
 
 8. I say the results have been given to us. It may 
 be thought that by a scientific study of the Bible is 
 meant a merely critical study. This is not so. Just 
 as soon as we get beyond the period of polemics and 
 apolegetics we are ready to proceed to a literary, a 
 moral, and a religious study of the Bible. It is here 
 that the highest powers of the soul are called into play. 
 
 As mere discipline, Biblical study, scientifically pur- 
 sued, is of the most profound and comprehensive order. 
 The languages of the Bible are chief representatives 
 of the two great families of the world, Aryan and 
 Semitic. They are wholly unlike. Very seldom in- 
 deed does the same word find its way into both 
 branches. That student of philology must go halting 
 
46 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 who knows no language outside his own family. But 
 outside the Aryan tongues no language has a claim 
 equal to that of the Hebrew. Nowhere are the prob- 
 lems of text criticism so fascinating, so clear cut, and 
 so full of revelations of momentous consequence, as 
 those of the Bible. Especially is this true of the Old 
 Testament, where the chief divergent readings come to 
 us in a Greek translation. Then there is the Higher 
 Criticism with its dramatic history, and its tragic prom- 
 ises. No study can offer stronger inducements to 
 mere intellectualism than the critical study of the Bib- 
 lical literature and history. Our whole philosophy of 
 history is involved. Indeed, some of us approach the 
 Bible without any idea of God's plans in the develop- 
 ment of the world. And we leave the study without 
 any idea of God's plan in the Bible. The higher criti- 
 cism cannot take the first step in such a shiftless man- 
 ner. A man without a historical sense is wholly at 
 sea as a Bible student. Here is where many of the 
 older scholars failed. They did not catch the first and 
 profoundest lesson of Scripture, that revelation is edu- 
 cation ; that individual and race are progressive ; that 
 the life of the race is the life of the individual writ 
 large and conversely. It is evident, then, that a scien- 
 tific study of the Bible involves a clear formulation of 
 our conception of God's plans in history. As a mere 
 disciplinary study this is valuable beyond computation. 
 Books must be dated, their occasion and purpose dis- 
 covered, and the whole Hebrew history reconstructed 
 in the light of these investigations. 
 
 9. It is confessed on all sides that the Bible contains 
 a few books, which, from a merely literary point of 
 
FOR ITS OWN SAKE. 47 
 
 view, belong to the few great classics of the world. 
 In the study of these there is offered the best opportu- 
 nity for literary criticism and appreciation. On the 
 ethical and religious side these literary masterpieces of 
 the Bible are especially inviting. We may and must 
 study critically and scientifically the Bible ideals in 
 morals and religion. We must not be prejudiced at 
 the outset either for or against. We can neither 
 admire all nor condemn all. When our historical 
 criticism has set the various grades in the line of their 
 development, it is the part of the ethical and religious 
 critic to extol or condemn in the light of the morality 
 and religion of the age. And further, it is his forte, so 
 far as possible, to construct in detail the ideal toward 
 which the development tends. Such work involves not 
 only criticism, but appreciation. It is by this work 
 that the very highest powers of the human spirit are 
 disciplined and educated. The true critic is construc- 
 tive in his work. When he detects the goal of God in 
 history, he throws his whole soul into the work of 
 realizing that goal. 
 
 10. The Bible is a cause, a country, and an age, and 
 requires infinite time and infinite toil fully to accom- 
 plish its work. The Bible student has need of judg- 
 ment, of scientific imagination, of philosophic and 
 moral insight. And further, the Bible student needs 
 to be, and if he study the Bible faithfully he will 
 become, a man of the Spirit, a child of God. 
 
 11. And this leads to that characteristic of the 
 Bible which is greatest and most precious of all. It is 
 the book of our religion. Any impartial study of it 
 will surely create in us a deep sense of the beauty of 
 
48 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 its thought, the purity of its ideals, and the uplift of its 
 inspirations. To know it is to love it ; to understand it, 
 even in a small measure, is to make it the monitor of 
 our souls. We have a profound interest in the Bible 
 because it is the book of our private devotions and 
 secret musings. We love it because it tells us, in 
 language that we cannot distrust, of God, our heavenly 
 Father, of Jesus, his Son, and of the home of the soul 
 where all is peace and joy and love. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR THE 
 DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. 
 
" We may, I suppose, say that what we mean by inspiration is an influence 
 which gave to those who received it a unique and extraordinary spiritual in- 
 sight, enabling them thereby, without superseding or suppressing the human 
 faculties, but rather using them as its instruments, to declare in different de- 
 grees, and in accordance with the needs or circumstances of particular ages or 
 particular occasions, the mind and purpose of God. Every true and noble 
 thought of man is indeed, in a sense, inspired of God? 
 
 S. R. Driver. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR THE DOCTRINE OF 
 INSPIRATION. 
 
 I. An angel comes to announce the destruction of 
 Sodom. He speaks Hebrew and the people do not. 
 They hear his voice, but do not understand a word, and 
 he appears to them as a babbler. An apostate Hebrew 
 also stands by and hears the angel's words. He under- 
 stands everything, but he looks upon the angel as a 
 fanatic and pays no heed to his warning. Lot, too, 
 hears his words and understands them. But, more'than 
 this, he sees that it is an angel, believes his message, 
 and flees from Sodom. The messenger and his mes- 
 sage are unavailing without certain intellectual and 
 moral preparations. He must be understood, and it 
 must appear reasonable. Nor are these all ; certain 
 spiritual requirements are necessary to enable one to 
 judge of the nature of the messenger or of his message. 
 Lot knew it was an angel. But how did he know ? 
 The appearance was that of a man, nothing more. In 
 other words, Lot had to be inspired in order to recog- 
 nize his heavenly messenger. Professor Ladd is per- 
 fectly logical when he affirms that an infallible Bible 
 can be of little use, unless there is an infallible Church 
 to perpetuate an infallible recognition and interpreta- 
 tion of its message. This principle in some form has 
 
 Si 
 
52 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 in fact always been recognized by the Church. Spirit- 
 ual things are spiritually discerned. The Church prays 
 for divine guidance that it may understand and absorb 
 the divine word. But how different from that which 
 the Church asks for was that which Isaiah obtained ! 
 He did not proclaim his message as one altogether new 
 and unheard of. His prophecies were but the efforts 
 of a pious Israelite to understand and fulfil the earlier 
 word of Jahveh to Moses. And Moses himself worked 
 upon the basis of the revelations of truth made by yet 
 earlier teachers. So, then, not only is an inspired 
 Church a logical necessity, but it is an actual fact, and 
 it reaches back into a remote and prehistoric past for 
 its beginnings. 
 
 The question may be approached from another side. 
 Let us suppose that we have been present at the crea- 
 tion of the world, granting that it took place in substan- 
 tial accord with the account in Genesis, what would we 
 have seen ? Would we have seen the Deity moving 
 about among his materials like an architect or an art- 
 ist, adding a little here and taking away there, building 
 and remodelling until all was finished ? Obviously, no ! 
 What we should have seen would not have been in any 
 way unlike mere becoming or growth. God, as spirit, 
 would have been himself unseen. His method of work 
 would have been hid from us as it is now hid from us. 
 We would have seen light suddenly flash forth, but we 
 would have heard no voice but the thunder. We would 
 have seen the green herbs sprouting forth from the 
 earth, but we would not have seen the cause. We 
 would have seen particles of dust assuming the form 
 of a man and at last coming to life. But we would not 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. 53 
 
 have seen God breathing into the nostrils of the clay- 
 image. We would have no better evidence for our be- 
 lief in God than we have now. We would have been 
 compelled in the last resort to take his existence on 
 authority or infer it from his works. 
 
 Suppose we had been present when Jeremiah or Paul 
 or Luke wrote his contribution to our Bible, different 
 customs and habits aside, would we have seen anything 
 which we do not see in the study of an author of our 
 own day as he sits writing his book ? If we questioned 
 the writer as to motives we would undoubtedly find 
 those of the Biblical writers higher than those of the 
 majority of the authors of our own day. But if we 
 questioned them as to their methods of work, if we 
 asked them as to their inspiration and their authority, 
 we would find their answers as nearly identical as their 
 different temperaments and their different " Zeitgeists " 
 would permit. The Bible would seem to have come 
 into being in the same way as other literatures. Luke 
 in his preface tells us as much. Could we question 
 him as to his inspiration or his infallibility, he could 
 give us nothing that would not be consistent with the 
 spiritual insight and general accuracy of any conscien- 
 tious writer. I am thoroughly convinced that the 
 majority of the Biblical authors were conscious of no 
 unique and, in our sense, unnatural or supernatural 
 powers. The confessions made by Jeremiah and Eze- 
 kiel as to the divineness of their words were not unique 
 confessions in that age. The false prophets appealed 
 to the same authority and in the same terms. And by 
 the same methods as those used by Jahveh's servants, 
 the magicians of the time were believed able to work 
 miracles. 
 
54 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 2. The Biblical doctrine of inspiration arose out of 
 the circumstances of early social life, and its relations 
 with the divine. In an age when only the few knew 
 how to read and write, the power to write was looked 
 upon as a miraculous gift of the Deity. And this had 
 taken such firm hold upon the people at the time when 
 writing became common, that the doctrine of inspira- 
 tion was already too firmly established to be overthrown. 
 Another series of facts conduced to this result which 
 has too often been ignored. In early society the 
 tribe or nation is everything, the individual is nothing. 
 This has been said so often as to become a truism. 
 Yet many of its consequences and implications have 
 escaped us. If the individual is nothing, he may not 
 speak in his own name. In early times truth was sup- 
 posed to come through the priest, who obtained it by lot ; 
 that is, through asking Jahveh questions which could 
 be answered by "yes" or "no," by Urim or Thum- 
 min. Jahveh and the nation are alone individuals with 
 the right to speak. Then arose the prophets who were 
 really individualists, but were unconscious of the fact. 
 Amos, for example, comes forward with a new message, 
 a new doctrine. But he does not herald it as his. 
 Who is he, that he should speak? The word is not his, 
 but Jahveh's. So all the prophets, in accord with the 
 early psychology or early conception of society as a 
 unit, merge their individual voice in the voice of the 
 whole, and call it a "thus saith the Lord." 
 
 Inspirationism and primitive socialism go together. 
 In an age when the individual is nothing, he must say 
 nothing. If he has a new truth or a new idea he must 
 explain it according to the philosophy of the time. He 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. 55 
 
 must affirm that he is as are his fellows. In speaking 
 he is but a mouthpiece of the Spirit. God is the only 
 individual. 
 
 Now, the fact is the prophets were in just this way 
 unconscious of their individuality. They did not know 
 to the full extent the part played in their revelations by 
 their own free, spontaneous mental activity. In fact, 
 just because it was free and spontaneous, they said it 
 is not our message, but God's word. It is not we who 
 speak, but God who speaks in us. Their faith and 
 reason were married in feeling. No distinction was 
 made between what was thought to be true and what 
 was felt to be true. 
 
 The new individualism introduced by Ezekiel and 
 Jeremiah prepared the way for the destruction of this 
 nai've point of view. To say that each must suffer for 
 his owtiy not for his people's sins merely, is to throw 
 the individual into a habit of reflection upon his own 
 thoughts and plans, and their consequences and effects. 1 
 It is to call forcibly to his mind the fact that he thinks 
 his own thoughts, and that they are his own creation 
 just as much as are the movements of his body. And 
 it became the watchword of the new individualism to 
 affirm, — 
 
 "The preparations of the mind belong to man; 
 Though the answer of the tongue come from Jahveh." 
 
 The Wisdom Literature of the Jews represents just 
 that attitude towards truth which we should expect to 
 
 1 So early as Isaiah's day the better class of minds had come to see 
 that God could not speak to men his highest truths in dreams, for these 
 were illusions; Isaiah xxix. 8. Cf. Pfleiderer's Philosophy of Religion, 
 vol. iii. pp. 32, 33. 
 
$6 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 find in a soul newly emancipated from a bondage to a 
 crudely conceived solidarity. The individual begins to 
 set up as an authority, not the word of Jahveh to him, 
 but his own individual experience. Job, in the face of 
 the science and theology of his age, quotes his own 
 experience, and makes his name loved for all time by 
 asserting his determination to trust his own experience 
 against the world. What sublime words those are to 
 his friends in which he champions the claims of the new 
 individualism. He exclaims, — 
 
 " What ye know, that know I also; 
 I am not inferior to you." x 
 
 One has but to glance into the Wisdom Literature of 
 the Old Testament to become convinced that this new 
 individualism has annihilated the old inspirationism, or 
 view of inspiration. Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs 
 are built upon experience. They are the work of men 
 who put forth divine thoughts as, on one side at least, 
 human creations. Yet the victory of individualism 
 was not yet won. And as a consequence, all the Wis- 
 dom Literature of the Old Testament is anonymous. 
 While the sages believed in experience, they did not 
 feel that the message would gain by telling whose ex- 
 perience lay at the foundation of the message. The 
 masses did not believe in the word of man ; they still 
 clung to him who used the old formula, "thus saith 
 Jahveh." 2 
 
 1 Genung's Epic of the Inner Life, p. 205. 
 
 2 History repeats itself. Modern philosophy, like the ancient, was a 
 return to experience. And it began with individualism. Said Descartes, 
 "What is truth must show itself true to me." And Locke, with a little 
 more caution, repeats the principle. " I must take care to assert nothing 
 as truth which cannot show itself true to me." 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. $7 
 
 The later prophets are profoundly influenced by the 
 Wisdom Literature, though they still hold to the old 
 forms of expression. A "vision from Jahveh " to the 
 prophets is often identical with a series of thoughts 
 which were the result of investigation and intellectual 
 process. 1 In other words, there is a silent confession 
 from the prophets themselves that their thoughts were 
 running in natural though exalted channels when they 
 conversed with God. When Amos says in viii. i that 
 God showed him a basket of summer fruit, we are not 
 to suppose a vision here. It was as natural for Amos 
 to say " God showed me," as for us to say " I saw." 
 One is idealism, the other is realism ; one is social, the 
 other is individual. 2 To-day the preacher in beginning 
 a sermon in the style of Amos viii. I, would say, "As I 
 was looking at a basket of decaying fruit upon my study 
 table this morning, it occurred to me that there the his- 
 tory of our nation was being told." That this is the 
 correct view of these claims to inspiration on the part 
 of the prophets, is shown by the fact that among Arab 
 tribes, where the old solidarity still exists, every act of 
 self-assertion on the part of an Arab is begun with a 
 "thus saith Allah." This does not rob the Old Testa- 
 ment writers of their authority, but by establishing the 
 naturalness and modesty of their claims, it establishes 
 also the grandeur of their message. 
 
 1 Especially does the late author of Chronicles use " vision' ' in this 
 sense. 
 
 2 A noted German philosopher has said, "We do not think; it thinks 
 in us." And Emerson says, " we do not make our thoughts; our thoughts 
 make us." Possibly after all the psychology of the prophets and poets is 
 correct, and our more material one wrong. Cf. E. Caird's Philosophy of 
 Kant, or Evolution of Religion. 
 
58 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 3. " Let us," says Professor Driver, " while we ad- 
 here firmly to the fact of inspiration, refrain from defin- 
 ing, and especially from limiting, the range or mode of 
 its operation." The wisdom of these words appears at 
 once when we apply ourselves to the Hebrew Scriptures 
 for a definition of this strange influence which is be- 
 lieved to have given us our Bible. At the outset we 
 are struck with the fact that, according to the Old Tes- 
 tament, not only the men who wrote the Bible, but the 
 men who lived it, were inspired. And we are equally 
 impressed with the fact that, while there is great variety 
 in the language used, there is no distinction whatever 
 made between the kinds of inspiration of these two 
 classes of people. The Spirit of God comes upon 
 Gideon and he does something for Jahveh. The spirit 
 of God comes upon Isaiah and he writes something. 
 The spirit of God comes upon Moses at one time and 
 he writes, at another time and he acts. Not only is 
 this the same spirit, but it operates in the same man- 
 ner in the various cases. In describing these phenom- 
 ena the Old Testament writers employ a variety of 
 expressions, which show sometimes the dominant ideas 
 of different ages, and at all times the fact that the 
 effort was being made to describe something spiritual 
 and ideal, and essentially beyond the power of language 
 to describe. The fact was evident, the real essence of 
 the fact was unknown. The spirit is said to come upon 
 a man, or it is breathed into him, or it clothes him like 
 a garment. In another series of passages the spirit is 
 said to touch a man, or to fall or rest upon him. In 
 still another circle of ideas God puts or pours or emp- 
 ties his spirit upon individuals or societies. 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION, 59 
 
 According to the Old Testament, then, Samson, 
 Jephthah, and Saul are as much inspired men as Amos, 
 Isaiah, and Ezekiel. Jahveh helps to the same extent, 
 and by the same means, the man who lives a noble life, 
 and the man who tells for all time the story of it. 
 Inspiration reaches out and takes in every vocation. 
 Moses the lawgiver, Joshua the general, Aaron the 
 priest, Joseph the statesman, Daniel the prophet, and 
 Bezaleel the carpenter, all need and may have the illu- 
 minating influence of the divine Spirit to aid and guide 
 them in their work. Only at a later time was a hard 
 and fast line of demarcation drawn between these vari- 
 ous forms of inspiration. This appears very clearly 
 from a beautiful passage in Isaiah in which the prophet 
 appeals to the agricultural customs of his people. He 
 speaks of these as inspired or given by God. Yet the 
 agriculturist believes also in a living inspiration along 
 with this received code of rules. If he is truly religious 
 and truly successful in his work, it is because God 
 instructs him. 1 In the Old Testament, then, every 
 faithful servant of God lives an inspired life. God has 
 poured out his spirit upon all flesh. Every vocation 
 that is honorable is sanctified ; and to it the true man 
 is called, not by passion or ambition or greed, but by 
 the spirit. Nor has the New Testament departed from 
 these notions. According to it every true Christian is 
 a living epistle, and a living inspired epistle. For the 
 spirit of God is not merely in touch with him, not 
 merely put or poured upon him, but shed abroad in his 
 heart. 
 
 An extended study of the various passages in the 
 
 1 Isa. xxviii. 26-29 and W. R. Smith's Prophets of Israel, pp. 285, 286. 
 
60 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Old Testament where the inspiration of men in its 
 broad sense is spoken of, reveals the fact that the divine 
 influence operates with various degrees of strength, and 
 by no means in every c^se continuously. David, who is 
 in some acts so worthy the epithet " a man after God's 
 own heart," is in other deeds quite as obviously a man 
 who " served his own day and generation/' and that not 
 too well. So the lives of scarce any of the Old Testa- 
 ment characters are above censure in all points. Job 
 is called a perfect man, yet he confesses that he has 
 uttered folly in his heated dialogue with his friends. 
 He asks his friends, — 
 
 "Do ye think to censure words, 
 When they are a despairing man's words to the wind? " * 
 
 In the case of those men who were inspired for the 
 ordinary duties of their trades, such as Bezaleel, we 
 have no right to assume that their work was infallible 
 and faultless. Their inspiration did not imply that. 
 And, indeed, we hear even the prophets confessing 
 that Jahveh has not told them all ; and Jeremiah on 
 one occasion was put to shame by a rival prophet, who 
 broke in pieces a rude yoke he was wearing as a sym- 
 bol of coming captivity. 2 But even granting that the 
 inspired writers do not clearly reveal and confess their 
 fallibility, by what right, in the light of our present 
 discussion, do we maintain that those who wrote the 
 Bible should be more honest, more trustworthy, more 
 near to God, than those who lived it ? If we can de- 
 
 1 Genung's Epic of the Inner. Life, p. 169. 
 
 2 Jer. xxvii., xxviii. It was not until a subsequent meeting with Hana- 
 niah that Jeremiah had an answer for him (xxviii. 13). 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. 6 1 
 
 fend for their age the equivocations of Abraham and 
 the patent falsehoods of David, can we not see how a 
 modern critic can defend the publication in 622 B.C. of 
 the Book of Deuteronomy as a work of Moses ? These 
 two facts are perfectly analogous, and their significance 
 has never been fully recognized. It is not my purpose 
 here to affirm that Deuteronomy was foisted upon the 
 people under false pretences. Laws grow slowly, and 
 always purport to issue logically out of preceding reg- 
 ulations. This is equally true of modern and ancient 
 law. So there is a residuum of truth in the statement 
 that Deuteronomy is the law of Moses, just as there 
 was a half truth in the statement of Abraham to the 
 king of Egypt that Sarah was his sister. 1 But in both 
 these affirmations there are elements that are incon- 
 sistent with modern ideas of truth. And to affirm, on 
 the basis of an unfounded rationalism, that the in- 
 spired writers conformed to our ideas of truth, while 
 the inspired characters did not, is to commit one's 
 self to open folly. 
 
 4. If this line of argument is correct, we would ex- 
 pect growing accuracy on the part of the writers, as we 
 find them dealing with characters like Job, who con- 
 forms to a higher standard of ethics. There are many 
 incidental proofs of this ; for while the body of Deuter- 
 onomy claims Mosaic authorship, the Book of Job 
 
 1 Not only laws but dictionaries continue to wear the names of their 
 ancient authors. We still speak of Webster's Dictionary. Yet we all 
 know that hundreds of new words have been added since Webster's death, 
 and hundreds of old words have received from one to five new meanings 
 of which Webster himself knew nothing. Imagine proving the early in- 
 vention of the Bell telephone by affirming that it is defined by Noah 
 Webster, who died in 1843 (four years before Bell was born). 
 
62 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 makes no claims for itself. Only late and unfounded 
 traditions ascribe Job to Moses, and Ecclesiastes and 
 Proverbs to Solomon. The books themselves abstain 
 from making any claims at all. In the New Testa- 
 ment writers we meet with the highest forms of inspi- 
 ration ; and while it would not be entirely logical to 
 infer that, because they dealt with a perfect life, they 
 must have written a perfect account, yet there is a 
 strong presumption in favor of the view that the spirit 
 and essential teachings of Jesus are faithfully repre- 
 sented. The first three Gospels are full of the evi- 
 dences of natural and accurate historical composition ; 
 the fourth Gospel and Paul are full of spiritual insight, 
 prophetic fervor, and religious aspiration. Prof. H. G. 
 Mitchell of Boston University seems to be perfectly 
 right in affirming that the doctrine of inspiration is 
 essentially the same in the two Testaments. He cer- 
 tainly believes that we have a better means of getting 
 at it in the books of the more ancient volume. He 
 says, in the language of Piepenbring, that in the Old 
 Testament " we find the expression and experience of 
 a higher life, a life produced by God and devoted to 
 God. Behind these writings we feel the beat of the 
 hearts that inspired them, and behind these hearts we 
 feel a higher power, a divine, regenerating, sanctifying 
 influence." Prof. Mitchell believes these words true 
 of both Testaments. But they do not to him imply 
 infallibility in either. " Paul, at least," he says, " seems 
 to agree with the more ancient sacred writers ; for he 
 says not only 'we have this treasure in earthen ves- 
 sels/ but more explicitly, 'we know in part and we 
 prophesy in part/ Other passages might be cited to 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. 63 
 
 show that, to his mind, inspiration did not imply 
 infallibility." 1 
 
 5. The Old Testament writers certainly do not claim 
 infallibility for their utterances. In Isaiah's time there 
 was a very considerable body of laws in circulation bear- 
 ing the name of Moses as their lawgiver. To these 
 the people appealed, and refused to listen to the fresh 
 light that had dawned in the prophet's own soul. He 
 cried out against them for this. He affirmed that 
 Jahveh had not ceased to be their God and teacher, and 
 he warned them that they had not yet heard all his 
 word (Isa. xxix. 12-14). Again, in chapters xv., xvi., 
 Isaiah seems to quote from some older prophet an 
 oracle concerning Moab. That prophecy had not been 
 altogether fulfilled ; and at a later day Isaiah takes this 
 up, adds to it some very remarkable words, and it is in- 
 serted among his own prophecies. The words added 
 are these : " This is the word that Jahveh spake con- 
 cerning Moab in time past. But now Jahveh hath 
 spoken, saying, Within three years, etc." 2 Jeremiah in 
 a famous chapter accuses God of deceiving him, of 
 prompting him to utter prophecies which were not to 
 come to pass. He is greatly perplexed at all this, and in 
 consequence wishes for death, and would blot from the 
 calendar the day upon which he was born (xx. 7 fol.). 
 Some time after this he happens to be watching a 
 potter at his work. By some chance the vessel he was 
 forming was marred under his hand. The potter at 
 
 1 Magazine of Christian Thought, vol. xi. pp. 193, 194, a most excel- 
 lent treatment of the subject of Inspiration. 
 
 2 Note how all this is obscured in the effort of the King James trans- 
 lators to carry out their theory of inspiration. 
 
64 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 once renounced his original intention, and " made it 
 again another vessel as seemed good." This simple 
 incident had a wonderful effect upon the prophet. It at 
 once occurred to him that, in a higher sense, God too 
 might change his apparent plans, if the conditions upon 
 which they rested changed. It is to be expected that 
 prophecies will fail of fulfilment ; for if the people 
 renounce their evil ways, " I will repent of the evil that 
 I thought to do unto them." On the other hand, if 
 from being righteous they become vile, " I will repent 
 of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them." 
 (Jer. xviii. 1-12). And whereas human hearts are hard, 
 and must be constrained to repent and turn to right- 
 eousness, the very vehemence and assurance with which 
 a prophet foretells the coming calamity becomes the 
 occasion of its turning aside through the consequent 
 repentance of the people. 1 
 
 A yet more striking example of the conditional 
 nature of the prophetic word is shown in Ezekiel's 
 book. That prophet, reasoning from the movements of 
 the Babylonian army, seemed to foresee, in 586, the im- 
 mediate and utter destruction of the powerful, rich, and 
 luxurious city of Tyre. He utters his premonitions 
 in most eloquent language, and shows himself a master 
 student of Phenician art and civilization. The blow 
 fell upon Tyre as Ezekiel had predicted. But Tyre 
 did not fall. Nebuchadrezzar was not successful, and 
 was compelled after thirteen years to raise the siege. 
 Ezekiel does not destroy his earlier utterance, or modify 
 it to make it fit the facts, but he merely supplements 
 
 1 The prophet Jonah is even angry because the people repented, and 
 God did not destroy Nineveh as he had said he was going to do. 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRA TION. 65 
 
 it. His later oracle does not say that moral considera- 
 tions entered into the events. He had simply misread 
 the strength of Tyre's fortifications, and the ability of 
 Nebuchadrezzar's army to overthrow the rock-fortress 
 of the city. 1 Ezekiel's second prophecy against Tyre, 
 delivered sixteen years after the first, — both are dated 
 by Ezekiel himself, — is perfectly fair and honorable. 
 He admits that the city was not taken as he had pre- 
 dicted. But, says he, " Nebuchadrezzar caused his 
 army to serve a great service against Tyre. . . . Yet 
 had he no wages, nor his army, from Tyre." And be- 
 cause the king of Babylon could not take Tyre, Jahveh 
 gave him instead the land of Egypt for his reward. 
 
 Not only do the prophets change their own oracles, 
 and edit, post eventum apparently, many of their dis- 
 courses, but later prophets again and again come into 
 conflict with the word of their predecessors. Every 
 great Old Testament prophet has his lists of " ye have 
 heard that it hath been said by them of old time." 
 Hosea censures Elisha for instigating the wholesale 
 slaughter of the house of Ahab by Jehu, 2 and he thinks 
 it idolatry to worship Jahveh in the form of a bull ; but 
 Elijah and Elisha never censure the people for this. 
 The author of Deuteronomy cries out against the use 
 of the obelisks (xii. 3) ; but Hosea regards these as a 
 legitimate part of the worship of Jahveh (iii. 4). The 
 old Book of the Covenant presupposes an altar in every 
 town, and proclaims this a sanctuary for him who has 
 slain his brother without malice aforethought. (Ex. 
 
 1 Compare Ezek. xxvi. 1-21, especiaily 10-12 and 21, with xxix. 17- 
 21. Tyre was first taken by Alexander the Great. 
 
 2 Cf. Hosea i. 4, 5, with 2 Kings ix. 1-3; x. 11. 
 
66 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 xxi. 14.) Deuteronomy declares that there shall be but 
 one altar in all Palestine, and that one at Jerusalem 
 (Deut. xii. 5 ff.). The same spirit of God, under differ- 
 ent conditions, produces a different and often dissimilar 
 revelation. But it is nevertheless the same spirit, and 
 there is underneath it all a common purpose, which is 
 profoundly ethical and religious. 
 
 When Jeremiah 1 reverses an old proverb which had 
 for it the authority of an inspired writer, he declared 
 that the earlier statement was not complete, was not in- 
 fallible. But for its time it may have been a true word 
 of God. That different people and different ages need 
 varied presentations of the truth, adapted to their moral 
 comprehension and religious needs, is explicitly stated 
 by Ezekiel in iii. 4-9, where he says, "All the house of 
 Israel are of an hard forehead and a stiff heart." For 
 this reason Jahveh has made the prophet's forehead 
 " as an adamant, harder than flint." So, too, the New 
 Testament looks upon some of the Old Testament regu- 
 lations as given because of the hardness of men's hearts 
 — that is, a fallible people must have a fallible Bible. 
 Only as the moral and religious consciousness of a 
 people approaches perfection will their Bible be a per- 
 fect book. 
 
 6. It cannot be expected that the New Testament 
 will reveal so clearly the idea that revelation through 
 the inspiration of chosen instruments is an education 
 of the race. The books of the New Testament come 
 from practically the same age, and stand upon essen- 
 tially the same footing. Yet in principle the New Tes- 
 tament supports the interpretation of the facts which 
 
 1 Jer. xxxi. 29, 30, with which compare Ex. xx. 5, xxxiv. 7. 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. 67 
 
 has been already given. For example, in Heb. i. 1, 2, 
 we find two remarkable adverbs which affirm that God 
 in the past revealed his word to the prophets in many 
 pieces and in many manners. So, also, in 2 Tim. iii. 16, 
 17, we find this remarkable passage : " Every scripture in- 
 spired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness : 
 that the man of God may be complete, furnished com- 
 pletely unto every good work.*' If the prevailing view 
 is the correct one, these words were written at a time 
 when parts of the New Testament writings were taking 
 the place of oral tradition, and when the Old Testament 
 canon was a matter of dispute, and several books were 
 under fire. Now the Christians, from the use made of 
 the Old Testament, knew that to call a book inspired 
 was to call it classical, or reliable and authoritative. In 
 the light of this fact, the words seem to furnish a rule 
 for determining whether or not a particular book is in- 
 spired, and not a definition of inspiration itself. If it 
 instructs, corrects, and exhorts, it is a word of God to 
 the reader; if it abounds in errors, exaggerations, and 
 misconceptions, if it does not urge purity of life and 
 nobility of thought, it is not a word of God. But if 
 this principle is to be applied to the separate books, 
 there is apparently no reason why it should not be ap- 
 plied to separate chapters of the same book. Church 
 history affords tacit admission of this ; for not only was 
 it decided by vote, and by the vote of a very uncritical 
 Church, what books should constitute our Bible, but 
 several of the books were undergoing a very radical 
 course of editing at the very time when they were the 
 objects of debate. Evidently then at the outset, and 
 
68 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 by all parties, they were not considered equally inspired 
 throughout. 1 
 
 Now, what the history of the Old Testament canon 
 shows by example, Paul illustrates in principle. To the 
 individual Paul says, " Hold fast the form of sound 
 words. " To the whole Church he says, "We have this 
 treasure in earthen vessels." 2 These are remarkable 
 passages. Paul notices that the tendency of societies 
 is to become too conservative. They hold on to the old. 
 They swallow books whole, and do not discriminate. 
 They marry the form, and refuse to divorce it when 
 the soul has vanished. To these, Paul says the form is 
 transient, it is an earthen vessel. On the other hand, 
 Paul noticed that the individual, the choice, sensitive, 
 and ambitious young man (Timothy) tends to radical- 
 ism, so to him he says, " Hold fast the form." At any 
 rate be sure you have it, and know it at its best before 
 you renounce it. And when you would renounce it, do 
 it not as an iconoclast, but as one of a society, and if 
 possible carry them with you to the newer truth, the 
 more perfectly fitting vessel. In Paul (shall we say 
 and the author of 2 Timothy ?) then, we find not hard 
 and fast statements telling us what is inspired and 
 authoritative, but certain wise and carefully worded 
 sentences, which are designed to enable us to decide for 
 ourselves as individuals, and society to decide for itself 
 as an organic whole, what writings are helpful and 
 divine, and what are not. 
 
 7. " Nothing," says Professor Driver, " is more de- 
 structive of the just claims of Christianity than a false 
 
 1 Professor Toy thinks 2 Tim. iii. 16 should be rendered "every 
 writing," that is, every piece of scripture. 2 2 Cor. iv. 7. 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION 69 
 
 theory of inspiration : nothing has led to more fatal 
 shipwrecks of faith than the acceptance in youth of 
 a priori views of what an inspired book must be, which 
 the study of maturer years has demonstrated only too 
 cogently to be untrue to fact." 1 It is the arbitrary 
 assumptions of the older scholars who adopted the cut 
 and dried doctrines of the Jewish Rabbins, that make 
 up the dead weight of this doctrine. Yet there are 
 unwise theories from other sources. To say, for 
 example, with some writers, that God might, had he 
 chosen, have written his Bible on the sky where it would 
 have escaped all errors of transmission, sounds too 
 much like Mill's two and two might be five on some 
 other planet. So, too, to say that God " did not care so 
 much about the accent or grammar or scholarship of 
 his inspired men/' is to make God partial to careless- 
 ness and ignorance. To say that God does not care 
 how his truth is told, is much the same as saying that 
 he does not care what truth is told, or how we hear. 
 For a misplaced accent may completely alter the mean- 
 ing of a sentence, and an error of grammar may 
 render a whole clause meaningless. 
 
 Again, an erroneous view of inspiration has filled the 
 pages of history with stumbling-blocks and inconsis- 
 tencies. An interesting example of this is shown in the 
 decree of the officials who, according to the " Scarlet 
 Letter," tried Hester Prynne, or who would have treated 
 such an offence in much the same way as Hawthorne 
 has there described. These men believed in the 
 plenary inspiration of the Bible. Every word of it was 
 to them God's own word. They would not have 
 
 1 Sermons p. 156. 
 
70 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 thought of questioning a jot or tittle of the Gospel 
 story. They placed the eighth chapter of John's Gos- 
 pel on a level with the others. They accepted it as 
 having been dictated to John by the Holy Ghost for 
 their instruction. But strange paradox, surprising 
 irony of progress, we condemn with all our hearts 
 their harsh, unfeeling cruelty, while at the same time 
 we strike the beautiful story of Jesus and the fallen 
 woman out of our Bibles ! Is there any connection 
 between these two facts? Are they merely isolated 
 and disjointed cases? or do they, in this connection 
 press the suggestion, that we may be just a mite wrong 
 as to the practical value of certain beliefs ? There is a 
 relation between these seeming isolated cases, and that 
 of a very intimate kind. Emerson says if a man 
 makes his living by foul means, God will take out of 
 the man what he puts into his wallet, or words to that 
 effect. If we unduly magnify the importance of in- 
 tellectual assent, if the world uses narrow means to 
 press a narrow creed, God will take out of the soul 
 what he puts into the creed. The reason some creeds 
 contain so much is because the souls for whom they 
 were fashioned contain so little. On the other hand, 
 the short creed implies that the soul has attained its 
 majority, and does not care to make a boast before 
 men. A belief in plenary inspiration, and the presence 
 of "let him that is without sin among you" in its 
 proper place in John viii., could not make the Puritan 
 elders feel as Hosea felt for his erring wife. What, 
 then, has brought us to Jesus' point of view, if we have 
 at the same time stricken this story from our Bibles ? 
 8. Jesus said to his disciples that it was expedient 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. yi 
 
 that he go away. Only under the guidance of a spirit- 
 ual force could they become strong and self-dependent. 
 While he was with them they remained children. So, 
 in a sense, unless the old hard and fast doctrine of in- 
 spiration go away, the true spirit and meaning of the. 
 Bible will not come to us. We shall remain babes in 
 Christ if we do not cease our endless quibble about in- 
 spiration, and strive to get some of this divine gift, 
 each one for himself. It is for each one who will have 
 it, and take the pains to deserve it ; and it applies not 
 to one vocation alone, but to all. Another considera- 
 tion, which contains in it the implication of a continued 
 and ever clearer manifestation of the divine in the 
 human life, is the fact that Jesus' departure secured to 
 the Church his spirit. He went away, but the Com- 
 forter, Exhorter, or Inspirer came. And it was plainly 
 the idea of the early Christians, that this divine Spirit 
 would continue to quicken the life of the Church. In 
 connection with this thought also, Jesus tells his dis- 
 ciples that they would perform greater works than he 
 had done. These greater works of theirs would need 
 greater words to proclaim them. As a matter of fact, 
 language has improved as much since Christ as have 
 the mechanical arts. And words have manifold richer 
 meanings than formerly. So the very repeating of a 
 sentence of Paul's in one of the more complex and ac- 
 curate modern languages is a proof of the growing life 
 of the Gospel. In no class of words, perhaps, are the 
 new meanings more noteworthy than in some of these 
 doctrinal words themselves. By giving up erroneous 
 views, we do not always need to give up old words. 
 The word inspiration itself is a term of divine mean- 
 
72 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 ing. So, too, those old terms that have been so long 
 used as shibboleths of the different schools need not 
 and ought not to be set aside. We should believe in 
 the verbal inspiration of certain passages. The divine- 
 ness is not in the thought, it is not in the fulness of 
 the passage, but in the peculiar and happy wording 
 of it. There are many such passages. They seem to 
 be verbally inspired. The very words are divine. 
 
 Then there is another series of passages where the 
 wording is unimportant. There is nothing at all strik- 
 ing in the language used, nor is there any hint, as we 
 read, that the thought is too great for the words, and 
 is bursting the mechanism of the sentence asunder. 
 The inspiration is in the thought, it is conceptual in- 
 spiration. 
 
 Then there are many passages, and these are especi- 
 ally common in the writings of Hosea and Paul, on 
 which it is easy to formulate and defend a doctrine of 
 plenary inspiration. The words are not striking in 
 these passages, the rhetoric is often even bad, and the 
 thought is so inadequately expressed that we are sure 
 the message was not merely intellectual. Yet there is 
 a great soul revealed in the sentence. There is a 
 fulness, an overflow of moral passion and religious 
 fervor, that are grander and more sublime than fine 
 rhetoric or clear thought. It is the divine pleroma. 
 And the inspiration of that writer is plenary inspiration. 
 
 9. The proof of the inspiration of the Bible is not to 
 be found in the confessions of its authors. Nor are the 
 fundamental truths of religion dependent upon our 
 belief in inspiration, but the real value of our belief 
 in inspiration is dependent upon our apprehension of 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. 73 
 
 these truths. The Bible is inspired because it is in- 
 spiring. And it is to us inspired to just the extent 
 that it reveals to us the eternal things of the spirit. 
 In the present day an author often does his really best 
 work unconsciously, and without the use of means de- 
 termined upon beforehand. I believe that this has 
 always been true ; and, therefore, the words of J. Pat- 
 erson Smith seem especially significant when he says, 
 " It may, perhaps, be possible for a man to be specially 
 inspired by God without his knowing it." If this is 
 true, are we not forced to the conclusion that inspira- 
 tions differ only in degree, and that God was not nearer 
 to the past than he is to us, but that he still has his 
 inspired prophets and teachers ? 
 
 In order that we may lay hold of the fact that God 
 is ever present in human life as the inspirer of all that 
 is noblest and best, we must set aside entirely all nar- 
 row and ignoble views of inspiration which confine it 
 to a particular form, a particular age, and a particular 
 people. Mr. Horton has been severely criticized for 
 claiming for the late Rev. Charles G. Finney of Oberlin 
 a special inspiration from God. It is said that Mr. 
 Finney would have been the last to claim such a gift 
 for himself. That is just the point. And no sooner 
 do we put ourselves in the position of Isaiah or Joel, 
 than we see at once that they, too, are very far from 
 claiming for themselves what the dogmatists and the 
 a priori theologians have claimed for them. 
 
 10. The doctrine of inspiration has had a most won- 
 derful influence upon the development of society. It 
 has not always taken the lead in the right direction, 
 and often it has seemed to actually stand in the way 
 
74 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 of advance. Yet the history of education shows that 
 there is in the grand total an infinite gain, when the 
 form is insisted upon as the means of getting at the 
 spirit. It is the very form of sound words that must 
 become the possession of him who would avoid rash- 
 ness and superficiality. The erroneous part of the doc- 
 trine came in placing all books and parts of books upon 
 the same level, and in looking upon them as originating 
 in the divine mind, and that, too, without intimate and 
 vital relations to their own times. Even of the Bible 
 it should be said, " Some books are to be tasted, others 
 to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and di- 
 gested/* When this is admitted we are ready to make 
 search for the permanent elements in the idea of in- 
 spiration itself. The idea of an inspired man and, of 
 an inspired book as the result of that influence, is 
 founded upon the idea that there is a Supreme Being 
 who cares for men, who works in history, and who 
 loves righteousness. In the doctrine of inspiration the 
 Old Testament writers were really formulating and 
 defending the richer and fuller doctrine of the imma- 
 nent God. The Jews have been accused of worshipping 
 an absentee God ; they have been accused of widening 
 unnecessarily and even erroneously the breach between 
 human and divine, between God and nature. There 
 are traces of this, especially in the later literature, when 
 they began to distrust the impulses of the present, and 
 to rely solely upon an interpretation of the past. But 
 in the golden age of the Hebrew religion, inspiration 
 reached out in a healthful way to all men of all occupa- 
 tions, and even nature was insfinct with the spirit of 
 God, and sympathized deeply with man's moods and 
 
FOR THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. ?$ 
 
 aspirations. In their doctrine of inspiration the Old 
 Testament writers had hold of the essential truth that 
 God lives and moves and has his being in man, and 
 to a less extent in nature. For nature, too, is instinct 
 with the divine life. It is a revelation of God, and it 
 is inspired of God. 
 
 But it is the idea of God in man, the spirit of God 
 in the human heart, that the Old Testament emphasizes. 
 And the New Testament, with its story of the incarna- 
 tion and of the Holy Spirit in the Church, is but carry- 
 ing on to perfection the thought of an immanent and 
 transcendent God ; and it is this idea which we find to 
 have been the basis of the Old Testament doctrine of 
 inspiration. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR A VALID 
 PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE. 
 
 
"• The subject with which we have now to deal is that of the so-called l proof of 
 
 the existence of God. 1 These proofs have been variously estimated at different 
 
 times. At the present day they have fallen very greatly out of favor ; it is said 
 
 that they are unnecessary, since they would never produce the belief in God 
 
 where it did not exist already 11 
 
 Pfleiderer. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR A VALID PROOF 
 OF god's EXISTENCE. 
 
 i. It has been suggested by many scholars that in 
 our efforts to prove the existence of God, we are but 
 reproducing in our own minds the history of the pro- 
 cess whereby the race came to a knowledge of the 
 Supreme Being. This view, when properly formulated 
 and defended, has much to commend it. Prof. J. Caird, 
 in his "Philosophy of Religion/' after he has passed 
 adverse criticism upon some of the more material argu- 
 ments, and moved on to that which to him seems spirit- 
 ual, rational, and valid, returns to point out that in the 
 light of the higher truth it becomes evident that the 
 more nai've and childlike arguments were also founded 
 upon truth. And had not the higher proofs been valid, 
 the race would never in its childhood have laid hold 
 upon those which were physical and mechanical; men 
 would never have had the perseverance nor the courage 
 to have pushed their thoughts farther onwards, until 
 they arrived at last at a spiritual monotheism. And 
 the proof of the correctness of the step is to be found 
 not alone in a priori reasoning, but in historical investi- 
 gation. Says Pfleiderer, "What the proofs of the exist- 
 ence of God really amount to is a retracing in thought 
 of the way in which the human mind first rose to the 
 consciousness of God, not in thought, but in an antici- 
 
 79 
 
80 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 patory and pictorial fashion. If there is reason in 
 human history at all, we may expect to find it in the 
 history of religious thought ; and if it is a characteristic 
 of reason to become conscious of itself, we may ven- 
 ture to hope that what it has done immediately in 
 history, it will be able to summon to consciousness in 
 thought, so as to comprehend it as its own, that is to 
 say, as rational and necessary." 1 
 
 2. If the trend of these remarks is correct, then the 
 Old Testament presents one of the strongest, if not 
 the strongest, proof for the existence of God in all 
 literature. At the first blush this seems to be a revo- 
 lutionary statement ; for it has been very generally 
 believed that the Old Testament is without argument, 
 that it assumes everywhere the existence of God, and 
 in fact, that the idea of God is given by specific reve- 
 lation. The fact is, the existence of God is assumed. 
 But the Hebrew method of developing the idea of God 
 is peculiar. The method assumes the existence of a 
 particular kind of God, and with this conception attacks 
 the problem of existence. If the problem is solved, the 
 God exists, otherwise there is something wrong in the 
 assumption. When it was seen that a particular view 
 of God did not solve the problem of individual sin or 
 sorrow, or of national history, the Hebrews did not 
 rush to the extreme of denying altogether the existence 
 of a Supreme Being, but they enlarged their view of 
 God. They tacitly admitted that their theology was at 
 fault. And so, as time passed, the more complex prob- 
 lems were attacked with a more humane, rational, and 
 universal God, until at last the Hebrew idea of God 
 
 1 Philosophy of Religion, vol. iii. p. 255. 
 
FOR A VALID PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE. 8 1 
 
 became so world-wide, that by it all or nearly all the 
 problems of history and human experience could be 
 solved, and that, too, in a way at once more rational and 
 more satisfactory than by any other means. 
 
 3. Just when the Israelites began to worship Jahveh, 
 and what his attributes were at the outset, it is now 
 impossible to say. The testimony of both historians 
 and prophets, however, goes to show that it was the 
 events of the exodus that first brought to the knowl- 
 edge of the people the full import of their religion. 
 Whether Jahveh was worshipped by the Hebrew group 
 prior to the exodus, and whether he was a deity native 
 to the Hebrews, or adopted by them from a neighbor- 
 ing tribe, cannot now be affirmed. At any rate, there is 
 no evidence of great value that the religion of the 
 Israelites was greatly different from that of neighbor- 
 ing tribes prior to the time of Moses. But under the 
 hand of Moses the national and political life underwent 
 marked transformations. According to one tradition, 
 the Israelites had not been worshipping Jahveh before 
 his revelation to Moses. According to another tradi- 
 tion, it was not the name, so much as it was the 
 nature, of the national God which underwent changes at 
 the hand of the great lawgiver. We are warranted in 
 saying, in any case, that prior to Moses the religion of 
 the people was tainted with various forms of tribal reli- 
 gion, of idolatry, and even of totemism in its low forms. 
 There was almost a total absence of ethical elements 
 in the religion. The god or gods were not bound to 
 the people, nor the people to them, by anything like 
 a covenant or contract. Such seems to be the fact 
 underlying the divergent traditions which have come 
 
82 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 down to us. If there were some before the time of 
 Moses who had higher views than these, they had not 
 made in his time any strong impression upon the people 
 as a whole. 
 
 To Moses the problem of the national existence pre- 
 sents itself in such a way as to demand a complete 
 transformation in the religious life. No nation" can be 
 secure that is not bound to its deity by eternal and 
 ethical relations. A nation to stand must be founded 
 upon honesty, justice, and truth. This must be the 
 relation of the members to one another. But if so, 
 then they must commune with their God on the same 
 broad, ethical basis. Moses saw, and rightly, that right- 
 eousness exalteth a nation. And, as to the ancient 
 civilizations, religion was the centre from which every- 
 thing proceeded, the religion must be the revelation of 
 a God who loves righteousness. 
 
 How the Israelites came to make Jahveh their na- 
 tional God it is impossible to say. Indeed, they them- 
 selves could not explain it. They affirmed that they had 
 not chosen Jahveh, but that he had chosen them, and that 
 he had passed by stronger peoples in making his choice. 
 However that may be, it was the Hebrew ethics that 
 created the Hebrew religion ; and the Hebrew ethics 
 arose from their keenly reflective and practical tenden- 
 cies on the one hand, and from their deep religiousness 
 on the other, — a religiousness which of itself, however, 
 could love Baal and Chemosh with as much zest as it 
 loved Jahveh. Jahveh, the national God, was a moral 
 Being. The Baals were soft and sensual, and Chemosh 
 was capricious and cruel. All love for them must in 
 time prove disappointing. The Hebrew God who loved 
 
FOR A VALID PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE. 83 
 
 righteousness could alone love his people with an 
 eternal love. 
 
 It was, I think, Moses as judge, prophet, and law- 
 giver, who produced the ethical religion of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 4. Let us look at Moses a moment as the leader and 
 organizer of his people. It is with Moses that the his- 
 tory of Israel begins. The Book of Genesis closes with 
 a single Israelitish family. These in the beginning of 
 the Book of Exodus have become a great horde. But 
 they are, as yet, by no means a nation. They have no 
 leader, no definite aims and purposes. Their religious 
 life is in a condition as discouraged as that of their 
 political life. As a semi-civilized people on the border 
 of a great nation, maintained there perhaps to shield 
 Egypt from still more barbarous hordes beyond, they 
 begin to be enslaved. This arouses them to a sense of 
 their rights. Moses, who has had objective prepara- 
 tion, perhaps, in a life among the Egyptian nobles, and 
 subjective preparation by a quiet residence in the land 
 of Midian, comes forward as the leader of his people. 
 "He was the soul of the conspiracy which preceded the 
 exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. The whole enter- 
 prise was conducted by him in conjunction with other 
 men. In the desert, too, in the attempt to penetrate 
 into the south, and during the stay in the trans-Jor- 
 danic districts, he stood at the head of the tribes. He 
 came forward and was revered as the envoy and repre- 
 sentative of the Deity. In judicial proceedings his 
 sentence was final." 1 By slow degrees, and as much as 
 was possible in a lifetime, the people during their wan- 
 
 1 Kuenen's Religion of Israel, i. 274. 
 
84 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 derings were fused into one. " The eamp was, so to 
 speak, at once the cradle in which the nation was 
 nursed, and the smithy in which it was welded into 
 unity ; it was also the primitive sanctuary." x Under 
 the hand of Moses as leader and organizer, the Israel- 
 itish nation began. The story ran that the Hebrews 
 wished permission to leave Egypt and go into the wil- 
 derness to worship their God. Whatever value this 
 may have, it is certain that Jahveh was believed to 
 have his abode in one of the peaks of the desert, and 
 it is equally certain that " it was out of the religion of 
 Israel that the commonwealth of Israel unfolded itself." 
 Moses did not create the national God, but a firm belief 
 in his power made Moses 1 work possible. The later 
 prophets, no doubt, purified the idea, and gave greater 
 definiteness to the national character. But they did 
 not create these ; on the contrary, these made them. 2 
 
 5. As judge and prophet, Moses is a conspicuous 
 character. According to Kuenen, Moses labored more 
 in this capacity than in that of lawgiver. The people 
 came to him with their differences, and he decided their 
 disputes. It was believed that he did this on principles 
 of justice and equity. 3 Schultz 4 thinks that Moses' con- 
 science had not been prepared for this work " by study 
 or learning, but by the direct illumination of divine cer- 
 tainty." He credits, as against the priests, the story of 
 Num. xii., and sees in Moses also a true prophet, who 
 not only decided matters of dispute among his people, 
 but exhorted them to settle their own differences, and 
 inspired them with warm and eloquent words of reli- 
 
 1 Wellhausen's History of Israel, 434. 3 Kuenen, op. cit. 275. 
 
 2 Wellhausen, op. cit. 432. 4 O. T. Theol., vol.i. 130, I. 
 
FOR A VALID PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE, 85 
 
 gious insight. According to Wellhausen, 1 Moses, by 
 these daily or weekly decisions, "laid a firm basis for a 
 consuetudinary law and became the originator of the 
 Torah in Israel. In doing this he succeeded in inspir- 
 ing the national being with that which was the very life 
 of his own soul ; through the Torah he gave a definite, 
 positive expression to their sense of nationality and 
 their idea of God." To these three illustrious scholars, 
 then, Moses is not merely a judge whose task it is to 
 decide a case on its merits, or according to the law and 
 the testimony. He is also a teacher and a preacher of 
 religion and of morality ; or as the Biblical author would 
 put it, combining the two ideas in one, a preacher of 
 righteousness. 
 
 6. Moses' work as lawgiver is certainly not especially 
 emphasized in the older documents. Yet Kuenen 2 is 
 doubtless right in saying that " the collections of laws 
 which were formed at various periods of Israel's history 
 were fearlessly embellished with his name, because it 
 was known that he had laid the foundations of all 
 legislation." 
 
 The religious and moral works of Moses, as it seems 
 to me, were herculean. He did not create the Hebrew 
 religion, but he reformed it and gave it an impetus and 
 an authority that it had never possessed. He was not 
 the first to promulgate a pure system of morals ; but he 
 was the first to connect such a system with its proper 
 Author, and derive from the connection an ethical reli- 
 gion purer than any then known. Jahveh was not to 
 Moses the only God, he was not the God of the uni- 
 verse. But he was the God of Israel. " For Moses to 
 
 1 Hist. 434, 6, 8. 2 Op. cit. 273. 
 
86 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 have given to the Israelites 'an enlightened conception 
 of God ' would have been to have given them a stone 
 instead of bread. . . . The so-called ' particularism ' of 
 Israel's idea of God was in fact the real strength of Is- 
 rael's religion : it thus escaped from barren mytholo- 
 gizings, and became free to apply itself to moral 
 tasks. . . . As God of the nation, Jahveh became the 
 God of justice and of right ; as God of justice and right, 
 he came to be thought of as the highest, and at last as 
 the only power in heaven and earth." 1 These remark- 
 able words of Wellhausen are but a reaffirmation of 
 earlier words of Kuenen, equally significant : " The 
 great merit of Moses," says he, "lies in the fact that 
 he connected the religious idea with the moral life. 
 Jahveh comes before his people with moral demands 
 and commandments : this is the starting-point of Is- 
 rael's rich religious development, the germ of those 
 glorious truths which were to ripen in the course of 
 centuries." 2 
 
 Moses was, in the best sense of the word, inspired. 
 His soul was on fire with a love for Jahveh, for his 
 people, and for the truth. That Professor Schultz should 
 believe Moses inspired is a matter of course. But that 
 Wellhausen, whom a recent number of an important 
 religious magazine calls a polytheist, should make such 
 a claim may seem startling. Says he, " One whom the 
 wind and sea obeyed had given him his aid. Behind 
 him stood One higher than he, whose spirit wrought in 
 him and whose arm wrought for him." 3 
 
 I have burdened my chapter with quotations. But it 
 has been done in order to show the most conservative 
 
 1 Wellhausen, 437, 8. 2 Op. cit. 282. 3 Op. cit. 433. 
 
FOR A VALID PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE, 87 
 
 and timid reader that critics whose names they fear are 
 truly religious and reverent, and that really the work of 
 Moses is, on any hypothesis, truly marvellous and 
 assuredly divine. 
 
 7. In the Song of Deborah, which is usually believed 
 to be older than any of the documents referring to 
 Moses which have come down to us, we have some 
 interesting lines bearing upon the nature ascribed to 
 the Hebrew Deity during the period of the Judges. 1 
 
 This old song may have been derived by the author 
 of Judges from that old book, several times quoted and 
 referred to in the Old Testament, called the " Book of 
 the Wars of Jahveh." At any rate, the war of which it 
 speaks was a religious war. According to the primitive 
 notion, often expressed, Jahveh is a local and national 
 Deity. He is not equally present in all places at all 
 times. He must come up from his mountain home in 
 the south to help his people. And at his coming the 
 mountains quaked. 
 
 " The earth trembled, the heavens also dropped, 
 Yea, the clouds dropped water.' ' 2 
 
 Jahveh, then, here, is a God whose voice is the 
 thunder, whose bow is the iris, whose arrows are 
 the thunderbolts, and whose chariot is the dark, 
 fire-girt, rain-bearing cloud. Surely such a God, 
 inhabiting the lightning-clad peaks of the south, was in 
 very truth a consuming fire. For him the stars that 
 " fought in their courses " for Israel on that day were 
 
 1 Professor Cornill in his Einleitung thinks Judges v. historic and from 
 a contemporary. See also Driver's Introduction, p. 338. 
 
 2 Judges v. 4. 
 
88 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 fitting messengers. For him to " be as the sun when 
 he goeth forth in his might " was a glorious ideal. But 
 there was something more than a mere nature Deity 
 in this Jahveh, whose attributes allied him so closely 
 with the elements. He was a God who not only took 
 the trouble to come from Sinai x to help his people, but 
 he dealt with them faithfully and justly while helping 
 them. His rule was not arbitrary nor capricious. He 
 never made a promise and failed to keep it. He never 
 inspired a hope that he might torture it and crush it. 
 Never in all the Old Testament do the Hebrews accuse, 
 or see any reason to accuse, their God of being a God 
 who does not keep his promises. It is they, and not 
 Jahveh, who are covenant-breakers. From the dawn to 
 the close of Israelitish history, there is but one strain ; 
 and our poet has given it worthy expression in the 
 lines : — 
 
 " Tell of it, ye that ride on white asses, 
 Ye that sit on rich carpets, 
 And ye that walk by the way, 
 
 Far from the noise of archers in the place of drawing water 
 There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, 
 Even the righteous acts of his rule in Israel." 
 
 Righteous acts, of course, did not mean then what 
 they do now. There has been progress in " righteous- 
 nesses/' just as there has been progress in " rich car- 
 pets." Jahveh was righteous at the outset, only to the 
 extent that he would keep his offensive and defensive 
 contract with Israel. But this is sufficient. A con- 
 tract implies truthfulness and justice in some one thing 
 at least. But this contract was a growing contract, 
 
 1 Judges v. 5. 
 
FOR A VALID PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE. 89 
 
 constantly including more elements, until at length 
 Israel and Jahveh must pursue consistent policies, or 
 all intercourse between them will be impossible. They 
 must both (and this is said for Israel only) be just and 
 truthful in sight and out of sight, or they cannot walk 
 together. As Sir H. Maine has somewhere suggested, 
 we have a whole moral code implicit in the first con- 
 tract. The righteousnesses mentioned in Judges v. are 
 a valuable beginning. And the Song shows a strong 
 tendency to laud the faithfulness of the people and 
 their leaders, as well as the righteous acts of Jahveh. 
 The poem begins with a paean in praise of the leaders 
 and the people. These were wars of Jahveh, in which 
 the leaders led and the people made free-will offerings 
 of their own bodies. Such confidence in the justice of 
 their cause merited the divine favor. 
 
 8. Neither in the Ten Commandments nor in the 
 early histories do the Israelites give proof of mono- 
 theism. Some of them believe that Jahveh is not only a 
 better God for them than any other, but that he is really 
 superior to all other gods ; but the masses, to a com- 
 paratively late day, believed, as did the author of Judges 
 xi., that Jahveh was the God only of Palestine and of 
 the Israelites. When David is driven out of Palestine, 
 he says he is driven away from God. When Naaman 
 expresses a wish to become a worshipper of Jahveh, 
 whose prophet has cured him of his disease, he is told 
 that he must take some of Jahveh's earth to Syria with 
 him, and so worship Jahveh on his own soil. 
 
 The prophet soon saw that such a God could not 
 command the allegiance and respect of a thoughtful 
 man. It is seen that, if God is truly God, he must 
 
90 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 make the world and its history an intelligible whole by 
 exercising control over every part of the same. With 
 this problem Amos and especially Isaiah wrestled, and 
 their thought at last finds definite expression in Deuter- 
 onomy, 2 Isaiah, and the Priest Code. God is the Crea- 
 tor and Lord of the whole earth. Nothing happens that 
 he has not accomplished. No nation rises, no nation 
 falls, but by his order and permission. Thus it is that 
 history for the Hebrews has a purpose and meaning. 
 Nations, like individuals, have missions. And the 
 doctrine of the One God gives unity to all their 
 thought. It reduces the tohu and bohu of chaos to a 
 cosmos of beauty and truth. 
 
 9. At the outset, too, in the Israelitish religion, 
 Jahveh's form was conceived in a more or less crude 
 manner. The golden calf made by Aaron was, as the 
 people believed, an image of their God. In the north- 
 ern kingdom in the time of Hosea, as that prophet 
 clearly implies, Jahveh was also worshipped in the form 
 of a bull. 1 Later than this the Hebrew writings of the 
 southern kingdom are still more or less hampered by 
 anthropomorphisms, and these could not originally 
 have been mere figures of speech. But it was finally 
 seen that only a God who was a spirit, and not flesh, 
 could be the God of the universe. It was a spiritual, 
 and not a purely formal, nor a merely physical, control 
 that God exercised over the world. 
 
 10. But it was on the moral side that the prophets 
 had their severest struggles with the people. The 
 moral argument for the existence of God was one that 
 
 1 In Isa. i. 24 the Hebrew consonants read "bull " instead of " Holy 
 One." 
 
FOR A VALID PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE, 9 1 
 
 had to maintain itself by a constant and internecine 
 struggle. Theoretical atheism was in early times a 
 thing unknown. But practical atheism was common ; 
 that is, man could not or would not follow the moral 
 argument of the prophets, which led by conclusive logic 
 to a God who was at once spiritual and moral, and in- 
 terested in the welfare of men. The people said, gods 
 are for the purpose of getting us out of our scrapes. 
 We may chastise our teraphim, but our God may not 
 chastise us. If he can save us at all, he can save us 
 without punishing us. And if so, why does he need to 
 punish us ? If we keep his worship going, if we are 
 ready in season and out of season with sacrifices and 
 offerings, feast days and vows, are we not faithful 
 to our covenant ? So the people argued with Amos. 
 When he began to urge them to righteousness, and pro- 
 claimed that the day of Jahveh was near, they affirmed 
 that they knew it as well as he. But they affirmed that 
 it could not be other than a day of victory, joy, and 
 thanksgiving. Jahveh was their covenant God, he 
 could not throw them over ; and if he did, it would be 
 his own loss, for he would then have no worshippers, 
 and would be banished from the number of the gods. 
 Against all this Amos cries out in holy indignation. 
 He lets them know that he cannot and will not believe 
 in any such a God. That God who brought them out of 
 Egypt was, in fact, no such God. Not less important 
 than the work of Moses, was the work of Amos in de- 
 stroying the old notion of the Deity. His sublime 
 words which have come down to us, still have a message. 
 He says, " You only have I known of all the families : 
 therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities/' * 
 
 1 Amos iii. 2. 
 
92 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 What a victory for truth this was ! In the popular 
 theology, religion and ethics, rewards and punishments, 
 were not correlatives, but were wholly distinct, and 
 they affirmed the existence of the former, but denied 
 the latter. It was a new and powerful argument for 
 the existence of God when it was affirmed that he must 
 rule the world in justice and truth, meting out to all 
 the rewards and punishments which in the nature of 
 things they had brought down upon their own heads. 
 
 ii. After it became an accepted belief that there is 
 but one God who is a spirit, or as the Old Testament 
 prefers to say, who has a spirit, there arose a form of 
 scepticism which said that if this is so, then God as 
 spirit cannot interfere at all in human affairs. "Jah- 
 veh," said they, " will not do good, neither will he do 
 evil." 1 This could only be met by the counter affir- 
 mation that God's control over the world, and over 
 human history, is spiritual and moral rather then phys- 
 ical and mechanical. And especially were the pious 
 Jews fond of affirming, that in human affairs Jahveh 
 ruled through the media of the great prophets, poets, 
 and sages, who were his servants and messengers. 
 
 12. If God is a spirit, and rules the world as a spirit, 
 he must seem to rule it through his agents. So then, 
 along with the idea of the spirituality of God, went 
 also a new and higher conception of freedom and re- 
 sponsibility. Isaiah, in his sixth chapter, is free to 
 accept or reject the divine call. But if he accepts it, 
 he consciously accepts also all its responsibilities. 
 Even more spiritually conceived is Jeremiah's account 
 of his call. The divine will was already before his 
 
 i Zeph. i. 12. 
 
FOR A VALID PROOF OF GOD >S EXISTENCE. 93 
 
 birth preparing him for his work. Yet it is not his 
 work till he himself chooses it. When a prophet has 
 chosen his work he is under obligation to carry it on to 
 completion. If his hand slacks, he robs God. If he 
 fails to tell the whole truth of God, he is responsible 
 for the death of his people. It is Ezekiel who carries 
 this thought to its highest development. And for him 
 this doctrine of mutual responsibility applies to all 
 men, and not to the prophets alone. 
 
 13. It is in the Hebrew conception of " God in his- 
 tory," that we find one of the strongest evidences of 
 the grandeur and truthfulness of their thought of God. 
 To human eyes it appeared in 711 or in 701, that Jeru- 
 salem must follow in the steps of Samaria and go into 
 captivity. Micah had, without " if " or " and," predicted 
 just such a result. The first three chapters of his 
 book give the evidence for this ; and if the earlier 
 prophets were right in saying that Jahveh must visit 
 upon his people all their iniquities, seemingly Micah 
 was right in prophesying as he did. Over against 
 Micah's preaching stood Isaiah's. Isaiah saw that the 
 Hebrew religion was tied up in the Hebrew history, as 
 did all the prophets. But he also saw that this religion 
 was of God, that it had permanent, even if as yet un- 
 developed, qualities, and as a consequence could not 
 come to a dead stop at this time. If there is any God 
 at all, if history means anything, the nation cannot 
 come to an end now. The people have but half learned 
 the lessons God is teaching. The school must not 
 stop now. If it does, all that we have gained is lost. 
 Isaiah saw that the very existence of the Divine Being 
 demanded a lease of life to the nation, and his doctrine 
 
94 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 carried the day. Sennacherib, as his own inscriptions 
 tell us, "shut up Hezekiah like a bird in a cage." But 
 he did not take his city, he did not desecrate the altar 
 of the true God. No doubt Isaiah was helped in his 
 cause by the more pessimistic Micah, who threatened 
 unconditional and immediate overthrow. 1 Had the 
 people not believed Micah they could scarce have 
 obeyed Isaiah. Yet it was Isaiah who saw most deeply 
 into the ways -of the spirit. The facts were on Isaiah's 
 side, and showed that his idea of the divine and loving 
 purpose in history was the correct one. 
 
 14. To give a complete history of the doctrine of 
 God as it is developed in the Old Testament would be 
 to write an entire Old Testament theology. Some of 
 the lines here started are further developed in other 
 chapters of this book, others must be omitted. But 
 enough has been said to show that the Hebrews started 
 with a purely idolatrous conception of the Deity, and 
 that they rose to spiritual monotheism by dint of their 
 own thinking, living, and working, under the conscious 
 direction of God. Every new and higher view of the 
 divine nature gained by the nation, cost the nation the 
 life-work of a prophet or sage or poet. It was a long 
 and hard struggle. And every attribute of the Deity, 
 which we to-day accept as a matter of course, in the 
 past cost a Hebrew saint his life-blood. It is this 
 dramatic story of the development of Hebrew theology 
 which makes the Old Testament, when read aright, an 
 unanswerable argument in favor of God's existence, 
 an argument which is still valid to-day, and is fast 
 
 1 That Micah should be so interpreted appears from a comparison of 
 Mic. iii. 12 with Jer. xxvi. 18, 19, 
 
FOR A VALID PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE. 95 
 
 becoming the basis of the new Christian Apolegetics. 
 By no means, then, are we to look upon the Biblical 
 religion as " a mere episode on a side-track of evolu- 
 tion." The Bible is the history of the evolution of 
 religion. We find in the Bible the lowest beginnings, 
 and we reach there the loftiest heights. " It is difficult 
 for us to-day to understand how low was the popular 
 conception of the character of God entertained by the 
 Hebrew people at the beginning of their national 
 career." 1 And on the other hand, that picture of the 
 character of God which is furnished by some of the 
 Psalms, by Job and 2 Isaiah, is still a long way ahead 
 of the comprehension of most of us. 
 
 1 Sunderland's Bible: Its Origin, Growth, and Character, p. 209. The 
 whole chapter is admirable. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR A NEW 
 CONCEPTTON OF THE MESSIAH. 
 
" We have in the Messianic prophecy of the Old Testament an organic sys- 
 tem constantly advancing on the original lines, and expanding into new and 
 more comprehensive phases with the progress of the centuries. Vast and com- 
 plex that organism is, — so complex that the wisest sages of Israel could not 
 comprehend it." 
 
 C A. Briggs. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR A NEW 
 CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH. 
 
 I. An idea which has dominated too exclusively the 
 Biblical study of the past is that which finds expression 
 in the majority of the works on Messianic prophecy. 
 It is assumed that the chief value of the Old Testa- 
 ment lies in its Christology, which by many writers 
 has been developed into a complete and harmonious 
 system, a system built entirely upon the supposed New 
 Testament fulfilment of the very letter of the Hebrew 
 Scriptures. Now, it goes without saying, that those 
 who see in the Old Testament only a book of Messianic 
 prophecy are its worst and most one-sided defenders. 
 One can say with all reverence that he who runs to 
 Paul or to the Gospels with every difficult passage in 
 the Old Testament will never understand that wonder- 
 ful book. If we would get unbiassed results we must 
 determine to know nothing but the Old Testament and 
 its religion. Only as thus studied can we hope to come 
 to the New Testament with fresh light. 
 
 Further, an admission at the outset of the simple 
 naturalness of Jewish Messianism in many of its mani- 
 festations will help us. The Messianic hope in one 
 sense is nothing more than that longing for the ideal 
 which is present in all religions, which is still present 
 
 99 
 
IOO BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 in Christianity in various forms, and which lends to 
 our religion much of its motive and its charm. These 
 ideals need not one, but many, fulfilments, in ever 
 widening applications. They are conditioned by the 
 Time-spirit, and in time create the Time-spirit of 
 the future. Not always, to the best of her servants 
 even, does the Time-spirit reveal all her plans, and so 
 we must expect to find in the loftiest of religions many 
 broken ideals and unfulfilled prophecies ; and alongside 
 these the oracles of many who builded wiser than they 
 knew, and formed an ideal that neither they nor their 
 fellows knew the meaning of. 
 
 2. The Messianic hope of the ancient Hebrews had 
 rude enough beginnings. We seem to meet it first in 
 popular conceptions of a "day of Jahveh," near at hand, 
 in which the national God would come from his home 
 in the south and fight for his people, giving them a 
 glorious victory over their enemies. 1 This would be 
 followed by peace and prosperity. All would be light, 
 joy, and gladness. 2 In the first writing prophets, this 
 hope already centres in the ruling king, as the victori- 
 ous chief who at once upholds the nation, and the reli- 
 gion of Jahveh. While moral elements were wanting 
 in the popular ideas of the early age, they were plainly 
 conspicuous in the writings of the prophets, and in the 
 prophetic redactions of the history books. 
 
 Amos affirms that the Messianic age will be, not an 
 age of bloody victory and sensuous delight, but an age 
 of uprightness and truthfulness under the reign of a 
 
 1 Judg. viii. 22 fol. I Sam. viii. 5-8; x. 18 cannot be cited for the early 
 view. These passages are all later than Solomon; but see Piepenbring, 
 O. T. Theol., 218. 2 Judg. v. 4, 5; Amos v. 14, 18-20. 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH. IOI 
 
 Davidic king who will rule in righteousness, and judge 
 the people with equity. 1 
 
 Hosea adds out of his own domestic experience a 
 new note to the religion, that of tender love. He 
 looks not only for righteousness and judgment, but for 
 loving kindness and mercy. All this is to come about 
 by seeking "Jahveh their God, and David their king." 2 
 This king is not David himself, but the Davidic dy- 
 nasty which reigned at Jerusalem, while at Samaria 
 there reigned, according to Hosea, an usurper. Thus 
 the northern king, Jeroboam II., was not Jahveh's 
 Anointed, i.e., the Messiah or Christ, while the south- 
 ern king, Ahaz, who was in the line of David, was the 
 Anointed of the Lord. 
 
 Isaiah carries this idea much farther. He sees a 
 king to be enthroned in the near future who will estab- 
 lish the Davidic dynasty forever. The name of the son 
 of David who shall bring this about is " Subtle Counsel- 
 lor, Divine Warrior, Possessor of the Spoils, and Prince 
 of Peace." 3 None but human attributes are given to 
 this prince. It is the dynasty, not the individual king, 
 that is to endure forever, and the rendering " Mighty 
 God " in Revised Version is too strong. The word 
 " God " was, in fact, used very loosely by ancient 
 peoples. 
 
 This king, who is perhaps Hezekiah himself, is still 
 further idealized in xi. 1-5. "The spirit of Jahveh 
 shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and under- 
 standing, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of 
 
 1 Amos ix. 11, 12, are troublesome. If not post-exilian, the reference 
 is to the restoration of the Davidic dynasty in North Israel. 
 
 2 Hos. iii. 5. 3 Isa. ix. 6, 7. 
 
102 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 knowledge, and the fear of Jahveh." Already, as early 
 as Isaiah, then, the Messianic king is given the qualities 
 of the judge, prophet, and civil ruler. 1 
 
 Micah affirms in v. 2, 3, that the hope of the people 
 centres in their king. This king comes of an old and 
 tried family, his " goings forth are from everlasting/' 
 In the first place, it is noteworthy that in accordance 
 with Hebrew custom, it is the " house " here, and not the 
 individual, whose age is so great ; and secondly the word 
 " everlasting " is used merely in the sense of "very 
 old." The Moabite stone, for example (800 B.C.), says 
 that the tribe of Dan had lived always in the land along 
 the eastern banks of the Jordan. This we know was 
 not true. If, instead of " Bethlehem Ephrathah " in 
 Mic. v. 2, we read with most modern scholars, " house of 
 Ephrathah," we have removed the passage out of which 
 grew the later opinion that Messiah must be born in 
 Bethlehem. 2 In any case, Micah has in mind nothing 
 more than a Davidic king, who will, by a just and 
 strong reign, secure victory, peace, and prosperity for 
 the people. 
 
 3. Jeremiah follows in the tracks of his predecessors, 
 and looks unto David for a righteous branch who will 
 usher in the golden era. 3 He also places beside the 
 king an everlasting priesthood (xxxiii. 18). Formerly 
 Jeremiah was believed to declare also the divinity, and 
 even the Deity, of the Messiah by the name " Jahveh 
 our righteousness ; " and as the name stands it is further 
 suggestive of vicarious atonement. But the name as 
 
 1 Prof. Toy, in Judaism and Christianity, p. 50 note, advocates the view 
 that this section is, like chapters xxiv.-xxvii., later than our prophet Isaiah. 
 
 2 Matt. ii. 6. 8 See, however, Giesebrecht's Commentar. 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH. 103 
 
 thus written is contrary to Hebrew syntax. King Joram 
 was not " the Lord most high," but his name affirms that 
 " Jahveh is most high." So Joel was not himself " Jah- 
 veh God," but his name tells us that " Jahveh is God." 
 In like manner the name Isaiah gave to the unknown 
 child was Immanuel, " God is with us." And Jeremiah 
 simply means to affirm that the name of their ideal 
 king will declare that " Jahveh is our righteousness." 1 
 Ezek. xvii. 22-24 * s difficult, but most scholars see 
 in this a reference to the restoration of the direct Davi- 
 dic line to the throne. In xxi. 27, Ezekiel is doubtful 
 about the how and when, but confident that the kingdom 
 will be at last restored to him whose right it is (Shilok), 
 the Hebrew confirming the third marginal reading of the 
 Revised Version of Gen. xlix. 10. In xxxiv. 23, Ezekiel 
 expects the restoration of the Davidic dynasty, and the 
 new king shall " feed the people and be their shepherd." 
 The new turn which the ideal has taken was suggested 
 by Isaiah and others. But it is narrower than the con- 
 ception which they possessed, no doubt because the 
 king could hope to be but a vicegerent or Pekah of the 
 Assyrian king. His functions would be religious and 
 educational rather than governmental. Yet Ezekiel 
 has no idea of renouncing the old Messianic hope. 2 
 Israel shall dwell in the land given unto Jacob, " they 
 and their children and their children's children for- 
 
 1 Some of the older commentators held that Isa. ix. 6 should be trans- 
 lated in the same way. The name would then be, "A wonderful counsel- 
 lor is the Mighty God, an everlasting Father, a Prince of peace." This 
 would be a very long name, but not longer than that borne by some of the 
 Assyrian kings. 
 
 2 B. Stade says Ezekiel did renounce this hope in chapters xl.-xlviii., 
 where the ruler is called a " prince, " not a " king " or " anointed." 
 
104 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 ever ; and David my servant shall be their prince for- 
 ever " (xxxvii. 25). Here, as in other similar passages, 
 " David" means the dynasty established by him. The 
 reference is not to an individual king who shall reign 
 forever, for there were to be several of these (xlv. 8, 9). 
 Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel add, as a condition of mem- 
 bership in the Messianic kingdom, the possession of 
 a new heart, upon which the law of God is written. 
 
 Zech. ix.-xi. is a peculiar section. It is, perhaps, a 
 discourse of one of the oldest of the prophets edited by 
 one of the latest. According to ix. 10-16, God is him- 
 self the Redeemer and Saviour of Israel. And the 
 language implies that the writer had no thought of an 
 individual Messiah. 1 On the other hand, ix. 9 seems 
 to refer to a king after the manner of the pre-exilian 
 prophets. 
 
 4. Under the hand of 2 Isaiah, the Messianic hope 
 has completely changed. The national independence 
 has been lost. The cream of the people are in exile. 
 The line of David is no longer in a position to offer a 
 basis for the prophetic hope. But the great unknown 
 prophet is not disheartened. Those gifts and graces 
 which his predecessors bestowed upon David, he trans- 
 fers to the people. 2 For the time being, at any rate, 
 Cyrus, king of Persia, is the Messiah, the Christ. He 
 is even called Jahveh's shepherd, who shall perform all 
 his pleasure. Through him Jerusalem shall be rebuilt 
 and the temple restored. 3 The Babylonian Isaiah, how- 
 ever, is himself not averse to living apart from his 
 native land. Indeed, there are certain gains to be had 
 
 1 See also Zech. xii. 4-8; xiii. i, where the country people save Judah. 
 
 2 Isa. lv. 3 vs. Acts xiii. 34. 8 Isa. xliv. 28; xlv. 1-4. 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH. 105 
 
 only in exile. Jahveh is now the sanctuary, and the 
 blood of slain beasts no longer flows — in vain. 
 
 The Davidic king is entirely wanting in the exilian 
 sections, Isa. xiii., xiv., and xxiv.-xxvi., as also in Zepha- 
 niah, Habakkuk, and some of the other prophets. To 
 say with Schultz, "hence the religious hope is not 
 bound up in a particular person/' is to explain but half 
 the fact. The truth is, the Messianic hope was the out- 
 growth, as was all prophecy, of the ideas of the times. 
 A few years under the rule of a son of David would 
 give rise to expectations for the future wholly irrecon- 
 cilable with others that would arise, and did arise, on 
 foreign soil during the exile, and in Palestine during 
 the rule of the high priests. 
 
 5. The prophets of the return once more look to the 
 house of David for the pledge of the divine favor. 
 Haggai calls upon Zerubbabel in the name of Jahveh to 
 be strong. He has been chosen of God for a divine 
 work, and made " as a signet." * Zechariah follows 
 in the tracks of his contemporary. Zerubbabel is the 
 branch. Before him the great mountain shall become a 
 plain, " not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, 2 
 saith Jahveh." Both these prophets place the high 
 priest alongside the Messianic prince as a man second 
 only in importance to him. But there is no hint as yet 
 that the Messiah is to be himself a priest. 
 
 Malachi saw nothing in the Davidic princes to inspire 
 hope, and therefore forsakes entirely the notion that 
 
 1 Hag. ii. 21-25. 
 
 2 Zech. iii. 8; iv. 6, 7. In vi. 11, 12, Joshua is called the Branch. 
 Ewald said supply " and Zerubbabel." Smend, A. T. Rel. Geschichte 
 S. 343 n., follows Welthausen's Skizzen V. S. 176, and cuts out "Joshua " 
 as a later priestly emendation, and substitutes " Zerubbabel.' ' 
 
106 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 the house of David is to bring back to the people their 
 lost estate. Neither does he return to the idea of the 
 2 Isaiah, but introduces an entirely new conception. 
 And he unites with it the common, though ever chan- 
 ging, beliefs regarding the day of Jahveh. This was a 
 most troublesome phenomenon in Hebrew thought. 
 When it was near, they desired to have it put off. 
 When it seemed far away in the future, they desired to 
 have it near. This was due to ethical considerations. 
 The day of Jahveh was a day of judgment. If it 
 seemed near when Israel was plunged deeply into sin, 
 it meant punishment and ruin. If it seemed far away 
 in an age when the people were obedient and prosper- 
 ous, it meant, perchance, a time of backsliding before 
 the final arrival. Only a deus ex machina can unravel 
 the tangle and usher in the denouement. There must be 
 a specially provided messenger, who shall prepare the 
 people for the new age and at once usher it in. Mala- 
 chi had at hand a Biblical character whose peculiar 
 demise fitted him for this new role. Elijah must be 
 the forerunner, not of the Messiah, but of Jahveh him- 
 self. 1 There is a difference of opinion whether Malachi 
 had in mind a purely human messenger, or an angelic 
 being. It is very likely that no clear distinctions were 
 made between the two. 
 
 Joel reminds one of Malachi in his use of the day of 
 Jahveh ; but he ushers this in with a locust plague, and 
 the blessing of the Messianic age is the result of a 
 universal outpouring of the Spirit by God himself. 
 
 6. Daniel (165 B.C.) and the Apocrypha do not 
 mention a Davidic king, at least not in undisputed 
 
 1 Mai. iii. 1; iv. 4-6. 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH. 107 
 
 passages. The Book of Daniel is apocalyptic, ana many 
 of its sentences are no longer intelligible. Possibly the 
 stone cut out of the mountain without hands was the 
 family of the Maccabees, and the kingdom which was 
 about to be set up, and which would endure forever, was 
 the restored kingdom of David. But the whole descrip- 
 tion is so abundant in the supernatural, that many mod- 
 ern critics believe that Daniel had in mind an angel 
 prince, uncreated or pre-existent, and so " cut out with- 
 out hands" (ii. 44, 45). The "son of man" in vii. 13 is 
 now very generally interpreted of a people and not of 
 an individual, because by the various beasts in the pre- 
 ceding part of the chapter nations are meant. Natu- 
 rally, then, here also we would suppose that it is the 
 chosen people whose " dominion is an everlasting 
 dominion which shall not pass away." Prof. Toy 
 makes bold to say that we have in Daniel not an in- 
 dividual Messiah, but a triumphant people. 1 And 
 Schiirer says, " the core of Daniel's Messianic hope is 
 the universal dominion of the saints." 2 
 
 According to Baruch iv. 22 (150 B.C.) the Everlast- 
 ing is the source of joy and salvation. He is even 
 called "our Saviour." Tobit xiii. 10 (150 B.C.) calls the 
 Lord "the everlasting King." The Messianic bless- 
 ings are described, but these are conferred by God 
 himself. 1 Mace. ii. 57 seems to contradict the pas- 
 sages already cited, in that it says that " David pos- 
 sessed the throne of an everlasting kingdom." This, 
 however, need not mean necessarily anything more 
 than a very long dynasty. Wendt is probably right in 
 saying that the reference is to the past and not to the 
 
 1 Judaism and Christianity, p 64. 2 Dan. ii. 44; vii. 14. 
 
108 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 future. So, too, the statement in Ecclus. xlvii. 1 1 that 
 the dynasty of David is of everlasting duration may 
 mean nothing more than that it was of long duration. 1 
 
 7. The idea that the Messiah was to be a priest was 
 not hinted at among the prophets. The pre-exilian 
 prophets, in fact, paid little attention to either " priest- 
 hood or public worship." To be sure, Ezekiel's Mes- 
 siah in the ideal section, chaps, xl.-xlviii., maintains 
 the sacrifices of the temple from his own private re- 
 sources ; but he is not himself a priest, he is merely the 
 civil ruler of the returned exiles. Joel and 2 Zech- 
 ariah, on the other hand, are very favorable to the 
 priests. Neither knows anything of a Davidic ruler; 
 and both seem to believe and teach that the prophets as 
 a class will become extinct, their place being taken by 
 the priests and elders. But they do not mention an in- 
 dividual Messiah. The One Hundred and Tenth Psalm, 
 a production of the Maccabean era, presents us with 
 the picture of a Davidic king who is also a priest. And 
 this had its basis, no doubt, in the fact that the Mac- 
 cabees were related to both the royal and priestly 
 families. As our prophet Zechariah now reads, Joshua 
 the high priest was named the Branch, and crowned 
 with Messianic dignity. 2 If we suppose that Zechariah's 
 text became illegible here, at a period when the idea 
 of a Davidic king had waned, and the priests were 
 in full power, the substitution of the name Joshua 
 for that of Zerubbabel, which had fallen out, would 
 be natural enough. While, therefore, the Hebrew 
 
 1 For a different view of these passages see Schiirer's Jewish People in 
 the Time of Christ, Div. II. vol. ii. pp. 138, 139. 
 
 2 Zech. vi. 11, and above, p. 105, note 2. 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH. IO9 
 
 Bible contained passages that easily lent themselves 
 to the support of a priestly Messiah, the Jews never 
 took up and developed the idea at all. And the 
 priestly functions of the Messiah, as developed espe- 
 cially in the book of Hebrews, were obviously for the 
 purpose of showing that the ceremonial law was to 
 come to an end in Jesus. 1 
 
 8. The attributes which Isaiah gives to the Mes- 
 sianic princes, which were also the attributes of the 
 prophets, led many to interpret the " prophet like 
 Moses" in Deut. xviii. 15, not of aline of prophets, nor 
 of an individual prophet in the days of Josiah, but of 
 the Messiah himself. By a free rendering of the lan- 
 guage of Malachi, that prophet also might be quoted 
 as referring to a Messiah who was to be a prophet. 
 Various passages in the Apocrypha seem to build upon 
 some such ideas as these. For example, the Wisdom 
 of Sirach xlviii. 9, 10, recalls the story of Elijah's 
 ascent into heaven, and then continues that he was 
 "ordained for reproofs in their times . . . and to restore 
 the tribes of Jacob." 1 Mac. xiv. 41 is very explicit, 
 and says that Simon is to be high priest and governor 
 forever (!) "until there should arise a faithful prophet." 
 The Samaritans, who accepted only the Pentateuch, and 
 rejected the remainder of the Old Testament, based 
 their Messianic hope upon Deuteronony, and looked for 
 a prophet, not a king. 
 
 9. The canonization of the prophets and histories 
 that followed or immediately preceded the Maccabean 
 period greatly emphasized once more, in the schools of 
 the scribes and among the people, the prophetic Mes- 
 
 1 Stanton's Jewish and Christian Messiah, p. 129. 
 
IIO BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 sianic ideals. 1 In the third book of the Sibylline Ora- 
 cles (126 B.C.) are two remarkable passages. Says the 
 seer : — 
 
 " Then shall God send a king from the sun, 2 who 
 shall cause the whole earth to cease from wicked war, 
 when he has slain some and exacted faithful oaths from 
 others. Neither shall he do all these things of his own 
 counsel, but in obedience to the beneficent decrees of 
 the Most High." In the other passage, equally strik- 
 ing, the oracle declares, "when Rome shall rule over 
 Egypt also, uniting it under one yoke, then indeed the 
 supreme kingdom of the King Immortal shall appear 
 among men. And there shall come a pure king, to 
 hold the sceptres of the whole earth for ever and ever 
 as time rolls on." 
 
 The Psalms of Solomon (40 b.c.) repeat all that is 
 best in the great pre-exilian prophets regarding the 
 Messiah. But while the prophets manifestly mean the 
 dynasty, the Psalms of Solomon as clearly refer to an 
 individual. And while the prophets have in mind a 
 mere man in the line of David, the apocryphal Psalms 
 give to the Messiah superhuman traits and character- 
 istics, and seem to affirm at once his pre-existence and 
 his immortality. 3 Ethically and religiously, the Mes- 
 
 1 The title of the Hebrew Bible is " Law, Prophets, and Writings." The 
 Law was made Holy Scripture about 440 B.C. The Prophets, including 
 the histories, except Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and omitting Daniel, 
 were made Holy Scripture about 200 B.C. The rest of the Old Testament, 
 some of it not yet written, was canonized about the beginning of the 
 second century of our era. 
 
 2 Sibylline Oracles, III., lines 652 fol. Some read " east " instead of 
 " sun," which is perhaps a mistranslation of DID in Mic. v. 2. 
 
 8 See John vii. 27; xii. 34, which seem to reflect current Jewish thought. 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH, III 
 
 siah of these Psalms performs all the functions of the 
 Messiah of Isaiah and Jeremiah. 
 
 The Book of Enoch (ioo b.c. ?), quoted as Holy 
 Scripture by our New Testament epistle of Jude, con- 
 tains an elaborate and detailed picture of the future. 
 The prophetic ideas are reproduced, though the intense 
 moral and spiritual elements are lacking. Enoch has 
 a personal righteous Messiah, who is reverenced as 
 ruler and judge by the nations. The Messiah of the 
 original Enoch is a man, and not the pre-existing Word, 
 as the later Christian additions to the book describe 
 him. This king is preceded by a deliverer, who was 
 perhaps Judas Maccabeus (168-161) or John Hyrcanus 
 (135-107 B.C.). And his work is conditioned by the 
 return of the people to Jahveh their God. 
 
 10. A marked distinction must often be made be- 
 tween the original meaning of an Old Testament pas- 
 sage and its meaning according to the interpretations 
 of the scribes. The Second Psalm could hardly have 
 been Messianic originally. It is merely a song in 
 praise of some newly crowned king. But in the time 
 of Christ, this Psalm was by many regarded as contain- 
 ing an explicit reference to the Messiah, and it is so in- 
 terpreted in the New Testament. 1 Psalm Forty-five 
 is clearly a marriage song. The details of the cere- 
 mony are idealized, to be sure, but nothing more than 
 that is meant. The scribes saw in this at a later 
 time, after the decay of their national life, something 
 which fired their ambitions and fed the Messianic hope. 
 Many of the Psalms, which probably at first had no 
 Messianic reference, are given a distinct Messianic 
 
 1 Heb.i. 5; v. 5. 
 
112 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 meaning in the Targums. 1 When these Psalms were 
 no longer true of reigning kings of the Jews, the 
 people began to understand them as referring to him 
 who should come. 
 
 Not only in the Targums, but in the Greek translation 
 of the LXX., we find Psalms that affirm the pre-exis- 
 tence and everlastingness of the Messiah. What in 
 the Hebrew is affirmed of the dynasty of David, is in 
 the Greek said of the individual Messiah. The Greek 
 of Ps. lxxvii. 5 says the Messiah " existed before the 
 moon, and will live as long as the sun." This view of 
 Messiah seems to have been more or less common 
 among the Jews of the first century before Christ. 2 
 
 Isaiah's "king Immanuel ,, was clearly a contem- 
 porary prince. The prophet, who was perhaps himself 
 a member of the royal family, would naturally look to 
 Hezekiah or some other king for a living example of 
 an " anointed of Jahveh," who would be at once judge, 
 prophet, and king. In the century preceding Christ, 
 Isaiah's language began to have a meaning that had 
 not yet been realized, and Isa. vii. is added to the list 
 of Messianic prophecies. 3 
 
 Scores of passages all through the Old Testament, 
 that contained originally no hint of a Messiah, began 
 to be narrowed down to predictions of the future, and 
 were robbed of their original character. This scribal 
 exegesis did not create new Messianic ideas, it was 
 used rather to bolster up ideas already formed. Many 
 of these were erroneous, most of them were selfish and 
 materialistic, and, as a rule, they outraged the original 
 intent of the Old Testament authors. 
 
 1 Psalms ii., viii. , xvi., xx., xxi., xxii., xlv., lxxii., ex. 
 
 2 Weber's Altsynagogale Theologie, S. 333. 3 Matt. i. 23. 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH. II3 
 
 Gen. iii. 1 5, often called the " protevangelium," or first 
 gospel, offers a case in point. The original merely as- 
 serts the final victory of man over the beasts. The 
 serpent of the chapter cannot be Satan, for the Jews 
 did not yet believe in a Satan. The Palestinian 
 Targum became the authority on which the early 
 Church saw here a reference to the Messiah. The 
 Targum adds at the close of the verse, " there will be a 
 remedy in the days of king Messiah. ,, 
 
 Likewise Gen. xlix. 10 is given in the Targum of 
 Onkelos, " until the Messiah come whose is the king- 
 dom. " And the later Targum of Jerusalem expands 
 this into the following : " How beautiful is the King 
 Messiah who springs from the house of Judah ! He 
 girds his loins and descends and orders the battle 
 against his enemies, and slays their kings and their 
 chief captains ; there is no one so mighty as to stand 
 before him. ,, These Targums were not written until 
 after the time of Christ, but they often represent faith- 
 fully ideas that were pre-Christian. And certainly many 
 of them were accepted by the early Church in its for- 
 mative period, and have more or less influenced Christian 
 exegesis ever since. Not only has this occurred in the 
 interpretation of various passages, but in the meanings 
 attached to certain words. Such terms, for example, 
 as " everlasting/* " anointed," " Elohim," and " Son of 
 God," that were used very loosely at first, came to have 
 a narrow, dogmatic meaning. The free and spontane- 
 ous ideals of the early writers were hardened down 
 into a lifeless system. 
 
 n. Yet there was by no means unanimity of opinion 
 in the days of Christ regarding the nature and work of 
 
114 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 the Messiah. Each of the divergent ideas regarding 
 the future age, which we have noticed, had its represen- 
 tatives. There were those who looked for salvation 
 only through the seed of David, which it was believed 
 would restore the splendors of the fallen kingdom. 
 This may be said to have been the orthodox idea, and 
 it was ably championed by the scribes and Pharisees. 
 This is the Messianic idea, properly so called. Others 
 held to the idea, which seemed also to fit best their 
 civil condition, that salvation would come through a 
 priestly ruler. Since the loss of their national indepen- 
 dence the Jews had really been a priestly kingdom, that 
 is, the supreme ruler of their own blood was the high 
 priest. Naturally, then, some of the Jews looked to 
 the priest, rather than to the long since dethroned 
 dynasty of the past. Others renounced both the fore- 
 going ideas, and looked to Jahveh as alone their Saviour, 
 who would announce his intentions to his people before- 
 hand by means of some prophet, as Jeremiah or Elijah, 
 messengers of his. 
 
 Some of the most spiritual seem to have looked 
 deeper into the facts of their religious experience, and 
 to have seen the solidarity of existence, the necessity 
 of religious leadership, and the possibility of hope and 
 salvation through the sufferings of the righteous kernel 
 of the people, and of one righteous servant of Jahveh 
 in particular. 1 In the New Testament these various 
 ideas regarding the future reappear in various forms 
 and combinations. Several passages in the New Tes- 
 tament look to " the prophet " for salvation, by which 
 
 1 Strictly speaking, this was not a Messianic hope, that is, the suffering 
 servant of the Second Isaiah was not Jahveh's "anointed." 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH. 115 
 
 they seem to mean " the prophet like Moses " of Deut. 
 xviii. 15. 1 Others looked for the return of Elijah (or 
 even Jeremiah 2 ), and were content with the thought 
 that Elijah would prepare the way of Jahveh before him. 3 
 Others combined this with the Messianic idea. Malachi, 
 as we have seen, does not have a Messianic king, but a 
 prophet who is the forerunner of God himself. The two 
 passages which are combined in Mark i. 2, 3, give a pic- 
 ture of the Messianic times which is nowhere paralleled 
 in the Old Testament. According to Malachi, Jahveh 
 says, "I send my messenger before my face who shall 
 prepare my way before me." By Mark the possessives 
 are changed, so that the meaning is that God will send 
 his forerunner ahead of the Messiah, to prepare the 
 Messiah's way before him. Two ideas of a wholly dif- 
 ferent character are here combined. Nowhere in the 
 Old Testament are forerunner and Messiah a part of 
 the same conception. Those books which contain the 
 one do not have the other. Many scholars conjecture, 
 however, on the authority of Markix. 11, that the union 
 of these two conceptions was not the work of the 
 Christians, but of the Jewish thought of an earlier gener- 
 ation. 4 Possibly, too, the alleged discrepancy between 
 John's Gospel and the Synoptics as to whether the 
 Baptist were really the expected forerunner, is dis- 
 solved in the different views prevalent, as to the person 
 for whom he was to prepare the way. A very curious 
 
 1 Acts iii. 22; vii. 37. 2 Matt. xvi. 14. 
 
 8 Matt. xvii. 10; Mark ix. 11 ; Luke iv. 18; ix. 8; John i. 21. 
 
 * See Wendt's Teaching of Jesus, vol. i. p. 68. On the divergent 
 Messianic expectations in the times of Christ, see also Cone's Gospel and 
 its Earliest Interpretations, p. 38. 
 
Il6 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 notion seems to have been held by some, in which 
 there were two Messiahs. One of these, a son of Jo- 
 seph, was the Messiah of the ten tribes, whose mission it 
 was to prepare the way for the other, who was called the 
 Messiah ben David, and who seems to have been given 
 the attributes and graces of the prophetic Messiah. 1 
 
 Many of the details of the various Messianic expecta- 
 tions are lost beyond recall. But, with Wendt, this 
 much may be said, " there was an unwavering expecta- 
 tion of a divinely purposed future dispensation of bless- 
 ing. ,, Many of these hopes were fantastic. And there 
 seem to be traces of some of them in our Gospels, 
 but nothing so extreme as is to be found in current 
 Jewish literature. For example, the Targums on Isa. 
 ii. 2, and elsewhere, tell how nature will herself be trans- 
 formed in the Messianic time. Corn-stalks like palm- 
 trees will bear kernels as large as one's head, which 
 will be harvested by the wind. There will grow single 
 grapes large enough to fill a wagon, and from which 
 wine may be drawn as from a cask. Sinai, Tabor, and 
 Carmel will be united into one large mountain, and the 
 city of Jerusalem set upon them. There will be houses 
 three miles high. The country will be full of pearls 
 and gems, and there will be no more of sickness or 
 defect. Only glory and enjoyment will abound for those 
 permitted to share the Messiah's reign. Truly, " having 
 no present, Israel threw itself on the future ! " And 
 it is certainly wonderful, that the Gospels and other 
 portions of the New Testament are so free from this 
 wild fancy, which was all but universal in the Jewish 
 world at the time when the facts of the New Testament 
 
 1 Weber's Altsynagogale Theologie, S. 346. 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH. \\J 
 
 were being made. The Christian Bible undoubtedly 
 has defects and limitations, due to its age and environ- 
 ment. But in no true sense can we say that it had the 
 faults of its age. It did not have them. The grandeur 
 and divineness of the Biblical books is that they each 
 and all rise above their age, and lay hold upon truths 
 that are permanent and eternal. 
 
 12. There is no hint in the passages of the Old Tes- 
 tament, or of the Apocryphal writings which are pro- 
 perly called Messianic, that is, which look to a king or 
 prophet for salvation, that the Messiah will suffer for 
 his people or make atonement for them. " Neither in 
 the pre-Christian Jewish literature/' says Professor Toy, 
 " nor in the earlier Targums, is there any trace of a suf- 
 fering Messiah/' 1 The personality of the Messiah is 
 one which is clearly and profusely portrayed in the litera- 
 ture of the period immediately preceding the advent of 
 Christianity. There are many passages which associate 
 closely together the forgiveness of sins and the coming 
 of Messiah, but none that represent the Messiah him- 
 self as accomplishing that remission in his own person. 
 Indeed, a crucified Christ was to the Jews a stumbling- 
 block. And the disciples themselves could not without 
 effort, until driven to it in fact by the events on Golgo- 
 tha, bring themselves to believe in a suffering Messiah. 
 The prevailing view, as the Old Testament prophets 
 had long before outlined it, was very different. Repen- 
 tance and good works must precede, and so make possi- 
 ble, the Messiah's coming. Whether he come early or 
 late, whether he come as a royal prince or as one of the 
 
 i Judaism and Christianity, p. 330, note. With which agree Schiirer 
 ii. 184; Stanton, 122, etc. 
 
Il8 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 lowly, depends upon Israel's innocency. So said the 
 later Jews, and the early prophets had prepared them 
 for such a hope. The Messiah, then, was to be a right- 
 eous and faithful ruler, a victorious general, a teacher 
 of righteousness, and at last a peaceful Prince. This is 
 still the idea of the Pharisees in the time of Christ, and 
 finds definite expression in the Targums. The prevail- 
 ing view, though some reversed it, was that Messiah 
 could not come until the people repented and turned 
 unto God. Another important feature of the Messi- 
 anic hope was, that it did not interfere with the Jewish 
 idea of the temple sacrifices. Whatever the prophets 
 may have taught, the Messiah was not expected, by the 
 scribes and Pharisees, to put an end to animal sacri- 
 fice by the sacrifice of his own life. He was rather, 
 as we have said, a prophet-king, who would at once 
 set the example for his people, and rule over them in 
 righteousness and truth. The more spiritual of the 
 prophets may have seen in the Messiah one who would 
 make animal sacrifice unnecessary, and found religion 
 upon repentance, faith, and the new heart. At any 
 rate, all were looking for one who would be in deepest 
 and most perfect sympathy with the people, in inti- 
 mate relations with God, and fitted by a divine anoint- 
 ing to be an inspired and inspiring teacher, and the 
 herald and organizer of the kingdom of God upon 
 earth. The attributes of the Messiah are all summed 
 up in the word leadership. To be sure, in the Old Tes- 
 tament this leadership is often coarsely conceived and 
 sensuously defined. 
 
 But so is it also in some parts of the New Testament, 
 though always at once corrected by the Biblical author. 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH. II9 
 
 And the strong men of both Testaments alike censure 
 those who look for anything other than a kingdom of 
 righteousness. We may admit that the best parts of 
 the Old Testament did not foresee the grandeur of Je- 
 sus' person and work in its totality, while yet insisting, 
 on purely exegetical grounds, that the Old Testament 
 builds the foundation and furnishes the plan upon which, 
 and in accord with which, the life and doctrines of the 
 New are developed. That basis and foundation is the 
 conception of the leadership of the Messiah. Using 
 the New Testament word, and yet keeping, as I believe, 
 the conception of the Hebrew prophets, we may say 
 that the core of the Messianic doctrine is a sublime 
 faith in the spiritual leadership of Christ. But it is 
 even more than this : it is a faith in Messiah's universal 
 leadership. 1 
 
 It is a noteworthy fact that in the best of the proph- 
 ets the nations are to be converted to God 2 and rec- 
 ognize his Anointed, — recognize in matters of religion 
 the authority of one who was of the people of David. 
 If we continue to call Jesus the Christ, then, we can do 
 
 1 I leave to the New Testament exegetes to decide whether Jesus him- 
 self is to be explained as a man of his times, and yet not of his times in 
 the sense in which other great men are, or whether he is sui generis. The 
 presupposition from the Old Testament is clearly in accord with the notion 
 that the Messiah is a man and not God, an inspired prophet and not a 
 ransomer of sinners. But it must be admitted that it is possible that the 
 New Testament contains ideas which are contrary to the notions of the Old. 
 In the words of Lessing, "I leave on one side who the person of Christ 
 was. Many things which were at that time of great weight for the recep- 
 tion of his doctrine possess now no longer the same importance for the rec- 
 ognition of the truth of his doctrine." 
 
 2 Isa. xlii. 1-6; li. 4, 6; lv. 5; lvi. fol.; Jer. iii. 17; xii. 14; xvi. igfol.; 
 Zech. ii. 15. 
 
120 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 so on the basis of the Messianic prophecies, only in the 
 sense that he is our teacher and leader, and not in the 
 sense that he has made atonement for our sins. That 
 conception belongs to a wholly different circle of ideas, 
 which will be considered elsewhere. There is nothing 
 new in this view, startling as it may seem to some. 
 It is the view which prevailed in the Church imme- 
 diately after the death of Christ. The disciples did not 
 believe that Jesus had, by his death, atoned for their 
 sins, but that he had been cruelly slain, and would soon 
 return with power and dominion, and establish a tem- 
 poral earthly kingdom. 1 Peter's famous sermon in 
 the Acts does not hint at the doctrine of Jesus' expia- 
 tory sacrifice. Jesus will return soon in the splen- 
 dor with which he ascended into heaven. Here the 
 ideas of the pre-exilian prophets reappear, which are 
 correctly defined by Piepenbring, when he says, "all 
 expected the restoration of the dynasty of David, which 
 was to be maintained forever by a perpetual descent. ,,2 
 But to maintain with Matthew's introduction, and with 
 the Jewish exegesis of the Old Testament, which was 
 based upon a corrupt text, that Jesus must be born in 
 Bethlehem as a son of David, and his legal successor, 
 is to jumble in hopeless confusion the material and 
 spiritual conceptions of the Christ. 3 It is not, I think, 
 impossible that Jesus, in Mark. xii. 35, meant to deny 
 that he was of the seed of David. There is, at any 
 
 1 Acts i. 6. 2 O.T. Theol., p. 221. 
 
 3 In Mic. v. 1,2, we should read Beth Ephrath, instead of Bethlehem 
 Ephrath. The incorrect reading gave rise to the Rabbinic idea that the 
 Christ would be born in Bethlehem. See Targum Jerusalem on Gen. xlix. 
 II; Targ. Jonathan on Zech. x. 3, 4; Isa. xi, 1; Mic. v. 2. 
 
FOR A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE MESSIAH, 121 
 
 rate, an appearance of artificiality in the genealogies of 
 Jesus given by Matthew and Luke. 
 
 While, then, it is more than probable that Jesus' 
 disciples often and persistently misunderstood in what 
 sense he was really the promised Messiah, it is, on the 
 other hand, not improbable that many Jews were in his 
 day looking for just such a fulfilment of the prophets as 
 is furnished by the ideal life portrayed in our Gospels. 
 It can scarce be doubted that " there were some among 
 the Jews, even if they were few and uninfluential, who 
 were prepared to receive the true Messiah. They did 
 not probably differ greatly from others in their formal 
 beliefs, but they did as regards the spirit in which they 
 held them, and the features in the conception of the 
 Messiah and his work which most occupied their 
 thoughts. Deliverance of the nation from sin, and the 
 burden of God's displeasure on account of sin, fuller 
 knowledge of the divine will, glad homage to Jehovah, 
 and goodwill to Israel as his chosen people on the part 
 of the nations of the earth, these had been traits in the 
 prophetic description of the times of redemption of 
 Zion. . . , To the hope of these blessings pious hearts 
 turned instinctively, as the good things which they 
 most desired. ,, x 
 
 13. The impartial Old Testament exegete will frankly 
 admit that the best parts of the Hebrew Scriptures 
 fail to apprehend clearly, and in all its details, the mis- 
 sion of Jesus of Nazareth who is called Christ. And in- 
 deed the best parts of the Old Testament recognize the 
 fact that there is a certain justice in interpreting their 
 prophecies by their fulfilment, whatever that may be. 
 
 1 Stanton's Jewish and Christian Messiah, p. 134. 
 
122 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 And it is only as we take advantage of this permission 
 extended to us, that we can call Jesus the Christ of 
 God. But while this is true, it would certainly be to 
 tear the Testaments completely asunder to say that the 
 New Testament Messiah was to save the world by his 
 blood, to become righteousness for his people, to ran- 
 som their lives with his. In the sense in which these 
 words are usually understood, they imply a total de- 
 parture from the Old Testament circle of ideas. And 
 presumably, the New Testament writers, building as 
 they did on the Old Testament, would not have advo- 
 cated such doctrines. We have already seen that 
 Peter's first sermon did not contain these notions. In 
 what sense Jesus was a sacrifice, and in what sense he 
 suffered for the sins of the world, will be discussed 
 elsewhere. These are not a part of the Messiah's work, 
 according to the Hebrew Scriptures. The Messianic 
 idea, as we have seen, the rather emphasized the ideas 
 of teacher, preacher, and leader. That this is a funda- 
 mental New Testament idea is shown by these words 
 from a learned New Testament scholar. " It is the 
 duty of the Church to use Jesus' educating personality 
 to perfect human nature ; to inforce the lesson of his 
 life, and create his spirit, by presenting him, not as one 
 who stood apart from humanity in rank, or as one who 
 mediates between God and man, but rather as one who 
 realized the moral possibility of man, and showed once 
 for all how men should live ; and by so living, made 
 himself a vast educational force." Jesus is the world's 
 greatest prophet ; and Old and New Testaments com- 
 bine in calling the Ideal Man the Wonderful Counsellor, 
 Divine Leader, and Prince of Peace. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR THE WAY 
 OF SALVATION-. 
 
" The death of Christ is a vicarious 
 offering, provided by God's love for the 
 purpose of satisfying an internal de- 
 mand of the divine holiness, and of 
 removing an obstacle in the divine 
 mind to the renewal and pardon of 
 sinners." 
 
 Strong's Theology. 
 
 " For just in the blood of Christ, 
 
 which God has not spared, lies the 
 
 proof of his righteousness, which he 
 
 has exhibited through the setting forth 
 
 of Christ as an expiatory sacrifice; 
 
 that shed blood has at once satisfied his 
 
 justice and demonstrated it before the 
 
 world." 
 
 Meyer's Commentary. 
 
 " Christians have for a long time 
 believed that the temporal death of 
 Christ made an atonement for sin, 
 and that the literal blood of the man 
 who was crucified has efficacy to 
 cleanse from guilt ; but surely this is 
 carnality and carnal-mindednessP 
 
 Ballou's Atonement. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR THE WAY OF 
 SALVATION. 
 
 I. EARLY IDEAS OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 i. It is proposed to discuss historically the Biblical 
 doctrine of atonement with a special look-out for facts 
 which will enable us to determine whether the Old 
 Testament doctrine of sacrifice looks forward to Christ ; 
 or whether, on the other hand, the New Testament 
 writers, of necessity, used terms which were then in 
 vogue, and for whose meaning we must appeal to the 
 Old Testament, and in some instances to the Jewish 
 Apocrypha. 
 
 2. In the period preceding the great prophets we 
 find that the ideas of justification and reconciliation 
 were exceedingly naive and undeveloped. Moral ele- 
 ments are conspicuously absent, or they are hopelessly 
 wrapped up in ideas of ceremony and ritual. Just as 
 the common life of the tribe is believed to be main- 
 tained by virtue of physical relationships, and by virtue 
 of the periodic participation in a common meal, so the 
 common life of the god and his people is believed to 
 consist in the fact that they are physically his sons. 
 He partakes with them at the sacrifice of the common 
 meal. The same animal sustains god and worshippers. 
 
 125 
 
126 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 The eating together makes them all of one flesh. So 
 long as the common food remains in their bodies they 
 share a common life. To injure one another would be 
 self-destruction. At a very early date the flesh of the 
 sacrifice was eaten alive by the worshippers, and a por- 
 tion of the still quivering flesh was offered to the Deity, 
 or more often the warm blood was symbolically con- 
 veyed to him. 
 
 3. The early ritual of the feast of the Passover is 
 suggestive of just such a feast. The lamb is slain and 
 eaten in so short a time that the cooking must have 
 been slighted, if indeed the animal heat was as yet out 
 of the flesh. From the analogy of Arabic sacrifices of 
 which we know the whole ritual, it would seem that the 
 injunction that the passover be eaten in haste, and that 
 no part be left until the morning, came from a time 
 when the lamb was eaten raw early in the morning 
 before daybreak. In striking confirmation of this is 
 the fact that the latest Pentateuchal lawgiver gives a 
 special warning against eating the flesh of the Passover 
 raw, 1 and the earlier Pentateuchal author ordains that 
 none of the flesh be left until the morning. The morn- 
 ing here referred to is the same morning on which the 
 feast is held. " In this sacrifice, then," says Robertson 
 Smith, speaking of a similar practice of early Semitism, 
 " the significant factors are two : the conveyance of 
 the living blood to the godhead, and the absorption of 
 the living flesh and blood into the flesh and blood of the 
 worshipper." 2 The union between God and worshipper, 
 then, is due to the fact that they are sustained by a 
 common life. 
 
 1 W. R, Smith, Rel. Sem., pp. 324, 326. 2 Rel. Sem., p. 320. 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. \2J 
 
 4. Passages without number from the earlier Old 
 Testament books come to mind, in which this idea of 
 sacrifice is prominent. In all the early writers a sacri- 
 fice is a common feast, and it is a season of thanksgiv- 
 ing and rejoicing. 1 Sam. ix. 13, for example, shows 
 this. A remarkable passage of similar import occurs 
 in 1 Sam. xiv. The army has been fighting for a long 
 period without food. After the battle they, in their 
 mad hunger, slew animals taken as spoil, and ate with- 
 out formally inviting Jahveh to partake with them. This 
 shocked Saul ; and he hastily constructed a small altar 
 and offered Jahveh his portion, after which the sacri- 
 ficial feast proceeded joyously. 
 
 There is in all this no hint of atonement ; the sacrifice 
 is nothing more than a common meal of the god and 
 his worshippers, by which the identity of their aims and 
 interests are vividly set forth. 
 
 Even in the latest Jewish legislation the meat of the 
 sacrifice continues to be called the food of Jahveh. 1 
 
 5. Self -mutilation of any kind was prohibited among 
 the Hebrews. But in those cases (which must have 
 occurred, for the Old Testament forbids them) where 
 a man cuts himself, and offers his own flesh or blood or 
 hair to appease the wrath of an injured neighbor or 
 Deity, the idea is not that the offering atones for the 
 crime committed. For, to confine ourselves to one case, 
 the blood thus shed is subsequently used in a ritual act, 
 which symbolizes the fact that the blood-covenant, or 
 life-bond, has been restored between the two parties. 2 
 This is confirmed by the Hebrew idiom in all the earlier 
 
 1 Lev. iii. 11, with which compare Num. xv. 
 
 2 W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem., 319. 
 
128 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 books of the Old Testament. Always it is said he or 
 they "cut a contract." Without the shedding of blood 
 there was no contract or covenant. This proclaimed 
 that if either violated his word, there would be blood 
 between them, while so long as the contract was unvio- 
 lated they were of common blood. 1 Such sacrifice, then, 
 symbolizes communion, not vicarious atonement. 
 
 6. Another idea of sacrifice is also prominent in the 
 earlier books of the Old Testament, to which we must 
 now give attention. The old Hebrew word for " offer- 
 ing " means, strictly speaking, a " gift." It is a gift to 
 win the favor of the Deity, or to restore it if anything 
 has occurred to arouse his anger against the worshipper. 
 The offerings of Cain and Abel, in Gen. iv., are just 
 such gifts to the Deity and nothing more. A gift, it 
 was believed, would " smooth the face of the Deity and 
 make him gracious." 2 The preference of the Deity for 
 the offering of Abel means only this, that the author 
 of Gen. iv. hated Canaanite ways and Canaanite agri- 
 culture, and favored the patriarchal life and shepherd 
 offerings. It has no reference whatever to the future 
 shed blood of Christ. The offering of a minhah or qor- 
 ban to the Deity, then, has atoning force only to the 
 extent that it pleases the Deity and purchases his 
 favor. It was the ancient Greek idea also that "gifts 
 persuade the gods," and it is found scarcely modified 
 in Ex. xxiii. 15 ; and 1 Sam xiii. 12; xxvi. 19. 
 
 7. A third form of early sacrifice which is deserving 
 of attention is the expiatory offering. Here the idea 
 seems to be that the sacrifice of the victim, or the blood 
 
 1 See Gen. xv. ; Ex. xxiv.; and Jer. xxxiv. 17-20. 
 
 2 W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem., 328. 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. 1 29 
 
 of the victim sprinkled upon the sinner, has power to 
 cleanse of ceremonial impurity. An early example is 
 furnished us in Deuteronomy, where the ritual is given 
 to make atonement for a murdered man found in the 
 field. First, it must be ascertained by actual measure- 
 ment to what village the dead man's body lies nearest. 
 Then that village is to assume the guilt and make 
 atonement. But here, obviously, there was no inten- 
 tional sin of the community that thus assumes the 
 responsibility for the unfortunate man's death. And, 
 further, the sacrifice seems to be effective, not from the 
 fact that the victim is a ransom for sin, but from 
 the ancient belief that the blood purifies. This point 
 indeed is made clear by the fact that, in later times, 
 a man who had been made unclean by handling the 
 Sacred Scriptures or any other " most holy thing " was 
 compelled to offer an expiatory sacrifice. 1 
 
 8. However, there are cases in which the victim 
 seems to be conceived as a ransom, or perhaps even as 
 a substitute, though this is very doubtful ; yet in every 
 case, so far as I know, the sin in question was purely 
 ceremonial, most often, indeed, a sin of inadvertence. 
 
 There were, to be sure, corruptions in later times of 
 these naive ideas of sacrifice. But in the time of 
 Christ, sacrifice was universally looked upon as signifi- 
 cant in some one of the forms named. As a rule, in 
 fact, the underlying idea was clearly that of a gift. 
 " Sacrifice is a gift made to the Deity as if he were a 
 man," says Tylor. And writers on the religion of 
 ancient Greece affirm that the sacrifice falls merely 
 under the general notion of gifts. 
 
 1 W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem., 405. 
 
130 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 II. EARLY REACTIONS. 
 
 9. Against these crude and childish ideas as to the 
 proper means of securing or getting back the favor of 
 the Deity, we have in the Old Testament three noble 
 protests coming from the prophet, the sage, and the 
 poet. Let us look at these in order. 
 
 The prophets resisted the doctrine that there is a 
 physical kinship between the Deity and his people. 
 They also scoffed the idea that God had need of any 
 gifts of physical worth that men could bestow. His 
 likes and dislikes were conditioned upon moral worth, 
 not upon the size of material offerings. Says Samuel, 
 according to one of his later biographers (750 B.C.), 
 " Hath Jahveh as great delight in burnt offerings and 
 sacrifices as in obeying the voice of Jahveh ? Behold 
 to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than 
 the fat of rams." * Says Amos (760 B.C.), with what 
 I think was at the time startling originality, or better, 
 divinely imparted insight, "I [Jahveh] hate, I despise 
 your feasts, I will not smell the savor of your appointed 2 
 festivities/ ' God has no smellers. You can't win his 
 favor by tickling his nostrils with boiling meat and with 
 incense. "Yea," continues our prophet, " though ye of- 
 fer me your burnt offerings and meat offerings, I will 
 not accept them : neither will I regard the peace offer- 
 ings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the 
 noise of thy songs ; for I will not bear the melody of 
 thy viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and 
 
 1 1 Sam. xv. 22. 
 
 2 Of course not " solemn," R. V., in the sense of sad, but as above, 
 which was the original meaning of solemn. 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION, 131 
 
 righteousness as a mighty stream. " * Hosea (740 b.c.) 
 does not differ from nor fall behind Amos. He says, 
 " Though I write for him [Ephraim] my law in ten 
 thousands, they are counted as a strange thing. As 
 for the sacrifices of mine offerings, they sacrifice flesh 
 and eat it ; but Jahveh accepteth them not ; now will 
 he remember their iniquity and visit their sins." 2 As 
 the years pass by, the prophets state their views with 
 more boldness and with more clearness. The oft-quoted 
 passage of Isaiah illustrates this, and I give it here ac- 
 cording to the translation of Canon Cheyne : " Of what 
 use is the multitude of your sacrifices to me ? saith Jah- 
 veh ; I am satiated with the burnt offerings of rams, 
 and the fat of fed beasts, and in the blood of bullocks 
 and lambs and he-goats I have no pleasure. When ye 
 come to see my face, who hath required this at your 
 hands — to trample my courts? Bring no more false 
 offerings : a sweet smoke is an abomination to me : the 
 new moon and the Sabbath, the calling of a convoca- 
 tion — I cannot bear wickedness together with an 
 appointed feast. Your new moons and your set days 
 my soul hateth, they are an encumbrance to me, I 
 am weary of bearing them. . . . Wash ye, make 
 you clean, take away the evil of your works from be- 
 fore mine eyes ; cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek 
 out justice, righten the violent man, do justice to the 
 orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us 
 bring our dispute to an end, saith Jahveh. Though 
 your sins be as scarlet they shall become white as 
 snow, though they be red as crimson, they shall be- 
 come as wool. ,, 3 
 
 1 Amos v. 21-24. 2 Hosea viii. 12-13. 3 * sa ' *• n-18. 
 
132 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 The climax of all this prophetic doctrine regarding 
 sacrifices is reached by the author of the sixth chapter 
 of Micah, who, perhaps, wrote considerably later than 
 Isaiah. 1 He says, "Wherewith shall I come before 
 Jahveh, and bow myself before the high God ? Shall 
 I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of 
 a year old? Will Jahveh be pleased with thousands 
 of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall 
 I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of 
 my body for the sin of my soul ? He hath showed 
 thee, O man, what is good ; and what doth Jahveh 
 require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
 and to walk humbly with thy God." 2 
 
 The prophetic point of view assumes a slightly dif- 
 ferent form in Jeremiah. 3 He attacks the sacrificial 
 idea by attacking its authority. According to him 
 Moses was a prophet himself and not a priest, and had 
 never given the commands regarding the manner 
 and legitimacy of sacrifice to which the royal priests 
 and prophets made their appeals. Says he, "I spake 
 not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day 
 that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concern- 
 ing burnt offerings or sacrifices : But this thing I 
 commanded them, saying, Hearken unto my voice, and 
 I will be your God, and ye shall be my people." The 
 emphasis is here clearly upon the living, prophetic 
 voice of God. The people were lapsing into legalism 
 and formalism. Jeremiah wishes to recall them from 
 this ; and he does so by proclaiming Moses a prophet, 
 and by emphasizing the fact that the message of the 
 
 1 Wellhausen's Kleine Propheten, on Mic. 
 
 2 Mic. vi. 6-8. 3 Jer. vii. 21-26. 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. 133 
 
 prophets was the voice of God. And a prophet like 
 Moses the people would ever have with them. 1 
 
 10. The prophetical idea of atonement, which also 
 lies at the bottom of the purely ethical portions of the 
 law, runs to the effect that sins which are also crimes 
 are pardonable only as the proper punishment is en- 
 dured. The same idea is found in the Old Testament 
 prophets and in the Gorgias of Plato. The way back to 
 God is through punishment. Atonement is out of the 
 question until restitution has been made. But restitu- 
 tion having been made, no animal or other sacrifice is 
 necessary. God has already forgiven the transgressor. 
 When sacrifices are spoken of they are, as Schultz 
 remarks, " transfigured by the prophets into spiritual 
 thank offerings. ,, 2 The process of salvation is clearly 
 outlined in the prophetic theology. There must be 
 sorrow for sin, repentance, and reformation. These 
 are followed by forgiveness, reconciliation, and spirit- 
 ual blessing. Sacrifices are simply left out of account. 
 " God has the full right to forgive sin, absolutely, with- 
 out regard to legal compensation and satisfaction." 3 
 
 The prophetic doctrine of faith as a means of appro- 
 priating the free and gracious gift of salvation is simple 
 and clear, but very elastic. Faith or trust in God is not 
 distinguished from faith in a fellow being. But as God 
 is not flesh as man is, faith in him always involves a 
 belief in the supreme reality of spiritual things. Faith 
 in God, then, is spiritual insight. It refuses to draw 
 inferences from isolated material things here and there, 
 but seeks for the eternal and unseen grounds and guar- 
 anties of action. But the ethical life also consists in 
 
 1 Deut. xviii. 2 O. T. Theol., ii. 96. 3 Op. cit., 99. 
 
134 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 the fact that acts are not judged in their immediate 
 effects, but in their unseen motives and consequences. 
 Hence the prophets are right in saying that without 
 faith there is no morality. Without a belief in an eter- 
 nal and spiritual order, ethics drop to the realm of util- 
 ities and casuistries. How close all this is to the New 
 Testament doctrine of salvation by faith, I have no 
 need to point out. Indeed, the watchword in the doc 
 trine of Paul, "the just shall live by faith," is a quota- 
 tion from the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk. 1 
 
 ii. Let us look at the protest against the sacrificial 
 idea of atonement as it has come down to us in the 
 writings of the sages. By the sages I mean the schools 
 of wise men who have given us the Books of Job, 
 Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. 
 
 The end aimed at in Hebrew philosophy, if it may be 
 called a philosophy, was wisdom, but always divine wis- 
 dom, which included ethics and religion, and was iden- 
 tical with communion with the Allwise. Those who 
 sought wisdom, those who possessed a complete and 
 rational view of life, were at once admitted into the 
 presence of God. God is not here represented as pri- 
 marily a God of love, but as a God of wisdom. And he 
 takes especial delight in those who choose wisely from 
 among their life's experiences, and reduce these to 
 something like system. 2 God has set the world-age in 
 man's heart. In reading out the secret of his own 
 nature, man finds God and the true ideal of society. 
 
 1 Hab. ii. 4. Cf. also Isa. xxviii. 16, where it is also affirmed that 
 the man of faith is a man of steadfastness, because he believes in eternal 
 and unchangeable things. 
 
 2 Schultz, ii. 84. 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. 135 
 
 Here, again, there is no doctrine of atonement. When 
 sacrifices are mentioned, it is in a way more or less figur- 
 ative. The only mediator needed is one who shall pro- 
 claim that they who seek after God in right thinking 
 and right living will find him. 
 
 12. In modern life there is a third powerful protest 
 against irrational theology. In addition to the Univer- 
 salist and the Unitarian we have the Poet. So in 
 ancient Israel the most truly religious of the Psalms 
 soar away up out of sight and sound of the received doc- 
 trines of sacrificial reconciliation. Psalms Thirty-two 
 and Fifty-one may be chosen as typical illustrations of 
 this. 1 It is here implied that sin shuts men away from 
 God, not God away from men. But this separation is 
 purely subjective, and may and should be overcome. Do 
 not, says the poet to his fellows, behave like a prancing 
 steed that will not come near without bit and bridle. 
 Do not fear God, he will not repel you. Confess your 
 transgressions and he will forgive the iniquity of your 
 sins. Do not think either that you must bribe him 
 over to your side, or purchase his favor, or bring a sub- 
 stitute to bear your sin. He has no pleasure in sacri- 
 fices or burnt offerings. 
 
 " The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; 
 A broken and a contrite heart, 
 
 God, thou wilt not despise." 
 
 It would be hard to find anywhere a keener sense of 
 sin or a firmer faith in the loving kindness and tender 
 mercy of God than that contained in the Fifty-first 
 Psalm. 
 
 1 See Cheyne and others on li. 18, 19. 
 
I36 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 13. It is worthy of note, if I may be permitted the 
 digression, that Buddhism aligns itself with the proph- 
 ets, sages, and poets on this question. 
 
 Buddha said, "If a man live a hundred years and 
 engage the whole of his time and attention in religious 
 offering to the gods, sacrificing elephants and horses 
 and other life, all this is not equal to one act of pure 
 love in saving life ! " Buddha denounced animal sac- 
 rifices as in themselves wrong : to him all life was 
 sacred. 
 
 III. THE PRIESTLY COUNTER-REFORMATION. 
 
 14. No ecclesiasticism, however firmly grounded in 
 popular prejudice, can withstand such protests as those 
 that we have noticed, without undergoing a counter- 
 reformation. Let us, therefore, look at the legal and 
 sacrificial ideas of atonement as they appear in the post- 
 exilian writers. We will dismiss Ezekiel, Zechariah, 
 Haggai, Joel, and some others, with the hint that they, 
 doubtless, had much to do in bringing this counter- 
 reformation about. 
 
 15. When we turn to the offerings of the Levitical 
 law, we are surprised to find how large a number of 
 them are no longer sacrifices, but fines and dues for 
 maintaining the priests, and the elaborate system of 
 praiseworthy charities managed by the Jewish Church. 1 
 In passages like Lev. v. 11, sacrifices are reduced to the 
 lowest possible limit. The daily meal and drink offer- 
 ings of which Joel so often speaks, required a surpris- 
 ingly small quantity of flour and wine. In fact, many 
 Jews before the time of Christ had, doubtless, come 
 
 1 Wellhausen's History, p. 73. 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. 1 37 
 
 to look upon the sacrifices as small indeed in value as 
 compared with the study of the law. 1 
 
 When we turn to these offerings themselves, and note 
 the character of the sins for which they avail, we are sur- 
 prised to find that they are for sins of ignorance, or for 
 omissions and misdemeanors in regard to which there 
 may have been a real perplexity of conscience, the con- 
 science not yet having pronounced judgment at the 
 time when some decision was forced upon the offender. 
 
 Let us look at these in detail. The sin-offering in 
 Lev. iv. 2 is clear enough. He is guilty who shall sin 
 by mistake in any of the things which Jahveh hath 
 commanded, and a sin-offering is due from him. The 
 variations from the first test case, cited in other 
 parts of the chapter, and in v. 15, 17, are equally 
 clear. 
 
 The law of the guilt-offering in Lev. v. is not quite so 
 easily understood. Verse 1 seems to be badly put. Yet 
 scholars find in it some such meaning as this : A wit- 
 ness appearing, say for a man that he knows to be in- 
 nocent, forgets the best part of his testimony in the 
 flurry of being called before the court, and the inno- 
 cent man is condemned. Such a witness is guilty. 
 He has been careless or thoughtless, or he has caught 
 a panic when he should have been made morally strong 
 by his sense of right. 2 
 
 Verses 2, 3, are purely ceremonial. A man without 
 knowing it is made unclean by some means, and subse- 
 quently does what the law forbids an unclean person 
 to do. Possibly the offence consisted in walking over 
 
 . 1 Weber's Altsynagogale Theologie, S. 38 ff. 
 2 See Toy, Judaism and Christianity, p. 226. 
 
138 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 the grave of some dead man. The offender is guilty, 
 and the act costs a lamb or a kid. 
 
 Verse 4 has to do with rash promises and oaths. The 
 language here clearly implies that the offender's inten- 
 tions were good, but he was rash or thoughtless, as was 
 Herod, for example, when he made the promise that 
 cost the life of John Baptist. 
 
 Lev. vi. 1-7 seems at first sight to be even more 
 perplexing than v. 1. That is, it looks as though the 
 writer intended to say that a man could cheat his 
 neighbor out of five thousand shekels, and make it 
 all right with Jahveh, by sending up- to the temple 
 five shekels of the spoils wherewith to buy a ram for 
 a guilt-offering. The passage runs as follows : " If any 
 one sin, and commit a trespass against Jahveh, and deal 
 falsely with his neighbor in a matter of deposit, or of 
 bargain, or of robbery, or have oppressed his neighbor, 
 or have found that which was lost, and deal falsely 
 therein, and swear to a lie : in any of all these that a man 
 doeth, sinning therein; then it shall be, if he hath sinned y 
 and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took, 
 . . . and bring his guilt-offering unto Jahveh." Now, 
 the whole of this passage has its secret in the repeti- 
 tion of the "if" idea. If it is perfectly evident that 
 the man has sinned, why the reiteration of the "if"? 
 The fact is, it was not evident at the time. The lan- 
 guage, especially its literary dependence upon Ex. xxii. 
 7-13, clearly shows this. It was a case of real per- 
 plexity of conscience. Let us enlarge upon one detail 
 of the passage by way of illustration. In the great 
 bulk of our trade to-day we have one known .quantity 
 in almost every exchange of goods. In ancient times 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. 1 39 
 
 when trade was, between neighbors, largely barter, 
 there were two unknown quantities. Suppose a man 
 exchanges two cows for a horse, often he could not 
 tell the relative value of the two cows and the horse 
 until he had owned them all for a certain length of 
 time. Then, when experience brings it to his notice, 
 he becomes aware of the fact that he knew all the 
 time that he was cheating his neighbor. 
 
 16. Now, in modern ethics, sins of ignorance, unless 
 the ignorance is " criminally acquired," are not sins. 
 In modern ethics, too, the existence of real perplexities 
 of conscience is admitted. And it is also claimed that 
 one may decide amiss in such a case, without being 
 guilty of sin. The future alone could decide whether 
 the act were good or bad. Moderns say that the igno- 
 rant offender must take the consequences of his blun- 
 ders. So said the Levitical law. It is said of these 
 ignorant, conscience-perplexed offenders, one after an- 
 other, " He is guilty, and shall bear his iniquity." 
 That does not mean that the ram shall bear it, or 
 that he bears it in the loss of his ram. But he bears 
 his iniquity in taking the punishment prescribed by the 
 laws of nature and of civil society. 
 
 In exact agreement with Leviticus is the book of 
 Hebrews. According to Heb. ix. 7 (R. V.), the 
 High Priest offers sacrifices " for the ignorances of the 
 people." But the author of Hebrews goes farther, and 
 declares, as does Paul, that sins of this kind are formal 
 rather than real, and that the sacrificial means of atone- 
 ment is of the same nature. " Gifts and sacrifices can- 
 not, as touching the conscience, make the worshipper 
 perfect, being only carnal ordinances, imposed until a 
 
140 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 time of reformation. . . . For it is impossible that the 
 blood of bulls and goats should take away sins." x 
 
 In no case, then, will a sacrifice enable a man to 
 escape the consequences of moral transgression. But 
 why must another take them, we ask, if the offender 
 must bear them himself ? Where is the substitution ? 
 In what does the ransom consist ? Obviously the ven- 
 erable Bishop Burnett was altogether wrong when he 
 wrote, " The notion of an expiatory sacrifice which was 
 there when the New Testament was writ, well under- 
 stood all the world over, both by Jews and Gentiles, 
 was this : that the sin of one person was transferred 
 on a man or a beast, who upon that was devoted or 
 offered to God, and suffered in the room of the offend- 
 ing person." 2 And Professor Schultz is right in say- 
 ing, " The sin-offering and guilt-offering of the Torah 
 are admissible only in cases where there has been no 
 wicked intention. " 3 
 
 17. Some scholars have tried to show that the ideas 
 that underlay the ceremonies of the " day of atone- 
 ment " were of a somewhat different nature, and do 
 imply a belief in substitutionary atonement. In the 
 first place, it should be said that the part played by the 
 scapegoat in the " day of atonement " is essentially 
 foreign to the religion of the Old Testament, and the 
 idea cannot with certainty be said to appear in the New 
 Testament at all. The account of the sacrifice is given 
 
 1 Heb. ix. 7-10, x. 1-4, and Cone's Gospel and Its Earliest Interpreta- 
 tions, p. 240 fol. 
 
 2 Quoted by Professor Everett, Gospel of Paul, p. 4. 
 
 3 Schultz's Old Testament Theology, vol. ii. p. 307. See also Piepen- 
 bring's Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 309-316. 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. 141 
 
 in Lev. xvi. Two goats are chosen ; and of these one is 
 appointed by lot for a sacrifice, and the other is loaded 
 with the sins of the people, and is driven away into the 
 wilderness. 1 The whole chapter seems to be a trans- 
 formation of an earlier idea, in which it was believed 
 that there was in the wilderness a place of sin, where 
 all sins belonged, and that it was the function of the 
 scapegoat to bear them thither to Azazel. 2 The idea 
 that in the ordinary sacrifice the sins of the people are 
 transferred to the victim by the imposition of the hands 
 of the priest is contradicted by the fact that it is not 
 the goat which is sacrificed that bears the sins of the 
 people, but the other goat which is thereby rendered 
 unclean and unholy. But the flesh of the sacrificial 
 victim is, in fact, always holy ; it is spoken of as the food 
 of God : and the blood of the victim had power to 
 cleanse and make holy the people or the altar tables 
 and vessels that were sprinkled with it. 3 When, there- 
 fore, the book of Hebrews affirms that without the 
 shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, it 
 refers to the purifying powers of the blood, and not 
 to the fact that one creature must die for the sins of 
 another. 4 
 
 1 Kuenen thinks Lev. xvi. an integral part of Ezra's law-book. Oort 
 cuts out part of it. Reuss and Zunz think it a later semi-heathen impor- 
 tation. Cf. Kuenen's Hexateuch, pp. 86, 311, 312; Lev. xxiii. 26-32, and 
 Num xxix. 7-1 1. 
 
 2 " Azazel " may mean this realm of sin in the wilderness, or the 
 demon that presides over it. Compare the similar notion of a place of 
 sin in Zech. v. 5-1 1. 
 
 3 Cave's Spiritual Doctrine of Sacrifice, p. 129 fol. 
 
 4 Hebrews ix. 22, considerably modified from Lev. xvii. 11. 
 
142 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 IV. THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE. 
 
 1 8. In the light of the discussion as it has progressed 
 thus far, what presumably does Paul, to single out the 
 greatest New Testament theologian, mean when he 
 speaks of " sacrifice " and "faith" in connection with 
 the justification and reconciliation secured to us by 
 Jesus Christ ? Is his idea of sacrifice different from 
 that of the law ? If not, Christ's sacrifice, even if 
 conceived literally, can do no more than free us from 
 sins of ignorance, which, according to modern notions, 
 are not sins at all. Yet, to Jewish notions, these sins 
 of ignorance were often just the only things that re- 
 pelled the divine favor. According to the late pro- 
 logue of the Book of Job, that patriarch regularly 
 offered sacrifices to God for each of his sons, lest, per- 
 chance, they had unwittingly sinned against the Deity. 1 
 The great day of atonement among the later Jews was 
 a sacrifice in which all Israel, as an organic unit, was 
 set free from any evil consequences that might come 
 to them through sins of ignorance. This atonement 
 was universal. So according to Paul the sacrifice of 
 Christ was suited, once for all, to remove from every 
 man any feeling of dread that might haunt him, lest 
 in a moment of thoughtlessness he had done or said 
 something that might alienate him forever from his 
 God. Again and again Paul speaks of the atonement 
 made by Christ as something which would benefit 
 men whether they would or no. Ritschl apprehended 
 clearly the fact that Paul's view of atonement was 
 social ; that his own language implies that it must be 
 
 1 Job i. 5. 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. 1 43 
 
 so, unless we limit all his broader statements by his 
 narrower ones. 1 It is the world as a whole for which 
 atonement is made by Christ. And they who come 
 unto God by him realize in a special sense that this is 
 true. He who believes in Christ has no need any 
 longer to offer sacrifice at the temple. 
 
 Paul took to heart the language of Gal. iii. 10, as 
 "John Ward, Preacher/' did the doctrine of hell. It 
 was to his sensitive nature a terrible, haunting reality. 
 All were under a curse; all were doomed to a life of 
 torture in the age to come. To be sure, in the time 
 of Christ the means of reconciliation in the Jewish 
 theology were legion. But dangers also were legion 
 and imminent. A man never knew when he might 
 be doing something that was ceremonially or ethically 
 wrong. It needed an expert to keep the law. So, as 
 Weber truly says, a man never knew just how he, as an 
 individual, stood with his God. Against all this the 
 nobility in Paul's soul revolts. Grant that all are under 
 a curse, it is not possible that God can damn the whole 
 race. There must be many saved. Human nature 
 and divine love alike demand it. The law had to be 
 abrogated, and it was abrogated in Christ. All arti- 
 ficial and imaginary barriers between God and man 
 are torn away. God henceforth looks upon the heart 
 and its intentions, and not upon the sins of ignorance. 
 While, therefore, the atonement, according to Paul, 
 avails for every man, he agrees, on the other hand, 
 with the ancient author, who says, " If I regard iniquity 
 in my heart, Jahveh will not hear me." In other words, 
 while the death of Christ atones for sins of inadver- 
 
 1 Pfleiderer's Development of Theology, p. 193. 
 
144 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 tence, it does not atone for wilful sins ; nor is Christ a 
 real Saviour, except by the exercise of those powers 
 of uprightness, love, and faith which he himself ex- 
 ercised. 
 
 How, according to St. Paul, did the death of Christ 
 reconcile men to God ? How did it free men from the 
 evil consequences of sins that must inadvertently or of 
 necessity have been committed. In this way. He who 
 did not keep the whole law was guilty of breaking it 
 all, or, in other words, was altogether a transgressor. 
 But to keep it all was an impossibility, because of 
 its very multiplicity of ceremonial and ethical details. 
 Therefore, God had counted all under sin. Christ re- 
 deemed the world, not by taking its sins, but by being 
 the medium for declaring void that which made men 
 sinners ; namely, the law. And now the question arises, 
 How did Christ, or God through Christ, set aside the 
 Mosaic Law ? The answer to this appears in a com- 
 parison of Gal. iii. 13 with Deut. xxi. 22, 23. Paul 
 says, " Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, 
 having become a curse for us." Had Paul stopped 
 there we would perhaps be warranted in saying that 
 God punished Christ for our sins. But Paul does not 
 stop. He continues quoting the passage from Deuter- 
 onomy, " Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." 
 So, then, Christ is not crucified because he is cursed, 
 because he has the sins of the world to bear. But he 
 is cursed because he, though innocent, yea, even sinless, 
 has been crucified and hung to a tree, and thereby 
 declared unclean, — so unclean, in fact, that if he is 
 allowed to hang all night thus he will pollute the whole 
 Holy Land. "Thou shalt bury him the same day," 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. 1 45 
 
 says the Deuteronomist, " for he that is hanged is a 
 curse of God. Bury him, lest thou defile thy land." 1 
 
 Now, here is an irreconcilable conflict between a 
 law which is in many ways "holy, just, and good," and 
 a man who is " without sin," and yet who, by a provi- 
 dential chain of events, has become a curse in the eye 
 of the law. What is to be the outcome ? With whom 
 will the Deity side ? For three days, runs the story, 
 the momentous problem remained unsolved. Then, lo, 
 the spirit revives, the letter dies. Christ rose from 
 the dead ; the law was crucified. It has been common 
 to appeal to Gal. iii. 13 as the ruling passage in support 
 of the idea that Christ in some way died in our stead. 
 But Paul's context is clearly against all this. Ritschl 
 affirms that passages like Rom. iii. 25 and 2 Cor. v. 21 
 are figurative, while this is literal, and he repeats on 
 several occasions that there is no hint in this passage 
 of the sacrificial idea. 2 Prof. James Drummond has 
 given expression to a similar idea. Says he, "The 
 curse of the law, valid till then, lost its power by touch- 
 ing one to whom it could have no just application. By 
 the law he was cursed ; by the very nature of righteous- 
 ness and of God he was blessed ; and therefore the law 
 was dead." Even more interesting than his own valua- 
 ble note is Professor Drummond's testimony that the 
 Fathers held this view of the passage before him. Jus- 
 tin Martyr, says he, denied that Christ was a curse of 
 
 1 For the persistence of these ideas in later times, see Tobit i. 7 and ii. 
 1 1 , passim, and the New Testament accounts of the necessity of immediate 
 burial. 
 
 2 Rechtfertigung und Versohnung, SS. 48, 174, 246-263, with which 
 agree Everett's Gospel of Paul, and James Drummond's Galatians, pp. 
 118, 121. 
 
146 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 God; and Theodoret, in a note on Gal. iii. 13, affirmed 
 that Christ " himself accepted the death which accord- 
 ing to the law was accursed." 
 
 Professor Everett has recently come to the support of 
 this interpretation of the Pauline doctrine in a very 
 readable book upon the " Gospel of Paul." And not 
 far different from this view, if at all, is this remarkable 
 passage in Ballou's " Treatise on the Atonement : " * 
 " The literal death of the man, Christ Jesus, is figurative, 
 and all the life we obtain by it is by learning what it 
 represented. The literal body of Jesus represented the 
 whole letter of the law, with all the allegories contained 
 in the word of prophecy. The death of the body of 
 Jesus represented the death and destruction of the 
 letter, when the spirit comes forth bursting the veil 
 thereof, which is represented by the resurrection of 
 Jesus from the dead." 
 
 19. That this interpretation of the passage is the cor- 
 rect one is further shown by the fact that in Col. ii. 
 Paul closely connects the ideas of forgiveness of sins 
 and freedom from details of the law. 2 In other words, 
 their sins have been forgiven, not because the demands 
 of the law have been satisfied, but because the law 
 itself has been abrogated. Further confirmation comes 
 from the fact that the Gospel tradition represents Jesus 
 as taking great liberties with the law. He broke the 
 Sabbath, and openly combated the " Mosaic " practice 
 of giving qorban. How then could such an one by being 
 slain satisfy the law, the just suffering for the unjust ? 
 Indeed, Christ cannot be called a sacrifice, except by 
 figure of speech, for there was no altar and no priest on 
 
 1 Miner's Edition, p. 167. 2 Everett's Paul, 160, 162. 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. 1 47 
 
 Calvary. His death, however, did bring forgiveness 
 and reconciliation, hence the idea that he was a sin- 
 offering or a guilt-offering might easily arise. Yet how 
 loosely that idea was held appears from Heb. ix. 13-15, 
 where Christ's blood cleanses not from sin, but from 
 the dead formalisms of the law, and restores the living 
 worship of God. 1 In fact, it is readily seen, that, if 
 Christ suffered in accordance with the law and to sat- 
 isfy its demands, then the Mosaic law, ritual and all, 
 must still hold good. The epistle of James seems to 
 see and adopt this conclusion. 
 
 20. That the New Testament, as a whole, does not 
 adopt the view that Jesus was a literal sacrifice is obvi- 
 ous from the fact that Jesus is variously spoken of as 
 our ransom, expiation, passover, sin-offering, prophet, 
 and high-priest. To try to get substitutionary or expia- 
 tory atonement out of such a diversity of figures is, as 
 Ballou says, " carnality and carnal-mindedness. ,, But 
 inasmuch as the law was the mediator of righteousness 
 to the Jew, Christ, as the destroyer of Jewish particu- 
 larism, naturally became in a special sense the mediator 
 of the Gentile. This appears clearly in Paul's context, 
 and so confirms our interpretation. Christ was made a 
 curse, " that upon the Gentiles might come the blessing 
 of Abraham." 2 
 
 21. Now, this " blessing of Abraham," of which Paul 
 speaks, is exactly the prophetic idea of atonement. It 
 is confidence in the ideal man, faith in the final real- 
 ization of the possible man. The law, says Paul, could 
 not secure this. It bound man down to hard and fast 
 rules. " It was weak through the flesh." It was ne- 
 
 1 Everett's Paul, 169, 170. 2 Gal. ii. 14. 
 
I48 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 cessary ; it had a real and important work to perform. 
 But it was purely transitory, it was a side issue. To 
 use Paul's own language, i/o'/xos Sc irapetd^XOev. 1 Paul is 
 right here ; for the story of Abraham, to which he 
 appeals, has come down to us from the classic period of 
 Hebrew prophecy, and precedes the law. It must have 
 been composed not far from the times in which lived 
 the four great prophets, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. 
 The doctrines taught in this charming bit of story are 
 the doctrines of the prophets. Paul, then, by his own 
 confession, carries his doctrines back to # the prophets. 
 The mediating priest is set aside. Every man has 
 access to God. The heavenly Father is beforehand 
 favorable to every penitent. They who have faith in 
 Jesus, as the divinely appointed abrogator of ceremo- 
 nial law, have immediate access to God, and may receive 
 the adoption of sons. Jesus often called himself " Son 
 of man," less often " Son of God." Paul claims this 
 divine brotherhood and sonship for all Jesus' followers. 
 And they possess it in virtue of the fact that Christ is 
 formed within them. The law of God, full of sweet 
 and reasonable morality, is written on the fleshly tab- 
 lets of their hearts. Each man is a law to himself, and 
 the bond of union is the Christ-ideal. 
 
 22. This view of Paul's doctrine of the person and 
 work of Christ finds support in a very large percentage 
 of the early Christian literature. The Gospels lay chief 
 stress upon the works and teachings of Christ. If 
 Paul's doctrines had been taken in the sense that 
 Christ was punished for our sins, it is probable that 
 our Gospels would have been deeply colored with 
 
 Rom. v. 20. 
 
FOR THE WAY OF SALVATION. 1 49 
 
 that thought. The fact that they are not so colored 
 argues that Paul was not so understood. 
 
 The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, which was the 
 catechism of the early Christian churches, clearly sup- 
 ports the above interpretation. The ethical part of 
 the document is very simple, though complete. The 
 prayer recommended is the Lord's Prayer, which is to 
 be said thrice daily. Faith is exalted a spiritual in- 
 sight into divine things, and into a mystic union with 
 Jesus who is called not God, but a " servant of God." x 
 
 Equally worthy of comment were the ideas of sacri- 
 fice common among the early Christians. If any of 
 them held to a substitutionary doctrine of atonement, 
 he must have created the same de novo. For all through 
 the early Fathers the idea of sacrifice prevails, which is 
 expressed in the following quotation from the epistle 
 of Diognetus (150 a.d.). " Whereas the Greeks, by 
 offering these things to senseless and deaf images, 
 make an exhibition of stupidity, the Jews, considering 
 that they are presenting them to God, as if he were in 
 need of them, ought in all reason to count it folly, and 
 not religious worship. For he that made heaven and 
 earth . . . cannot himself need any of these things 
 which he himself supplieth." 2 Obviously here the 
 sacrificial victim is not something which is punished for 
 man as a satisfaction for sin. It is merely a free gift, 
 an offering to the Deity to please him. 
 
 23. I have hinted at Hosea Ballou's prophetic insight 
 in apprehending before his time some of the ideas that 
 the Higher Criticism and modern historical investiga- 
 tion generally, have made commonplaces. When he 
 
 1 Greek naig. 2 Quoted by Prof. Everett, Paul, p. 60. 
 
I50 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 affirms that the Gospel is but the spirit of ancient 
 Prophetism set free, or as Joel would say, ' poured out 
 upon all flesh, he has done all in his power to approve 
 the thesis of our title, " Back to the Old Testament." 
 Ballou never tires of saying that God's attitude toward 
 man is that of tender love, now and always. And man 
 has only to realize by faith this truth, which Jesus' 
 teachings, life, death, and resurrection reveal, in order 
 to have free access to the heavenly Father. The 
 reason men had resort to sacrifices and penances was 
 because they thought God was angry and needed to be 
 appeased. "As if," says Ballou, "he who commands 
 us to love our enemies could hate or be angry with any 
 man ! " \ " God never called for a sacrifice to reconcile 
 himself to man." 2 
 
 In what sense, then, is Christ a Saviour, according to 
 Ballou ? His reply shall be our reply. It is the only 
 one that will suit our argument. Jesus saves because 
 he "has power to cause us to love holiness and hate 
 sin. He has power to reveal the divine beauties of the 
 world ; to remove the letter and its administration, which 
 are death, to take the veil from the heart, and to cause 
 us to see himself altogether lovely." 3 Now, this is, I 
 maintain, the teaching of the prophets, sages, and 
 poets of the Old Testament, and it is not contradicted 
 by the law, when we understand the doctrine of sacri- 
 fices in its entire history. Christianity joins itself 
 directly to Prophetism as its completion and fulfil- 
 ment. The ancient Jews said the law is the body, the 
 prophets are the soul. We say the body dies, but the 
 soul lives on forever. 
 
 1 P. 151. 2 P. 147. • P. 165. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR THE 
 SUFFERING CHRIST. 
 
" The children of the world are members one of another. When the Holy 
 One desires to give healing to the world, he smites one just man amongst them, 
 and for his sake heals all the rest. Whence do we learn this ? From the 
 
 saying, l He was wounded for our transgressions? " 
 
 Talmud. 
 
 " Not by breaking from the community was the individual to realize himself, 
 but by taking it to his heart, by feeling its sorrows and its sins, as if they were 
 his own, and by sharing its misery, and even its punishment from God." 
 
 G. A. Smith. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR THE SUFFERING 
 
 CHRIST. 
 
 I. THE SOCIAL VIEW OF ATONEMENT ACCORDING TO 2 ISAIAH. 
 
 i. That the sacrifice of a human victim has supreme 
 power to win the favor or avert the disfavor of a deity, 
 is an idea widely prevalent in primitive society. The 
 practice of offering human sacrifices has been, in times 
 past, well-nigh universal. There are several passages 
 in the Old Testament which indicate that this was, at 
 one time, an orthodox Hebrew practice. It is probable 
 that we have relics of it in the expression " before 
 Jahveh," that occurs in the account of the murder of 
 Agag by Samuel, and in the story of the hanging up, 
 before Jahveh at Gibeah, of the relatives of Saul. Still 
 clearer are the large number of passages in which it is 
 said that a man is made "to pass through the fire." 
 In some of these it is stated that the victim passed 
 through the fire to Moloch. But others make no such 
 limitation ; and Jahveh, who was a consuming fire, and 
 whose original abode was the lightning-capped Sinai, 
 was equally conceived, by some Israelites, to be a God 
 who could be appeased by the burning before him of a 
 human sacrifice. 1 Ahaz and Manasseh are both said, 
 
 1 See especially Deut. xii. 30, 31. 
 *53 
 
154 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 by the Book of Kings, to have sacrificed their sons, 
 Jeremiah and Ezekiel both knew of the practice, and 
 condemned it; and Josiah sought to root out this 
 relic of barbarism entirely. 1 One of the most inter- 
 esting passages bearing upon this question, is found 
 in i Kings xvi. 34, where an account is given of the 
 rebuilding of Jericho. The founding of a city was, 
 in early times, an event of great importance. 2 The 
 city, as a whole, must, by some rite or ceremony, be 
 dedicated to a god, or must purchase his protecting 
 favor. Hiel, the Bethelite, when he rebuilt Jericho, 
 sacrificed a son at the laying of the foundation, and 
 another son when he set up the gates. The original 
 purport of the passage is partly obscured by the proph- 
 ecy of the events in Josh. vi. 26, where a curse is pro- 
 nounced upon the man who shall rebuild the city. But 
 the original meaning of the passage in Kings is per- 
 fectly clear. And it is, obviously, the intention of both 
 passages to censure the practice of human sacrifice. 3 
 So, too, the famous chapter of the sacrifice of Isaac in 
 Gen. xxii. is clearly intended to show that human sacri- 
 fices are no longer pleasing to Jahveh. 4 The implica- 
 
 1 Cf. 2 Kings xvi. 3; xvii. 17; xxi. 6; xxiii. 10; Jer. xxxii. 25; Ezek. xx. 
 26, 31. The practice is condemned in Deut. xviii. 10; Lev. xviii. 21. 
 The early passage condemns it as a corrupt form of Jahveh worship; the 
 later one, as a form of idolatry. 
 
 2 Coulanges' Ancient City, p. 177 fol. 
 
 3 Dillmann regards this view "an unfounded conjecture," and cites, 
 from classic history, proof that it was a cursed thing to build waste cities. 
 Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, S. 466. 
 
 4 Says Professor Kuenen in his Hexateuch, p. 244: " Gen. xxii. shows 
 how Elohim, though having the right to demand the sacrifice of chil- 
 dren, does not actually require it, but is content with the willingness to 
 make it." 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. 1 55 
 
 tions of the Hebrew law agree with the histories in 
 this regard. Originally all first-born belonged to Jah- 
 veh. And the firstlings of flock and field were sacri- 
 ficed. But already in the oldest law human sacrifice 
 is tacitly condemned. It is said that the first-born 
 sons are Jahveh's, but his not to be offered in sacrifice, 
 but to minister to him as priests. And when the 
 Levites took the place of the first-born they were 
 bought off (redeemed) from this service. 1 And if, in- 
 deed, sacrifice goes back for its origin to the times of 
 totemism, when the sacrificial animal was really looked 
 upon as a sacred animal, if not, indeed, as a fellow 
 tribesman, we can see how the substitution of the totem 
 animal for the first-born might have appeared a per- 
 fectly valid exchange. 
 
 2. As time went on, however, it became apparent 
 that neither human nor animal sacrifices gave expres- 
 sion to the highest truths of ethics and religion. It 
 was inevitable that the Jews would come to see that 
 bloody sacrifices were not in accord with either pure 
 worship or good morals ; that only a depraved con- 
 science could think of offering a bull or goat, or even 
 the fruit of the body, for the sin of the soul. 2 Yet, 
 on closer reflection, it must have appeared that the real 
 essential truth in the sacrificial idea found its fullest 
 expression in human sacrifice, when correctly under- 
 stood. And, in fact, the true idea which underlay this 
 notion survived and found expression in a large num- 
 ber of passages. It consists in the belief that the 
 
 1 See the Little Book of the Covenant, Ex. xxxiv. 20, the Book of the 
 Covenant, Ex. xxii. 29, and the Deuteronomic section, Ex. xiii. I, 2 fol. 
 
 2 Mic. vi. 6-8. 
 
156 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 righteous men in a community possess the power to 
 atone for sin and avert evil. This notion does not 
 connect itself directly with that of human sacrifice. 
 Never in the early literature, at least, are the right- 
 eous spoken of as a sacrifice. The idea is rather based 
 upon the primitive conception of the oneness of the 
 tribe or nation. 1 Just as the sin of Achan brings its 
 evil consequences upon the whole people, and even, 
 when he is detected, results in the death of his wife, 
 children, and animals, so a few righteous men might, 
 on a similar conception of society, avert a threatened 
 evil. Abraham finally succeeds in obtaining from Jah- 
 veh the promise that, if there are ten righteous men 
 in Sodom, he will "not destroy the city for the ten's 
 sake/' 2 This same idea finds expression in a well- 
 known passage in Ezekiel, wherein he says, "When a 
 land sinneth against me by committing a trespass, and 
 I stretch out mine hand upon it, and break the staff of 
 the bread thereof, and send famine upon it, and cut off 
 from it man and beast ; though these three men, Noah, 
 Daniel, and Job were in it, they should deliver but their 
 own souls by their righteousness, saith Jahveh God." 3 
 A few verses later Ezekiel states explicitly that these 
 men could deliver neither son nor daughter. The 
 family is no longer, as in the story of Achan, a 
 social unit. Jeremiah, too, has a passage which is 
 similar to that in Ezekiel. Jahveh says, "Though 
 
 1 Josh. vii. and Num. xvi. 1-35; 2 Sam. xxiv; 2 Kings xxiii. 26, and 
 often. 
 
 2 Gen. xviii. 16-33. Isaiah gives expression to the same idea, and with 
 the same event in mind, in i. 9, a fact which runs counter to the late date 
 assigned to the Genesis passage by Smend. 
 
 8 Ezek. xiv. 13, 14. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. 1 57 
 
 Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind 
 could not be toward this people " (xv. 1). And on 
 several occasions Jeremiah affirms that the prayers of 
 righteous men will not avail to avert the coming dis- 
 aster (vii. 16; xi. 14), In none of these passages is 
 it implied that the righteous suffer for the wicked, or 
 even with them. The passage in Ezekiel, indeed, ex- 
 plicitly states that the three will save their own lives. 
 The righteous, then, in these passages, do not save 
 the people by suffering for them, but by living among 
 them. 1 
 
 In a different series of passages, however, Jeremiah, 
 while not forsaking his position as a mild individualist, 
 affirms that he himself, though righteous, must with 
 his nation take the consequences of a sinful life. The 
 punishment which they have incurred falls with espe- 
 cial force upon him. " The way of man is not in him- 
 self ; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps " 
 (x. 23). These steps are directed by Jahveh, or, rather, 
 they are directed by the corporate life of the nation, of 
 which each separate man is a part. While, then, Jere- 
 miah's theology leads him to expect that the righteous 
 may save themselves, his own experience was to the 
 effect that the good and the bad suffer together for the 
 sins of the bad. Ezekiel, too, for all his reiteration of 
 the doctrine that the soul that sinneth, not some other, 
 shall die for its sins, still regards nations as units, and 
 forces every patriot to take his country's fate. Even 
 in Sheol the peoples are arranged according to their 
 nationality. 2 There is an unseen conflict here. And, 
 
 1 This is the idea that underlies the College Settlements in our day. 
 
 2 Ezek. xxxii. 17 fol. 
 
158 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 obviously, the new individualism must produce, in turn, 
 a new and more perfect conception of solidarity. Two 
 of the greatest Hebrews of antiquity, but whose names 
 are unknown, wrestled with this problem. The author 
 of Job is sure that righteousness does not always, and 
 at once, result in happiness and prosperity. The Second 
 Isaiah is sure that the righteous suffer with and for the 
 wicked. They are, as it were, a guilt-offering to Jah- 
 veh for the sins of their people. While, then, the 
 time-solidarity (heredity) is declared insufficient to 
 explain this momentous problem of evil, it is tacitly 
 affirmed that the space-solidarity (socialism) is able to 
 throw a new light upon the subject. 
 
 3. The Book of Deuteronomy had brought the older 
 thought to a focus, and stated categorically that right- 
 eousness and happiness are coextensive. If a man is 
 righteous he will be prosperous and happy, if he is 
 wicked he will be unfortunate and unhappy. Con- 
 versely, he who suffers misfortune must either in him- 
 self or in his parents be a sinner. 1 This is similarly 
 the point of view of Job's friends, and against which the 
 patriarch so nobly rebels. Now, the Second Isaiah 
 accepted in part and rejected in part the current philo- 
 sophy. He denied, as did the author of Job, that in 
 every individual case prosperity follows equity. But 
 he affirmed that in the nation as a whole, righteousness 
 and blessing, wickedness and cursing, do balance each 
 other. What had manifestly proved itself untrue in 
 many individual cases was true of the community, the 
 nation, and the world. Said the champions of the new 
 solidarity, " Blessed is the nation that fears the Lord." 
 
 1 See Deut. xxviii. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. 1 59 
 
 In a sense all this was but a return to an older view. 
 But it was that older, childlike view lifted into self-con- 
 sciousness. A truth, which at first had been seen only 
 on its physical side, was now seen on its moral and 
 spiritual side. The doctrine of the equivalence of 
 righteousness and blessing assumed, through the insight 
 into human sympathy, a new and mighty spiritual signifi- 
 cance. According to the Babylonian Isaiah, not only 
 is it tcf be frankly admitted, then, that the righteous 
 suffer, but it is equally true that they suffer willingly. 
 Their sufferings are for a purpose, they are vicarious ; 
 that is, they suffer to redeem Israel and the whole 
 world, and bring them to God. 1 Israel was slow to rec- 
 ognize this great mission which the prophet saw for 
 him. The nation was prone to underestimate its great 
 prophets and statesmen. And, on the other hand, these 
 saints often felt that they were not appreciated, either 
 by their fellows or their Deity. But the Great Un- 
 known has a word of momentous consequence for them. 
 When, because of his disasters, and from a conscious- 
 ness of his sins, Israel says, " I have labored in vain, I 
 have spent my strength for nought and vanity," Jah- 
 veh says in reply, "It is too light a thing that thou 
 shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, 
 and to restore the preserved of Israel : I will also give 
 thee for a light to the Gentiles, that my salvation may 
 be unto the end of the earth." 2 This is indeed a 
 
 1 With the idea that righteousness and happiness balance not in the 
 nation simply but in the whole world, as Isaiah's thought really implies, 
 Carlyle could have agreed. Says he, " There is not a red Indian hunting 
 by Lake Winnipic can quarrel with his squaw, but the whole world must 
 smart for it." — Sartor Resartus. 
 
 2 Isa. xlix. 1-6. 
 
l6o BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 remarkable passage. It seems to " point, as it were, 
 beyond the borders of the Israelitish religion." 1 It 
 contains the germs of Christianity and of the absolute 
 religion, the universal religion. 
 
 4. Who, then, is it, that according to Second Isaiah, 
 makes this atonement for Israel's sins ? Just who or 
 what is this servant of Jahveh, mentioned so often by 
 the prophet ? The term is often used in the Old Testa- 
 ment. It is employed in Job i. 8 ; ii. 3, where perhaps 
 the patriarch is thought of as a symbol of the afflicted 
 nation. Proselytes are also called servants of Jahveh, 
 but the term is most often used of the prophets. There 
 has been much controversy as to the real meaning of 
 Isa. liii. Because of the New Testament use of it, 
 it has been held to be a Messianic section, giving a 
 clear and concise prediction of the work and atoning 
 death of Jesus. This view has now very generally been 
 abandoned, or it is held, if at all, in a greatly modified 
 form. The difficulties in the way of the old interpreta- 
 tion are insuperable. On the other hand, it has been 
 held that the servant is either the whole nation, viewed 
 as an organic unit, or at any rate, the righteous part of 
 it so regarded. 
 
 That the Second Isaiah means by the servant of Jah- 
 veh the Israelitish nation, or the pious kernel in the 
 nation, and not an individual Messiah, is evident from a 
 number of considerations. Not only does he explicitly 
 call Cyrus the Messiah (xlv. 1), but he just as clearly 
 calls the nation, 2 or the righteous portion of the nation, 3 
 
 1 Kuenen, Religion of Israel, ii. 138. 
 
 2 Isa. xli. 8; xlii. 1, 18-21; xliv. 1, 2, 21; xlv. 4; xlviii. 20; xlix. 3; 
 with which compare also Jer. xxx. 10; Ezek. xxviii. 25. 
 
 8 Isa. xlix. 1-7; liii. 1-12. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. l6l 
 
 or the prophets of the nation, 1 the servant of Jahveh 
 who makes atonement for the sins of the nation and 
 of the world. This suffering servant cannot have been 
 Christ, for to the prophet he exists in the present and 
 has suffered in the past. According to Wellhausen, 2 
 the case is put much stronger than this. The nation as 
 a nation has ceased to exist, the servant of Jahveh is 
 dead. But by reason of the atonement made by the 
 nation, there will be a resurrection. He, the nation, 
 shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days. As thus 
 interpreted, the passage makes Second Isaiah look for 
 a renewal of the national life. 3 And this renewal or 
 resurrection of tfie Jewish state is to be brought about 
 by the teachings and sympathetic and even painful 
 labors of the righteous, who are mediators of God to the 
 people. 
 
 If the servant is the whole nation rather than the 
 righteous kernel, then the servant's righteousness is 
 technical rather than real. Indeed, some of the fairest 
 critics reconcile these apparently diverse opinions. The 
 prophet seems to think of the term " servant of Jah- 
 veh " as applying at one time to the righteous and at an- 
 other time to the righteous and sinful together. "The 
 truth is," says Piepenbring, "that he gives it by turns to 
 both of them." In more significant language Schultz 
 expresses a similar view. He says the servant " is 
 considered one with empirical Israel in its vocation, 
 
 1 Isa. xliv. 26; xlviii. 16; 1. 4-10; lxi. 1-3. 
 
 2 History of Israel, pp. 400, 401. The servant is here identified with 
 the whole people. 
 
 3 Ezekiel's valley of dry bones teaches not the resurrection of individ- 
 uals, but of the nation (Ezek. xxxvii.). . 
 
1 62 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 although distinguished from it in its actual form." 
 The prophet, then, by courtesy identifies with the 
 servant those who are Israelites merely in name. But 
 in his own thought he grants atoning powers only to 
 those who are Israelites in reality. Or, to state the 
 matter differently, the nation was technically just, its 
 civil code was the law of Jahveh, and its religion was 
 the religion of the true God, who was Lord of the 
 whole earth ; but, nevertheless, wicked men in the state 
 have brought down the divine wrath. To avert this 
 and save the people, the nation presents itself as a sin 
 offering, which is accepted and the nation is slain. It 
 has gone into captivity and ceased to t>e. But all this 
 was done for a purpose, to save Israel and the world. 
 The faithfulness of a portion of Israel will prevent God 
 from destroying the wicked who help to compose it 
 (lxv. 8-10). The true Saviour of Israel in any case, 
 then, is its righteous men. 
 
 " It is theirs," says Schultz, " by meekness, gentle- 
 ness, and inexhaustible strength, in the fulness of the 
 spirit and of prophetic eloquence, to make atonement 
 for Israel, to lead him out of prison, to enlighten him, 
 and then to become a light unto the Gentiles." 1 
 
 5. According to liii. 10, the servant is a guilt-offering 
 for sin. As we have already seen in a preceding chap- 
 ter, the guilt-offering availed only for sins of inadver- 
 tence or of perplexity of conscience. Wilful sins or 
 crimes were punished by the civil law; after which 
 the broken and contrite, that is, punished and repen- 
 tant, spirit might find peace with God. The presenting 
 his soul, then, as an offering for sin is not the most 
 
 1 Schultz, O. T. TheoL, vol. i, p. 315. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. 1 63 
 
 important part of the servant's work, if we use the 
 word offering in its usual sense. According to 2 Isaiah 
 sin consisted in the intent more than in the act. And 
 it is a question whether he did not believe that ani- 
 mal sacrifice was a superstition which ought in justice 
 to be done away (lviii. 13, 14, lxv., lxvi.). He certainly 
 does not mention circumcision as a requisite to ad- 
 mission into the church (liv. 6-8). At any rate, if 
 we allow Isaiah's book to be the definition of the 
 " guilt-offering," we shall find in it a richness and 
 fulness of meaning found nowhere else. In the Priest 
 Code the asham is ethical, but it is not spiritual. In 
 the prophets, poets, and sages, the word often has a 
 transformed meaning, but nowhere so clearly as here 
 are we told what that meaning is. It is here the sacri- 
 fice of a guiltless one, to keep the singular, who by volun- 
 tarily entering into and bearing the pains of the guilty, 
 puts himself sympathetically into a position to be their 
 true religious teacher and ethical guide. 1 Prof. Cheyne, 
 who, in his commentary on Isaiah, defends the tradi- 
 tional view of chapter liii., practically forsakes his 
 ground when he admits that the asham or guilt-offering 
 has efficacy only for him who offers it. Christ, then, 
 could not by offering himself as an asham save the 
 world. Only as redeemed and redeemer suffer together, 
 can they hope to be saved together. The servant must 
 be " mystically identified with all Israel," and with 
 the whole world, in fact. For the mission of the ser- 
 vant to the world is clearly emphasized in a number 
 of passages. 2 
 
 1 Schultz, O. T. Theol., ii. p. 433, note* 
 
 2 xlii. 1-6, xlix. 1-7, liii. 11, 12. 
 
164 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 6. Not only does 2 Isaiah spiritualize the idea of 
 sacrifice, but the law also is given a transformed and 
 exalted place. It is interpreted with great freedom, 
 and given a purely spiritual and ethical content. It is 
 identified with the divine and imperishable element in 
 Israel's religious history, it is righteousness and truth, 
 and not legalism nor formalism. The personal element 
 still lives in the law as its vital principle. It is not a 
 mere compend of commands and prohibitions, but it is 
 still one with the prophet who declares it and the God 
 from whom it proceeds. Even when the nation is dead, 
 and the prophetic voice is hushed, the law is the pledge 
 and promise of a resurrected nation. The law is the 
 pedagogue to lead the world to God, but it is also much 
 more than a mere usher, for to 2 Isaiah the law of the 
 Lord finds its fullest expression in the living voice of 
 the Lord's prophets and righteous servants. 1 
 
 7. This servant of Jahveh, therefore, according to 
 2 Isaiah, may be defined and thought of as possessing 
 the characteristics of a true prophet. He is in every 
 way, by experience and spiritual endowment, fitted and 
 made ready for his arduous task. He is clothed with 
 the spirit of God. His mind and heart are quickened 
 by the divine love. He is made docile and tender. 
 He is made strong and persevering. He knows that 
 he will be despised and rejected, that his own people 
 will fail to appreciate his service, and look upon his 
 work with ingratitude, and even disgust. But he 
 knows also that his preaching is right, and that God 
 is with him. He knows that God must punish, and 
 that he seems to punish in wrath. He knows that his 
 
 1 Isa. xlii. 4, 21; li. 4, 7. . 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. 1 65 
 
 sinful brethren ought to expect wrath and not favor. 
 While, therefore, he receives upon his own shoulders 
 the stripes that have been called forth by others, he 
 does not receive them in wrath or in rebellion, but in 
 sympathy. He feels the wrath of God more keenly 
 than his sin-hardened brothers, but he knows that that 
 wrath is not directed against him. He knows that the 
 father who chastens his child inflicts worse pains upon 
 # himself, and that God never punishes willingly. The 
 servant has learned the- most important lesson, that, 
 from the very nature of society, good and bad have to 
 rejoice and suffer together to a very large extent. If 
 the noble, the gifted, and the righteous do not take 
 their brothers with them to the summits of the perfect 
 civilization, it is because there is something lacking in 
 their nobility and their righteousness. And so the 
 unknown prophet, at times, seems to censure the ser- 
 vant for want of breadth of view and want of faith, and 
 for seeming lack of success in his mission. Yet the 
 servant makes no complaint. He knows that con- 
 sciously he has done no wrong. And he submits wil- 
 lingly to his fate, for his presence among those who 
 rebel at the punishment incurred, softens them, melts 
 them to tears, and brings the divine mercy and forgive- 
 ness near. By no means does the servant suffer as a 
 substitute for his people. They, too, suffer with him, 
 as he with them. But his suffering with them and 
 sympathy for them, and his constant pleading with 
 them to repent and turn to righteousness, because de- 
 served punishment is the medicine of the soul, places 
 him in the best possible position to be their teacher, 
 and puts them in the best position to learn his lessons. 
 
1 66 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 8. And the better the servant comes to know the peo- 
 ple he has saved, the more is he impressed with the fact 
 that they, too, as well as he, have placed their soul as 
 an offering for sin, that they, as well as he, make vica- 
 rious atonement for others. After all, that exegesis 
 which sees in Isaiah liii. the whole people, and not the 
 kernel nor a martyr merely, gives the chapter to the 
 world to-day on its richest side. The wicked suffer 
 vicariously as truly as the righteous. And they suffer 
 for the righteous as truly as the righteous do for them. 
 They are forced to bear in their lives the evil results of 
 a form of society which they did not create, but into 
 which they were born as into an inheritance, and from 
 which they could not wholly free themselves. By fill- 
 ing up these gaps they hold society together, and create 
 the environment which makes the righteousness of the 
 righteous possible. If there is one thought above an- 
 other that dominates the Second Isaiah, it is the thought 
 of the absolute dependence of the members of society 
 upon each other. And in a society in which all are 
 members one of another, any progress that is confined 
 to classes, or cliques, or parties, or denominations, is 
 but make-bejieve. It is sham progress. And ever and 
 anon he who has pushed his way to the top must turn 
 around, seem to take a backward step, and become the 
 servant of all. He must put his soul an offering for 
 s sin. Only thus can society see its seed, and prolong its 
 days. If this is not done ruin and disaster are inevi- 
 table. The divinity of the servant, then, consists in, 
 the fact, that "he would rather suffer and die than 
 save himself by separating himself from the people, 
 and leaving them without a seed of a nobler future. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. l6j 
 
 Hence this suffering is endured in faith, love, and 
 hope." 1 
 
 The mission of the servant, then, as we have seen, 
 is clearly portrayed in the great unknown prophet ; it 
 is to redeem Israel, to make atonement for the sins of 
 the world. The righteous servant " suffers as a part of 
 Israel ; he bears the sins of his nation." 2 He does not 
 do this unwillingly, or because forced to it. He does 
 not do it "because of a mysterious decree of God" 
 (Schultz), to purchase salvation or to symbolize Christ, 
 but he does it voluntarily, because he sees that it is his 
 duty and mission. 3 It is not a revealed but a natural 
 duty, one which arises from the very structure of the 
 social organism, for we are members one of another. 
 And may we not agree with John Tillotson, who, in 
 speaking of "a natural duty," continues, "and because 
 it is so it is of a more necessary and indispensable 
 obligation than any positive precept of revealed reli- 
 gion." There is nothing irrational, nothing rational- 
 istic, in this view of atonement. Indeed, it is because 
 it is all so natural, because the mission of the servant 
 was so lofty, broad, and simple, that it never com- 
 mended itself to the Jews. They were unable to 
 grasp its meaning. A natural and simple, yet pro- 
 foundly spiritual, view of atonement was not what the 
 Jews or the post apostolic church wanted. And they, 
 therefore, sought to evolve out of this passage some- 
 thing unnatural, irrational, and inhuman, an outrage 
 alike upon God and man. 
 
 i Schultz, O. T. Theol., vol. i. p. 317. 
 
 2 Kuenen's Religion of Israel, ii. 134. 
 
 3 Isa. xlix. 4-7; 1. 5, 6, 10; liii. 1-12. 
 
1 68 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 II. 2 ISAIAH IN THE LATER JEWISH AND EARLY CHRISTIAN 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 9. Isaiah liii. was not at the outset in any real sense 
 a Messianic passage. The Davidic king did not suffer 
 for his people according to the early prophets or the 
 later psalmists. This is readily admitted to-day by 
 nearly all Biblical scholars. 1 We are explicitly told in 
 the New Testament, in fact, that a crucified Christ 
 was to the Jews a stumbling-block. 2 Josephus and 
 Philo in the time of Jesus had not identified the ser- 
 vant in Isaiah with the Messianic hope. And the Jew, 
 in Justin Martyr's Trypho (150 a.d.), while admitting 
 that the Messiah must suffer, denies that he must suf- 
 fer death on the cross. It is evident that in the year 
 25 a.d. no one had thought of, or at any rate empha- 
 sized, Isaiah liii. as a Messianic passage. Yet, on the 
 other hand, the opinion that the righteous atone for 
 the sins of the wicked had received a more or less 
 complete development. Aside from that atonement 
 for sin which was brought about by good works, by 
 study of the law, or by prayer, there was believed to be 
 an especial atoning power in suffering and in death. 
 At just what date the Jews made these thoughts a part 
 of their popular religious belief it is impossible to say, 
 but certainly in the time of Christ there was much of 
 this speculation in the air. It* was affirmed that com- 
 plete atonement without suffering is impossible ; that 
 
 1 See Toy's Judaism and Christianity, p. 330, note; and also Schiirer, 
 ii. 184, for this opinion. 
 
 2 1 Cor. i. 23. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. 1 69 
 
 whoever goes forty days without suffering loses the 
 blessings of the world to come. Sickness atones for 
 lesser sins, for the graver ones death alone can make 
 complete satisfaction. Even for murder, death makes 
 atonement, provided the death sentence be passed by 
 the court, or by the sacred lot ; or provided death be 
 voluntarily incurred, or come direct from the Deity, 
 as, for example, by the falling of a tower, or by a thun- 
 derbolt. So far one's sufferings and death avail to free 
 his own soul from misery and death in the world to 
 come. Even more striking are the passages in later 
 Jewish writings, in which the righteous make atone- 
 ment for their less virtuous companions. The ideas of 
 Isaiah liii. are repeated, elaborated, and emphasized. 
 It is affirmed that "our father Abraham could atone 
 for all the follies and lies which Israel shall commit in 
 this world." 1 Moses, it was said, was buried beside 
 the house of Peor, that his grave might atone for the 
 sins of Israel with Baal Peor. On the other hand, one 
 righteous man while living " can still the anger of God 
 over the whole race." This atoning power of the liv- 
 ing righteous extends even unto the dead. And, on 
 the other side, children who die in infancy, that is, sin- 
 less, have power to atone for the sins of their ungodly 
 parents. A passage which seems to run counter to this 
 circle of ideas affirms that " it is a divine punishment 
 upon the wicked when God removes from them the 
 righteous, for now there are none to appease his anger 
 when it grows hot." This passage certainly does not 
 necessarily imply that the righteous must suffer for 
 their people in order to save them. In fact, the thought 
 
 1 Weber's Altsynagogale Theologie, S. 313. 
 
I70 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 in 2 Isaiah was too spiritual and lofty for the later 
 Jews, and it was only by slow degrees that the early 
 Church obtained possession of its true meaning, a pos- 
 session which it afterwards buried under a heap of use- 
 less dogmas. 1 
 
 10. Neither Jews nor Christians, then, in 35 a.d., 
 were looking for a Messiah who would make atonement 
 for his people. And further, it becomes evident from a 
 study of this passage in the early Christian and later 
 Jewish literature, that the Jews and Christians worked 
 out the Messianic signification of this passage to- 
 gether. Let us look at the converging lines which at 
 first dimly suggest, and at last enforce, this view of the 
 passage. 
 
 Again and again, even in the early literature, it is 
 implied that the road to the Messianic kingdom lies 
 through suffering. The Messiah cannot come until 
 the people repent and turn to righteousness. But to 
 Micah and to Jeremiah the sins of the people appear 
 so deep and vile, that restoration is impossible without 
 the death, that is, the captivity, of the nation. Punish- 
 ment must precede forgiveness and blessing. What is 
 here said of the people is said of the anointed of Jah- 
 veh in some of the Psalms and later prophets. Accord- 
 ing to Zech. ix. 9, the Messiah is just and saved, 
 but he is also lowly or afflicted. 2 And Zech. xii. 10 
 seems to speak of the murder of an anointed king from 
 whom the people had expected great blessings. Doubt- 
 less, earlier than this, and perhaps just prior to Nehe- 
 
 1 Cf. Prov. xxi. 18, where the wicked are a ransom for the righteous. 
 
 2 The same root is employed which occurs in Isa. liii. 4, " stricken, 
 smitten of God and afflicted." 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. 171 
 
 miah's visit to Jerusalem in 444, the Twenty-second 
 Psalm, entitled a Psalm of David, gave a vivid descrip- 
 tion of the afflictions of the Lord's anointed. The 
 Messianic king cries out, " My God, my God, why hast 
 thou forsaken me ? " Only after the fall of the royal 
 house and the ruin of the nation could a temple poet 
 put into the mouth of David the words of Psalm 
 Twenty-two. The Messiah is there made to say, 1 — 
 
 " But I am a worm and no man; 
 
 A reproach of men and despised of the people. 
 All they that see me laugh me to scorn; 
 They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 
 He trusted Jahveh that he would deliver him; 
 Let him deliver him, seeing he delighteth in him." 
 
 Here it is plainly taught that the Messiah suffers with 
 his people. He does not suffer for them, but he suffers 
 with them. And he encourages them with the thought 
 that Jahveh has not cast them off forever. 
 
 " He hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; 
 Neither hath he hid his face from him." 
 
 Not only is the Messiah to suffer with his people, ac- 
 cording to the Psalmist, but in a later Psalm 2 than 
 that just quoted, the David whose afflictions have been 
 so great is called the Lord's Servant. The way seems 
 open now for a running together of the conceptions of 
 the Messiah who suffers, and the servant of Jahveh who 
 makes atonement for the sins of his people. Yet the 
 identification was not made. Nor was it made upon 
 the publication of Psalm Eighty-nine, though this poem 
 
 1 Cheyne's Bampton Lectures for 1889, p. 231. 
 
 2 Psalm cxxxii. Cheyne, op. cit. p. 52. 
 
172 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 several times calls David the servant of Jahveh, and 
 describes him and his afflictions in language closely 
 parallel with Isaiah liii. 1 The New Testament takes 
 up this thought, left incomplete in the Old Testament 
 and Apocrypha, in a series of passages in which Jesus 
 is called God's servant. 2 The full significance of these 
 passages has been too often ignored. In the Septua- 
 gint translation of 2 Isaiah, the expression " servant of 
 Jahveh" is rendered " child of God" or " child of the 
 Lord." 3 This is in the Greek a very peculiar expres- 
 sion ; and we find it in several notable passages in the 
 New Testament, and in the early Christian literature, as 
 for example, the " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." 
 In none of these passages is the Messianic dignity of 
 Jesus made prominent, yet he is identified by this ex- 
 pression with him who makes atonement for the world 
 in Isaiah liii. 4 
 
 In fact, the strongest hint towards a union of 2 
 Isaiah's hope with the Messianic hope, in so far as the 
 latter was spiritual and real, is, as Prof. Mitchell has 
 suggested, to be found in Isaiah's own book. In a 
 notable passage in lv. 3, the prophet unmistakably 
 transfers the Messianic blessings from the family of 
 David to the righteous kernel of the nation. 5 
 
 1 Compare Psalm lxxxix. 29 with Isa. liii. 10; lxxxix. 38 with liii. 2, 
 10; lxxxix. 42 with liii. 3; lxxxix. 45 with liii. 8. The Psalm is a peculiar 
 one; lxxxix. 1-37 might have been written when a member of the 
 Davidic dynasty was on the throne. Verses 38-51 imply clearly that there 
 is no longer any anointed of Jahveh, i.e., the Jews have no king. 
 
 2 Greek (nmq). 3 Matt. xii. 18. 
 
 4 See Acts iii. 13, R. V. margin, for a list of these passages. 
 
 5 See Schultz, O. T. Theol., vol. ii. 421; and also Psalms cxxix. 1-3; 
 xliv. 17-26; and Psalm lxxiii. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. 1 73 
 
 But the pre-Christian Jews could not bring them- 
 selves to believe that their Messiah, the anointed of 
 Jahveh, from the old and noble family of David, was to 
 make atonement for their sins by his death. How 
 he could and must suffer with them in their national 
 calamity they were able to see. But that the " Son of 
 man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister," 
 they were as slow to learn as were the Master's own 
 disciples. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the light of the various connecting 
 links between Isaiah liii. and the Messianic ideas, it 
 has become common to admit that, while Isaiah liii. is 
 not primarily Messianic, yet, the early Church en- 
 larged its meaning in full accord with the laws of 
 historical development. 1 This is doubtless true, and it 
 may even be true that in the time of Christ some Jews 
 fully appreciated the thought of the great prophet. 
 Says Prof. Schultz, "To the saints who saw most 
 deeply into the meaning of Scripture at the time of 
 Christ, this picture of the suffering servant of God 
 necessarily disclosed the innermost secret of the divine 
 ways of salvation." 2 Yet, on the other hand, it must 
 evidently be admitted that the disciples did not fully 
 appreciate the deep spiritual significance of Isaiah liii. 
 till forced to it by the death of the Master. 
 
 n. The history of Isaiah liii. in the New Testament, 
 in fact, presents a series of remarkable phenomena in 
 support of this. Nearly the whole of the chapter ap- 
 pears in the New Testament, and some verses several 
 times. This seems to argue that it was a favorite 
 
 1 Cheyne's Commentary on Isaiah, vol. ii. p. 223. 
 . 2 O. T. Theol., vol. ii. p. 430. 
 
174 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 chapter and familiar to all. But how often is the sub- 
 ject matter either wholly or in part misunderstood ! 
 Matt. viii. 17 quotes the crucial verse, not, however, 
 applying it to the vicarious sufferings of Christ, but to 
 the miraculous cures wrought by him wherein he "took 
 our infirmities and bore our diseases. " This is an idea 
 wholly alien to the thought of the Hebrew prophet, 
 and an idea which entirely robs the original of all its 
 ethical and spiritual significance. Just as little does 
 Mark xv. 28 contain evidence of the real meaning of 
 Isaiah liii. But even if it did, the passage lacks manu- 
 script authority, and has dropped out of the Revised 
 Version altogether. Luke xxii. 37 seems at first sight 
 to furnish more satisfactory evidence. The words " he 
 was reckoned with transgressors " are put into Jesus' 
 own mouth. Yet they occur in a very troublesome 
 section, which is peculiar to Luke and at variance with 
 the expressed words of Jesus, and with his doctrine of 
 non-resistance. 1 For this reason, and not because the 
 section contains the quotation from Isaiah, the verses 
 (35-38) have been regarded unauthentic by Schleier- 
 macher, de Wette, Ritschl, Holtzmann, and others. 2 
 
 In Acts viii. 26-40 we are told of the conversion of 
 an Ethiopian eunuch through a conversation with the 
 apostle Philip, which was founded upon Isa. liii. 7, 8. 
 But how Philip treated his text, or in what he found 
 the reference to Christ to consist, we are not told. As 
 the Christian doctrine concerning this passage was 
 
 1 Matt. x. 9; v. 39. 
 
 2 Meyer's Commentary defends the genuineness of the verses, but 
 denies that Jesus intended to say that the words originally applied to 
 himself. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. \J$ 
 
 more or less peculiar, we must obviously go elsewhere 
 for the first beginnings of that treatment of it. For 
 in this section the Christian interpretation is already 
 presupposed. 1 
 
 In following this line we seem, in fact, to be on the 
 wrong track, and we must turn aside and seek Jesus' 
 interpretation of Isaiah liii. in those passages in which 
 he refers to his work in language of his own. 
 
 12. What, then, was Jesus' own view of the signifi- 
 cance of his sufferings and death ? This question is not 
 easily answered, for our Gospels were manifestly writ- 
 ten after the doctrine of the atonement had been fully 
 developed by Paul. And, seemingly, the Gospels must 
 have been colored here and there by the Pauline inter- 
 pretation. It is maintained by some scholars, for exam- 
 ple, that Jesus, in his teaching, attached no doctrinal 
 significance at all to his coming sufferings and death ; 
 that he simply saw that these were inevitable if he 
 would establish his cause among men; that only by 
 proving that he was willing to die for his gospel could 
 he convince men that his gospel was true, and bind 
 them to himself in the bonds of a pure religious fel- 
 lowship. It is affirmed that Jesus was a true prophet, 
 and that he held the prophetic view of salvation. God 
 is merciful and tender, willing to forgive every soul 
 that comes to him ; and he asks neither sacrifice nor 
 offering, but only the broken and contrite heart. If 
 Jesus did not teach such a doctrine of salvation, so 
 these scholars argue, it is clear that many of his para- 
 bles are but very imperfect similes indeed. Says Dr. 
 
 1 Smend, A. T., Rels. Geschichte, S. 262, N. is unfortunate in quoting 
 the passage as a proof of a correct understanding in N. T. of Isaiah liii. 
 
176 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Cone, " Man is represented in the teaching of Jesus as 
 in immediate relations with the Father. The latter 
 needs no propitiation, and for the former no sacrifice 
 is required but that of his selfish passions. The man 
 who would save his life must lose it. No other life is 
 offered up as a substitute for his. ... In Golgotha 
 there is no substitution. Each soul must pass through 
 it, following the great Leader." * 
 
 But there is a circle of passages in the synoptic Gos- 
 pels that seems to run counter to this interpretation. 
 In Mark x. 45, and Matt. xx. 28, Jesus is made to say 
 that he came to "give his life a ransom for many." 
 This passage is cut out of our Gospels by some of the 
 best scholars, as an anticipation of Paulinism, and on 
 the ground that it is incongruous with Jesus' own teach- 
 ing. 2 Luke, in the parallel passage, and Matthew in 
 a similar context elsewhere, do not give this as the 
 meaning of Jesus' life of self-sacrifice. 3 On the other 
 hand, these passages are defended by Wendt, Ritschl, 
 and others, and interpreted strictly in the light of their 
 contexts, and of those ethical ideas of sacrifice which 
 prevailed among the Jews. Ritschl affirms that the 
 Greek word rendered " ransom " goes back to the 
 Hebrew word which means a covering, or " means of 
 protection ;" and then he affirms that the phrase "for 
 many " refers to the whole clause, and not to the " ran- 
 som " merely. The words, therefore, refer to the will- 
 ing death of Christ. He yields up his life for many ; 
 to prove to them the superiority of the spiritual over 
 
 1 The Gospel and its Earliest Interpretations, p. 113. 
 
 2 Toy's Judaism, p. 353. Cone's Interpretations, p. 114. 
 
 3 Matt, xxiii. 1 1 ; Luke xxii. 26. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. IJJ 
 
 the physical, and to put into practice his own doctrine, 
 that he who would lose his life shall save it. 1 Suffering 
 and death are inevitable, and only as they are borne in 
 patience and hope, are they the soil upon which the 
 true religious life can develop. So, also, Wendt affirms 
 that we must understand this saying of Jesus, not in 
 the light of the later doctrines of Paul, but in the light 
 of Jesus' own utterances ; and if so, then the sense 
 must be that he gives his life as a ransom, "that is, as a 
 means whereby he obtains the deliverance of many." 
 Wendt, in fact, affirms that this difficult passage finds 
 its best explanation in the invitation to the toil-worn 
 and heavy laden of Matt. xi. 28-30. 2 
 
 In a different series of passages Jesus is made to 
 speak of his " blood of the covenant which is shed for 
 many." If these passages are genuine; Jesus must 
 have referred to the covenant sacrifice of the Old Tes- 
 tament. But this sacrifice is not for sin ; it is merely a 
 symbol which makes the covenant binding. 3 And the 
 reference is, obviously, also, to the new covenant men- 
 tioned by Jeremiah, in which formalism is done away, 
 and the law of God is written on the heart. 4 
 
 To return then to those passages in the sayings 
 of Jesus concerning his mission, in the light of which 
 these should be interpreted, we obviously find that, to 
 use the language of one of his sacred biographers, 
 Jesus " grew in knowledge " in this regard, as time 
 
 1 Ritschl's Recht. u. Versohnung, vol. ii., pp. 69, 73, 85. 
 
 2 Wendt's Teaching of Jesus, vol. ii. pp. 229, 230. 
 
 3 Ex. xxiv. I— II. 
 
 4 Jer. xxxi. 33, 34, with Mark xiv. 22-24, and parallels; and Heb ix. 
 15-21. Possibly, indeed, 1 Cor. xi. 24 is the original of these. Wendt's 
 Lehre Jesu, vol. i. p. 344, and Ritschl, op. cit. 167. 
 
178 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 passed. His conception of the kingdom of God as 
 spiritual rather than temporal, and the growing oppo- 
 sition of the Pharisees, must have turned his mind to 
 those portions of the Old Testament in which the 
 sufferings of the righteous were portrayed. Already, 
 so early as th£ temptation period, unless the tempta- 
 tion was a mere farce, Jesus was confronted with most 
 momentous problems. He felt called upon "to preach 
 the acceptable year of the Lord/' But the Messianic 
 ideas in his age were legion, and, as a rule, they were 
 mercenary, materialistic, and unethical. Those that 
 were popular flattered the popular desires : those that 
 were moral and spiritual were not popular. Which of 
 these various Messianic ideas should he choose ? The 
 Pharisaic ideal would bestow upon him " all the king- 
 doms of the earth and the glory of them." And to 
 the church of Christ's time all other Messianic ideas 
 were heresy. This ideal had real attractions, yet 
 Jesus did not choose it, he chose rather to work in 
 natural and spiritual ways. But he foresaw that this 
 meant suffering, persecution, and perhaps death. Great 
 prophets had always suffered persecution from this peo- 
 ple. The Old Testament was full of examples of this. 
 And there was one example of a " Servant of Jahveh," 
 who had willingly put his soul as an offering for the 
 sin of his people. Jesus saw that he too must suffer 
 for his people. But when he spoke of the necessity 
 of this to his disciples they were shocked. Peter, in 
 fact, refused to understand. But Jesus insisted that 
 his true followers, like himself, must bear the cross, the 
 symbol of martyrdom. Truth is found only of those 
 who toil for her and suffer for her. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. 1 79 
 
 The religious teacher must ransom truth by dying 
 for it, he must redeem it by his life, it costs him his 
 blood. But, after all, it is not truth that he longs for 
 so much as it is souls that shall love it. So he may say 
 he gives his life as a ranso*m for his fellows, that they 
 may, like him, choose truth, and, at the same time, learn 
 the lesson of human suffering. 
 
 In the light of the quotations from Isaiah liii., in the 
 Synoptics, and of Jesus' own view of his sufferings 
 and death, we may rest satisfied in the opinion that 
 there was an old and well-founded tradition that Jesus, 
 in some way, saw that his own life story was told in 
 Isaiah liii. But those who have given us this most 
 interesting bit of information, show us that they them- 
 selves did not understand Isaiah liii., nor Jesus' use of 
 it. On the other hand, the sayings of Jesus, as a whole, 
 confirm the belief that he did understand the great 
 Unknown Prophet, and that he applied his thought 
 to himself in a purely rational and deeply spiritual 
 manner. And it is in the Fourth Gospel that we find 
 the highest and most satisfactory confirmation of this 
 opinion. 
 
 13. The Gospel of John is permeated through and 
 through with that view of the atoning work of Christ 
 which flows naturally out of 2 Isaiah. It has been 
 often pointed out that John's Gospel lacks entirely the 
 forensic, sacrificial idea of Jesus' death. Says Dr. Cone, 
 with characteristic clearness and force, "He offers no 
 atoning sacrifice, and his death is not an humiliation, 
 but a gateway through which he passes out of the dark- 
 ened world into his glory. He does not suffer to satisfy 
 the divine righteousness, and does not buy off sinful 
 
l8o BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 men by the payment of the precious ransom of his 
 blood, but he draws them to himself by the attraction 
 of his personality, and to those who receive him he 
 gives power to become the children of God." 1 
 
 The reference in John i; 29 to the "lamb of God 
 that bears away the sin of the world," can hardly be 
 explained of the paschal lamb, as Luther and Reuss 
 have contended. For the blood of the paschal lamb 
 was a mere symbol and had nothing to do with sin. 
 Nor can we agree with Ritschl 2 that the reference is 
 not to Isa. liii. 10, because of the fact that the atone- 
 ment is for the whole world. For 2 Isaiah clearly gives to 
 the servant a mission to the whole world, and no other 
 sacrifice in the Old Testament, in fact, does possess such 
 universality. Furthermore, the whole picture of the 
 work of Jesus, as contained in the Logia of John, agrees 
 with the ideals of the work of the Servant of Jahveh as 
 given by 2 Isaiah. 
 
 With John i. 29 agrees 1 John iii. 5. Several other 
 passages, notably in the writings of Paul and his follow- 
 ers, are possibly references to Isaiah liii. Some of 
 these may be based upon a correct understanding of it ; 
 but their first reference seems rather to be to the Levit- 
 ical sacrifices, or to the prophetical ideas underlying 
 those conceptions. 3 In 1 Peter ii. 20-25, on the other 
 hand, is to be found the most concise and clear, and at 
 the same time most correct, application of the thought of 
 the unknown prophet to the work of Christ to be found 
 anywhere in the New Testament. So significant are 
 
 1 The Gospel and its Earliest Interpretations, page 374. 
 
 2 Rechtfertigung und Versohnung, S. 67, 8. 
 
 3 Rom. iv. 25; 1 Cor. xv. 3; Heb. ix. 28; Rev. v. 6. 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST. l8l 
 
 these words that they fitly appear here as the close of 
 this discussion. Comment upon them is unnecessary. 
 The author says to his readers, "If when ye do well 
 and suffer, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with 
 God. For hereunto were ye called: because Christ 
 also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you 
 should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was 
 guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, 
 reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not; 
 but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: 
 who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the 
 tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto 
 righteousness: by whose stripes ye are healed. For 
 ye were going astray like sheep ; but are now returned 
 unto the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." 
 
 III. APPENDIX ON SECOND ISAIAH. 
 
 I. Several recent authors incline to the opinion that 
 there are three main authors of Isaiah xl.-lxvi. Second 
 Isaiah wrote chapters xl.-lv., except the sections named 
 below, and lived toward the close of the exile. Later than 
 this the "Servant of Jahveh fragments" were written 
 and based upon 2 Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Job. These 
 are found in xlii. 1-4; xlix. 1-6; 1. 4-9; and lii. 13-liii. 12. 
 To* 3 Isaiah belong chapters lvi.-lxvi. These three 
 books were put together at a very late date by an 
 editor who made changes in chapters xliv., xlvi., xlviii., 
 and 1. 10 fol., bringing them into closer harmony with 
 3 Isaiah. 
 
 Smend has recently (1893) come to the support of 
 Duhm in the main details of this analysis. Certainly 
 the so-called "Servant of Jahveh fragments" hang to- 
 
1 82 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 gether, and are much more pronounced in their univer- 
 salism than the other parts of Isaiah. 
 
 2. From Isa. Hi. 13 to liii. 12 we seem to have a dia- 
 logue, in which Jahveh, the prophets, and the people 
 are the speakers. 
 
 In lii. 13-15 Jahveh calls attention to his servant who 
 is to be exalted and lifted up. In liii. 1-3 the prophets 
 complain that the people have not listened to them ; 
 they have not accepted the work of the servant in their 
 behalf. In liii. 4-6 the people admit that the servant 
 has really been smitten for them, and that they are 
 healed with his stripes. Then Jahveh replies in liii. 
 7-9 that, though they have in a measure recognized his 
 mission, they have not appreciated him. They have 
 made his grave with the wicked and the transgressors. 
 In the remaining verses, 10-12, the author, or Jahveh 
 speaking through him, sums up the results. The ser- 
 vant was made a sin offering. And because he died 
 willingly for his people he shall redeem his people, and 
 have a portion with the great. 
 
 Smend thinks the servant was an individual, not 
 the whole people, a sick and persecuted prophet, in 
 fact, "like Jeremiah, but more than he." With the 
 view that the servant was sick agree Duhm and many 
 Jewish and Christian scholars on the most natural ren- 
 dering of liii. 3. (See Revised Version margin.) 
 
 Instead of "rich," in verse 9, most scholars now think 
 we should read " transgressors," a change of a single 
 letter in the Hebrew text. Verse 10 is very perplexing 
 on any hypothesis. Duhm says it is not metrical, as is 
 the rest of the chapter, and accordingly does violence 
 to the text. He cuts out the word asham y so that the 
 
FOR THE SUFFERING CHRIST, 1 83 
 
 servant is no longer a guilt-offering, though he does, 
 according to Duhm, suffer vicariously for his people. 1 
 
 3. The Jews were not able to understand this chap- 
 ter. Rashi says that "this prophet speaks constantly 
 of the whole people as one man." But the great ma- 
 jority of the later Jews saw here the example of a suf- 
 fering righteous man merely, and after the time of 
 Christ, if not before, a reference to the Messiah. The 
 Babylonian Talmud calls the Messiah a leprous or sick 
 one, on the authority of Isaiah liii. 
 
 The following selections from the Targum Jonathan, 
 an Aramaic translation of the Bible, show how the 
 later Jews understood the passage. The Targum be- 
 gins in Hi. 13, " Behold my servant Messiah." But by 
 twists and turns the Messiah's sufferings are gotten 
 rid of. The strongest passage is "He will become 
 despised" (liii. 3). 
 
 Verse 4. "Then for our sins will he pray, and our 
 iniquities will, for his sake, be forgiven, although we 
 were accounted stricken, smitten from before the Lord 
 and afflicted." 
 
 Verse 6. "All we like sheep had been scattered, 
 we had each wandered off on his own way; but it was 
 the Lord's good pleasure to forgive the sins of all of us 
 for his sake. 7. He prayed and he was answered, and 
 ere even he had opened his mouth he was accepted: 
 the mighty of the peoples he will deliver up like a sheep 
 to the slaughter and like a lamb dumb before her 
 shearers; there shall be none before him opening his 
 
 1 Duhm asserts, in fact, that the Hebrew of liii. 10 is absolutely un- 
 translatable. It is worthy of note also that the speaker in 10 is hardly 
 the same as the speaker in n, 12. 
 
1 84 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 mouth or saying a word. 8. Out of chastisement and 
 punishment he will bring our captives near. ... 9. 
 He will deliver the wicked into Gehinnom, and those 
 that are rich in possessions into the death of utter de- 
 struction. ... 10. But it is the Lord's good pleasure 
 to try and to purify the remnant of his people, so as to 
 cleanse their souls from sin : these shall look on the 
 kingdom of their Messiah, their sons and their daugh- 
 ters shall be multiplied, they shall prolong their days 
 and those who perform the law of the Lord shall prosper 
 in his good pleasure. ... 11. By his wisdom he will 
 hold the guiltless free from guilt, in order to bring 
 many unto subjection to the law; and for their sins 
 he will intercede. 12. Then will I divide for him the 
 spoil of many peoples, and the possessions of strong 
 cities shall he divide as prey, because he delivered up 
 his soul to death, and made the rebellious subject to the 
 law." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BACK TO BOTH TESTAMENTS FOR THEIR 
 REC0NC1LIA T/OAT 
 
" When j having shown the divergencies, contradictions, and errors in the Bible, 
 we go below the surface to the substance of things, we are obliged to admit that 
 the Bible has not only a human, imperfect, transitory side, but also a divine, 
 perfect, unchangeable, eternal side. Some have wished to see only the former, 
 others only the latter side. To be fully in the right we must recognize that one 
 exists as well as the other P 
 
 PlEPENBRING. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BACK TO BOTH TESTAMENTS FOR THEIR RECONCILIATION. 
 
 I. In the foregoing discussion the Messianic idea, 
 the sacrificial idea, and the suffering servant idea were, 
 by conscious purpose, kept distinct. It was believed 
 that each one of these lines of thought bore fruitage 
 in a New Testament doctrine, which gained in clear- 
 ness by being kept distinct from the others. 
 
 Along three distinct lines, therefore, to set the purely 
 ethical one side, the Old Testament prepared the way 
 for Christ. And along each one of these lines we find 
 a better picture of the work and nature of Christ in 
 the pre-Christian revelation than in the prevailing exe- 
 gesis of the Church which has dominated the New 
 Testament, and forced the Old into its mould. The 
 Old Testament doctrine of Messiah led the world to 
 expect a Saviour who would be a Saviour in virtue of 
 his spiritual leadership. The doctrine of sacrifice and 
 Paul's treatment of it represents Jesus as a Saviour, 
 because he has by his death on the cross forever done 
 away with all arbitrary and fictitious barriers which 
 men have thought separated them from God, and by 
 his work among men as Son of God he has shown that 
 as he, so God cares more for sincerity and uprightness 
 than for sacrifices. Lastly, the Old Testament idea 
 of the suffering righteous, who suffer with and for 
 
 187 
 
1 88 BACK TO BOTH TESTAMENTS 
 
 their people, and the later Jewish notion of the One 
 servant of God in particular, who is regarded as a sin- 
 offering, set before us the doctrine of vicarious atone- 
 ment in a way at once so profound, so natural, and so 
 rational, that no one can reject it ; an idea which comes 
 to our own age with trenchant force. Here we are 
 led to expect a Saviour who suffers and dies with and 
 for his people, who gives up his life that men may take 
 his truth and live. The New Testament, interpreted 
 in the light of the Old, comes to our age with a Christ 
 touched with a feeling of our infirmities ; with a Christ 
 who is most truly divine, because most truly human ; 
 who is most truly Saviour, because he was most truly 
 unselfish. 
 
 2. Yet the question will arise, arid it deserves an 
 answer, whether Jesus was in reality the Messiah, the 
 Christ of God, in whose very person the two Testa- 
 ments are locked together. 
 
 There is certainly a tendency among liberals to-day 
 to discard more and more the use of the title which the 
 early Church gave to Jesus. It is argued with much 
 learning and much justice that the Messiah of the Jew, 
 the Messiah foretold in his sacred Scriptures, has not 
 yet come. The Reform Jews have ceased to expect 
 such Messiah, and the Orthodox Jews, with much show 
 of reason, stoutly deny that Jesus of Nazareth can lay 
 any claim to such title. 
 
 If we turn to the New Testament for help in the 
 solution of the problem, we seem to get little satisfac- 
 tion. We are given results, but not the processes that 
 led to them. Or, rather, we cannot but note many 
 missing links between an Old Testament prophecy and 
 
FOR THEIR RECONCILIATION. 1 89 
 
 its purported New Testament fulfilment. On the basis 
 of the Gospel tradition alone there is some ground for 
 the supposition that the claim to Messianic dignity was 
 an after-thought of Jesus, — that he was drawn into it 
 by the enthusiasm of his followers, while it was his 
 own purpose to make no such claims. However that 
 may be, it is manifest that the whole apostolic doctrine 
 is built upon the belief that Jesus was the promised 
 Messiah. If Jesus was not such Messiah, Christianity 
 was misnamed, and Jesus ought not to be forced to 
 wear a title which he does not desire, and which mocks 
 history. Professor Pfleiderer, in his account of the 
 conversion of Paul, intimates that when it was sug- 
 gested that Jesus was the fulfilment of one and another 
 of the prophecies, long supposed to be Messianic, Paul 
 would have no means of refuting the claim. At any 
 rate, Paul did not refute the claim. And in Pauline 
 theology the whole Old Testament looks forward to 
 Christ. "All God's promises are yea and amen in 
 Christ Jesus. " The whole apostolic theology falls if 
 Jesus is not Christ. 
 
 3. Rash and fantastic claims on the part of many 
 have caused some very broad statements to be made 
 within the limits of the Orthodox churches. Dr. Briggs 
 has given up many prophecies long counted as Messi- 
 anic, and the others he has interpreted in such a way 
 as to very materially change the picture of the Messiah 
 presented. Hengstenberg, Oehler, Riehm, and West- 
 cott admit that often there is a wide gap between the 
 intention of the original writer and the New Testa- 
 ment application of his words. Nitzsch laid it down 
 as a rule that a prophecy must not foretell the future 
 
190 BACK TO BOTH TESTAMENTS 
 
 accurately; it would upset human affairs, paralyze 
 effort, and introduce iron-bound necessity where free- 
 dom reigns. So, then, "prediction must not disturb his- 
 tory." Hengstenberg, Havernick, and Tholuck accept 
 this rule. So also does Kueper. And he is at great 
 pains to prove that the prophecies did not meet with 
 exact fulfilment. Modern criticism places the date of 
 the Book of Daniel subsequent to the events it nar- 
 rates, and admits its historical accuracy. Kueper says 
 it was written before the events it describes, and, bound 
 by his rule, goes to great lengths to prove that it was 
 not literally fulfilled. Such are some of the eccentrici- 
 ties into which an effort to defend a certain kind of 
 predictive prophecy has betrayed scholars who, in every 
 other respect, show that they are in their right mind. 
 It has been asked whether Professor Briggs is speak- 
 ing seriously when he mentions three phases of proph- 
 ecy, — the dream, the vision or ecstatic state, and the 
 enlightened spiritual discernment. Evidently he is, and 
 does believe that God spoke to men in dreams. Neither 
 would he admit, with David Hume, that this is the 
 same as for the same men to dream that God spoke 
 to them. 
 
 The failure of all these scholars to find a method of 
 defence that attacks the problem seriously, and estab- 
 lishes the desired thesis conclusively, is shown by the 
 ever recurring confession that a new discussion is 
 necessary. 
 
 The questions that arise and ask a settlement are 
 legion. What is the relation of Old Testament to 
 New ? How far does prophecy anticipate the gospel ? 
 To what extent, or in what sense, if at all, was Jesus 
 
FOR THEIR RECONCILIATION. 191 
 
 conscious of his Messiahship ? Making due allowance 
 for the subjective element, had God's dealings with 
 Israel a definite end, and was that end Jesus Christ ? 
 In the light of a broad, free survey of the history, did 
 or did not God's dealings with Israel find a raison 
 d'etre in their own environment ? The problem is 
 more than half solved when we have succeeded in 
 asking the right questions. 
 
 4. Again, if we would not be misled, we must ex- 
 amine each prophecy in the light of its own age, as well 
 as in the light of its fulfilment. Kuenen has done this, 
 and concludes that "the New Testament Christ is 
 another than the Messiah of the Old Testament." 
 Professor Briggs has been over the same ground, has 
 studied the same prophecies, and these are his words : 
 "Hebrew prophecy springs from divinity as its source 
 and ever-flowing inspiration, and it points to divinity 
 as its fruition and complete realization. None but God 
 could give such prophecy; none but God can fulfil such 
 prophecy. The ideal of prophecy and the real of his- 
 tory correspond in Him who is above the limits of time 
 and space and circumstance, who is the Creator, Ruler, 
 and Saviour of the world." Again he says, "In Jesus 
 of Nazareth the key of the Messianic prophecy of the 
 Old Testament has been found. All its phases find 
 their realization in his unique personality." 
 
 The method must, to a certain extent, account for 
 these divergent conclusions. Left to the Old Testa- 
 ment alone, and with no " stream of tendency " behind 
 us, we would inevitably reach Kuenen's conclusions. 
 Adopting the method of Professor Briggs, and being 
 favorably inclined towards the opinions of the New 
 
192 BACK TO BOTH TESTAMENTS 
 
 Testament writers, the opposite conclusions would, no 
 doubt, be the more natural. But, as Dr. Riehm has 
 pointed out, this method is, in a measure, a. false one. 
 To start out with our eye upon the goal means that we 
 will see the goal and nothing else. We will have a 
 feeling or a very imperfect knowledge of the ground 
 we are on, and a very vivid picture of the end aimed at. 
 If the question is raised, "What did the Holy Spirit 
 mean by this prediction? " the answer comes, "Go to 
 the fulfilment and see." Such a method cannot be the 
 true one. The most that it can reveal to us is the rela- 
 tion of prophecy to its fulfilment. " What we do not 
 learn until the fulfilment cannot be in the prophecy 
 itself." Only when prophecy and history are kept dis- 
 tinct, and studied with relation to their own environ- 
 ment, can sure results be obtained. We have no right 
 to read into a prophecy what we find only in the 
 fulfilment. 
 
 Suppose, then, an impartial criticism decides that 
 Jesus is not the Messiah of the Jews, shall we give up 
 the word Christ, or spell it with a small c as Westcott 
 and Hort do the Greek word in their edition of the 
 New Testament ? Shall we give up the word Christian 
 and call ourselves by some other name ? Assuredly, 
 No. And for two reasons. 
 
 6. In the first place, no idea, and no word as the 
 symbol of an idea, is given up by one generation to 
 another in the same form in which it was received. 
 Some ideas are purified gradually, while the symbol 
 remains the same. " Spirit," meaning originally wind, 
 illustrates the point. Other ideas have had a birth 
 in the memory of man and yet demanded new sym- 
 
FOR THEIR RECONCILIATION. I93 
 
 bols, or old ideas have grown too large to be embodied 
 in a single word and have split asunder. So long as a 
 word has content it remains. Nor does the fact that it 
 originated in false notions compel us to discard it. If 
 we turn to the process of word-making, we discover that 
 words are not created de novo, but old words are taken 
 up, rechristened and rehabilitated, and given back to 
 the world. From an ideal point of view it was espe- 
 cially fitting that Jesus should be called Christ. If, on 
 the one hand, his personality purified the conception of 
 Messiah, the popular enthusiasm for an expected de- 
 liverer, in its turn, assisted his teachings to win the 
 recipient hearts of his fellows in a way that they could 
 not otherwise have done. So, then, J. H. Crooker may 
 say, with truth, that, " although Jesus was not such a 
 Messiah as the prophets described, nor as the Jews ex- 
 pected, yet this general Messianic expectation did much 
 to shape his ministry and clothe his person with au- 
 thority. Every great character must work in connec- 
 tion with some great sentiment. Every great leader 
 must somehow enter into and possess the popular im- 
 agination." 
 
 7. That this claim of Jesus to the title of Christ 
 is not founded upon a mere sentimental idealism, is 
 shown by another consideration, which those who oppose 
 his Messiahship are too prone to ignore. The later 
 prophets themselves see that the earlier Messianic 
 ideas cannot meet with a literal fulfilment, that the 
 national existence must come to an end, that a spiritual 
 Israel will take the place of the temporal Israel, and 
 that God will make a new covenant with his people and 
 write his law on their heart. The temple service will 
 
194 BACK TO BOTH TESTAMENTS 
 
 pass away. The theocracy, as it was understood in the 
 former age, will be forgotten. This new covenant will 
 be an everlasting covenant. 1 To be sure, following 
 these annunciations, are predictions of the Messiah as 
 faulty as any. But the reason is obvious. While the 
 prophet promises a new covenant, he continues to write 
 and think in the categories of the old. It could not be 
 otherwise. It is not his description of the new order, 
 but his promise of it, which is significant. One con- 
 sideration which has helped to blind the Christian 
 world to this fact, is the name that was given to the 
 New Testament. It should have been called the New 
 Covenant. While those under the New Covenant are 
 not warranted in making the Messianic prophecies 
 mean to their contemporaries anything more than the 
 obvious sense of the words will allow, they have a 
 right to demand that the new covenant there prom- 
 ised shall reflect its light backwards upon them and 
 illuminate them. The writer of Hebrews voiced one 
 of the sublimest truths of history when he proclaimed 
 that "they without us could not be made perfect. " 
 Had the Old Covenant made no promise of a New, a 
 failure of Jesus to realize the Jewish ideal of Messiah 
 would deprive him of a just right to the title of Christ. 
 But the promise of a new covenant, placing religion 
 upon a higher basis, must of necessity render the old 
 ideals valueless as literal representations. If Jesus sus- 
 tains the same relations to the New Covenant as the 
 ideal of the Messiah did to the Old, then Jesus is the 
 Christ of God. 
 
 8. For the moment, then, I purposely reverse the 
 
 1 Jer. xxxi. 31-34. 
 
FOR THEIR RECONCILIATION. 1 95 
 
 thesis which this book was written to prove. I set out 
 to show that one must go to the Old Testament to 
 understand, in all their richness and freedom, in all 
 their lengths and breadths, heights and depths, the 
 teachings of Jesus and his apostles. I conclude with 
 the opinion, equally well established by the facts, as it 
 seems, that only a Christian can understand the Old 
 Testament ; that only he who has profited by the 
 Christian revelation can read between the lines with 
 sufficient inerrancy to discern God's sublime plans in 
 the Hebrew history. Despite the sublimity of the 
 God of the Jewish people, their whole religion aimed 
 to bring God and man near to each other. And that 
 goal was reached when Christ took upon himself for 
 our sakes the form of sinful flesh, and by righteous- 
 ness and by communion with God overcame the flesh 
 and death, and brought life and immortality to light. 
 The Christ took upon himself, or took to his heart, the 
 sorrows and sins of the whole world, as if they were 
 his own. He shared, by sympathy and actual suffering, 
 the world's misery, and even its punishment. And by 
 this he showed us that the deepest and truest feeling 
 of all religion is the feeling of solidarity and sympathy, 
 — the vicarious conscience and heart and life ! 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR ITS 
 SOCIOLOGY, 
 
" To check the enormous waste of resources, to calm the rhythmic billows of 
 action and reaction, to secure rational adaptation of means to remote ends, to 
 prevent natural forces from clashing with human feeling, to turn physical 
 phenomena to human advantage, these are some of the aims of sociology P 
 
 Lester F. Ward. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT FOR ITS SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 I. One reason why sociology is coming to have so 
 absorbing an interest for the educator, the philanthro- 
 pist, and the churchman, is the fact that science, ethics, 
 and religion are coming to be recognized as co-ordinate 
 fields of human endeavor, each of which is a sine qua 
 non of progress. Each one is but a branch of the 
 greater science of humanity. The religious teacher, 
 who is inclined to be fair, is forced to admit that 
 religion cannot be legitimately defined, so as to in- 
 clude all the forces that make for progress. He can 
 be shown men who are very religious, and yet who 
 are without interest in things intellectual, and without 
 high ethical motive. The educator, in proportion to 
 the breadth of his culture, is wont to admit that his 
 calling places an undue emphasis upon the head, and 
 that he cannot predict the future till the heart is 
 trained also. The ethical culturist may include social 
 ethics, and yet leave something out of his science that 
 he ought to put into the man. The merely moral man 
 is not a lovable man. Just as man has intellect, feel- 
 ings, and will, all of which should be trained, so society 
 has, roughly speaking, science, religion, and business ; 
 and it is only when these exist in their true relations, 
 that we have a perfect society. Just as intellect, feel- 
 
 199 
 
200 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 ing, and will merge into each other by imperceptible 
 gradations, so that it is only by a violent process of 
 dissection that we can handle them separately ; so the 
 faculties of society are similarly bound together. Lit- 
 erature may be science, it may be religion, it may 
 be business. The creation of literature may also be 
 classed in either of these three categories. 
 
 2. Sociology is the science that co-ordinates all the 
 special social sciences, and it finds its right to be in 
 the fact that true progress cannot be measured by the 
 advance in any one branch of society. Just as an age 
 of religious revivals may be an age of weak morals, 
 so an age of irreligion may be an age of great mechan- 
 ical progress. The mechanical progress may, in turn, 
 usher in, or aid in ushering in, a better religion, and so 
 on. How to introduce harmony into the working of 
 these various forces, how to prevent the unnecessary 
 clashing of interests, and lessen the zigzag of our 
 onward march, are some of the age-wide aims of the 
 social philosophers. That a panacea has been dis- 
 covered is not claimed. The social scientists, like the 
 physical scientists, are not altogether agreed among 
 themselves. But upon one thing they are agreed, 
 and that is, that the new science contains more of 
 the elements of progress than any other, and in a 
 better order for the performance of the work of him 
 who would reform society. 
 
 3. Especially is it true that the Scriptures have been 
 narrowed in their usefulness from being studied so ex- 
 clusively on the side of their religion. Of supreme 
 value to us all is the religion of the Bible. Against it 
 I make no charge. But what I here affirm is this, that 
 
FOR ITS SOCIOLOGY. 201 
 
 there are other essentials to our soul's salvation besides 
 religion. Religion, especially the Biblical religion, pre- 
 supposes a mind capable of intelligent judgment and 
 choice, it presupposes a heart capable of deep and con- 
 stant affection, it presupposes a life-aim, a chosen voca- 
 tion filled with its daily duties. Are we born into all 
 these, ready made ? Not by any means ! Yet religion 
 is as dependent upon these as they are upon religion. 
 As Mr. Lecky has somewhere said, "It is impossible 
 .to lay down a railway without creating an intellectual 
 influence. It is probable that Watt and Stephenson 
 will eventually modify the opinions of mankind almost 
 as profoundly as Luther and Voltaire." Now, the Bible, 
 recognizes the truth of this solidarity of progress that 
 Mr. Lecky has here so forcibly depicted. Especially is 
 this true of the earlier Biblical books, those that were 
 written before the distinction between sacred and pro- 
 fane, religious and secular, had arisen ; and those later 
 books that outline and emphasize the functions of the 
 church-state presuppose an essential oneness of these 
 institutions. The New Testament aims not at the sal- 
 vation of individual souls merely, but at the perfect 
 society. It applies to this world the best features of 
 the Messianic age of the prophets. All through the 
 Scriptures it is tacitly admitted that religion is but 
 a branch of a wider science, which we to-day call 
 sociology. 
 
 4. The study of any ancient society should proceed 
 upon the basis of a careful and accurate understanding 
 of its literature as illustrated in the history of older 
 peoples, the influence upon it of contemporary history 
 at home and abroad, and finally the influence of that 
 
202 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 literature upon later generations. This latter point 
 may at first seem unnecessary. But in reality it is 
 not so. Histories, like those of the Hebrews, Greeks, 
 or Romans, have been very potent in all the subsequent 
 progress of civilized peoples. And there is a decided 
 tendency to find in the past the justification for any 
 advance step made by ourselves. Often the past has 
 been misinterpreted in order to furnish this justifica- 
 tion. The story of the influence of the Old Testa- 
 ment, for example, upon modern history, is the story 
 of the interpretation of that history in the given 
 time. 
 
 Has the Old Testament, with its culmination in the 
 New, anything worthy our heed if we would under- 
 stand aright the past and future of our social order ? 
 As Hebrew history and religion were constructed and 
 construed by the older scholars, they were more unique 
 than helpful. They threw the matter into hopeless 
 perplexity by baffling all attempts at order and growth. 
 God seemed to have no plans himself, and he delighted 
 in setting at naught the plans of his servants. All 
 this has been changed in the last few years. There 
 is a rapidly increasing unanimity among scholars as to 
 the general trend of Hebrew development. As it is 
 reconstructed the Hebrew history becomes the best 
 at hand for the study of the problems raised by the 
 modern social movements. 
 
 Of the importance of their contribution to the 
 world's progress the Hebrews were themselves fully 
 aware. How far they looked into the future we can- 
 not say. Neither can we assert that they had any 
 definite idea as to just how their God was to become 
 
FOR ITS SOCIOLOGY. 203 
 
 the recognized God of the universe. But by an insight, 
 that no merely naturalistic theory of history can ex- 
 plain, they saw the future triumph of their religion 
 and morality. 1 One of the surest signs of genius is 
 the possessor's assurance that he has it. The Hebrew 
 national self-consciousness, and the justification which 
 history accords to this, is the strongest proof of the 
 divine inspiration and mission of this people. 
 
 Another reason why Biblical Sociology can lay es- 
 pecial claims upon our attention is the fact that the 
 Bible is a book that is well known. Many influences 
 conspire to hold it in high esteem. It enjoys an 
 authority which in civilized lands no other book 
 enjoys. As such its teachings command attention. 
 Even those who do not appeal to it as authority for 
 themselves continue to use it as an authority for 
 others, because it is considered as such by the people 
 generally. A circumstance that renders the Hebrew 
 people especially interesting to the sociological student 
 is also the fact that we have in them, more than in 
 any other people, a typical history of progress. Those 
 peoples that are constantly suffering national reverses, 
 and, after each of these, readily intermarry with stran- 
 gers and adopt new and alien forms of thought and 
 worship, baffle us. The new elements upset all our 
 calculations. The very exclusiveness of the Hebrews, 
 which was their weakness in some regards, was their 
 strength in others. 
 
 In the Hebrew history, culminating in the New Tes- 
 tament, we have an example of a remarkably pure de- 
 velopment of a national idea from within. The ideal 
 
 1 Deut. iv. 8. 
 
204 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 of the Israelites was early formed, and the best of 
 them never, amidst all their reverses, wholly aban- 
 doned it. This ideal was a growing ideal. And so 
 carefully written is their history that the main details 
 of the progress, and the principle causes of it, are not 
 hid from us, but lie ready to hand. This may now be 
 said without hesitation, though a few years ago it might 
 have been disputed. 
 
 5. Before going farther, then, let us give a brief out- 
 line of the order in which the various Biblical books 
 should stand, when arranged chronologically. First we 
 have the older narrative portions of the Pentateuch, 
 Judges, and Samuel. Then come the first writing 
 prophets, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, and Jeremiah. 
 With Jeremiah should be classed the Book of Deuteron- 
 omy, discovered, if not written, in the time of Josiah 
 (622). On the basis of the theological notions of Deu- 
 teronomy, Judges, and parts of Samuel and Kings, were 
 rewritten. At the beginning of the exile comes Eze- 
 kiel, and at its close the 2 Isaiah. Then follow Zech- 
 ariah (1-9) and Haggai and the building of the second 
 temple (520). Then Ezra and Nehemiah, and the pub- 
 lication of the completed law (444). Large parts of 
 Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, as also portions of 
 Joshua, were now written for the first time. J6el and 
 Job belong after Ezra, and Proverbs and the Psalms 
 received their final form a little later still. Chronicles 
 come about 300, Daniel about 164, and Esther still 
 later perhaps. As thus dated the Hebrew history fol- 
 lows an intelligible course of development. And aside 
 from the large amount of critical, historical, and lin- 
 guistic evidence in favor of the order is the fact that 
 
FOR ITS SOCIOLOGY. 205 
 
 there is no Biblical evidence against this view of it. 
 We do not hesitate to set the Jewish tradition aside 
 when it says that Ezekiel was written by the men of 
 the great synagogue ; why should we cling to it when 
 it attributes to Moses or Isaiah or Samuel words which 
 they themselves do not pretend to have written ? 
 
 As thus chronologically arranged, the Bible is the 
 best text-book to be had upon the subject of sociology. 
 To be sure, it needs to be interpreted in the light of 
 the best science of the present, and to appear at its 
 best the Bible must be expounded by a man of the 
 keenest intellect, the purest morals, and the tenderest 
 sentiment. But the Bible deserves to be interpreted 
 by just such men, for these men are directly or in- 
 directly the children of the Book and of its religion. 
 It would be unfair to the Bible to ignore the Christian 
 scholarship which it has aided in producing, and judge 
 it in the light of the error and superstition of the past, 
 thinking to do honor to it by heaping upon it epithets 
 which it never claimed for itself, — epithets which rob 
 it of its sweet humanity, its noble individuality, and its 
 lofty genius. No, it is as interpreted in the light of 
 the Christian freedom and Christian criticism that it 
 has produced, that the Bible is to-day the best text-book 
 on sociology. It is the broadest, most impartial, most 
 fertile in suggestion of all the books. It contains a 
 complete history of an important branch of the race, 
 from the very lowest beginnings to a position of emi- 
 nence in the civilized world. Minds of varying degrees 
 of insight have struggled to outline for us, in the 
 pages of the Bible, the causes of the successes and 
 reverses of their people. The intensely religious man, 
 
206 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 who makes all hinge upon the obedience or disobe- 
 dience to the divine commands, has his say. But the 
 man of practical wisdom, who takes account of natural 
 causes, and inclines to place the chief stress upon 
 them, is also allowed to speak in the pages of the 
 Bible. The lawyer, who insists upon taking the peo- 
 ple no faster than they can go, is there. The Old 
 Testament contains a half-dozen civil codes of growing 
 complexity, each building upon the preceding, casting 
 away what has become useless, adding higher motives 
 to the old commands, and here and there enjoining 
 a new one. We see the priest, who is satisfied if the 
 people pay their dues, and we see by his side him 
 who is truly zealous for the Lord's service. Above all 
 we see the idealist, the preacher of righteousness, the 
 prophet toiling laboriously on, in season and out of 
 season, attacking with vigor whatever has about it the 
 smell of corruption, whether in private life or public, 
 in church or in state, at home or abroad. This same 
 prophet is really the creator of the law, and the re- 
 former of the ritual. It is he who wins for his people 
 an ever truer conception of God ; it is he who reveals 
 more keenly the true relations of a man to his neigh- 
 bor. It is he to whom the Lord speaks, and when God 
 will speak his prophets cannot hold their peace. 
 
 Biblical Sociology, then, is sociology with a soul. It 
 cannot be a bare natural history of human progress. 
 It is dynamic, as well as static. It is prophetic, as well 
 as historical and critical. It cannot be content with 
 what has been or what is ; it is equally concerned 
 with what ought to be. Biblical Sociology sees God 
 in history everywhere, and the highest duty of man is, 
 
FOR ITS SOCIOLOGY, 207 
 
 accordingly, to become God's co-worker. Therefore, 
 what ought to be, it is man's bounden duty, with God's 
 help, to accomplish. 
 
 Biblical Sociology is a wider science than Biblical 
 Theology. Religion itself is a branch of sociology. 
 The Bible takes it for granted that social progress is 
 not altogether conditioned by religious advance. But 
 religious advance is conditioned by the progress of 
 society as a whole. Therefore it is a mistake to con- 
 fine our study of the Bible to its religion. If we would 
 seek the causes of human progress we must study 
 sociology ; and if we desire to know the whole lesson 
 that the Bible has for us, we must study the various 
 phases of social life that the Bible reveals. 
 
 6. The Biblical Sociology begins not with man nor 
 with society, but with God and the creation. After 
 the visible creation is complete God continues to work 
 in man. The mere forming of a living being in the 
 human shape is the smallest part of the creation of man. 
 Only by a long course of training is man made in the 
 image of God. The second man is a murderer. Soci- 
 ety develops its worst traits first. Thus it appears that 
 the first society was a failure, and a deluge blots it from 
 the face of the earth. 
 
 The second trial is more successful. Individual hab- 
 its multiply and become contagious customs, the frozen 
 deeds of the early race ; these introduce uniformity 
 and make progress possible. Ideas of kinship and of 
 kindness bind certain families together, and we have 
 the permanent beginnings of a social order. Natural 
 affection is so extended as to offer the right to live 
 "to all within the tribe." The life of the tribe is a 
 
208 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 common possession, and is under the control of a chief 
 or patriarch. 
 
 The earliest law is that of retaliation. It declares 
 that eye shall go for eye and life for life. This law 
 checks the rash and the cruel with the fear of death; it 
 inspires the timid with a sense of their duty to them- 
 selves and to their brother clansmen. 
 
 7. Up to this time there is no man and wife in our 
 sense of the word. The period of infancy of the off- 
 spring has held the parents together for a longer or 
 shorter period ; but there are no restrictions upon con- 
 jugal infidelity. There are relics of pairing seasons, of 
 group marriages, and of polyandry and polygamy. Mo- 
 nogamy is the prevailing form of union, but the evils 
 of the other forms are not recognized. 
 
 The male parent not only owns his wife and may 
 sell her at will, but he owns his children, and has the 
 power of life and death over them. The slave is still 
 more absolutely the property of the master, while the 
 laws of hospitality are, on the other hand, exceedingly 
 fraternal. 
 
 Gradually all this changes. The family comes to be 
 regarded as a divine institution. The union of one man 
 with one woman, and for life, is clearly seen to be the 
 divine order. Love is recognized as the bond of union, 
 and its everlastingness is beautifully told. Wedded 
 love becomes the symbol of the divine love which was 
 sealed by an everlasting covenant. The husband repu- 
 diates the idea of owning his wife. He asks her to call 
 him not "lord (owner) " but " husband. " The value of 
 her good name is recognized, and her maternal qualities 
 are duly praised. The child is ruled by love now. Ar- 
 
FOR ITS SOCIOLOGY. 209 
 
 bitrary law has given way to mutual understanding; 
 force, to persuasion. Fatherhood becomes the synonym 
 of protection, guidance, and kindly counsel. The slave 
 is now the owner of his own body. A master who mu- 
 tilates the body of his slave has trespassed upon the 
 rights of another ; and the slave may demand in dam- 
 ages the price of himself and go free. The slave is 
 also given one rest day out of the seven, and is accorded 
 some of the privileges of the religion. 
 
 8. The first government is that of the parent. The 
 father of the family keeps all the younger members 
 with him. The daughters are married into other fami- 
 lies, and the sons marry and bring their wives home. 
 The necessity of guarding against wild beasts or hostile 
 tribes keeps the family together. This becomes at last 
 a tribe, and then several tribes unite and a nation or a 
 people is formed. In the tribe the father of the largest 
 family is chief, and the other fathers are elders or ad- 
 visers. In the federation of tribes the strongest chief 
 becomes the judge or king, and so on. As the society 
 becomes more complex the functions of government 
 multiply. At the outset the judge or king is ruler, 
 priest, and prophet. Later there are recorders, gen- 
 erals, and statesmen, judges, priests, and prophets. 
 Custom is turned into law. The power of the ruler 
 is limited. The influence of the prophet increases. 
 Wars grow less frequent and the soil is more faithfully 
 tilled. Plunder gives way to taxes and tributes. 
 
 9. In the early days, land was as free as air, and no 
 one thought of owning it. The land across Jordan and 
 south of the ten and a half tribes belonged to Chemosh. 
 Palestine belonged to Jahveh, and his people shared it 
 
2IO BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 in common. In a desert country the first real property- 
 is a well, or cistern. As the people multiply and the 
 shepherd becomes an agriculturist, it is seen that it is 
 best to divide the land among the people. But still the 
 land is cheap, and each man is expected to own a piece 
 of land. So firmly fixed was the idea of man's near- 
 ness to the soil, that each man's estate was declared 
 inalienable. Mismanage as he might, he must not be 
 allowed to deprive his children of their patrimony. 
 Unfortunately, however, this law became a dead letter 
 as society became more complex. 
 
 10. Labor was dignified in all the Jewish law. Each 
 man had learned a trade while young. Each was able 
 to support himself. The idler was despised. Learned 
 leisure was not thought of. " Labor is happiness," 
 said the Jew, and he proved his words. The nation 
 whose literature has declared labor a curse, has done 
 most to prove it a blessing. The Greeks despised labor. 
 The Roman freeman, who had not a coat to his back, 
 was above labor. " Only a slave," said he, " should 
 toil." What a weight of meaning for all ages in the 
 contrast. 
 
 Commerce was regarded a doubtful good. Produc- 
 tive labor alone has the full sanction of the law, the 
 prophets, and the sages. But the Jews did not heed 
 their John Ruskin. And they have become the middle 
 men of the world. 
 
 ii. Meanwhile, the settled, peaceful life has its pecu- 
 liar dangers. The rich grow richer; and the poor, 
 poorer. The ancestral estates become alienated. That 
 form of society in which it was planned that every fam- 
 ily should own a strip of soil gives way to one in which 
 
FOR ITS SOCIOLOGY. 21 X 
 
 there are beggars and tramps. Hebrews of pure blood 
 sell their wives, their children, and themselves into 
 slavery. The rich grow harsh, cruel, and arrogant. 
 The poor are not only debarred from the rights of cit- 
 izens, but the privileges of religion are also denied 
 them. All this calls for a moral reformation. The 
 prophets cry out against oppression. The rich cannot 
 have allowed these pleas to pass unheeded. Nehemiah 
 refused to draw his salary, because the people are poor ; 
 and he feeds the laborers at his own expense. There 
 is a growing conviction that neither riches nor poverty 
 is the ideal ; both have their peculiar temptations. The 
 religion comes to place charity and righteousness in 
 the same category. 
 
 12. A growing emphasis is placed upon education. 
 None of the early Bible stories turn upon the ability to 
 read and write, and it is probable that writing was not 
 very common in the days of the first writing prophets. 
 Education consisted in committing to memory the tra- 
 ditions. In the laws of Deuteronomy we note a remark- 
 able change. The people are now supposed to be able 
 to read. Portions of the book are posted in public 
 places. The parents are exhorted to teach their chil- 
 dren the law of the Lord. The king is to have a copy 
 of the civil law near at hand, and he is to read it. From 
 the days of Josiah, the Jews began to pay more atten- 
 tion to education for its own sake. The wisdom litera- 
 ture was becoming common. This was practical rather 
 than theoretical or religious, and presupposed a love of 
 knowledge for itself alone. All this comes to a climax 
 in certain portions of Job and Proverbs, and in the 
 Apocryphal Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach. 
 
212 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 New elements of a truly noble nature are gradually 
 imported into the ritual which at first was so full of su- 
 perstitions. The social value of the coming together 
 into the presence of the Lord is magnified. Many 
 psalms glorify the blessings of the communion of men 
 with each other and with God. Together they exalt 
 their daily life, and inspire each other with noble 
 thoughts. They sing together of the sweetness of the 
 home life, and of the nobility of a pure conscience. 
 The mellowing influences of common thoughts on a 
 common destiny are charmingly portrayed. 
 
 13. But what renders all these subjects so full of in- 
 terest, what gives unique value to all the lessons the 
 Bible brings us, is the divineness of its religion. No 
 doubt this had very humble beginnings. But, however 
 that may be, any true estimate of it must take it at its 
 best. Where many modern sociologists are weak, the 
 Bible writers are strongest. They see the divine plan 
 in history. Their sociology is not static, but dynamic. 
 They do not look into the past only, but into the fu- 
 ture as well. " See, in order to foresee," is their motto. 
 And they never tire of affirming that if we would see 
 God in the future, we must look for him in the present; 
 if he has spoken to us in the past, he has a yet better 
 message in the present. Isaiah complains to his people 
 of their undue conservatism. They are contiuually ap- 
 pealing to what Jehovah said to their fathers, and ignor- 
 ing what he is now saying to them. All the prophets 
 believed in a living God. He was as near to them as 
 he had been to their fathers. They made their religion 
 a living force, not a dead creed, not a system of theol- 
 ogy. It is the belief in a living inspiration, in the real 
 
FOR ITS SOCIOLOGY. 21 3 
 
 inner strength and goodness of society, as such, that 
 renders the message of the Biblical authors so full of 
 help and consolation. It is the triumph of the divine 
 in them that has made them our teachers in religion 
 and in sociology for all time. 
 
 To the believer in the Biblical religion who unites 
 with his faith a strong conviction of the general truth- 
 fulness of modern progress, Biblical sociology will pres- 
 ent many strong claims to the title of science. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 SOME ANCIENT AND MODERN ESTIMATES OF 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
" This age may be best characterized as the age of criticism, a criticism to 
 which everything must submit. Religion, on the ground of its sanctity, and 
 law, on the ground of its majesty, often resist this sifting of their claims. But, 
 in so doing, they inevitably awake a not unjust suspicion that their claims are 
 ill-founded, and they can no longer expect the unfeigned homage paid by reason 
 to that which has shown itself able to stand the test of free inquiry P 
 
 Immanuel Kant. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 SOME ANCIENT AND MODERN ESTIMATES OF THE 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 I. What, in the days since the dawn of Christian- 
 ity, have men, whose opinions are worth heeding, be- 
 lieved the Old Testament to be ? This is a question 
 which possesses a living interest, and any. impartial 
 investigation in this field is sure to yield rich results. 
 
 We find, in the first place, that the Orthodox Jews 
 accept their Scriptures as a complete and sufficient 
 revelation of the will of the Lord their God, contain- 
 ing a fully developed moral code, and a ritual, to com- 
 ply with which is to save the soul. They are blind 
 followers of the letter of the law. Nothing can be 
 learned, in fact, outside the Hebrew Bible and the 
 Talmud. The work of the Orthodox Jews upon their 
 Scriptures has been almost wholly conservative. They 
 have done nothing to aid the modern reconstruction of 
 their history. Avoiding altogether modern scholarship, 
 they rather prefer to revel in the speculations of the 
 Talmud. They still believe, with the Jewish authors of 
 the early Christian centuries, that the law existed in 
 the depths of the divine nature before time was, that 
 it is in very truth the eternal image of the spiritual 
 being of God, that it is identical with heavenly wis- 
 dom, and that God's love goes out to it willingly and 
 
 217 
 
2l8 SOME ANCIENT AND MODERN ESTIMATES 
 
 spontaneously in tenderest affection. The law is, to 
 the pious Jew, the daughter of God, in whom God loved 
 himself as in his own image. By one writer the law is 
 made to say, " God begat me from eternity as the first- 
 ling of his way, as the first beginning of his work. ,, 
 And, according to another writer, it was said that God 
 himself spends the first three hours of the day in the 
 study of the law. 
 
 The law is, to the Orthodox Jew, God's only revela- 
 tion of salvation. Piety is love for the law ; the essence 
 of religion is to live according to the law, and it will be 
 the essence of religion for all time. The Jews are the 
 people of the law, and the study and practice of the 
 law insure the presence of God in their midst. The 
 prophets were but inspired commentators of the law, 
 and the oral tradition was its authentic and God-given 
 interpretation. 1 
 
 The Reform Jews, on the other hand, are thoroughly 
 in touch with modern aims and ideals. They are prot- 
 estants in that they reject or thoroughly sift the Rab- 
 binical traditions, and return to an independent study 
 of the Bible itself. They hold to no hard and fast 
 creed, but gladly accept the results of modern science, 
 philosophy, and historical criticism. Their reverence 
 for the Old Testament is akin to that of the liberal 
 Christian for the New. And some of the best work 
 on the Jewish Scriptures in our day is being done by 
 Reformed Jews. 
 
 2. The New Testament idea of the Old Testament 
 is the Orthodox Jewish idea, with such modifications as 
 the new elements in Christianity would naturally neces- 
 
 1 Weber's Altsynagogale Theologie, SS. 16, 34, etc. 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 219 
 
 sitate. It must not be forgotten that the Old Testa- 
 ment was the only Bible that Jesus and the apostles 
 possessed. And it proved to them a constant source 
 of inspiration and hope. It furnished the basis for a 
 pure moral and religious life, and, above all, it became 
 a powerful weapon in the hands of the early Christians 
 in their controversies with the Gentiles. It is to be 
 expected, then, that the New Testament writers will 
 hold the Old Testament in the highest esteem. 
 
 Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, says he came 
 not to abrogate the law of the prophets but to fulfil 
 them ; that is, he came not to set aside the law as hav- 
 ing no authority (KaraXvuv), but to live up to it, obey it, 
 and so fulfil it (irX-qpovv). In the same context he con- 
 tinues, one " i " or one piece of a letter shall not pass 
 from even a word of the Old Testament, until all its 
 mission for righteousness and the kingdom of God is 
 accomplished (iravra yev^rat). 1 The thought seems to be, 
 if the words are really those of Jesus, that the Old 
 Testament retains its authority until the truth finds a 
 higher authority in the new heart, and in the momen- 
 tum of a righteous life (vs. 20). The Old Testament, 
 then, has its supreme value, not in the fact that it fore- 
 tells the Messiah and prepares the world for him, but 
 in that it teaches by precept and example a form of 
 righteousness which will endure till heaven and earth 
 pass away. The fulfilment of a law is its abrogation 
 only to him who, by obedience, is ready to put aside the 
 milk of the word and partake of the solid meat. 
 
 1 Matt. v. 17-20 is a confused and confusing section. Weizsacker, 
 Hilgenfeld, and others, may be right in saying that vss. 18, 19, are not 
 words of Jesus. 
 
220 SOME ANCIENT AND MODERN ESTIMATES 
 
 Prof. Edward Caird says, that, when Jesus spoke of 
 the kingdom of God as resembling a kernel of wheat, 
 which, put into the earth, multiplies by dying, he " gave 
 a clearer expression to the idea of development than it 
 had ever before received/' 1 Equally significant with 
 the passage referred to by Caird and in the same direc- 
 tion are the words of Jesus recorded in Matt. xix. n, 
 "All men cannot receive this saying." This certainly 
 implies that Christianity is not primarily a doctrine, 
 merely as such, but a higher type of religious life, 
 founded upon the Old Testament, and supplementing 
 its ideal, but never setting it wholly aside. 
 
 The continued usefulness of precepts of varying de- 
 grees of ethical and religious completeness is well illus- 
 trated also by a passage in the Teaching of the Apostles, 
 vi. 2. " If indeed thou art able to bear the whole yoke 
 of the Lord, thou wilt be perfect : but if thou art not 
 able, do what thou canst" (o Svvrj rovro notei). 
 
 This I believe was the view of Jesus. The Old Tes- 
 tament possesses permanent value, because there are 
 always those in society who are sufficiently hard of 
 heart and dull of hearing to be helped by it ; while, on 
 the other hand, Jesus certainly taught that the higher 
 commands possessed authority for those who were able 
 to receive them. 
 
 Paul seems to have at one time believed in the Old 
 Testament in a more technical way than Jesus ever did. 
 When he accepted Christianity, however, he sought to 
 set aside this technique, though without being wholly 
 able to do so. He speaks at one time in favor of the 
 law, and at another time against it. And it is by no 
 
 1 Evolution of Religion, vol. i. p. 25. 
 
\ 
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 221 
 
 means clear in every instance just what his meaning 
 may be. If we could affirm that, when he spoke against 
 the law, he had in mind its ritual and merely formal 
 morality, and that, when he spoke in its praise, he was 
 thinking of its ethical and ideal character, the difficulty 
 would be solved. But Paul nowhere tells us that he so 
 speaks, and, further, Meyer is doubtless right when he 
 says that "the distinction between the ritualistic, civil, 
 and moral law is modern." 
 
 The New Testament, as a whole, does not regard the 
 Jewish revelation as confined to our present Old Testa- 
 ment. On several occasions the Apocryphal Old Tes- 
 tament is quoted as having authority, and various 
 references in the New Testament seem to be to books 
 now lost. In a creative period a hard and fast theory 
 of inspiration is out of the question, and the New Testa- 
 ment writers show great freedom, both in the character 
 of the authorities employed, and in the manner of using 
 them. 1 . 
 
 3. The early Christian Church accepted almost with- 
 out change the Orthodox Jewish view of the Old Testa- 
 ment. While they rejected the Talmud and the Tra- 
 dition, they followed the Jews in the great body of 
 their interpretations. One important difference, of 
 course, was that of the belief about the Messiah. The 
 Jews and Christians were practically in agreement as to 
 the number and meaning of the Messianic passages. 
 But the Jews denied that these were fulfilled in Jesus 
 
 1 Cf. Heb. i. 3 and Wisdom vii. 26. Jas. i. 9, 19 and Ecclus. iv. 29, 
 v. 11. Heb. xi. 35, 36 and 2 Mace. vi. 18 -vii. 42. Heb. xi. 37 and 
 Ascension of Isaiah. Jude 9 and the Assumption of Moses. Jude 14-16 
 and the Book of Enoch. See also the non-Biblical names in 2 Tim. iii. 8. 
 
222 SOME ANCIENT AND MODERN ESTIMATES 
 
 of Nazareth. In the third century of our era the Chris- 
 tians looked upon the Old and New Testaments as sui 
 generis. The scriptures of other peoples were, by the 
 majority, believed to be purposely base, vile, plagiaristic, 
 and harmful. But the Biblia, or books of the Old and 
 New Testaments, were believed to be the complete word 
 of God to men. 
 
 While this was true of the Orthodox Christians, the 
 heretical sects looked upon the Old Testament with 
 distrust. The Gnostics were, as a rule, opposed to the 
 Old Testament. Basilides, to be sure, looked upon the 
 God of the Old Testament as indeed the Creator of 
 the world. But he was not therefore God, but an angel 
 (apx<»v) who presided over the lowest of the three hun- 
 dred and sixty-five kingdoms of the ineffable God. 
 
 Marcion {floruit 139 a.d.) likewise held that Jehovah 
 was the Creator, but not the God of the universe. He 
 saw only the lower and material elements in the Old 
 Testament. Even the Messiah of the Old Testament 
 is far from the real Christ, according to Marcion. He 
 is sensuously and physically conceived, as was Jehovah. 
 Naturally, then, the ethical and religious portions of 
 the Old Testament are looked upon as external, and 
 grounded in law, and not in love. 1 The sect of the 
 Ophites went still farther, and pronounced the Old Tes- 
 tament immoral, and completely at variance with the 
 religion of the Spirit. 
 
 4. Modern writers upon the religions classify them 
 in various ways, and by this estimate them. One of 
 the most common divisions is that into natural and re- 
 vealed. The natural religions are the heathen reli- 
 1 Hase's Christian Church, pp. 78 fol. 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 223 
 
 gions, or more properly, they are the nature religions 
 that are without great prophets, as, for example, Brah- 
 manism, and the religions of Greece and Rome. The re- 
 vealed religions are the religions that have their origin 
 in some great man, as, for example, Mosaism, or Juda- 
 ism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, and Christianity. By 
 another classification the religions are subjective, ob- 
 jective, or absolute, according as God is conceived as 
 transcending the world, or as immanent in it, or as both 
 immanent and transcendent. The pantheistic religions 
 magnify the immanence of the divine, as do the Classi- 
 cal and Indian religions. Judaism, on the other hand, 
 magnifies the transcendence of God. Christianity har- 
 monizes the two conceptions. Schopenhauer classifies 
 the religions as optimistic or pessimistic, according as 
 they look upon life as a good or an evil. Buddhism 
 and Christianity are to him pessimistic. Judaism is 
 optimistic. God saw all that he had made, and, behold, 
 it was exceeding good. 
 
 5. According to Kant, the essence of religion con- 
 sists in a belief in God, Freedom, and Immortality. 
 Judaism is not clear, theoretically, on the doctrine of 
 freedom, and, practically, freedom is denied, and life is 
 reduced to a slavish obedience to a written code, liter- 
 ally construed. As to the third essential, the Old Tes- 
 tament has no positive word, and therefore, for Kant, 
 Judaism had no religious faith, because it had no belief 
 in a future life. And a polytheism superior to Judaism 
 is clearly conceivable. The ethical portion of the Old 
 Testament is equally obnoxious to Kant. He seems 
 to have looked entirely to the priestly books for his 
 estimate, and he naturally finds it making use of igno- 
 
224 SOME ANCIENT AND MODERN ESTIMATES 
 
 ble motives, and summed up in useless forms. He does 
 not hesitate to say that it was the aim of Judaism, not 
 to establish a theocracy, but to secularize religion, and 
 reduce all to a merely civil society. 
 
 Hegel's estimate of the Old Testament has the de- 
 fects and the merits of a cast-iron method. At the 
 foot of the ladder we have animism, fetichism, and the 
 nature religious, pure and simple. At the top we have 
 Christianity, the absolute religion. As rungs in the 
 ladder we have the religions of Greece, Rome, and 
 Jerusalem. Greece looked after the intellect and gave 
 us philosophy, beauty, freedom, and humanity. Rome 
 looked after the will and gave us purpose, practice, and 
 character. The contribution of the Jew was the least 
 important of all. He gave us an absentee God, and the 
 feeling of sublimity and of dualism. Yet Hegel admits 
 that any compromise on the part of the Hebrews with 
 the nature religions would have been fatal to the 
 contribution which they have made to the spiritual 
 consciousness of mankind. They insisted upon the one- 
 ness and absoluteness of God. " The content of the He- 
 brew conception of God is pure, non-sensuous thought ; 
 the relation of the individual to this being is a relation 
 to pure thought. . . . The religious service which the 
 Jew was called upon to render was accordingly a severe 
 and hard one ; it was a service of ceremony and of law. 
 The Jews confessed themselves as owing whatever they 
 were to the one God, Jehovah ; thus the individual, 
 whether person or race, lacked the consciousness of 
 independence, freedom, worth. Hence, adds Hegel, 
 we find among the Jews no belief in the immortality of 
 the soul. The family here possesses the independence 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 225 
 
 that the individual lacks ; it is to the family that, so to 
 speak, spiritual substantiality belongs. The worship of 
 Jehovah is a worship rendered by the family. The 
 state, on the other hand, is foreign to the principle of 
 Jewish life and to the legislation of Moses. " * 
 
 Schelling held that the religion of the Old Testament 
 was a revealed and spiritual religion, and that Jehovah 
 was the true God, but as it arose in an age of darkness, 
 it was impossible that it should be other than imperfect. 
 It was deeply influenced by the enemies it slew. It 
 reacted in an extreme way against some, and was 
 unduly drawn towards others. 
 
 The late Prof. Hermann Lotze held the Hebrew reli- 
 gion in high esteem. 2 He especially Gommended that 
 people for leaving us the only complete history of their 
 early mental life. And while he finds in the Hebrew 
 language defects which were due to limitations in their 
 intellectual interest in various phenomena, he finds 
 there also elements which bespeak the deepest ethical 
 and religious feeling and aspiration. He says, "The 
 descriptive poetry of the Hebrews depicts characters 
 and events with the greatest simplicity of expression, 
 without the least artificial complication of motives, dis- 
 closing everywhere, without reserve, those natural 
 springs of action which, as long as the world lasts, 
 will be the real ultimate incentives of all that men do." 
 
 Lotze wrote sufficiently late to be influenced in his 
 estimate of the Hebrew religion by the critical views 
 of his time. Yet it is a wholesome sign, and one 
 amounting to independent confirmation, when one of 
 
 1 Morris's Hegel's Philosophy of History, p. 168. 
 
 2 Microcosmus, vol. i. p. 6; vol. ii. pp. 401 fol., 466 fol. 
 
226 SOME ANCIENT AND MODERN ESTIMATES 
 
 Lotze's importance affirms that the Hebrew ethics pro- 
 duced the Hebrew religion. "The motive power of 
 their development is to be found in ethical ideas, which, 
 though not indeed alien to the life of other nations, 
 were not the source from which their religious motives 
 were derived." 
 
 Lotze was of the opinion that the Hebrews so con- 
 ceived of their God as to avoid the philosophical dual- 
 ism of which they are often accused. God was wholly 
 good, and nothing evil left his hand. But man was cre- 
 ated free, and by disobedience he introduced evil into 
 the world, while by obedience he might have become 
 holy as God is holy. 
 
 6. Newman Smyth, in his " Christian Ethics," lays 
 especial emphasis upon the social side of the Old Tes- 
 tament religion. The Hebrew ideal of the highest good 
 is said to be a social conception. "Abraham's faith 
 was a social trust." The Hebrew morality was organic ; 
 it looked forward to a society whose members should 
 be, in very truth, living members one of another. 
 " Family permanence and social stability " were the 
 ideals desired above all. 1 " No single solitary soul can 
 win life's largest blessing apart from his brethren." 
 
 As emphasizing and at the same time glorifying the 
 social side of the Old Testament, may be mentioned 
 also Ely's "Social Aspects of Christianity." 2 
 
 Just as fast as crude and indefensible claims for the 
 truthfulness of the science of the Bible cease, so rap- 
 idly do the scientists come to the support of the writer 
 on Christian evidences. Let a scientist approach Gen- 
 esis as he approaches Heraclitus or Pythagoras, take it 
 
 1 Page 91 of Christian Ethics. 2 Page 151 fol. 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 227 
 
 for just what it is, and estimate it in the light of its age, 
 and he cannot but be amazed at the large measure of 
 its truthfulness. Haeckel pays to the Hebrew creation 
 story a lofty tribute. Von Baer says, " no more lofty 
 account has come down to us from early days." Lotze 
 says of it, that it is " sublimer than any other, because 
 it represents as forthwith existing what the Deity willed 
 to be, without weakening the impression of omnipo- 
 tence by any mention of intervening physical agencies." 
 Inasmuch as the Hebrews were not scientists in any 
 sense of the word, Dillmann can account for the origin 
 of the first chapter of Genesis only on the basis of an 
 inspiration from God. 1 
 
 7. "It is not the object of any Bible student, prop- 
 erly so-called," says Myron Adams, " to destroy the 
 Bible or to undermine its proper and reasonable influ- 
 ence. His object is to discover just what the Bible 
 is, and how it came to be what it is." We must be 
 aided in our answers to these questions by a broad 
 and careful study of human progress in all its branches. 
 " All progress is co-ordinate." The church of the 
 tenth century could easily accept the doctrine of tran- 
 substantiation, because the science of that day taught 
 that one metal could be transmuted into another. Bad 
 science helped to make a bad theology and vice versa. 
 
 Along with the idea of the extreme almightiness of 
 God, grew up the idea that God could make the world 
 out of nothing. If God could make something out of 
 nothing, he could do other things equally marvellous. 
 He could make the Bible out of nothing. He could 
 pop the whole Pentateuch suddenly into the mind of 
 
 1 Die Genesis in loco. 
 
228 SOME ANCIENT AND MODERN ESTIMATES 
 
 Moses, ready made. Moses could give laws for which 
 Israel would have no use for centuries. To be sure, 
 this isn't the way society moves nowadays. Now it is 
 hard to get the laws when we are ready for them. 
 Why ? Because we have to make our laws out of our 
 needs. We have discarded the idea that the world was 
 made out of nothing. It violates a fundamental law of 
 thought. When we have been forced from the position 
 that the world was made out of nothing, we naturally 
 feel impelled to abandon the idea that the Bible was 
 made out of nothing. We begin to seek for causes, 
 conditions, and opportunities. We study the Biblical 
 authors on the human side, we seek to know the secret 
 of their inspirations. 
 
 Some of us were brought up to think that the Bible 
 must not be studied as are other phenomena and other 
 books. But when we search for the cause of all this, 
 we find it goes back for its origin to an age of intro- 
 spection, as opposed to a later age of the careful 
 study of nature. We have learned to study nature, to 
 study it as a work of God. And we study nature with 
 perfect freedom, criticising and correcting. We have 
 come to look upon the work of man as that of perfect- 
 ing what the divine spirit is aiming at in the universe. 
 Now, to hold this idea of God's world, and at the same 
 time to deny the right of man to deal thus with God's 
 book, is to reveal a very confused state of mind. It is 
 to show to the world that while we have learned our les- 
 son, we have not yet learned the meaning of it, " If God 
 had authentically written every word of the Bible, if he 
 had caused all the printing and arrangement of it, and 
 the very binding itself to be done in heaven, it would 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 229 
 
 be still open to men for their inspection and criticism. " 
 But the Bible was not so produced. It came to us 
 through human media, — much more then is it our duty 
 to inspect and criticise it, and adapt it to our own 
 moral and religious needs. 
 
 8. Another fact worthy of consideration is this, that 
 the Biblical writers were specialists. Their abilities 
 and inspirations in one direction do not assure us 
 that they are equally gifted in other directions. In- 
 deed, all analogy is against this. A man's excellence 
 in one department of learning is often coupled with 
 defects in other departments. There is nothing in 
 inspiration that can guard a Biblical author from these 
 human limitations. Along with this comes also the 
 fact that the whole race was once far behind where it 
 now is in knowledge. The Bible has all the marks of 
 its age and its nation stamped upon it. " It came into 
 being as a human production as really as anything else 
 which has ever become extant among us." This search 
 for natural causes has been marvellously fruitful in re- 
 vealing the hidden meaning of many Biblical passages. 
 And the frank admission that the Biblical writers were 
 religious specialists, making no claim to more than com- 
 mon abilities and common honesty in other domains of 
 culture, and, above all, basing their highest claim to be 
 heard on the value of their message to their own age ; 
 the frank admission of these facts, I say, must bring at 
 last all the great minds into sympathetic relations with 
 the Old Testament and its noble religion. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 EVOLUTION AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
" Until the problem has been stated in its most dangerous form, all solutions 
 of it must be partial and inadequate. They must leave, after all, an inex- 
 plicable surd" 
 
 Edward Caird. 
 
 "Evolution is continuous, progressive change, according to certain laws, and 
 
 by means of resident forces P 
 
 Le Conte. 
 
 " There is a great distinction to be drawn between the fact of evolution and 
 
 the manner of it, or between the evidence of evolution, as having taken place 
 
 somehow, and the evidence of the causes which have been concerned in the 
 
 process? 
 
 Romanes. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 EVOLUTION AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 I. Obviously the search for that in man which is 
 the source of progress is beset with an ever-increasing 
 number of facts, going to show that, at the outset, man 
 had no moral, intellectual, religious, or social life at all, 
 in the proper sense of these words. At the outset 
 there was no society. Man could not be studied in his 
 relations ; for at that early day, when he had just issued 
 from pure animalism, he had no idea of law, no definite 
 relations. Professor Caird sees this difficulty, and says : 
 " The phenomena of savage life are equally irrelevant 
 to the religious and to the moral history of mankind. 
 If morality takes its rise in the conflict between the 
 ideal of duty and the life of animal instinct, then we 
 can scarcely say that man, when he is almost wholly 
 imprisoned in the circle of natural events and impulses, 
 has yet entered on his career as a moral being. And, 
 for the same reason, the Fetichist can scarcely be said 
 to have entered into the sphere of religion." x Religion 
 and morals are there, but they are " latent." They are 
 present in much the same way as science and art are 
 present in the new-born babe. And the question arises, 
 are they in the child at the beginning, are they in his 
 environment, or are they the outcome of the reaction 
 
 1 J. Caird's Philosophy of Religion, p. 329. 
 233 
 
234 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 of the one upon the other ? A savage counting his 
 fingers is a prophecy of the higher calculus and of 
 quaternions. A savage bowing to sticks and stones is 
 a prophecy of the Christian consciousness. But who 
 fulfils this prophecy? These "latent" powers are val- 
 uable just to the extent that they are evolved. But is 
 this evolution anything more than a manifestation of 
 what already is ? I have kept in this discussion Profes- 
 sor Caird's word "latent." Modern physicists have, 
 however, set the word aside as misleading. They say 
 it is but another word for potential. 
 
 As the word latent has been set aside in physics as 
 misleading, so it should be in speaking of the powers 
 of man. Says Prof. T. H. Green, "In the growth of 
 our experience, in the process of our learning to know 
 the world, an animal organism, which has its history in 
 time, gradually becomes the vehicle of an eternally com- 
 plete consciousness. What we call our mental history 
 is not a history of this consciousness, which, in itself, 
 can have no history, but a history of the process by 
 which the animal organism becomes its vehicle. ,, * 
 
 2. It is a failure to grasp this conception that must 
 account for a vast amount of confusion in the popular 
 religious mind on the questions of the evolution of man 
 and of his institutions. It is forgotten that the word 
 " origin " has a twofold meaning. It may refer to the 
 origin of a phenomenon in time, or to the original and 
 eternal idea which is more or less imperfectly em- 
 bodied in the phenomenon. To illustrate, the begin- 
 ning of a house is not to be sought in the first blow of 
 the pick or hammer, but in the ideally formed plan and 
 
 1 Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 72. 
 
EVOLUTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 235 
 
 purpose to build a house. The true origin of an elm- 
 tree is not in the first swelling and sprouting of the 
 life in the seed. There is the most essential element 
 back of this, in the peculiar organization of the proto- 
 plasm which determines it as an elm, and not an ash or 
 oak. In other words, then, the essential origin of a 
 thing is not to be found in its earliest and most incom- 
 plete, but in its latest and most complete manifes- 
 tation. The origin of science, ethics, religion, and 
 civilization is to be found not in the remote past, but 
 in the present. The best sample of the eternal con- 
 sciousness is not the least evolved, but the most 
 evolved consciousness. Man is not only the end, but 
 the beginning of nature. Nature becomes conscious 
 of herself in man, and man in his turn may read her 
 secrets. And in spelling out these secrets, he is but 
 traversing with nature the path that led to himself. 
 The study of the evolution of religion must, then, be- 
 gin and end with the ideally perfect man. If we leave 
 this ideal out at the beginning of our study, and start 
 with that which is only animal and brutish, we must 
 posit the existence somewhere of a "latent," or hidden, 
 or as yet unevolved, force which is to gradually appear 
 to us. 1 In other words, we would be letting in by 
 stealth, little by little, and at a side door, what we re- 
 fused admittance over the threshold. With all our 
 pains, therefore, we may not find the true origin of our 
 religion, and be able to state it with completeness. For 
 even if we seek it in the present, it remains that we do 
 not fully understand our own tendencies, our own 
 moods, and all the grounds of our conscious life. . We 
 
 1 E. Caird's Social Phil, and Rel. of Comte. 
 
236 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 feel that there is a force working in us whose ends are 
 only partly known to us. It is therefore often said of 
 our greatest prophets and teachers, past and present, 
 that they builded better than they knew. But if this is 
 so, then these men do not fully understand themselves. 
 And as Professor Erdmann has profoundly remarked, 
 a philosophy that does not understand itself cannot be 
 a complete philosophy. So, also, a man who does not 
 understand himself cannot be a complete man. The 
 grandeur of the future is not yet half revealed to us. 
 And until that day comes we must not be too sure 
 about origins, for the true origins of man and society 
 are to be sought at the end of history, not at the begin- 
 ning, nor at the ages midway between. 1 
 
 3. While thus, according to such writers as the 
 Cairds and Green, the essential causes of progress are 
 hid in the immutable counsels of God, they are not at 
 all adverse to the work of those writers who search 
 deeply into the history of our civilization for the 
 occasioning causes of our advancement. They are, 
 indeed, especially friendly to this kind of investiga- 
 tion when it is pursued in the proper spirit. So, then, 
 while we may admit that progress is no more than the 
 manifestation of a consciousness which is eternally the 
 same, and is itself the efficient cause of that progress, 
 we are in duty bound to discover, so far as we may, 
 what are the conditions most favorable to the growth 
 of that consciousness. And we may also hope for 
 some light in the solution of the question by studying 
 religion from the point of view of the evolution of re- 
 ligion. By no means is it necessary that such a study 
 
 1 See J. Cairo? s Philosophy of Religion, p. 346. 
 
EVOLUTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 2$? 
 
 be negative or rationalistic. In theistic evolution the 
 resident force in the world is none other than the 
 immanent God. Evolution stands for a great and 
 mighty truth, so also does theism, and they are not 
 antagonistic to each other. 
 
 The study of religion from the point of view of the 
 evolutionist is of comparatively recent date. Yet this 
 method of investigation and apologetics strikes its 
 roots deep into the past. 
 
 4. In 1780 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing published a 
 wonderful work, though scarce more than a pamphlet 
 in size, entitled " The Education of the Human Race." 
 Its opening sentence strikes a new note in the history 
 of religion, and sheds a new and before unknown har- 
 mony over the sacred Scriptures. " That which educa- 
 tion is to the individual/' affirms Lessing, "revelation 
 is to the race. Education is revelation coming to the 
 individual man ; and revelation is education which has 
 come, and is yet coming, to the human race." This 
 is the author's point of view throughout. Revelation 
 gives us nothing which is beyond reason, nothing which 
 is beyond the ordinary faculties of mind and soul to 
 attain ; but, thanks to the assistance of men whose fac- 
 ulties have been quickened by the divine Spirit, these 
 truths come to us earlier through revelation than they 
 otherwise could have done. If revelation is education, 
 then all lessons obviously may not be taught to the 
 race at once. There must be a rational plan and order 
 in the procedure. Not all the attributes of God will be 
 apprehended at once and with equal clearness on the 
 part of the people. The divine plan, then, adapts the 
 lessons to the pupils. So also the higher ethical mo- 
 
238 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 tives are for a long season kept in the background. 
 The Bible is, as its name implies, a library, and the 
 oldest books are primers. They are such as would 
 be adapted to children to-day; they were even better 
 adapted to the child-race. Education is carried on "by 
 rewards and punishments addressed to the senses. ,, 
 Had God revealed himself to man at the outset in all 
 his fulness, there would have been the " same fault in 
 the divine rule as is committed by the schoolmaster, who 
 chooses to hurry his pupil too rapidly." Because, how- 
 ever, the Bible shows God to have been a wise school- 
 master, it also shows that his chosen people, while they 
 have been overtaken and surpassed here and there by 
 " more happily organized " children of nature, are yet, 
 in the grand total, far in advance of all others in the 
 knowledge and practice of truth. 
 
 To Lessing, as to Kant, the absence of a doctrine of 
 immortality in the Old Testament occasions serious dif- 
 ficulties. While the earlier portions of the Bible are a 
 primer and are adapted to a child-race, they " must con- 
 tain absolutely nothing which blocks up the way towards 
 the knowledge which is held back." While the primer 
 must be suited to its readers, it must contain nothing 
 which is absolute error. Lessing thinks that for the 
 early race there was a real gain in omitting all positive 
 teaching regarding individual immortality. 1 For, while 
 this was held in abeyance, the ethical life was being 
 firmly planted upon a surer basis than would have been 
 
 1 To be sure the oldest parts of the Old Testament reveal a belief in 
 the immortality of the national life. And the Jews had the examples of 
 Enoch and Elijah who had not died. Yet, for all this, the question in Job 
 xiv. 14 was not answered. 
 
EVOLUTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 239 
 
 possible had the popular thought been dominated by a 
 belief in a future world of rewards and punishments. 
 
 At last the child-race becomes a youth. " Sweetmeats 
 and toys give place to the budding desire to be free." 
 Slowly there comes the consciousness of intellectual 
 and moral freedom. This is, to Lessing, the period 
 when the Hebrews came to pure monotheism, to a 
 belief in Jehovah as the absolute God of the universe. 
 " Revelation had guided their reason, and now, all at 
 once, reason gave clearness to their revelation. . . . 
 And the cultivation of revealed truths into truths of 
 reason is absolutely necessary, if the human race is to 
 be assisted by them." 
 
 The education of the human race reaches its highest 
 mark in the life and teachings of Christ. Yet Lessing 
 refuses to consider "contemptible" the views of those 
 who predict that "the New Covenant must become as 
 antiquated as the Old." He merely refuses to limit 
 the teaching and revealing powers of the infinite God. 
 And he warns, on the other hand, against rashness in 
 affirming the old primers effete. There are many back- 
 ward pupils, and some are very backward. For the 
 sake of these let no evil word be said against the primer. 
 What is taken "for a blunder in the teaching," by the 
 rashly wise, may be the highest mark of teaching skill, 
 when all the details are known. Nor is it safe to deny 
 to a precept its title to divineness because it is found 
 among all early civilizations. "God makes immediate 
 revelations of mere truths of reason, or has permitted 
 and caused pure truths of reason to be taught for some 
 time as truths of immediate revelation, in order to 
 promulgate them the more rapidly, and ground them 
 the more firmly." 
 
24O BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Here we have the first beginnings of the application 
 of the principle of development to the sacred Scrip- 
 tures. And they who to-day are seeking to discover 
 all the laws and manners of the evolution of pure reli- 
 gion among men are following in the lines pointed out 
 by Lessing. 
 
 5. Since Lessing's time a wonderful advance has 
 been made, and now no scholar thinks of studying the 
 great religions except in the light of their origins and 
 subsequent developments. 
 
 No careful student of the origin and development 
 of religions can any longer deny the main postulates of 
 the philosophy of evolution. This is evident from the 
 fact that no religion enters, or has entered, the world 
 perfect, either morally or ideally. 1 This being admitted, 
 it is certainly worth our while to inquire what are the 
 laws of growth, and, that we may use them for analogy 
 and suggestion, what are the laws of evolution in plant 
 and animal life? It is not any longer a mark of wis- 
 dom to deny to the student of Christianity the right 
 and duty to investigate the claims of his religion in the 
 light of these lately-discovered laws. We may even go 
 farther, and maintain that the facts of religion ought 
 to be classified in accordance with these laws, just as 
 other phenomena are classified. We may, I think, 
 accept the argument as given by Professor Le Conte in 
 his " Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought," 
 and attempt, on the basis of this, to add new light to 
 
 1 Possibly Christianity is an exception, yet the facts, seemingly, are the 
 other way. Jesus " grew in knowledge;" Paul's theology developed. 
 And the Church was not perfect till it had gathered of every sort, and so 
 proved the absoluteness of its message. 
 
EVOLUTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 241 
 
 the theological doctrines of revelation, redemption, and 
 regeneration. It will soon appear that all in the old 
 doctrines that really corresponded in a healthful way 
 with human experience is still there, and that many 
 new correspondences have been discovered. It appears 
 that Christianity has found a real and life-giving en- 
 vironment in humanity. 
 
 6. But, apparently, we are not yet ready to apply in 
 detail the methods of evolution to religion. We are 
 quibbling over evolution as a philosophy ; we are mis- 
 representing and misunderstanding each other, when 
 we ought to be using evolution as a method, as a work- 
 ing hypothesis, for the uplifting of the race. We all 
 want evolution in religion. We want a more universal 
 theology, may I say a more humane theology? We 
 want a purer standard of ethics, and a larger number of 
 our fellows living moral and spiritual lives. Now, what 
 are the laws of this evolution ? What are they in the 
 natural world ? What are they in the social world of 
 man? These questions answered, and we are in a posi- 
 tion to reinvigorate our religion on both the practical 
 and the theoretical side. We are able to enter intelli- 
 gently into the work of human redemption, and co- 
 operate with God, where often heretofore he has been 
 compelled to work alone, because, with our little philos- 
 ophy, and our little theology, we quite often "get in 
 the way " in our efforts to help. 
 
 Another idea which has vitiated the studies of many 
 scholars is this, that the religious instinct is the source 
 of all progress. This is not strictly true ; the evolution 
 of religion has, as a matter of fact, gone hand in hand 
 with man's social and moral advance. The religion of 
 
242 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Israel, at the outset, was not moral at all, in our sense 
 of the word. But the earliest religions and the earli- 
 est morality go hand in hand. "Instead of leading 
 the way in social and ethical progress, religion was 
 often content to follow, or even to lag behind." 1 
 Again, of a primitive community Professor Smith says, 
 " Its friends are the god's friends, its enemies the god's 
 enemies ! It takes its god with it in whatsoever it 
 chooses to do." So far the historian and the exegete ! 
 but the philosopher does not object. Dr. Pfleiderer says, 
 whether the course of a particular religion " is to lead 
 upward or downward depends from the first on the atti- 
 tude taken up toward the moral potencies of life." In 
 another place he makes religious development recipro- 
 cally dependent upon " the development of civilization" 
 The italics are Pfleiderer's. If we grant that Chris- 
 tianity has been a moral force, we have yet to search 
 for the source of Christianity's power to adapt itself to 
 our advancing life. Advance steps have almost invari- 
 ably been taken (have they not ?) by scientists, philoso- 
 phers, and philanthropists, who, technically speaking, 
 were not Christians. I doubt if ethics is so entirely 
 dependent upon religion as some scholars have main- 
 tained. Both have original roots in human nature, and 
 each will reciprocally aid the other, and neither will 
 appear at its best without the normal activity of the 
 other. 
 
 7. In recent years two Christian scholars have, in a 
 thorough-going way, applied the method of evolution 
 to religious science. One of these is an Old Testa- 
 ment specialist, and the other is a professor of philoso- 
 1 W. R. Smith's Religion of the Semites, p. 53. 
 
EVOLUTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 243 
 
 phy. Both these men are justly eminent. Robertson 
 Smith sees and proclaims that the facts at hand in Old 
 Testament science furnish a " variety of evidence to 
 show that the type of religion which is founded on kin- 
 ship, and in which the deity and his worshippers make 
 up a society united by the bond of blood, was widely 
 prevalent; and that at an early date, among all the 
 Semitic peoples. But the force of the evidence goes 
 further, and leaves no reasonable doubt that among the 
 Semites this was the original type of religion, out of 
 which all other types grew." * 
 
 Prof. Edward Caird says, " Tjjiis whole historic pro- 
 cess [the development of Hebrew religion] furnishes 
 perhaps the most striking of all illustrations of reli- 
 gious evolution. In other words, it exhibits to us a 
 typical instance of the development of a religious idea 
 from lower to higher forms, till, finally, it exhausts 
 itself and dies, only, however, to rise again in a reli- 
 gion of a much higher type." 2 
 
 Professor Smith's statement is by no means a spo- 
 radic one ; there are four hundred pages of proof. From 
 scores of sources, the Bible among them, evidence is 
 brought forth showing that the early Semites believed 
 that they were related to their gods by blood, and were 
 their lineal descendants. The tribes were held together 
 by a common religion ; viz., the worship of a reputed 
 ancestor, or totem animal. The Calebites were a tribe 
 who attributed their origin to a dog. A similar belief, 
 no doubt, gave rise to the expression "Lion tribe of 
 Judah." Passages in the Old Testament which suggest 
 
 1 Religion of the Semites, p. 51. 
 
 2 Evolution of Religion, vol. i. p. 398. 
 
244 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 these ideas to the critical student are found in I Sam. 
 xx. 29, and Judges xviii. 19. 1 So, then, we are not able 
 to follow a recent author when he says, "As a matter of 
 fact, in the most ancient and most influential religions 
 of the world, we do not find any outline of any such 
 evolution as Mr. Spencer suggests." I do not pretend 
 to say that Cheyne, Stade, and W. R. Smith accept 
 Spencer's theory of religion as a complete explanation 
 of all the phenomena ; but these scholars are in too 
 close agreement with Spencer, and with the more re- 
 cent evolutionists in particular, to warrant the assertion 
 that Spencer and Darwin are on the wrong side of this 
 question altogether. 
 
 In fact, special students are also working among the 
 documents bearing upon the origins of other religions, 
 and various fields of research are yielding material 
 that confirms the main outlines of the evolution theory 
 of the origin of religion. The opinion of Mueller, to 
 which many assent, that the more we go back toward 
 the sources of the various religions the purer we find 
 their conceptions of the Deity, does not commend 
 itself to the scientific scholarship of our day. It may, 
 perhaps, be said that the oldest literary statement of 
 religious belief that we have is a pure monotheism. 
 But Professor Sayce has argued, and not in vain, to 
 show that this literary statement marks not the begin- 
 ning, but the close of a long historic development. 2 
 
 8. Prof. E. Caird's volumes on the " Evolution of Re- 
 
 1 Cf. also Stade's Geschichte des Volkes Israel, iii. 403, and Cheyne's 
 Isa. ii. 121, 122, 291. 
 
 2 For further discussion of Smith's Religion of the Semites, see the 
 chapter on the Way of Salvation. 
 
EVOLUTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 245 
 
 ligion " are exceedingly fresh and stimulating. There 
 is all the inspiration and insight of a prophet, and all 
 the candor and frankness of a scholar in these pages. 
 Professor Caird believes in the reign of law, but by 
 this he certainly does not mean the exclusive reign of 
 those laws which we have come to speak of as physical. 
 " To say that there is a universal reign of law, and that 
 nothing happens without a cause, is by no means to say 
 that there is one kind of law and one kind of cause 
 for everything." And especially is it true, in human 
 affairs, that the motives to action have changed as the 
 mind and heart have developed in sensitiveness and in 
 strength. 1 Between us and the past, in this respect, is' 
 a great chasm ; and, as Professor Caird thinks, only by 
 the aid of evolution can we bridge over the chasm 
 between us and that past. 2 Certainly we cannot defend 
 that past, as a whole, except for its own niche in 
 history. But when we have so defended it, we have 
 put ourselves into the best possible position to recog- 
 nize what its real merits, its permanent elements 
 are. 
 
 A difficulty in the way of a comprehensive study of 
 religion appears at the outset in the definition that is 
 given to religion. By some definitions all but Christi- 
 anity are false religions, or not religions at all. If we 
 include the intellectual and moral elements to any great 
 degree, many of the lower types are excluded. Then 
 we are forced to say that religion arose de novo by spe- 
 
 1 Not until the time of Daniel's book, 160, did the Jews believe that 
 the head was the seat of thought. In all the earlier books the " heart' ' 
 is the organ of reflection. 
 
 2 Evolution of Religion, vol. i. p. 25. 
 
246 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 cial revelation, that it began with the great man. 
 There is certainly something to be said for this view. 
 But, as a matter of fact, some of the historic religions 
 were nature religions, and, so far as we know, do not 
 owe their origin to a great religious teacher. Further, 
 even in the case of the revealed religions, it is obvious 
 that their prophets must be, to a very large extent, 
 explained by their environments. Their messages are 
 influenced by that against which they react, and by the 
 needs of the people to whom they appeal. For this 
 reason Caird objects to any arbitrary definition of reli- 
 gion. Any definition which cuts across the line of human 
 development, shutting out all which do not come up to 
 a certain standard, is to make a helpful study of the 
 evolution of religion impossible. 1 So, too, to take the 
 common element in all religions as a basis is perni- 
 cious ; " what we want is, rather, the germinative prin- 
 ciple." That principle is a thirst for a more complete, 
 harmonious, and perfect life. Says Professor Caird, 
 " A man's religion is the expression of his ultimate 
 attitude to the universe, the summed-up meaning and 
 purport of his whole consciousness of things. How, 
 and how far, he arises above the parts to the whole ; 
 how, and how far, he gathers his scattered conscious- 
 ness of the world and of himself to a unity ; how, and 
 how far, he makes anything like a final return upon 
 himself from all his fortunes and experiences, is shown 
 more clearly in his religion than in any other expression 
 of his inner life. ,> 2 This definition tells the whole story. 
 Man's religion advances pari passu with himself. And 
 the germinating principle is the desire for a perfect life; 
 1 Op. Cit., p. 46. 2 Op. Cit., p. 30. 
 
EVOLUTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 2Afi 
 
 it is the resident force, it is the indwelling God coming 
 to ever more complete expression. And " if religion 
 ever becomes extinct, it can only be because it has 
 served its purpose, and has given rise to some more 
 comprehensive form of life." 
 
 Prof. A. B. Bruce accepts in a general way the con- 
 clusions reached by such scholars as Caird and Smith, 
 and bases his defence of the earlier and lower forms of 
 Old Testament religion and morality entirely upon the 
 fact that God could not fully reveal himself to primi- 
 tive man and primitive society. The application of the 
 evolution philosophy to religion and especially to the 
 Biblical religion has, in fact, completely revolutionized 
 apologetics ; and the new apologetics must succeed 
 ultimately in restoring the Old Testament to favor 
 among many intelligent and earnest religious people 
 who, by the old views, were forced to regard many of 
 its chapters as only immoral and degrading. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 
 
Question. " What is to save me from falling into the power of some foolish, 
 or ignorant, or partisan writer, and being put off with views which lack the 
 approval of the wise ? 
 
 Answer. " One safeguard lies in discovering who are the leading writers 
 
 on your topic. As you run your eye along the margin of one book after another 
 
 on the subject, you will be pretty sure to see certain names repeated again and 
 
 again. Writers of various grades and opinions will agree hi their recurring 
 
 references to these names. The references possibly may nearly all be for the 
 
 purpose of stricture and refutation. Never mind. A book which many writers 
 
 think worth controverting is pretty sure to be worth reading. . . . Drop other 
 
 books and go for these. . . . These are the writers to cultivate, if you would 
 
 save time in the end, and have opinions which shall be something more than the 
 
 echo of echoes P 
 
 J. H. Thayer. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT WITH 
 SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 
 
 I. PROFESSOR RYLE AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON. 
 
 I. There has just come to hand a treatise on "The 
 Canon of the Old Testament/' by Herbert E. Ryle of 
 Cambridge, England, which deserves attention. 
 
 Driver has dated for us, as best he could, the books 
 and parts of books of the Old Testament. He has given 
 us an analysis of each chapter, told its purpose, and, 
 when known, its author. Other books that are else- 
 where reviewed in these pages have traced for us the 
 civil and religious history of the Hebrew people, and 
 expounded the content of Old Testament theology. 
 The book at present under discussion aims to tell when 
 the particular books of the Old Testament began to be 
 regarded as divinely inspired and authoritative. It has, 
 no doubt, often occurred to the inquiring mind as some- 
 what strange that Hebrew literature should come down 
 to us as Bible, as Holy Scripture, while Greek, Latin, 
 and other literatures can at best claim to be nothing 
 other than classical. The usual explanations of this 
 strange fact do not explain. They assume the exist- 
 ence of an inspired Hebrew Bible, and then, with great 
 learning, proceed to show that our Old Testament is 
 such Hebrew Bible. Ryle's method is very different. 
 
 251 
 
252 LEISURELY RAMBLES JN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 He proceeds on the basis of history, and he believes 
 that Driver's " Introduction " and the Britannica arti- 
 cle, "Israel," are a fair statement of the conclusions 
 warranted by the facts at our command. Ryle is no 
 rationalist. I have every reason to believe that he is 
 more orthodox than many who will read what I here 
 write of him. But he is not a man whose orthodoxy 
 blinds him to the facts that are every day coming to 
 light to assist in a fairer, more humane, more rational 
 understanding of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. 
 Ryle believes in God, in Christ, in the Holy Spirit, in 
 all the affirmations of the Church ; but still he believes 
 that to fight the tendencies of an age is to make an 
 age work at cross-purpose, it is merely to delay the 
 inevitable. As has been well said by a recent writer 
 on the plays of Sophocles, regarding those who try to 
 stem the tide, " They are the contemporaries of their 
 ancestors or of posterity." Here are Ryle's own 
 words : " The Church is demanding a courageous re- 
 statement of those facts upon which modern historical 
 criticism has thrown new light. If, in the attempt to 
 meet this demand, the Christian scholarship of the 
 present generation should err through rashness, love 
 of change, or inaccuracy of observation, the Christian 
 scholarship of another generation will repair the error. 
 Progress towards the truth must be made. But it will 
 not be made without many a stumble." This is certainly 
 a statement showing great fairness and breadth, and to 
 the old dogmatists it would be a sign that those who 
 thus confess feel the weakness of their positions. But 
 to a scholar it is a sign of their greatness. It is a sign 
 that the advocates of the critical and historical methods 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 2 53 
 
 of Bible interpretation are neither narrow, bigoted, nor 
 destructive. 
 
 2. As is well known, the Hebrew Bible is divided 
 into three parts, Law, Prophets, and Writings ; and 
 Ryle argues, against the older scholars, that this three- 
 fold division marks three clearly defined stages in the 
 process that finally gave us the sacred Scriptures. The 
 Law includes the so-called five books of Moses. The 
 Prophets include what we know as histories and proph- 
 ets. The histories are called "former prophets ; " they 
 are Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. The " latter 
 prophets" are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve 
 Minor Prophets. The Writings constitute the remain- 
 der of the Old Testament. It is a noteworthy fact 
 that the Psalms and Job belong here. But still more 
 striking, perhaps, is the fact that Esther, Ezra-Nehe- 
 miah, and Chronicles do not appear with the other his- 
 tories, and that Daniel is in this list and not one of the 
 prophets. What do these facts mean ? According to 
 Ryle they mean this, that the Law was canonized in 
 the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, 444 b.c. ; the Prophets 
 a short time prior to the persecutions of Antiochus 
 Epiphanes, say 200 B.C. ; and the Writings not until 
 shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, 71 a.d. 
 
 At the first blush these seem to be startling revela- 
 tions. But a careful consideration of the evidence, 
 both external and internal, confirms the substantial ac- 
 curacy of these conclusions. It must, of course, be 
 borne in mind that the date of the composition of a 
 book is quite a different thing from its acceptance into 
 a sacred collection. Many of the Old Testament books 
 were "the ordinary literature of a believing people" for 
 
254 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 a considerable period previous to their being generally- 
 accepted as having divine sanction. Indeed, it is doubt- 
 ful whether "Sacred" or "Holy" meant more to the 
 early Jews than we mean by "Classical." At any rate, 
 a "theory of inspiration" is a comparatively late 
 growth. 
 
 3. It is, of course, a mistake to suppose that the can- 
 onization of Scripture was a sudden affair. Even the 
 Law was not ratified suddenly in the days of Ezra and 
 Nehemiah. Ezra had gradually led the people up to 
 the final act, and even then the law they accepted was 
 largely composed of codes that had long been considered 
 authoritative. So, too, the songs and histories and 
 prophecies incorporated into the Pentateuch were many 
 of them very old. Some of these were undoubtedly 
 folk-songs and folk-tales that had come down from the 
 earliest times. Books that were popular in the eighth 
 century B.C. have been lost. Yet we seem to have 
 the substance of them preserved for us. Num. xxi. 14 
 quotes the Book of the Wars of Jahveh, and Josh. x. 13 
 quotes the Book of Jashar. Now we know that the 
 Book of Jashar contained an account of events as late 
 as the days of Solomon. The text of 1 Kings viii. 53 x is 
 not clear, but the reader may consult 2 Sam. i. 18 for 
 substantial confirmation of the above. These old song- 
 books could be repeated verbatim by the people. They 
 were religious and patriotic; to be sure, they had no 
 divine authority, yet they were reverenced and loved. 
 No one ever thought of doubting their truthfulness. 
 Some of the songs, too, came down from the times of 
 Moses and the Judges, and idealized a forgotten age. 
 
 1 The LXX. quotes "Jashar," though Tt? was read instead of *V&\ 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 255 
 
 There were also codes of laws that were very old. 
 Perhaps the oldest was that of the ten words, though it 
 must have read very differently from our Ten Com- 
 mandments. It has been supposed that originally all 
 the prohibitions assumed the form "do not kill/' "do 
 not steal," etc. At any rate, the Ten Commandments 
 as we have them in Exodus xx. are of more recent date 
 than the laws immediately following (Ex. xxi.-xxiii.). 
 A careful reading of these laws at once discloses the 
 fact that they belong to a people that possessed very 
 meagre literary abilities, and were but just emerging 
 from a pastoral to an agricultural mode of life. 
 
 4. The next code of laws of importance was that of 
 Deut. v.-xxvi. Here we have repeated most of the laws 
 of Ex. xxi.-xxiii., with additions. There is here a law 
 for the king, and the agricultural life is now firmly es- 
 tablished. The moral tone of the laws is much more 
 lofty, and they are set forth in less crude form. As 
 we know, this code was ratified in the days of Josiah as 
 the law of the land. It was not accepted as Holy Scrip- 
 ture, but as a state constitution ; it was adopted as the 
 law of the land. This, I believe, is the first approach 
 towards canonization that we have any account of in 
 the Old Testament. Whether the earlier book of the 
 covenant, Ex. xxi.-xxiii., was ever accepted in any such 
 formal way is, I think, doubtful. A still later code of 
 laws, and one that is manifestly an improvement upon 
 any former redaction, is the so-called Law of Holi- 
 ness found in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. The opinion is rapidly 
 gaining ground that this code was drawn up in the days 
 of Ezekiel. But it seems to have made no very great 
 impression until it was published as part of the com- 
 
256 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 pleted Torah in the time of Ezra. The absence of any 
 mention of the law of Moses, or of an accepted body of 
 law (Torah), previous to the days of Ezra, leads Ryle to 
 the conclusion that the Pentateuch was first made Holy 
 Scripture in the days of Ezra. 
 
 5. The Prophets, the second third of the Hebrew 
 Bible, and defined at the beginning of this chapter, 
 were all or nearly all in existence at this time, but they 
 were not regarded as having divine authority. There is 
 a tradition that Nehemiah completed the canon; this 
 Ryle overthrows in a very conclusive excursus at the 
 close of his volume. It is, however, probable that Nehe- 
 miah was influential in lifting certain books, that later 
 were canonized as Prophets, to the rank of authoritative 
 interpretations of tjie Law. A history like Judges or 
 Kings illustrates and confirms the laws of Deuteron- 
 omy. And the prophets proper were surely recognized 
 as able expounders of the law of Jahveh. In their own 
 days the prophets were often regarded as enthusiasts. 
 They were too far in advance of the masses to meet 
 with much favor. But as the years rolled by, and the 
 people advanced in morals and intellectual perception, 
 they began to see that the law was, after all, a compro- 
 mise. It was civil rather than ideal. It aimed at what 
 might be rather than what ought to be. So it gradually 
 came to be believed that while the priest was the tem- 
 poral (civil) interpreter of the law, the prophet was its 
 eternal and inspired vindicator. Not suddenly did this 
 idea come to prevail. No doubt it was opposed and 
 hindered in many circles. But the Book of Ecclesiasti- 
 cus, chapters xlix.-l. (180 B.C.), speaks of the prophets 
 in such a way as to lead to the conclusion that in the 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 2$y 
 
 year 200 B.C. the Hebrew Holy Scriptures consisted of 
 the Law and the Prophets. 
 
 6. The name given by the Hebrews themselves to 
 the last division of their Bible is very significant. It is 
 the simple title, Writings. Now, evidently at the time 
 this title was given, the books that went under this 
 name were not regarded as especially holy. We get the 
 picture exactly from the title of the Hebrew Bible that 
 has come down to us. In the year 200 B.C. the Hebrew 
 literature consists of a law, divinely inspired and pur- 
 porting to come from Moses, of prophets, likewise in- 
 spired, consisting of four histories and fifteen prophets, 
 and writings. Of these writings nothing is said. Their 
 divine authority is neither affirmed nor denied. Tacitly, 
 indeed, their inspiration is denied. They are just writ- 
 ings. At the time the New Testament was written 
 they had nearly all been accepted as canonical, but they 
 kept the old name. As a consequence the New Tes- 
 tament speaks of the sacred writings of the Jews as 
 Scriptures. The terms Law and Prophets were also 
 often used in later times to designate the whole Old 
 Testament. 
 
 We know that some Psalms are Maccabean ; we know 
 that Daniel must come from the days of Antiochus. 
 Esther and Ecclesiastes are undoubtedly very late. 
 With all this agrees their place in the canon. The fact 
 that Daniel does not occur among the prophets is suffi- 
 ciently explained, if Daniel was not written at the time 
 the prophets were canonized. Chronicles ought to 
 appear with Samuel and Kings, but Chronicles was 
 scarcely written at the time the list of Prophets was 
 closed. The fact that the third canon is composed of 
 
258 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 a different class of writings from the others will no 
 longer suffice. It is far from true to the facts, and 
 a better explanation of the threefold division has been 
 found. I have only space to suggest that Ryle's rea- 
 sons for saying that the third canon was not fully rec- 
 ognized until after the destruction of Jerusalem, seem 
 to me to be conclusive. In New Testament times, and 
 to New Testament writers, there was certainly much 
 diversity of opinion. 
 
 II. THE LIBERAL PREACHER AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. 
 
 I. There is a tendency on the part of some to 
 personify the higher criticism, and make it synony- 
 mous with negativism and atheism. Such methods 
 are not complimentary to those who use them. Im- 
 mature personification has led to untold evil in all 
 branches of learning. The heathen personified their 
 gods and let this pass for a definition of them. The 
 scholastics personified human faculties, virtues, and 
 vices, and carried their evil methods to such extremes 
 that Lord Bacon could speak literally of them as idols ; 
 " idols of the market-place, and the theatre. ,, Idols of 
 the sort here referred to are the results of shiftless 
 mental processes, or they are the creations of the 
 child-intellect. The dog, it is said, interprets all move- 
 ment zoomorphically. The savage, from imperfect 
 knowledge, personifies all natural forces. He knows 
 no movement apart from his own finite life. And so 
 he explains all motion anthropomorphically. This leads 
 the primitive man into countless errors. It wholly 
 unfits him to be a witness to the truth. I can explain 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 2 59 
 
 in no other way certain ideas of my contemporaries. 
 Because they have not taken the trouble to inform 
 themselves, they can do nothing but call names. To 
 them the higher criticism is either a "thing," or it is a 
 "person." Sometimes it is a thing, a tool, used by the. 
 intentionally vicious to destroy truth and virtue. To 
 employ a figure of the Autocrat, " sin has many tools 
 for smashing up the Bible, but the higher criticism is 
 the handle which fits them all." More often, however, 
 in extreme Orthodox papers that have recently come to 
 my notice, the higher criticism has assumed the role 
 of a person, a morally responsible being. The higher 
 criticism is spoken of as doing certain things, as lead- 
 ing the Church astray, as attacking now this, now that, 
 "impregnable" rock of Scripture, which Scripture, to 
 judge by the wailing, does not wholly establish its im- 
 pregnability. But the higher criticism, to these primi- 
 tive types of the Bible student, is morally responsible. 
 It is to be reserved for punishment. It is doomed. 
 Smoke and ashes will alone remain at the last. 
 
 This personification, to which I have referred, is not 
 mere rhetoric; it is not rhetoric at all. Capricious 
 coincidence alone gives it that appearance. This being 
 so, it is a mistake to interpret these statements as 
 rhetoric. They are of a piece with other idolatries. 
 Aside from the moral and religious content, the mental 
 processes by which they are reached are the same. 
 
 2. The higher criticism of the Bible is merely the 
 employment of scientific methods in Biblical study. 
 Those methods of research which have given us the 
 locomotive, the telegraph, and the electric car, are 
 being used also in the study of the Bible. If we 
 
260 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 knew how many useless things Tom Edison does and 
 thinks, every day of his life, we would be amazed. 
 Not one in a thousand of his schemes — I'm m'ostly 
 guessing — ever comes to anything. Some of them are 
 laughable in the extreme to himself as he recalls them. 
 In science these myriads of guesses and blunders and 
 errors never come to light, or, at least, only occasion- 
 ally. The fittest survive, the others are forgotten. 
 Where, however, trial is necessary, there are cases of 
 misplaced genius, and that without number. Where 
 one useful thing is patented many useless ones are. 
 Is it worth while to personify Invention, and say all 
 manner of evil of it, because more useless tools are 
 patented than good ones ? Not by any means ; because, 
 in the aggregate, we see unmistakable signs of prog- 
 ress. To one who is half-informed the cases are almost 
 completely parallel. One cannot follow the history of 
 Biblical study for the last one hundred years without 
 being thoroughly convinced of this. A Biblical theory 
 gets out of date now as quick as a bicycle or an electric 
 car. Is this a sign of progress in the one, and of illu- 
 sion in the other ? By no means. Despite aberrations 
 here and there, it has been steady advance from the 
 first application of rational methods to the study of the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 In one especial particular it may occur to the reader 
 that progress in mechanical inventions and jn Biblical 
 science are not parallel to the degree above specified. 
 It may be said that the one deals with facts, and the 
 other with theories and hypotheses. This is not so to 
 the degree that many suppose. Much of our modern 
 progress in science rests upon assumptions that are 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 26 1 
 
 wholly unproved. Further, to the student of history, 
 of language and philosophy, it at once appears that the 
 higher criticism is based upon facts. Professor Green of 
 Princeton and Professor Bissell of Hartford are as much 
 higher critics as are their opponents. They differ in 
 that they draw different conclusions from the facts. As 
 has often enough been said, it is ignorance of obvious 
 facts that must alone account for the prevailing tradi- 
 tional views of the Bible. I say this in spite of the 
 two scholars I have named. Why ? Because a rapidly 
 increasing number of men who possess the facts these 
 men possess have forsaken their dogmatic positions, 
 and unprejudiced men have invariably done so. 
 
 4. Rev. R. Heber Newton, the Broad Church Epis- 
 copalian, says, that in the Bible "is contained God's 
 true word." But he also argues that it is wrong "to 
 accept its utterances indiscriminately," "to consult it 
 as a heathen oracle," "to treat it as authority save in 
 matters of religion;" it is wrong to disregard its chro- 
 nology in constructing its theology. On the positive 
 side the author grows eloquent. The Bible is our 
 moral and spiritual guide and instructor. Its pages 
 teem with inspirations and helps. Those who read it 
 sympathetically, who find its "mystic sense," will be 
 more than rewarded. It never fails to create a sense 
 of sin and a passion for the ideal. "Read it daily," 
 says Dr. Newton; "read it in the choicest moments of 
 the day." 
 
 In the same vein is that apt word of Rev. Newman 
 Smyth's, "the faults of the Old Testament are, as Her- 
 der said, the faults of the pupil, and not of the teacher. 
 They are the necessary incidents of a course of moral 
 
262 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 education. . . . The same law of evolution seems to 
 have been followed alike in nature and in the Bible." 
 
 5. These men are both Christian preachers, and 
 neither is a rationalist in any narrow sense of that 
 word. 
 
 There is a very prevalent opinion that criticism and 
 rationalism somehow mean about the same thing, 
 and Bible study has been somewhat impeded by this 
 supposed identity. The critics do certainly eliminate 
 some of the Bible miracles. There are those who elim- 
 inate them all. But Professor Driver is a supernatu- 
 ralist. So are Canon Cheyne, Professor Ryle, and Dr. 
 Horton. All these men believe in the Christian re- 
 ligion. They all see visible traces of the hand of God 
 in the Old Testament. They believe in the eternal 
 usefulness of that revelation. 
 
 The critics do seek for natural causes, and they find 
 them often where the older scholars did not. But the 
 Christian student knows that when he has explained all 
 that can be explained, he has but begun to probe the 
 mysteries of God. Where does the real miracle lie, is 
 the question. Granting that the prophet Isaiah saved 
 Judah from Israel's fate in the year 711 or 701, where 
 and how did God help him ? Was Isaiah told some- 
 thing by God which came to him as a new thought, 
 apart from any intellectual process on his own part — 
 were the very words of his message to his king put 
 into his mouth ? Or did the prophet arrive at all this 
 by intellectual processes of his own — processes which 
 were made possible to him by the sincerity of his 
 thought, the purity of his life, and the nearness of his 
 soul to God ? I doubt if any one knows fully the ways 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS, 263 
 
 of God with His people. I doubt if the best of the 
 prophets could tell us, so we could understand, what 
 inspiration and the power to work miracles are like. 
 Only those who have had similar uplifts can under- 
 stand. All merely scientific or intellectual efforts to 
 fathom these things must prove more or less disap- 
 pointing. 
 
 As for myself, I have not reached the point where I 
 desire or am able consistently to eliminate the miracu- 
 lous from the Old Testament or from the New. I do 
 not see that criticism leads to any such result. But on 
 the other hand, to the critic, the whole Bible is one 
 constant miracle. Indeed, I may say that it is the 
 grand object of modern scholarship to take the epithet 
 miraculous from detached and isolated texts and acts 
 here and there, and place it upon the whole as a grand 
 and consistent unit. The whole is a miracle. And by 
 saying this, I necessarily affirm that there are miracles 
 in the parts of which the whole is formed. We may 
 disagree as to the value to our Christianity of isolated 
 events and narratives, just as we disagree as to the 
 elements of strength in a play of Shakespeare's, and 
 yet agree upon the essentials. Upon the divinity, the 
 grandeur, and the uniqueness of the Christian Revela- 
 tion, the critics are agreed. And by far the larger 
 number of them are supernaturalists and members of 
 evangelical churches. 
 
 There is a tendency on the part of the scholars to 
 avoid in their works those phrases of a devotional 
 nature which are so common in the sermon and the 
 prayer-meeting address ; for this reason the critics are 
 often accused of irreverence. The charge is, as a rule, 
 
264 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 undeserved. The scholar is giving the preacher and 
 the Sunday-school teacher his material ; he is not try- 
 ing to do his work for him. But this is by no means 
 evidence that he has no interest in that work. Indeed, 
 most of the critics are also preachers. We could not 
 easily do without the inspiring and truly helpful ser- 
 mons of Driver, Cheyne, and Schleiermacher. 
 
 That rationalism which denies the possibility of all 
 miracles, or even goes so far as to deny the historical 
 accuracy of all accounts in our Bible that describe the 
 supernatural, finds little or no favor with the majority 
 of the higher critics, either in this country or in 
 Europe. The whole trend of criticism is away from 
 the German rationalism of the last generation. And 
 the trend of criticism is just as surely away from the 
 crude and materialistic conceptions of the miraculous 
 which have dominated the past, and still prevail among 
 religious people, who are not materialists in aught but 
 the things of the immaterial world. 
 
 III. PROFESSOR TOY AND THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL. 
 
 I. The great mass of literature on Old Testament 
 subjects is wholly untrustworthy and unscientific. He- 
 brew history has been completely revolutionized during 
 the last half century. All the old books, therefore, are 
 totally at sea as to their dates, and their theory of the 
 genesis of Israelitish institutions. Some of the older 
 scholars had all the freedom necessary. De Wette and 
 Ewald were not hampered by traditionalism, but in their 
 time the key to the Old Testament had not been found. 
 Neither Stanley's " Lectures on the Jewish Church/' 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS, 265 
 
 nor EwakTs great work, can be recommended as a his- 
 tory of Israel. On the other hand, here and there, as 
 character studies, they are unsurpassed. So along the 
 line of commentaries, one cannot recommend, for gen- 
 eral reading, those of Lange or Keil and Delitzsch. 
 Their implied " doctrine of sacred Scripture " has led 
 them into too great absurdities of exegesis, and in too 
 many particulars, to render them safe as guides. The 
 chief error of these authorities is that they always find 
 a meaning for a passage, whether the original contains 
 it, or otherwise ; and this meaning is obtained often 
 enough in utter disregard of Hebrew syntax and lex- 
 icography. The best preparation for a helpful wrestle 
 with Scripture problems is a free and open mind. And 
 I venture the statement here, that freedom in the dis- 
 cussion of Biblical questions can tend in only one direc- 
 tion. And that " direction " is certainly in more or 
 less close accord with what is known as the higher crit- 
 icism. 
 
 2. The book which I use constantly, a book which 
 no Bible student's study table ought to be without, is 
 Prof. C. H. Toy's " History of the Religion of Israel." 
 It is divided into thirty lessons, with questions, index, 
 and copious references. While professing to be only 
 a primer, it is vastly more. The book is so carefully 
 written, so happy in its arrangement, and so racy in 
 style, as to make it interesting alike to young and old. 
 As I have hinted, no one should be without the book. 
 No Sunday-school class should be allowed to graduate 
 till its members have been taken through it twice or 
 thrice. 
 
 3. Another reason why I recommend this book is the 
 
266 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 fact that it is the only one in English, or at least was 
 so until recently, which treats the whole Old Testament 
 from the point of view of recent discoveries. No effort 
 is made to defend the higher criticism, but its results 
 are freely offered to the student. And in some respects 
 these are themselves the best defence of those princi- 
 ples and methods. In any case, a clear idea of the prob- 
 lem is necessary as an introduction to further study ; 
 and this problem, while it has many ramifications, is 
 really one problem. If there is but one Isaiah, Pen- 
 tateuch criticism has been going astray. If the Penta- 
 teuch is one and from Moses, many of the reasons, indeed, 
 most of those urged against an early date for Isaiah, 
 chapters xl.-lxvi., fall to the ground. So, too, the criticism 
 of the Psalms means nothing if the ideas of the Priests' 
 Code in the Pentateuch and of the Babylonian Isaiah 
 are already very old, the one to David and the other to 
 Ezra. Evidently, then, a fair notion of the results of 
 the higher criticism as a whole ought to precede any 
 special study of a particular part. Much superficial, 
 and so far immoral, criticism of the Scriptures is due to 
 the fact that the critic fails in this particular. 
 
 IV. W. ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE JEWISH BIBLE. 
 
 I. "The Old Testament in the Jewish Church" is a 
 delightful series of twelve lectures on Biblical criticism 
 by that recognized master of a rational theology and a 
 clear style, W. Robertson Smith. While avowedly 
 popular, it is so in no ignoble sense, and the book is 
 further furnished with fifty pages of critical notes and 
 a copious index. 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 267 
 
 The aim of these lectures is to show how the books 
 of the Old Testament originated, how they came to be 
 regarded as authoritative, and at what dates. 
 
 2. The author begins by declaring that a more care- 
 ful and sympathetic study of the Scriptures is in de- 
 mand. The traditional views have led the Church into 
 gross errors here and there. Systematic theology has 
 pretended to build upon the Bible, but has by no means 
 succeeded in so doing. The Reformation introduced 
 a new life into Biblical interpretation. But it failed to 
 carry out its promises. It set aside the authority of 
 the Church, only to bind itself more tightly with the 
 authority of the Book. Here it erred, but the seeds of 
 religious freedom had been sown. Luther felt himself 
 at liberty to reject certain books of the Old Testament 
 as apocryphal, in spite of the testimony of the Jew and 
 the Christian. This liberty has been further used by 
 others since Luther, until it is now admitted that each 
 individual book (and often each separate part of that 
 book) must stand or fall upon its own merits. This 
 led to a complete revolution in Old Testament study. 
 All the old questions were reopened. Everything was 
 questioned. 
 
 3. A re-study of the work and methods of the scribes 
 has revealed the fact that not so much care was taken 
 in the copying of manuscripts as the Church had sup- 
 posed. Many books had been copied many times ere 
 they were regarded as sacred, and submitted to careful 
 scribes for transcription. Psalm xviii. and 2 Samuel 
 xxii. are the same, yet the Hebrew text contains over 
 seventy variations of more or less importance. These 
 seem to have crept in between the time of the original 
 
268 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 writing of the Song, and the time of its canonization in 
 the twofold form in which we have it. This would be 
 some time subsequent to Ezra (444). To be sure, some 
 variations may be of later date, and this is very proba- 
 ble. Isaiah ii. and Micah iv. illustrate the same fact. 
 Reasoning by analogy, then, we are prepared to find 
 the Hebrew text abounding in errors. All this shows 
 the need of great care in the interpretation of difficult 
 passages. We have no right to suppose that the words 
 must mean something. From what has been said, it 
 would seem more in accordance with the facts in our 
 possession to say that the text is corrupt. Many pas- 
 sages in the earlier prophets and in the Psalms are 
 absolutely untranslatable. Either the text must be 
 emended, or the rules of Hebrew grammar and syntax 
 must be discarded. Professor Smith recognizes all these 
 difficulties. He sees the danger of relying upon proof- 
 texts, or of founding a doctrine upon a particular book 
 or chapter. Here and there verses have been inter- 
 polated. Perhaps they were written in the margin at 
 first, and were later introduced into the body of the 
 book. In other places objectionable words, terms, or 
 phrases were left out. Just how much of all this has 
 occurred we cannot say, but certainly much more than 
 people generally are aware of. 
 
 4. The sources at hand for restoring the Hebrew 
 text are meagre. Unlike the New Testament, the Old, 
 as we know it, goes back to a single recension. Little, 
 then, can be gained by comparing one edition of the 
 Hebrew Bible with another. But before the barbarous 
 destruction of the great body of Hebrew Bibles, there 
 were great differences in the existing copies. At least 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 269 
 
 this was probably the case. And from one of these 
 different manuscripts the Septuagint, or Greek transla- 
 tion, was made during the years 275 to 100 B.C. The 
 early critics of the Old Testament, being predisposed 
 on a priori grounds to accept the Hebrew text as direct 
 from the hand of the writer, gave little heed to the vari- 
 ous readings preserved in the Septuagint. In modern 
 times there has been a great change. Scholars have 
 come to see that they have a treasure in the work of 
 the Seventy. Often when the Hebrew is obscure the 
 Greek is not. And, further, it often happens that 
 when the Greek is translated back into Hebrew we get 
 a text very nearly like that of our Bibles, an intelligible 
 text, and one that might easily have given rise to the 
 errors that the received text has perpetuated. Some- 
 times neither bur Hebrew nor the Greek is able to 
 throw light upon a doubtful passage. And all emenda- 
 tions must be merely conjectural. Yet, even here, the 
 way pointed out by the Septuagint has led to other 
 corrections of the text that have been quite generally 
 accepted. 
 
 5. Early Hebrew being written without vowels, and 
 without many of the vowel letters which distinguish 
 one word from another, the difficulties in the way of 
 one who would read a given text were enormous. In 
 our Hebrew Bibles "son" and "between" are pro- 
 nounced the same, but written differently. The one is 
 ben, the other beyn, that is, it has the vowel letter. But 
 originally both were written ben or more properly bn. 
 The Septuagint, in scores of passages, clearly shows 
 that its errors, or its superiority to the Hebrew text, 
 are due to a difference of opinion as to whether the 
 vowel letter should or should not be written. 
 
270 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 Owing to the fact that the vowels were not written, 
 we have entirely lost the pronunciation of many words. 
 It is well known that there is no such word as Jehovah. 
 What we have here are the consonants of one word and 
 the vowels of another. When the Hebrew reader came 
 to J-h-v-h, he did not pronounce Jehovah, neither did he 
 say Jahveh, but Adonay, which is the ordinary word for 
 Lord. J-h-v-h was a name too holy for his profane 
 lips. 1 So, then, what vowels the proper name of the 
 Jewish God contained no one knows. The vowels in 
 our Hebrew Bibles were not put in till about one thou- 
 sand years after the Hebrew became a dead language. 
 Whether, then, a particular S — t is sit or sat or sate or 
 is it ? is often a difficult problem to solve, and the mean- 
 ing is quite materially affected by our decision. For 
 example, Gen. xlvii. 31 tells us that "Israel bowed 
 himself upon the bed's head." Heb. xi. 21, referring 
 to the same event, says he was " leaning on the top of 
 his staff." This illustrates the point ; for in Hebrew 
 matteh is staff and. mitt ah is bed, the consonants being 
 the same. In view of these facts, would it not be 
 strange if a scribe were able to read his Torah twice 
 alike ? 
 
 6. Along with the evidences of corruption in the 
 text has appeared testimony that several books, gener- 
 ally supposed to be early, are in reality quite late. If 
 we maintain the integrity of a book, its date must 
 be as late as that of the latest event recorded. Pro- 
 fessor Smith has argued ably in favor of distributing 
 
 1 The LXX. translation of Lev. xxiv. 16, by a slight change from the 
 Hebrew, reads, " He who pronounceth the name of the Lord shall be 
 punished with death." 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 2JI 
 
 the Pentateuch between the years 850 and 400 B.C. 
 He adduces evidence to favor a late date for the 
 great, body of the Psalms. Of these points, and many 
 others of interest, I cannot speak in this brief sketch. 
 It is sufficient to say that in the main the author 
 is trustworthy, and his subject-matter is of such a 
 nature that no pastor, however busy, can afford to 
 remain in ignorance of it. 
 
 Neither can the author, with justice, be called a 
 destructive critic. He has done much in this series 
 of lectures to reconstruct Hebrew history. He has 
 done much to aid tbe student to a clearer compre- 
 hension of Jahveh's plan with his chosen people. In 
 the main, they are facts upon which he builds. I 
 can vouch in many cases for this, and in others I can 
 trust him. Whether he has drawn the legitimate con- 
 clusions from his facts I leave it to the reader to 
 decide. Our motto should be : First, what are the 
 facts? Second, what do the facts mean? 1 
 
 V. PROFESSOR DRIVER AND OLD TESTAMENT INTRODUCTION. 
 
 i. I am glad to be able to recommend Dr. S. R. 
 Driver's " Introduction to the Literature of the Old 
 Testament." It is worthy of commendation without 
 let or hindrance. To be sure, there are those whose 
 prejudices blind their eyes to the facts, and these cry 
 out against it. And they will continue to do so until 
 they learn that pure and undefiled religion is injured, 
 rather than aided, by external authority and moss- 
 
 1 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church may now be had in a new 
 and improved edition. 
 
272 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 covered apologetics. Again, on the other hand, the 
 Expositor has published a series of articles by Prof. 
 T. K. Cheyne, in which he takes the ground that the 
 author of our " Introduction " has made too many and 
 too great concessions to traditional views. In several 
 places I am fully satisfied that this is so. But I am 
 not alarmed at these things. Any forward step, taken 
 honestly and cautiously, is worthy of all the support 
 we can give it. The intellectual side of religion can- 
 not be ignored. Half-truths, assiduously followed, are 
 better than whole-truths sitting solitary. But I am by 
 no means willing to admit that Dr. Driver's book is 
 a congeries of half-truths, nor does Cheyne's criticism 
 imply this. Except in a few minor points, he com- 
 mends it, and, indeed, one must do so, whether he can 
 accept the author's positions or not. 
 
 2. Passing over the discussion as to the origin and 
 date of the Hexateuch, or first six books of the Old 
 Testament, we come to the Book of Judges. This 
 book consists of a large number of stories and tradi- 
 tions of early date, and all set to a particular text, the 
 two episodes at the end of the book alone excepted. 
 What is this text ? It is this : " Obey Jahveh and 
 you will prosper ; disobey, and you perish." The move- 
 ment is " apostasy, subjugation, penitence, and deliver- 
 ance." Of some of the judges, the author knows 
 almost nothing. He merely names them, and recites 
 his text. There seems to be some evidence that the 
 author went out of his way to get just twelve judges. 
 The book of I Kings (vi. i) gives these forty years each, 
 thus making the period of the judges last four hundred 
 and eighty years. The chronology of the book itself is 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 2? $ 
 
 four hundred and ten years. There are many striking 
 resemblances to the Book of Joshua ; indeed, they are 
 so minute in places as to force the admission that the 
 two books are often parallel, and that the chronology 
 of Judges and Kings is arbitrary. 
 
 3. If attention is paid to the main body of the tradi- 
 tion in the Book of Judges, it at once appears that the 
 stories were at first purely secular, wholly devoid of 
 ethical motive, and, further, that they were stories told 
 for their own sakes alone. As we have them, they are 
 worked over and set to the tune of " disobedience, pun- 
 ishment, repentance, peace." Where did the author 
 get this text ? It came, says Professor Driver, from 
 the Book of Deuteronomy, as is clearly seen from a 
 comparison with several passages, especially chapter 
 xxviii. The date assigned for Deuteronomy is 622, 
 the eighteenth year of Josiah. 2 Kings xxiii. tells of 
 the discovery of a book which made a profound impres- 
 sion, and was adopted by the people and their ruler 
 as their law. Would a book making such a profound 
 impression as this did, be allowed to get lost ? If 
 not, we must have the book somewhere between the 
 lids of our Bible. If now we compare Deuteronomy 
 with the story referred to in Kings, we find that the 
 people began to do exactly those things which Deu- 
 teronomy commands. Further, the people confess that 
 they did not know before that Jehovah had commanded 
 these things. Deuteronomy puts several things under 
 a ban that earlier prophets had regarded as perfectly 
 orthodox. Hosea laments the day when they will have 
 to worship without pillars. Deuteronomy says they 
 shall not have these pillars. Driver piles up the evi- 
 
274 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 dence in favor of his theory. Much more is to be 
 had for the asking. But enough has been said to 
 indicate the argument in outline. These things being 
 so, it remains to conclude that the Book of Judges was 
 written after 622, though older written accounts may 
 have been used. 
 
 4. The general run of Bible students have been left 
 to believe that while Isaiah did not write chapters xl.- 
 lxvi. of our Book of Isaiah, he did write chapters i.-xxxix. 
 Professor Driver thinks the time has come when the 
 intelligent Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Episcopa- 
 lian, etc., should be taught differently, because always 
 in the end truth is more conducive to morality and 
 religion than error. 
 
 5. Isaiah xiii. and xiv. 1-23 are not Isaiah's. They 
 represent the Jews as in exile. Social and political 
 conditions wholly alien to Isaiah and his times are 
 implied. Babylon and Media are mentioned by name, 
 and these were scarcely even names to the Jews of 
 Isaiah's time. Had the words come from Isaiah, they 
 must have been wholly without effect upon the people, 
 because they would have been unintelligible. This 
 section, then, " can only be attributed to an author 
 living towards the close of the exile.' ' 
 
 6. As to chapters xv. and xvi., Professor Driver does 
 not pronounce positively. He thinks Isaiah may have 
 written them. The majority of modern critics are 
 more inclined to the view that they are older than 
 Isaiah, though perhaps modified by him, or added to his 
 oracles by an editor. Renan, by a brilliant assumption, 
 gives them to Jonah, a prophet of some note who is 
 mentioned in the Book of Kings as an earlier contem- 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 2J 5 
 
 porary of Amos and Hosea. Chapter xxi. i-io is an 
 oracle by itself, without connection with what precedes 
 or follows, and though beginning indefinitely, concludes 
 with a prediction of the fall of Babylon. This did not 
 take place till one hundred and fifty years after Isaiah's 
 death. Neither was Babylon an enemy at this time, 
 for Merodach Baladan had sent friendly greetings to 
 Hezekiah, Isaiah's favorite king. The view that this 
 section is not Isaiah's is rapidly gaining ground, and 
 even so conservative a critic as Franz Delitzsch assigns 
 it to the days of Cyrus. 
 
 7. If chapters xxiv.-xxvii. are also denied to Isaiah, 
 he can no longer be called the greatest of the Hebrew 
 prophets; for, as is well known, xxxvi. -xxxix. are his- 
 torical and are contained almost verbatim in the Book 
 of Kings. Any one acquainted with Hebrew history, 
 and deeply enough interested in it to be able to sympa- 
 thize with the ideas and ideals of its respective epochs, 
 cannot fail to agree with Professor Driver in saying 
 that these chapters are not Isaiah's. Agreements, ver- 
 bal and other, with Joel and the later books ; changes 
 of emphasis in the statement of the Messianic ideal, 
 that would have been out of place in Isaiah or his age, 
 together with linguistic and other peculiarities, all point 
 to an age more than a century later than that of Heze- 
 kiah and his prophet. 
 
 8. Evidently, much of what has been said above will 
 fail to carry conviction, because of a lack of familiarity 
 with the main details of the social and political history 
 of the Hebrew people. But it is just this history which 
 is in dispute. And, as the main source of Hebrew his- 
 tory is the Bible, we must date the books and parts of 
 
276 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 books of that Bible ere we can write the history. Some 
 of the points in this history are fixed, however. Some 
 of the results of criticism have also won acceptance 
 from a large public. With thes'e as known we must 
 proceed to the unknown. History and criticism must 
 work hand in hand. And the wise student of the Old 
 Testament will read widely in both. 
 
 I have chosen to speak of that part of Driver's book 
 where he is most " destructive." Jeremiah and Eze- 
 kiel still stand, practically intact, and are snugly fitted 
 into the dates given them by the tradition of the 
 Church. Some of the minor prophets are likewise left 
 unharmed (!) by the higher criticism. I grow to love 
 Amos and Hosea more and more every day. What is 
 good and worthy is never harmed by criticism. The 
 great prophets and sages of the Old Testament stand 
 forth greater, nobler, and in a truer sense inspired, after 
 the higher criticism has purged away the dross. I 
 appeal to those who are prone to sarcasm when they 
 speak of the higher criticism, to give an instance 
 where it has harmed religion, opposed good morals, or 
 weakened the authority of truth. The scalawags will 
 always gather around the liberals. Is it because the 
 liberals have something for them while the others have 
 not ? At any rate, David was a liberal and an outlaw, 
 and the scalawags flocked about him. Saul could not 
 do anything with them, but David made men of them 
 at last. It was not David's fault that the debtors and 
 libertines flocked to his standard. It wo?t/dha.ve been 
 his fault had he given them nothing to do. It is not 
 good policy to oppose the modern liberal movement in 
 Biblical criticism, nor is it good taste to criticise it from 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 277 
 
 insufficient data. I fully agree with Isaiah (xxxii. 5-8) 
 when he says the days will come when " the vile person 
 shall be no more called liberal. . . . But the liberal 
 will devise liberal things, and by liberal things shall he 
 stand." Isaiah knew the meaning of these words, for 
 he was a liberal in his day. But truth was on his side, 
 and he won at last. 
 
 VI. THE MEN OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 I. A good way to master the history or the litera- 
 ture of any people is to read the lives of their great 
 men. It is becoming a quite common thing to study 
 Bible history and literature in this way. Just as soon 
 as we give up the idea that the Bible is a unit, each 
 book teaching the same things, we detect fine shades of 
 meaning in one writer not found in another, or we 
 detect adherence to a very different moral code in the 
 lives of men so wide apart as Gideon, Solomon, and 
 Jeremiah. It is evidently worth our while then to 
 heed differences as well as agreements in the Biblical 
 authors. And, so far as possible, it should be our aim 
 to detect here the gradual unfolding of the moral and 
 religious life, as the people become able to receive and 
 profit by the progressing revelations of God. 
 
 When one man writes a history of Israel emphasiz- 
 ing this evolution of the God-consciousness, the reader 
 may say his history is dogmatic. He has set out with 
 the express intention of making Abraham less perfect 
 than Josiah, Hosea less helpful than 2 Isaiah. 
 
 The " Men of the Bible " series is out of the reach 
 of the above charge, owing to the fact that the series 
 has many authors who are of different schools. Here 
 
278 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 all shades of opinion are represented. To me the 
 books seem to differ widely in merit. Some of them 
 persist in teaching errors of long standing, while tacitly- 
 confessing that the facts are against them. Four in 
 the series are strong, up to the times, and positively 
 inspiring to the preacher and the student. These are 
 " Solomon " and " Minor Prophets " by Farrar, " Jere- 
 miah " by Cheyne, and " Isaiah " by Driver. I am 
 surprised at the freedom with which Farrar moves 
 among his materials ; surprised at the ease with which 
 he abandons the opinions of his younger days when 
 the facts are presented to his view. This is a rare 
 good quality. Most of us stop thinking too young. 
 It is easier to turn the " barrel " over and begin again, 
 than it is to revise our writings, our lives, and our 
 thoughts in the light of the world's new advances. A 
 young man once confessed to me that he was no longer 
 Orthodox, but that he intended to preach in an Ortho- 
 dox church, because all his thinking and writing had 
 been along Orthodox lines. More worthy pf admira- 
 tion is the man who has not only the courage but the 
 energy of his convictions. 
 
 2. The books in this series are lives of the men 
 whose names they bear. And a striking confirmation 
 of what I have said above comes to me from the life of 
 Jeremiah as told by Jeremiah's book (if read chrono- 
 logically, otherwise one might as well read a diction- 
 ary) or by the life of that prophet by Cheyne, which is 
 under review. Jeremiah changed his opinions very 
 materially in the middle of his ministry. His early 
 views of divine inspiration and of divine judgment 
 were crude and harsh. And he almost " accused God 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 279 
 
 to his face," when he came to the point where he must 
 decide, once for all, whether he would live and die in 
 the old views, or move on to better and nobler ones. 
 Jeremiah's was a deep, tender, sympathetic nature, and 
 his struggle was a hard one, but the best conquered. 
 And we owe it to this victory that Jeremiah is reck- 
 oned among the greatest of the world's prophets. The 
 story of Jeremiah's life is as < interesting as that of 
 Goethe's or Carlyle's. Isaiah's life is as thrilling as is 
 that of Webster or Phillips. Solomon's as broad and 
 grand as that of a Caesar, a Louis, or a Henry. And 
 why should not these Bible characters be studied by 
 all as well as those of secular history? Has not each 
 of these great ones of the Hebrews had a powerful in- 
 fluence on the secular history of to-day ? What Roman 
 lawgiver speaks more widely or with deeper authority 
 , to-day than Moses ? What great orator has not been 
 inspired by the Hebrew prophets ? What great histo- 
 rian does not owe it, directly or otherwise, to some un- 
 known Hebrew, that he writes history with a noble 
 purpose ? We need to appreciate more fully the fact 
 that the Bible characters are first and foremost men, — 
 men who lived intensely human and intensely interest- 
 ing lives. Along this line I cannot forbear adding a 
 word of the publishers of this series : " To the student 
 and the general reader these volumes will be found 
 alike useful and interesting ; and the question may well 
 be asked, why the intelligent reader should not find 
 the lives of the great men of the Bible as useful or as 
 fascinating as the story of those who have won a con- 
 spicuous place in the annals of secular history." 
 
 3, Professor Toy has been pleading recently for more 
 
280 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESI^AMENT 
 
 expository preaching. With this plea I fully agree. It 
 is largely the preacher's place, and especially must it be 
 the work of the liberal minister, to interest the public 
 more deeply in the moral, secular, and literary sides of 
 the lives of the great Hebrew authors and statesmen. 
 I incline to think that, on the whole, the story of the 
 life of a righteous man is a more powerful sermon on 
 righteousness than one which would commonly go by 
 that name. I believe in the biographical sermon. And 
 especially is this the better way to preach Old Testa- 
 ment religion. Cheyne's "Jeremiah, his Life and 
 Times," is " a course of sermons " preached in Rochester 
 Cathedral. Apparently he finds the plan successful, 
 for this was his second course of a somewhat extended 
 nature and of a biographical character. I have had occa- 
 sion to say recently to one of our divinity students : Do 
 not go too exclusively to sermons for your inspirations, 
 and your models, but go to books. Read widely among 
 the freshest and best books, and let the sermons teach 
 the lessons of books. A sermon boiled down from a book 
 is concise, intense, powerful. A sermon built up from 
 another sermon or sermons is too often weak and inef- 
 fectual. For thought loses in the transmission. I 
 speak now only of the " booky " side of .the sermon, 
 for always the best sermons come primarily from the 
 preacher's own life and work. Yet these sources are 
 not wholly disseparate, for a man's chosen books are 
 also along the line of his work and his deepest soul 
 experiences. 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 28 1 
 
 VII. J. F. GENUNG AND THE BOOK OF JOB. 
 
 I. There are several good books on Job. One of the 
 best and most recent is entitled " The Epic of the Inner 
 Life," by John F. Genung. 
 
 The introductory study consists of four essays, and 
 this is followed by a new translation and notes. And 
 in every part the work is neatly and ably performed. 
 The Book of Job possesses more than a religious inter- 
 est. It is one of the great books of the world. The 
 most careful literary critics have long been wont to 
 pronounce it such. It deals with a question that is not 
 narrow nor provincial, but deep and broad as human na- 
 ture itself. Neither is the technique of the book in any 
 way of such a nature as to limit it to a single people 
 or a single age. It is a cause of serious trouble to 
 the critic, that in the book there is almost no allusion 
 to Hebrew life and history. But it is this very omission 
 on the part of the author that has helped to lift his 
 book above the temporal and transient. 
 
 I said the Book of Job dealt with a problem of uni- 
 versal interest and in a manner that accords with the 
 most lofty literary ideals. Yet, strangely enough, till 
 Mr. Genung wrote of Job, no one had thought of com- 
 bining these two facts as a basis for the interpretation 
 of the book. A glance at some of the interpretations 
 given will show how widely scholars disagree. J. A. 
 Froude says, " It teaches many lessons, but not any one 
 prominent above another;" Professor Conant, "the 
 mysteries of God's providential government of men." 
 Franz Delitzsch thought it answered the question, 
 
282 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 "Why does suffering on suffering befall the right- 
 eous ? " Others say the theme is, " Doth Job fear God 
 for nought ? " None of these answers suffice. As an 
 argument the Book of Job is weak. Indeed, by what 
 reason do we affirm that it was intended for an argu- 
 ment ? The speakers often ignore each other, and 
 more often they wander wide of the mark. Many of 
 Job's speeches ignore the friends altogether. Indeed, 
 Genung makes Job say that his are "a despairing 
 man's words to the wind," p. 169. He does not profess 
 to stand by his words in case he is freed from his pains. 
 As an answer to the problem of human suffering, the 
 Book of Job is unsatisfactory indeed. Elihu does not 
 solve the question ; God speaking from the whirlwind 
 does not solve it. Any one who goes to Job for a logi- 
 cal solution — a solution that will satisfy the pure 
 reason — of the problem of evil, will be doomed to dis- 
 appointment. Indeed, I remember to have read, while 
 in college, a review article in which the author argued 
 that all this was intentional. God inspired the Book of 
 Job, purposely making the solution incomplete, because 
 no other solution was possible till Christ came. The 
 question left unanswered in Jpb is answered in Christ. 
 The last statement is perhaps true enough, but did 
 the author of Job write with any such denouement in 
 mind ? 
 
 The facts in the case are these : Job's three friends 
 represented the orthodoxy of the day. This was to the 
 effect that the good prosper and the wicked suffer, and 
 conversely. Job's is an experience that will not fit the 
 rule ; hence the dialogue. Evidently, unless Job is a 
 historic character, the author has assumed the whole 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 283 
 
 solution from the beginning. Much may be said on 
 either side of the question as to whether Job is an his- 
 torical personage. Ezekiel mentions a Job that seems 
 to coincide with ours. On the other hand, it is diffi- 
 cult to suppose that the prologue in heaven, and the 
 finished speeches of Job and his friends, all happened as 
 narrated. Further, I think nothing would be gained 
 for ethics and religion in any case. These things do 
 not rest upon an authority that is external. 
 
 2. So then, according to Mr. Genung, the aim of the 
 author of Job is not to prove, but to show. The He- 
 brews were not theoretical, but practical. A proof of 
 the existence of, a just and merciful God they would 
 not have cared for. But a story in which God is repre- 
 sented as creating the world would have had a wide in- 
 fluence. The critics think they find evidence that the 
 story of Elijah is legendary. But to the later Jews the 
 story was an unanswerable argument in favor of a res- 
 urrection. Did then some one invent it to deceive ? 
 No. The child-race, like the child, is often unable to 
 distinguish between what it has sensed and what it has 
 thought. My two-year-old boy, the other day, called 
 his mother to the window to see a dead squirrel lying 
 on the grass in the rain. He felt much grieved because 
 his mother would not go out and get the " poor dead 
 squirrel." There was no squirrel there. Was the child 
 lying ? I think not. He was able to imagine, not able 
 to distinguish between fact and fancy. " Imagination 
 rules the world." All early peoples argue by means of 
 the story. They tell a story that will account for the 
 facts, and this in time passes into a doctrine. 
 
 3. Genung believes, and I think with reason, that it 
 
284 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 is Job himself, and not the 'Book of Job, that solves the 
 problem of evil. The dialogue is subsidiary. The 
 friends are introduced as a background for the picture. 
 " Under these discourses we are to trace, not the build- 
 ing of a system, but the progress of a character, tried, 
 developed, victorious." Again Genung says, "Job's 
 life, as it is traced in the glowing, indignant, faith- 
 inspired words of his complaint, is the triumphant an- 
 swer. Job does fear God for nought." Not by his 
 reason, but by his life, Job has answered the question : 
 he has suffered, being virtuous, and has continued in 
 his integrity. He did serve God, and that because it 
 was right to do so, not because God rewarded him for 
 the service. 
 
 4. As to the date of Job, Genung seems to me to 
 place the book too early by three hundred years. Job 
 must evidently take its place along side the more met- 
 aphysical of the Psalms ; and Cheyne, in his Bampton 
 Lectures for 1889, has left us in little doubt as to where 
 these belong. Further, the Satan of Job coincides with 
 this period, and there are other reasons for saying that 
 the Book of Job was composed not far from 400 B.C. 
 
 So, too, our author inclines strongly towards the in- 
 tegrity of the book. Undoubtedly the book is in many 
 ways stronger for containing chapter xxviii., on "wis- 
 dom," and the closely reasoned speech of Elihu in chap- 
 ters xxxii.-xxxvii. 
 
 5. As to the character of the composition, Genung, 
 as his title suggests, calls Job an epic. Others, with 
 much show of reason, call it a drama. It certainly 
 contains elements of both. 
 
 Genung's translation of Job is worthy of highest 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 285 
 
 praise. He has revivified old expressions, and added 
 many new and happy ones. Throughout the style is 
 noble and strong. There is a graceful abandon to the 
 modern spirit. The worn-out talk of the creeds nowhere 
 appears. Here is a strong couplet on page 158 : 
 
 " For evil goeth not forth from the dust, 
 Nor is it from the ground that trouble springeth." 
 
 Another often-quoted passage appears in, 
 
 " Kindness from his friend is due to the despairing, 
 Who is losing hold of the fear of the Almighty.'' 
 
 .The last verse of chapter ix. is well rendered by the 
 words : 
 
 " For as I am now I am not myself." 
 
 A moment spent in comparing this translation with 
 that of our Bibles will convince the reader of the su- 
 periority of the former. As Genung suggests, our 
 Bible is like a composite photograph, all striking indi- 
 vidualities are obliterated. Job and Kings, Psalms and 
 Jeremiah, read much alike. We lose quite as much as 
 we gain by having many translators. Genung has 
 preserved individualities. 
 
 The Hebrew text has been carefully followed, too 
 carefully in places, it seems to me. Where the text is 
 manifestly corrupt, and all helps fail, a happy guess is 
 less liable to perpetuate error than is a meek submission 
 to a text that violates Hebrew taste and Hebrew gram- 
 mar. On page 161 occurs a passage that illustrates 
 the point : — 
 
 "So from the sword, from their mouth, 
 And from the hand of the strong, — he rescueth the needy." 
 
286 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 The reader cannot but experience a jar when he 
 comes to this couplet. The "from their mouth" does 
 not fit, it does not make sense. Something is the mat- 
 ter. From the analogy of the following line we may 
 correct with comparative assurance. Following the 
 suggestion of Professor Toy, the verse will read : — 
 
 " So from the sword of the oppressor, 
 
 And from the hand of the strong, he rescueth the needy." 
 
 The notes appended to the translation are just enough 
 to delight the busy. They elucidate the meaning, and 
 explain forgotten customs. They let the author of Job 
 do most of the talking, which is an elegant idea. And 
 the book will, I predict, do much to extend, in the 
 circles of the rich and the learned, the influence of the 
 marvellous Hebrew Epic. 
 
 VIII. renan: his life and his work. 
 
 i. "The two greatest intellectual forces in France at 
 this moment," says some one, " are M. Renan and M. 
 Taine." * And the author of a careful study of Renan 
 in a recent number of the Quarterly Review continues : 
 " Probably that is so : certainly of these two eminent 
 writers, M. Renan is just now incomparably the more 
 influential." As for myself, I like Renan. I am by no 
 means able to estimate him, and give him his place 
 among his contemporaries. I do know, however, that 
 many able preachers are stimulated by Renan. 
 
 Some of these follow him closely, others read him 
 just as carefully for his inimitable style, and his mas- 
 
 1 Renan and Taine have both died since this was written. 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 28/ 
 
 tery of modern culture, and his inerrancy in the inter- 
 pretation of certain phases of the " Zeitgeist." Renan 
 is not a superficial scholar, as some have supposed. He 
 has done some of the most careful and laborious work 
 in the interpretation of Semitic inscriptions, life, and 
 religion. His " Life of Jesus " is ideal, yes, far enough 
 from the truth in many ways, no doubt. Yet I question 
 whether Renan has not approached nearer to the real 
 Jesus than Strauss or Geikie. Certainly much of Re- 
 nan's exegesis agrees with " Gospel Criticism and His- 
 torical Christianity" against traditional views. Renan 
 has been called "the theological dude." The epithet is 
 a happy one. There are perhaps two reasons why it 
 should fit Renan. His ancestry and his religious experi- 
 ence have both contributed to make him what he is. 
 I believe he himself says that there are two Renans ; 
 one is a scholar, the other a poet ; one is a sceptic, the 
 other is an ardent spiritualist ; one is a Breton, the other 
 a Gascon. Renan is a man of letters, and one of the 
 greatest, but he is primarily a philologist and a theolo- 
 gian. When scholar and poet meet in a Cousin, a Caird, 
 or a Schopenhauer, no one is amazed. But when these 
 meet in a theologian, because the union is more rare, 
 the critics will be more adverse. But it is not Renan's 
 literary style that makes him most liable to the title 
 "dude." At any rate, it would seem that his religious 
 experience must here be taken into account. Renan 
 was intended for the Church, and his early ideas were 
 orthodox enough. But his mind was too broad for the 
 creed that was given him. He outgrew the Christian- 
 ity that France offered him. And it is a hard matter 
 to grow liberal without losing one's equilibrium. The 
 
288 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 majority, perhaps, take refuge in absolute denial or in 
 ecclesiastical symbolism. Renan was too much of a 
 man to adopt either of these alternatives. A sincere 
 priest he could not be ; yet he loved religion the more 
 now that he had ceased to view the world with the eyes 
 of religion, and began to view religion with the eyes of 
 the world. " He parted with all that his heart loved, 
 and turned his face towards a strange land. He went 
 with the doubt whether he should have bread to eat or 
 raiment to put on." He himself says, " Mon coeur a 
 besoin du Chris tianisme ; V Evangile sera toujours ma 
 morale, I f Eglise a fait mon Education, je I 'aime. " And 
 the world loves a man who talks like that. It is no 
 wonder that the "Life of Jesus" "took the world by 
 storm." Here is a heart that has bled for every word 
 of it. And the great, sad world knows the heart that 
 sympathizes with it. We must not be misled by what 
 at times seems a flippant and joking mood in our 
 author. It was this very gaiete in him that saved him 
 to the world. Can't we believe that he has wrestled 
 seriously with his doubts unless he whine ? May we 
 not take him at his word when he says, " I am double, 
 sometimes one part of me laughs while the other 
 weeps. That is the explanation of my gaiete" ? I 
 can pardon Renan when he says harsh things of my 
 favorites as readily as I pardon others for dragging 
 me mercilessly over scraps of litany and prayer-book to 
 the fresher treasures of their thought. Neither do I 
 fear his scepticism. Indeed, he strengthens my faith, 
 just as a reading of Schopenhauer confirms my opti- 
 mism. Renan's gaiete overdoes the thing, and this always 
 brings the weight of him around to the positive side. 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 289 
 
 He regards the world as an "immense practical joke," 
 he tells us as much, and that in his scepticism he finds 
 the happiness of his life. The life of the " theological 
 dude" was above reproach. His doubts are not the out- 
 growth of animal passions or epicurean tastes. The 
 late Professor Elmslie, in an excellent sermon on the 
 Seventy-third Psalm, says : " It does seem just possible 
 that the good Christian Church we belong to in our 
 time is not in quite the right way of thinking about 
 religious doubt. I am not talking about the doubt of 
 the head, the intellectual and the schools-intellectual 
 fencing, that sort of triviality ; let it alone, it is not 
 worth taking notice of. But the real doubt of any age, 
 the doubt of any man's heart and head — what are we 
 to think of that ? Are we to stamp it as devilish ? 
 Are we to denounce it and excommunicate it ? Why, 
 we might be fighting against God. If I read my Bible 
 aright, real, genuine, patient struggle for faith means 
 just the birth-throes of God's revelation of himself in 
 men's hearts." Renan is emphatically the child of his 
 age. His power lies in his ability to " reveal in peo- 
 ple's minds ideas or sentiments which are tending to 
 the birth." I believe he is in the birth-throes of 
 God's new revelation. The mediaeval creeds we have 
 outgrown, but the feelings which were wedded to 
 them are more tenacious. " Though feeling is before 
 thought;" yet "thought is for feeling," and the feel- 
 ings for which our modern thoughts exist are yet to 
 be born in us. The poet and the prophet of this 
 new poetry and new religion are, perhaps, not very far 
 away. To my notion, Renan has saved most that 
 is good in Christianity and Judaism. He has done 
 
29O LEISUREL Y RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 much to unite ethics and religion " in the beauty of 
 holiness." If he has been rash at times, if he has 
 made too little of his opportunities to enlarge and 
 fortify the borders of theism and morality, if he has 
 thrown away too much of the Bible because it was 
 supernatural, it is because he was carried away with 
 the deeper poetry of the Old Testament, the deeper 
 piety of the New. In the reaction against supernat- 
 uralism several of the greatest of modern scholars 
 have seemingly gone too far. And it is they who 
 must answer for the absurdities of the spiritualists, 
 theosophists, and Christian scientists. Kant said a 
 sensible thing when he said, " Sensible people will- 
 ingly admit in theory that miracles are possible ; but 
 in the business of life they count upon none." 
 
 2. Some of Renan's critics think that the weaknesses 
 of the spirit of the age to which he has yielded will 
 render his work transient. I doubt if this is so. The 
 " Life of Jesus " is a work of art, and deserves a place 
 alongside the best writings of Montaigne and Hugo. 
 But I set out to speak of Renan's " History of the 
 People of Israel." Three volumes are out — there is to 
 be another — the set covering the whole period of He- 
 brew history from the earliest times till the dawn of 
 Christianity. Here, too, we have a work of art. The 
 author has given to the subject the study of a lifetime. 
 He writes of what he loves, and he writes with the 
 skill of France's greatest man of letters. It is a com- 
 pliment to Hebrew history to be adorned and inter- 
 preted by such a man. Little as may be one's interest 
 in the subject, Renan's History will command the at- 
 tention of the reader. His comments upon the proph- 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS, 29 1 
 
 ets are especially apt. A chapter in the third volume 
 bears the suggestive title, " First Appearance of So- 
 cialism." I quote from the preface the author's word 
 of self-defence : " I have been blamed for having, in 
 the previous volume, drawn too many comparisons be- 
 tween the ancient events, which I am relating, and 
 movements of the present day. It is not my fault, if, 
 in the present volume, I have again been led to offend, 
 in this respect, the susceptibility of rhetoricians. The 
 history of ancient Judaism is the most striking instance 
 of the opposition of political and social questions. The 
 thinkers of Israel were the first to revolt against the 
 injustice of the world, to refuse their submission to 
 the inequalities, the abuses, and the privileges, without 
 which there can neither be an army nor a strong 
 society. ... Here we have a lesson upon which mod- 
 ern nations cannot reflect too much." Renan's " His- 
 tory of the People of Israel " is used as a text-book in 
 a leading American university. As a piece of scholar- 
 ship it is both brilliant and careful, abounding in strik- 
 ing comparisons between a past that Renan has made 
 living, and a present that the Church has too often 
 made dead. 
 
 3. Read Renan ! He does not follow the beaten 
 track. He will give the head many a jar, and the heart 
 many a jolt. He will lead you to many places where 
 you did not wish to go. He will constrain you to gaze 
 down many a chasm that you have never before dared 
 approach. At the time it will often appear foolhardy 
 and useless, but afterwards you will thank him for tak- 
 ing the lead into his own hands ; thank him for taking 
 you where you had not asked to go. If, instead of 
 
292 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 buying the insipid Bible Histories that are foisted on 
 the public, " sold only by subscription/' the people of 
 the country would buy and read a history like this, how 
 the Bible would grow in public esteem ! 
 
 IX. PROFESSOR TOY'S JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 I. A book which I prize very highly, and one that 
 gives a guiding sensation on any topic in regard to 
 which I consult it, is Prof. Crawford H. Toy's "Juda- 
 ism and Christianity." This book is at once an Old 
 and New Testament theology. • It is carefully in- 
 dexed ; and there is a full list of the Scripture passages 
 quoted and expounded, together with a second index 
 of subjects discussed. It is thus a book that all Bible 
 students should have at hand for reference. 
 
 Professor Toy is widely and favorably known as an 
 Old Testament scholar of the first order. Amidst the 
 mass of his materials he moves with a lofty indepen- 
 dence. Yet he is never hasty, never rash. He is the 
 most fair, the most careful, the most deferential of crit- 
 ics. He can be called radical only by those who fail to 
 read the signs of the times. To those who have an eye 
 on the character of the work being done by some of the 
 younger scholars, Professor Toy appears as a conser- 
 vative. He is firmly set against many new hypotheses 
 that would in the end completely conform the Bible to 
 dogmatic standards, and rob us of all confidence in the 
 integrity of the Hebrew documents and credibility of 
 the Hebrew histories. It is as a positive defender of 
 the true kernel of Hebrew religion that Professor Toy 
 will be known to the future. As a teacher, and I speak 
 as his pupil, he never fails to bring out all that is no- 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 293 
 
 blest and best, most truly spiritual and most truly moral 
 in the sacred records. He loves the book he teaches, 
 and he inspires his pupils with a kindred affection. 
 But it is all in the clear light of intellect. There is no 
 sentiment, no gush, no use of a personal magnetism 
 with its temporary effects. A word of which he is es- 
 pecially fond, and one that ought to grow in favor with 
 all liberal Christians, is " moral-intellectual." His en- 
 thusiasm is for a rational morality. It would not, per- 
 haps, be far out of the way to apply to him the words 
 of Kuenen's translator, P. H. Wicksteed : " Kuenen 
 never threw his personality into the scale. If he es- 
 tablished a point, you were as sure of it a year after- 
 ward, when he was not there, as you were when you 
 sat before him." 
 
 2. The author begins with Judaism, because it is not 
 till then that we have Old Testament religion. Previ- 
 ous to Ezra, there is no attempt at system and doctrine. 
 The prophets stand each upon his own authority. 
 There is no history of the Hebrew people that is author- 
 itative. There are several codes of laws, differing 
 more or less widely among themselves, and of varying 
 degrees of authority ; but then there is no Old Testa- 
 ment canon. No doubt many books that have been 
 since lost were in existence, were widely read, and were 
 quoted as authorities. With Ezra begins a new order. 
 The first canon is formed, the laws of the first five 
 books of the Old Testament are regarded as divine and 
 authoritative. Jewish religion is now, for the first time, 
 reduced to something like a system. Old Testament 
 theology, then, really begins with Ezra, not before, and 
 continues from this time till the dawn of Christianity. 
 
294 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN- THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 This method of treating the subject is rapidly coming 
 to be recognized as the true one. Previous to Ezra, we 
 have Isaiah's theology, Jeremiah's theology, and so on, 
 but no authorized body of Jewish theology. By a 
 strange paradox, as soon as the Hebrews began to 
 recognize the new individualism of Ezekiel, the powers 
 of the individual as such ceased. The great names are 
 wiped out, and the indefinite and impersonal Torah 
 comes in as the sole authority. To expound this great 
 body of Hebrew doctrine, and trace its development up 
 to the point of its absorption into Christianity, is the 
 task our author has set himself. 
 
 3. " Judaism and Christianity" consists of an introduc- 
 tion and eight carefully written chapters of varying 
 length. The introduction is a sociological study. 
 Religion is recognized as a branch of sociology. It is 
 a product of human thought, wrought out by the race 
 in its conflicts with the world without and the world 
 within. Religion cannot sever itself from the society 
 of which it is a part. It must work in and through 
 society ; and is inevitably subject to the same "laws of 
 growth, arrest, retrogression, and decay." If a particu- 
 lar religion cannot reform society, it must perish with 
 it. Also, conversely, if a society lacks the power to 
 conform its religion to its material and intellectual 
 growth, that religion must eventually yield to stagnation 
 and decay. Society must progress harmoniously, or all 
 progress is make-believe. Still, Professor Toy would 
 be the last to accuse any particular society. " It is 
 very doubtful whether the term, ' arrest of growth/ can 
 be used of China in any proper sense." 
 
 Religion, as a branch of sociology, depends upon the 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 295 
 
 organization of the social life for the character and 
 direction of its development. The more complex and 
 the more highly organized a particular society, the 
 greater will be the problem of religion to produce unity 
 in the midst of this diversity. A growing society must 
 have a growing religion. Politics and law, science and 
 philosophy, ethics and aesthetics, all have a marked 
 influence upon religion, as religion on them. It is a 
 mistake to suppose that, for example, religion and 
 morality have always been allies. In many phases of 
 society their development has been largely indepen- 
 dent. It is the purpose of sociology, and more espe- 
 cially of religion, viewed from the broader view-point of 
 social science, to unite more and more these various 
 phases of human endeavor. Religion must, at any cost, 
 keep in touch with the intellectual and moral, civil and 
 artistic prog'ress of society. But while thus keep- 
 ing en rapport, it must remember that " the absolute 
 power of any given religion will be in proportion to the 
 p Ur ity — that is, the spirituality — of its dogma, and the 
 elevation of its moral ideal. ,, 
 
 4. One of the chief elements in the progress of reli- 
 gion and society Professor Toy finds to be the great 
 man. I am glad that he has written as he has upon 
 this subject; for I grow more and more to think that 
 here we have not only the key to history, but the solu- 
 tion, so far as they can be solved, of the divine incarna- 
 tions, Isaiah, Ezra, Paul, and Jesus. " History proceeds 
 by crises, and a crisis implies a great man." The great 
 man is always the child of his age. He goes to his age 
 for the raw material of his thought. Yet, our author 
 continues, "we may demonstrate the man's relation to 
 
296 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 his past, exhibit the circle of ideas in which he grows 
 up, and perceive the connection between his thought 
 and that of his times ; but in the last analysis, when we 
 reach the creative moment, it is impossible to give the 
 history of the process. There is a mystery in his men- 
 tal experiences, in the way in which he seizes on the 
 problem, combines its elements, and reaches his re- 
 sult. ... It is a mystery that meets us in every 
 department of human life ; when we have called it 
 genius, intuition, or inspiration, so far from defining 
 it, we have only labelled it with a name that defies 
 definition." 
 
 5. Professor Toy finds that the great mass of the 
 religions of the world are inert. They lack the power 
 to conform themselves to the rapid advances of society. 
 It is probable, then, that in time a few great religions 
 will control the world. The three that are now worthy 
 to be called universal religions are Mohammedanism, 
 Buddhism, and Christianity. The last is decidedly the 
 superior. It contains the good of each of the others, 
 and more. It is the most moral and the most spiritual. 
 Further, Christianity is a life, and life possesses infinite 
 powers of adaptation. Lastly, and not of least impor- 
 tance, Christianity is the religion of the " civilized and 
 civilizing nations of the world." Christianity is the 
 religion of the aggressive, the intellectual, and the virile 
 in our own age. 
 
 6. It is on this broad basis that the religion of 
 the Bible is discussed. The method of treatment is 
 throughout historical and exhaustive. Ewald, in his 
 " Biblical Theology," professes to take the good and 
 cast the bad away. He ignores what he regards as low 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 297 
 
 and unspiritual. For popular use such a treatment has 
 its advantages. All literatures deserve just such sym- 
 pathetic treatment. But this is not the whole truth. 
 And there are always some who desire to know the 
 whole truth. They believe that to over-estimate the 
 past is to be unjust to the present. Professor Toy 
 attempts to give the whole truth. He traces the de- 
 velopment of a particular idea from its beginning to 
 the close of the apostolic age. If there are divergent 
 and contradictory ideas, these too are set forth. Abso- 
 lute accuracy is not claimed. The question is, rather, 
 what may we reasonably infer from the documents in 
 our possession ? It may be well to say, however, that 
 the best defence of the Bible doctrine of God, man, and 
 human society is a faithful, accurate, scientific state- 
 ment of how the best in the Bible finally triumphed 
 over the worst. All sorts of pernicious doctrines were 
 clamoring for acceptance while the Bible was being 
 written. At times the Bible is itself tainted with 
 these ; yet in the end, and in spite of evils advocated 
 by men of influence and intelligence, the good was 
 victorious and Christianity went forth to re-create the 
 world. I repeat, the best defence of Biblical religion is 
 just such a comparative study of the books as Professor 
 Toy has given us. In each later book some new good 
 has triumphed. Something that was earthly and sen- 
 sual has been shuffled off. There is a slow, sure prog- 
 ress from Moses to Christ. And in the great body of 
 the human race there has been a steady advance from 
 the dawn of Christianity to the present day. Professor 
 Toy believes that Christianity has the power to adapt 
 itself to each and all of society's advances, and thus 
 
298 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 continue to be a living power for good in the world. 
 The development that led up to Christ did not stop 
 with early Christianity. 
 
 X. CANON CHEYNE AND DEVOUT CRITICISM. 
 
 I. It gives me pleasure to have such books as Canon 
 Cheyne's to recommend. And especially am I re- 
 joiced to be able to commend such a book as "Aids to 
 the Devout Study of Criticism/' Many of Professor 
 Cheyne's books are of so profound a nature that they 
 can be appreciated and enjoyed only by specialists. 
 But he is a man who believes that the specialist is 
 also the best man to popularize his own work, and set 
 it in order for the general reader. There is certainly a 
 measure of truth, at least, in this. The specialist is 
 better able than another to set forth the exact truth, 
 and in its true proportions. Sometimes he will miss 
 the argument or illustration that would be most effec- 
 tive. Often he will have less enthusiastic praise from ' 
 the people he aims to serve. But in the long run such 
 a man is the safest guide. 
 
 In this kind of work Canon Cheyne is no novice. 
 He has written several volumes of sermons, and they 
 have been widely read, and have warranted the con- 
 clusions to which the Canon has arrived; viz., that the 
 results of criticism should be presupposed in, and made 
 the dogmatic basis of, modern preaching. By some the 
 sermons will be accounted prosy. And to a certain ex- 
 tent such a criticism is just. Yet there is no lack of ima- 
 gination. The difficulty, if difficulty it is, is in the kind 
 of imagination. The historical and constructive imagi- 
 nation has not been prevailingly used in the composition 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 299 
 
 of sermons. Those who paint fine pictures often do it 
 at the expense of the truth. It is often argued that the 
 higher criticism is overfull of assumptions. Let him 
 who so argues acquit his favorite preacher of similar 
 " assumptions " if he can. In his restrained, reason- 
 guided imagination, Canon Cheyne seems to me to imi- 
 tate the great writers in the literature of which he is so 
 fond. And I believe that this same method of com- 
 municating the truths of the gospel is destined to mul- 
 tiply in the future. There are those who love fine 
 words ; there are more (and the number is increasing) 
 who love the truth clearly and plainly set forth more 
 than they love fine words. 
 
 2. " Aids to the Devout Study of Criticism " con- 
 sists of two parts, "The David Narratives " and "The 
 Book of Psalms. " In the first part the author is to be 
 thanked for making accessible to English readers the 
 analysis of the books of Samuel by Kautzsch. Readers 
 of Driver's Introduction will recall the things there 
 said going to show that our books of Samuel, like the 
 Pentateuch, are composite. In Kautzsch's commentary 
 these documents are separated and dated. And it is 
 found that there are nine different authors (or editors) 
 of our Samuel. There are accounts of the life of 
 David coming from the days of Solomon and Reho- 
 boam. There is an account of Samuel and Saul coming 
 from the time of Hosea. There are later additions to 
 the traditions made after the publication of Deuteron- 
 omy (622 b.c). Professor Cheyne appends a consider- 
 able list of parallel passages showing which tradition is 
 to be considered the more accurate. The two versions 
 upon the slayer of Goliath 1 are treated at considerable 
 
 1 I Sam. xvii. 1; xviii. 4; and 2 Sam. xxi. 19. 
 
300 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 length in the discourse on David and Goliath. It is not 
 only asserted that Elhanan, and not David, slew Goliath, 
 but it is made apparent why no other interpretation can 
 be possible. Note the omission of " brother " in 2 Sam. 
 xxi. 19, borrowed in the English from 1 Chron. xx. 5 ; 
 consider also the date and historical fictions of Chron- 
 icles as set forth by Driver. Professor Cheyne frankly 
 admits that the story we have loved from our youth is 
 not true. He then proceeds to treat it as a story, writ- 
 ten, as all good stories are, for a noble purpose, and 
 preaches from it as any preacher might do. 
 
 There are two discourses on the " Character of 
 David," which are the most careful and trustworthy 
 estimate of Israel's great poet and king of any with 
 which I am acquainted. It is easy to make too much 
 of David. It is perhaps easier to underestimate him. 
 Indeed, the orthodox church has never been able to 
 answer the charges of the sceptic with any degree of 
 satisfaction. As our knowledge of ethics and psychol- 
 ogy have increased, it has become more and more 
 apparent that ethically and mentally the David of Sam- 
 uel could not be the author of the Psalms. Either the 
 David of Samuel is made unreal by supposing that he 
 wrote the Hebrew Hymn Book, or the David of the 
 Psalms is made a monster by supposing him to be the 
 King protrayed in Samuel. The " Aids " is a strong 
 and conclusive answer to a certain kind of religious 
 infidelity that is all too common, even among those who 
 by their appreciation of good literature and " good liv- 
 ing" show that they are, after all, far from being 
 irreligious. 
 
 The chapter on the inspiration of the Psalms I 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 301 
 
 regard especially suited to the needs of our own time. 
 We cannot reject the inspiration of the Scriptures, if, by 
 so doing, we are driven to affirm that God accomplished 
 nothing, and taught the world no consistent moral and 
 spiritual lesson by the Hebrew people and literature. 
 We must not reject the doctrine of inspiration, if, along 
 with it, we must discard the thought of God in history. 
 On the other hand, if inspiration means the annihilation 
 of free-will and moral responsibility for the time being, 
 if it means the coming to a man of truth that is wholly 
 (or in part) outside of his human powers of comprehen- 
 sion, we, in so far as we are in touch with modern 
 science, must part company with such doctrines of 
 inspiration. Canon Cheyne in many places uses lan- 
 guage that I could not use as expressive of my own opin- 
 ions. But, on the whole, I am in full sympathy with 
 the trend of his remarks. Especially is it fitting to 
 say that the Psalms are the hymns of the Jewish 
 Church. - It is not the individual that speaks through 
 them. The authors are unknown. The gifts and 
 functions which formerly belonged to the priests and 
 prophets are here transferred to the whole Jewish peo- 
 ple. We have the Psalms to-day because the Church 
 of the Jews was an inspired Church. Cheyne under- 
 stands inspiration in no narrow sense. He does not 
 limit the true divine afflatus to the Biblical writers. 
 He believes that Dante and Browning are, in a very 
 real sense, inspired. " There are not indeed two inspi- 
 rations, for there is but one Holy Spirit. But there 
 are many degrees and varieties of inspiration." 
 
 3. Several of the more important Psalms are ex- 
 pounded in the light of the broad, free criticism out- 
 
302 LEISUREL Y RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 lined above, and any spiritually minded man can see 
 that the Scriptures have gained wonderfully in homi- 
 letical suggestion by being so treated. It wounds our 
 religious feeling when we are told for the first time that 
 Psalm ex. is not Davidic and not Messianic, but "joy 
 comes in the morning" when we arise to the thought 
 that " God is in his heaven/' though our conception of 
 his method of self -revelation was erroneous and unwor- 
 thy of his character. 
 
 XI. PROFESSOR DRIVER AS A PREACHER. 
 
 The quotation given below was copied by one of the 
 Boston dailies from the Presbyterian. It is too ex- 
 treme to merit a serious reply, and would not be given 
 here but for the fact that some people seem foreor- 
 dained to continue to hold these views for some time to 
 come. The passage in question which comes from the 
 church of Professor Briggs (!) is as follows : — 
 
 " The higher critics are net troubled with modesty. They do 
 not hesitate to make the most positive assertions. They think that 
 they know all about how the Pentateuch was composed, and who 
 did and who did not write the books of the Bible, and when they 
 were written. They cannot bear to have their positions ' ques- 
 tioned.' Men who hold on to what they call traditionalism are 
 treated as fools, and behind the age, and no scholars. They, as 
 the learned of the age, have said ' the last word,' and their infal- 
 libility must not be gainsaid. They denounce the dogmaticians, 
 yet are the most dogmatic of modern teachers. They have their 
 own misgivings about the infallibility of the Scriptures, but none 
 about their own processes. A little more humility upon their part 
 would not be out of place. Pride bringeth a snare, and the great 
 Babylon which they have built is liable to fall at any moment, and 
 cover them with confusion and shame. Resting largely upon con- 
 jecture, it lacks an enduring foundation. 11 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 303 
 
 Not a statement in the whole paragraph is true. 
 The author shows that he does not know the A B C of 
 what the higher criticism is. Higher criticism is that 
 study of the books of the Bible which aims to find out 
 their date, authorship, and meaning. Professor James 
 Robertson is a higher critic, and is just out with an 
 elaborate defence of the Mosaic authorship of the Pen- 
 tateuch. Does he think he has said the last word ? 
 Not by any means. He is in many ways a most fair 
 and careful man. The late Professor Elmslie was a 
 higher critic, yet he wrote some of the most beautiful, 
 spiritual, and inspiring essays on the Minor Prophets I 
 ever read. But, poor man, it now appears that he 
 thought he knew it all, when in reality he was believing 
 a lie. To be sure he was a conservative, a good ortho- 
 dox Congregationalist, I believe, but being a higher 
 critic, he must be classed with the rest of us as proud, 
 arrogant, self-assuming, dictatorial, and unchristian. 
 Away with' all this sort of talk ! To correct such 
 errors puts one out of sorts. I had it in mind to say of 
 the writer of the quoted paragraph a thing which I will 
 not say, though I will write it down here, that the 
 reader may know what my inner thoughts are. Some 
 people seem to me to purposely refrain from reading any 
 books on the subjects about which they write, in order 
 that they may tell the most flagrant untruths without 
 wounding (?) their consciences. 
 
 2. How different in tone from the unspiritual, contro- 
 versial, dogmatic temper of the above discussion, both 
 sides, are " Sermons on the Old Testament," by S. R. 
 Driver. We have here twelve sermons and an essay. 
 And "the volume may be regarded," as the author says, 
 
304 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 " as supplementary to my ' Introduction to the Litera- 
 ture of the Old Testament/ " The sermons are on a 
 variety of subjects, and all illustrate how true is the 
 word of Driver and his school, which says that the 
 Bible loses nothing of its moral and spiritual power at 
 their hands. The first sermon is a study of the oldest 
 creation story found in the second chapter of Genesis. 
 Canon Driver shows how absolutely impossible, and 
 how perfectly puerile, it is to attempt to reconcile this 
 account with modern science. The author of the Bib- 
 lical story did not aim to teach science. His forte was 
 religion. Furthermore, Professor Driver sees in Gen. 
 ii. nothing inconsistent with the positions of theistic 
 evolution. Their differences are due to their different 
 ages. He believes that Gen. ii. is inspired. He also 
 believes that the evolutionist is right in his views of 
 origins. To make Gen. ii. teach evolution would be 
 impossible, but to fail to see the beauties of the one, or 
 the truths of the other, because of an apparent inconsis- 
 tency, would be to miss the purpose of both. 
 
 The eighth sermon is a study of the first chapter of 
 Genesis. Here, again, the author protests against the 
 efforts of those scholars who try to reconcile this 
 account with the teachings of geology. The story 
 contradicts geology at several points, and geology is 
 doubtless right. A forced reconciliation cannot help 
 the cause of truth. There is too much of this sort of 
 thing done already. It has led scores of otherwise 
 truthful men into habits of equivocation. Why not 
 frankly admit the facts ? And then what ? Is the rec- 
 ord worthless ? Not at all. When we compare it with 
 the cosmogonies of its time it is a marvel of correct- 
 
WITH SOME OF ITS FRIENDS AND ADMIRERS. 305 
 
 ness, of insight. Its theism is still the admiration of 
 the world. It is when a chapter in the Old Testament 
 is compared with its own time and not with our time, 
 that its divinity and its inspiration appear. Because 
 we have outgrown a chapter or a command is no proof 
 that that word was never a command of God, direct 
 and explicit. 
 
 3. Another proof of the divinity of the Bible is the 
 fact that right in the midst of these teachings, that- 
 were for a particular time and place, are others that are 
 for all time and for every place. Canon Driver has not 
 passed over these. He believes that the Psalms have 
 an enduring value for religious devotion. He believes 
 that the prophets have set the example of the moral and 
 religious reformer, which will continue while the world 
 stands. He believes that the Jews, beginning with the 
 later books of the Old Testament, and working on till 
 the beginnings of the New Testament, have given the 
 world the best basis for its faith in the immortality of 
 the soul. To mention, the titles of the last two ser- 
 mons is to indicate two more instances where the 
 teachings of the Old Testament are to endure forever. 
 They are "The Lord our Righteousness, ,, and "Mercy 
 and not Sacrifice." 
 
 These sermons are an able attempt in the right di- 
 rection. If the sermons of the world were founded 
 upon a more careful, a more honest, and a more fair 
 interpretation of the Bible, there would be more spirit- 
 uality in the pulpit, and more morality in the pews. 
 Such sermons, too, would go far towards effectually 
 demonstrating that when it comes to the actual uses, 
 religious, moral, and educational, of the sacred Scrip- 
 
306 LEISURELY RAMBLES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 tures, there is not that breach between the older scholar- 
 ship and the new which some have been pleased to 
 emphasize. 
 
 It would be impossible to mention in a single chapter 
 all the good books which help to establish this thesis ; 
 indeed, some books that most deserve a place here have 
 appeared since these "rambles" were written ; but it is 
 hoped that enough has been said to show that the work 
 •of the new school of criticism is based upon facts, and 
 that it aims not to destroy faith, but to rescue a faith 
 that was fast passing away of its own accord, because 
 its growth was hampered and its life smothered. Lei- 
 surely rambles through Old Testament subjects with 
 such works as have been named in this chapter, or 
 with such books as W. R. Smith's "Prophets of Israel," 
 G. A. Smith's " Book of Isaiah," R, A. Watson's "Book 
 of Job," or R. F. Horton's " Proverbs " cannot fail to in- 
 spire and uplift. If I mistake not the reader who loves 
 his conservatism may rise from the reading of such 
 books as these with the comment, that this new gos- 
 pel is, after all, only the old gospel permeated through 
 and through with a love that casts out fear. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HINTS FOR THE PULPIT AND DEVOTIONAL USE 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
u Much of the attraction is due, of course, to the variety and picturesqueness 
 of the Old Testament, to its lyric elements, to the gallant and heroic in it, and 
 to the warm patriotism in which its religion is so often incarnate. But apart 
 from these, the modern mind is especially drawn to the Old Testament, by its 
 portraiture of character, its ideals of social righteousness, its vision of history as 
 the tribunal of God, its treatment of speculative questions, and its treatment of 
 the prudential aspects of life — neither of which last two is treated by the New 
 Testament in detail. Above all, it is the Old Testaments inimitable portraiture 
 of character upon which our great preachers have combined." 
 
 Prof. G. A. Smith. 
 
 " The Bible was written so long ago that its taste is not that of our refined 
 age. It abou?ids in bad language and bad utterances. There should be a holy 
 book made out of its pages — a book not only for children but for all of us. What 
 a glorious book might be made out of that vast mass of wisdom and beauty ! " 
 
 David Swing. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HINTS FOR THE PULPIT AND DEVOTIONAL USE OF THE 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 I. It has been said that Schleiermacher alone, of the 
 great preachers, ignored the Old Testament, and it has 
 further been said that his involved and inornate style 
 is partly due to this neglect. Certainly any study of 
 the great preachers of the world should begin, not with 
 Chrysostom or Peter the Hermit, but with the great 
 preachers of the Old Testament, Samuel and Elijah, 
 Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Prof. G. A. 
 Smith has published a very interesting list of great 
 preachers who were helped to greatness by the great 
 preachers of the Old Testament, and thus helped be- 
 cause " the foundation of Old Testament preaching is 
 the passion to win men." 1 They were in dead earnest, 
 to them the vital questions of religion and morals were 
 life and death questions. For truth they would sac- 
 rifice anything, even their very lives. And to the 
 preacher who will take the trouble to understand the 
 Biblical prophets all this is contagious. It proved its 
 power to uplift and inspire to Chrysostom and Savona- 
 rola, to Kingsley, Maurice and Robertson. The Old 
 Testament is the book of liberty. It teaches and in- 
 spires freedom alike in church and state. As Professor 
 Smith truly says, the prophets of the Old Testament 
 
 1 Prof. G. A. Smith's Inaugural Address, p. 44. 
 309 
 
3IO HINTS FOR THE PULPIT AND DEVOTIONAL USE 
 
 were citizens and patriots, the apostles of the New were 
 sojourners and pilgrims. It is to be expected, then, 
 that New Testament scholars will warn Old Testament 
 scholars not to move ahead too fast for them. 1 And 
 meanwhile let all alike take encouragement from the 
 fact that the so-called destructive parts of criticism but 
 remove difficulties " which have always been an embar- 
 rassment to conscientious preachers." When they 
 remove more than this the Christian conscience will 
 cry out with a voice that will be heard and obeyed. 
 On the other hand, when the Church reaches the point 
 where it can put faith in the Christian critics that it 
 has itself produced, then we may hope to see the Old 
 Testament taking the place which it deserves in our 
 pulpit and devotional readings. 
 
 2. One of the boons needed to bring this about is an 
 expurgated Bible, to use a somewhat harsh and unsuit- 
 able term. There has long been a silent, or but % half 
 expressed, longing for just such a Bible. But the rea- 
 son this longing has not been more pronounced and 
 importunate has been the fact that people have been 
 taught that the Bible is a unit, all equally inspired and 
 equally valuable. It is because this old way of stating 
 our belief in the Bible is fast becoming a thing of the 
 past, that the expurgated Bible is not only a possibility, 
 but (may we not hope ?) an assured fact. 2 
 
 For the general reader some such Scriptures as these 
 should be in great demand. It is worse than useless 
 
 1 W. Sanday's Two Present-Day Questions, p. 31, passim. 
 
 2 Scriptures, Hebrew and Christian, published by the Putnams, are 
 not quite free from a traditionalism that enslaves the thought of the 
 original. 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 311 
 
 for the ordinary Christian to read the Bible through by 
 rote. There are whole sections that are nothing but gen- 
 ealogical tables, without a scrap of incident to enliven 
 their dry bones. There are arguments in the prophets 
 which are good in themselves, but are illustrated by 
 incidents which are, to our age, indelicate and vulgar. 
 There are examples of cruelty and deep-seated revenge 
 in the Old Testament that were never read in the Jew- 
 ish synagogues, and, so far as I know, are never read 
 to-day in public or private worship. There are long 
 sections in the prophets which are nothing but notes 
 for oral discourses. The student caix sometimes fill 
 out these notes, but to the uninitiated they are but a 
 meaningless jumble. In the New Testament there is 
 less that is open to criticism of this character, but 
 even here a careful selection will add to the value 
 of the book rather than take from it. There are 
 portions of the New Testament that are as dry and 
 recondite as an eighteenth century theologian. For 
 devotional purposes they are valueless. The argument 
 follows laws of thought and laws of association that 
 are no longer intelligible or forcible. In passages of 
 this sort the " Expositor's Bible " is more wholesome 
 reading for the ordinary student than the Bible itself. 
 I have had occasion to peep into quite a number of pul- 
 pit Bibles during the last few years, and I find, if the 
 lead pencil marks tell what they seem to, that my 
 brother ministers are in the habit of omitting these 
 "hard sayings " in their public readings. 
 
 This sort of thing ought to be done. It ought to be 
 done oftener than it is. For we have our Christian 
 doctrine in earthen vessels whose form perishes. The 
 
312 HINTS FOR THE PULPIT AND DEVOTIONAL USE 
 
 Greek and Hebrew languages are dead. Even the 
 languages into which the Scriptures were first trans- 
 lated are dead, the Aramaic, Syriac, and Latin. The 
 letter perishes, but the spirit is eternal. We ought to 
 be more free and frank in recognizing this. To bind 
 one's self to a translation and to the original author's own 
 method and manner of statement is to serve the letter 
 rather than the spirit. A glance at Driver's Introduc- 
 tion, or at the historical references in the books them- 
 selves, will at once convince the reader that he might 
 about as well attempt to read the dictionary through 
 by rote as a book like our Isaiah or Jeremiah. 
 
 3. In the beginning the dignitaries assembled and 
 discussed the Scriptures in existence with a view to the 
 formation of the canon. They were not agreed as to 
 which books were inspired and which were not. There 
 was often hot, even acrimonious, debate. At last it was 
 decided by vote that such and such books should be 
 Bible, and other such should not be Bible. By that vote 
 the Church declared what books would be helpful to it, 
 and what books would not be so helpful. If the Church 
 is a living Church, apparently it has a just right at any 
 time to take a vote on this question. Our age has a 
 right — indeed, it is our duty — to declare what parts of 
 the Bible moralize us and spiritualize us, and what parts 
 do not. We do not deny the inspiration of the omitted 
 portions by rejecting them from our present day Bible. 
 We merely declare that Christianity has been a success, 
 and those commands have been left behind. Christian- 
 ity is a success, not to the extent that it keeps the 
 Bible before it, but to the exact extent that it puts the 
 Bible behind it. It is not the Bible but the ideal of 
 
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 313 
 
 life described in the Bible, to make a somewhat arbi- 
 trary distinction, which we should keep before us as 
 our aim and goal. And to do this we must put in 
 order those parts that bear a message to our age. In 
 the readings suggested below, an effort has been made 
 to do this, and it is hoped that thus the more unfamil- 
 iar parts of the Old Testament will be made to speak 
 in a well-known tongue. 
 
 4. The readings suggested are based, so far as prac- 
 ticable, upon the results of the best critical scholarship. 
 The list is suggestive rather than complete, and no ef- 
 fort has been made to include the great chapters of the 
 Old Testament which are already often read in public 
 and private. 
 
 Amos, i. 3 -ii. 5 ; v. 4-8. 
 
 Amos, i. 2; iii. 1-8; v. 11, 12, 14, 18-24, 15. 
 
 Amos, vi. 1 ; viii. 4-8 ; ix. 7-9, 11-15. 
 
 Hosea, iv. 1-9 ; vi. 1-7 ; xiv. 4-8 a ; xi. 1, 3, 4, 8, 9. 
 
 Isaiah, vi. 1-13; i. 2-20, 25-27. 
 
 Isaiah, v. 8-24; iv. 3-6 (a song of woes). 
 
 Isaiah, vii. 1-25. 
 
 Isaiah, v. 25; ix. 8-x. 4; v. 26-30 (omitting ix. 15, a beauti- 
 ful poem) . 
 
 Micah, i. 2-5 a ; ii. i-4 a , 11 ; iii. 4-7, 9-12; iv. 1-4. 
 
 2 Micah, vi. 1 ; vii. 1-6; vi. 2-8; vii. 18-20. 
 
 Nahum, i. 1 ; ii. 1-6; iii. 1-3; i. 2-7, 15. 
 
 Zephaniah, i. 2,3, 12-18; iii. 1-5, 8-10, 13-17, 20 (omitting 
 " when I bring" to end). 
 
 Jeremiah, xx. 7-11, 14, 15, 18. (the prophefs lament because 
 his predictions have not come true) ; xviii. 1-12 (the reason 
 why his words of woe were not fulfilled, see also the reading 
 on Jonah) . 
 
314 HINTS FOR THE PULPIT 
 
 Jeremiah, xxxi. 1-7, 10-14, 28—35 ( a beautiful passage with 
 
 a promise of the new covenant). 
 2 Isaiah, xlii. 1-4 ; 1. 4-9 ; lxix. 1-6 (the suffering servant of 
 
 Jahveh). 
 Joel, ii. 1-14, 28-32; iii. 17-21 (omitting vs. 19). 
 Jonah, i. 1-8, 11-15, i7 a ; iii. 1-5, 10; iv. 1-11, (omitting 5 b , 
 
 if he made a booth, why the gourd in vs. 6 ? This reading 
 
 is short, yet it includes the whole story and lesson of the 
 
 book). 
 
 One measurably familiar with the Bible, and with a 
 good commentary in hand, could easily follow out the 
 suggestions given above, and compile a connected and 
 helpful reading from the Bible on almost any desired 
 subject. The plan is certainly worthy of a fair trial, 
 if by it our pulpit lessons may be rendered more intel- 
 ligible to the masses, and more moral and spiritual as 
 helps to divine worship. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AN INEXPENSIVE OLD TESTAMENT LIBRARY. 
 
" The deep book, no matter how remote the subject, helps us best? 1 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 " Reade not to co?ttradict, and confute ; 
 Nor to believe and take for granted ; 
 Nor to find talk and discourse ; 
 But to weigh and cpnsider." 
 
 Bacon. 
 
 " Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in 
 them, to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are ; nay, they do pre- 
 serve, as in a violl, the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that 
 bred them. . . , As good almost kill a man, as kill a good booke ; who kills 
 a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image ; but he who destroys a good 
 booke, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye? 1 
 
 Milton. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AN INEXPENSIVE OLD TESTAMENT LIBRARY. 
 
 I. Of commentaries there are many things to be said. 
 If one already has correct principles of Biblical inter- 
 pretation, any commentary is better than none. On 
 the other hand, if a man has not some key to the Bible 
 and its true purpose, a poor commentary is worse than 
 none at all. In any case a good one is better than a 
 poor one. The Bible has been greatly and deeply 
 injured by interpreters who have worked in a slip-shod 
 and uncritical manner. This is true, not only of com- 
 mentators, but of preachers. Many good sermons are 
 founded upon a false interpretation of an important 
 Scripture text. Such blunders as this occur alarm- 
 ingly often, and there is little or no excuse for them. 
 Good books on Biblical subjects are many and cheap. 
 Furthermore, the Bible can be made an authority for 
 everything that is good, by taking texts in their real 
 meaning, by using them without addition or subtrac- 
 tion, without exaggeration or equivocation. If the 
 Church, or any branch of the Church, uses a text in any 
 other than its true meaning, the world will some day 
 find it out to our shame. It is especially necessary 
 that the " progressive " minister be fair and up to date 
 in his exegesis, for the eyes of all are upon him, and, 
 secondly, the evidences of the general truthfulness of 
 his positions are multiplying so rapidly that he does 
 
 3 J 7 
 
318 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 not need to add to, or take from. He can be fair, he 
 can insist upon our adopting the natural meaning of 
 texts, and be sure that the truths that he loves will tri- 
 umph at last. 
 
 The Bible has been injured by preachers who have 
 misinterpreted it ; it has been injured by commenta- 
 tors, who have purposely and confessedly ignored 
 important facts bearing upon the interpretation of 
 books and parts of books. I have before me a com- 
 mentary in two volumes on Exodus, in which the 
 author professes to ignore everything bearing upon the 
 history and the archaeology of the period. And, of 
 course, a man who ignores testimony from these sources 
 may formulate any conceivable theory as to the date 
 and authorship of the book. He may, if he ignore his- 
 tory, defend the most plenary form of inspiration with- 
 out in the least being conscious that he is defending a 
 lie. Suppose one wrote thus of Daniel, how easy it 
 would be to defend this book as historical. But to one 
 who has a smattering of Babylonian history, there are 
 things to be considered that will at least carry us as far 
 as to doubt whether the book is to be accepted as his- 
 tory, to doubt whether it is worth while for a Christian 
 to spend the time to defend its' miracles. The book of 
 Daniel mentions a Babylonian captivity in the third 
 year of Jehoiachim. History knows nothing of this. 
 Yet we have a full record of Nebuchadnezzar's cam- 
 paigns. Daniel mentions a long period of insanity that 
 overtook Nebuchadnezzar. Yet, strangely enough, royal 
 records bearing his name and containing rational words 
 have come down to us from every year of his reign. 1 
 
 1 Driver (Introduction) thinks, however, that the Book of Daniel may, 
 after all, be right on this point. 
 
AN INEXPENSIVE OLD TESTAMENT LIBRARY. 319 
 
 Lastly, we know all the Babylonian kings, and there is 
 no Belshazzar among them. These and other discrep- 
 ancies are altogether too patent to be ignored. An- 
 other thing to be considered is the fact that the Book 
 of Daniel gives us an accurate history of a period four 
 hundred years subsequent to the reputed age of Daniel. 
 Similar things may be said of many Old Testament 
 books. They are not always things that would lead us 
 to change our minds as to the moral and religious value 
 of them ; but they are things that we need to know, if 
 we would have an intelligent idea of what a book really 
 was intended to teach. 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that every minister should 
 have in his library a trustworthy set of Bible commen- 
 taries. There is too little recognition of the impor- 
 tance of this. The clergymen of the age, and especially 
 the more progressive ones, are too prone to neglect this 
 class of literature, and go elsewhere for sermon mate- 
 rial. I fear this is a mistake. Some of the very best 
 ministers have, as a consequence, fallen into a slov- 
 enly exegesis. It is not because they are adverse 
 to the better views, but because the subject is dis- 
 tasteful. They have simply neglected to keep them- 
 selves informed. 
 
 2. The list of Old Testament commentaries that is 
 added below is not by any means complete. Neither, 
 perhaps, have I always chosen the best to be had ; yet 
 so far as I know them, they are good, and some of them, 
 I am sure, are the best. Some Old Testament books 
 are as yet without an English commentary that can be 
 recommended. 
 
320 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 Genesis. Delitzsch, new, 2 vols., good. 
 Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. M. M. Kalisch, good 
 and expensive. 
 
 Joshua, Judges, Ruth. Keil, fair. 
 
 Samuel. Kirkpatrick, in Cambridge Bible for Schools, fair. 
 
 Ezra, Nehemiah. Ryle, Cam. Bible, excellent. 
 
 Job. Davidson, Cam. Bible, excellent. 
 
 Job. Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, excellent. 
 
 Psalms. Cheyne, excellent. 
 
 Psalms. Delitzsch, new, good. 
 
 Proverbs. Delitzsch, fair. 
 
 Ecclesiastes. Plumptre, Cam. Bible, excellent. 
 
 Isaiah. Cheyne, excellent. 
 
 Isaiah. Delitzsch, new, good. 
 
 Jeremiah. Orelli, good. 
 
 Jeremiah. Stearne, Cam. Bible, fair. 
 
 Ezekiel. Davidson, Cam. Bible, excellent. 
 
 Daniel. A. A. Bevan, excellent. 
 
 Hosea. Cheyne, Cam. Bible, fair. 
 
 Micah. Cheyne, Cam. Bible, fair. 
 
 Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Perowne, Cam. Bible, fair. 
 
 Other numbers of the Cambridge Bible that will be 
 excellent are Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy by 
 Ginsburg, and Isaiah by Robertson Smith. As to the 
 books omitted from this list it will be best, perhaps, on 
 the whole, to wait for something better than has yet 
 appeared, nor is it probable that we shall have long to 
 wait. By no means buy sets of commentaries straight. 
 There are volumes in the Cambridge Bible and in 
 Ellicott that are not worth the paper they are written 
 on. 
 
 3. While it is the office of the commentary to give 
 an introduction to each book treated, it is certainly 
 worth while to own for reference, if not for study, a 
 book like Driver's Introduction, and this should be 
 
AN INEXPENSIVE OLD TESTAMENT LIBRAR V. 3 2 1 
 
 supplemented with a copy of Professor Ryle's book on 
 the Canon. 
 
 4. Books that systematize the teachings of the Old 
 Testament are very helpful. Much of the Old Testa- 
 ment theology is practical theology, or it is everyday 
 religion. Books that no minister's library should be 
 without are Hermann Schultz's two volumes on this 
 subject. They are a rich mine of learning and spirit- 
 ual insight. Less expensive and equally scholarly and 
 reverent is Piepenbring's " Old Testament Theology/' 
 translated into very readable English by Professor 
 Mitchell of Boston University. 
 
 5. Old Testament histories are legion. Renan's is 
 delightful, somewhat out of date in its critical views, 
 and abominably translated. Graetz's first volume is 
 somewhat better. Wellhausen's is, on the whole, the 
 best, while, of the older histories, Stanley's is by no 
 means as yet supplanted. 
 
 6. For the busy minister and the general reader, 
 books like the " Expositor's Bible," and the "Men of 
 the Bible" series are especially to be recommended. 
 These books bring the Old Testament writers right 
 down to our own age. The biographical element in 
 them gives them life and inspiration. But both these 
 series have poor volumes in them. G. A. Smith's 
 Isaiah and Cheyne's Jeremiah are samples of the better 
 numbers. 
 
 7. By no means should one avoid the latest books. 
 Yet one should be very careful about reading on Old 
 Testament subjects anything that comes to hand. Do 
 not read a book that a friend has recommended unless 
 you know why his opinion should be respected. Many 
 
322 BACK TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 men, whose intents and desires are right, are full of 
 most untenable ideas, because they have been led astray 
 by men who have thought more of defending a tradition 
 or an hypothesis than of speaking the truth. Much of 
 what is being said about the confirmations from the 
 monuments is utterly baseless. Professor Cheyne is 
 certainly right in laying serious charges at the doors of 
 such writers as A. H. Sayce. They draw perfectly 
 absurd conclusions from the facts. The great Assyriol- 
 ogistsare on the side of the modern school. Let those 
 who desire guidance in this direction, read Schrader's 
 " Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament/' or 
 the new series of the " Records of the Past." These 
 are far better than the conclusions drawn from the 
 inscriptions that are going the rounds of the religious 
 press. 
 
 It is certainly true that the Church should move 
 slowly and with caution in these matters. But to the 
 truly religious man, to the man of faith, there is little 
 to cause alarm in these newer books. If ours is an age 
 of unbelief, it is this unbelief that has caused destruc- 
 tive Biblical criticism; the higher criticism has not 
 caused it. For the modern movement in Bible study is 
 at bottom sincere, profoundly in earnest, profoundly 
 moral, and filled with an intense desire to reach the 
 very heart of our modern life. It is an effort, not to 
 take the gospel away from the people, but to bring it 
 to them in all its primitive purity and power. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Acts of the Apostles, 174. 
 
 Amos, 100, 130. 
 
 Apocrypha of the Old Testament, 
 
 117. 
 Atonement: views of the prophets, 
 
 133, 147; of the priests, 136; 
 
 of Paul, 144, 147; of 2 Isaiah, 
 
 153; vicarious, 165; day of, 
 
 141. 
 Azazel, 141. 
 
 Baruch, Book of, 107. 
 
 Bible, greatness of, 47; need of an 
 
 expurgated edition of, 310. 
 Biblical study, 18; obstacles to, 42; 
 
 revival of, 29; common method 
 
 reversed, 26. 
 Biographical sermons, 280. 
 
 Caird, E., 245. 
 
 Caird, J., 233. 
 
 Canon of the Old Testament, 251 
 fol. 
 
 Carlyle, 159. 
 
 Commerce, 210. 
 
 Cheyne, Canon, 278, 298. 
 
 Christ as Messiah, 121; as a sacri- 
 fice, 149; as suffering for the 
 world, 175, 179. 
 
 Chronicles, Book of, 204, 300. 
 
 Creation, 52, 277. 
 
 Criticism, see Higher Criticism. 
 
 Daniel, Book of, 106, 204, 318. 
 Deborah's Song, 87. 
 Deuteronomy, Book of, 129, 144, 
 
 158, 255, 273. 
 Diognetus, epistle to, 149. 
 Driver, Canon, 58, 271, 278, 302. 
 
 ECCLESIASTES, BOOK OF, 56, 1 34. 
 
 Ecclesiasticus, see Sirach. 
 Education, 211. 
 Elmslie, Prof., 288. 
 Enoch, Book of, in. 
 Evolution of Religion, 233 fol. 
 Exodus, Book of, 128, 155, 255. 
 Expurgated Bible, 310. 
 Ezekiel, Book of, 55, 64, 103, 136, 
 
 255> 276. 
 Ezra-Nehemiah, Book of, 204. 
 
 Faith, 15, 133. 
 
 Fallibility of the Bible, 61, 67. 
 
 Family, 208. 
 
 Farrar, Canon, 278. 
 
 Freedom, 92. 
 
 Galatians, Epistle to, 143, 145. 
 Genesis, Book of, 112, 128, 156, 
 
 3<H. 
 
 Genung, Prof., 280 fol. 
 
 Gideon, 277. 
 
 God, history of the idea of, 79, 93. 
 
 Gospel, same in the two Testa- 
 ments, 188. 
 
 3 2 3 
 
3^4 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Government, 209. 
 Gnostics, 222. 
 Green, T. H., 234. 
 
 Habakkuk, Book of, 134. 
 Haeckel, view of Old Testament, 
 
 227. 
 Haggai, Book of, 105, 136. 
 Happiness, 158. 
 Hebrew language, 269. 
 Hegel, view of Old Testament, 224. 
 Higher criticism, 258 fol., 276, 298, 
 
 302. 
 Higher critics, 16, 31. 
 Hosea, Book of, 90, 101, 132. 
 
 Immanence of God, 74, 75. 
 
 Individualism, 55. 
 
 Inspiration, 58, 68, 301; in New 
 Testament, 66; verbal, concep- 
 tual, plenary, 72. 
 
 Inspirationism, 54. 
 
 Isaiah, Book of First; 63, 93, 101, 
 131, 274. 
 
 Isaiah, Book of Second, 104, 153 
 fol., 162, 173, 181. 
 
 Israel, limitations of, 38. 
 
 Jeremiah, Book of, 55, 102, 132, 
 
 194, 276. 
 Jesus, the Christ, 104; view of Old 
 
 Testament, 219. 
 Jews, orthodox, 217; reformed, 
 
 218. 
 Job, Book of, 56, 134, 280 fol. 
 Joel, Book of, 106, 136. 
 John, Gospel of, 179. 
 Josephus, Flavius, 168. 
 Joshua, Book of, 154. 
 Judges, Book of, 204, 272. 
 Justin Martyr, 168. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, view of Old 
 
 Testament, 223. 
 Kings, Book of, 154, 204. 
 Kuenen, Abraham, 8^ fol. 
 
 Labor, dignity of, 210. 
 
 Land, ownership of, 209. 
 
 Law, Mosaic, abrogated, 146; spirit 
 ualized, 164. 
 
 Leviticus, Book of, 136, 138, 255. 
 
 Lotze, Hermann, view of Old Testa- 
 ment, 225. 
 
 Maccabees, Book of, 107. 
 
 Malachi, Book of, 105, 115. 
 
 Man, influence of the great, 295. 
 
 Marcion, view of Old Testament, 
 222. 
 
 Mark, Gospel of, 115, 174, 176. 
 
 Matthew, Gospel of, 177, 219. 
 
 Messiah, as king, 101, no; as 
 priest, 108; as prophet, 109; 
 as Christ, 121 ; spiritual leader- 
 ship of, 117. 
 
 Messianism, general nature of, 99, 
 
 113. 
 Micah, Book of, 93, 102, 132. 
 Miracles, 262, 263; Kant on, 290. 
 Monotheism, 89. 
 Moses, work of, 82 fol. 
 
 Nehemiah-Ezra, Book of, 204. 
 Newton, Rev. R. Heber, 261. 
 Numbers, Book of, 254. 
 
 Old Testament, permanent ele- 
 ments in, 28, 46; chronology 
 of, 204; defence of, 30, 297; 
 popularized, 298; commen- 
 taries, 319; introductions, 320; 
 histories, 321; theologies, 321. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 325 
 
 Paul, Doctrine of atonement, 
 144 fol.; view of Old Testa- 
 ment, 220. 
 
 Peter, first epistle of, 180. 
 
 Pentateuch, parts of, dated, 204. 
 
 Pfleiderer, Dr. O., 80. 
 
 Philo, Judaeus, 168. 
 
 Plenary Inspiration, 72. 
 
 Poor and ricrr^2io. 
 
 Preaching, biographical, 280; ex- 
 pository, 279. 
 
 Protevangelium, 112. 
 
 Pulpit readings, 313. 
 
 Psalms, Book of, in, 135, 171. 
 
 Psalms of Solomon, apocryphal book 
 of, no. 
 
 Religion, Hebrew, 37, 41. 
 Religions, classification of, 223. 
 Renan, Ernest, 286 fol. 
 Revelation, 32. 
 Rich and poor, 210. 
 Ryle, Prof. H. E., 251 fol. 
 
 Sacrifice, early ideas of, 125; 
 as a feast, 127; as a gift, 128; 
 as a ransom, 129; view of, in 
 the prophets, 130; in the wis- 
 dom literature, 134; in the 
 Psalms, 135; human sacrifice, 
 
 154. 
 Samuel, Books of, 130, 204, 254, 
 300. 
 
 Schelling, view of Old Testament, 
 
 225. 
 Scribal exegesis, in. 
 Servant of Jahveh, 160; as a guilt 
 
 offering, 162; as a prophet, 
 
 162; mission of, 167; in the 
 
 New Testament, 173. 
 Sibylline oracles, 109. 
 Sin of ignorance, 139. 
 Sirach, Book of, or Ecclesiasticus, 
 
 109, 256. 
 Smith, W. Robertson, 243, 266. 
 Social view of atonement, 153 fol. 
 Socialism, primitive, 54. 
 Sociology and theology, 199, 207, 
 
 294. 
 Solomon, 277. 
 Suffering righteous, 156, 168. 
 
 Targums, 112, 183. 
 
 Text, Hebrew, of Old Testament, 
 
 267. 
 Toy, Prof. C. H., 264 fol., 292 fol. 
 
 Verbal Inspiration, 72. 
 Views of Old Testament, ancient 
 and modern, 219 fol. 
 
 Wars of Jahveh, Book of, 254. 
 Wellhausen, 84 fol. 
 
 Zechariah, Book of, 104, 108, 
 136.