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Gift of .
James H. Russell
3.S.
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35p Rem, ſtipron 3Namg.
THE CONTINUOUS CREATION. An Ap-
plication of the Evolutionary Philosophy
to the Christian Religion. Crown 8vo,
$1.50.
THE CREATION OF THE B | BLE. Crown
8vo.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
Boston AND New York.
CREATION OF THE
BIBLE
BY
MYRON ADAMS
AUTHOR OF “THE contin UOUS CREATION"
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BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The fifueráibe Prešš, (Cambridge
1892

Copyºgº, 1892,
By MYBON ADAMS.
º
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
PREFACE.
THAT creation which speaks for itself in the lowest
forms of organic life in due time manifests the wisdom
of the Creator in the high department of morals and
spiritual development. Religion falls into line as the
last of a series of creations. If the time has already
arrived when thinkers abandon the long-accepted
dogma of creation by fiat, adopting in place of it the
philosophy of creation by development, it will not
be long before it will be seen that religion is also
developed, and that revelation grows. The latter be-
gins in the narrow, the confused, and the primitive ;
it advances in proportion to the moral, intellectual,
and spiritual advancement of men.
“Like every other product of man’s spiritual activ-
ity,” says Professor Abraham Kuenen, “the Israelit-
ish religion has its defects, its one-sidedness, the faults
of its virtues.” Nothing is so important to us as
Israel’s religion, and that other and better religion
which has grown, and is still growing out of it. That
the revelation contained in Israel’s religion, and in the
Christian outgrowth, may be studied in the light of
its historical development, a number of books have
iv PREFA CE.
recently been written ; the present volume is a con-
tribution to the same purpose.
To read Kuenen and Wellhausen with attention,
and appreciation of their devout and excellent scholar-
ship, is to acknowledge the truth of some of their con-
clusions; and no careful investigator can now under-
take the study of the construction of the Old Testament
without consulting these eminent authors.
More than that : if the philosophy of evolution be
accepted by any one, as the only reasonable explana-
tion of the Cosmos, no theory concerning the Bible
which is invalidated by that philosophy can be main-
tained by him.
To those who are satisfied with the old views, an
attempt to find better ones must seem audacious and
perilous; but there are many who are unable to con-
tent themselves with the notion of the infallibility of
the writers of the Bible ; to such this book is addressed
by one who has pursued the study for the satisfaction
of his own mind.
He does not profess to be a critic, but one who has
resorted to the critics and historical criticism for help.
He has been aided, so far as the present volume is
concerned, by such authors as Professors Wellhausen,
Kuenen, Sanday, and Toy, Canon Driver, President
Cone, Dr. Gladden, and others, both progressive and
conservative.
CONTENTS.
THE NEW METHOD OF STUDY .
DIVERs PORTIONS AND MANNERS
EzRA THE SCRIBE
HISTORY-MAKING
TRADITIONAL SOURCES
LEGENDARY ELEMENTs .
PROPHECY
FROM GoDS TO GOD
THE LIMITATION
THE FICTION
THE POETRY
GREEK INFLUENCE
OTHER INFLUENCES
THE NEW AGE ge º
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN WRITINGS
THE SPIRITUAL BASIS
THE MIRACLES
INFALLIBILITY . te re
PAUL AND THE SECOND ADVENT
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN
THE CERTAINTIES e e e º * e
THE FOURTH THE Gosper, OF THE PRESENT TENSE
AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL .
CoNFLICT AND HARMONY . * *
THE SOCIOLOGICAL RELIGION OF JAMES
&// &c. & &
4 - / 3 - 3 3
CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
I.
THE NEW METHOD OF STUDY.
BIBLE study has come to be of two sorts. Until
recently it has been understood that its one object
is to discover what the Bible contains. Numerous
questions ask themselves continually in the world of
human experience. What answer does the Bible
offer 2 In order to attain satisfactory information
concerning the answer of the Bible to our questions,
and to know very exactly the precise meaning of the
answer, a most thorough investigation of the language
of the Bible and of its grammar has been under-
taken. Accordingly, the literature of comment, ex-
position, and textual criticism is exceedingly abun-
dant. The painstaking care expended upon criticism
of the text is of a sort to cause astonishment. Every
field of collateral usage has been ransacked to find
material bearing on the subject. The microscope has
not been employed more abundantly by experts of
Science in physical research than the microscopic vi-
Sion has been in Scriptural investigation. It lieth not
within the wit of man to tell the greatness and the
minuteness of the work done. But in respect to that
2 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
department of Bible study it would not be rash to
declare that it has already been carried very nearly if
not quite to its limit. It does not appear probable
that much more light will be shed upon the text of
the Bible. - -
Having gone thus far in that direction, Bible study
has recently taken another. Let us be careful just
here to make a necessary discrimination. I speak of
a new department or direction. Attacks have been
made upon the Scriptures from the time of their ap-
pearance among men. Christianity at the beginning
of its course was the subject of a great literary at-
tack, remnants of which remain. Of course the books
of the Christian literature formed to some extent the
basis of that attack. That, and all of a like nature
which has followed it, I do not speak of as study of
the Bible. That study is carried on by those who
find a value in the Bible ; who wish to secure that
value, whatever it may be. It is not the object of
any Bible student, properly so called, to destroy the
Bible or to undermine its proper and reasonable in-
fluence. His object is to discover just what the Bible
is, and how it came to be what it is. -
The easy way has been almost universally to assume
that the Bible is the infallible word of God. It is
such an assumption as has been made by millions in
the case of the Koran and in the case of other reve-
lations. Joseph Smith was informed by an angel that
at a certain spot he would find a book. He proceeded
to that spot and found a book composed of gold
pages; and these pages were covered with some sort
of unintelligible writing. By the aid of a pair of
supernatural spectacles he was enabled to translate
this tongue into the vernacular. Thus came to human
THE NEW METHOD OF STUDY. 3
knowledge the Mormon Bible." How many thousands
of people have assumed that Joseph Smith did not
tell a lie about the matter, I am unable to say. We
assume, I suppose, that he did lie, or that some one
did. We have, on the whole, a better ground for our
assumption than they have for theirs. Upon them
lies a burden of proof which seems never to have been
appreciated by them.
Upon modern Christian scholarship has been found
to rest an obligation not imposed upon our fathers,
an obligation to offer some proof as to the alleged
nature of the Bible. Such proof was not definitely
called for while people were yet superstitiously in-
clined to accept things unquestioningly. It certainly
is called for now, and it is responded to by an in-
creasing number of Christian scholars and believers
in the authenticity and value of the Bible. Thus has
arisen that phenomenon which has taken, perhaps
somewhat fortuitously, the name of the “higher crit-
icism.”
Many reasons exist why the Bible should now be
studied in the new way, but there is one which possi-
bly includes them all. An English writer offers a
suggestion bearing upon the point. He says that all
progress is coördinate.” “The consequence of this
is,” he goes on to say, “that a barbarous age must
have a barbarous jurisprudence, and consequently a
barbarous theology. We must see and admit that
culture in one direction presupposes culture in every
other.” He then cites the fact that transubstantia-
tion, or the corporeal presence of Christ in the bread
and wine of the mass, did not strike the religious
1 Dr. Gladden's Who Wrote the Bible 2 p. 3.
* J. B. Heard, Old and New Theology.
4 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
people of the tenth century as absurd, because they
believed in the transmutation of one metal into an-
other. Their science affirmed this transmutation of
metals; and their theology affirmed the transmutation
of bread into flesh. Bad science helped thus to make
bad theology, or at least the two were coördinate.
Now the idea has prevailed largely in the best portion
of the world that the creation of the earth was a Sud-
den work of supernatural power, effecting the imme-
diate result of a very complex world, composed of
divers elements, and all produced out of nothing.
The notion of almightiness was such that it was sup-
posed to be quite easy for God to make something out
of nothing. If something could be made out of no-
thing, were that something no more than a grain of
sand, it followed that the making of a vast globe
would present no insurmountable difficulties to the di-
vine power ; and so the world came into existence.
That was the science of the past : and the religion
of the past corresponded therewith. Here is the
Bible, which is recognized by the Christian population
of the world as the revelation. While there was no
definite knowledge of how it came to be, it might have
been claimed that it too was made out of nothing.
God put commands and ideas into the mind of Moses
and others. He put them thus in the mind, without
reference to anything precedent. Thus the law of
Moses descended out of the residence of God in the
sky, as by a burst or sudden irruption of it upon the
people gathered at the foot of an Asiatic mountain.
The revelation was therefore created, not out of ma-
terials already existing in the world, but out of that
which up to that time had not existed below the sky.
It seems to have been reserved for the present cen-
THE NEW METHOD OF STUDY. 5
tury entirely to reverse the old conception of a more
ignorant science in regard to the creation of the earth.
The earth grew. The theory now is that it was cre-
ated, by coming to be in its present forms, through
perpetual modifications of previous forms.
The corresponding theory in regard to the Bible,
considered as revelation, is that it also grew in hu-
man thought, that it grew out of previous and more
imperfect thinkings; and that by changes, adapta-
tions, and by what we may call the editorial work be-
stowed upon it, it became in due time the book we
now possess.
A peculiar sentiment in respect to the Bible has been
influential throughout Christendom. The sentiment,
like most of our sentiments, has not been definite and
accurately describable. It expresses itself in words
which separate the Bible from all other books. Other
books are men’s books ; the Bible is God’s book. Other
books are of a sort to be known as secular or even
profane. The history in the Bible has been called
sacred; and the history outside of it has been known
as profane history. And thus the Bible has had a
place accorded no other book in Christendom. If
God has given us a book, we must treat that book with
more reverence than any other. We must hold in
check our criticisms of it. “Who art thou that re-
pliest against God?” If the Bible makes a declara-
tion, it must be humbly accepted as a final declaration,
from which there is no appeal. We may do what we
please with other books; but we must treat God’s
book with the respect due the revelation of the Al-
mighty.
Such has been the sentiment. If any persons have
not shared the feeling, they have been classified often-
6 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
times as profane and infidel persons and scoffers. It
is possible that some of them deserved such classi-
fication. It is probable that such a classification does
many of them rank injustice. Anything presenting
itself to us for our inspection is likely to encounter in
us the feeling of approbation, or the contrary. We
use our judgment upon a phenomenon and make up
our minds as to its character. If we so hold it aloof
from our judgment as to neglect to consider its char-
acter, then it is of little moment to us.
Now the Bible is a book found in almost all house-
holds. It is bound in a cover, it is printed in a lan-
guage ; it publishes certain propositions of various
sorts. It is precisely as much subject to our judg-
ment as are the rocks which lie underneath the soil,
or the plants which grow in the soil. If it is said
“God made the book,” and we are to reverently rec-
ognize his hand in it, it ought also to be said that God
made the rocks and roses, and we ought reverently to
recognize his hand in them. When God makes any-
thing he invites our judgment upon it. As a matter
of fact, we have always been very free in our notions
of nature; and men have gone so far as to regard
nature in a serious sense accursed. They have blamed
wind and weather, and grumbled unceasingly and with-
out the suspicion of irreverence at many things.
Yet these things were in verity God’s things. To
take exception to the book has not been tolerated.
That shows a confused state of mind. We need clear-
ance of that confusion. If God had authentically
written every word of the Bible, if he had caused all
the printing, and the arrangement of it, and the very
binding itself to be done in heaven, it would be still
open to men for their inspection and criticism. Our
THE NEW METHOD OF STUDY. 7
irreverence consists in being slaves to God, or think-
ing ourselves such, and not daring to use the gifts he
has bestowed on us, and so increasing them.
The Bible was not written in heaven. God did
not write one word of it, except secondarily. The
only theory which has had any real ground in intelli-
gent modern thought is that God did inspire the peo-
ple who wrote the Bible. Moreover, it is part of the
theory of modern times that inspired men, like other
men, are subject to error. It is conceivable that one
might have particular power and discernment in one
direction, or as to some special subject, but be quite
uninspired in regard to other matters.
He who excels in mathematics does so because the
power is bestowed upon him. He did not create the
power. He is not an independent being, standing
alone and original. His excellence in one department
may go with defect in other departments. Now the
highest excellence is a divine product in human char-
acter and thought. It is inspiration, but it does not
guard the subject of it from that human defect which
we are compelled to recognize everywhere.
Our experience is that human beings are imperfect.
That is one thing of which we are sure. There is
another thing of which we have come to be equally
sure, namely, that the human race has once been far
behind its present knowledge of all things. Our
human notions have been changing, slowly at first,
more rapidly now.
It is by this change we approach more perfect
knowledge. Thus it is that the more primitive men
spoke from least information. They spoke as moved
by the Holy Spirit, we are told, but the Holy Spirit
moves in a realm of the incomplete.
8 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
It is proposed in this book to give in a simple man-
ner some view of the results of recent Bible study.
In doing so, certain principles of interpretation and
criticism will be employed : —
First. The Bible is a part of creation.
Second. The order of creation is one of progress
and improvement.
Third. All progress is coördinate.
Fourth. The Bible is to be studied as any book
would be studied. It is properly subject to human
criticism.’
Eifth. Its contents furnish to a large extent the
means for its investigation.
We study the earth by that which we find it con-
tains. We have made out its history in the vast pe-
riods of the past by the things which remain. We
know that some geologic periods were earlier in time
than others. In the same manner we study the Bible.
It is literature. It is a group of separate documents
gathered from human experience covering a period
of a millennium. There is little contemporaneous lit-
erature in the light of which we may investigate the
earlier' portions of the Bible. A period about eight
centuries before our era marks the place at which
modern scholarship begins the study of the Biblical
documents.
We now come to the object of this sort of study.
It is thought that the religious nature of man has no-
thing to do with criticism. Our Bible is given for the
support and instruction of a religious life, and if we
are led off into investigations of a critical sort, we shall
lose religious fervor. The objection, while it may have
a certain force, is oblivious of the fact that much of
the religion of the present rests on false bases. Every-
THE NEW METHOD OF STUDY. 9
thing has been taken for granted. In the divine
Providence it has now come about that much of the
devout scholarship of the world is engaged in restate-
ments. Conservatives have been afraid of the results
of the newer scholarship; have been timid in letting
people know what is going on.
It seems to me high time that the people should
have information concerning the movements which
have not been exposed to them. That they should
have a clear understanding of the main features of
the work of the great scholars. Cardinal Newman
had the fear that truth itself might make a damage
in the world, if it were too freely spoken. He ac-
quired the habit of asking of a truth whether it was
safe or not. It was that habit which led him to re-
lapse into the bosom of the mediaeval church. We
need have no such fears. Religious truth, truth con-
cerning the Bible and its origin, the method of its
creation so far as we can discover it, must be of ad-
vantage to all who acquire it. Therefore I invite at-
tention to the studies of the scholars who are making
a new Christian scholarship, the real end of which
is to enable us to live more intelligently and more
religiously, and less superstitiously.
II.
DIVERS PORTIONS AND MANNERS.
Two questions in respect to the Bible, scholarship
has asked, and is now endeavoring to answer. The
importance of the questions is that upon their answers
depend the idea we shall have of the nature of the
Bible. These two questions are, first, “When was the
Bible written ?” and, second, “How was it written ?”
Let us give heed at present to the first question, and
the answer furnished by modern religious scholarship.
In the first verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews these
words occur: “God, having of old time spoken unto
the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in
divers manners.” God did not speak all at once, and
once for all, but distributed his communications in the
manner indicated. For a very long time, therefore,
there was no Bible. There came to be a Bible-mak-
ing age. When that age arrived, then the things
which were said in divers portions and divers manners
by prophets and others were collected into one collec-
tion, known first as the “sacred writings,” or for the
most part, simply as the “writings,” or Scriptures.
There came a time when some person of adequate
genius and comprehensive skill undertook to make a
Bible out of materials scattered and incoherent. This
person massed together that of human experience
which appeared to him most important, and thus came
into existence a collection of before disconnected writ-
DIVERS PORTIONS AND MANNERS. 11
ings and traditions, in a form which became the nu-
cleus of a nation’s hope and aspiration and religious
feeling. That is the natural way of explaining the
method in which the Bible came into existence.
If a man constructs houses, he goes to one quarry
and gets stones fit for foundations; to another quarry
for a finer quality of stone, fit for the upper portion
of his building. He goes into one forest and gets
trees of one sort, for one purpose, into another forest
and gets a different quality of wood for other pur-
poses. He mines down in the earth for iron, and
makes both tools and materials. Thus from that
which had been in divers portions and manners, he
constructs an edifice which had not been in existence
before. It can hardly be doubtful, I suppose, to the
student, however doubtful it may be to others, that
the Bible was constructed as really as any court-house
or music-hall is constructed. It came into being as
a human production as really as anything else which
has ever become extant among us.
When were these various portions written ? I
mean, of course, with relation to each other. Were
the first five books written first 7 Were the next two
written next 2 and so on. It has become possible to
answer these questions. A vast amount of knowledge
comes to us, directly and indirectly, from comparing
things with each other. We go all over the earth,
and compare the products of different regions with
each other. We compare climates, for one thing. We
compare the animals and the plants and the various
tribes and races of mankind with each other. No
one can doubt that it is a most useful process.
Then we proceed to compare the habits and doings
of people. We look at the dwellings of people long
12 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
dead, and arrive at some knowledge of how those peo-
ple who occupied the dwellings must have lived. For
instance, we go into New Mexico and gaze upon the
old habitations of the cliff-dwellers. We distinguish
them from all other people, and identify them as cliff-
dwellers. They contrived to climb up the precipi-
tous cliff, and burrow in the rocks there, making for
themselves a kind of nest, like the bank-swallow, at
some height above the common level. Now in their
domestic economies, people have never been in the
habit of doing very many unnecessary things, and
persisting in so doing. Therefore we search for the
necessity of the great exertion required by these peo-
ple in hollowing out these dwellings, perched thus on
high. They proposed to make them inaccessible.
They had that way of defense against roving and war-
like tribes. They themselves, we therefore infer,
were not so warlike and fierce as their neighbors; they
were more defensive than aggressive. We go on
by comparison and reach a certain definite knowledge
of these people, who may have long since become ex-
tinct on the earth. Then other peoples have built
their dwellings on the level, of branches and twigs of
trees, covered them with weather-proof clay, and
erected a kind of stockade around their village. In
certain localities that sort of erection marks a period
of the development of the people of that region.
Along the valleys and passes of the mountain re-
gions in Europe, crowning every spot of vantage,
stands the ruin of a castle. That ruin marks a period
known as the feudal. It locates itself at a certain
definite time in the annals of the world. Equally,
the remnants of dwellings built upon posts driven in
the water on the shallow margin of Swiss lakes mark
DIVERS PORTIONS AND MANNERS. 13
a far earlier mode of defense. The men of each pe-
riod, -perhaps very widely separated in time, – being
dead, yet speak to us by that which remains; but
lake-dwelling, cliff-dwelling, and castle become obso-
lete, and pass into the stage of record and ruin.
If the dwellings and defenses of ancient people tell
us a story which we can read, much more does the lit-
erature of a people tell us its story. If literature be-
gins in some kind of sign language and hieroglyphic
art, in tomb and temple inscriptions, it goes on to em-
body itself in larger and more enlightening form as
time goes on. It is in the literature of the past that
we discover the most clear and comprehensive record
of the feelings and philosophy and religion and morals
of an age. Moreover, it is by the literature of a peo-
ple that we are able to identify the time of the golden
or most progressive and prosperous age of that people.
But we must not expect exactness. We go to a
considerable extent upon the ground of probability
and inference. This has its disadvantages, especially
to a certain class of minds, but it really makes no
serious defect in the method itself. If our knowledge
is simply approximate, so is the knowledge of the
astronomer.
A journey of a hundred thousand miles undertaken
by one of us would be a very great affair indeed.
We might have to encircle the world with our tracks
Several times ; but for a ray of light it is no great
matter. In the ethereal distances we do not lay much
stress upon the inaccuracy of a hundred thousand
miles. We have not yet determined the distance of
our planet from the sun in anything less than millions
as the unit. The students of history, if they go back
far enough in the annals of time, find themselves
14 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
unable to give us the dates we would perhaps like to
have. Events came to pass, we know. Before them
were events of which we know simply that they were
antecedent; and that, for very distant events, is prac-
tically all we require to know.
Literature known as sacred, or other, has its eras.
A certain method of literature belongs to certain pe-
riods, as the Elizabethan era, and the like. We know,
it is true, the date of the issue of some of Shake-
speare's plays; we know the date of other important
writings. Contemporaneous with the English period
mentioned there was an era somewhat similar in the
Low Countries. We have ascertained by the critical
work of our scholars that Milton wrote “Paradise
Lost" and other poems after the Dutch poet Wondel
had written poems upon the same themes. Further
than that, it is quite evident that Milton must have
been a reader of Wondel before he wrote “Paradise
Lost,” or while he was writing it. Milton nowhere
tells us that he read Wondel, and, so far as we know,
none of his contemporaries have recorded such an
opinion, but the student of the subject to-day is quite
as certain that Milton had read Wondel as if Milton
had declared the fact in plain language. So, them, it
might be established beyond a question that a certain
two poets were contemporaries, and that one wrote
a little before the other.
Among our facts gathered by inference, but quite
as surely known as almost any other facts, is this, that
the Homeric poems antedate the Greek dramatists.
As it is with other writings, so is it also with the
sacred Scriptures. We are able to discover, from in-
ternal and other evidence, relatively when the books
which compose the volume were written.
DIVERS PORTIONS AND MANNERS. 15
As illustrating the mode of ascertainment still fur-
ther : certain words have recently come into vogue
which were not coined a century ago. If, therefore, a
poem were published in some volume of old poems, or
purporting to be old poems, issued now as a new edi-
tion, and if this poem bore the date of 1780, for ex-
ample; and if in the poem were found the words “tel-
ephone,” or “ phonograph,” or “steam-locomotive; ”
or if allusions were made to Abraham Lincoln, Queen
Victoria, the battle of Waterloo, Black Friday, or
Prince Bismarck, we would know at a glance that the
date was wrong. It might be a mistake of the printer,
or the date of one poem had been applied to another;
or through ignorance, or willful purpose, or jest, this
misplacement of a date had taken place; but the
evidence that there was an error would be absolutely
unmistakable." *
There are many ways of determining whether a doc-
ument was written after or before the beginning of the
Christian era, just as there are means of determining,
incidentally, that Paul was an earlier writer than Peter,
for Paul’s epistles were already extant among the
people when the author of Peter's letter wrote. It
must have been so from the evidence afforded by the
incidental remark of Peter that in Paul's writings
were things hard to be understood. He had there-
fore read those things and found them difficult.
I have thus sketched those common methods which
2LT6: employed by students in determining when differ-
ent portions of the Bible were written, but I have
given only a few specimens of the ways of literary
critics. All we require to know is that there are
1 Dr. Gladden gives a more striking illustration, Who Wrote
the Bible 2 p. 174.
16 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
modes, dictated by common-sense, and of universal
application, which are used in the study of the Bible.
By study it has become ascertainable that the first
parts of the Bible were not written first. When we
take up a book, if we read the preface first, because
that first stares us in the face, we involuntarily think .
of that as having been first written. Probably, in nine
cases out of ten, it was written last. Usually, a man
does not know how to write the introduction to his
book until he has found out for himself what his book
has come to be. Now we open our Bibles, and first of
all begin with the beginning. We naturally suppose,
from the arrangement, that the first word was first
written; but the student brings a great many tests to
bear upon that matter, and by his tests, which are
required by common-sense and literary criticism, he
becomes very sure that the first book in the Bible was
by no means the first produced. Beginnings do indeed
come first in the order of nature, but not in the order
of thinking. That is to say, description of beginnings
comes late because such description is difficult, and
much has to be learned before one knows origins and
beginnings.
The common notion, gained we hardly know how,
has been that a great man of the remote past, Moses
by name, wrote the book of Genesis for our Bible.
This notion has become so embodied in religious
thought, and so belongs to reverence for the Bible,
that a distinguished theologian of Princeton not long
ago asserted that the Bible would be gone from us,
and religion with it, or somewhat to that effect, if
Moses did not write the books commonly attributed
to his authorship. That statement is instructive, but
it also escapes being amusing by only a little. For it
DIVERS PORTIONS AND MANNERS. 17
might be paralleled with a saying that if Shakespeare
did not write the plays credited to him we should have
no book of that title left, and the dramatic art itself
would suffer destruction. I think we might deal with
any assertion of a similar kind in the same way. If
the old notions of the substance of the earth came to
be put aside, as they were, we still have the earth left,
and can manage to live upon it after some fashion.
It seems to become plainer every day to critical and
Christian scholarship that Moses did not write the
five books which have been ascribed to him. To the
rationalists among the critics it is quite as evident that
Móses did not write the book of Genesis and the
other books of the Pentateuch, as that nails of the
sort known as “cut nails " were not made in the ear-
lier times. The material which goes to the construc-
tion of the cut mail is very ancient, but the making is
modern. As the age of nail-making by machinery
is comparatively recent, so the age of Bible-making
came long after the time of Moses. Probably that
would be admitted by the most strenuous advocate of
the conservative view. At the same time such an ad-
vocate would affirm that Moses wrote that portion of
the Bible — or at least edited it — which is known as
the Pentateuch. This is becoming more and more
doubtful every day. The reason why that doubt
grows to a certainty is that the time of Moses did not
admit of such writing or such editorial work as has
been attributed to him. If we find that the earlier
part of the Bible was spoken of in the New Testament
as the work of Moses, if we find that Jesus speaks
of “Moses and the prophets,” it will be well for us
to remember that the fruits of an age are not infre-
quently grouped under the name of some great per-
18 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
sonage of that age. The age of Pericles, or of Charles
the Great, is identified by the great names of the great
personages. It is a matter of convenience, and not a
matter of critical accuracy.
It is natural to look for the best literary work of
any people, not in their less mature period, and not
while they are most busily engaged in wars of con-
quest or defense, but when they have acquired their
best experience, and have developed their best moral
and intellectual strength. The evidences are abun-
dant that Israel did not reach its best until long after
the time of Moses.
An incident in the history of that people had a most
important bearing upon the future of the world. This
incident was looked upon as a calamity, and was in
fact such ; but calamities, personal and national, may
prove of the utmost importance in the work of a per-
son or a people. There came a time when the Jews
were overpowered by the superior forces of the East-
ern empire, and were reduced to vassalage. There is
something almost unique in this experience. The
tradition runs, that when the progenitors of the twelve
tribes went into Egypt, during a famine, and were
hospitably received there, they were afterward re-
duced to slavery, and that of the most bitter sort.
The ancient way of disposing of conquered peoples
was at one time to kill them. Afterward the modifi-
cation of that cruelty was to make slaves of the con-
quered.
It is noticeable that when the Assyrian army com-
pelled the surrender of the Jewish capital, they de-
stroyed the city and the sacred temple, deporting
the more valuable of its contents, but they did not
make slaves of the inhabitants. Indeed, an imperial
DIVERS PORTIONS AND MANNERS. 19
policy, which policy was then new in the world, favors
the welfare of a conquered people, so far as that is
consistent with the welfare of the empire. The Jews,
therefore, were treated with consideration, although
from motives of policy they were removed from the
soil, and taken to the Babylonian provinces far to the
eastward. This, which was to the Jews a fearful ca-
lamity, and all the more sorrowful to them because
their affections and their religious feelings were so
intimately associated with the temple, was neverthe-
less a very great blessing. It broke them out of their
narrow exclusiveness, and brought them in contact
with other peoples, who were perhaps foremost at that
time in philosophy, art, and learning.
Our world is small, so long as we remain affixed to
the soil where we were born. It is the old story of
the eagles, securely nested and content, finding their
nest broken up, and themselves pitched out of it and
compelled to fly. It is a hard ordeal, but it is what
makes eagles of the young birds. Judah, conquered
by the imperial army, its old habitation broken into
and broken down, and its people deported to the
plains of Shinar, received an impetus which served it
in its mission as nothing else at that time could. It
had preserved an exclusive spirit and a spirit of hatred
toward other nations.
There were surprises in store for it. There was a
new mine of learning opened for its seers and wise
men. Moreover, the humanity and even religious
earnestness of the Persian conquerors of the Assyrian
empire, by their friendliness, threw new light on old
laws. The old narrowness was invaded by breadth.
Cyrus was reckoned to be within the mercy and
purpose of Jehovah ; he was a man girded divinely
20 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
for his work." After the days of the captivity were
over, those patriot Jews who returned to their old
home had more light than their captive fathers had
possessed. They, or their leaders, wished to commit
the old religion to a form more permanent than the
old and somewhat chaotic traditions. They wished to
put the new light into the old thoughts. It is evident
enough, if one will be at pains to examine, that at the
close of the captivity, Judah had arrived at the begin-
ning of a golden period of Bible-making. It was
then, for the first time, that the “scribe,” or literary
man, made his appearance, and began his work.
Far more than the old temple and the old city walls
and the old houses were rebuilt. The old law, and
the old Mosaic traditions, and the old chaotic and
scattered chronicles were also rebuilt, and the glory
of the later house in that regard was vastly superior
to that of the earlier house. The library of sacred
literature was made. The hymns and the proverbs,
and the laws and the legends, and the greater poems
were made, not out of new material, but of the mate-
rial afforded by the national traditions and feelings.
So we may say with a degree of certainty that
the Bible as we now have it began to be made, not in
the days of Moses, and not in the days of Samuel
and David and Solomon, but long afterward, in the
days of Ezra the scribe, or the first literary men of
Israel. -
1 Isaiah xlv. 1–5.
III.
IEZRA TEIE SCRIBE.
IT may be said that two Bibles were in use at the
time of the opening of the Christian era. It is true
that the one which was used in Jewish synagogues was
still in an unfinished state at that time. There was
Some dispute among the learned as to the admission
of some of the books we find in our Bible into the
list of the sacred books. So that the question was
still open as to what the Bible actually was. There
was another Bible somewhat different from the He-
brew, and which was published in Greek. The He-
brew was mainly the language of religion, — as is the
Latin in the Roman Church. It was not the language
commonly spoken by the Palestinian people. They
used a tongue known as the Aramaic. For more com-
mon use, as in the households of the rich, or in schools,
it is probable that the Greek Bible was most in vogue.
It was this Bible from which the larger portion of
the quotations made by the apostles and Christ came ;
but this Bible, written in the Greek tongue, differed
in important respects from the Hebrew scrolls. It dif-
fered chiefly in containing much more than the He-
brew Bible.
We discover in our Bibles at present one book of
Ezra. It is a short book of ten chapters. In the
Greek Bible, from which Jesus and some of the apos-
tles quoted, there are in addition two books of Ezra.
22 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
These additional books are quite lengthy in compari-
son. In the Bibles which contain them they are called
the books of Esdras. Esdras is simply the Greek way
of spelling the Hebrew word Ezra. Moreover, the
genealogy given of the supposed writer, Esdras, is the
same as that of Ezra, in the short book in our common
Bibles.
Now the fact that Jesus and his apostles made some-
what copious quotations from this Greek Bible gives
rise to the probability that it was in more common
use than the Hebrew Bible, of which it was supposed
to be a translation. Ezra certainly appears to have
occupied a very important place in the annals of the
nation. He was not only a great reformer, but in an
important sense a prophet; but his peculiar value to
the Jewish nation seems to have been connected with
his literary work. If we are to give any credit to the
books in the Greek Bible which bear his name (even
though written later than his time), it will become
evident that his work was second in importance to no
other in all the history of Israel.
It is an Orthodox opinion (or has been until re-
cently, and now it is a little difficult to tell precisely
what an Orthodox opinion is) that because Jesus re-
ferred to the Old Testament, and drew many things
from the Old Testament, therefore the Old Testament
as we now have it must be an infallibly true docu-
ment. Since Jesus appears to have been acquainted
with the Greek version of the Old Testament, and
inasmuch as this version contains much that we now
commonly reject, it is quite evident that there is no
proof of infallible truth in the fact that Jesus quoted
from the Bible then in existence.
Many things in the writing of Ezra, contained in
F. ZRA THE SCRIBE. 23
the two long books bearing his name, appear incredi-
ble, and there need be no quarrel with those who
determined what the Old Testament should be, because
they rejected these books. Yet these books contain
statements which throw light upon our Bible, and also
show the eminent service of Ezra the scribe.
It appears that Ezra was born and was educated in
Babylonia; that he had his training with a number
of other remarkable men. The probabilities are that
he above all other men of his nation had the instinct,
if we may so say, of literature. He responded to the
influences around him. His fervent religious spirit
found a task for him ; it was to give to his nation
the teachings of Jehovah, and of the wise men of
the past, in the more durable form of a sacred collec-
tion.
Now the wise men of that age, as well as other an-
cient ages, were accustomed to speak much in an
oracular form. In all the ancient literature, the priest,
or prophet, or the sage consulted by the people as a
guide, had a peculiar method of speech. He did not
tell his story in plain language, but in figures of
speech. So much was the figure of speech the mode
of such talk that we, in our time, think the ancients
were always speaking fables. The prophet or other
guide of the people, who was subject to vivid im-
pressions, put forth those impressions in statements
we find hard to believe ; indeed, it is quite impossible
to believe them. As I read the books of Esdras, it
seems almost probable that it was never intended that
the statements should be believed in their literal form.
The words of wise men were given for wise men, that
is, for those who could seek the meaning couched in
parables, stories, and fables.
24 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
Ezra tells us that he was sitting one day under an
oak, and that there came a voice out of a bush near
by. This voice called him by name. Ezra arose and
answered, “Here I am, Lord.” Then the Lord an-
swered him out of the bush, reminding him that it
was from a bush God had talked with Moses long
before: it was from the bush Moses went to lead the
people of Israel out of bondage into Canaan."
It was time for the same thing to happen again.
Israel was in captivity, though not of the bitter sort,
and the period of the captivity had elapsed. There
must now be a new Moses to lead the people out of
captivity back to the land of promise. The voice
speaks to Ezra, and Ezra answers. It is through this
conversation that one may learn the state of things in
Israel at that day. Ezra is to go upon his mission,
and to make a new start for the nation. He tells the
Lord that the law is burnt, and therefore “no man
knoweth the things which God does.” The idea con-
veyed is that the precious scrolls or tablets had been
destroyed. If Moses had committed anything to writ-
ing, or if his successors had done so, the remnant of
that had suffered destruction in the calamities which
had come upon the house of Jacob. . All that work
must be done over again.
Therefore, as the story goes, Ezra is directed to
gather the people, and bid them let him alone for the
space of forty days. It was for the same space that
Moses had been away from the people in communica-
tion with God. Having thus warned the people, Ezra
is directed to prepare suitable materials for writing,
and take with him five ready writers. He did as com-
manded, and the next day heard a voice bidding him
1 2 Esdras xiv.
B, ZRA THE SCRIBE. 25
drink what should be offered him. What he drank
was of the appearance of fire. After drinking that
potion the spirit of understanding was strong in him,
and he spoke many things. The Highest gave un-
derstanding to the five men, and they wrote the won-
derful visions of Ezra. Ezra tells us that his mem-
ory was strengthened, and that as a result of his
visions a large number of books were written during
the forty days of his seclusion. We are unable to
determine whether the number of books thus prepared
was two hundred and four, or nine hundred and four ;
but it was a large number. It is in such a manner
that we are told of the making of a collection of sacred
books. We infer that for a long period, lasting at
least seventy years, the sacred scrolls and other ma-
terials of the Jews had been out of existence. It is
very natural to think that when a city has been
destroyed by conquerors, its temple and other build-
ings razed to the ground, its sacred scrolls would be
burned, or otherwise disposed of. So that if Moses
had written the five books of the Pentateuch, as many
think he did, and if later writers had written other
books, such as the books of Gad the seer and Nathan
the prophet, and the like (which books are mentioned
in our Bible as having once existed), it would appear
probable that these books had all suffered destruc-
tion. The tradition which is embodied in the books
of Ezra alludes to the strengthening of the memory
of the scribe. The use of memory is not to originate
Something, but to recall the events and sayings of
the past.
Before we dismiss the feat of memory displayed by
Ezra, it will be well to remember that the Buddhists
believe that the works of Gautama, the Buddha, were
26 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
not committed to writing by him, but that they were
learned by his disciples, and passed along down by
the effort of memory alone. This is not impossible.
It is known that the Vedas were handed down in
this manner for many hundreds of years, and no one
would now dispute the enormous powers of memory
to which Indian priests and monks attained, when
written books were not invented, or only used as helps
to memory."
If we leave the extra books of Ezra which are
not found in our version of the Bible, and turn to that
book of Ezra which our common Bibles contain, we
shall come upon facts suggestive of the proposition
that to Ezra we are indebted for the making of the
Bible, in its first form.
In the first year of the reign of Cyrus the Persian,
a decree was issued for the rebuilding of Jerusalem ;
and the work was undertaken. If we follow the
common chronology, this was in the year 536, or there-
abouts, B. C. Afterward, during the reign of Arta-
Xerxes, a coalition was formed against the pious Jews,
who were engaged in rebuilding their city. The
conspirators complained to the king that Jerusalem
had always been a city of rebellion, and that if it
were built again it would seek to become an inde-
pendent power, and therefore the king's revenue
would suffer, and the like. The king caused the rec-
ords to be searched, found the charge substantiated,
and ordered the work to cease. Afterward, however,
Artaxerxes was induced to modify this decree, proba-
bly through the influence of Ezra, and the scribe was
himself commissioned to press the work of restoration
forward. The copy of the letter given by the mon-
1 Rhys Davids, Buddhism.
BZRA THE SCRIBE. 27
arch to Ezra is contained in the book of Ezra. “This
is the copy of the letter that the king Artaxerxes
gave unto Ezra the priest, the scribe, a scribe of the
words of the commandments of Jehovah, and of his
statutes to Israel. Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto
Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of
heaven,” etc.
It is the opinion of some of the foremost and most
expert scholars that about this time the Bible took
tangible form, and the Jews began to be the “people
of the book.” It is quite impossible to fix with entire
certainty upon the man, or master spirit, who did the
most in reducing to proportion the Holy Scriptures,
but certainly the indications point to Ezra more than
to any other. The eminence of this man is somewhat
obscured to Bible readers by the inferior place and
space accorded him in the Bible; but it accords well
with the spirit of the prophets, earlier and later, to
keep themselves and their particular work in the back-
ground. If we look for qualification for the enter-
prise of Bible-making, we find no one superior to Ezra,
a man recognized by decree of the king as a writer
of the laws of Jehovah.
He may have been one of a number engaged in that
important and pious enterprise, which was primarily
to recover the people to obedience and righteousness.
In order to that, it was needful that the law should
take a more tangible shape, and moreover that it
should be placed in its appropriate historical setting.
It was necessary at last that Israel’s story should be
told, as only a scholar and a trained man of letters could
tell it. The indications are that Ezra had five cola-
borers in this work, and that their work was of a mag-
nitude greater than any previously undertaken. The
28 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
materials were abundant. There was first of all the
prophetic work of the period beginning, say, two and
a half centuries before. There was then the historic
work which had been going on during the period of
exile. There was the vast body of tradition, and no
people have been better furnished with tradition than
the Jews. Let us suppose that the Assyrians had
also their body of traditions. They had their story
of the creation of the world. Perhaps it was during
the exile that the Jews became acquainted with the
story of creation. Or if they possessed their indepen-
dent traditions, they were modified by the Assyrian
ideas. Whatever the Assyrians had in the way of
creation-story could readily be appropriated by the
Jews, inasmuch as their progenitor was an emigrant
from that very region.
According to the researches of recent students, it
becomes more and more probable that the story of the
creation was first written in the form we now possess
at the time of the exile. Inasmuch as the account
bears evidence of being composite, that is, of being
drawn from different sources, one may almost see the
places where the primitive Assyrian and the primitive
Israelitish versions are joined together.
It will be noticed that all along this way of study
we are following the line of the greatest probability.
There is absolutely no other way of studying such mat-
ters. The old method of maintaining that the Scrip-
tures came into being miraculously is a following of a
way of improbabilities. Study proceeds along such a
course with immense difficulty at present.
At any rate, it is in evidence in these later days
that Israel’s story became connected with the Assyrian
story. The Assyrian influence demonstrates itself
EZ RA THE SCRIBE. 29
very fully. It is well to bear in mind the difference
between history and myth. The two are connected
in the earlier ages of the world; but it is our work,
with the light we have, to distinguish between the two.
The reverent study of the Bible does not consist in
shutting our eyes to the facts, but in being very closely
observant of them. When we undertake the study
of the life of Israel, as a whole, tracing it from its
early beginnings, we are very sure to encounter state-
ments which are historical, and others which are un-
historical. That the children of Jacob were in bond-
age in Egypt is history. That they came out of
Egypt by the hand of a strong leader is also histor-
ical, and that this strong man enacted suitable laws for
their conduct is historical. They came into the land
of Canaan, and dispossessed the inhabitants. In the
telling of the story there is a great amount of what
we have learned to call “folk-lore ” connected with it.
Jehovah was recognized by Israel as their national
God. Other nations had their gods also. In time
there grew up the purer conception of the universal
domain of the God of Israel, Jehovah. Traces of the
growth of that conception are found in the wonderful
little book of Jonah, and in the prophets of the eighth
century B. C.
Since Jehovah was the God of Israel, it came about
that their God was concerned intimately in their deliv-
erance from the house of bondage, and in their entry
upon the land of Canaan. So we have the truth of
God’s dealing, his government set forth in terms of
the folk-lore. Moses, the great deliverer, went up to
the top of a lofty mountain in the wilderness, and
there he met God. There God gave him the set of
laws which were to be the code of the people. These
30 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
laws God had engraved on two tables of stone. God
engraved them with his finger. A man would have
to use tools, but God does not need them. Moses
meets God in the top of this lofty mountain, and is
there with God for forty days, and then comes down
and delivers the law. That seems to have been one
version of the folk-lore. There was another, if not
Several others. Another account declares that God
came down to the top of the mountain, and there in
a mighty voice spoke out these laws to the trembling
people below. When at last the work of making the
history of Israel began, it was not found necessary, as
it now would be, to reconcile these various accounts.
They are woven together, as though they were not
contradictory, as we may see them to be. History was
in its infancy then, and there was no such skill in it
as would be demanded of the historian now.
Stories had grown in the mind of the people for
hundreds of years, and had been rehearsed by parents
to children. Part of the stories were historical, and
part the dressing of the idea of the interest of Jeho-
vah in the people. That such stories had been passed
along the centuries, from parent to child, from one
generation to another, without subtraction, or addition,
or other modification, is simply incredible to the his-
torical student of this time.
During the captivity, the past glories of Israel, its
mighty triumphs in the power of Jehovah, and its
sufferings and deliverances had been dwelt upon.
The example of the past furnished the hope of a de-
liverance still in store. We may think of the expe-
riences of Israel as becoming panoramic in the mind
of a man of letters, like Ezra. The laws were for-
ever associated in all minds with the name of Moses,
EZ RA THE SCRIBE. 31
but the writing of the laws and of the history in which
they were environed is of the time of the exile, long
after the days of Moses. So much emerges to very
high probability in the study of the present time.
It will be asked, “Did Ezra, or some other man of
letters, manufacture the history 2” Certainly not in
the sense of inventing it. Prescott’s “Mexico’’ and
“Peru” are not invented history. The accomplished
historian relied for his data upon such facts as were
accessible to him. He gathered them from all attain-
able sources. We have later discovered that some of
his sources of information were untrustworthy. Yet
his work was simple as compared with that of Ezra,
the scribe. The Israelitish folk-lore was so abundant,
and had so taken hold of the thought and life of the
nation, that no historian could have gone free from its
commanding influence. I take it that Ezra did faith-
fully choose out of that mass the very things which
were to him the most true and important.
IV.
HISTORY-MAECING.
THE making of a history does not come early in the
literary accomplishments of a people. If primitive
people knew how to tell a connected story of their
experiences, and make books, they would not deserve
to be called primitive. Such work they know not
how to do. They commit to such writing as they pos-
sess the art of, their simple philosophy, their poetry,
their sayings, which have a recognized value, like
proverbs. They do not make their history. It seems
to be a pity, because we have a curiosity concerning
early beginnings. We would be glad to know all the
facts of the forgotten centuries, if that were possible.
We certainly find that it is impossible. A text of
Scripture is quoted, as showing that what things are
impossible with us are possible with God. It might
be applied to the matter in hand. It is impossible
for us to know the early beginnings of history, ex-
cept in the most general and vague way. It is possi-
ble, so we have been told, for God to make these
early beginnings known to us by inspiration. If God
inspires a man to tell things about which he has no
other information except inspiration, why should any
one find fault with that? Certainly no one ought to
find fault with it, if it is true that God has proceeded
in that way.
Let us suppose that inspiration is the quickening of
HISTORY-MA KING. 33
one's powers of memory, or of reason, or of all the
faculties. That is a reasonable supposition. Inspira-
tion, then, would be different from hearing something
from another person, or reading something from an
inscription or a tablet. If God, or the Jehovah of
Israel, were like a man, if Jehovah were possessed of
a body like a man's body, in every way except that
his body is invisible to our senses, and if God were to
speak to a man, say Ezra or Moses or another, out of
a bush, in an audible voice, so that the sound of the
voice came into the man’s ears, like any other voice;
and if God should in that way tell the man how the
earth was created, and how man was made, and
why man is so often bad in his character and conduct,
— that would not be inspiration. If the man could
understand the meaning of the words used, and if he
could catch the ideas of the sentences thus delivered,
he would not have need of inspiration, in the sense
in which that word is usually understood. The Chris-
tian theory has been that Moses and Ezra, and many
others, were inspired men. That they did not have
things told them by some voice speaking outside of
themselves. It seems to have been the notion of the
Apostle Paul that the men who wrote the Holy Scrip-
tures were inspired men. If he was right about it,
then these men were quickened in their faculties,
and did not have new or extraordinary faculties given
them.
Now among other of our faculties is that of im-
agination. We are justified in concluding, are we
not? that if God wished to communicate anything to
any person, the communication would be made in that
faculty we call the imagination. It may be said that
God communicates with us by means of conscience,
34 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
and by means of the judgment, but without imagina-
tion we should make nothing of it.
Very well. The question pertinent to our present
purpose is this: How did the historian of the Jewish
people — the man who extracted history from the tan-
gled mass of tradition, folk-lore, legend, myth, and all
the like, and made a veritable historical construction
of it — accomplish his work? Did he employ his im-
agination or not 2 All will probably confess that he
must have used his imagination, because in literary
work of all kinds, and especially in the historical kind,
imagination is indispensable.
On the other hand, were facts communicated to him
in some other way than that by which we arrive gen-
erally at knowledge of facts? Are we to suppose that
Jehovah came to him, and told him, in so many words,
or at least in substance, that the first human being
was made of the dust of the ground, that he was
moulded in the shape of the human frame, and that
afterward a rib was taken from his side, and made
over into a woman 2 It would be difficult to believe
that Jehovah told him that story in an audible voice, or
wrote it on tablets, or otherwise.
The features of the creation-story were in the ideas
of men, and had been so lodged in the human mind
for a long time. It is probable that many persons of
different generations exercised their imagination upon
the subject of the creation. How did things come to
be as we see them? How was the sky stretched out,
and how were the stars set in it” How did the
waters come to be gathered into one place, and the
land in other places? Are there windows in the sky
through which the rain is dropped 7 It seems so.
By thinking on these subjects, generation after gen-
HISTORY-MA KING!. 35
eration, there must arise an imagination of the man-
ner of the creation. Man did not make himself, and
he did not always exist, therefore he must have been
made. How was he made 7 Why, there is no better
way, before we know to the contrary, than to judge
according to the appearance, and make up our minds
that the Maker of man took the dust, and made a man
and a woman out of it, and that thus began the human
ºl,C62.
God never told any one so in any direct way.
We have found out more about creation during the
past half century than all the ancients and moderns
put together ever knew. We have an immense array
of testimony to the effect that our present theory is
the true one ; but among the people of old Israel
there was never any proof that the old theory was
correct, except the ideas of men who supposed that
appearances were safe to go by.
The historian, say of the time of Ezra the scribe,
undertaking to construct out of the material at hand
a history of the past, did faithfully apply himself
to his task, and culled out of the mass of ideas,
facts, and other material, his story of the beginning
of things and the continuance of them in the nation
of Israel. There was a demand for a history, and
he was prepared to meet that demand. His memory,
his imagination, and all his faculties were placed at
the service of that demand, and there resulted those
books of the Old Testament which we distinguish as
historical.
The work of the historian is not easy, it is difficult.
One difficulty may be specified. An observer, stand-
ing high above the level of the ground, as on the
top of a mountain, enjoys a larger view of things
36 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
than that of the observer lower down. He has a wide
prospect, and all that he sees gives a true idea to his
mind. The farther away his eye roves from the
objects in the immediate foreground, the less he can
discern of details and particulars. Near him lie
stones of a definite shape, containing so many cubic
feet and inches; here and there are masses of snow,
accurately measurable. If the observer is of the
critical sort, he can treasure up in his mind the defi-
mite and smaller facts. As regards the distance, his
observation is limited to outlines, and a general idea
of color and form. If he beholds a patch of snow
miles away, it is vastly larger than the small patch
at his feet, although it seems to be the same in size.
If the point of view were shifted, the scene would be
very different. The shapes of objects would change.
The historian is the man who goes up to a high
point of observation, and takes his view. The things
which are nearest him he perceives with entire clear-
ness. The things which are far from him in time, he
sees faintly. He can perceive outlines, and he feels
the necessity of filling out these outlines to make them
correspond in detail with the time he knows best. The
first historians attribute to men of a distant era the
feelings and purposes and the intelligence which be-
longs to their own era. The first historians are there-
fore unskillful. If there is a truth in the statement
that human nature is the same the world over, and in
all times, it is a truth of limited range. The fact is
that human mature changes in important ways as time
goes on, and that our environment has a great deal to
do with our nature. The first historian of the Jew-
ish people did not know that ; even Milton did not
know it.
HISTORY_MA KING. 37
The work before the historian of the Jews, at the
time of the exile, was to connect the present nation
with its past, and to connect both with the beginning
of things. The national divinity, Jehovah, had be-
come more to some of the prophets and seers of that
period than one of the gods. They were thinking
of Jehovah as the Creator of all nations, and the
rightful Sovereign over all. They were at last emer-
ging from the narrowness of their ancestors.
So the historian, who had acquainted himself with
the learning of the ancients, knew his field, even to
the beginning; for the wisdom of the ancients in-
cluded everything, even the first things. Thus he
begins with the first man, who was as real to him,
perhaps, as any other in the series. The first man
being, so to speak, a ready-made man, a man made all
at once, was complete from the day his eyes first saw
the light. His name was furnished, too. It was, in
English, The Ruddy." It was quite natural that a
man thus made should have such a name. It was
further natural that a man thus completed at one
stroke should be able to reason consecutively, and to
give names to the various animals by which he was
surrounded. He could attend to the horticultural work
demanded by the garden in which he found himself.
He could cultivate the soil in such a way as to in-
crease the value of the trees. All this presented no
insurmountable difficulties to the historian, and it pre-
sents no difficulties to a great multitude of honest
people now.
There was a difficulty, however, in the mind of the
historian, such as might arise in the mind of any
thoughtful person of ancient times, that is, the neces-
sity of attributing to Jehovah a bad creation. Mat-
1 Or perhaps Red Earth.
38 CPEA TION OF THE BIBLE.
thew Arnold has said a very helpful word to us in tell-
ing us that to Israel, more than to any other people,
belonged the intuition of righteousness. Jehovah was
righteous, and was able, after he had finished the
work of creation, to pronounce everything he had
made good. A righteous Creator would not make an
unrighteous world. Yet the hard fact stares us in
the face, that unlighteousness prevails widely, if not
universally, throughout the world.
The wisdom of the ancients had furnished a way
out of that serious difficulty. The man was forbidden
to eat of the fruit of a single tree in the garden. That
tree was the knowledge of good and evil; by absti-
nence from that tree the man could be perfect, or
right: the moment he ate of that tree he would be-
come wrong. That is to say, before eating of that
tree he should know nothing of good and evil, any
more than a bird flying in the air and alighting on
the branches. We should not now regard him a
moral being, in that case. Yet it has long been the
theory of religion that Adam, before he knew the dif-
ference between right and wrong, was a good being.
Now Ezra, if he was the historian, as we may as-
sume for convenience he was, was not very expert in
making distinctions which would occur to almost
any one now who gave heed to a matter. He was
solicitous that God should be right, and his creation
should emerge from his hands perfect; but he had to
account for evil in some way; and the legend of the
serpent, which may have belonged to various peoples,
came to his aid. Jehovah had made the serpent. He
says: “The serpent was the most crafty of all the
brutes on the earth, which Jehovah made.”" This ser-
* The LXX., Bagster’s edition.
HISTORY-MA KING!. 39
pent had either partaken of the fruit of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, or in some other way
had acquired the knowledge, and came and talked
with the woman whom Jehovah had made for the
man's companionship. If all the rest of creation was
fair and good, here was one part of it which was not
good. Moreover, the evil which was in this serpent
was more powerful than all the good which Jehovah
had made, but that did not occur to Ezra. He had to
account for evil, and here was the way of it, ready
furnished by the legends of the ancients.
The serpent talked to the woman in a tempting
manner. That a serpent should talk, and that in a
language which the woman could understand, did not
trouble the mind of the historian. It was contained
in the learning of the ancient world, and since it fitted
his purpose it was available.
We may have been accustomed to read into this
simple narrative something which we have found ne-
cessary. We may have incarnated a malignant and
very powerful spirit of evil in this brute. It is some-
times necessary to read meanings into the language
of the ancient sayings in order to save them. What-
ever we may do, however, it is improbable that our
historian saw these meanings. He was making the
history of his people, and from the beginning of time;
and he was choosing from the material afforded by
the wisdom of the world that which was fit for his pur-
pose. While he was doing that work he was in the
hands of that Providence which is ever providing.
Out of roots of past thought spring flowers of later
and better thought. After we have the later and the
better, we can read into the earlier the best we know.
The wise man can read the tulip in the bulb and the
40 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
oak in the acorn. That has nothing to do with the
historical work of the historian. He connects the
reputed founder of the Israelitish tribes with the first
man. He has the names of families. Genealogies
have been preserved, as such things are preserved,
when people learn their value. The names belonging
to the earliest periods may well be unhistorical. The
mixture of the historical with the purely mythical was
inevitable to the historian of that time.
If we bring to bear on this subject the faculties of
judgment we are in the habit of applying everywhere
(except, perhaps, to the Bible), we shall be compelled,
for various reasons, to hold the beginning of the his-
tory in the Bible to be mythical. -
If we were to meet anywhere, outside of our Bible,
a story of a serpent talking to a woman, uttering ar-
ticulate words with sense in them, we should hold that
to be an ancient myth. We should never for a mo-
ment mistake it for history. If in any language we
read the story of a god making a woman out of a
single bone taken from a sleeping man, we would not
for a moment hesitate to call it a myth. Why should
we hesitate to do the same thing when we discover
such a story in our Bible? If we are to hold our rea-
son and judgment in abeyance when reading that book,
how will we be able to get good out of it? How shall
we maintain anything like mental integrity ?
The first portion of the Bible presents to our view
the work of a historian who is not able to distinguish
actual history from legend. Stories were extant which
were venerable, and commanded the assent of the wise.
These stories helped him to the data he was seeking,
and which were necessary to the completeness of his
Work. By their means he saw, as he supposed, how
HISTORY-MA KING!. 41
man was made from the dust of the ground, and how
woman was made from the rib of the man. He found
how evil came into the world, as well as how Jehovah
kept a seed of righteousness alive. For some purpose
he saw the necessity of attributing a life of great
length to these early dwellers in the land, and dis-
covered legends to that effect. All of which, when
we come to examine it in the light of historical criti-
cism, is simply and unmistakably mythical.
The first chapter of Genesis may be interpreted in
many different ways. However it may be interpreted,
it is a work of the imagination. It really has no his-
torical basis whatever, — it is in the nature of guess-
work. Ezra regarded it as historical material. Doubt-
less he supposed other things equally untenable. He
imagined that the sun revolves around the earth.
He thought that God commanded the people to offer
sacrifices, although sundry persons of a period earlier
than his own, by a century or more, disputed it.
Now guesswork has its value. If guesswork is se-
rious and skillful, we now call it “hypothesis.” New-
ton guessed at the solution of one of the great prob-
lems of the universe. Darwin guessed at the solution
of another. It is in the work of hypothesis that in-
spiration becomes, so to say, most apparent. Let us
admit that in the cosmogony of Genesis we have not
history, but inspired hypothesis. The value of it is
demonstrated by the scientific opinion of experts that
no such good account of creation has appeared in the
annals of time, up to a recent date, as that contained
in the Bible."
1 The Dean of Peterborough quotes Haeckel as affirming that
“from Moses, who died about 1480 R. C., down to Linnaeus, who
was born 1707 A. D., there has been no history of creation to be
42 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
The historical character of the books of the Bible
is invalidated, however, by the discovery that the very
material which has been supposed to be history is not,
and, in the nature of the case, cannot be history.
When we reach the period of the Flood we may be said
to approach that which has some elements of actual
history in it. Such a flood as is described may be set
down as an impossibility. Mr. Gladstone thinks it
was possible, but then Mr. Gladstone has proved him-
self far from expert in many things; whereas the
scientific experts show us why the flood, as described,
could not have occurred. If it could have occurred,
then natural laws were set at defiance, in which case
we have nothing to go by. That there may have been
a flood, of a local sort, such a flood as has since de-
vastated many a fair portion of the earth, seems not
unlikely. That this local flood was an important
event in the history of mankind may also be admitted.
All that we can say is that the account contained in
the historical work of Ezra shows us how he made his
history, and history made in that way is not reliable.
There is this line of righteous life which the histo-
rian finds must have been maintained. The line
reaches at length to Abraham, who becomes the foun-
der of a great nation. The same thing which charac-
terizes the history before Abraham is also continued
afterward. The mythical element is introduced at
every point in the narrative. It was so in the history
of all peoples.
The food of mankind, so far as it grows out of the
soil, comes to us by growth. We have wheat ; the
wheat does not appear in the world in the naked seed:
compared to the Biblical.” Professor Sanday’s Oracles of God,
p. 10, note.
HISTOR Y-MA KING!. 43
it grows in a protecting envelopment. When the
time arrives for that envelopment to be stripped off,
then the wheat is ready to fulfill its mission of feed-
ing the world, but not before. For Christendom the
Bible has grown up as food for the spiritual nature.
It has been growing, and it has been preserved in its
integrity. Now it seems its integrity is being broken.
Criticism is disengaging the real food—food for the
spirit of man — from its sheath of untrustworthy his-
tory. We see that it is unverifiable history. That
is the first step. Until it is seen that the history is
subject, and properly, to our reason, to our judgment,
we do not get into the real intent of the Bible as
a revelation. “He will burn the chaff in the un-
quenchable fire,” said John of the coming Son of Man.
What if the fire be already kindled in shape of that
searching, merciless, and scrupulous criticism which
has newly come into play?
V.
TRADITIONAL SOURCES.
TO many, doubtless, the critical examination of the
Bible appears to be simply a process of tearing the
Bible to pieces. It offends the religious sense, and
the feeling of reverence which has been inherited, or
has otherwise gained possession of the mind. Such
offenses must needs come, but woe to them by whom
they come. We are in the habit of admitting the
validity of a principle, but when we behold the ap-
plication of it we are troubled, and thrown into an
offended state. We may be quite willing to admit
that the Bible is subject to critical study, and ought
to be critically studied; yet when by such critical
study the Bible is found to be no flawless and infalli-
ble revelation, but a human book, - a book produced
by fallible men; good men, and inspired men, but not
necessarily accurately informed men, – a sense of be-
reavement and loss comes upon us. If it is shown
that there are mistakes in the Bible, the inference to
which some minds swiftly move is that it therefore be-,
comes an unsafe guide in religion. Moreover, if the
Bible is God’s book, how is it possible that it should
contain errors 2
A distinguished bishop" has recently and explicitly
told the clergy of his diocese that the doctrine of the
church is that the Bible contains two elements, the
1 Bishop Potter.
TRADITIONAL SOURCES. 45
human and the divine. He says it is one error to sup-
pose that it is all God’s book, and another error to
suppose that it is all man’s book. The doctrine of
the church is that it is both human and divine. Now
it is proverbial that to err is human. If there is a
human element in the Bible, there are errors in it.
It may be that they are not important, but the dis-
covery of an error is a real discovery, important or
not. As a matter of fact, such mistakes are plainly
discoverable. -
It may be a thankless task to ascertain the true
nature of the Bible, or to attempt it, but it is a task
demanded imperatively by the age in which we live,
and by the peculiar crisis which has come in our reli-
gion. There comes a time in the experience of men
when idolatry meets its overthrow. It is a hard ordeal
to see our idolatry broken down, but if we do not flee
from idolatry, we may find ourselves dispossessed of
our idols. The Bible is a created thing, and we
have worshiped and served the created thing rather
than the Creator when we have worshiped the Bible,
or maintained in the face of the evidence that it is
infallible.
The idea of an infallible guidance, and from a book,
belongs to a social state different from ours. It be-
longs to a less individualistic social state. Moreover,
the Bible is of too composite, not to say self-contra-
dictory, a nature to furnish an infallible guidance for
any one. Recognizing which fact, the leaders of reli-
gion have made the creeds for our guidance. The ex-
istence of a creed has been demanded by an actual
deficiency of the Bible ; for the Bible presents a
mass of material which the common mind has not
been able to deal with. The uncommon minds have
46 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
drawn principles and theories out of this mixed mate-
rial for the guidance and government of men.
Some religious men have stubbornly closed their
eyes to the discrepancies in Bible narratives. They
have declared that there were no discrepancies; but
it requires no very great learning to find them. Per-
sons who have been attentively reading the Sacred
writings of Israel in the original tongue have clearly
made out the presence of two elements in large por-
tions of the Bible. To an inattentive reader of the
Bible in the English these two might not appear. If
one were to read any of the books, or the encyclo-
paedia articles bearing upon the subject, the matter
would become quite plain. The two elements are
manifest from the two words applied to Deity.
The Hebrew word for God was El, and the plural
of that is Elohim. The gods of the Phoenicians
would be spoken of as Elohim. There was another
word which was applied only to the God of Israel,
and that was Jehovah, or, more simply, Jahveh.
Now these two words are not used interchangeably,
but their use indicates that two original accounts are
put together. If we were to adopt the distinction now
made by our scholars, we should say that there were
Elohistic Scriptures, or Scriptures in which the word
Elohim was applied to God, and Jehovistic Scrip-
tures in which the word Jehovah is applied. It would
appear that there were people among the religious
leaders of the Hebrews who did not know of Jeho-
vah, and others who did. Inasmuch as the idea of
Jehovah was not the first, we may conclude that
Some time elapsed before the people were believers in
Jehovah. When people had learned to think about
Jehovah, they would write that name, instead of the
TRADITIONAL SOURCES. 47
older name, Elohim. There is something peculiar in
the use of the plural word, (which would properly be
translated “gods,”) which, however, we need not enter
into now. Suffice it to say that these two words in-
dicate different original writers of traditions, and that
the historian endeavored to put together in some sort
of harmony things which were irreconcilable.
The river Rhone issues from Lake Geneva, a clear
stream. Before the Rhone falls into the peaceful
bosom of the lake it is full of the material made by
the grinding of the rocks in the glaciers; but all that
impurity is left in the lake, and when the river flows
from the lake it is pure. A short distance below it is
joined by the river Arve, which takes its rise chiefly in
the glaciers of the Mt. Blanc region. The Arve is a
muddy stream, and where it joins the current of the
Rhone, the waters do not mingle, but there is a line
of demarkation between them. The two streams flow
between the same banks, and make one river, but the
waters are different, and their difference is plainly to
be seen, – which things, as Paul would say, are an
allegory, or parable. Let us say that the Elohistic idea,
that is, the idea of gods or superior powers, is that far
from pure theistic conception which primitive men ac-
quire. That is the idea which Israel, in common with
other peoples, inherited; but falling into the experience
of that peculiar people, there gradually emerges the
pure idea of Jehovah, one God, who is creator and sov-
ereign of all. This seems to have been the pure con-
ception of the prophets of Israel, or of some of them.
Now, in constructing the history of the nation, the
historian does not begin with Jehovah, but with Elo-
him. The two streams, the Jehovah stream and the
Elohim stream, are brought together in one current
48 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
of history, but they do not mix. The Elohistic ac-
count of the creation is given in the first chapter of
Genesis. At the fourth verse of the second chapter
another account appears. There the word Jehovah is
introduced for the first time. The second account
does not harmonize with the first. In the first account
the Elohim causes plant life to precede animal life.
In the second account Jehovah first creates man of
the dust of the ground, and afterward causes the
plants to grow. The first is the Elohistic account,
and the second is the Jehovistic account, and the sec-
ond contradicts the first. So that although the two
run together in the same historic record, they are as
distinct as are the waters of the Arve from those of
the Rhone. In the first account, as any one can see
by simply reading, God commands the plants to grow.
In the second, Jehovah causes a mist to rise from the
ground. In the first account the lower animals are
created before man. In the second account man is
made first, then the lower animals, and afterward
woman. One does not require learning in the He-
brew or any other ancient tongue to be able to see
these facts. All that any one needs is an honest
endeavor to see the facts as they are, and to under-
stand the significance of common English words. For
our translators have performed a service for us, in
many editions of the Bible, in translating the word
Jehovah by the word LORD, and have caused it to
be printed in small capitals. When, therefore, we see
the word LORD in small capitals, we can know that
the Jehovistic account is introduced there.
Thus it is seem that in the religious treasure of IS-
rael at least two, if not more, sorts and series of tra-
ditions were contained. Proof of this emerges from
TRADITIONAL SOURCES. 49
the stories which are told, now of one person and
now of another. The Elohistic tradition will attach
itself to one name, and the Jehovistic tradition to
another.
An instance of this is found in a tale told of Abra-
ham, in the twentieth chapter of Genesis. The same
tale is told of Isaac, in the twenty-sixth chapter. Abra-
ham commands his wife Sarah to call herself his sister,
fearing that Abimelech, king of Gerar, will kill him
for the sake of his wife. The same story is told of
Isaac and his wife, and in each case Abimelech is
the king of Gerar. That a like experience of a do-
mestic sort should happen to father and son is not
improbable ; but because the second tale makes no
allusion to the first we reach the probability that the
first is the same story as the second, only applied to dif-
ferent persons. Yet when we see that the first story
uses the word Elohim, and the second Jehovah, it be-
comes quite evident that we have in the incident only
one account, given, however, in two traditions. It is
related that Abraham digged a well at a certain place,
and called the name of the place Beer-Sheba. It is
related that Isaac digged a well in the same country,
and called the name of it Sheba, and the historian
adds: “Therefore the name of the city is Beer-Sheba
unto this day.” We perceive the great probability
that the different traditions attached the names of
different persons to the same incident in this case
also.
The two traditions are closely joined in some places,
as in the account of the Flood. The Jehovah narra-
tive and the Elohim narrative are dovetailed into each
other, but they do not match as to the facts. The
Elohim narrative says that the animals are to be taken
50 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
into the ark two by two. “Two of every sort shall
come to thee to keep them alive.” The Jehovah
narrative says: “Of every clean beast shalt thou take
to thee seven and seven, the male and the female, and
of the unclean beasts two, the male and the female.”
A discrepancy manifests itself to the most unobser-
vant observer. There is a difference between twos
and sevens, which is represented by the number five.
This discrepancy arises from the bringing together
into one history of two traditions which contradict
each other.
The Apostle Paul seems to have been in the habit
of introducing parentheses of exhortation into the cur-
rent of his argument. He wished to anticipate objec-
tions. He desired that those who read his letters
should be in a right frame of mind. Following his
example, it may be well to anticipate the objection,
which is not unlikely to arise, that the method here
pursued tends to tear the Bible to pieces. Surely
that is an objection well worth consideration. All
nature is studied. We look as closely as we may into
the developments of nature. It is well that we should
do so. While we study nature we at the same time,
and to an extent, reverently be it spoken, study God.
Now the student of nature, one who has informed him-
self concerning the rocks and the layers of them which
underlie our soils, has attention called to some lofty
and magnificent bridge. There is a great arch span-
ning a chasm. In this arch he discerns two rocks
firmly cemented together. They differ, perhaps, in
color and in texture.
He looks upon them, and declares that one belongs
to a period of the past, say the Eozoic, and the other
to a later, say the Mesozoic. One was made thou-
TRADITIONAL SOURCES. 51
sands of years before the other, yet here they are
joined together very firmly in one structure. The
man does not have to get powder, or other explosive,
and blow up our noble bridge, with its wide arch, in
order to identify these different stones, and declare
that they have been fitted together by human art and
ingenuity. He does not have to say that the buildcra
of the bridge were dishonest because they joined the
stones of different periods in their arch. If the Lau-
rentian stone and the Jurassic stone are in the arch,
and if it stands.secure in spite of their conjunction,
and fulfills its purpose, the man does not destroy the
bridge by his geological statements. It might indeed
appear to him that the arch would possibly have been
better built with stones of the same period, but the
bridge is what it is, and he recognizes and states the
fact.
The Bible stands before us as a literary construc-
tion. Every intelligent person as well knows that
it is a construction as that men builded the bridge.
The Bible was built out of materials in the form of
traditions. Some of these traditions are older than
others, belonging to different periods, and yet they are
wrought together in the same structure, and those
things which did not originally belong together are
made by the historian to stand together. Now if we
seek to identify these various parts and analyze the
Bible, the fear seizes the mind of the timid that the
Bible is being torn to pieces; but the Bible will not
be torn to pieces. It long since took the form which
it will doubtless maintain as long as the earth lasts.
There is, however, something which will doubtless
happen, and that is a change of opinion about the
Bible. There has happened a very great change of
52. CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
opinion about the earth, and the stars, and the relation
of the earth to other bodies in space. The old heavens
have passed away, and the old earth, if we speak in
the language of poetry. Certainly the earth has not
changed so much as our ideas of it have, and our ideas
have changed in a way most profitable to us. We can
employ the powers and forces of the universe far bet-
ter than our fathers could. I think it must be the
same with reference to the Bible.
Matthew Arnold says this: “At the present mo-
ment two things about the Christian religion must
surely be clear to anybody with eyes in his head. One
is, that men cannot do without it; the other, that they
cannot do with it as it is.” There are many reasons
why they cannot do without it, and certain reasons
which are now rising into prominence why they cannot
do with it as it is. Among these latter is the fact that
the Christian religion, as it has been professed, joins
in an artificial unity those things which have no real
or vital harmony. We have one of the parables of
Christ to the effect that a man who hears his sayings
and does them not is like one who builds' his house
upon the sand : the house falls down when the storm
comes. The parable has a wide application. It is
precisely what our Christian religion has done, and
is still engaged in doing. It has claimed to have
an infallible revelation from God covering the facts
of creation and the history of the people of Israel.
It has demanded of its adherents that they accept for
truth those things which common experience either
denies or is doubtful about. It has attached an im-
portance which they do not deserve to the confused
traditions of a people whose inspired thinking was
provisional, and almost all of whose ideas are revised
.#
TRADITIONAL SOURCES. 53
by later experience. The result is a dubiousness in
the mind of intelligent people concerning the va-
lidity of the religion of Christ. If that religion com-
pels us to believe that contradictory things are not
contradictory, that seven is the same as two, and that
the impossible has happened, then it is doomed to go
down in proportion to the rise of rational intelligence;
but the foundation of the real religion of Christ is
not of such incoherent material. It does not rest on
the confused and primitive traditions of a people of
whom Jesus said that they made void the word of
God through their traditions.
Let us return to our main line of illustration of
the fallibility of the work of the sacred historian.
One may select at random, from numerous instances,
illustration of the unskillful method of the editor of
the Old Testament Scriptures. A code of laws seems
to have been given the Israelites in the desert, upon
their flight out of Egypt. Some account of that we have
in the second book of the Bible, the book of Exodus.
But a fuller exposition of the laws appears in the
book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible. It
has been supposed always, or since the Bible has been
read by the people, that this fuller expression of the
laws of Israel was written by Moses, and only a little
later than the account given in Exodus. Evidence
has arisen that some of the laws contained in the book
of Deuteronomy were devised long after the time of
Moses. It may be that these laws were many or most
of them devised hundreds of years after the flight of
Israel out of Egypt, and it may also be that some
of them have no historical basis whatever.
We will note that there grew up in Israel, in later
times, a great hatred of other nations, and of some
54 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
\ -
other nations in particular. This feeling expressed
itself in some of the laws and usages of a later pe-
riod. It was assumed by the historian that Moses
gave these laws, yet it is curious that the law-abiding
people near the time of Moses acted as though they
had never heard of these laws. For instance, there
is a law against any fellowship with the Ammonites
and the Moabites: “An Ammonite or a Moabite
shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord; even to
the tenth generation shall none belonging to them
enter into the assembly of the Lord forever.”
But in the days of the judges, which was not long
after Moses, a Moabitess was married by one of the
chief personages of a certain locality, and no word of
disapproval seems to have been uttered by any one.
Indeed, this Moabitish woman was the ancestress of
the great king David. This is a mere incident, to
be sure, but it is one of many which shows how the
book of Deuteronomy was composed, of how diverse
elements, and how widely some of its parts are sepa-
rated in time. If some future historian of the United
States were to tell the incident of the murder of a
certain Boston man by a professor in a medical school,
and were to add that this professor was punished by
electrocution, it would be open to the critic to show
that electrocution became a law in the State of New
York long after the Parkman murder, and that the
historian mistook a law of New York for a law of
Massachusetts.
The work of the historian was not accurate histori-
cal work. We have a history containing most serious
flaws. These frankly exhibit themselves to anybody
who will look at them, and by their existence two
things would appear to be demonstrated: first, that
TRADITIONAL SOURCES. 55
accurate history is not necessary to the real religion
of Christ; second, that the traditions which include
accounts of miracles, such as the changing of rods
into serpents, the standing of water “upon an heap * in
the bed of the Jordan to admit the passage of Israel
dry-shod, the standing still of the sun, and the like,
do not furnish us with the substance out of which a
real history can be made. All that we can know by
them is what the people of old believed in regard to
such things, and how easy it was for the most improb-
able stories to command assent.
Meanwhile the Bible, which contains the religion of
Christ, and that other religion upon which the religion
of Christ was founded, while it becomes less and less
to us a book of history or of science, will be likely to
become more and more a book of religion and of the
development thereof in the thoughts of men.
VI.
LEGENDARY ELEMENTS.
TRADITION has favored the idea that Ezra the
scribe is to be credited with the formation of the Old
Testament canon. We have seen that the work of
Ezra, or some contemporary, was of a more general
character than that. It may be said that the Old
Testament made its appearance in the world for the
first time under his hand. ---
No historian creates history. His imagination is
not employed in devising facts; he takes the facts as
he finds them, and brings them together, not into a
mere mass, but into an organic whole. History is not
like a catalogue. It is not a list of things which have
happened ; it is not a heap of stories; it is a kind
of body, instinct with life. In that body the past
speaks. The history is wholly made of material al-
ready in existence, not evolved from the inner con-
sciousness of the historian. The historian chooses
and prepares his material. He condenses this, and
enlarges that. According to his best judgment, he
finds the relations of the facts, which experience has
supplied. He may not always get the right relation.
The less skill he possesses the more liable will he be
to go astray. The result of his work will be a con-
nected tissue; a real fabric, woven together. No
man has ever yet written a perfect history; it will
be long before such a history can be written. If it
LEGENDA R Y ELEMENTS. 57
were written, it would not be a mathematically exact
reproduction of facts as they occurred; for that would
be no history, perfect or imperfect.
Perspective comes in the work of the historian as
really as in the art of the landscape painter. The
Chinese painters give a very faithful picture of details.
The Chinese artist's fisherman is undoubtedly accu-
rate, and the boat which he paddles. The mountains
are good and the representation of water and all the
like ; but the Chinese painter is most faulty in per-
spective. That is to say, his fisherman will be about
as large as his mountain, and the fisherman's boat
would never be able to get through the mouth of one
of his livers. The artist undoubtedly proposes to do
ample justice to the man and his boat ; we must be
able to see the features of the man, and the cracks
and knots in the boat ; but that necessitates making
the man and the boat so large that the rest of the
landscape is thrown into fault thereby. It might be
better, for the purpose of art, to make the boat by
one little indefinite stroke of the brush, and the man
by another. So it is in history-making. That is a
work of high art. What we require in history is
that it shall be a picture; that it shall not be an end-
less chain of stories of particular individuals with no
attention to perspective. Ezra wished to put Israel's
truth, that truth for which it stood, in a setting of
past events. The setting was now felt to be neces-
sary. The law of right conduct must be traced, and
through the mazes of genealogies, legends, creation-
hymns, and tales of heroes he traced it. When we
require of him that his history shall be authentic even
to the beginning, as history, we require too much.
Our scientific teachers tell us that the young of a
58 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
species epitomizes the history of its race. The young
frog is first a young fish, and afterward a young some-
thing else. The young child is like the young human
race. It has its life and its experience, but of this
experience it can give very little account in after years.
Its earliest months are real enough, but when the
child, grown up, undertakes to tell the story, there is
a point where definiteness begins. Behind that point,
all is indefinite. Of the months succeeding its birth
it has no memory whatever. Then there arises some
one incident which makes sharp impression upon the
child’s mind, perchance some little matter of domes-
tic discipline, or some beginning of a moral percep-
tion, and that is retained in memory. It is at that
point the historical material begins. After a while
something else occurs, which makes an addition to the
small historical stock. Later a more closely connected
view of incidents, and acquirements, and the like arises;
but the early things will forever be shrouded in the
mystery of infancy. -
So it is with the human race. For a long time after
the race is born, as a human race, it has no history
which can be told. Then incidents come which are
made much of. These are out of proportion to the
place accorded them. They are explained in the way
ehildren explain things. Thus arise the legend and
the myth. What is true of one portion of the hu-
man race is true practically of all. There is a battle
fought between one tribe and another. The day-
light seems to be protracted beyond its usual length.
This is felt to be to enable the victors to pursue their
victory more thoroughly. Thus grows up the legend
of the standing still of the sun. A legend of a flood
which is so great that it covers the whole earth with
LEGENDA R Y ELEMENTS. 59
its waters, and rises above the tops of lofty moun-
tains, a flood which destroys all living things, ex-
cept the marine, has for its basis some disaster in the
shape of a flood. Which actual flood, however, does
not rise above the tops of the mountains, and does
not cover the earth, and destroy all land life.
Such incidents, built up into such legends, adorn the
pages of all the first attempts of men to tell about
the first things, or the things of man's infalley. As
the race grows older, it becomes more discriminat-
ing. Its historians grope patiently in the mass of the
early things, and confess that we are ignorant of the
actual occurrences in the childhood of the world. In
the legend they recognize a basis of incident which
made impression upon a time, so that it was pushed
forward into prominence and embalmed in the myth.
This brings to our view something of importance,
namely, it is the duty and privilege of a child to learn
by experience, and to outgrow its earlier and more
crude interpretation of things. The same duty be-
longs to the human race.
There are many intelligent persons who somehow
or other hold it to be a sort of duty to believe, or to
profess belief of things which their sober and trained
judgment refuses to accept. They do not proceed in
that way with reference to the practical affairs of life,
but only with reference to religion. Thus their reli-
gion becomes a sort of invertebrate religion, — a re-
ligion which has not real stamina, and sturdy, inde-
pendent uprightness. It is never safe to tamper with
the truth and accept fables. Wherever you find the
fables, it is safe to recognize them as such, and to
make use of them as fables. It is not safe to call them
the facts of history, because in so doing one becomes
60 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
careless about the truth of a thing. He renders him-
self incapable of adhering to the truth through evil
report and difficulty. It is held to be an act of piety
by some to believe every statement made in the Bible,
even if it should transpire that the statement could
not be true, taken in its literalness. Pious men deny
the discrepancies in the Bible genealogies and other
accounts. They start with the proposition that the
Bible contains no error of any sort, and then they
hold to the proposition in the face of the plainest evi-
dence. Now they do themselves a moral damage, and
are acting impiously. There is a lack of candor and
truthfulness in them, which makes the very root of
religion unsound. •
Let us consider for a moment the martyrs. A mul-
titude of heroes have died rather than live a false pro-
fession. Such stout honor redeems our race. They
have faced the beasts of the arena, and the fires of
persecution, and the loss of friends and of all things,
in order to be true to their convictions. Such men
were not well informed, but so far as their informa-
tion went, they did strictly abide in their truth. A
certain light had broken in upon them in the progress
of God’s creation, and that light they welcomed, and
embraced, and stood by. Their fellów-men crucified
them, or burned them, or tortured them, or flung them
to the lions. Whenever a man obstinately stands
against the light, and will none of it, he takes his
stand against God, for it is God who pours the light
down. It is God who builds new ages upon the ruins
of old ages. It is God who makes increasing revela-
tion of himself and his truth, as time goes on.
Professor Sanday quotes from the Table Talks of
Luther : “Melancthon, discoursing with Luther touch-
LEGENDA R Y ELEMENTS. 61
ing the prophets, who continually boast thus, ‘Thus
saith the Lord, asked whether God, in person, spoke
with them or no. Luther replied: “They were very
holy, spiritual people, who seriously contemplated upon
holy and divine things; therefore God spake with them
in their consciences, which the prophets held as sure
and certain revelations.’”* It is a reasonable view,
and of great consequence. For all men who studi-
ously contemplate any of the things of God in any
department of his creation will be not separate from,
but closely in line with God’s revelation. It is thus
the revelation has been made from time to time. Thus
and not otherwise Johann Kepler thought God’s
thoughts over after him. Others have seen the light
of his truth in like manner.
It has been complained that the religious world
obstinately opposes the advance of truth in the world.
Modern astronomy had to fight for its life, and geol-
ogy had its struggle for existence. Modern biology
has been compelled to fight its battle. Why? Is
it because men, as men, are always opposed to pro-
gress 2 Is it not rather because religious men and
men of the Bible have been opposed to the new
theories 2 The new astronomy was contrary to the
Bible, the new geology was opposed to Holy Writ,
and biology does not harmonize with Moses. Reli-
gious people were afraid of the light of new discov-
eries. The Bible proceeds upon the general theory
that the earth is flat; and the religious world said to
the discoverers that they must not prove the earth’s
rotundity. It was not a question of truth, but of
what the Bible was supposed to say ; and what the
Bible said was to end all dispute. We have learned
* The Oracles of God. Preface to the second edition.
62 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
Surely that the earth is not flat. So much light God,
through the astronomers, who contemplated his truth,
has set shining among us. The truths of geology and
of biology are each a light God sends to us. By rea-
son of a false notion of the nature of the Bible many
have set God’s light at defiance.
It is a strange thing that men should have used the
Bible thus obstructively, and fenced out God’s light
with it ; that is, however, precisely what they have
done, and are more or less continuing to do. Jesus
boldly revised the law and the prophets of Israel. He
learned from them their truth, but he brought forth new
truth, and was thus a light in the world. The uphold-
ers of the sacred traditions were roused to great wrath
by his conduct. They spoke of him as a blasphemer,
while he on his part told them that they refused to
come to the light because they preferred darkness.
The severity of the reproof justifies itself. Any person
who prefers the statements of the Scriptures to the
knowledge which now enlightens the intelligent world
shows the same preference for darkness which charac-
terized the defenders of the old faith.
We talk of the Scriptures as sacred. There is a
reason why we should so speak of them, but we ought
to lay it well to heart, and it would be a bright day
if all mankind could once grasp the thought, so late in
making its way, that what makes the value of the
Scriptures or of anything extant among us is the
truth, not the error, they contain. The really and
eternally sacred thing is truth. Now truth is no mere
rock-like and stable substance, but it is a growing
plant. It is apprehended, not by those who love state-
ments for themselves, but by those who love truth.
To those who love truth for its own sake, nothing will
LEGENDARY ELEMENTS. 63
stand in the way. The truth they will have if it is
procurable. They will not let words of the wise, long
spoken, stand in their way. They will not permit the
traditions of the past to hinder the truth which walks
to-day.
We make a far-reaching mistake when we attribute
to anything more than properly and naturally belongs
to it. The Israelites took trees and lopped off the
branches, and then drove the trunks into the ground
about their altars. They are called “groves” in our
common version of the Bible. Really these were
emblems of the goddess Ashera, and the goddess
Ashera represents the “female side of the beneficent
and fertilizing sun-god.” These wooden posts were
only wooden posts. They had grown as trees, under the
kindly influences of nature, but when men had wrought
their devices upon them, to make them signify some-
thing more than trees, they fell into that curious
something we have learned to call idolatry. Under
the influence of the Sun, the trees do actually grow,
put forth their leaves and the buds and fruit. It is
right to recognize the fact, but when the trees are
set up around the altars to receive the worship of man-
kind, they make for idolatry, which is confusion.
There is a more subtle and refined idolatry to which
our Christendom is no stranger. A book is set up to
be our infallible guide and God’s speech to us. What
the book declares in any portion of it is to be taken to
be God's truth for us. To inquire further or to doubt
is held to be an evil, involving a distrust of the Most
High. That is attributing to the Bible more than be-
longs to it. More than could possibly belong to it, for
is not the book a device of men 2 It grew in men's
thoughts, through the illuminating influences of the
64 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
Spirit of God, no doubt. These thoughts, more or
less appropriate to their time, have been extended or
diminished so as to fit that structure of revelation in
which we find them.
Pillars of stone were set up in various places in the
borders of Israel. It is perfectly right to have pillars
of stone erected for certain purposes: the common
purpose is of a memorial nature. There were some
of the Jews, at least, who thought of these stones as
simply memorial and nothing more. There were
others who regarded them as the abodes of this or
that deity. These last attributed to the pillars that
which did not and could not belong to them, and were
idolaters. There are beautiful images of stone and
bronze erected in the streets and parks of cities.
They serve for the most part a memorial purpose.
They are so far superior to the images worshiped by
heathens, that a heathen visiting London, for instance,
might be powerfully moved to fall down and adore the
mere statuary of the place. His mistake would lie in
attributing to the work of art somewhat more than he
ought. It might be to him, if he were far down in
the ranks of heathenism, the abode of a deity. There
is nothing to be complained of in the images, nothing
whatever. It is well to have monuments as memori-
als of great deeds and great events, but they ought to
be regarded as memorials.
The Bible is a memorial, a monument, the very best
literary product of ancient times. There are blemishes
in it. It tells us of the thoughts of men of an early
time. These men were strongly influenced by the
higher motives through which God blesses our human-
kind. These higher were in struggle with all sorts of
lower motives, but the motive of righteousness came
LEGENDA R Y ELEMENTS. 65
to prevail more and more. That is the crowning
glory of the Bible. The book itself indicates to us
that the higher motive emerged by slow process, pain-
fully fighting its way against the opposition of man-
kind. The higher was always beset by the lower.
The grander apprehension of the best men, who felt
that God is a Spirit, and must be worshiped, not in
particular places and by particular performances and
by a specific set of men, was continually obstructed
and silenced by the people who wished to be idolaters.
They must have their spectacular shows. They cared
more for the dress of the priest than they did for the
character of the suppliant. They cared more for the
external order of the sacrifice than for the feeling of
the heart. Therefore it was that the man of the
greater apprehension was compelled to complain that
they drew nigh God with their lips, while their hearts
were far from him.
The Bible presents to us not only a memorial of the
grander apprehension; it also gives, and in tedious
detail, the lower and spurious apprehension of the
idolaters. We have their version of God, as well as
the better version. What it all comes to is this, that
we have the responsibility of making proper choice
for ourselves, and with such light or lack of it as
we have of the things the Bible tells us. When we
conclude, as many seem to have done, that in this
memorial of the religion of the past God dwells;
when we are told, as we have been, that God is in the
book, in the sense that God’s Spirit in some way per-
wades its pages, so as to make it different from any
other book, we are attributing to the book that which
does not belong to it, and we are making an idol of it.
Now the idolatrous worship of the book is the real
66 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
religious sin of the time; and this idolatrous worship
of the book goes with much careless reading of it, and
therefore a superficial knowledge of its contents. But
it is of that with which men have a shallow acquain-
tance, that they can make the most sweeping assertions.
They can say, if they know nothing about the facts of
the case, that there are no mistakes in the Bible. They
can say with great confidence that all its prophecies
have been fulfilled, or, if not, that they will be fulfilled.
I think we discover that those who know the most
about anything are apt to talk about it in somewhat
guarded terms. The wide-sweeping statements which
we are accustomed to hear and read about the Bible
are the most untrustworthy of all statements, because
they show a lack of knowledge.
There are in the historical portion of the Old Testa-
ment two sets of national traditions regarding the gov-
ernment of Israel. In one of these we read that under
stress of peculiar circumstances King David purchased
a field and a threshing-floor of a Jebusite. The king
wished to make a sacrifice, and he proposed to have it
no mere cheap sacrifice, made by another man, but
by himself. Wherefore, although the man offered
the oxen of his threshing-floor and all the place to the
king to use as it might please him, the king declined the
gift. So far, in the main, the stories agree, but as to
the price paid they totally disagree. In one account
we are told that David paid the man six hundred she-
kels of gold, and in another that he paid fifty shekels
of silver. It is true that the men named in this trans-
action seem at first glance to be different men, but the
circumstances make it most probable that there are two
stories of one event. If a man declares, in the method
characteristic of the careless and the extravagant, that
I.EGENDA R Y ELEMENTS. 67
there are no blunders, and if a blunder is shown him,
he may explain it in some manner, but the object of
the explanation is to fortify a notion of the Bible
which is becoming more and more untenable. The
object is to maintain that the Bible is infallible, or
without even the slightest error. That attributes to
the created thing the quality which belongs only to
the uncreated. God is infallible : men are not, and
men wrote the Bible. The Bible is the work of men’s
hands. It is the work of their thoughts, and their
imagination, and their consciences; and God works
unceasingly in the most enlightened consciences, and
in the most consecrated imaginations, and in the most
true thought of men so as to give an increasing reve-
lation of himself and his glory. e
Another thing. The inaccuracies of the Bible,
those very things which lie plain upon the pages of
the book, are in respect to things of no practical mo-
ment. It concerns us no whit what David paid for
a field. It does concern us that David repented of
evil designs, and made his effort for righteousness.
Whether Moses was a descendant of Abraham, or an
Egyptian, really does not concern our character; but
that a law of God came to Moses through his serious
“contemplation upon holy and divine things” is of
very great interest to us. The revelation came that
the revelation might continue to come. When we
worship the means of the revelation, by calling it iner-
rant, as the phrase is, we foreclose the farther revela-
tion we might be receiving. For the problems of our
time, for our own right conduct and influence in our
time, we need not a settled formula of the past, but
speech with God in the living present.
VII.
PROPELECY.
THE word prophecy has come to mean more than its
original significance. The prophet was God’s speaker
at first, but afterwards came to be one who could fore-
tell the future. Ability to speak for Jehovah seems
to imply an ability to look into the mystery of the
future and disclose it. If one is in the counsels of
Jehovah, knowing God’s mind, it is not difficult for
him to perceive what shall come to pass; but it does
not necessarily follow that one who knows the mind
of God in respect to some things is also informed in
respect to all things. It not only does not follow, but
it is absurd. There is not a living person, whose in-
telligence is at all developed, who does not know some-
thing of the mind of God. There is no one to whom
the world does not express something, and something
which is true. All persons know of the alternation
of day and night, of Seedtime and harvest, and of ten
thousand other cosmic facts and arrangements. These
things disclose an order and an intelligence. We may
not be able to give a very good or sufficient account of
that intelligence, or of the order which it testifies to ; it
is a fact that no one can give a sufficient account of
creation. Yet, in so far as we discern order and intel-
ligence in the cosmos, we are let into the mind of God;
but that privilege is strictly limited. Those who best
See the meaning of present things are likely to know
PROPHECY. 69
most of the future. The knowledge of the future is
not a supernatural gift, or at least it is no more a su-
pernatural gift than the knowledge of the past or the
present.
In the Bible we encounter a prominent class of
writers, perhaps the most prominent of all, known as
the prophets. Soothsayers, necromancers, witches,
medicine men, and all the like belong to the history
of all tribes of men. Astrologers consult the stars
and necromancers the dead, and medicine men go
through various frenzied performances to gain some
knowledge of the future. These persons attain in-
fluence in their tribes and become chiefs and priests
and prophets or sages. Israel, while it had its sooth-
Sayers and necromancers and astrologers at various
times, and possibly in some abundance, presents us
with the vision of a higher class. The reason why
this class is higher is chiefly that it is more sober,
more reasonable, and more solicitous for righteous-
In 62.SS.
It is with the prophets who spoke to Israel, and
who wrote out their addresses afterward in that per-
manent form which has survived to this day, that we
begin the study of Israel's history. Before them we
have confused and contradictory traditions with a large
admixture of myth. With them we seem to arrive
at the solid ground of reality. These prophets of the
beginning of Israel’s reliable history do not spring
into existence all at once. There are intimations of
the presence of prophets in the time of Samuel, that
is before Israel became a kingdom. There appear to
have been communities or groups of them. These
groups we may call “schools of the prophets.” And
possibly they were like certain communities of monks
70 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
flourishing in later times, and some of which were
devoted to specific objects. These men were known
as “men of the spirit,” or inspired, and were prob-
ably subject to ecstatic visions. They contemplated
holy things, and not without result. Thus in due
time arose an official class, connected with the govern-
ment or with the priesthood. There were some who
were authorized to speak, and who gave their predic-
tions concerning the outcome of wars and other enter-
prises. Others commanded a hearing, whether belong-
ing to the recognized prophetic class or not. They
were the real, as distinguished from the official pro-
phets. These uttered their warnings and admonitions
simply because they had something to say, and were
determined to say it.
Perhaps one of the first of the prophets who wrote
his predictions was Amos, who flourished a little later
than the time of Solomon. He prophesied against
Damascus and its sins, against Gaza, Tyre, Idumaea,
Ammon, and others, and finally against Israel. He
seems to have predicted the downfall of all these.
His prophecies have been justified by events: for
none of the cities and families against whom he
spoke remain, except Israel. Amos uttered his pro-
phecies at Bethel, which was at that time the centre
of worship of Israel. The chief priest at Bethel sent
word to the king of Israel to inform him that Amos
was forming conspiracies against the kingdom, and
that the land would be utterly unable to bear his
words. Finally, the priest bade Amos go out of the
land and live in Judah. “Thou shalt no longer
prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary.”
Amos answered, professing to be no prophet, “I
was not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I
PROPHECY. 71
was a herdsman and a gatherer of figs. And Jeho-
vah took me from the sheep, and said to me, Go
prophesy to my people Israel.” This is the man who,
while disclaiming the prophetic office, claimed the
prophetic gift. His theory of the work of the pro-
phet may be gathered from these words, “Jehovah
will do nothing without revealing instruction to his
servants, the prophets.” Nothing more clearly sums
up the idea which the genuine prophets had of their
own service. Jehovah would as surely reward iniquity,
as pain would follow a bruise. Of that there was no
doubt in any true prophet’s mind. Israel would fall,
as Amos declared, nay, in effect was already fallen.
At one time he declared that Israel should never rise,
but the warning of the catastrophe would surely pre-
cede the event.
By such words as these we acquire a knowledge of
the field or province of prophecy. Jehovah will do
nothing without revealing instruction to his servants,
the prophets. If we judge these words fairly, and
in their connection, we shall escape that false notion
of prophecy which has had so wide a following at
various times. The herdsman was attending to the
duties of his vocation, and meanwhile meditating
upon the state of things in his nation, and in other
nations. He was alive to the degeneracy of the times.
He saw, as plainly as he could see his flocks, that calam-
ity would follow such degeneracy. Because he saw it,
he felt that Jehovah was calling him away from his
flocks to go and tell Israel of the woes which should
surely overtake the nation, unless it changed. He
who sees things of importance to his time, and is
deeply convicted of them, leaves his flocks or what-
ever of personal interest might withhold him, and goes
as his conscience, that is to say, as God, calls him.
72 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
The scope of the prophet thus called is strictly
limited. He is not a fortune-teller. He does not
so much foretell future events as describe the certain
result of present tendencies. It was characteristic of
the Israelitish prophets to declare in a thousand ways
that Israel would be rooted up out of its home and
carried away. It was the way of conquest in those
times to transfer a conquered people from their soil.
It is notable that a great military power afterward
arose which left the conquered peoples where it found
them ; but that mode had not yet come. It was easy,
therefore, for the prophet to see that Israel would be
deported, when it should bee conquered. Amos, liv-
ing before the rise of the great Assyrian sovereignty,
saw that Israel would be conquered by some of the
surrounding powers.
We have already seen that Israel’s writers were
clearest in their history in the times nearest them-
selves; that as they went back into the past they be.
came involved more and more in that inaccuracy
which belongs to lack of knowledge. It may be said
that their best view of the future was of things immi-
ment, not of things afar off. If they had their dreams
of far-off times in the future, they were of such stuff
as our dreams of the distant future is commonly com-
posed. We ourselves are not without our prophets,
who foretell us the future. Perhaps one of the most
widely read of modern books is the dream of Mr.
Bellamy. It is a forecast of the time when socialism
shall be realized and shall bless the world. Only we
are very sure that it can never come to pass, and for
obvious reasons. The chief value of the prophecy
of Mr. Bellamy does not at all lie in the picture of
the end of the, twentieth century. That is merely a
PROPHECY. 73
piece of literature, and of an attractive form. The
great value of the book is that it calls attention to the
present tendencies. It may not even be a correct
view of them, - undoubtedly is an imperfect view,
but it is like a voice of warning which startles us,
and sets us considering how we may possibly amend
matters.
I do not see why it should not be precisely as true
now as it was in the days of Amos, that God will do
nothing without revealing instruction to his servants
the prophets. Yet the limit of the prophetic gift is
to be soberly admitted. It is simply impossible for
any finite intelligence to pry far into the future ;
while it is not only possible, but of common experi-
ence, that the best instructed men of any age are
precisely those who know something of their present,
and by light of it are able to discern the near-by
future. We may conclude, reasonably, that if a
prophet had arisen in Israel who could have foretold
the discovery of a new continent, to be called America,
and by the energy and skill of a man of one of the
western nations, and at a time corresponding with our
year of the Christian era, 1492, then we should have
to hold that prophecy is of a miraculous nature — a
kind of fortune-telling, and that by its aid we may
look far into the future; but we find no such definite
instance of the scope of the prophecy. What we do
find is the prediction of the downfall of Israel, its con-
quest by its enemies, and that prophecy was fulfilled.
There were wise men in our own land half a century
ago who predicted the trouble that was rising already
Concerning the slave. It was given to one statesman
to declare, upon a memorable occasion, that between
the system of slavery and freedom there is an irre
74 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
pressible conflict. Yet neither the time nor the mafi-
ner of the issue of the conflict could be predicted
until the time was at hand. God gives us intelligence
of things which are shortly coming to pass. Not to
the foolish, and not to the indifferent, but to those
who love the ways of truth and hate evil, God gives
intimation of his work before the work is accom-
plished. That is what Amos tells us, and that is also
what wide experience corroborates.
Our intelligence is of such sort that it does not
concern itself altogether with the immediate present.
It takes hold upon the past, and lays its grasp upon
the future. The wise can always foresee things, and
do foresee them. We plan ahead, and we heed the
warnings of experience, but if any one projects his
imagination too far into the future, and attempts to
declare the things which shall come to pass remotely,
he is sure to fail in his predictions. Or, if he at-
tempts to use the language of precision, and to de-
scribe in detail some far-off events, he will surely
blunder.
There is a considerable diversity in the prophets of
Israel. It is in the study of this diversity that our
scholars have arrived at the degree of probability,
which amounts practically to certainty, that our book
of Isaiah, in the Bible, is not the work of one prophet.
Both of the prophets who were in the main the authors
of the book of Isaiah are to be distinguished very
clearly from the sort of prophet who wrote the book
of Ezekiel. He is more given to ecstasy, and to the
Assyrian method, than others of the prophets. He
entertains hopes, which lead him to predict things
which have not come to pass. We may be quite sure
that the things he foresaw, some of them in very
PROPHECY. 75
detail, will never come to pass. He tells us that the
word of Jehovah came to him, to take one stick and
write upon it, “For Judah, and those of Israel who
were associated with him.” He was likewise to take
another stick and write upon that, “For Joseph, the
stick of Ephraim, and those of Israel associated with
him.” Now it is plain that by these two sticks, thus
named, is signified the two kingdoms into which the
original one kingdom of David and Solomon had been
separated. Such an allegorical object-lesson teaching
was not uncommon in Israel. The people would ask
the prophet what the sticks meant, and he would tell
them that they meant the divided houses of Israel.
The sticks would become one ; and so after all the
years of division, the two houses would be united
again. Of one thing we are very certain, and that is
that this union has never taken place. I think it is
admitted, even by the most conservative of students,
that Israel or Ephraim remained distinct. After the
Babylonian exile, it seems that much of that portion
of Israel which is represented by the name Ephraim
became merged in other peoples, and lost its identity.
Now, if we were to analyze the feelings of the
prophet, considering his tender patriotism, and his
pious trust in the words of those who had gone before
him, we should see that it seemed a very word of
Jehovah to him that the sundered Israel would be re-
stored, and that it would take up its neglected mission
to the nations, and perform it faithfully to the end.
The old twelve tribes, the tribes of the promises which
had recently been rehearsed in the ears of the return-
ing exiles, would rise, as out of the very valley of
death in which they had fallen, and would be an
exceeding great army, enough to conquer the world.
76 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
This was the prophet's hope, and it became his pre-
diction, but it was not fulfilled. To-day there is no
reason, except the prediction of the prophet, to hope
that it will be fulfilled. It were as well to expect that
Assyria itself, and the Tyrian, Carthaginian, or old
Roman hosts, would rise out of the dust of long-past
centuries. Let us glance at it a moment. If there
were ten tribes, partly deported to the distant East,
and if these peoples became assimilated with other
peoples, taking their language and their customs, in-
termarrying with them, then our tribes become “lost
tribes,” — lost by assimilation with foreign nations.
It is easy enough to see why it would not require a
long period for them to become indistinguishable from
others, because they would not be Israelitish after a
few generations. We are accustomed to the idea that
omnipotence does not make impossibles possibles. To
cause a race of human beings, now, or at some future
time inhabiting the earth, to revert to anóient condi.
tions, to take the mixture of races, already accom-
plished, out of their blood, is certainly one of the im-
possibles, if any such there are in all the wide domain
of nature. .
An impetuous and almost frantic zeal has been
awakened in the heart of many prophetic enthusiasts
with reference to the fulfillment of prophecy. They
have searched the Scriptures and found the predic-
tions, and having already in mind the fundamental
proposition that the Scriptures are all and altogether
from the infallible wisdom of God, they have pro-
ceeded to predict the regathering of scattered and lost
Israel, the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds
of the sky, the rapture of Saints, the confusion and
condemnation of the disobedient. Thereby the study
PROPHECY. 77
of the prophecies of Israel has been discredited, and
fallen into disuse. The richest product of Israel’s
wisdom and experience has thus become for the most
part of no value to the modern religious world. This
arises from the notion that prophecy is a mirac-
ulous gift, that it is apart from the laws which gov-
ern thought and judgment, and that the prophets
could view the far-off future; whereas the prophets
are the men who perceive the tendencies of things,
and the inevitable consequence of the decline of morals
and of responsibility. They can look into the future,
but they are governed by the laws of thinking. They
are as liable to make such mistakes as Ezekiel made
as other men of insight are to go astray in their esti-
mates of things.
In respect to prophecy we force our belief beyond
the bounds of reason when we consider that men of
any age can predict a remote future, except in the
most general features of it. It is open to any prophet
to maintain the ultimate conquest of good over evil,
but to tell us in what form the good shall display it-
self, or how the conquest shall be effected in detail, is
simply beyond that finite knowledge which prescribes
our limitation. If ever an infinite being were to be
among us, as one of our kind, - which is an impos-
sibility to thought, since such a being would not be
of our kind, - then the most remote future might be
spoken forth as though it were the present.
By reason of a strange perversity we have been in
the habit of ranking the prophets of Israel, earlier
and later, with the astrologers and fortune-tellers. We
have credited them with an ability which transcends
mortal powers. We have read into them more than
they could have meant, and we have not dared to
78 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
revise their conclusions when they required revision.
Out of such perversion have arisen the fanaticisms
which came with the Reformation, — the vagaries of
the fifth monarchy men, – the fright produced by Wil-
liam Miller in the forties of this century, and the vari-
ous earnest but unreasonable fancies of those who have
been looking for the end of the world. Even now,
and from the seat of one of our principal institutions
of learning, warnings are sent forth that the world is
on the verge of ultimate disaster; that the mercy or
grace of God is to come to a pause within a few
months, and that we have fallen upon the last times.
There is much to justify these extravagances in the
words of the prophets, especially some of the prophets,
but there is nothing to justify them in the idea which
the best of the prophets had of their own province.
They were called from other occupations, not to predict
the fall of empires not yet risen, but to warn people of
the impending consequences of their faults. Because
they devoted themselves to such a work, adapted to
their times, and therefore, in the deep meaning of
it, to other times as well, they have given us the word
of Jehovah, unto which we also do well that we take
heed, as to a light shining in a dark place.
The prophetic gift is not an abnormity. It is more
or less put in use in every age. It was exercised by
Lord Bacon when he wrote his “ Novum Organum.”
Plato was a prophet when he wrote the “Republic.”
Washington was a prophet when he wrote his farewell
letter. Every great statesman produced by time has
been a prophet, or he could not have been a great
statesman. The gift of forecast is as natural to man
as is the gift of history-making : the one gift is Sup-
plementary to the other in many cases. To no class
PROPHECY. 79
were the people of Israel so deeply indebted as to
the prophets; it was not the priests who strove to
keep Israel in the paths of Jehovah and his righteous-
ness. It was not the scribes of a later period, it was
not always or often the kings, but the prophets, those
speakers for Jehovah, whose words move our hearts
after so long a time; these were the men of God, the
men of the Spirit, the men of the forward look. Ac-
cording to the opening words of the Epistle to the
Hebrews in our New Testament, God is said to have
spoken, not through the priests and the elders or
chiefs, but through the prophets. They foretold, be-
fore they came to pass, the consequences of righteous-
ness and of iniquity.
We have the assurance that Jehovah would do
nothing without revealing instruction to his servants,
the prophets. That seems to hold true all along the
track of all ages. The wisest and best of men have
foreseen. They have enjoyed the revelation in their
own reasons of the doings of Jehovah. They have
been able to forewarn the people, and often to avert
the disaster which surely follows unrepented wrong.
Their function has never been to tell us of the end
of the world and of the coming of the Son of Man
in the clouds of heaven, when every eye shall see him.
That has come through no prophetic gift, but through
the frenzy which good men fall into when they tran-
scend their powers of true thinking. We have to
distinguish true prophecy from false; we have to
apply the test which the prophets themselves give us
when they undertake to tell of the things which must
shortly come to pass. Under whatsoever figures of
beasts and trumpets and horns and crowns and other
phenomena they speak to us, they mean that we
80 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
shall get out of it some guidance for our conduct,
some help to our betterment. If any of them tran-
scend that purpose, and serve to gratify our morbid
curiosity touching the hidden things of futurity, we
shall be neither the wiser nor the better for their im-
aginations. It is the true prophet who says to us,
“Come, let us reason together. Though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be white like wool. Cease to do
evil and learn to do well.” It is the false prophet
who awakens our morbid terrors by pictures of the
crash of elements and the downfall of the world in
final ruin.
VIII.
FROM GODS TO GOD.
THE ground of authority is not the same to a child
and a man. The child is under tutors and governors,
who dogmatize. A statement is of authority to a
child because it comes from an official person. The
parent, the tutor, or the appointed guardian stands in
a relation of authority to the child, and the child
accepts what is told by this competent person as
truth. It is therefore of the very last importance
that teachers and parents should teach children, not
carelessly, and not ignorantly, but with great prudence
and wisdom. When, however, the child becomes a
man, the childish things are put away. Then things
are not accepted upon the authority of any one, but
simply upon their merit. That is the main moral dif-
ference between child and man. The ground of au-
thority has shifted. As it is with the individual, so is
it with the race as a whole. In the childhood of the
race things are accepted upon the dogmatic assertion
of some persons in authority. As the race advances,
it more and more shifts its ground from the dogma
and the speaker to the merit and the thing spoken.
The shifting process is one of disturbance and of anx-
iety. It must needs come, otherwise the race is kept
in its childhood, and does not reach its true estate.
To the child portion of the religious world, authority
is still vested in official persons, and their dogma is
82 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
accepted with as good a grace as may be. The adult
portion of the religious world is at this very day
stoutly making its revolt against the child method;
, so that, to the casual and superficial observer, all au-
thority seems to be set at defiance. To those who look
deeper into the phenomenon, there is evidence that we
are witnessing in fact no dissolution of authority, but
a shifting of its ground. In other words, the child
begins to show signs of manhood. The child asks, in
respect to any commandment, or proposition, “Who
says it?” The man asks, “Is it true?” The child
has reference to its parents, tutors, or guardians, the
man has reference to the merit of the matter. If we
observed this distinction, to which I think the Apostle
Paul helps us, great confusion, and possibly much heat
and anger, would be avoided. Children's things for
children, men's things for men. At the same time it
ought to be the aim of all men to help the growth of
children, so that they should not remain in a perpetual
state of adolescence.
Not a few religious people are greatly disturbed by
the discovery which begins to dawn upon us that
Moses did not write the books which we have ascribed
to his authorship. We have been told that with the
going of Moses all our religion goes. The child who
has not been able to put away childish things cries
for Moses. The man who is beginning to put away
childish things is less disturbed at the departure of
Moses as a dogmatist. The work which has been
credited to Moses, and all other work, by whomsoever
done, must rest entirely upon its merits. Not so to a
child, but precisely so to a man. The authority of
the Bible taken altogether, as a great literature of
the religious past, is coming to rest entirely on the
FROM GODS TO GOD. 83
merit of it. This perhaps were a rash proceeding
four centuries ago, when the Bible was dug up out of
its burial and put into the hands of the people. A
growth has been going on since, more or less appre-
hended by the more adult portion of the Christian
communities, which makes necessary the shifting of
the ground of authority. To a child, that is, the un-
developed religious intelligence, the saying of a pro-
phet is the end of doubt. The prophet is recognized
as God’s appointed tutor and governor. The law is
recognized as the schoolmaster, whose word is final.
The man forgets the tutor and the schoolmaster, and
institutes inquiry concerning the reasonableness of the
thing taught. So far have we come in the creation of
the world, that men are beginning to assert themselves,
and the childish mind of the world is shocked.
My proposition is that the prophets of Israel have
a merit which makes their words superior to those of
the prophets and diviners of other nations. These
words are put into the mouth of Moses, addressed to
Israel before they came into the promised land: “For
all these nations whose land thou shalt inherit, they
will listen to omens and divinations, but Jehovah has
not permitted thee so to do.” “Jehovah shall raise up
to thee a prophet of thy brethren, like unto me; him
shall ye hear.” While Israel did have its diviners
and readers of Omens, and other such, by the time of
the golden age of prophets there had grown up such
a prophetic work as no other nation experienced.
How far different this work was from that of the di-
viners and soothsayers, or fortune-tellers of other peo-
ples, one has only to read in order to see. The diviner
does not care to preserve a record of his work. He
wishes the public favor and applause. He wishes to
84 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
be consulted and made much of. Now it transpires
that the prophets of the golden age were those who
were not made much of except in an unpleasant way;
and, characteristically, they were addicted to forfeit–
ing the public favor. They must have seemed to the
simple minded of the people to be always engaged in
tearing down something. They were precisely that
class of malcontents which will not let well enough
alone. I speak now of the golden age of the prophets.
That age was reached through various experiences.
Sometimes the prophets appear as belonging to the
popular party as against the tyranny of the kings. They
stand for the welfare of the people, and for their lib-
erties or rights. Afterward they take stand alone, each
prophet independent, speaking against whatsoever
meets his censure.
The diviner is a patriot. He is ready to prophesy
against other peoples, but he does not prophesy against
his own people. He wishes the success and glory of
his own people. It was not so with the prophets of
Israel. They stood against the evils of their own
people. They loved righteousness better than the
fatherland. They devoted themselves, first of all, and
most of all, to producing righteousness. In that they
shine in the firmament of history more than the seers
of other peoples. In them, therefore, Israel has a
real glory. It is because of them Christianity could
find a foundation. But what did the prophets wish to
do? They wished to improve the religion of the peo-
ple. They appeal with Isaiah to the reason and con-
science of men. They endeavor to show that there is
only One who is entitled to our worship and service,
one God, Jehovah. The people had never attained
that conception. They believed that there were other
FROM GODS TO GOD. 85
f
gods beside Jehovah, and often worshiped them.
This is evidenced by the words of the prophets them-
selves. Jeremiah complains that Judah has as many
gods as cities; and over and over again protest is
made against the gods worshiped in the borders of
Israel. What the prophets wished above all things
to do was to abolish the idea of many gods from the
minds of the people. They resort time and again to
the device of sarcasm, speaking of the artificer who
takes a block of wood, and with part of it he kindles
a fire where with to cook his food, and of the remainder
he makes a god. The prophets ask whether the gods
can help their devotees at a pinch : whether there is
any eye fashioned by the carpenter which can see, or
any ear which can hear. They at least could not en-
dure the degrading, the besotting worship ; because
such worship always goes far to subvert the natural
ideas of righteousness of the devotee.
The prophets of the golden period proclaimed them-
selves boldly the servants of the One God, Jehovah,
than whom there was no other. The gods of the
heathen were but fashioned things. There was no di-
vinity nor even sense in them. Jehovah was righteous;
the Creator; the rightful Sovereign of all. Next,
Jehovah is not a visible being, — therefore not a being
to be represented in any visible form. This was harder
to proclaim and gain the assent of the people to than
anything else. The absolutely invisible, to children
or to primitive people, is the same as the non-existent.
Therefore the prophets of the golden period were ac-
cused of and persecuted for breaking down and set-
ting at naught the holy things. They were the re-
formers; and no reformers of any period have had
a more difficult work than they. Their work was no-
86 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
thing less than to eradicate the primitive and strongly
rooted polytheism of the people, and to make them
what they never had been, – the people of Jehovah.
Before the time of historical criticism, as applied to
the Bible, men have been in the habit of ascribing to
Abraham, the reputed founder of Israel, the pure
monotheism which really belongs to a much later age.
It has been supposed, naturally enough, that from the
time of Abraham on, Israel was essentially, or with
some breaks and relapses, a nation of Jehovah, be-
lieving in one only God. Later evidence seems to run
counter to that supposition. The polytheistic word
which serves to indicate a plurality of gods was em-
bedded in the Hebrew language. While it became
used afterward to apply to one God only, such was
not its first use. Abraham, according to the traditions
and legends which came down to the time of Ezra and
Nehemiah, while he may have had glimmerings of the
truth of one God, permits us to see that like the best
men of his time he was powerfully influenced by the
polytheistic notions and practices of the day. He
offers his son in human sacrifice. His successors
easily adopt the worship of the sacred bull.
It seems to be intimated by the prophet Amos that
Israel in the wilderness was not a worshiper of Jeho-
vah. “Have ye offered to me victims and sacrifices,
O house of Israel, forty years in the wilderness 2
Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the
star of your god Raephan, the images of them which
ye made for yourselves.” Is it not possible, is it not
even probable, that the Israelites, before they became
established in Canaan, were almost altogether idola-
ters, and that their very tabernacle was an idolatrous
contrivance 2 It accords with the truth that a pure
FROM GODS TO GOD. 87
monotheism is of late beginning in the annals of time.
The true worshiper of Jehovah, such an one as Isaiah
the prophet, looks upon the sacrifice of animals upon
altars as no requirement of Jehovah, but as an abom-
ination to him.
Nothing springs full grown into being. Israel’s
true religion, that which distinguishes it from all other
people's and makes Israel in reality the people of Je-
hovah, came to be through long periods of time. We
do not fully see what it was until we reach the later
prophets. We cannot even tell what were the convic-
tions of the men of an earlier faith. As Abraham is
portrayed to us, he confuses us. Even so late as the
time of Elijah and Elisha, prophets who did not write
or care to preserve the records of their works and
times, we find a degree of the same confusion. It is
difficult for our most expert scholars to determine with
anything like certainty whether these prophets were
opponents of certain forms of idolatry, as we certainly
know their successors were. *
Whatever may have been antecedent to the work of
the prophets of the golden period, it is manifest that
they boldly and with a measure of success founded
the real and final religion of Israel. It was against
every obstacle in the way of popular prejudice and of
persecution that they proceeded to establish their re-
ligion of Jehovah. So bitter was the opposition to
them that the memory of it lasted long in the mind
of the nation. There was an almost complete gulf
between the prophets and the people. The priesthood
and royalty, and the people, often at war with each
other, were at one against the handful of the prophets.
It was to this memory of the peculiar mission of the
prophets that Stephen appealed when he accused the
88 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
rulers and people of his own time: “Which of the
prophets did not your fathers persecute?” The per-
secution was unexceptive, and demonstrates that with
the prophets alone was the religion and service of
Jehovah. Accordingly, their work was to establish
their convictions in the hearts and characters of the
people. Nothing less than that.
For a long time the people had held to Jehovah as
their tribal god, but that did not hinder them from
believing also in other gods. Jehovah was their na-
tional god, and dwelt in their house, which they had
built at Shiloh, at Dan, Shechem, and Bethel, and
finally at Jerusalem. Moab had another god, and the
Philistines other gods. These gods, too, were power-
ful, and might render help if properly approached.
What the prophets undertook was to urge not only
the supremacy of Jehovah, but to make plain that
there is no God but the One ; that righteousness is
not a variable thing determined by the character of
local deities, but is fixed. Moreover, that it belongs
to conduct. To the prophets good was the same as
life, and evil the same as death. “Seek good and not
evil, that ye may live: and so Jehovah shall be with
you, as ye have said.”
It is evident that the people at various times wor-
shiped images which represented Jehovah to them.
After the partition of the kingdom, it is related that
because the people went up to Jerusalem to worship,
Jeroboam, the king of Israel, conceived the necessity
of having them stay at home and worship. Because
if they continued to go to Jerusalem his own kingdom
would of course be lost. He made two young bulls of
gold, and placed one in Bethel and the other in Dan,
and said to his people: “It is too much for you to go
FROM GODS TO GOD. 89
up to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, O Israel, which
brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” It is
not doubtful that these two images represented the
one tribal or national god, the one who had delivered
their ancestors from the bondage. There are intima-
tions in the period of the judges, as well as long after-
ward, that Jehovah was worshiped in the form of the
golden calf or the golden bull. There is a similarity
between that worship and the worship of Moloch; in
either case human sacrifice was probably practiced.
So late as the time of the prophet Micah human
sacrifice was in vogue, for Micah protests against it.
Abraham is represented as ready to sacrifice his son
and is commended for that readiness while hindered
from carrying out the project. In the time of the
judges, J ephthah vowed a human sacrifice to Jehovah,
we are told, and sacrificed his own daughter, because
she was the first to meet him on his return from an
expedition. Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before Je-
hovah, and David proposed to sacrifice the seven sons
of Saul. These instances suggest, as do the works of
Micah, that human sacrifice was practiced, and to a late
day, by Israel, as it was by other nations. Moreover,
the rite of circumcision appears to be the remnant of
an older practice of human sacrifice. In brief, the sur-
vival of abominations of cruelty, and that in the name
of the religion of Jehovah, awakened in the prophets
the purpose of a radical reformation. To abolish the
cruelties was to a large extent their aim. Thus we
perceive that their notion of righteousness was not a
mere abstraction, or a mere assertion of righteousness
in Jehovah, which by itself passes for nothing, but it
was a positive announcement that the things of their
religion which involved cruelty to man or beast were
all wrong, and must be stopped.
90 - CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
One cannot help thinking, in this connection, how
the cruel dogma of a remorseless Jehovah, inflicting
ever continuing pain upon his creatures, has tena-
ciously held its ground in modern times; and how bitter
has been the experience of many who have attempted
to reform that cruelty out of the religion of Christ.
We have reached the point where we may say that
it was the aim of the prophets to establish humanity,
or humane conduct and feelings, in the religion of the
people. Of course feelings of humanity came earlier
than the time of the prophets, but these feelings did
not dominate the religion of Jehovah until their time.
Jehovah, like the sun-god and like other gods, was
supposed to demand sacrifices of various sorts. He
was supposed to demand the cruelties of other heathen
worship. In process of time the prophets came and
declared that Jehovah requires simply the humanities.
Notice the words of one of the prophets which di-
rectly affirm this. Micah puts the words into the
mouth of an Israelite. “Wherewith shall I come
before Jehovah, and bow myself before the high God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with
calves of a year old 2 Will the Lord be pleased with
thousands of rams or with ten thousands of streams
of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgres-
sion, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what
doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
In such a saying as this we reach high-water mark of
the prophetic utterances. Jehovah requires of man
none of the bloody sacrifices, requires none of the
offerings of one's substance, which were so scrupu-
lously made. He requires the humanities: mercy and
FROM GODS TO GOD. 91
justice. It is in the humanities that man walks hum-
bly with his God. It is in the sacrifices and the inhu-
manities that he departs from Jehovah, and misrep-
resents Jehovah in the world.
It has been supposed, and the idea has been most
zealously supported, that Jehovah gave to Israel a
law of sacrifices. That by observance of this law
the man could set himself right with his offended God.
The sacrifices of the altars have been held to symbol-
ize the sacrifice of the Son of God as the offering for
sin and the refuge and Saviour of sinners. Probably
in the most recent times there is survival in much
strength of the very notions against which the pro-
phets proceeded. We note this survival in the words
of formulas of prayer. In so many words men wor-
ship God by pleading the merits of the sacrificed
Christ. The question asked by the prophet, “Where-
with shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself
before the high God?” is answered, not as he an-
swered it, but as the Israelite answered it. In a
form of language, containing some idea at least, men
bow themselves before Jehovah, bringing forward the
sacrificed Christ. It is supposed and asserted with
great stress that God requires that. If at this late
day, wherein the humanities have been greatly devel-
oped, we fall short of the real religion of the prophets,
we need not marvel at the difficulties which beset the
prophets in carrying out their sublime aim. For it
was their aim to bring about a pure worship, — a
worship not of altars and not of sacrifices, but of
just and humane feelings and conduct. That was
pleasing to Jehovah ; all else was not pleasing to him.
While all the prophets did not attain the same high
standard of religion, while some of them counte-
92 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
nanced the sacrificial forms of worship which belong
to polytheism, yet it may be said of the later prophets
that they furnish, and they exclusively, the necessary
foundation for the Christian religion which was to
complete their work. Not that Christian religion
which is confused and shows its hopeless confusion by
the large number of sects into which it has become
split, the Christian religion of dogma, but the reli-
gion of the humanities, the religion of mercy and
justice and a humble walk with God. Were we to
inquire into the development of religion in the world
we might divide it into three great stages: First, the
stage of fetichism — with remnants abiding to this
day. Second, the stage of polytheism. The first is
the lowest stage of human attainment. The second
is an advance, but leaves much to be desired. In this
stage are many gods; gods of nations and families;
gods fighting each other in the warfare of their wor-
shipers: this is the stage of sacrifices, human and
other. The third stage, of which we may also say that
it is the last, is the stage of the unity of God, one and
only one God. This being is not to be represented in
thought as the golden bull or in any image whatsoever.
This is the being who demands of us the humanities,
mercy and justice. This is the being in whose image
we are being created. Thus the Christian religion
presents to us not an unapproachable divinity and not
a nature-god, always to be propitiated, but God mani-
fest in the flesh – God in man. God walks in the
humble and just and merciful man : for that concep-
tion the prophets of Israel more than any other have
prepared us.
IX.
TEIE LIMITATION.
THE Jehovah of the earlier Israelites was not, and
in the nature of the case could not have been, the
same as the Jehovah of a more advanced period. The
Jehovah of David was not the Jehovah of Isaiah. It
is because the concepts of people change. In respect
to all things which engage their attention there is a
growing change of opinion; but because of the con-
servative influence always in more or less force, the
change of opinion does not go on uninterrupted. It
is a stream frequently blockaded, and the result is that
the changes of opinion assume appearance of violent
transition.
In Israel’s history we note as successive changes of
conception those revolutionary periods, such as the
escape from the house of bondage; the formation of
a kingdom under David; the disruption of the king-
dom afterward; the Babylonian exile, and finally the
establishment of the Christian religion. All of these
changes strike us as being very great, especially the
last. They seem to come suddenly. That is because
the process of change, which is as continual as the
growth of a flower from the seed, was continually ob-
structed by the conservative feelings of men. Since
the changes could not go in the form of an orderly
progression, they came in the form of, or accompanied
by, national disasters or deliverances.
94 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
Now the prophets were certainly ignorant of things
which Mr. Darwin could have told them. They did
not know that all men rise, but do not descend, from
lower ranks of life. They did not know what the
theistic evolutionist of to-day sees to be highly credi-
ble in the light of what Mr. Darwin has shown him,
that all progress goes on by successive changes; or
that as it was in the lower orders, so is it also with the
higher orders. There were mollusks and there were
fishes. The mollusk is a creature far inferior in or-
ganization to the fish, and yet God is equally the
creator of both. Moreover, each comes in its own
time: first the lower, and afterward the higher from
the lower. The prophets did not know this, I say.
Nor did they need to know it; but if those who had
to do with preparing the canon of the Old Testament,
and whose duty it was to give here and there a title to
a piece of sacred literature, or to indicate something
in regard to its authorship, had known it, they would
not have made the mistake of attributing to one period
that which belongs to another.
Changes in our concepts of things go on, sometimes
imperceptibly, but they do steadily go on. These
changes make different periods, as really as successive
changes in animal structure make different periods in
the history of the physical world. We have means of
identifying the periods. The historical critics of the
Bible are like the geologists; they have discovered
how to place the relative time of customs, laws, pro-
phecies, and the like.
It is quite safe to say that the prophetic books of
the Bible do not hold a very high place in the interest
of the average religious man of to-day. He regards
them as sacred books, to be sure, and therefore to be
THE LIMITATION. 95
reverenced, but he does not read them with interest.
Their language is foreign to his understanding. Their
imagery seems to him far-fetched. He knows a great
deal more about the parts of the Bible which tell him
stories of heroes. He knows of Samson, the Hercules
of the Bible, and of Moses, the Nestor, and of the
patriarchs. The story of Ruth is attractive to him
as a pastoral. He reads the book of Esther, and be-
cause it is in the Bible he thinks it is a sacred book.
If he were to find it outside of the Bible, he would
feel no great regard for it, but might even look upon
it as Luther did, a book unworthy of respect. Luther
thought the story of Esther ought to be destroyed.
The prophetic literature, which is the really valuable
literature of Israel, he cannot force himself to take
a lively interest in, as a rule.
On the other hand, the enthusiastic study of pro-
phecy is peculiar to certain sects, and to those who look
for a speedy downfall of the world. In the prophets
there are many things upon which the imagination
seizes, as importing the end of the world and the
minor catastrophes connected therewith. The study
of prophecy is therefore generally understood to imply
an interest in the “last things.” We cannot help feel-
ing that there is almost always an element of fanat-
icism in such interest. Those who have entertained
the ideas of the modern expositors of prophecy, and
who have been thrown out of mental balance thereby,
and have tormented themselves and others with visions
of an impending sounding of a last trumpet, with
the summons to appear before the judge, and receive
sentence, etc., have made prophecy seem to us an en-
thusiasm, and an imposition as well. All this misun-
derstanding and misapplication has been due to an
96 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
uncritical study of the prophets. Our enthusiastic
teachers have piled up texts on texts. They have
made selection of passages, and taken them out of their
connection, and have supposed these things all bore
on the same subjects. Moreover, they have gone upon
the theory that the prophets were men who knew some-
thing about the end of the world. A more careful
study would have assured them that the end of the
world lies beyond the ken of any one, and that while
some of the prophets seem to be talking about the end
of the world, they are in reality talking of the near
future.
We have read the prophets too, without much con-
sideration of the time in which they respectively lived
and spoke. Therein we have been unskillful and
have suffered for it. Our scholars have done much
to clear away these difficulties. We can identify the
periods more accurately. In our common editions of
the Bible we find the short books of two prophets to-
gether. The first is Joel, and the second is Amos.
Upon consulting the small figures in reference Bibles,
we see that these books were written about the same
time, namely about 800 B. C. Of course no dates
are given in the text of the books themselves, any
more than dates are written in the silurian rocks.
The time of the composition of these books has been
supposed to be identical. For some reason Joel was
put first, and Amos second. If these books had been
read in the light of history, and a careful study of
history, it would have been impossible to put Joel first
and Amos second. It is by the light of historical crit-
icism we find that Amos is one of the very first of
Israel's prophets who recorded his thoughts; perhaps
the very first of those whose actual words have come
THE LIMITATION. 97
down to us. If an attempt had been made to have
the prophecies follow each other in a chronological
order, Amos would have headed the list, and prob-
ably the next would have been Hosea; and one of the
last would have been Joel, - for he spoke and wrote
in the Greek period, more than two and a half centu-
ries later.
Joel wrote in a vivid style, and is supposed to have
written explicitly about the “last days.” In the Acts
of the Apostles he seems to be quoted as one who fore-
told the last days. It is therefore well worth our while
to read him carefully, to find if he really does that.
The immediate occasion of his prophecy is a plague
of locusts which devastated the land in his time. His
description is at once that of a prophet and that of a
poet. The pest is like a fire, moving on to devour
everything before it. When the locusts came, the land
was as the Garden of Eden, but after their onslaught
the land was a wilderness, and nothing escaped them.
They were like a great army, conquering, as by spears
and chariots and horsemen. All of this, which would
be plainly described as a grasshopper plague, he dwells
upon and sees in it the devastations of Jehovah, who
is offended with the people on account of their sins.
The locusts make up Jehovah's army. “They shall
run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the
wall, they shall climb up upon the houses, they shall
enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall
quake before them, the heavens shall tremble; the Sun
and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall with-
draw their shining: and Jehovah shall utter his voice
before his army, for his camp is very great ; for strong
is he that executeth his word; for the day of Jehovah
is great and very terrible, and who can abide it?”
98 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
Here is a prophet who does not seem to be telling
about future events, but about things then transpiring.
A plague of locusts is upon the land: it is Jehovah's
time, or day, - the day of reckoning with his people.
Jehovah it is who is cutting off all the green things
from the earth, who is causing the crops of the hus-
bandmen to disappear, who is taking away from the
flocks and herds their food; and instead of plenty
there is a famine.
In our own West, when the locust plague has come,
and the sun has been darkened by the vast clouds of
the enemy; when the farmers have seen their toil go
for nothing, everything destroyed as by sudden blight,
if any among them were convinced that God is punish-
ing the people for their sins, and that God has times
of reckoning with the people, and if he were all the
time watching the destructive march of the plague,
he could speak perhaps in the vivid language of Joel.
He could say that the Day of the Lord had come,
and that it was a very terrible day, “who can abide
it 2 °
This prophet Joel is not a prophet of woe. He
does not dwell on the dark side of things, to magnify
that. He says it is right for Israel to mourn, and to
clothe itself in sackcloth. Then he raises the song
of hope. He begs the people to mourn and lament
over their wrong-doing. He begs the priests, the min-
isters of Jehovah, to put forth their supplications, and
say, “Spare thy people, O Jehovah, and give not thine
heritage to reproach, that the heathen should use a
byword against them : wherefore should they say
among the people, where is their God?” For the
Gentiles would say of a people so plagued that their
god had forsaken them, or that he was powerless to
THE LIMITATION. 99
avert the evils thrust upon them by some greater
power. The prophet feels that it has all come in retri-
bution for the vices and sins of the people. It is not a
time when Jehovah has gone away, but it is his day;
a great and terrible day. However, that is not the
end of it. He who wounds will also heal. If repent-
ance is had, Jehovah will be “jealous for his land”
and will pity his people. “Yea, Jehovah will answer
and say unto his people, behold I will send you corn
and wine and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith.”
The prophet foresees that Jehovah will drive the in-
vading army of locusts off into the desert. Then the
famished beasts of the field will have their pasturage,
the tree will bear her fruit, the vine will flourish.
The threshing-floors will once more be full of wheat,
and the vats will overflow with the oil and wine. By
means of this recovered prosperity the nation will
know that Jehovah is in the midst of her ; and will
trust in Jehovah, and serve him.
Thus far in this prophet we have heard nothing
about the last times, but only about the times then
present. There is the plague of locusts, which, in
the vivid feeling of the prophet, makes the earth to
quake and the heavens to tremble, and darkens the
sun and moon. The destructive army of Jehovah,
cutting off our food and making a famine for us, is
turning the light itself into darkness. Who can abide
the time 7 The prophet is hopeful. He hopes that
his people will repent of their evil courses and turn
in humility to Jehovah, whom they have offended, and
that Jehovah will forgive and restore them. The
prophets of Israel, even those who lament the most
and seem to be most impressed with the failure of
Israel to follow and obey Jehovah, are yet hopeful.
100 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
They seem to see in Jehovah much more than a king;
they see one who punishes people for their good, and
who works in his people by his Spirit toward their
betterment. So Joel, after all that he has said in
the other strain, returns to the joyful and trium-
phant note, “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice,
for Jehovah will do great things.” In place of the
famine consequent upon the locust plague shall Surely
come plenty, and the people shall be satisfied, and
“ye shall praise the name of Jehovah your God that
hath dealt wondrously with you.”
Then comes the song of Israel’s triumph. It is in
this song of triumph that the convictions of the later
prophets spoke. Israel’s God is no longer a tribal
god, one among many powerful deities. Whatever
he had been to earlier prophets, now at last the clear
conviction of the monotheist is visible. After Israel
is restored, having duly repented of its sins and re-
turned to Jehovah and his service, it should come to
the fulfillment of exceeding great and precious prom-
ises, as the Apostle Peter said, “And it will come to
pass afterward, I will pour out of my spirit upon all
flesh.” A few in Israel had enjoyed the peculiar fa-
vor of Jehovah. The spirit of prophecy did not be-
long to the people generally, but only to the devoted
ones who were persecuted; but all that should be
changed. Jehovah would pour out his Spirit upon
young and old. Not only upon the free born, but
upon the very slaves themselves. Every one should
prophesy, young and old, bond and free.
The great thought of the prophet is that Jehovah
will put forward his people Israel to accomplish their
work. He has not been able to reach the nations with
his judgments and grace because of the faithlessness
THE LIMITATION. 101
of his people; but with the return of the nation to
its fealty, Jehovah would carry out his purposes. Then
Jerusalem would become firmly established; and in
Mount Zion would be deliverance. For Jehovah dwells
in Mount Zion, and from Mount Zion must go forth
the laws for all nations.
It requires no violence of interpretation to follow
the prophet's thoughts in a direction he himself has
indicated. As Jehovah had been dealing retributively,
and for the purposes of correction and recovery, with
Israel, so would he deal with all nations. As Israel
had seen the sun darkened, and had felt the earth
quake, by reason of its plague of the locusts; so
doubtless other nations should feel the same great
trials, and be brought through the same straits, in order
to bring them to seek deliverance in Jehovah, who
dwelleth in Zion. Israel had experienced a great and
terrible day of Jehovah, and other nations should ex-
perience like wonders. “I will show wonders in the
heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and vapor of
smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and
the moon into blood before the great and terrible day
of Jehovah come.” Some of our prophetic expositors
have seen in this the portents of the last day. They
have supposed that the moon would become blood red
in the evening sky, and the sun black (how could the
moon be red while the sun is black?), and that other
signs of impending disaster and final ruin should pre-
sent themselves to the eyes of the watchful, if not to
all eyes. Coupling with all this, too, the apocalyptic
visions contained in the New Testament, they have
warned us time and again of the dissolution of earthly
affairs and the sounding of the last trump.
Joel speaks of the locust plague which destroys
102 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
the food supplies of man and beast in the same terms
employed to characterize later proceedings of Jeho-
vah with other nations. That is, the turning of the
sun into darkness and the moon into blood, etc. He
tells us that Jehovah will gather the Gentiles into the
valley of Jehoshaphat to plead with them. He will
there reckon with them for their treatment of Israel.
He will recompense to Tyre and Sidon and all the
coasts of Palestine all that they have done. The reck-
oning of Jehovah with the nations, in the view of
Joel, will take the form of a war of Israel with these
other nations. And so he calls upon Israel to arm it-
self. He raises the cry among the Gentiles also to
prepare for war. “Beat your plow-shares into swords
and your sickles into spears l’” In those days of fre-
quent wars, and when Israel was recovering its strength
after the captivity, menaced on all sides by other pow-
ers, it was not wonderful that the prophet could foresee
a coming strife. He was so full of the thought of
Jehovah’s might, and of his promises, that in this
coming war he could see a great victory for the people
of Jehovah, and Israel should regain its old glory.
The city of Israel’s king should prove to be the city
of Jehovah : Jehovah should cry out of Jerusalem.
He was the hope of his people; in his might they
should conquer. At last it would surely be proved
to all men that Jehovah dwells in Zion ; that he
is not merely the highest, but the only God. In this
there is no hint of those last days of final judgment
and destruction of the earth which our modern pro-
phets have seen so vividly. The prophet Joel's mind
does not concern itself with that.
Nearly contemporary with Joel is the prophet Mal-
achi. He may, indeed, have been a little earlier. He
THE LIMITATION. , 103
is one of those who speak of a day that is coming
to Israel, a fiery and terrible day. The rise of this
feeling concerning a day is not difficult to trace in the
prophets. If we go back to those first of the prophets,
Elijah and Elisha, those prophets who did not write,
because writing was not much practiced in their time,
but who did sharply rebuke the people for their evils,
we shall find growing a sentiment in regard to Jeho-
vah which became most prominent later. The nation
was surrounded by powerful heathen kingdoms. There
were Egypt and Damascus and Assyria, and others.
These powers threatened the peculiar people of Jeho-
vah. The future of Israel was, therefore, very doubt-
ful. Would it be able to maintain itself? Jehovah
was indeed very powerful. He had delivered them
from the house of bondage and brought them into the
land flowing with milk and honey. Why then were
they threatened by those powerful competitors 7 Why
were they in danger of being carried off into cap-
tivity? They found an answer to that. At least the
prophets did. Jehovah was not only strong, but he
was also just and holy. If the nation was to succeed,
it must also be just and holy, for God would permit it
to be defeated and carried into captivity, on account
of its follies and wickedness. God required certain
things to be done, and if they were not done, he would
reckon with his disobedient servants. There would
surely come the day of reckoning. It would be a day
of downfall to that people, of great trial when it did
come. God would sit as a refiner of silver; he would
try his people by sifting.
In this country half a century ago, there were pro-
phets, somewhat of the same sort as Malachi, who
protested that a terrible result would arise from a ter-
. 104 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
rible crime. It was a national crime, – that of human
slavery. If one of them had chosen, he could have
adopted the language of Malachi: “Behold, the day
cometh that shall burn as an oven.” The day did
surely come, a most fiery day, as all of that genera-
tion can testify. -
Malachi was very sure that Judah would reap the
reward of misdeeds, but also, like Joel, he was sure
that the people would return to Jehovah, and that all
the nations of the earth would have a great blessing
because of Judah. “All nations shall call you blessed
for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith Jehovah of
hosts.” Malachi, however, differs from earlier and
far greater prophets in his views of the sins of the
people. He wished them to keep the priestly laws
very scrupulously, and because they did not, he de-
nounced them. Now the first Isaiah cared nothing for
those requirements of the priestly laws, but Malachi
was in great offense because the people did not bring
their tithes and promptly pay them. He was angry,
as well he might have been, because they offered
in sacrifice upon the altars the beasts which were
not good for anything. He felt that was a direct
insult to Jehovah, as indeed it was. The people
brought the blind animals, and the lame and the sick;
such things as they would not dream of offering to
their governor; but these they thought quite good
enough for the altars of Jehovah. This so wrought
upon the feelings of the prophet, that he could see
nothing but ruin and defeat and sorrow ahead, until
they should repent. Can we wonder that a man, with
strong feelings, and loving Jehovah and his require-
ments, should have foreseen that the day would shortly
come when Jehovah would try all this neglect and con-
tempt most severely, and punish it 2
THE LIMITATION. 105
It is evident to any who carefully study these pro-
phets of the later period, that they were talking to
Judah of the retribution they were bringing upon them-
selves for their sins. Malachi may have supposed that
Jehovah would send Elijah to warn the people before
proceeding to extremities, but Malachi himself seeks
to draw attention to the laws which he believed were
given to Moses by Jehovah in Horeb. He wished the
people to honor Jehovah by obedience of his laws.
“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there
may be meat in mine house, and prove me now here-
with, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open you
the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing.”
By these latest of the prophets we may perceive
that prophecy relates not to another world, and not to
the last days of this world, but to those things of im-
‘mediate import, which concern the people to know.
When we read into the vivid language of Joel the
notions of last days, we make him demit his real office
as an instructor of the people, to be a fortune-teller
for later ages.
X.
TELE FICTION.
IN the development of literature, fiction has a prom-
inent place. The word “fiction ” covers all that por-
tion of literature which is invented, or mostly de-
pendent on the imagination. Tales of all kinds, such
as stories of the fairies, and fables, and parables, and
all dramatic writings, and many poems, may be gen-
erally grouped under the head of fiction. We com-
monly use the word, however, in a more restricted
sense, applying it mainly to the kind of books we call,
novels; but it would apply to the plays of Shake-
speare, the great poems of Milton, and the fables of
AEsop.
Fiction is an early as well as an exceedingly val-
uable part of literature. It appears in the mytholo-
gies of all religions, in the Greek dramas, in great
poems, like the Iliad of Homer, and in all literature
of the more popular sort. It may be within the bounds
of reason to say that the most important part of the
world’s literature, in many respects, is the literature of
fiction. A writer reaches a public more swiftly and
easily and successfully in that way than in any other.
Long and involved didactic statements upon any sub-
ject are no sooner uttered than they are forgotten by
almost everybody. Arguments which have great final
effects in the experience of people are not received as
arguments, but are reduced to a form more vivid and
THE FICTION. 107
dramatic before they conquer their way. Therefore,
under that Providence which has to do with the flower
of the plant, and the flower of speech as well, we are
forced to accord a great place in the world’s welfare
and its intellectual and moral growth to the literature
of fiction.
Reluctance has been felt about admitting the pres-
ence of fiction in the Bible. Perhaps upon the ground
that the character of fiction is not clearly understood.
If some ingenious person were to be asked a question
by his neighbor, and were to invent the truth of his
reply, in the most blunt fashion possible he would be
called a liar. He undertakes to deceive his questioner,
and bears false witness to his neighbor. Or if a man
tells stories of adventure, as drawn out of his own
personal experience ; if he asserts that he was in this
and that battle, and conducted himself in a most heroic
fashion, while the truth is he never saw a battle, his
tales are works of fiction, but they are made with in-
tent to deceive, and he is a liar.
When we talk of fiction in literature we never
mean anything of that kind, and we are not in the
habit of attributing ill motives or dishonesty to the
author of fiction. The writer of fiction may be, and
is held to be (provided his character and work war-
rant it), as thoroughly honest as the Writer of the
most carefully exact and unimaginative history. Vic-
tor Hugo and Mrs. Stowe and George Eliot tell us
of things which never transpired, as though they did
transpire. That is the form in which they cast their
thoughts, but no one need be deceived by it, and
they do not wish any one to be deceived by it. They
do not take the pains to tell us that Uncle Tom and
Jean Waljean and Adam Bede never existed. In
108 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
fact, they make them as real to us as possible. Yet,
in spite of the fact that they are imaginary characters,
and all the incidents imaginary also, we do not com-
plain of deceit.
I am sure if we knew the literature and spirit of the
Bible better, we should have no hesitation in finding
a plentiful element of fiction in it: and having rec-
ognized it as fiction, we might proceed to get the truth
it contains. For unless fiction be a vehicle of truth, it
is either valueless or worse. Its only rightful use is
that it should convey to us, and to all possible readers,
the truth it is good for us to know.
We are told that David, the great king of Israel,
committed a frightful crime. It would not be regarded
such at the time, and was not so regarded by the king
himself; but there was one man, at least, who looked
with abhorrence upon it. He proposed to tell the
king his opinion of it. He felt that he could express
God’s opinion about it, and that it was his duty to
do so. We feel that he was right to think so, but it
was a difficult matter to deal with. It has never been
very easy to go and tell great despots their faults: one
undertaking such a mission was likely to be deprived
of all speech thereafter. So the good man invented a
story. He prepared a fiction, as being the best means
of doing that particular work. He successfully ac-
complished the difficult mission by means of the little
story he invented. A poor man had one lamb, a pet.
He derived much of the comfort of his life from that
pet lamb; but a powerful neighbor, to whom had come
a traveler, spared his own flocks, and took the poor
man's lamb, killed it, and presented it to his guest for
food. When David heard that story his anger was
kindled, and he swore that the man who had done that
THE FICTION. 109
wicked thing should die for it. Then the good pro-
phet told him he was the man who had done that thing,
only in a far worse way. It was a very skillful con-
trivance on the part of Nathan to invent that story,
and by it he accomplished more in the way of truth and
righteousness than he could have done in any other
way. In the same manner Jesus told the story of the
man who had two sons, and the one was thrifty and the
other prodigal. The story will last as long as men talk
and think, while the lesson given in the way of argu-
ment would have died out in a short time. It was a
pure work of fiction; and unquestionably Jesus re-
sorted to fiction more than almost any other great
religious teacher. He gave to all moral truths the
guise and dress of fiction. If the weighty argument
of Paul to the Romans and the fiction of Jesus con-
cerning the return of the prodigal were to be weighed
in the balance 'over against each other, the fiction
would be found to outweigh the other.
We have been considering the way in which the
historical portions of the Old Testament were made.
We have seen that there is much of the history which
could not pass for history, apart from its connection
with the Bible. We have considered, too, how the
prophets did their work, their aim in their work, and
the fact that they were the great ethical teachers of the
Jews; but there was another kind of teaching, neither
historical nor prophetic, which occupies a considera-
ble space in the sacred pages. That is the portion of
the Old Testament literature which is in the form of
fiction.
While fiction may be interwoven with the history,
as in myths and legends, it more frankly confesses
itself in other portions of the book, -as in the book
110 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
of Job. Taken by all scholars, now, to be a dramatic
poem, with a prose prologue and epilogue, it was ear-
lier and generally taken to be historical narration.
There is no entirely good reason why we should be
more stupid about the Bible than about any other
book. In fact, there is good reason why we should
bring to the Bible a mind which has at least a little
clearness. We ought to have just that sort of dis-
crimination which will help us to distinguish between
widely different kinds of writing. If any one had
taken the pains to think about it he would not have
dreamed that the things related in the book of ‘Job
ever happened; not because they are miraculous things,
but because that kind of writing has never been ap-
plied to description of actual events, described in de-
tail. Yet the time is not far past when the opinion
that the book of Job is not history, or fact, would have
shocked the feelings of almost all religious people.
Now it shocks no one, because it has become very evi-
dent that it is a dramatic poem. That has been
ascertained by attention, by literary judgment, by
commonplace discrimination. Educated persons have
tried to make out the place of Satan in the general
economy of the universe by what is said of him in the
prologue to the book of Job. The sons of God came
into the presence of God, and along with them came
Satan. Perhaps he is one of the sons of God, turned
bad. He roams around the earth, seeking who and
what he may devour, but he finds time to come to the
gathering of the sons of God. He is asked if he has
given attention to that very just man, Job. Yes, he
has noticed Job, but has no good opinion of him.
Like all other men he is actuated by purely selfish
motives. He serves God because he can make some-
THE FICTION. 111
thing out of it. If the reader has not the discernment
to discover the fiction form of that story, he is sadly
lacking in knowledge of most kinds. The characters
of the drama talk in poetry. Men never do that in
real life. As well might merchants set their sight
drafts to music. In play, children may sometimes
carry on a conversation in rude rhymes; but this book
of Job is intensely serious. Simply from the evidence
of its contents to its character, it is understood by all
intelligent readers that it is a made-up story. Nathan
made up a story for David, as we have seen. Jesus
made up a great many stories for his hearers. This
is made up in order to convey a great spiritual lesson,
and spiritual lessons are what we go to the Bible for.
It seems to have taken us a long time to find out that
a spiritual lesson may be as well conveyed in the liter-
ature of the imagination — that is, in fiction — as in
any other form. Oftentimes it is the best form. The
value of the Bible, taken as a whole, is in its spiritual
lessons. If it gave us the most unimpeachable history
from beginning to end, if it portrayed all the future to
us, and failed to inculcate spiritual lessons, it would be
of the same value with any other book, of an unmoral
sort. But its power, use, and worth lie altogether in
its spiritual lessons. If these be conveyed in one form
or another, it were well for us to perceive that the
form of the conveyance is not of importance, and cer-
tainly not to be regarded as at all essential to the va-
lidity of the book as a divine revelation.
Job is a work of fiction, and for certain purposes
it is not inferior to any other part of the Old Testa-
ment. If we get the lesson, or if we fail to get it, the
imaginary Job is of quite as much service to us as if
he were a veritable man among men.
112 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
A work of fiction, as we have seen, is a literary
expedient. If it comes in the form of poetry, that is
one method; if in the form of a tragedy, that is an-
other; if in the form of a historical novel, that is
simply another literary device. All these forms have
long been used, and with great and good effect, and, as
a rule, we know how to discriminate between the dif-
ferent kinds of literary method. When we look into
the Bible, we ought not to lose our literary judgment:
we ought not to take for facts of history and biogra-
phy the things which belong to literary device.
This may be said to be true in respect to the book
of Daniel, which occupies a place between the major
and the minor prophets. It has proved, I will venture
to assert, a far more readable part of the Bible than
those portions which precede and succeed it. It is
cast in an attractive form and conveys high lessons.
The first portion of it, say the first six chapters,
narrate the experiences of a Jew named Daniel in
Babylon. He and three of his companions are chosen
from the captive Jews to reside in the king's palace.
These four are said to have been chosen because
they were handsome men and expert in knowledge:
they were scientific. They were to be taught all the
learning of the Chaldeans. It is further said that
Daniel, in particular, was skilled in dreams and vis-
ions. As we progress in the story, we see Daniel
becoming eminent above all his fellows. The nobles
of the court are jealous of him, and enter into a con-
spiracy to destroy him. He has a habit of opening
his window toward Jerusalem, and praying to God
three times a day. They make this a ground of com-
plaint. They cause a law to be made by the king
forbidding any person to make petition to any god
THE FICTION. 113
or man except to the king. The conspirators get suf-
ficient proof of the praying of Daniel, and present
it to the king, who, for the sake of the law, orders
the offender to be thrown to the lions. God closes
the mouths of the lions, and Daniel is rescued. His
three friends are put into a furnace because of their
disobedience of the orders of the king: they receive
no harm. Daniel interprets the dream of the king
and the handwriting on the wall, while all the sooth-
sayers and magicians of the city fail. It is natural
that such a man should rise to great eminence, and
certainly that he should have a commanding influence
with his own countrymen. It is very natural that his
contemporaries, and those who came after him, should
mention him and his extraordinary deeds in their
writings. Yet the great leaders of the restoration,
and those who wrote the records of their nation, make
no mention of this very eminent man.
We are entirely sure that if any one should under-
take to write the history of the United States from
the beginning, he would not leave out of his books the
story of Hamilton, nor that of General Grant. He
would be less likely to do it, if he were a contempo-
rary of either of these distinguished men. But the
Jewish historians have not a word to say of this won-
derful man, Daniel, who, according to the book which
bears his name, was by far the greatest of the Jews
at the time of the captivity. All the others sink into
insignificance beside him, yet neither Ezra, to whom
we are so greatly indebted for the Bible, nor Nehe-
miah, nor Zechariah, makes any allusion to him.
The prophet Ezekiel mentions his name, however.
Ezekiel has a theory which differs from that of
those who wrote the story of the destruction of Sodom.
114 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
According to that story, if there had been a few good
men in the city, Jehovah would have spared it. But
Ezekiel declares that if the very best of men were in
a wicked place, that city or place cannot escape de-
struction. The good men can deliver their own souls
only. This is the way the prophet puts the case:
“Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job,
were in it (the place), they should deliver but their
own souls, by their righteousness, saith the Lord
God.” The three men were therefore representatives
of excellence. Of course it makes no difference
whether they were real characters or the characters of
fiction. Once again Ezekiel mentions Daniel, and in
a way to indicate that such a character was somewhat
familiar to the people of his time. He speaks of the
king of Tyre as pluming himself upon his wisdom.
He felt that he was as wise as Daniel and as capable
of understanding the secrets of dreams, and the like.
From these allusions, we find some reason to think
Daniel is not simply a character of fiction. Perhaps
we should come near the truth if we supposed him to
be a real personage, who was made the hero, so to
speak, of an historical fiction long afterward. We
are by no means unfamiliar with that sort of literary
device known as the historical novel. And we very
clearly recognize the book of Job as belonging to that
sort of writing, in a poetical form.
There is great reason to suppose that the book of
Daniel is a historical fiction in prose form. It is as-
Serted by some rather conservative writers that the
majority of the leading Christian scholars of the pre-
sent day hold that the book of Daniel was not written
in the days of the exile, but about the middle of the
Second century B. C. There are many and sufficient
THE FICTION. 115
reasons to adopt this view. It appears that the book
of Daniel is one of the supplementary writings, not
originally included in the Jewish collection of the pro-
phets. Neither Daniel nor the book is mentioned by
the Son of Sirach, who wrote about two hundred
years B. C., and gave a catalogue of Jewish prophets
and great men. Moreover, there are certain Persian
words in the book as well as Greek names of musical
instruments which were not in use at the time of the
exile.
It is a reasonable supposition that some patriotic
Jew during the Maccabean period — say about one
hundred and fifty years before the Christian era —
resorted to that sort of literary device later known
as historical fiction, taking a real character as the
basis of it, a man whose name was known to some,
though certainly not to all the Jews, and that by this
means he conveyed to the minds of his struggling
countrymen the teachings of Jehovah, important for
them at that time. In order the better to effect his
purpose, he introduces visions and interpretations, for
the encouragement of his people in their great con-
test for survival and liberty.
Now among all the books of the Old Testament,
that of Daniel is peculiar in that it seems to give mi-
nute predictions concerning the future. It seems to
lay out the plan for the succession of the great world-
empires, as the Assyrian, the Medo-Persian, the Greek,
and the Roman. As a matter of fact these four great
kingdoms did succeed each other in the order indi-
cated in the book of Daniel.
It has been held to be one of the most convin-
cing proofs of the infallible inspiration of the Bible,
that a man was able to tell beforehand how kingdoms
116 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
should rise and fall. In all the other prophetic books,
the predictions, as we have seen, are of a general
character, far more ethical than circumstantial, and
resting upon the basis of profound principles. In
Daniel, however, the predictions seem to have been
literally fulfilled. If this book was written after the
four great kingdoms had actually risen, then we have
no difficulty in understanding how their succession
could be described. There was no prediction about it.
Edmund Burke wrote beforehand the coming French
Revolution; but that was prediction based upon prin-
ciples of foresight understood by the author. If some
one in our own day were to write a historical novel,
dating it from the day of Burke, and making it a
story of Burke; and if the writer of it were to tell
all about the brilliant career of the first Napoleon, and
the succession of Presidents of the United States, as
having been foreseen by Burke, the device would be
similar to that of the writer of the book of Daniel.
No one would think of attributing dishonest motives
to the writer. It is as much a method of instruction
and as legitimate as that employed in the literature
of letter writing, or the literature of the drama (as
in the book of Job), or the ordinary novel of the
better class.
The book of Daniel has been misunderstood, and
made to teach an important error, because readers
have mistaken the time and design of its composition.
The nature of inspiration itself has suffered great mis-
representation, partly because this particular book has
not been recognized as a literary device; but our Chris-
tian scholars are helping us to rectify our errors in
that respect by assigning to the book of Daniel a
date long after the exile, and even after the rise of
the Roman power.
THE FICTION. 117
I know of no better way of showing the peculiar
value and the commanding influence of the book of
Daniel, its adaptation to the needs of the Maccabean
times, than by a quotation from Ewald, cited by Dean
Stanley in his “History of the Jewish Church,” and by
Dr. Gladden in “Who Wrote the Bible?” describing
the critical state of the Jews: “Everything had reached
that state of extreme tension when the ancient religion
upon its sacred soil must either disappear from view
completely for long ages, or must rise in fresh strength .
and outward power against enemies thus immoderately
embittered. It was at this crisis, in the sultry heat
of an age thus frightfully oppressive, that this book
appeared with its sword-edge utterance, its piercing
exhortation to endure in face of the despot, and its
promise full of divine joy, of near and full salvation.
No dew of heaven could fall with more refreshing
coolness on the parched ground, no spark from above
alight with a more kindling power on the surface so
long heated with a hidden glow. With winged brevity
the book gives a complete survey of the kingdom of
God upon earth, showing the relations which it had
hitherto sustained in Israel to the successive great
heathen empires of the Chaldeans, Medo-Persians,
and Greeks, -in a word, to the heathenism which
ruled the world. . . . Rarely does it happen that a
book appears as this did, in the very crisis of the times
and in a form most suited to such an age, artificially
reserved, close and severe, and yet shedding so clear
a light through obscurity, and so marvelously capti-
vating. It was natural that it should soon achieve a
success entirely corresponding to its inner truth and
glory.”
The book of Daniel in a peculiar degree sprang
118 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
from the necessities of its time. It took the form
that would produce the widest influence in the short-
est time. It, more than any other portion of the Old
Testament, is the prototype of the political and social
fiction-literature of our own day.
XI.
THE POETRY.
A CONSIDERABLE pertion of the Old Testament
is poetry. This is more notable because the New
Testament contains little poetry except that which is
quoted from the Old. In the Old Testament poetry
abounds, not only in the specially poetical books, but
also in the historical and prophetic books. One
of the most accomplished and eminent of modern
Hebrew scholars declares his conviction that the
first chapter of the book of Genesis is poetical in
form. Short poems are interspersed in the Penta-
teuch. The book of Job, the Psalms, the Song of
Solomon, are unmistakably poetical. The Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, and the Lamentations are also poetical,
though in a slightly modified way. Perhaps one
would be entitled to say that the prophecies them-
selves are prose poems. Now the fact that so large a
portion of the Old Testament is poetical ought to have
weight in helping us to determine more accurately
the nature of the volume as a whole. The oldest of
the Greek writings are said to be poetical. We may
go farther than that. There is a poetical flavor, if
one may use the expression, in the orations and coun-
cil talks of savage chiefs. &
In modern colloquial language we are about as far
from poetical as possible. We have a plain, direct,
and almost mathematical use of language. We ex-
120 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
pect definite meanings in the papers we read and the
talk we hear. If we do not get it we are dissatisfied.
We have time for poetry only in our leisure hours.
An attempt to express the difference between that
direct and clear-cut method of speech to which we
are driven more and more by the advance of science
and the old poetical method might issue in something
like this, namely: we express small and definite ideas
in our prose, but poetry expresses great and indefi-
nite ideas. Poetry is the tongue of the man whose
thought is too great for any other sort of statement.
Whenever we attribute to the poet the small and
definite idea which belongs to another kind of speech
we do him injustice, and inevitably fail of his mean-
ing.
Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning see poten-
tial greatness in small things. They help us to see
the greatness, too, and rejoice in it. The unpoeti-
cal soul sees great things only in bulk, or expressed
force. Our poets do not measure with a tape line
the dimensions of small things: they are not so defi-
nite. They are impatient of the man who in the
primrose sees nothing but the primrose. The ordi-
nary man glances at the primrose and sees nothing
but the definite form and color thereof. The man of
science does much more than that. He pulls the
plant of it out of the ground and carefully examines
the root, the stalk, the leaves, the petals, and all the
parts of it. That is his province. He may go even
farther than that, and follow the particular plant
down in the line of its origin. His field is a grand
one ; compared with the ordinary man he perceives
great things in the flower. The poet, when he sits
down before the flower, contemplates it ; and contem-
THE POETRY. 121
plates infinitely more than it. That is his province.
It is planted in a background of the infinities: it
blossoms as a suggestion of God. He writes his
couplet or verse or lofty poem about it. In prose lan-
guage no man has ever been able to tell us all about
such a thing as a primrose. There is no prose which
will contain it : you cannot translate the thought into
prose : if you try you lose the thought.
Well, the great thoughts of Israel’s great men have
come to us in the poetical form. It may be said that
all of the great thoughts have come in that guise.
Little thoughts, such as the priests often had, – little
notions of how to sacrifice to Jehovah, and how to
make curtains and other things for a tabernacle, or
how to make clothes for priests, – really fail to inter-
est any one. The man of the smallest soul can get no
comfort out of those portions of the Scriptures which
contain the priests’ trifles, unless he first tries to swell
the trifles to something of proportion by putting into
them a prophecy or symbol of the Sublime sacrifice
of the Man of later Scriptures. They are definite
enough, those ancient trifles, – as definite as a trea-
tise on housekeeping : but they fly away from us like
the chaff.
The real power of the Old Testament is in its po-
etry. It constitutes the kind of food which makes
the soul great. It pushes us out of our pettiness; it
furnishes a balm for our heavy sorrows; it gives us
visions; helps us to contemplate, and takes us out of
the range of the little and the fugitive. Poetry, there-
fore, is peculiarly the language of religion. For reli-
gion is no hard and fast and dry philosophy. It is
the realm of the feelings. Its office is to develop in
us great and true emotions, and it may truly be said
122 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
that we gain our greatest feelings by the help of Is-
rael’s poetry. Therefore when we come to the poetry
of the Bible we come nearer to God than in history
or story or ethical teachings. As we grow able to
look in upon the inner meanings of that poetry, the
veil of the temple is rent for us, and we gaze upon
the Most Holy place.
The truth of poetry is suggested rather than di-
rectly expressed, and therefore the poet does not care
for the small and definite truth which he seems to be
putting into words, except so far as it may serve his
purpose in suggesting the great and the indefinite
truth. In the use of the poet the incongruous, the
extravagant, and the impossible are not rejected.
The flood of his feelings knows no bounds. If any
one looked upon a vast mountain raising its white
spire into the clouds, he would think of that as an im-
movable mass. Whatever else might move, that would
remain and be everlasting ; but if the poet were upon
another strain, and were thinking of the presence of
God, the everlasting hills would cease to be everlast-
ing.
One of the hymns of Israel expresses the fervid
feeling of the poet, who sees the mountains skipping
like rams, and the little hills like lambs. The sea
also beholds something and flees away. The river
stops its flowing. What produces all these wonderful
effects? The presence of the God of Jacob, leading
his chosen people out of bondage. God comes out
of his secret place and visits his people, after long
absence, and all things witness this awful presence,
— the mountains, the sea, the river: the earth itself
trembles. This is the poet’s feeling of the sublim-
ity of that presence, and it is graphically portrayed.
THE POETR Y. 123
After we have learned the poet's method we do not
speak of the drapery as if it consisted of actual phe-
nomena in nature. We do not think that the sea
fled away, nor that the river stopped its flow, nor that
the mountains skipped. A great many people have
thought so, and out of poetry have made history.
But when out of poetry you make history, you destroy
the poetry and lose the element of religion it contains.
The poet always was extravagant, seemingly. To him,
in his vision, the earth trembles at the presence of
God, and the mountains skip ; the sea is driven back;
the river stops flowing. Everything goes out of its
course to honor or testify to God. So stood the sun
still on the plains of Gibeon, while the leader of God’s
people sought help from on high ; but it was in the
vision, and not in fact, it stood still.
The principal poetry of the Jews seems to have been
gathered from many sources, and into a number of
hymn-books. That portion of the poetry which could
be used in worship, could be sung or chanted, seems
to have made a hymn collection. That many of
the Psalms were so employed appears very natural.
There are many things which go to show that the
hymns were prepared for chanting. Musical signs
were interspersed here and there. The word “Se-
lah,” which I suppose used to seem one of the myste-
ries of Providence, and insoluble at that, is found to
indicate simply a pause. And just as we have marks
in our staff, -above it, generally, -such as f. or f. to
signify that the passage is to be rendered strongly or
very strongly, or piano or pianissimo to indicate soft-
ness, so this hymn poetry of the Jews had its marks."
There were time-marks and marks of expression, and
1 See Dr. Gladden's Who Wrote the Bible 2 chap. vii., for more
complete explanation.
124 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
indications of the kind of instrument to be employed
for accompaniment, and all the like, in the Psalms.
One easily forgets the names of these various marks,
which I suppose every Hebrew student who becomes
proficient in the Psalms commits to memory. But
these indicate that when we read the Psalms we are
reading from the Jewish hymn-books. They had five or
six of these books, which were finally gathered into one.
Many of the hymns have been credited to David,
some to Moses, some to Solomon, and others to vari-
ous authors; but our modern scholars find it difficult
to believe that David wrote any of the Psalms. The
compilers of the hymn-books attributed some of the
songs to David, and they all came to be known in a
general way as “the Psalms of David.” There is suf-
ficient evidence that they belong to a later time; but
with the question of authorship we are not now con-
cerned. At present we will consider the widely variant
conceptions of God which these hymns testify to.
In modern times it seems desirable to have hymn-
books which express the ideas of our own particular
church or sect. There are some hymns so good and so
comprehensive that almost any sect would put them in
their book, but on the whole it is desirable, as it ap-
pears, for our Roman brethren to have their Roman
book; for our Episcopal brethren theirs; for the
Presbyterian and Baptist and Methodist and Univer-
salist and Unitarian brethren their own peculiar hymn-
books. One does not really enjoy singing bad doctrines,
— that is, if he cares for doctrines at all. He would
prefer to sing out of the book which his sect approves
and publishes. Some hymn-books, adapted to periods
of unusual religious excitement, are employed by all
the sects which resort to revivals; but they are used,
THE POETRY. 125
of course, by most intelligent people with more or less
mental reservation.
The Jews, however, were very comprehensive in
their hospitality to hymns. Their sentiments seem
not to have crystallized into doctrines. Least of all
were they able to express doctrines in hymns. A
dogma in a hymn is a little like a wild beast in a col-
lection of chinaware, very destructive of the beauty of
the poetry. The Jews welcomed to their hymn-books
religious sentiment, — particularly that of the patri-
otic order. Whatever the doctrinal drift of a senti-
ment might be, if it appealed to the feelings, or some
of the feelings, it could have a place. For have we
not many sorts of feelings?— those of joy, and of
Sorrow, of peace and of anger, of exultation and of
contrition; and having all these, shall we not give
them their best expression in our religion? Israel
did not tell us so much about God as about its various
feelings concerning God, in these hymns. That is
what we want to know. We must have our own feel-
ings about God, and others can help us; but God
giveth such knowledge of himself as is fit, to each
teachable spirit. One poet looked upon Jehovah in
one way, another in another way. Each went accord-
ing to his gift or light. Our modern hymns are usu-
ally poor and feeble compared with the songs of
Israel. It has been said that the Psalms strike every
chord of human feeling, and these chords are struck
strongly. There were two things which did not ham-
per the poet of Israel: the one was doctrine and the
other was rhyme. He concerned himself with neither,
but did concern himself to speak strongly his feeling
or his inward conviction. His poetry was of the kind
Wordsworth called “inevitable.”
126 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
In modern hymn-books are usually at least some bad
hymns, – bad because they are neither poetry nor
truth. The hymns are not all upon an equality. We
do not begin at the beginning of a hymn-book and
sing all the hymns through seriatim. There are a
few which tower above all others. It is precisely so
with all the Jewish hymn-books. There are some which
help us more, or inspire us more deeply than we can
tell. There are others which help us no whit. There
are some which appeal to the feelings we ought to strug-
gle against with all our might. In one of the hymns
Jehovah is spoken of as the God of revenges, but in
another as the shepherd of men. Then the pathos of
contrition and humility is mingled in some hymns
with thirst for the confusion and destruction of one's
enemies.
There is a blemish in many of the hymns of praise.
It is the blemish which rises from the fact that Israel
was long a military people. No nation can be military
in its enterprise except it be to some extent moved by
the feeling of hatred of its enemies. And so bitter
was the hatred of Israel in the earlier part of its career
that it pursued some of its wars to the extent of ex-
terminating those who opposed. There is no question
of the bravery of that peculiar people. They bore the
onset of the greatest of the military powers of the
world. The hosts of Assyria pressed upon them with-
out conquering their indomitable spirit. There was no
extreme sacrifice of which they were not capable. No-
thing more truly heroic stands in the annals of history
than the intrepidity and unflinching courage of the
small bands of Judah, in Maccabean times, withstand-
ing the armies before which the very earth trembled.
For such a people to be without martial hymns would
THE POETRY. 127
be an impossibility. Their God was the God of war,
the Lord of hosts. Their Jehovah was the great con-
queror of enemies. It is the more surprising, there-
fore, that many of their hymns breathe the spirit of
peace and of humanity. It is surprising that any
could be found to believe that the earth is Jehovah's,
and the fullness thereof; that the sweeter elements
which belong to a later time should have found ex-
pression in the days of the struggle toward the sover-
eignty of the world. The better feeling mingles closely
with the worse. Jehovah is spoken of as the God of
salvation, but God shall crush the head of his ene-
mies. God says that he will again bring his people
out of Bashan, that “thy foot may be dipped in blood,
and the tongue of thy dogs stained with the blood of
thine enemies.” And yet in the same hymn is the
prayer that Jehovah will scatter those who desire
W2, l’S.
We are therefore driven to choose out of the hymns
of Israel the best and fittest for our help. Some of
the sentiments we must resolutely reject. We are
compelled to resort to the sifting process; and so all
people practically do. Those who would be horrified
at the thought of omitting any portion from the sacred
canon do, for their own private behoof, and for the
development in themselves of comfort, hope, and
trust, select those things which help them the most,
and read only with reluctance the other things.
Doubtless the hymn-books of the Jews were made
very much as ours were made, but with a difference.
We have our Watts and Cowper and the Wesleys.
We have the modern hymn-book poetry, which is in-
tensely dogmatic, and therefore far from religious.
We make our sectarian books. It may almost be said
128 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
that we try to sing baptism by immersion, and bap-
tism by sprinkling. We try to sing the decisions of
the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Trent. We
have tried to sing the dogmas of the priests about
sacrifices. We have sung, too, about probation and
the definite end of it. And in all such ways we have
stallen far below the standard of Israel. Their hymns
were large hymns of praise to Jehovah. Whether
Jehovah were to be regarded as the God of revenges,
or the shepherd, there were the ever applicable feelings
of praise. “I will praise the name of my God with
a song, I will magnify him with praise. And this
shall please God more than a young calf having horns
and hoofs.” Our comparatively few hymns of praise
are those which vibrate in our souls after the music
ceases without.
There is a still higher merit in Israel’s hymns. The
poet has been said to be the one who sets us free.
Perhaps it would be better to say that he is the one
who can set free from its latency in our own breast
the truth which uplifts us, and makes us see God.
To have that truth born into the world, and declare
itself, is the greatest blessing we can have. And
there is nothing which so declares our inward and
latent truth, the truth which connects us with God,
and makes us now and then conscious of his presence,
as the greatest of Israel’s hymns. I think I speak
advisedly in this. Back in the pre-Christian times
there was some great soul of the Jews, a sort of Schli-
ermacher, or Spinoza, or Goethe, who knew how to
free our deepest consciousness of its truth, and bring
it out into song. The highest and grandest philos-
ophy accords with the highest and grandest poetry.
Disraeli called the poets the unacknowledged legis-
THE POETR Y. 129
lators of the world. So far as the poetry of the
Bible is concerned, the poets have helped many to
walk in ways of pain and struggle victoriously.
If you are consumed by anxiety, and fretting your-
self about the result of your endeavors, it is the divine
poet who tells you to rest in Jehovah, and wait pa-
tiently for him. If you feel that your efforts will be
misunderstood, and that evil motives will be attributed
to you, the poet soothes your heart, and bids you com-
mit your way to Jehovah, “and he shall bring forth
thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as
the noonday.” If you feel that there is a hazard in
your steps, and you do not know where they will end,
although you take them for righteousness' sake, the
poet tells you that the steps of the good man are
ordered by Jehovah, and that Jehovah delighteth in
his way; that if he falls he shall be uplifted, be-
cause Jehovah upholdeth with his hand. If one feels
lonely and forsaken, and as if all were against him,
the poet tells him : “I have been young and am old,
yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his
seed begging bread.”
These and many other things the inspired poet tells
us, not because he is an authorized person and can
speak eac cathedra, but because he sees these things to
be true, and we can also see them to be true, without
any proof whatever. In the Psalms we find that high-
est authority which consists in revealing our own deep-
est things unto ourselves. We do not ask who wrote
a hymn before we are ready to sing it. But if the
music of truth is in it, and we have an ear for such
music, then we sing it as from heaven. It is a song
of Zion to us.
The Jews were solicitous for the authority of great
130 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
names, and yet their best hymns are anonymous.
In science a great name has deserved weight. We
cannot examine the facts of nature in any large ex-
tent; we have neither the skill nor the time to do it.
There is, therefore, a good reason why we should go
to our great lights of science to find out about nature.
It is so in civil law, it is so in medicine, it is so in
many of the departments of our activity; but so is
it not in religion. A mother does not go and ask the
authorities about love to discover whether or no she
loves her babe. No man goes to a philosopher to
discover about the presence of God. Yet if it has
come about in the experience of mothers that some
one has been able to give the best voice to the mother-
love, then all true mothers delight in that voice. The
speaker may be unknown, but the revelation is there.
If it has transpired in the experience of any one
that God is present with him, besetting him behind
and before, that will make a revelation of our before
latent truth, and that is the kind of authority the
Psalms notably have. They expose to us, as almost
nothing else does, the things of God latent within
ourselves. The moral philosopher can help us some-
what ; the scribe somewhat ; but, most of all, God’s
poet blesses us with the blessing of opening to us the
primal truths.
A hymn would be written by some person among
the Jews, and would be set to such music as they then
had ; would be gathered later into some collection, to
be used in their temple service. This collection would
afterward be followed by another. There would be
long hymns and short ones. In some, the history
would be set forth ; in others, there would be little
but praise of Jehovah for his wonderful works to the
THE POETR Y. 131
children of men. In a few there would breathe the
spirit of malediction. If religious men had chosen
only the good hymns of Israel, and had blotted out
of their remembrance the bad hymns, bloodshed and
cruelty would have been less in the world's history
than they have been. If religious men had taken for
divine that which inspired their own souls to the best
feelings, the Christian church would not have stained
itself with the blood of countless martyrs. Thus by
they history of Christendom God hath taught us that
it is our duty, as well as our privilege, to make choice
of the good and reject the evil, in everything fur-
nished by human experience.
XII.
GREEK INFLUENCE.
ACCORDING to the popular notion, derived mostly
from the numbers of years marked on the margins of
the English Bibles, a blank in the history of Israel oc-
curs between the last of the prophets and the birth of
Jesus Christ, — a blank of about four hundred years.
This period apparently leaves no record of itself in
the Bible, and therefore must seem unimportant. So
that, whereas there are very clear and definite ideas
about the earliest days of Hebrew history, and even
of the time preceding Hebrew history, the last five
hundred years of that history have received almost no
attention from common readers of the Bible.
Recent critical studies of the Bible have gone far
to modify this popular notion. In fact, one cannot
give attention to the subject without finding that the
popular notion is the reverse of the truth. Of the
actual early history of the Hebrews we have very
slight knowledge, and there is little prospect of an
increase of it; and the importance of it from a his-
torical standpoint is quite secondary. By far the
most interesting and important part of Jewish history
is in the blank space supposed to be left by the Bible.
During a period of about one hundred and seventy-
five years, beginning with the last of the eleventh
century of the Christian era, eight crusades took
place. These were hysterical movements of Western
GREEK INFLUENCE. 133
Europeans upon the Holy Land. Good results, how-
ever, often flow from misfortunes. From that pecu-
liar insanity of superstition which took the form of
the crusade arose this chief result, namely, a better
acquaintance of the people of Western Europe with
two civilizations more advanced than their own, – the
Greek and the Saracenic. Thus a powerful impulse
was given both to the literature and the commerce of
Europe.
The exile of the Jews from their land gave them a
great and new impulse in several ways. They were
brought into contact with civilizations and religions in
some respects superior to their own. It is true they
lost their political independence, and that was a great
trial to them, but they gained far more than they lost.
They added largely to their before small stock of reli-
gious ideas. It is possible to represent the changes they
underwent only in the most general way, and as highly
probable rather than entirely certain. Before the exile
they had been like children. Their national god was
for the most part one among many such gods, and
their practices were largely such as prevailed else-
where. There was one element of superiority which
we may declare became the seed of future greatness.
They gradually came to some ideas of right. And
while they were struggling to reach these ideas clearly,
they passed through much confusion. They attributed
good to Jehovah, but also evil. We hear the later
Isaiah saying for Jehovah : “I form the light and
create darkness; I make peace and create evil: I, Je-
hovah, do all these things.” This is an echo from one
of the earliest of the prophets, Amos, who cries,
“Shall there be evil in a city and Jehovah hath not
done it?” It was natural that they should attribute
134 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
evil to their god. Many even to-day are unable to
extricate themselves from the dilemma which con-
fronted them.
In this as in other respects there came a change,
and this change was wrought by new ideas which came
to them from the Persians and Chaldeans. They were
separated from their place of worship, Jerusalem.
Their temple had been destroyed, and its service had
ceased ; and under such circumstances it was inevi-
table that their feelings and reasonings should change.
Jehovah grew greater to them. They came to think of
him as the only God. This was all providential. Af-
ter one has come to think of God as some of the Jews
did, there is no lack of providence, but gradually God’s
providence fills everything. The Jews found that there
was only one God, and that he was a far greater and
higher being than their fathers had imagined. But
as these feelings increased they found God, their na-
tional God, withdrawing from them. He seemed to
be farther away because he was greater.
So grew up the idea of God’s' transcendence. He
was the ruler of all. He was the creator of all. The
heavens were the work of his hands, as well as the
earth. Accordingly we behold in the time succeeding
the exile a distinct doctrine of angels. To be sure,
angels had been thought of before, but what they were
no one seemed able to imagine. They might be like
the winds and the fires. After their contact with the
Persians angels, which are like men and have human
names, are spoken of. The angels were now more
necessary to their religious philosophy than they had
been before. Because if God were so high above all
things, if God were resident, so to speak, in a lofty
transcendency, it would be necessary for him to have
GREEK INFLUENCE. 135
beings of inferior rank to do his bidding and carry on
his affairs. The Persians contributed angels to the
Jews when the new necessities of their religion called
for angels. There was a distinct necessity for them,
because God was no longer a dweller on earth, but
far away. God was therefore not alone in heaven, but
was surrounded by an heavenly host of swift and pow-
erful beings, by whom he procured his will to be done.
This enlargement of their theology helped them
also in other ways; they were no longer compelled to
think of God as the author of evil. While God had
been receding from them, the ground of their confi-
dence in him had been growing firmer. He was right-
eous, and could now always be righteous. If there
was evil in the city, it was not necessary to think that
Jehovah did it. It was not necessary to think that
God was darkness as well as light. For the inferior
beings, sometimes called the sons of God, were capa-
ble of both good and evil. Some of them were reck-
oned to be good angels. And instead of having a god
for each nation, it might at least be conceived that
there was for each nation a guardian angel. In the time
of great distress and danger, there was comfort in feel-
ing that a mighty angel was guarding the destinies of
the people. If there were hosts on the earth in battle
array, it was conceived that there were also hosts on
high, also in battle array. The göod and the evil
were fighting there, as good and evil nations were
fighting here. These beings of the other and higher
order were therefore good and bad. They were re-
spectively instigating their peoples to good and evil.
At the present time the angels are fading away
again. It is because of still greater conceptions of
God that arise; but at that time the introduction of
136 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
angels marks a distinct advance and improvement of
the religion of Israel.
It is impossible to do more than touch upon the na-
ture of the Chaldean and Persian influence upon the
Jews. But, to those who carefully study in the light
of modern methods, there can be no doubt of the im-
portance of this influence, and at the very time when
it was received.
In that blank space between the last of the prophets
and the birth of Christ, the principal preparation was
made for the introduction of the greater religion. We
are perhaps unable to strictly identify all or many of
the influences, but the principal ones are plain. And
one of the principal of these moulding influences arose
from the association of Jews with Greeks. The out-
line of the history is somewhat as follows: A certain
portion of the Jews had returned to Palestine during
the reign of Cyrus, and under his protection. After
the time of Cyrus his successors had made the most
strenuous effort to conquer the Greeks, but the ser-
vile forces of the Oriental monarch found themselves
unable to cope with the free Greeks. They met dis-
astrous defeat at Marathon, about 490 B. C., and at
Thermopylae ten years later. The states or cities of
the Greek peninsula were torn by jealousies, and by
reason of their dissensions were fast becoming unable
to carry on their warfare, until they were united under
Philip of Macedon. As the Persian ambition had been
to possess the Greek territory, now the ambition of
Philip was to conquer Persia on its own soil. This
design of his was carried out by Alexander, who, in a
brief but brilliant career, became the master of the
world. Palestine became incorporated in the new uni-
versal empire about 330 B. C.
GREEK INFLUENCE. 137
In the course of a century, there came to be Greek
communities in Palestine. A large number of Jews
went to the new and great city founded in honor of
Alexander, and called after him. It is very evident
that the Jews were now brought under an influence
which was to have a profound effect upon their feel-
ings and religion, as well as the religions which should
afterward grow out of theirs.
Without entering upon any examination of the pe-
culiar history of the period, which was one of great
trial to the faithful Jews, suffice it to say that they
were being broadened, or, as we say, liberalized, by
contact with the people who at that time excelled not
only in arms, but in the arts and philosophy and polite
learning. It is impossible for a people who have any
quickness of apprehension, no matter what strength of
conservatism is theirs, to escape the influence of such
a contact. The Greeks were not haughty and tyranni-
cal, but met them upon grounds of a fellowship which
their liberal religious ideas did not forbid. The effect
of such influence is seen in a book written about the
close of the third century B. C., and which was attri-
buted by its author, according to a literary device of
the Jews, to Solomon. In reality this remarkable
book does not reflect the times of Solomon, but the
times of the Greek dominion. The book of Ecclesi-
astes is lacking in the religious fervor of earlier and
greater books, and there is apparent in it, as most
readers have seen, a skepticism which shows that the
Greek contact had brought sadness and that shadow
which is always cast by materialism. The writer is
wearied with the repetitions of nature. The sun riseth
and goeth to his place. The wind goeth toward the
south and turneth about unto the north ; it whirleth
138 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
about continually. The rivers run into the sea. All
things are full of labor; man cannot utter it. This
unutterable sameness of things, and of life, and of la-
bor; this everlasting flight of vanity upon an aimless
mission; the very effort to find out the meaning of all
these things, – it is all a vexation of spirit.
The writer of this belonged, of course, to the wealthy
class. He had the time and opportunity to devote
himself to philosophy. He gave his heart to know
wisdom, and acquired, as he tells us, a great experience
above all other men, but he found only grief.
The position of his nation, as conquered, was an
affliction to him ; but that does not account for the
dismal view he takes of all things. For he does not
limit his view to his own nation; he takes a keen
glance at everything that is done under the sun. And
whether it is here or there, it all amounts to the same
thing. It is all vanity, and such a realm of vanity
is more painful to contemplate than a realm of sorrow
itself. He does not know how to account for it. He
does not know how it can be that there is a God who
is mighty and good, and at the same time such a world
as this. He has lost the faith of his predecessors.
Not their faith in the existence of God, but their sense
of God’s presence. God no longer has anything to do
on the earth.
It is a curious fact, and worthy of our notice, that
he does not seem any longer to care for the Jehovah
of the Jews. He never once mentions his name, which
was held in such profound reverence. He does not
think of Israel as a peculiar people of Jehovah, there-
fore. The Persian influence has already had its effect,
and God has gone off farther and farther into the
abysses. “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not
GREEK INFLUENCE. 139
thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for
God is in heaven and thou upon earth, therefore let
thy words be few.” Possibly, if this were to be trans-
lated into the plainest of our speech, it would be found
to be advice not to address words to God, or petitions
or praises. God is in heavén and man is on earth,
and there is no communication between the two.
It must not be supposed that the religion of the Jews
is forgotten by this man, nor that he has become athe-
istic. And there is another thing which ought to be
noted, - his belief in the goodness or righteousness of
God. He taught that only by obedience to the com-
mandments of God can we expect happiness. He has
lost the enthusiasm, the spirit of trust, the heart of
love for God. The truth he sees is like the light of
a most wintry Sun: it does not warm his soul. It is
entirely possible he was acquainted with the doctrine
of immortality. In then recent times it had been em-
braced, but he did not find himself able to believe it.
He, indeed, finds that the same event happens to all,
both good and bad. “As is the good, so is the sin-
ner. . . . To him that is joined to all the living, there
is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
For the living know that they shall die, but the dead
know not anything, neither have they any more a re-
ward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their
love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished;
neither have they any more a portion forever in any-
thing that is done under the sun.” If there is any-
where a more distinct disclaimer of immortality than
that, it would be difficult to find it. And yet the man
believes in that distant God, that awful Power, resident
in the distances. He believes, too, in goodness to a
moderate extent. For, in spite of his rash generaliza-
140 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
tion of all things under the head of vanity, he is still
almost always moderate. This moderation displays
itself in the advice he gives to men. Because there is
nothing after death, therefore, he says, “Enjoy your
life. Eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with
a merry heart. . . . Live joyfully with the wife whom
thou lovest all the days of thy vanity, which he hath
given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity;
for that is thy portion in life. Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no
work nor device, nor knowledge nor wisdom, in Sheol,
whither thou goest.” The best thing he can think
of is the long extension of life. But he has observed
that sometimes the righteous man perishes, and the
wicked man prolongs his days. His advice therefore
is, “Be not righteous overmuch ; neither make thy-
self overwise; why shouldest thou destroy thyself?
Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish ; why
shouldest thou die before thy time?” Some have
spoken of the writer of all this as a worn-out voluptu-
ary; a man who had tried everything of the delights
of the flesh, and had found himself disappointed, as all
such do. But does he not rather appear to be a man
of extreme moderation ? He has lost the enthusiasm
and fervor of the Jewish religion, and had contracted
the Greek flavor. It was perhaps inevitable, but it
was in the last degree mournful. This shows us how
the notion of the transcendence of God, his work
through angels and secondary causes, is likely to sap
the enthusiasm and fervor of religion if it develop far
enough.
The Greek influence, however, is not all expressed,
it merely finds over-expression, in this book of Ecclesi-
astes. We may well suppose that, while all the Jews
GREEK INFLUENCE, 141
responded to Greek influence, not all, and not a con-
siderable portion of them, went the lengths of the au-
thor of this book. Indeed, the Greek influence itself
is hard to understand, if we do not find more in it than
the moderation of this preacher. There had been a
great history across the western sea. The statesmen
and scholars and poets had been those whose memory
the world has delighted to honor, but these great men
had all departed. Five centuries before the begin-
ning of the Christian era the greatest of the Greeks
had died, sacrificing himself to the welfare of the
state.
The Greeks had their priests, as had the Jews, but
they also had enjoyed the advantage of one great pro-
phet, — doubtless of more than one; but the one is
known to all men. Socrates had been as conscious of
a divine call and mission as any of the Jewish pro-
phets had been. He had devoted himself to that mis-
sion with a fidelity sealed at last with his blood.
Among those born of women hath not arisen a greater
than Socrates, with one exception. The mission of
Socrates, as well as of his predecessors, and that great
successor Plato, to whom the world is so vastly in debt,
could not have been lost as the centuries rolled on.
To every great river, as it flows toward the sea, there
are tributaries; and that great river of religion, which
took the name of Christianity nineteen centuries ago,
did not then spring in full flood out of the ground.
The same river had been coming down through eras
of human experience, but this experience was not lim-
ited to the one nation. Or, if we suppose that to
Israel belongs the honor of the name of that religion,
there were other streams which contributed their sup-
ply, at fit places in the progress. Israel, with its dis-
142 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
tinguishing idea of righteousness, was cast adrift from
its old belongings, that it might share the riches of the
heathen. It was sent into exile, both for its own good
and the good of the world, and for the welfare of un-
born generations. It was cast in contact with the
Persians, to learn of these followers of the ancient and
refined religion of Zoroaster what they could teach.
It was thrown afterward with those who had felt the
influence of Greek thought, then and long the most
subtle, the most liberal, the most enlightened in the
world.
It would be possible, had one the knowledge and the
delicacy of perception, to trace these four great con-
tributing influences in the mind of the writer of the
book of Ecclesiastes. The fervor of the Hebrew is
toned down by the moderation of the Stoic. The idea
of righteousness inherited from the Hebrews is chilled
by the feeling of the distance of God in the heavens;
or by the loss of Jehovah, the national and present
deity. The skepticism of the later Greeks thus makes
its appearance as upon the surface, to be the chief
feature of the book. All this, nevertheless, contri-
butes to the revelation of God to man. It all prepares
the way for the fuller revelation.
In our own time we hear, as it were, an echo of Some
of the words of Ecclesiastes. We are exhorted by a
persuasive and eloquent orator of our own country not
to be overmuch righteous; to enjoy life while we
may. But our orator does not go quite so far as the
author of Ecclesiastes. Of a life beyond the grave
he does not profess to know anything; but he would
not darken the star of hope which may cheer any
soul. The author of Ecclesiastes is persuaded in his
own mind that there is no work, nor device, nor con-
GREEK INFLUENCE, 143
sciousness, in Sheol, whither we are all going. He
may have darkened the star of hope in many breasts.
Yet there is in all such philosophy somewhat of pre-
paration for the coming better religion. The Jewish
authorities did not reject such writings from their
canon, because such writings as the book of Ecclesias-
tes contain somewhat of the increasing revelation.
It does not satisfy us: neither do any of the things
preparatory to Christianity satisfy us wholly.
There is a value in such a book as that of Eccle-
siastes, however, which is not lessened by its defects.
Together with the book of Jonah, and others which
express wide sympathies, it helps prepare the way for
the universal religion. When we reach the beginning
of the universal religion, the religion not of the Jew,
nor of the Greek, nor of the barbarian, but of man-
kind, we hear no longer the name, Jehovah. If we
find fault with the omission of this revered name from
the book of Ecclesiastes, what shall we say of the
bringer-in of the new covenant, to whom the word is
simply a word of the past 7 — who dares to replace all
the names of the past by the term of tender and close
relation, Father ? Surely the skepticism of this Jew two
hundred years before Christ, the sad pessimism of this
book, and the development of an all-doubting spirit
were not wasted if they helped to broaden the way for
the blessing of mankind by a religion which should
root itself in that which had come from all nations.
Paul acknowledges that he is debtor to both Jews and
Greeks; so are we all, and to more than Jews and
Greeks, – to those who held partial truths; to those
who held errors; to those who doubted the future, as
well as to those who expected the future life.
It may be well to open our eyes to the fact that our
144 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
Bible is not the product of Jewish thought alone. As
its mission is to bless all nations, so it has been made
by all nations. God is not alone the God of the Jew,
but also of the Gentile. *
In that period which has been regarded as blank,
between the last of the prophets and Christ, scholars
of religion are showing us the preparations of divine
Providence for the breaking down of the walls of par-
tition. In the light of their discoveries we may see the
Jew bringing to us his sheaves, and the Persian bring-
ing his sheaves, and the Greek his. And the end is
not yet. There rises in the West a people before whom
the earth is destined to tremble as it has never trem-
bled before; the people before whom the conquering
Greek and the already subject Jew must learn to bow.
The last of the world empires is to arise before the
coming of the world's true king. The Greek is to be
supplanted by the Roman. -
XIII.
OTHER INFLUENCES.
THE extent and permanence of the Greek influ-
ence over the Jews are best shown by the fact that
the Greek language, with some local modification,
was adopted by the Hebrew people; and in process
of time the Hebrew Scriptures, which were begun at
the time of the exile, and brought later to a sort of
completion, were translated into Greek. The Greek
Scriptures came to be of such general use among the
people, not only of Egypt and Alexandria, but of
Palestine as well, that a large proportion of the quo-
tations in the New Testament from the Old are from
the Greek instead of the Hebrew Bible.
Greek customs and Greek thoughts found their way
into Hebrew usage and minds, and the old walls of
separation between the Jew and the rest of the world
began to be undermined. The Jews, as a separate
people, under the auspices of Jehovah, had almost
accomplished their mission. As we speculate, we find
it possible, perhaps probable, that if the history
of the Jews could have been long continued under
the influence of the Greeks, there would have en-
sued such a mingling of the better elements of both
kinds of religion and philosophy as would have left
the Jewish religion much less distinct than it really
1S.
Comparative quiet had the Jews during the rule,
146 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
first of the Persians, and then of the Greeks. And
quiet times are favorable for easy and natural assimi-
lation. The old dream of the Jews, that they were
the peculiar people of God, destined always to remain
peculiar until they should arrive at the control of all
nations, was already subsiding. They were learning
the arts and sciences of the Greeks, as well as adopt-
ing their language.
A certain king, who seems to have been insane
with ambition, and who desired above all things to
make a brilliant career, took occasion to violently in-
terfere with the religious rites of the Jews, and even
went so far as to issue a command that they should
worship the gods of Greece alone. The temple on
Mt. Gerizim was dedicated to Jupiter, while, upon
the high altar of the temple at Jerusalem, swine's
flesh was offered in sacrifice, and broth of swine's
flesh was sprinkled in the holy place, and over the
Sacred utensils.
No such successful mode could have been devised
to stop the liberalizing process which was gradually
leavening the religion of the Jews. They were, of
course, aroused to resist these blasphemous proceed-
ings, and the religious sentiment was revived in great
power. They became Jews again, and were prepared
to stand stoutly for the ancestral religion, which
was almost departing from them. The observance of
the Sabbath was forbidden and synagogues were de-
stroyed. Antiochus could have taken no course so
sure to defeat his ends as this. Yet by taking this
course he performed a great service for the world to
come, because he prevented the loss of the root of a
true religion, the religion of the prophets and psalm-
ists, – the religion which was founded to bless the
OTHER INFLUENCES. 147
world, and out of which should grow the Christian
development.
One of the measures of repression resorted to by
Antiochus the Brilliant was to order the delivery to
his officers of all copies of the law to be burned. If
any failed to obey, they were to be slain. The satel-
lites of the king went prowling up and down the
kingdom, violently destroying the remnants of the old
religion. To meet such atrocity, the spirit of the peo-
ple was at length aroused. A considerable proportion
of them submitted and became idolaters, but there
was a remnant in whom the spirit of the prophets
slumbered, in whose breast it was reawakened. The
agents of the king, in carrying out their plan, came to
a small town, between Jerusalem and Joppa, where
dwelt a distinguished priest named Matthias, who was
the father of five sons. This man was commanded to
offer sacrifice upon an altar erected by the agents of
the king, but he flatly refused to do it. Upon his
refusal, there advanced from the crowd one of those
pliant men of the Jews who were always ready to
make favor with the party in power, and he proceeded
to offer the sacrifices. Matthias, the aged priest,
would not bear that, and promptly killed the man.
The officers of Antiochus were killed, the altar de-
stroyed, and Matthias called to him all who were zeal-
ous for the law. These escaped into the wilderness,
were pursued and attacked, but after a while became
victorious. Their numbers increased, and what they
lost otherwise, as in weapons, etc., they gained in in-
creased spirit and courage. -
They carried on their warfare, after the death of the
aged priest, under the leadership of his son, Judas,
whose surname was Maccabeus, or The Hammer.
148 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
In a series of conflicts which ensued, the Jews were
mainly victorious. Jerusalem was retaken, the temple
cleansed, the sacrifices resumed. After that manner
the religion of Ezra and Nehemiah, the religion of
the prophets, which had seemed to languish, which
had been almost lost, as the book of Ecclesiastes wit-
nesses, was again established. i
By the student of history, and especially one inter-
ested in the history of the Jews, and in tracing the
rise of the religion of Christ, it must be deplored that
the best accounts of these most urgent and signifi-
cant times, the books of the Maccabees, were excluded
from our Protestant editions of the Bible. For they
describe the most heroic period of Israel’s history not
only, but they give us some information of the rise of
those religious parties which played so important a
part in the time of Jesus Christ. They also tell us of
the first association of the Romans with the Jews.
Judas Maccabeus heard of the might and valor of the
Romans, and how ready they were to make treaties
with other nations. “It was told him also of their wars
and noble acts which they had done among the Gauls,
and how they conquered them, and brought them un-
der tribute, and what they had done in Spain, and
how they had conquered every place though it were
very remote from them.” In a word, Judas heard
of the universal conquest of this mighty people of
the West. Moreover, there was something new in
the mode of the administration of government by this
great people. They had representatives — over three
hundred of them — to sit in their senate chambers
daily, so that the affairs of the people might be well
ordered ; and one man was chosen each year for the
administration of executive functions.
OTHER INFLUENCES. - 149
This information so influenced Judas that, being
himself in straits because of his enemies the Greeks,
he sent a deputation to Italy to propose an alliance
with the Romans. Their response to this proposal is
given : “Good success be to the Romans, and to the
people of the Jews, by sea and by land, forever; the
sword also, and enemy, be far from them. If there
come first any war upon the Romans, or any of their
confederates throughout all their dominion, the people
of the Jews shall help them, as the time shall be ap-
pointed, with all their heart ; neither shall they give
anything unto them that make war upon them, or aid
them with victuals, weapons, money, or ships, as it
hath seemed good unto the Romans; but they shall
keep their covenants without taking anything there-
for. In the same manner, also, if war come first upon
the nation of the Jews, the Romans shall help them
with all their heart,” etc. So comes the all-conquer-
ing. Roman upon the ground of the Jew, thenceforth
to be inseparable from Jewish history, so long as the
nation remained in the land.
Internal dissensions arose among the rival princes
of the Jews, and this gave a pretext to Pompey to
gain possession of Jerusalem. The priests were slain
at the altar, and Pompey drew aside the veil that con-
cealed the most holy place, expecting to find some
image there. It does not appear that this act, so pro-
fane to the Jews, was anything more than the curiosity
of a stranger who had the power to do as he chose,
and who wished to look upon the gods of a conquered
people. In this act of profanation, as they deemed it,
together with later acts of tyranny, such as taking the
Jewish ruler and other princes to Rome to grace the
Roman triumph, originated the hatred against the Ro-
150 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
mans, which never afterward ceased nor diminished.
This triumph of the Roman general occurred about.
63 B.C., and the hatred then incurred had time to root
itself deeply in the heart of all classes of the Jews
before the birth of Jesus.
In the year 37 B. C., Herod, known as “the
Great,” became the king of the Jews, – a man of
extraordinary talent, as shown by the fact that he was
able to maintain his throne during the great changes
in Rome, and in spite of numerous and powerful ad-
versaries in Syria. He raised the Jewish state in the
respect of the world, making it the political power it
had not been before. The old temple he replaced by
a far more magnificent structure. He knew how to
adorn cities. He had in perfection the Roman trick
of securing popular favor by the improvement of
streets, the establishment of baths, theatres, and the
like. He builded the city which took the name of
the Caesar. He gave a splendor to the kingdom it
had not possessed, according to the traditions of the
people, since the days of Solomon ; but by reason of
his foreign birth, and the vices which stained his pri-
vate character, and because he was a flatterer of the
Romans, the Jews hated him persistently. Driven by
the necessities of circumstances, as appears, this man
slew many of his own kin, including three of his
sons, thus testifying to the evils of times which made
such crimes necessary in a ruler. Thus the days of
Herod were to the Jews days of horror, making them
all the more solicitous to maintain the integrity of
their own religion.
One can have but a partial and possibly misleading
view of the state of the Jews under the Roman rule,
and of the condition of things into which Jesus was
OTHER INFL UENCES. 151
born, who fails to note the rise and development of
three distinct parties among them. It is, perhaps,
impossible to trace any of these parties to its origin.
But of the existence of the three, the Gospels of the
New Testament bear abundant testimony. These three
divisions, partly religious and partly political, are re-
spectively named the Pharisee, the Sadducee, and the
Essene. In many respects the first of these is the
most important, and has the closest relation with the
life and teachings of Christ.
The name signifies separation. The Pharisee was
the Separatist. Perhaps he began his career in revolt
against that rule of Greek influence which manifests
itself in the book of Ecclesiastes, and which came to
success under the lead of Judas Maccabeus. For
under the Greek influence the old, rigors introduced
by Ezra, the laws against intermarriage and social
intercourse with other peoples, had fallen all but
dead. The atrocious attempt of Antiochus to destroy
the last remnant of Jemovah worship had, as we have
Seen, awakened a new and brave zeal for the old laws
and the old religion. The cry arose for a new sep-
aration of the people of the divine promises from
the heathen. In the time of Ezra, the same cry had
resulted in the violent divorce of Jewish men from
their heathen wives. The ties of nature, which are
really more sacred than any artificial ties of society or
religion, had been ruthlessly violated. Husbands sent
away their wives and children in order to become once
more loyal Jews. No doubt Ezra, in his pious zeal for
the honor of Jehovah, believed that God does require
such barbarous things of the children of men. At any
rate, the old idea of separation, which had been slowly
growing up, revived after the exile, and again revived
152 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
in the days of Judas, the heroic son of the heroic
old priest Matthias. In many ways the idea was
taken up by a class of patriotic Jews. Whether they
named themselves the Separatists, or were so named
by their opponents, we do not know ; but they became
very strong with the people. In a certain sense, now
difficult to understand fully, they were at the same
time the progressive party. They were not a set of
hypocrites, as we may have imagined. Doubtless there
were hypocrites among them, but so are there in any
party. What they wished was to assert the preemi-
nence of the Jew over other men. To this feeling they
had been stimulated by the book of Daniel, which
foretold the supremacy of the Jews in the world (to
be shortly realized), and by other writings of a simi-
lar character. But if the nation were separated from
other nations less holy, or unclean, so also individ-
uals in the nation who aspired to holiness must keep
themselves from association with even Jews of lax re-
ligion and morals. Those who loved the law should
hate those who cared nothing for the law. They should
separate them from their company as unclean and de-
filing. Such feelings grow naturally out of the desire
to abide by regulations for conduct. If they are un-
modified by other feelings, such as those which make
love for God and man the chief element in religion,
they will soon develop into excess, and become the most
hateful of all feelings. The Pharisees grew exceedingly
proud and exclusive. They knew and affirmed their
superiority to other men. They could go into the
temple and pray, and thank God that they were better
than other men, because they kept the laws and paid
the taxes.
The Sadducees were of patrician rank; and while
OTHER INFLUENCES. 153
one of their number might be a Pharisee, although he
would thereby sacrifice the esteem and countenance of
his fellow-Sadducees, no person not to the manner
born could be a Sadducee. The Sadducees fell from
political power with the beginning of the reign of
Herod. From that time on, the Pharisees gained the
ascendancy in Jewish affairs which they were able to
maintain nearly to the end.
There was another party, of small numbers and of
little political significance, but of which Josephus, the
Jewish historian, makes much in his Antiquities. The
Essenes were the most devoted of all the Jews in their
religion; but their religion was of a type not directly
authorized by the law. They separated themselves
even from the Separatists. They did not frequent the
temple, although for a time they sent gifts to its cof-
fers and altars. They may have been indebted to dis-
ciples of Pythagoras among the Greeks as much as to
the Jewish Scriptures for the distinctive features of
their religion. They seem to have lived in small com-
munities, at long distance from the larger towns, and
to a considerable extent in the regions of the Dead Sea.
They engaged themselves in agriculture, or bee-keep-
ing, or herding. They disdained all adornment, their
dress being such as John the Baptist is described as
wearing. They were vegetarians, and abstained from
wine. They recognized no social distinctions. There
were no rich and no poor. They were brethren, and
had all things in common. By them marriage was not
tolerated.
The three religions were in force at the birth of
Christ. They may be called three religions because
the adherents of each were separated from the others
by distrust, and even hatred. The Pharisees were the
154 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
most enlightened, the most progressive, and the most
engaged in affairs. They were doing the most to shape
the religious and social destiny of the nation. They
were the ones with whom the coming Christ would
have most in common. -
Meanwhile, and for a long time, the religious teach-
ers of the people were not absent or idle. The
Scribes, of whom perhaps Ezra at the exile had been
the first, formed a body of men who paid attention to
the explanation of the law and interpretation of its
difficulties. They had attained great authority among
the people. They sat in Moses’ seat. In general
there were two opposing or at least unsympathetic
Schools. One of these schools, or “houses, ’’ as they
were called, seems to have been founded by a very
wise and virtuous man, Hillel by name. This man
extended the authority of the Scribes, while at the same
time he himself exercised his authority in the mildest
fashion. His precepts are some of them of the sort
found in the Sermon on the Mount. The Talmud tells
us that once, when a heathen asked Hillel to show him
the whole of the Jewish religion in a few words, he an-
swered: “Do not unto others that which thou wouldst
not should be done to thee: this is the whole extent of
the law ; all the rest is merely explanation of it. Go
now and learn to understand that.” A teacher able
and wise enough to teach after that manner is one who,
like the great prophets of an earlier time, can under-
stand and express the substance of religion, overlaid
and obscured as it is by unspeakable masses of tradi-
tion and performance.
A very melancholy spectacle was always in sight
of the thoughtful Jew during this period. With
the advent of the Greeks there had come, as we have
OTHER INFLUENCES. 155
seen, an assimilation of Greek ideas and Greek man-
ners and customs. There had ensued upon the Ro-
man alliance a new admixture. Galilee had for a
long time been known as a gathering place or district
of heathem. Many Jews dwelt in Galilee, but they
were mostly infected with the manners, and to some
extent the morals, of the heathen. Away from Je-
rusalem, and in the smaller cities and villages, there
were multitudes who had become indifferent to the
laws of the Jews. There were many persons who
were ready and glad to gain wealth by favoring the
cause of the Romans, and to extract money from their
Jewish brethren by the taxes.
And so, at the time of the beginning of the mission
of Christ, a number of Jews were in the land, dis-
owned by the Pharisees and by the priests, and left
untaught and uncared for. There was no religious
teacher who seemed to give any attention to this
multitude. All that was done was to withdraw from
any association with them. They were Jews by birth,
but on account of their lax morals, and their inatten-
tion to the demands of the law, they were cast adrift
from Judaism to fare as they might. To this result
had the mixing of the Jews with other nations, dur-
ing a period of four centuries, brought religion. The
religious were few. The people had to a large ex-
tent grown cold toward the rites of the temple, and
toward the sacred traditions. The advocates of reli-
gion, whether Pharisees, Sadducees, or Essenes, had
little hold upon these disowned masses. In a way,
these Jews were infidels. They were classified as “sin-
ners,” and to the pious Jew a sinner was a horror.
But there was coming, and in fact was already ar-
rived, one who was to look upon these disowned multi-
156 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
tudes in a new way. He would look upon them as
sheep destitute of a shepherd. If the strictly reli-
gious people, the Scribes and Pharisees, may have
been expected to be the friends and helpers of this
new teacher, the expectation will be disappointed. The
coming teacher of Israel will find his friends and the
subjects of his teachings in these “lost sheep of the
house of Israel.” Thus a new career will begin in
Judaism. Israel, which has been trained for some
centuries in the school of a haughty exclusiveness,
will give birth to a new and divine teacher, who will
go with tender and winning solicitude to these “lost,”
and thus establish that new religion in which all the
heathen, and all the “lost,” shall have their part.
XIV.
THE NEW AGE.
AT some military posts, sunrise is greeted with the
firing of a gun, and the day dismissed in like manner
at sundown. The sun itself makes no noise in its ris-
ing, and may be said to be unobserved by the most
of people; but military and other persons sometimes
make much noise in the world. At certain times
their noise is contemporaneous with the rising or the
setting of suns. Eras are sometimes ushered in by
tumult; by revolution and downfall of nations; and
sometimes the new eras come quietly enough. They
are not known to have come when they are actually
here. It is left to the future to look back and declare
that at such a time the new era came.
The greatest era in human history, compared with
which all previous eras were relatively insignificant,
was born in troublous times, to be sure, but without
attracting the attention of any single soul of man.
There are stories well known by all Christendom, and
made much of by all Christians, of which this is to be
said, that they were the growth of later years. To
these stories we will give little credit, provided we are
studying the Bible as we study any other literature.
Precisely such stories we reject as unhistorical when
we find them in the scriptures of other Oriental peo-
ples. Now we are endeavoring to study the Bible as
we would study any religious book. We are trying
158 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
to discriminate in its history the things which are his-
torical and the things which are unhistorical. This
we can do only as we apply such a mode of investiga-
tion as we find best adapted to the purpose of literary
and historical criticism.
So we think of the beginning of the greatest era of
human history as coming unobserved by the multi-
tude, and really unobserved by any one. The kingdom
of heaven cometh without observation. Now there are
two widely distinct fields of thought : the one is the
physical, including all that belongs to the recurrence
of seasons, days and nights, and the events which oc-
cur in them ; the other is the spiritual, including the
principles of religion. It certainly must strike any
one who knows anything of the teachings of Jesus that
his work and thought were almost exclusively in the
spiritual realm. In the physical sense, and as regards
the physical facts, he was the child of a humble paren-
tage among the Jews. But with these and such like
facts he was not greatly interested. His mind moved
in the realm of spiritual verities, the realm which may
be called the kingdom of heaven. His conduct and
his words were of that realm. He spoke of himself as
the Son of God. His assumption of this rank has
been regarded as a most serious statement in the realm
of physics, both by his followers and by opponents. Yet
there is no recorded saying of his which in any measure
justifies the belief that he believed himself to be the
Son of God in the physical sense. If we, with the
light of greater knowledge of things physical than his
contemporaries had, are careful to discriminate between
the physical and the spiritual; if we are capable of
recognizing a spiritual power in ourselves, and a capa-
city for religion, or the spiritual life, — we need not be
THE WE W A G.E. 159
puzzled by those mysteries which for many centuries
have caused offense to the learned and the thoughtful.
He who makes the claim of being the Son of God
when he is not is a deceiver, and ought to be so
ranked. That is one evident principle. Another is
that, in such an age as that wherein Jesus Christ was
born, there are very few who will be able to under-
stand the claimant of a divine sonship except in the
physical sense. While an obscurity rests upon the
actual history of Jesus during his life in the world, suf-
ficient of the light of his divine life shines out through
the clouds to assure any reverent soul that he was in
very truth what he claimed to be, the Son of God.
The evidence that he was the Son of God in the phy-
sical sense is, to say the least, exceedingly slender; but
if that evidence were perfect, it would add no weight
or authority to his teachings in the spiritual realm.
If in the study of the Bible we had found that all
its statements are infallibly correct, so that in no case
was a blunder made in respect to any matter whatso-
ever, there would then be no appeal from the slight
evidence given of the divine parentage of Jesus in a
physical sense. So long as the Bible holds that place
in the regard of any one, that whatsoever is found
therein is final and not to be doubted, there will be
no question respecting the birth of Jesus. He will
be regarded as the Son of God in the sense of religion
and in the sense of physics. But once see that the
Bible is not infallible, that there are errors in it which
confess themselves to any person of judgment, and
forthwith the question in regard to Jesus and his re-
lation to nature will arise.
If our study of the Old Testament has been of
real service to us, we have seen that above all other
160 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
books, because it is the book of religion, the Bible
ought to be read with discrimination. That is to say,
we are not to take all of its statements as of equal
value or equal truth. If we do not read it with dis-
crimination, we fail to get at the value of it. It may
be said that readers of the Bible read with two differ-
ent motives: the one class reads for the purpose of
seeing exactly what the Bible says, without a care as
to the particular nature of the saying ; the other class
reads to know not only what is said, but if possible
why it was said. The one method is that of supersti-
tion, and the other is that of reason, and for the pur-
pose of instruction. Now, that all of the statements
of the Bible are not of equal truth any one can See
for himself, if he will but give attention.
An illustration offers itself. Let any one read the
fifty-first Psalm with attention. There is perhaps
nothing in the world which will so touch the heart of
a sinful man, who is repentant, as that matchless
hymn. By some editor of the hymns of Israel it was
attributed to David, and surmised that it was writ-
ten by the conscience-stricken king after the commis-
sion of a great crime. It was such a hymn as the
king certainly might have written under those circum-
stances; or any one else, for that matter. But there
are sentiments in it which are believed to belong to a
later time. However, the hymn was edited, as we
shall surely see. It was “improved ’’ by a later
hand.
The sentiment of the hymn is one of deep contri-
tion. The writer of it has discovered himself to be
exceedingly evil. He is appalled at the vision of his
iniquity; and since he has the idea of a holy God,
he feels he has offended, not so much against his fel-
THE NEW A GE. 161
low human beings as against God’s goodness. More
than all else in the world he desires to be cleansed
from his iniquity. He does not see how he can be
cleansed. He does not see how he can do it himself,
and he prays the merciful and just God to do it. He
hopes that God will not hide his face from him; that
God will blot out all his iniquities, will create a new
heart in him, and renew a right spirit within him.
So far we need have no difficulty in interpreting the
hymn, which so vividly expresses our own feeling of
contrition when we are convicted of our own sinful-
Ll 62.SS. -
The writer, in considering his own case, and how
to rid himself of the burden and defilement of his
sin, perceives that sacrifices upon the altar will do
no good. True, it was an important part of the
priestly regulations that guilt would be done away by
sacrifices. It was the law which the priestly party
had always sought to make binding upon the con-
sciences of the people; but the writer of the hymn,
whoever he may have been, did not believe it. He
saw no relation between his sinfulness and the sacrifice
of animals upon the altar. This is his testimony:
“Restore unto me the joy of thy Salvation, and up-
hold me with thy directing spirit. O Lord, open thou
my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.
For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it ;
thou delightest not in burnt offering : the sacrifices
of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite
heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” The meaning
is perfectly plain. It is summed up in the deep sense
of evil, in the appeal to God to cleanse the soul from
its sin; in the affirmation that God does not wish sac-
rifices, else would they have been given, and that the
162 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
sacrifices of God are contrition on the part of the sin-
ner. So far, good. Now comes the later hand to
“improve '' this beautiful psalm, so that it may pro-
perly find a place in the hymns of the Jews, and be
acceptable to the priests as well as to the sinners.
“Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion; build thou
the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased
with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offer-
ing and whole burnt offering; then shall they offer
bullocks upon thine altar.” Now the contrite sinner
said as distinctly as possible that, if burnt offerings
had been acceptable to God, he would have tried to
get rid of his sense of sin by offering sacrifices; but
he was deeply convinced that such things as sacrifices
are of no avail. He felt that his own contrition and
horror of his sins were precisely the sacrifices God
wished, but the man who “improved ” the hymn
was of a different mind. He believed in sacrifices.
He thought God believed in them, too ; and, by so
much as he could, he unsaid the truth of the hymn,
and reduced it to simple absurdity. If the first part
of that psalm is true, the second part, the addition or
“improvement,” is not true. If we accept both as
true, then we reduce both to nothing, because these
conflicting statements mutually neutralize each other.
Now from our experience, so far as it goes, we know
that the first part is the truth ; and therefore that the
addition is irretrievably false, and ought not to be
tolerated. It is only as we reject the addition, and
put upon it the brand of falsehood, we really believe
the truth of the real hymn.
The same principle obtains elsewhere. The editors
of different portions of the Old Testament undertook
to unsay the things in the writings which were not
THE NEW A. G. E. 163
acceptable to them. In the book of Ecclesiastes, the
whole sentiment of which is unmistakably against the
hope of immortality, the editor added a few words
expressive of that hope. The book was to go into
the sacred canon, but the sentiment of it was rejected,
and the addition or “improvement * made which
would neutralize the objectionable sentiment.
One such illustration is as good as an hundred.
We cannot be left in doubt that for the purposes of re-
ligion, as well as of accurate knowledge, we must bring
discrimination to the Bible, and apply it faithfully.
What is true of the Old Testament is equally true
of the New. For the New Testament, while it is the
book of the new dispensation, or a new era, makes no
violent break with the Old. When the new dispen-
sation begins, it begins as quietly as the dawn. It is
a forth-putting of the old, in a new vigor and in a
better form. The habits of expression, the habits
of thought, of the Jew persist. There is not a great
blank of centuries between the prophets of the old
and the messengers of the new. In fact, the new is
brought before us by one in the spirit of an ancient
prophet. Where the old age meets the new, we do
not enter a realm of things more supernatural than
before. We enter a realm in which nature itself be-
gins to assume more of the divine. We do not find
the messenger of the new covenant teaching men how
they may ascend the height of the heaven, but how they
may open their characters and lives to the incoming of
the heavenly and the divine.
The first historians and biographers, unlike Jesus,
of whom they undertook to tell us, were not free
from the notions of their predecessors. They inter-
pret the sayings and deeds of Jesus on the phy-
164 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
sical side. Instead of being steadied in thought by the
vision of the divine presence, they were thrown out of
balance by visions of the divine interference, as in oc-
casional spasms. Therefore are we bound, if we would
be learners of the truth of Jesus, to bring careful dis-
crimination to the study of the words of his biogra-
phers. Here, as elsewhere and as everywhere, it is
our reasonable duty to “prove all things, and to hold
fast (only) to that which is good.”
So far as we know, Jesus Christ made no record of
his own birth, life, and deeds. Knowing, as he did,
the fallibility of his followers, knowing that they were
liable to error in important matters, and being com-
pelled to rebuke them often for such errors, it seems
proper to assume that, if he had considered the facts
of his birth in this world of great importance in the
promulgation of his gospel, he would have taken the
work in hand of presenting a veritable autobiog-
raphy. The truths of his mission, the gospel he came
to make in the world, he committed to his followers,
bidding them spread them. He seems to have been
confident that, in spite of various errors of interpre-
tation, they would give forth those fundamental truths
which would redeem the world from its sin and misery.
He refrained from writing anything himself. When
his followers should have fully come into the spirit
of his work, they would be able to carry it on, and
to transmit it to their successors. His failure to write
is the more remarkable because the age was favor-
able for writing, and Palestine was full of scribes; !
but it may at least show us that he trusted to the
spirit of his work, and to the faithfulness of his dis-
ciples in carrying it on, rather than to writings.
Therefore, for a time, there were no writings of the
THE NEW A G.E. 165
new dispensation, as we may call it. It is all but
certain that an enthusiastic expectation of Christ's
early return to the earth was very prevalent for a few
years. If that glorious new kingdom for which they
had been taught to pray were really coming in a short
time, it was useless to commit anything to writing;
and so for a time that important work was neglected.
In the course of a few years after the death of Jesus
(it has heretofore been impossible to determine ac-
curately how many years, though it may be affirmed
that the number was less than eight), a man of ex-
traordinary ability and tireless energy, and of consid-
erable learning, joined the ranks of the followers of
Jesus. When we first discover this man, he is a per-
secutor, and of the most violent type. He is deter-
mined to crush out the new religion before it gains
such headway as to threaten the religion of Ezra and
Nehemiah. To that end he devotes himself with a
singleness of purpose, always characteristic of the
IY) all.
He is present when the enraged Jews stone to death
their first Christian victim, Stephen. He consents to
that act, and the witnesses laid down their clothes at
his feet. It is probable that this scene, instead of
softening his heart toward the Christians, fixed him
the more in his purpose to exterminate them. He is in
league with the authorities at Jerusalem, and becomes
their efficient agent. He does not wish to 'confine his
efforts to Jerusalem and its vicinity, but pushes out
into the other cities. He plans an attack upon the
followers of Jesus at the distant city of Damascus, and
is on his way thither, when he is blinded by a light-
ning stroke from the sky, thrown to the ground, and
then hears the voice of the persecuted Jesus calling
166 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
to him, and bidding him renounce his course. He
goes on to Damascus with his company, but he goes to
learn, and not to destroy, the religion of Jesus. His
sight is restored to him, and he devotes himself to the
study of the new dispensation. He tells us in one of
his epistles that he conferred not with flesh and blood,
and that he did not go up to Jerusalem to learn of the
disciples there, some of whom had become the apostles
of the new religion, but that he retired to Arabia.
Now, what he did in Arabia we do not know : our
natural conjecture is that in solitude he devoted him-
self, after the manner in which he had been trained in
the school of Gamaliel, to the formulation of the reli-
gion of Jesus, and its relation with the religion of the
Jews. He did not renounce the Jewish religion; but
to him, more than to any other, we are indebted for
the connection we find between the old and the new.
IIe becomes the master-mind in the new movement.
He does not find himself in harmony of idea with the
apostles at Jerusalem. He is able to take a far more
comprehensive view of the religion of Jesus, as the
flower and final expression of the religion of the law
and the prophets, than these simple-minded and un-
learned Galileans. He perceives that the Jew enjoys
this advantage, namely, that to him have been com-
mitted the precious legacy of the divine oracles. He
also perceives that he has received such trust that he
may become a blessing to the Gentiles. In this mis-
sion the Jews had dismally failed through their obtuse-
ness. Now the time has come for the old promises to
be fulfilled. He himself will become the apostle to
the Gentiles. He will be the truer Jew, because he
will carry out the long-neglected mission of the Jews.
And all this is made possible because Jesus had been
THE NEW AGE. 167
born, and taught, and died, a supreme sacrifice for the
sake of men.
Paul does not seem to attach so much importance
to the teachings of Jesus as to his person. He is
altogether entranced, fascinated, and subjugated by
the personality of Jesus. He learns to love him with
a love as deep and enthusiastic as it is lasting. His
greatest ambition, his dearest purpose, in the attain-
ment of which he is ready to sacrifice every earthly
advantage, and even his pride in his nation, is to know
Christ, — to experience Jesus in his own life, to live
Christ, as he expresses it. For the sayings of Jesus
he does not so much care; he quotes very few, almost
none of them. The person of Jesus is so dear to him
that he thinks only of living Jesus’ life over again,
though he feels that he can do that only in an imper-
fect and fragmentary way. Such devotion is above
that of the other disciples. -
Paul began to write. Others may have written be-
fore he did, but we have no knowledge of any such.
He began to put the stamp of his purpose and his way
of thinking upon the early church. It is entirely pos-
sible that he created and greatly stimulated the desire
of the people to have a written account of the birth and
life, and deeds and sayings of Jesus. The expectation
of the speedy return of Jesus was waning. Some
doubtless held it strongly, but with some it had become
a matter of doubt. Thus began attempts to set forth
the biography of Jesus.
The study of these early endeavors is involved in
profound difficulty. Yet some progress is made. Our
scholars have arrived at the almost if not quite unani-
mous opinion that, of the four accounts preserved to us
in our Bibles, the second account is the oldest. It is
168 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
surmised, and with much reason, that this is not the
first detailed account that was made, but it is the first
of the four.
Now when this first of the preserved biographies of
Jesus was written, the notion that Jesus was physically,
so to speak, the Son of God had not attained a com-
manding influence. In the multitude of stories afloat
in the popular imagination, that story may have had a
place; but the writer of this first biographical sketch
did not credit it, or he did not regard it as important :
therefore he omits all reference to it. The birth of
Jesus, where he came from, and what he did as a child,
or until he began his mission, secured no notice from
him.
Those things were before the gospel. The gospel
did not begin until John commenced his preaching of
repentance in the wilderness of Judea. After John,
Jesus makes his appearance and begins to preach in the
same strain. That is to the writer of the very first
biography the beginning of the new dispensation. If
the gospel is tidings of good, then these tidings of
good do not commence to be given with the birth of
Jesus, but with the beginning of his preaching.
It may be said that this is merely an omission on the
part of the evangelist, and that the omission was made
good by the accounts of the later biographers. Per-
haps it is open to any one to take his choice as to
whether Mark made an ounission, or Luke and Mat-
thew afterwards made an addition. The way of the
Jews seems always to have been to make additions.
That is the way they “improved” the writings. At
all events, this first biographer, who responded to the
wide influence of Paul, and believed it to be his duty
to write the account, omitted the things that the church
THE NEW A G E. 169
has held to be vital. One might be justified in con-
cluding that these things are in fact not vital, that
they truly have no relation to the divine gospel, and
that the church has been mistaken in that, as it has
been in most matters.
This fact brings to our view precisely what was
going on in those days. Many persons were talking
over these things, – the life and teachings of Jesus.
Many persons were writing accounts or fragments of
accounts. Into these accounts we may be reasonably
sure were woven many a thread of myth, as indeed
we find and acknowledge in the so-called Apocryphal
books of the New Testament.
Wherefore, if it becomes us to read the Old Testa-
ment history and all its divers portions with discrim-
ination, it much more becomes us to use discrimination
in the New Testament, and its biographies or bio-
graphical fragments. The sublime religion of Jesus
will be found to shine out through all the mists of
myth, which so plentifully arose in those days; and
it is the religion of Jesus we want, for we believe it
is the religion of Jesus which is to save the world.
That religion has been buried under a copious myth-
substance long and weary ages. But, the myths being
discriminated from the truths, we may hope to see the
brightness of Jesus rising once more upon the darkened
world.
XV.
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN WEITINGS.
AMONG the works of creation, none is more interest-
ing to trace than the making of language. The spoken
language undoubtedly antedated the written language.
The preservation of the experiences and the wisdom of
a generation, for the benefit of coming times, was long
intrusted to the spoken tradition. The time comes
when this is found inadequate, and picture-words come
into vogue. Out of the picture-words in due time
grow the letters, each being significant, and arbitrarily
standing for a distinct sound. Then come the words,
made of combinations of these various signs.
For the preservation of these words, certain provi-
sions are made : the picture-words are cut in dura-
ble stone; or a kind of clay is found which will re-
ceive the impression of a stylus, or other instrument
of marking, and may then be baked hard, so as to
be as like stone as possible. The numerous tablets
unearthed in ancient Babylonia, Nineveh, and else-
where, testify to the durability of this method of
preservation.
The moulding of tablets, and the cutting of in-
scriptions upon stone, is a slow labor, and after a time
proves inadequate for the demands of a people learn-
ing to love and use literature. Now it is found that
Providence has always something ready to meet the
reasonable demands of human beings. Whenever
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN WRITINGS. 171
people are ready for the use of that which they do not
possess, God inspires some one to look more deeply
into the mysteries of Nature and take out of her inex-
haustible storehouse the thing that is needed. There-
fore after some development of the art of writing, it
was found that a reed growing in abundance along the
Nile would furnish a supply of papyrus for the writers.
The stem of the reed was sliced in such a manner as
to make long and narrow rolls of a thin plate, the Sur-
face of which, after proper preparation, would take and
hold the writing of the scribe. An ink was made from
animal carbon and oils, and a reed, sharpened some-
what to a point, was employed for a pen, and so came
that form or mode of literature which is fit for libra-
ries. The use of the papyrus spread northward, and had
become somewhat common in Greece about the time
of Alexander the Great. A considerable manufacture
sprang up, and it is said that the reed was cultivated
in southern Italy. Rolls or books of papyrus were
discovered in Herculaneum, which were found to con-
sist chiefly of works of the Epicurean philosophers.
After the early Christians began to find the need of
writing the history of Jesus, they had recourse to the
papyrus.
It will occur to any one that the papyrus must in
the nature of the case prove a very fragile paper. It
is very easily broken ; if it is passed about from
hand to hand, the edges become frayed, and in a short
time the writing becomes but faintly legible. It is
probable that the poorest paper now used for writing
is much more durable than the papyrus. It becomes
evident that the first writers of accounts of Jesus used
this fragile material for their work, when we become
aware that no original copy is extant, and moreover
172 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
that no trace of an original document of the sort is
found in the oldest Christian literature. The end of
the second century of our era was a time of great dis-
putation, when men were talking much of the exact
readings of texts; for it was then that the writings of
the Christian scribes were beginning to take rank in
the minds of the Christian leaders with the Old Testa-
ment books. Up to that time the writings, such as the
letters of Paul and others and the accounts of the
deeds and death of Jesus, had not been valued any more
than the spoken tradition. Then a new estimation
began to be attached to these writings, – a value which
the early writers evidently did not anticipate.
Copies of the works of some of the early writers had
been made, but the copying was not so carefully done
as it had been done by the Jewish scribes, who re-
garded their office a sacred one, and of a nature that
called for the utmost scrupulousness and exactitude.
The accounts of Jesus and the epistles of Paul and
Barnabas and others were not ranked as parts of the
Bible until long after they were written. Hence
there was lacking that sense of responsibility in the
copyists which would have been very desirable. The
time came when better copies were made, and they,
while they were copies of copies, bear witness of great
painstaking. They were made upon parchment, which
is durable, and the letters were each made symmetri-
cally and carefully, and were almost as regular in sym-
metry and alignment as print. The words were not
separated from each other, but the letters, which were
all capitals, followed each other, so many on each line,
and it was left to the reader to make up the words
from the letters. These fine and durable manuscripts,
however, were not made until about the beginning of
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN WRITINGS. 173
the fourth century, and the papyrus manuscripts are
supposed to have perished. :
It may be assumed that God prevented any mistake
from creeping into the early papyrus accounts; and
that he did not permit the copyists to commit any er-
ror, however small; in fact just that has been assumed.
An assumption, however, ought to have something in
it, the validity of which we all ought to see at once. It
ought to appeal either to our experience or our intui-
tion, or both. This assumption does not correspond
with our experience, certainly. For our experience is
that men, good and wise, and even spiritually-minded
men, do make mistakes. God does not prevent them
from so doing.
The conviction of modern theists is that God is the
Creator of the world, and of all things therein. This
was also the conviction of some of the ancient Hebrew
hymn writers. Yet all of God’s work of creation, so
far at least as we can discern it, is in the realm of the
incomplete, the imperfect. The work of the geometri-
cians comes nearer perfection than any other writing of
which we have knowledge; but that is because in their
sphere they have to deal with exact terms. Their
terms are not approximate and fluid, but definite.
The terms of a biography are very different; life is
the hardest of anything to describe, and the difficulty
of description increases in proportion as the life is
higher and more complex. Therefore, we ought to
realize that the early Christian writers undertook to
write about a life more difficult of description than
any other. They vividly felt that difficulty, or at least
some of them did. The superiority of that life shines
through all the tales they tell of it. The tales are dif-
ficult, and to some impossible, to believe, but the life
it is impossible to discredit.
174 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
John Stuart Mill 1 says: “The tradition of follow-
ers suffices to insert any number of marvels, and may
have inserted all the miracles which he is reputed
to have wrought ; but who among the disciples, or
among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the
sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and
character revealed in the Gospels?” Jesus cast forth
his sublime thoughts into the mass of humanity about
him. Suppose his words had been of the geometrical
order, — exact, and not approximate. Suppose that
exactness of repetition had been the thing he insisted
upon, as necessary to the survival of his religion.
Then indeed we might have looked to see all that he
said reported exactly. Indeed, in that case, either he
would have made his own book, or have secured the
service of some one competent to make exact reports
of all that he said, and to have set forth the facts of
his life as accurately as possible for human pen. But
do we not catch the feeling he had in regard to his
work and word, in the saying reported: “The words
that I have spoken unto you are spirit and are life’?
These words of spirit and life are not the words of an
exact science, like that infallible science of geometry.
They are words which fail of being caught, except
in the sense or spirit of them. The words dissolve,
just as the living seeds which the sower casts into
the ground dissolve. The thoughts expressed filter
through a great many minds, and produce varying im-
pressions. The speaker who is most alive, who thrills
the breast of his listener with the fire of greatest and
most enlightening thoughts, is of all others the one who
most eludes accurate report. By reason of the great
power of his teaching, and the greater life of it, he is
* Essay on Theism, cited by E. Clodd, in Jesus of Nazareth.
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN WRITINGS. 175
more than any other likely to be misreported. The
spirit and the life (and these the speaker values, –
these alone) persist. In all the Gospels in our Bible,
and in many of the other writings, they have persisted.
There is a warmth about them, a vitality, an immortal-
ity, which secures their permanence, after the first
form of their expression is dissolved away and lost.
Now one fault of our thoughts about the Gospels has
been that we have looked in them for a kind of spir-
itual mathematics. We have not considered the im-
possibility of accurate reports of such a life as that.
In fact, the church has always imagined Jesus and his
life and teachings to be less than they were. True, we
have glorified him and his words, and paid to them
divine honors, verbally, but we have failed to detach
the husk of the report from the kernel of the truth in
the report. Therefore, since criticism is coming in
like a flood, sweeping all before it (that is, all that is
affected by the thinking of the time), many of us
find ourselves afloat in the rising tide, and not know-
ing at all what is coming of all this investigation. Of
one thing it is possible to be sure: that those who be-
lieve in the spirit and truth of the words of Jesus, and
to whom his life is a revelation of God in our human
society, will discover the truth and life made clearer
and more practical to them, by the sifting process now
going on. The very object of sifting is to separate,
and bring into clearer distinction, the permanent and
the transient elements of religion.
It has been held that the four Gospels were written
by the persons whose names appear in the titles; but
the titles were added by editors. The writers of the
Gospels did not attach their names to their writings;
but later men, judging by such information as they
176 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
possessed, added the titles, as we now find them. So it
is held that the Apostle Matthew wrote the first Gos-
pel; a man named John Mark, a companion of Pe-
ter, and sometime of Paul, the second ; Luke, a phy-
sician, the third. These three are known in criticism
as the “synoptic * Gospels, because the three seem to
“see together.” Now there is no surety that Matthew
wrote the first Gospel, the Gospel which bears his name
in the title. It is more probable that Luke wrote the
third Gospel, and we depend mainly upon untrust-
worthy tradition in ascribing the authorship of the
second Gospel to Mark. It does not signify very
much (except to the critic) who wrote them.
Proceeding upon the great probability that the
Gospel ascribed to Mark's authorship is the earliest of
the four, we perceive, by a comparison of it with the
others, the evidence of a growth of sentiment and tra-
dition with respect to Jesus. The ground, in its most
fertile localities, is not more productive of vegetable
growths than is the human mind and imagination of
notional growths. Jesus had sown broadcast in Pal-
estine, among the common people, the principles of a
great religion. His personality had been the most
vital, the most influential, the strongest, of any that
had ever appeared. That there would not be a crop
of stories of multiform sorts after such a mission could
be expected by no one. The first account does not
introduce any of these stories concerning the life of
Jesus before he began his mission. That account of
the beginning of that mission shows us the material
out of which the larger stories afterward grew.
John the Baptist appeared in the Judean wilderness,
preaching repentance to the people; and the people
were greatly stirred by him. They felt that such pro-
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN WRITINGS. 177
phetic utterances portended great results. They went
out to him in flocks, and listened to his preaching, and
were baptized in the Jordan, confessing their sins.
This mission of John meant a great deal to the people,
but to none could it have meant so much as to Jesus.
The fame of it had spread into the north country, and
Jesus was impelled to go to John ; and with the others
he was baptized. That did not excite the notice of
John, so far as we know from Mark. The multitudes
were baptized, confessing their sins; but it seems that
Jesus received his baptism in another way, as a con-
secration to his own great work. According to the
simple account of Mark, Jesus went down into the
water, and as he came up out of it, he saw the heavens
rent, and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him.
That is what he saw; and in the nature of the case it
was seen by no one else. The heavens did not rend,
because such things do not happen. The sky is not a
tent or canopy over us that there should be a rending
of it asunder. Here was at last the Man who was able
to look into the heavens, whose life was not an earthly
one, but destined to be a heavenly one. The fact can-
not be stated in terms of physics without setting aside
the spirit of the law and the prophets.
But it was the genius of the age to make of such
things physical phenomena. The pure and grand and
real vision of Jesus, thus beginning upon his great
career, was afterward made to be no vision at all, but
a happening in the world of matter. As we read the
third Gospel, we see the encroachment of that phys-
ical idea. Luke tells us that he made great inquiry,
and attained a more satisfactory history of the affairs
of Jesus than previous writers. It is Luke who con-
tradicts the Sentiment of the law and the prophets,
178 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
or the spirit of them, by adding to the previous ac-
counts the very thing which ought not to have been
added. He declares that the Holy Spirit descended
in a bodily shape, like a dove. That is like the tales
of the heathen, and does not accord with the testimony
of Israel. God is not to be represented in a bodily
form, since so to represent him is inevitably to mis-
represent him. Instead of a vision of the descent of
God’s Spirit bringing peace, Luke gives an account
of the incarnation of God in a bird! This is distinctly
heathen, and neither Jewish nor Christian. To the
careless reader it seems a slight modification, but to
one who absorbs the spirit of the Gospels, and of the
revelation before the Gospels, it is a sad corruption.
It will be well to consider, as we may, the earlier
history of Jesus. He had this earlier history, and
some incredible accounts of it are given ; but we can
suppose the credibilities ; for man’s life is a some-
thing we know much about. Trained in the synagogue,
and becoming full of the feelings of the prophets,
Jesus has passed his childhood and youth in the seclu-
sion of his Galilean home. He has thought out and
felt out the secret of God. The prophetic utterances
have not been mere words to him, but they have
enlightened his soul. If we penetrate the spirit of his
later years, we at the same time penetrate the educa-
tion of his earlier years.
“There is a spirit in man, and the spirit of the Al-
mighty giveth them understanding.” Jesus reaches
the age of manhood, when the young Jewish man
attains his majority, but he has no career; and for
such as he a career is the one necessity. He can no
longer live in quietude and seclusion. He must be
about his Father's business. To receive from God is
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN WRITINGS, 179
to give. He has not yet received the full vision; he
has not yet found his work. Therefore he has had no
opportunity of giving.
Meanwhile John is raising his voice in the south.
His fame spreads far and wide. He is like one of the
prophets of the olden time. He may be one of the
greatest of the prophets, risen from the dead. He
is not to be silenced. He does not go to the haunts
of men ; his voice, crying in the wilderness, “Make
straight a way for the Lord,” is commanding, and calls
men out to him. He believes, he of all Israel, the
divine promises.
These promises are now hastening to fulfillment.
He feels that he is not mighty enough for his work ;
but there will be another to take it up, mightier than
he. This mightier one will winnow the chaff away
from the wheat. Jesus comes to him ; he has his mis-
sion at last. He receives his consecration to it. He
finds that the heavens, before closed even to him, are
no longer closed, but opened. God is no longer away,
or withdrawn. God is present, and God abides upon
him. Those whose thinking is more materialistic than
spiritual cannot possibly conceive the experience of Je-
sus at that supreme time. They can think of a dove
flying down and alighting on him. They can think
of him as driven into the wilderness to be tempted by
Satan. But to think of him as retiring to the loneli-
ness of the desert, there to feel the awful pressure of
his mission, the awful temptation of it, — the tempta-
tion to make use of his great thoughts and powers for
his own glorification and advantage, – that they cannot
so much as think of. That is a closed volume to them,
as it may well have been to Luke.
What things Jesus told his friends — those closest to
180 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
him — of his first divine experiences, of his ecstasy,
of his peril from real temptation in the desert, they
in turn told to others. And so grew up that phantasm
of a bodily shape of God descending from the opened
heavens; and the visit of the Persian evil divinity,
Satan, to confront and if possible to conquer the Son
of God. The facts which were inward and real the
popular imagination inclosed in a dress at once fan-
tastic and unreal; but the facts are there. Consid-
ering the age in which they occurred, we can readily
conceive that they could have come to us in no other
dress.
But the teachings of Christ, both in letter and in
spirit, show us what to do with the fantastic myth-
dress in which the popular imagination – and those
recorders of the popular imagination, the writers of
the three Synoptic Gospels — clothed them. We are to
winnow them, if we would know them in their spirit
and reality. By such judgment and superior informa-
tion as God has given us, we are to wisely discriminate
between the writers’ stories of the incarnation of God
in a dove, and the visit of Satan, and the deep experi-
ences of Jesus which gave rise to those stories.
We value the life and teachings of Jesus for their
inherent worth. J. Stuart Mill, who does not seem
prepossessed in favor of the Christian doctrines, when
he reads the New Testament is convicted of the im-
mense value of the real teachings of Jesus, and the
loveliness and excellence of his life. The zeal of
followers and of their proselytes may suffice, he tells
us, for the strange marvels told in the accounts; but
underneath these strange marvels is the life, – is the
truth. The things told do not seem true.
Suppose we could take one of the Gospels, say the
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN WRITINGS. 181
third, and change all the names of it. The scene is
not laid in Judea, but somewhere in central China.
We will give Chinese names to the cities and villages,
and replace Jewish by Chinese customs and costumes.
We will sufficiently change the wording of the parables
to retain their spirit, but not their appearance, and
then present our book to the intelligent reader. He
may be a devout Christian. The great probability
is that he will look upon the book as a fairy tale,
containing, however, excellent moral sentiments. No
conviction of the reality of the marvels told will force
itself upon his mind and conscience. He will perhaps
wonder where the book came from, and as to its author-
ship, but it will be a fairy tale, from beginning to end.
Jesus knew the age in which he lived. He was
continually combating the unreal ideas of it. Nev-
ertheless, that age was the soil in which he was to sow
his life, his character, and his teachings.
The sower went forth to sow. Some of the seed
lodged in the good ground and brought forth plenti-
fully. Yet what the sower sows, identically what he
Sows, never comes up. In the place of the word
Sown rises the plant of an apprehension of it, and
this may bear little resemblance to the original word.
The value of it is that it contains the original truth.
So we have the vision of Jesus at his baptism, seeing
the open heavens, hearing the divine voice, the descent
of the Spirit to abide upon him. That is the origi-
nal truth. Out of that, as out of a seed cast into
the ground, grew in after years the divine incarnation
in a dove. That is the plant. The plant grows up,
and is tenderly cherished, until like other things of a
living sort it grows ripe, and ready finally to thresh
Out: we winnow the original truth, the living germ,
182 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
from the plant which has come to be dry and unprofit-
able. When we make our winnowing process thorough,
as we are taught to do, we rediscover the truth of the
great vision. At the same time, we cast from us the
now dried plant, — stalk, chaff, and all, - that being
burned in the fire of our reasonable criticism.
Here therefore, at the very outset of the mission of
Jesus, we encounter the necessity of discerning between
the flesh and the spirit. The kernel and the husk sep-
arate and the value is left, and the thing which has
contributed to the permanence of the truth, having
fulfilled that purpose, goes the way of all transient
things.
I take it to be demonstrable that the age in which
Jesus planted — Jesus and Paul — was fit, in the main,
for nothing but the outward form of a gospel. It was
by that outward form the inward fact was preserved:
through the ages of Christianity thus far, the truth
of God in Christ has been inclosed in legendary wrap-
pages. Again, I take it that God is the ordainer of
times and seasons; so that whenever the fit time comes
for the re-sowing of the ancient truth in the soil of the
whole world, the truth will be made to emerge from its
envelopment, and again cast as good tidings of great
joy into the mind of the world.
XVI.
TEIE SPIRITUAL BASIS.
A SUBJECT of peculiar tenderness in the Christian
religion is the birth of Jesus. The freedom of speech
necessary to its full discussion does not belong to our
present public propriety, but is appropriate only to
scientific investigation. It is a difficult and delicate
matter, and one that might be avoided, except that
the creeds of Christendom have enshrined belief in
the miraculous conception of Jesus in the dearest re-
gard of the church. There are not a few who feel
that doubt of the miraculous birth of Jesus is doubt
of the sum and substance of the religion of Christ.
It is generally supposed that the miraculous birth
of Jesus is one of the best proven of the facts of re-
ligion. The Apostles' Creed, which seems the simplest
and most comprehensive of any of the belief state-
ments of the church, puts belief in the virgin birth of
Jesus with belief in God and redemption and immor-
tality. Therefore it has assumed the place of a fun-
damental faith. If any one doubts or disbelieves that,
he has renounced the faith. Gradually a change is tak-
ing place with reference to the fundamental beliefs of
the church. It is not that many deny these beliefs,
for that has always occurred in greater or less mea-
sure ; but that inside the limits of the church itself
the inquiry has risen, and is rising still, as to the
proof or the necessity for the notion of the virgin birth
of the Son of God.
184 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
Now when the proof of this teaching is demanded,
it is found to be exceedingly slender. The fact that
the church has believed the doctrine offers no proof,
of course. In matters of science the church, without
being necessarily blamable, has held errors as though
they were truths. As to the rising and setting of the
sun, so common a thing as that, the church was uni-
versally mistaken for many centuries. It may, how-
ever, be said that the rising and setting of the sun is
not a religious matter. True; it is equally true that
no phenomenon of nature with which science has to do
is a religious matter. The birth of a human being, or
a partly human being, from a virgin is a matter not of
faith, but of science. It is something which has to
do with natural laws in the realm of physics.
If valid scientific proof is adduced that such births
have taken place, or that one such birth has taken
place, that becomes an established fact in science;
but it still does not touch the hem of the garment of
religion. Or if it does touch the hem of the garment
in which religion has clothed itself, it belongs only
to the garment, not to the religion. It belongs to sci-
ence to determine, if it ever is able to determine,
whether such an event as that related by two evan-
gelists and recited in the Apostles' Creed has actually
taken place. When it is determined by a perfectly
unanimous consensus of all scientific men (supposing
such a consensus to be attainable), the matter will still
be foreign to the religion of Jesus, it will still have
to be classified with the data of science.
If we begin with the belief of the church, it may
be as well for us to begin where that belief is the
largest. We may therefore say that at the time of the
Reformation of Luther there was practically but one
opinion in Christendom upon the subject.
THE SPIRITUAL BASIS. 185
Whatever doubt existed was the doubt of a silent
infidelity, or so for the most part. The Roman, the
Greek, the Armenian, and the various Protestant
churches were at one in belief of the virgin birth of
Jesus. When, however, we go back to the time of
Constantime, at the beginning of the fourth century,
we do not find the church unanimous in its belief
about anything. And if we go farther into the past,
so as to reach the first believers, we find no evidence
that any one believed in the virgin birth of Jesus.
The first writer of the New Testament is Paul, and
he nowhere indicates that he had any such belief.
It seems quite incredible that if he had entertained
the notion he should not have taken pains somewhere
in his many writings to mention it. The second
writer, known as Mark, does not mention it; and
what is more, later writers, such as the author of the
epistles of Peter, of Jude, of John, of the Apoca-
lypse, and of the fourth Gospel, do not make allusion
to it. Now the makers of the Apostles' Creed regard
the virgin birth a great and necessary doctrine. They
rank it with the being of God and with immortality.
They place the statement of it in a point of great prom-
inence, as one of the things to be laid to heart. In so
doing they depart from the spirit of the gospel by in-
troducing a subject of physical philosophy as belong-
ing to the substance of Christian faith. In thus im-
posing upon the belief of the church a scientific dogma
they change the church into something very different
from the church of Paul and the apostles.
There is no difficulty in seeing how the belief came.
It can be accounted for as easily as almost any phe-
nomenon in history. Take Mark's simple account of
the baptism. Jesus comes to the baptism as no other
186 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
one did or could. He can look up into the heaven,
and can see the Spirit. He can hear the voice, “This
is my well beloved Son.” He is the first in human
history who has been able to look up and see what he
saw, and the first in human history to hear the voice
of God testifying that he is the Son of God. The
way in which Mark tells this story, the emphasis
which in various, forms the three Gospels lay upon
this scene, testify that it was one of great signifi-
cance to Jesus. Whatever he may have seen and
felt before, he at last sees and feels that he is the
Son of God. It does not occur to him that he is
not at the same time a son of man. It would be for-
eign to what we know of him, to that light which
shines out of him, to think he disowned an earthly
father because he asserted the Heavenly Father. In-
deed, we may see in his feelings, at the time of his
initiation into his work, what we afterward hear from
the lips of Paul. Paul is guarded enough in his lan-
guage, but he does not hesitate to say that a son of
God may be identified, simply by his obedience to the
Spirit of God. He does not say, and does not think,
that a son of God is one who has no human father;
that has nothing to do with it; but “so many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
Here is Jesus, who is ready to be led by the Spirit of
God, who sees, in his ecstasy, the Spirit of God de-
scending out of the open heavens to guide him, and
who accepts that guidance, and thus knows that he is
the Son of God. For the acceptance of the Spirit to
abide with him brings the voice, “Thou art my be-
loved Son.” -
I think we do not measure the greatness of the faith
of Jesus, if we look upon him as a supernatural being.
THE SPIRITUAL BASIS. 187
We do not follow him into the wilderness, to his temp-
tation, and find him making a real conquest there,
if at the same time we behold in him the superhu-
man will displacing the human. We shall have some-
thing to go by, and a hold will be established upon
our sympathies, if we see him bearing the temptations
which befall us human beings, and cannot befall God.
That which distinguishes Jesus has been made to be
some fact, or assumed fact, in his physical nature. It
has been held in the dearest regard that he was phys-
ically the Son of God, and that he was anointed with
the oil of gladness above his fellows because he had
no human father. It was the conviction of some
one, whose words have come down to us, that he was
anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows,
that he had his distinguishing superiority because he
loved righteousness and hated iniquity. That turns
our attention upon his inward experiences, rather
than upon his physical ancestry. A man loves and
hates; if he loves what he ought to love, and hates
what he ought to hate, he has that superiority above
his fellows which cannot but be recognized. Such an
one has a claim upon us : he is made a real authority
to us. Such a man becomes God’s voice to us. His
inward experience, his inward light, his inward love
and hatred, - these are of supreme importance; but
his earthly father is not of importance.
Now since Jesus felt the presence of the Spirit of
God, and heard the voice of the Father, addressing
him as Son, he went about his work always with that
consciousness. He would not have been true to him-
self, if he had not always asserted his divine sonship.
He would not have had a mission to men, unless he
had the divine mission. Less than all could he have
188 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
taught his disciples to pray to the Father in heaven,
except he himself felt in all the feelings of his being
that God was his Father. His mission was based on
that conviction. He came into contact with the multi-
tudes, and to them he spake as the Spirit moved. He
did not tell all to them. He came in contact with the
religious, the scribes, the pharisees, the priests. He
spake to them also as moved by the Spirit, but he did
not tell all to them. By word of mouth, by manner,
and by the meaning of all that he said, he was always
affirming his sonship to God. He went farther than
that, and affirmed that he and his Father were one.
Then the Jews picked up stones to throw at him. He
was a blasphemer because he said that, they thought.
He referred them to their own Scriptures, in which
they professed to believe so thoroughly, and showed
them that if the word of God came to anybody, it
raised such an one up to divinity. If anybody could
listen to God, as he had been listening to God, he would
be able to say, “I am a son of God.” In fact, he could
not say otherwise and be true.
In a general way, all Christendom has taken up this
word “Father ” and applied it to God. But Christen-
dom has never used the term boldly ; it has been emp-
tied of most of its meaning, when it has been applied
to God. We have repeatedly been told, and with many
warnings, that when Jesus applied the word “Father ”
to God, it meant something very different from what
we must mean when we apply it to God. We must
not dare to apply it as he did. We must first pull
the very heart of its meaning out of it, and be exceed-
ingly humble when we use it, and confess that Jesus was
the Son of God in a sense impossible to any one else;
he was the Son of God in the sense that he was an
THE SPIRITUAL BASIS. 189
equal person in the divine Trinity. He was always
equal with God, because, except for a provisional hu-
miliation of him, for the purposes of redemption, he
was the eternal God, in proper person. What are we,
worms of the dust, and creatures of a day, that we
should dare for a moment to use the word of intimate
relationship as he used it? We must use the word in
another sense, – a sense bereft of the great meaning
which Jesus put into it. Jesus had no human father.
God was his father. But we have human fathers,
therefore God is not our father, in the same sense.
Jesus is reported to have said a very curious thing in
this connection: “Call no man your father, on the
earth; for one is your Father, the heavenly.” He
did not call any man on earth his father ; and on one
occasion he refused to call any woman on earth his
mother. We do not therefore affirm that he had no
mother. If his friends had understood him, and de-
clined to call any man on earth their father, but to
call God their Father, we should not therefore infer
that they were without human parentage.
It is evident that Jesus affirmed his relationship
with God in very positive words: he affirmed with
equal strength the potential co-relationship of other
men with him. This last teaching, however, seems to
have been lost sight of, while the first teaching, falling
into the ground of a gross age, – not more gross than
other ages, but certainly not a spiritual age, – devel-
oped the plant of the story of the birth of Jesus from
a virgin. This story had not developed in the time
of Mark, or if it had, he did not credit it. It came
to flower in the account of Luke. Luke faithfully
gathers not only such elements of the matter as had
grown in the Christian imagination in a prose form,
190 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
but also certain poems in which the Christian imagi-
nation had manifested itself. “ -
Before examining Luke's account, it were well to
note that earlier account which bears the name of Mat-
thew. It is much briefer, and it bases the popular
ideas of past occurrences, or the truth of them, upon
the sayings of the prophets long before. A thorough
Jew seems to have been the writer of Matthew's
account, — one who delighted in genealogies, and who
weighed the words of the prophets somewhat after the
manner of the rabbins. To him the proof of the truth
of that imagination, which had grown up since the
death of Jesus, lay with the prophets. In particular,
one of the great prophets had foretold the birth of a
son, to be called Immanuel, to a virgin. But that this
was a forced way of reading the prophets is at once
visible, if one will take the trouble to read the par-
ticular prophecy for himself. At one time a certain
Ahaz was king of Judah; and against him arose the
king of Israel and the king of Syria. They went
up to Jerusalem to lay siege to it. The king of Ju-
dah was in much disturbance of mind because of this
coalition against him, and a prophet was sent by the
word of the Lord to talk with him and comfort him,
and assure him that the danger would be averted. So
the prophet bids Ahaz not to be faint-hearted because
“of the two tails of the smoking fire-brands,” as he
calls the two armies. Then the Lord said to Ahaz,
“Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either
in the depth or in the height above.” Abaz declined
to ask a sign. Then the prophet said, “The Lord
himself shall give you a sign ; behold a virgin shall
conceive and shall bear a son, and shall call his name
Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he
THE SPIRITUAL BASIS. 191
may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.
For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and
choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be
forsaken of both her kings.” Now we should suppose,
if Matthew had not quoted this passage in a prophecy,
to prove that Jesus was born of a virgin, that the
prophet meant that before a new-born child should
know the difference between good and evil, the dan-
ger which threatened Judah would surely be averted.
When we know that the word “virgin '' is sometimes
applied, not literally, but to young women, whether
married or unmarried, the statement of the prophet
reduces to this word of promise addressed to King
Ahaz. The child was to be born soon, and before the
child should be able to discern between good and evil,
the deliverance should come. Now to take a state-
ment out of its context and make it fit a case in hand
may be rabbinical, but it is not safe. If the author
of Matthew’s Gospel had given the context, he would
have been obliged to date the birth of Jesus in the
time of Ahaz, king of Judah. For the sign was
offered to Ahaz, and before the child could know the
difference between good and evil, Ahaz would be out
of his difficulty. Here, as in other places, we may
conclude that the Spirit of God taught Matthew a new
use of prophecy; or that because Matthew did distort
a statement of Isaiah, the seal of divine approval is
put upon such distortion; but if we proceed to read
the Bible without discriminating so plain an error in
judgment, on the part of the evangelist, we are not
likely to read any portion of the Bible with great
profit. Because, as we have already seen, the Bible,
being the most important of all literature, demands
our most careful discrimination and our best judg-
ment.
192 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
Matthew embodies in his account of the childhood
of Jesus the story of the slaughter of infants in Beth-
lehem, and refers to a prophecy, of which this slaugh-
ter was the fulfillment. He also tells us that Joseph
and Mary take the young child down into Egypt to
escape the power of Herod. This journey of the holy
family, he tells us, was in fulfillment of a prophecy
which says, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”
Now the only distinct statement of prophecy to any
such effect is found in Hosea. Turning to that, we
read these words: “When Israel was a child, then I
loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” The
manner of the prophetic utterance is such that the
unprejudiced reader at once recognizes Israel as the
son referred to in the prophecy. Israel, in its child-
hood as a race, was in Egypt and held in a bitter
bondage there, as all the traditions of Israel affirmed.
Jehovah had mercy on the enslaved people, called
Israel his son, broke the bondage, and brought the
people out of Egypt. Now the writer who could
apply that language to the flight of the parents of
Jesus into Egypt proves himself lacking in the appre-
hension of the prophets. Possibly he had taken les-
sons from the rabbins, or a class of them, and regarded
the prophets as puzzle-makers, instead of teachers of
God and righteousness.
If we read the Bible with the kind of attention we
give other books, – that is, with critical attention, or
in the use of free judgment, — then it will be impos-
sible not to see the very peculiar character of some of
the stories of the infancy of Jesus, told us in the first
Gospel. There are magi in the East, — three wise
men, learned in astrology, who see the star of a king
in the sky. There is no difficulty in identifying such
THE SPIRITUAL BASIS. 193
sight as belonging to astrology. These three magifol-
low the star, which seems to move before them, until
it comes to stand over where the young child is. Since
astronomy has replaced astrology, and has become a
sober science, it is generally understood that our birth
under this or that planet or star, and the influence
thereof upon our destiny, is purely visionary ; or that
it belongs, to ignorant superstition, by pandering to
which, pretenders extract money from victims. The
story of the star in the east is beautiful and instruc-
tive as a poem, but it does not appear to belong to
the realm of prose facts. We may see in it the plant
which grew up after the death of Jesus. To pay divine
honors to the Son of God, the King of Israel and of
the world, made the composition of such legends neces-
sary, at the time. We have an affectional interest in
these legends, but they do not satisfy our judgment.
Luke is very different from the writer of the first
Gospel. He is not so wedded to Judaism. He does
not find so much in the prophets of Israel. His oc-
cupation and his travel abroad among other people
broaden his ideas. Therefore he omits the tales of
Matthew, perhaps classing them with those more un-
trustworthy accounts, of which there were many. He
accepts Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus. That
has become firmly rooted in the Jewish-Christian
mind. Bethlehem was the place for a prince of the
house of David to be born; therefore Jesus was born
there. -
But we have in Luke the poetry and prose which
grew up concerning the events preceding the birth
of Jesus and John. Their mothers meet, and have a
conversation together. A portion of this conversa-
tion is carried on in a very high strain of poetry. To
194 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
talk in poetry implies the employment of the dramatic
art. Both women, if we make history out of it, have
studied their respective parts, and committed them to
memory, as do players who go upon the stage. To
suppose any such thing as that is beneath the dignity
of the subject. When we looked into the book of
Job, in the Old Testament, we saw plentiful evidence
that we were reading a dramatic poem, with epilogue
and prologue, – and not history. Why should we fail
to discriminate here also in the story of the two mo-
thers, the poetry of the poet, and not the actual talk
of two women of Israel? The very fact that we find
the poetry, and that it is set in the connection in which
it is, ought to show us that we are not reading history,
but poetry.
We have been very anxious to differentiate be-
tween Jesus and other men. We have been solici-
tous to make for him a rank above that of any other
being in the universe, except One. In that we depart,
I am sure, from his spirit. Not only so; in making
for him a physical difference from other men, we have
been in danger of losing sight of the real difference.
That is a moral and a spiritual difference, and not
a physical one.
“Being Son of God
By eminence of manhood,”—
as Sir Edwin Arnold puts it, is not being Son of God
by having no real manhood. We have all the time
been assured that Jesus was true and proper man, but
we have been required to believe also in his virgin
birth, which, if it means anything whatever, means that
he was not and could not have been true and proper
IOOlall.
Probably there is a much better statement of the
THE SPIRITUAL BASIS. \ 195
divinity of Christ to be made than that which grew
up in the tale of his birth from a virgin. It is to be
made in terms of moral character, and not in terms
of physical structure. That story did grow, as any
student can see; and it became the plant of the idea.
The plant grew and flourished, has now apparently
come to its harvest time, and if we love the plant,
rather than the seed-truth of it, it is probable we
shall not seek and find the truth of the matter, which
alone is of value.
Stories of the infancy of Jesus were written and
read, but the wise counsel of the early church dictated
that these stories be not received into the sacred canon.
It may have been well that the first and third Gos-
pels were not pruned of similar stories, and that the
doctrine of the divinity of Christ should have been
permitted to come to us in a form which is actually
repugnant to its nature. Whatever was best in the
past, it becomes evident that we do not need the story
of the virgin birth for the future, and for three rea-
SOIOS : —
1. It rests on exceedingly slender foundation.
2. It departs from the teaching of the Scriptures,
which affirm the divinity of man, as man.
3. It shuts us out of sharing the divinity and char-
acter and life of the Son of God, and renders fellow-
ship with him in his mission and sacrifice a dream, and
not a practical experience.
XVII.
THE MIRACLES.
THE study of the making of the Bible involves a
consideration of the subject of miracles, which ob-
trudes itself persistently in our own time. Whatever
may be the standpoint of the observer, it is abundantly
evident that a change of mind is going on, with more
or less rapidity, throughout the intelligent portion of
the Christian world in regard to miracles. This may
be a change for the better, or, as the ultra-conserva-
tive think, a change for the worse ; but whether for
better or worse, time will definitely decide. Enough
for us to know that the change is going on, and ceases
not to go on from day to day.
It was only recently said by a thoughtful teacher in
one of our great universities, who has achieved a wide
reputation as a philosophical thinker, that religion
may be said to have already manifested itself in two
ages, – the age of cult, that is of ritual, and the age
of dogma; but that another age has supervened,—the
age of the meaning of things, the age of a philosophi-
cal or rational religion. That age is no longer future,
but in sober fact is the present. As to whether the
world will lose and religion will be damaged by the
transition, many seem to be in a state of suspended
opinion. It is the idea of most of the Protestants
that the day of miracles is over, and that no miracles
now happen. It was the idea of the late Cardinal
THE MIRA. C.L.E.S. 197
Newman that the Protestants were in serious error
concerning that matter. Miracles as well attested as
any, according to Newman, have occurred in recent
periods, and some are perhaps happening at present.
The Protestants reject these modern miracles. The
issue between them and the Roman Catholics is a
serious one. Some Protestants are advancing to an-
other position, which promises to still further widen
the breach, – to the position that miracles have not
happened. Among the Catholics the excellence of
a miracle is believed in so much that they desire as
many as possible. Among the Protestants, on the
contrary, the effort has been, and now is, to have as
few miracles as possible connected with their religion.
We must try to explain everything that can be ex-
plained thus, on natural grounds.
That of itself shows, more than arguments, that a
miracle is felt to be a weakness, a something which
may prove of damage to us, in the maintenance of
its verity. Thus our scholars accept miracles in the
Bible, so far as they feel they must, but they continu-
ally decrease their number. In the early part of this
century, it was universally held by religious persons of
all sects that the history of the world began in a stu-
pendous miracle. Out of the heights of eternal space,
God spake creative words, and the earth sprang into
being, obediently. Until the work was finished a
succession of miracles followed each other. The earth
and the heaven began in a miracle, compared with
which all other recorded wonders are as pebbles to
mountains. It may safely be said that the stupendous
miracle has been abandoned by almost all intelligent
people, and that largely because a way of creation has
been ascertained which does not require miracle, and
198 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
intelligence has welcomed the discovery almost with
enthusiasm. That God, or that being whom religion
calls God, as the philosophers say, created the heavens
and the earth, is as strongly affirmed as it ever was.
Indeed, the affirmation is now made with immense
confidence. But that God created the heavens and
the earth miraculously is not affirmed with any confi-
dence at all.
That is the change which has come about in our
own century, with respect to miracles. A miracle
greater than all others combined, a miracle which is
attested by plain words of the Bible, has been given
up, so that the defense of it is made, for the most part,
by religious persons of limited intelligence. We are
told that it is not necessary to believe that miracle.
By those who strenuously maintain that we must
believe certain other miracles, it is admitted that we
can go free from belief in that one. Yet if we dis-
credit the great miracle of Genesis, as we now are
permitted to do by common consent, there are other
miracles which confront us later in the Bible. There
is the standing still of the sun at the command of a
captain of Hebrew soldiers. Look at it how we may,
we are unable to see that it is any easier of credence
than the miracle of the creation. Of course we do not
need to set limits to almightiness. When we take the
liberty of doubting a story, it is not because we wish
to diminish the power of God. Certain inhabitants of
Ireland used to think that on St. Patrick's day the
Sun, after it had risen, always made two or three bows,
in honor of the saint. This strange habit of the sun,
however, has been obscured to the vision of most
people because upon St. Patrick's day clouds always
cover the horizon. The bow is made, but mortal eyes
THE MIRA. C.L.E.S. 199
cannot see it on account of the clouds. If any one
doubts the fact, as probably we all do, it is not because
we would set limits to the power of God; but because
it is somehow obnoxious to our sense of the fitness of
things, obnoxious to reason and judgment. For that
reason we do not give a moment's attention to the
subject. Why is not the obeisance of the sun on the
birthday of St. Patrick quite as credible as the stand-
ing still of the sun at the command of a Hebrew mili-
tary officer 2 If we reject the one, we are in a fair
way to reject the other. -
In the same way the voyage of a prophet inside a
great fish, not of the cetacean order, as we are told, -
a voyage continued three days, with the ultimate land-
ing of the prophet at his destination, — cannot com-
mand our respect. We do not wish to doubt God,
because we doubt the story of such a miracle. Per-
haps it is because we are beginning to believe in God,
and in the laws of God, as governing in nature, that
we doubt the miracle of Jonah. There are many
other things of a similar sort which attract our atten-
tion as we go on reading the Bible. They were all
accepted in the belief of the Christian world not very
long ago; now they are being more and more doubted,
if not positively disbelieved.
Professor Green, of Princeton, says: “The whole
of English-speaking Christendom is upon the eve of
an agitation upon the vital and fundamental question
of the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, such
as it has never known before. The divinity and au-
thority of the Scriptures have heretofore been defended
against the outside world of unbelievers, infidels, and
skeptics; but the question is now raised, and the su-
preme authority of the Scriptures contested within the
200 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
church itself. In the controversies which have agitated
the churches of Great Britain and of this country
heretofore, the infallible authority of Scripture has
been admitted as the ultimate test of doctrine by all
contending parties. All made their appeal to this
standard. The settlement of every question depended
upon its interpretation, or upon inferences fairly
deducible from it. But now the standard itself is
brought into question. Utterances which fill the air
on every side, and are borne to us from every quarter,
— from professors’ chairs, from pulpits, from the re-
ligious press, – show abundantly that the burning
question of the age is not, What does the Bible teach 2
It is one yet more radical and fundamental: What is
the Bible 2 In what sense is it the word of God?” +
The great agitation upon a burning question is at bot-
tom a question of the validity of miracles. The world
was not made miraculously, as we generally admit.
Then was the Bible made miraculously 7 That is the
burning question. It bids fair to obtrude itself until
answered rationally.
The infallibility of the Bible being established, it
is a miraculous book; but the infallibility of it is
questioned on all hands. The rise of the study of
geology made a sufficient cause for the rejection of the
miracle of creation; the rise of other studies, those
critical studies of the composition of the Bible, and the
proper stratification of the various portions, will prob-
ably lead to the rejection of the dogma of the infal-
libility of the Bible. That is to say, the earth, which
may be said to be the revelation of God in physics,
being looked upon as not miraculous, much more the
* Moses and the Prophets, Professor Green's Review of Professor
Robertson Smith.
THE MIRACLES. 201
book which is the chief revelation of God in moral
and spiritual laws, will cease to be looked upon as
miraculous. The tendency of religious thought, as
testified to by our Princeton professor, is toward the
elimination of the miraculous. It is religious thought
which has come into the field of conflict, not to crush
the arguments of skeptics and unbelievers, but to
affirm the reign of law throughout the universe.
While the tendency is what it is, it must not be
supposed that the matter is one to settle offhand. The
modification of thought may involve the use of old
words in a new meaning. It is possible that the word
“miracle” will take on a significance which it has not
possessed. It is possible that we shall presently apply
the word to the wonderful and the mysterious in
nature, rather than to the irruption of supernatural
powers within the scope of nature, to change or break
the laws of nature. Perhaps it were well also to
examine anew this very word “nature * itself, to see
what its history has been. It is not to be supposed
that ancient people had a clear idea of nature, or that
they had any sharply defined limits in mind when they
spoke of it. There was an apprehension of two kinds
of activity in operation. The English people of the
Middle Ages were sure of two kingdoms which inter-
acted. The procession of seasons and days, and the
commonplace events which were regularly repeated at
proper intervals, — these belonged to one department;
the priest, and above all the magician, had dealings
with the other department. No one doubted the
prevalence of enchantments. There were ogres and
giants, and other semi-supernatural beings. There
were witches. That is to say, there was an invasion
of the powers of the unseen world. Good spirits and
202 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
evil spirits contended for the mastery in the world.
In the unseen world the laws or methods were dif-
ferent from those of the seen world. The magician
drew strange figures, and uttered strange words in his
enchantments. In order to effect anything, he must
be trained in occult science; that is, he must learn
the ways of the invisible world. In time these two
worlds came to be distinguished as nature and the
supernatural.
The world of nature has been growing larger con-
tinually, and more heed has been paid to it and the
laws of it. The other world has been losing ground.
We have, for the most part, dismissed magic and en-
chantment, and ogres and nymphs and witches and
the like, from our thoughts. The result is that
“nature” has become an exceedingly comprehensive
term. Things which once seemed to belong outside
of nature are now comprehended in its scope. The
feeling has been growing apace that nature is coex-
tensive with the universe. We do not need two terms,
because one will answer our purpose. Yet nature con-
tains vastly more which is unknown to us, and per-
haps unknowable by us, than did both nature and the
supernatural to the ancient man. Nature is full of
mystery, but we feel that it is, so to speak, a regulated
mystery, a mystery of laws rather than a mystery of
the infraction of laws.
Now, to some minds, possibly, such a view of nature
entirely excludes God. There is really no such ex-
clusion. On the contrary, by that dismissal of witches,
enchanters, and all of that order, which has occurred,
we have really made room for God, or rather we have
come to recognize, some in one way and some in an-
other, the presence of God. The superhuman beings
THE MIRACLES. 203
which crowded the world ages ago have vanished,
having become supernumerary. They are not required
so soon as we have made discovery of the presence
of the One Power in which we all live and move and
have our being. A child looking reflectively at our
streets, seeing the great buildings of solid material on
both sides, some of them towering toward the sky, and
all of them of substantial material, effectively resist-
ing our stroke, would conclude that matter is always
of that solid and resisting quality. He would say that
the space between the buildings is empty of matter.
Here, he would say, is material, and there is vacancy
of matter. He is mistaken. Every apparent space
between the buildings is packed full of matter, — so
full of it that not the smallest fraction of a cubic inch
is devoid of it. We have matter in different states of
density, but it is everywhere. That which is invisible
to us is not therefore non-existent. More than that,
because of that matter, which packs all places which
seem to be empty, beings constituted as we are can
live. Without it we could not live.
There is, however, somewhat else than matter in
nature. We caſl it force. Some manifestations of it
are everywhere present. We assume the existence of
force everywhere, because all of the universe of which
we can get any knowledge is in motion. The stars
flit in their courses, and whole groups of worlds move
together in a rhythmical way. Moreover, we are
sure that the force which is manifested at the farthest
visible star is identical with that which holds us to the
ground. There is a force in the ocean currents and
tides, in the atmospheric storms, and in the light and
heat of the sun. There is a force in the growth of the
plant, and in the living bodies of fishes and other ani-
204 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
mals, and in inorganic matter ; everywhere force.
Now, while we know something of force, we do not
know all; this is what we have been learning through
painful and slow ages, namely, that force operates in
certain ways, which we call laws. We have come to the
practical conclusion that each force moves in accord-
ance with the laws which we have studied out. Grav-
ity, for instance, is uniform. We cannot prove that
gravity operates in every portion of the universe, as it
does here on the earth and in our planetary system,
but we are very sure that it does.
It is to be remembered that the ancients, those who
wrote the different parts of the Bible, did not know
what we know. They had no idea of the reign of law,
therefore their explanation of phenomena was not
such as we would give now. They thought it perfectly
reasonable that God should make an exception in any
law of nature when he pleased. Whenever there was
a proper time for an exception, they supposed, of
course, that the exception was made. If a man was
in prison, locked securely there, and God wanted him
to get out, it was perfectly easy for God to send an
angel, and the angel did not have to pick the lock or
open it with a key, because angels are not subject to
laws: the angel could open any door, and take any
one out of prison. Inasmuch as an apostle had been
put in prison, and had escaped from it, in after years
they gave the explanation that God had sent an angel.
God could always do this and that, if the exigency
called for it. Since the necessity arose often, it was
natural to suppose that God did take measures en-
tirely outside of the laws of nature.
If a multitude of people were hungry, and food
was inaccessible to them, it was quite in keeping with
THE MIRA. C. L.E.S. 205
God’s ways to make a large number of bushels of
bread out of a few small loaves. We have found, if
we have found anything, that just such things are en-
tirely out of keeping with God’s ways. The writers
of the Bible did not know enough of God’s ways to
prevent them from making mistakes. Millions upon
millions of people have starved because they did not
have bread. It is related that Jesus had compassion
on the multitudes who followed him out into the des-
ert. Because he had compassion, he enlarged a few
loaves of bread into food for some thousands of peo-
ple; but Jesus was no more compassionate than God
is. His compassion tells us of the compassion of
God. God has permitted multitudes, just as worthy
of compassion as that Galilean multitude, to go with-
out food.
He has permitted people to be shut up in prison just
as the Apostle Peter was. He has not sent angels to
open the doors for them. Tens of thousands of people
have been in slavery of the most cruel sort. They
have pined for deliverance. Their condition has made
a strong appeal to God’s compassion, but God has not
delivered them. He could have delivered, if power is
all that is required: he could have sent cohorts of
angels: he could have dissolved their chains. The
fact for us to consider is that he did not so act; or
we may sum it all up in a single proposition, namely,
it was within the scope of God’s power, as we suppose,
to make our race perfect at the outset, and to keep
it perfect, and then no wickedness and no starvation
and no cruel inhumanity would ever have stained our
human annals.
According to modern philosophy as understood by
the theist, our Creator does not create such a being as
206 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
man from without, by a kind of plastic art, but from
within, and by development. Man must grow to his
manhood. The race must grow to its consummation
and destiny. Man must learn his lesson as a race.
He shall become perfect only through suffering. He
must bear his hunger; he must learn to supply it.
However desirable it must seem to us at times that
God should make an interference in our behalf, and
break some laws of nature, the very lesson we are set
to learn is that of obedience to the laws. It is by
obedience, cost what that may, that we reach our
estate and accomplish our destiny. The divine inter-
ferences were always supposed by the ancients. They
prayed and sacrificed to obtain them. To learn the
great lesson of obedience was beyond them. Now,
obedience is better than all of these supposed inter-
ferences. The law of God, the great comprehensive
law of creation, which has been opened to us in recent
times, converts our soul to the thought of the presence
of God at all times and under all circumstances. If
we are in prison, God is not absent from us; and
if we are delivered in any wise from captivity, that is
God’s work. It is not the work of secondary beings,
— though they may be concerned in it, —but it is the
work of God. #
What the writers of the Gospels did not know,
through our increased knowledge of God's great laws
we do know. With that knowledge comes a far
greater revelation than was possible in the past. In
place of divine interference, the newer revelation sub-
stitutes divine presence. In other words, the revela-
tion of to-day is so much greater, so far grander, than
that of the past, that we may say of it that God ceases
to be an occasional visitor, or a mere governor of angels
THE MIRACLES. 207
and other forces, by becoming involved in every part
of creation. The few miracles are replaced by the
fact, greater than all miracles.
The fuller revelation of to-day, a revelation which
is coming in volumes of demonstration, will of course
be resisted, as all fuller revelations always have been.
So resisted they the old revelation, and so their fa-
thers resisted the still older revelation.
We have the story of Jesus' life and teachings
woven in the web of a miraculous narrative. At first
glance it seems to be impossible to detach the mira-
cle from the teaching or the conduct of Jesus and
have anything left. That is what we have been told
over and over again; that if we are going to dispense
with the miracles, we must also dispense with the
teachings; that if the body of Jesus was not raised
from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, after the
death of Jesus, then the whole matter resolves into
mere fable unworthy of any confidence. This we are
told, not by enemies of the Christian religion, but by
its professed friends. So was it said before the days
of geology, in regard to the account of creation, and
even since those days.
There was a lesson of Jesus which might have an
application here. It cannot be too much insisted upon
that such things as the fate of a physical body after
its death are not a subject of religion, but of physical
science. The enemies of Jesus tried to entangle
him in his talk. They asked about paying tribute.
“Ought we to pay tribute to Caesar, or no?” He called
for a piece of money, and asked what mark was upon
it. “Caesar's image and superscription,” he was told.
Then he said, “Render to Caesar the things which are
Caesar's, and to God the things which are God’s.”
208 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
Science in our later days has been taking many things
out of the domain of religion and placing them in
its own field. It has put its image and superscrip-
tion upon them. We may render therefore to science
the things which belong to science, and to religion the
things which belong to religion.
There is something in which Biblical scholarship
has so far made little or no progress, and that is in
respect to that core or vital element of truth which ac-
counts of miracles inclose. As before suggested, we
have by no means fully explored the domain of nature,
nor have we yet measured man's power in that do-
main. We catch vague hints of the existence of
powers which elude our satisfactory examination.
The scope of the mind, the agencies it employs, and
the strange effects it may produce, have their limits,
but we do not know precisely where to place them.
In respect to these strange occurrences, of which we
occasionally see accounts in the newspapers, it is
necessary that they be attested in the strongest pos-
sible way, and by persons who know the difference
between the natural and the unnatural. Now, one
trouble with the miracles recorded in the Bible is that
they have no scientific evidence. They are told us,
not by eye-witnesses, and not by persons who know
anything, beyond the common, of a natural order. So
far as the form of them is concerned, we may fearlessly
render them to the scientific Caesar to whom they
belong. So far as their moral and religious inner
meaning is concerned, that is something for us to gain
a knowledge of as our light becomes greater.
XVIII.
INFALLIBILITY.
IN nothing is assured verity so important as in re-
ligion. So far as possible, we require certainty in the
most important interests; and, rightly understood,
there is no interest more important than religion. If
our religion depends upon that which can have no
verification in this stirring age of the world, we are
likely to be left with a religion in the air, unfounded,
or a Superstition.
The reactions from superstition are deplorable. It
happens often that one discovers his religion to be
incapable of verification, and on the whole quite bar-
ren to him, and he not only leaves it, but abandons
the very idea of religion; all religion is classified as
superstition. That is a deplorable reaction, from
which it behooves us to be on our guard, because,
while there is no more ground for abandoning religion
because some religion is superstitious than for aban-
doning medical practice because some medical practice
is quackery, yet multitudes do proceed upon such in-
sufficient ground to the abandonment of religion as
worthless, and without stopping to consider that a true
religion is of first necessity to moral beings. A coun-
terfeit bill ought to render us the more careful, not to
reject all bills, but to qualify ourselves to discern be-
tween genuine bills and counterfeits.
In order to give us that assured verity so necessary
210 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
in religion, we have been advised that God has given us
an infallible standard of truth, and that this infallible
standard is the Bible. So far good. It is the thing we
require, and the thing we require is presented to us;
but is the infallible standard, of which we may be sure
that it is entirely trustworthy in all particulars, a some-
thing which may leave us in the air, without a founda-
tion ? How do we know that the Bible is an infallible
standard 7 We are told so by certain religious newspa-
pers, and by certain teachers of religion, and in certain
books which have credit among a limited constituency.
We are told so ; but if we seek assured verity, if
we are as anxious for verification as we ought to be
in so serious a matter, we ought not to be satisfied by
being told so. Religious newspapers have made mis-
takes, and perhaps in some instances might even ac-
knowledge their fallibility. So of religious teachers,
and books of a limited credit. Perhaps they all make
mistakes. If so, possibly this assertion that the Bible
is an infallible standard of truth is one of their mis-
takes. In so important an interest we ought not to
rest on the fallible testimony of fallible men for ade-
quate proof of the infallibility of a standard. Profes-
sor Shedd, a man of note in the religious world, tells
us that the doctrine of his church is to this effect,
namely, that the Bible is supreme in authority over
the church and the reason, and free from error as it
originally came from God, its author; that the Biblical
miracles could not have been wrought by the operation
of natural laws and forces; that no decree of God is
ever changed, and no prediction of his fails of fulfill-
ment; that man was created positively holy, and not
merely negatively innocent, etc. This is the opinion
of a religious man of note, and he says that it is the
INFALLIBILITY. 211
opinion of the religious denomination to which he be-
longs, as expressed in their symbols. Does this man
of note know 7 Who told him so 2 Is he infallible?
Or is his church entirely correct in all matters? If
we ask him and his church, they will assuredly con-
fess with a becoming humility that they are not in-
fallible. They tell us that the Bible is, but then their
testimony is insufficient, because they are fallible
witnesses, and confess that they do make blunders.
Therefore we have by no means reached the founda-
tion of the matter, and perforce must go farther and
deeper.
Very well, we can go farther than our contempora-
ries; we are not compelled to rely upon them: they
point us back to the reformers. We may readily
discover that the reformers were compelled to assert
the infallibility of the Bible as the standard of truth.
Who and what were the reformers? How did they
know? They were men of whose excellence, and
even heroic excellence, we are bound to approve.
Brave men, learned men, some of them, and in many
respects able men; some of them among the greatest
men produced in the history of the world. Yet who
told them that the Bible was the infallible standard
of truth? No one told them so. They arrived at
the conclusion after debate. There is no question
that they were largely influenced to their decision
about the infallible character of the Bible by a ne-
cessity laid upon them, to maintain their cause. In
place of infallible church and infallible pope, we must
have another infallibility, and they decided that the
Bible was such an infallibility. Were they right in
this decision? If they were infallible men, incapable
of making mistakes, then of course they were right;
212 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
but they were not infallible men, for they distinctly
denied that they were. They denied the infallibility
of the church. Therefore their testimony must be
taken with much allowance. We cannot be at all
sure they were right in this matter, or in other mat-
ters, unless we can approve their deliverances on
rational grounds.
So we are driven back beyond the reformers to
seek our surety, because we cannot find it in our
contemporaries, nor can we find it in the reformers.
That great church from which the reformers re-
volted does not shed any light upon the subject, be-
cause it did not teach the doctrine."
There certainly was a time when there was no New
Testament, when there was a considerable body of
literature, portions of which were read in the assem-
blies of the Christians. The Apostle Paul had written
letters to the saints in various localities. It was nat-
ural that these letters should be read when the saints
came together on the first day of the week, and at
other times. These letters of Paul, like the sermons
of more modern times, were not thought of as new
parts of the Bible. Besides the letters, there were
Christian documents which took a strong hold upon
the feelings, and greatly stimulated the religious life
of the Christians. Before anything was decided in re-
gard to the New Testament, before the New Testament
was thought of, a great deal of literature was afloat
in Christian communities. The Christians would no
* The Church of Rome recognizes ecclesiastical tradition as of
coördinate authority with the written records, holding that God's
“supernatural revelation is contained in the written books, and
unwritten traditions which have come down to us.” Professor
J. H. Thayer, The Change of Attitude towards the Bible.
INFAI, LIBILITY. 213
more have dreamed of attaching these writings to the
Bible, as a part of it, than we would think of making
a still newer Testament (and binding it in with the
Bible), composed of the discourses of Schleiermacher,
Robertson, Spurgeon, and Beecher.
The time came when the idea of the New Testa-
ment arose. There was plenty of material for it. Just
as the Hebrews of the older time had attributed to
Moses a large body of writings, and to the various
prophets another large body, and had gathered them
into a collection known as “Moses and the Prophets,”
so it would have been most desirable for the Christians
of the third century of our era to have had autographs
of the apostles. How much more desirable to have
an autograph of Jesus himself! That was manifestly
lacking. Mark was not an apostle, but he had been a
companion of the apostles. Luke was not an apostle,
but he had been in company with some of the apostles.
There was a writing which bore the name of Mat-
thew, and he was an apostle; another writing which
bore the name of John, and he was an apostle. There
were the letters of Paul, who claimed apostleship to
the Gentiles. There was also a curious book of the
sort called apocalyptic, similar to that remarkable book
written during the heroic period of the Maccabees, and
a large number of other writings, like the Shepherd
of Hermas, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Acts of
Pilate, the Protevangelion, the Gospel of the Infancy,
the Epistle of Barnabas, etc. From this considerable
body of material, judicious selection must be made.
How can that selection be made but by putting at
that business the men best fitted to do it? It would
be necessary for representative men to meet, and con-
sider the wishes and feelings of their respective locali-
ties in regard to the matter.
214 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
A canon is simply a rule. It is a kind of law.
Now the laws we have, and the laws all people have
made, first grow up in the necessities of the case,
and in the minds and habits of the people. Thus it
was with this canon. Certain portions of the Chris-
tian community were particularly fond of some of the
extant writings. In the west, the Shepherd of Her-
mas had a strong hold," and the Apocalypse, though
it found much favor at first, was later regarded with
disfavor. The Epistle of Jude, the Second of Peter,
the Second and Third of John, the Epistles of Bar-
nabas and to the Hebrews, and some others, were re-
ceived by some and rejected by others. Following the
example of the Jews in making their sacred canon, it
became necessary for Christians to make theirs.
Now, a subject of such great interest would certainly
be talked over by a vast number of people, and par-
ticularly by the religious teachers, or the clergy, as we
now call them. A matter of the kind being thus
in discussion, a public opinion would gradually grow
up favorable to certain parts of the Christian literature
and unfavorable to others. To almost every intelligent
person, some writings would seem to be better, more
authentic, and more divine than others. In regard
to some, all would be practically agreed : as to others,
there would be wide differences of opinion. Some
would be universally accepted, some universally re-
jected from the proposed canon, and some would be
held in suspended judgment.
Finally, we will assume that during the fourth cen-
tury, representatives of the church in various portions
of the Roman empire come together and make, after
due deliberation and argument, an official list of the
* See note, p. 312.
INTFA. LLIBILITY. 215
books which are to constitute the New Testament.
They pass a rule that the books which are not included
in this list shall not be read in the public assemblies
of the Christians. The last book of our New Testa-
ment, called the Revelation, they did not include, and
therefore they made it wrong to read that in the re-
ligious services of the Christians. It was made wrong
to read that book in public, because the very same au-
thority which determined what the New Testament
was, said that Revelation did not belong to the New
Testament. We differ from these men, and say uni-
versally that Revelation is part of the New Testament.
We read it in public religious service as part of the
Bible. By so doing we proclaim in act, which speaks
louder than words, that the men who first decided
about the New Testament were mistaken in their de-
cision. They were not infallible. On other ground
we are persuaded to the same effect: it has never
been claimed, so far as known, that these men were
not as liable to mistakes as we are.
Therefore the doctrine of the infallibility of the
Scriptures of the New Testament, which has been so
strongly held, and is to-day so insisted upon by many
religious teachers, lacks the proper evidence to sustain
such a doctrine. A sentiment grew up in the early
Christian centuries; this sentiment was held by a great
many fallible men. Representatives of these men,
chiefly their clergy, met in convention and settled that
we should accept the list of books they approved, as
being the New Testament. These were the books to
be read in the churches. Before that, other books had
been read, but now these only must be read. I do
not reject the inspiration of these persons who de-
cided upon the material for the New Testament; I
216 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
would strongly affirm it. No good work can be done
in this world apart from the Spirit of God. That the
work of these inspired men was faultless is reasonably
to be denied. The history of the occasion justifies us
in the denial of an infallible outcome from it. Later
in the history of the world, good men have often met
for the discussion and decision of religious matters
of weight. That their discussions and decisions were
without flaw or fault, all Protestants deny. Why one
council should be singled out as an infallible council
is more than any reasonable soul can tell.
What we need in our religion is certainty. It is
more necessary to us in our religion than in our other
interests; but certainty that the Bible is infallible is
the one thing inaccessible to us. On the contrary, the
certainty is, that there is no proof of the infallibility
of the Bible. If any man of eminence assures us that
the Bible is infallible and in all its portions true, we
may believe him, because we respect his character; but
in order that our confidence in him may be justified,
we ought to make a sure discovery of absolute truth in
him, not only as respects his honest intention, but also
as respects his information, and his ability to grasp
such a subject. For infallibility is a very great mat-
ter, and the fallibility of man is an accepted belief of
all men.
What shall we do with the Bible if we find that it
is not an infallible standard? Shall we throw it away?
That will doubtless be the first impulse of many.
Those who have regarded the Bible as an infallible
standard of truth, and have not much acquaintance
with its contents, discovering that they were mistaken
about it, will perhaps throw it away. That will be
because they have never been acquainted with its true
INFALLIBILITY. 217
value, but only with an assumed and a fictitious value.
I venture to say that those who have become ac-
quainted with its spirit and value — the revelation of
it — will never throw it away. For the proof of the
truth of the New Testament lies in itself. There is a
certainty, a practical certainty, which, if we are sincere
and simple-minded, is readily accessible to us. Only
those things which are axiomatic are practically cer-
tain. After the axioms are found, only those deduc-
tions from them which are accordant with them can be
called valid. Mathematics and logic have their ax-
ioms. We begin with axioms: they are fundamental.
Religion has its axioms. All axioms are simple. The
axioms that a whole is greater than any of its parts,
and that a whole is equal to the sum of its parts, ap-
peal to us. When once they are understood, there is
no getting away from them. The books or scriptures
in which they are written may all be burned; they
remain, our inalienable possession. They are properly
to be called infallible. There is no fault in them.
They are verities, and the things which properly grow
out of them are our practical certainties.
I take it that Jesus was the most axiomatic of any
religious speaker in the history of the world. He
does not seem to have argued very much, perhaps
because he busied himself in laying the axiomatic
foundation. Now, the axioms of Jesus are so arranged
by the writer of the first Gospel of our New Testament
that we are confronted by them at the outset. These
axioms are the very things which, given in a simple
way, will remain in the minds of men who hear them.
We do not need any one to confirm us in our accept-
ance of them. The blessedness of purity of heart,
for instance, is a truth we are created to feel. If
218 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
the clergy gathered in consultation at Laodicea in 360
A. D. had set forth that purity of heart is blessed, it
would not add one atom’s weight to the authority of
the axiom, to one who has understood it. If, on the
contrary, such a convention should have decided that
impurity of heart is really blessed, that would destroy
the axiom for no one who has understood it. That is,
therefore, one of the certainties of religion ; and out of
it grow many other practical certainties. The thing is
infallibly true, whoever said it, or if no one had ever
said it until now.
On the other hand, suppose we begin with the gene-
alogy of Jesus as given in our first account. From
Abraham to Joseph, the father of Jesus, the number
of generations is forty. Is this the correct number 7
In the third account there are forty-one generations.
If Luke is right, then Matthew has not given a correct
genealogy of Jesus: it has the fault of leaving out one
generation, and that is a serious flaw in a genealo-
gical record. If Matthew is right, then Luke has com-
mitted the fault of adding a generation. However
one chooses to explain it, there is a fault somewhere.
Now an infallible writer does not commit a fault of
that kind. A perfectly honest and trustworthy writer
may. Explanations have been offered, but none of
them prove satisfactory. What religious difference
does it make whether there were forty or forty-one
generations between Abraham and Joseph 2 None
whatever. Therefore, for the purposes of religion,
the chapter of genealogies might precisely as well be
stricken out. If we desire genealogical knowledge,
we cannot acquire it with certainty, because the au-
thorities, inspired authorities, differ. If we desire re-
ligious knowledge, that is another matter. The first
INFA LLIBILITY. 219
chapter of Matthew contains no religious information
to impart: also, it contains no sure genealogical in-
formation.
In the fourth Gospel is an account of the first miracle
performed by Jesus. The first of a series of wonderful
events would not be likely to be overlooked by writers
giving an account of a man’s mission. Other miracles
of course might be forgotten, but the first one would
probably be remembered. This first miracle, however,
was not heard of by Luke, as he makes his investi-
gation, or it was not regarded important enough for
record. The same is true of the other two evangelists.
From seventy-five to a hundred years after the death
of Jesus the story of this first miracle is written. Jesus
went to a wedding in Cana, in Galilee, and the wine
supply failed. He was one of the guests, his mother
another. She mentioned to him that the wine was
gone. Six water-pots, in the customary place, he
caused to be filled with water. That which was put
into the water-pots was water, but we are assured that
what was drawn out of the same vessels was wine.
It was not only wine in appearance, but it was such
in reality, and was commended as good wine by the
steward of the house.
This is plainly of the magical order; such things
are not unfamiliar to the magicians. Now this story
is absolutely unverifiable. There are really many
things against it; but there is nothing for it, except
that the convention assembled in Laodicea in 360,
and other conventions, did not prune it out. They
did prune somewhat ; they rejected writings approved
by the common consent of a multitude of Christians,
but they did not leave out that story. Now, if we
put the utmost reliance upon their judgment, we are
not proceeding safely. They at least were not in-
220 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
fallible. Then, because the story cannot be verified,
and because it has but a secondary or illustrative
connection with religion, why are we not at liberty
to reject it as a fact? Why cannot we take it as a
growth in the latter portion of a period most rife with
such growths? From the efforts of total abstainers to
explain that the wine was not intoxicating, we should
imagine them to be glad if the whole story were out
of the New Testament.
There is another story, introduced by the same
author, which stands by itself, having no reinforcement
from the earlier writings, and that is the most aston-
ishing miracle performed by any one. It is the raising
of Lazarus from death, after he had been entombed
four days. Thither went Jesus and his disciples, and
many were said to be the witnesses of the strange
event. This event is said to have attracted the atten-
tion of the authorities at Jerusalem, and they under-
took to kill Lazarus because they feared the influence
which would accrue to Jesus from so great a proof of
power. Luke in his investigations failed to reach
that story. It was not told in his time, or he surely
would not have omitted it; and that is equally true
of the other evangelists. If, therefore, we seek veri-
fication of that incident, we fail to find it. There is
nothing in the story to commend it to our minds as
axiomatic. It is not self-verifying. There are truths
connected with it which are self-verifying. But that
which is not self-verifying cannot belong to the
certainties of religion. To my mind, that particular
Gospel, in which these stories are related, is the
grandest and most helpful religious book in the world.
It seems to me to contain more self-verifying truths
than any other book. The things in it which are
not capable of verification, except by that pseudo
INFA LLIBILITY. 221
method which rests everything on the decision of the
councils which determined the canon, are to be distin-
guished from the things which make direct appeal to
our heart and conscience and reason.
The things of religion which do not belong to the
practical certainties are not the things which in these
times we can safely hold to. We have given a primary
place to the secondary and unessential things of re-
ligion. We have regarded these unverifiable matters,
such as the raising of Lazarus, and the turning of
water into wine, as truths to stand by and maintain,
as though they belonged to the religion of Jesus. Now
they do not, and in the nature of the case cannot,
belong to the religion of Jesus, but to the religion
of those writers who failed to understand Jesus. The
real subject-matter of the religion of Jesus has been
fatally obscured by common faith in these unverifiable
Statements.
I have heard of a woman who kept a little coat,
worn by her little boy, long after he had grown up
and was away engaged in the business of the world.
She loved to look at the little coat, and it was be-
cause the little boy had worn it, although he had long
outgrown it. She would sometimes be glad to have
her little boy back again, and able to wear the little
coat, but that is impossible. Better is it that it is im-
possible. I confess to a love for the stories about the
turning of water into wine, and the raising of Laza-
rus, because the religion of Jesus has worn, as a gar-
ment, those legends and others like them. I am per-
suaded that the religion of Jesus has outgrown such
garments. It is better so. The lover of the Bible
will have an affectional interest in the legends, but he
will see that they are not the garments in which the
religion of Jesus can practically work.
XIX.
PAUL AND THE SECOND AIDVENT.
LONG before any official list of the books which
constitute the New Testament was made, there were
catalogues of writings which held a high place in
Christian esteem. The first list, the authorship of
which is unknown, contains most of the books in the
New Testament as we now have it. About the same
time Irenaeus made a list of a different sort. He
thought that the First Epistle of Peter and the Second
of John were of doubtful character, and to be ranked
with the Shepherd of Hermas. He did not consider
Hebrews, Jude, James, nor Second Peter and Third
John, worthy of a place in his list. Also Clement of
Alexandria made a list of superior and inferior books.
Later, say about the middle of the third century, Ori-
gen divided the Christian writings into three classes:
the authentic, the non-authentic, and the doubtful.
Eusebius, the famous courtier, theologian, and histo-
rian, made his list about a century later than Origen,
but agreeing with Origen’s.”
But we have the evidence of three ancient copies of
the New Testament, the most ancient yet discovered.
The manuscript known as the Sinaitic, which was
discovered by Tischendorf in 1841 in a convent of
Mt. Sinai, is reckoned to be of the fourth century, or
possibly of the fifth. That manuscript includes some
* See Dr. Gladden's Who Wrote the Bible? p. 318.
PA UIL AND THE SECOND A D VENT. 223
books which we reject, namely, the Epistle of Barna-
bas, and the Shepherd of Hermas. One of the other
most ancient manuscripts includes material not con-
tained in our Bibles. Moreover, when the Reformation
came on, there was much dispute over portions of the
contents of the Bible. Some of the prominent re-
formers rejected the book of Revelation, and others
felt doubtful about other books. Thus in those far-
off times of the Reformation, and in those still more
distant times of the early church, there was a greater
freedom of judgment in regard to the Bible than our
conservative teachers would like to accord to us now.
Whereas, both because we can study the matter under
a greater light now than was possible formerly, and
because freedom of judgment in regard to all matters
whatsoever ought to be greater now than formerly,
we are advancing to the use of great liberty in our
opinions concerning the New Testament. The one
thing of great importance to all Christians at present
is that according to the best opinions, the different
books of the Bible have a different value. Some books
are better than others, and portions of each book are
better than other portions. For each intelligent reader,
therefore, the value of a statement is to be tested by
the individual judgment.
The mere fact that a statement is contained in the
Bible is no proof of the truth of the statement. We
are thrust back on a personal responsibility which we
have not greatly cultivated in religious concerns. It
is a deficiency in responsibility that makes so many of
us afraid to think; but a religion which renders us
afraid to think will surely work us a great mischief.
Ordinarily, books are written in the order of their
chapters. The first chapter is first written, etc.: but
224 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
in the Old Testament the book of Genesis, for example,
was written long after later portions. In the New
Testament it is equally true that the first books were
not written first. Without going through the argu-
ment necessary to establish the truth of the proposition,
it is generally agreed by scholars, including the conser-
vative as well as the progressive, that the first letter
Paul wrote, which remains to us, is his first letter to
the Thessalonians. As Paul was the first writer of
the New Testament literature, we have a reasonable
probability that the part of our New Testament which
was first thought out and written is this letter, which
occupies a rather obscure place in the Testament. It
is estimated by Dean Alford that Paul wrote the First
Epistle to the Thessalonians in the autumn of the year
52 of our era. Others put it earlier, but it does not
signify. Suffice it that the start of the New Testa-
ment was made by the writing of a letter by an apostle.
Paul was an apostle, not because he had followed Jesus
about in Galilee and Judea, and had listened to his
teachings, but because he had been called to be an
apostle by the command and voice of God uttered in
his own soul. He obeyed that call, and did not ask
leave of the other apostles, who had been disciples.
He did not consult with them about it, for he probably
knew that they would not consent to such an arrange-
ment. He took up this work, just as previously he had
taken up the work of persecution, because he believed
that God wished him to do it. In the prosecution of
it he had gone about Asia Minor, visiting various cities
and planting churches. He had a dream one night,
as Luke tells us. In his dream he saw a Macedonian,
and heard his voice imploring the apostle to come over
to Macedonia. Paul took that as a divine intimation
PAUL AND THE SECOND ADVENT. 225
that he must cross the sea and plant the new gospel
among the Greeks. Accordingly he went across the
sea, and visited Philippi, where he and his companion
were imprisoned on account of a riot occasioned by
their visit. Then they went to Thessalonica, where
there was a Jewish synagogue, and there for the space
of three weeks Paul preached to the Jews out of their
Scriptures. The Jews were too tenacious of their
traditions to give heed to what he said, but there were
many Greeks who were more tractable, and they
formed a Christian community. Now Christianity
was so new to them that all sorts of difficult questions
would arise in regard to it, after Paul went away.
There was no such thing as a written gospel to refer
to. So far as these Greeks knew, there were no books
bearing upon the subject. Therefore they had discus-
sions about various things, and did not know what to
think. They were very much troubled, and word was
either sent to Paul, or in some manner he heard of
their state, and wrote them an epistle.
This letter tells us in general the view of the religion
of Jesus which Paul gave the Greeks at that place.
It tells us what Paul’s notion of the gospel was at that
time. This is interesting, not only in itself as a piece
of information, but it is also much more interesting in
showing in what a crude way the gospel took form at
the first. There was one great permanent effect pro-
duced by Paul and his preaching. The Greeks, who
had been idolaters, were turned away from idolatry to
serve a living and true God, instead of the idolatrous
images. They had also been taught to wait for God’s
Son, who was soon to come from heaven, and this Son
was none other than Jesus, who had been raised from
death, and who was the appointed deliverer from the
wrath to come.
226. CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
This was nothing strange at that time. The Jews
supposed that certain who had died would come back
again to the earth. They had that expectation in re-
gard to the ancient prophet Elijah, although we may
suppose that Jesus did not share the expectation. It is
quite evident, also, that the Jewish Christians expected
the revival of Nero after his death, and his reinstate-
ment in imperial power for a time. No doubt the ex-
pectation of the return of Jesus to set up his kingdom
and punish his enemies and persecutors and the ene-
mies of the church was exceedingly comforting to the
Christians. They were compelled to endure priva-
tions and the hatred of stubborn Jews; but all that
would last only a brief time. The day of judgment, or
of wrath, was fast approaching; and they must main-
tain patience and sobriety until that time.
Paul had adopted the feeling which had been
growing among the Christian communities. He had
not yet become very well informed about the actual
teachings of Jesus, such as we find in the Gospels.
They had not yet been written, and he had no means
of knowing. Therefore he felt sure, about the middle
of the first century, that a great change was impend-
ing; that the old order of things would pass away,
and the new order would be instituted. But that new
order, he supposed at that time, would be connected
with the coming back again of Jesus in the clouds of
the 'sky, to assume the command of all things, and
to destroy the Antichrist, which many reckoned to be
Nero.
The real substance of this letter of Paul’s has refer-
ence to the conduct of these converted Greeks. He
wishes them to be most careful of all to maintain a
good behavior, so that at the coming of Jesus with
PAUL AND THE SECOND ADVENT. 227
all his saints, they may be ready. He speaks in par-
ticular of some of those gross vices to which, we are
informed, the inhabitants of the cities of the Greek
peninsula were addicted. He exhorts them to purity
of heart and of life; for that, he says, is what God has
called them to. Now the Greeks were not used to
the Jewish idea, and no doubt Paul’s preaching about
the coming of the Son of God from Heaven had
thrown them into a ferment of excitement. Such fer-
ments are not unknown to us, arising from the same
cause; and these Greeks, who had not enjoyed the
high moral training which the Jews had, were un-
doubtedly less affected by the moral teachings of Paul
than by his visions of the coming of Jesus in the
clouds. -
Therefore Paul, in this letter, is cautionary. He
wishes them not to pay sole attention to the coming of
Jesus in the clouds, but to grow morally, and to have
the ambition of being quiet, and work at their various
occupations, which probably many of them had neg-
lected. They were to work at their occupations and
make an honest living, as if there were to be no such
coming of Jesus. Under the excitement caused by
Paul’s visit and his preaching many questions had
arisen. His converts were filled with the idea of that
appearance in the clouds; and some of them were
sorry for those that had died before they were able to
partake in that great triumph. It was so great a loss
not to see the glorious advent ' Thus the joyful ex-
pectations of these people were greatly lessened by
the thought of those who had died and lost it all.
Paul knew of these discussions, and he undertook to
settle the matter. He wrote that there need be no
sorrow for the dead, - that is, for the good among
228 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
them. They would have as much to do with the tri-
umph as anybody. “For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left
unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede
them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of the archangel and with the trumpet of God; and
the dead in Christ shall rise first ; then we that are
alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught
up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so
we shall be always with the Lord. Wherefore comfort
one another with these words.”
Such is the teaching which embodied itself in the
first of the New Testament Scriptures. This is the
message Paul bore to Jews and Greeks; the message
concerning a scene soon to occur in the sky, and
simultaneously a breaking of the graves, so that the
bodies of those who had been buried would come forth
and ascend to the sky, while a host of living men and
women would also join the ascent. Then would
come a final overthrow of the powers of evil on the
earth.
Paul believed all this to be true, just as William
Miller and many others have believed it to be true.
Only, unlike some of the modern advocates of the
theory, Paul would have the Christians neglect none
of their affairs, and he would have them study to be
quiet and give particular attention to sober and right
behavior. However, in spite of all exhortations, the
people could not help being excited at such a prospect.
They wished to know the time when this magnificent
panorama would open to view ; but Paul reminded
them that they knew that it would come unexpectedly,
like a thief in the night. Therefore it was useless
PAUL AND THE SECOND AD VENT. 229
for him to tell them anything further, except that
when wicked persons had settled themselves in an evil
content, then the great day would come, and there
would be no escape from it.
These enthusiastic teachings bore fruit. The West-
ern people began to entertain the hope of the resur-
rection of their bodies. They had been careless about
the disposal of the bodies of the dead. They were not
affected by the Egyptian feelings on that subject, but
delivered the bodies to the flames. In due time the
primitive notion of Paul with reference to that matter
obtained such a hold in the West that the Christians
began the construction of those catacombs which be-
long to the wonders of the world. They were no
longer indifferent to the disposal of the dead, but,
with a religious and affectionate care, laid them away,
in the sure hope of the resurrection. Such was the
deep sobriety of Paul, and such his earnestness in the
real moral teachings of the religion of Jesus, so far
as he had heard them, that he laid great stress upon
the daily conduct of his disciples. He wished them
to admonish the disorderly, to encourage the faint-
hearted, to support the weak, and to be long-suffering
toward all. He would not have them repay evil with
evil, but to be always following that which was good.
He wished more for their moral improvement, what is
called their sanctification, than anything else. He
wanted to have them ready for Jesus, when he should
appear, by being blameless and worthy.
This is the first thing that was written for the com-
ing New Testament, — this about the advent of Jesus
in the clouds, with the sound of a trumpet, and the
raising of dead bodies; but to the fundamental authen-
tic teachings of Jesus this bears faint resemblance.
230 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
Now something happened, and it is of the utmost
importance with reference to these visions of Paul.
While great events did come to pass, and while a
changed order did supervene, it was not at all in
the way Paul expected. Jesus did not descend from
heaven, with the voice of command, and with the voice
of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and
raise the bodies of the dead, and catch up Paul and
others who were alive at the time. A certain some-
what obscure Dutch author and some few American
writers of no prominence have indeed claimed that
these things actually happened at the time of the
destruction of Jerusalem. If they did happen, how-
ever, we have no means of knowing it, — and there-
fore it is the same as if there had been nothing of the
kind. Paul supposed that it was all true, and that
he had received these visions from the Lord ; but they
were visions which he evidently outgrew. Compara-
tively few of the Christians of any age, after the apos-
tolic, have given any heed to these teachings about
Jesus coming in the clouds. Some of those who have
more tenaciously held to the infallibility of the Bible
have been greatly scandalized because the churches
have been so careless of distinct teachings of an in-
spired apostle.
We are surely justified in the conclusion that Paul's
first preaching differed materially from his later. If
nothing more, he changed the emphasis from one doc-
trine to another. Another thing is certified to by
one of his letters, and that is his abandonment of the
expectation of being caught up to meet the Lord in the
air. He may still have believed that Jesus would come
at some period in that manner; but at all events he
lost interest in the subject. As he ceased to care for
PAUL AND THE SECOND ADVENT. 231
the outward shows of royalty and conquest he ac-
quired interest in other and more substantial matters.
This is testified to by the letter to the Romans, which
was written a few years later. It may be inferred that
that letter was written to those who had been Jews,
and might still indeed have considered themselves such.
Hence the theological character of the writing. I
suppose such questions were familiar to the schools of
the rabbins; the schools of Schammai and Hillel. Paul
shows a new tendency to go deep into the meanings of
things and to reason subtly upon them. He is no
longer to be satisfied with anything that is merely out-
ward, in the flesh. He has become more spiritually
minded; and, too, we may discern, if we attend care-
fully to his line of argument, the loss of the old expec-
tation of the coming of Jesus in the clouds. He has
acquired a far better idea, and one far more consonant
with the religion of Jesus.
He does not look for a revelation of the wrath to
come, but he sees the wrath of God already revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness, and particularly
against the craft of religious men. After a lengthy
elaboration of the office and effect of faith, he perceives
that the world is not waiting for the coming of Jesus
upon the clouds, and that such a coming would really
effect nothing of value. What the world is really
waiting for — and it is filled with groans and tears and
trouble while waiting — is the manifestation of men
who have the spirit of Jesus. He does not look for the
Son of God in the clouds of the sky, but for the sons
of God walking the earth, and bettering the moral
condition of it.
We have read the Bible under a wrong impréssion.
We have supposed that all the things a man may have
232 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
said or written are equally true or equally mature.
It is the habit of students to grow, and therefore to
change their minds. It was the way of Paul to grow.
While exhorting others to make advance he was not
himself idle. He was a greater man, and a better
teacher of God’s truth, in the year 58 than in the
year 52. His fertile mind and his thorough earnest-
ness did not permit him to linger in the old crudity
and error. He evidently outgrew it. His experience
was that of a progressive man, that is, of a growing
manhood.
What he had written to the Corinthians, or the
Ephesians, or earlier to the Thessalonians, did not
debar him from writing a better message to others,
when he had learned it. In him is illustrated, too, the
wisdom of Jesus, who said that the kingdom of God
is not immediately developed to full proportions in
mankind, or in any member of the race, but that it
grows in the mind and heart of mankind as it has op-
portunity. The stage of to-day is not the standard
for to-morrow. So Paul changed his mind about that
very peculiar phenomenon which we have learned to
know as the Second Advent. It faded away from
him, as doubtless it has faded away from many an-
other. While the Thessalonian Greeks had turned
from idols to serve a living God, he had taught them
to wait for the Son of God from heaven; in other
words, to expect the return of Jesus. They were clear
of the wrath to come because they were in this state
of mind. To the Roman Jews he said something
which cannot be reconciled with the early enthusiasm.
They were taught that so many as yield to the guid-
ance of the Spirit of God are already, and while living
on the surface of the earth, the sons of God. And
PAUL AND THE SECOND ADVENT. 233
they need not look with longing eyes to the sky, for
the appearing of the Son of God, who had departed
from the earth. With that Son of God they had
not to do, except spiritually ; but with the spirit and
mind of Jesus they had everything to do. The prev-
alence of that spirit and mind upon the earth would
bring its redemption from bondage.
The growth of Paul suggests that there was growth
elsewhere also among the early Christians. In fact, all
things of all sorts come into phenomenal existence in
this world by growth. The kingdom of heaven is no
exception to the general rule of development. It is not
first the full corn in the ear, but first the blade. The
kingdom of heaven was in the soul of Paul first as a
blade of promise. It must needs have been so with all
his associates. We are forced to discriminate between
the earlier and the later development. The expectation
of the coming of Jesus upon the clouds of the sky,
attended by celestial beings, to which the first writing
of Paul testifies so strongly, was the very thing which
prevented the writing of a thoroughly authentic history
of the acts of Jesus. From the time when he had been
put to death, the days slipped by and there were new-
comers in Jerusalem. Questions as to the difference
between Paul’s notions about the Gentiles and the
contrary notions of the apostles who had been with
Jesus arose. History was making itself rapidly.
There were persecutions, and flights away from Jeru-
salem. There was the question of idols, and whether
a follower of Jesus could eat that which had been
offered in sacrifice to idols, after it was exposed for
sale in the market.
By the zeal and insight of Paul great questions con-
cerning the validity of keeping the Sabbath, and the rite
234 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
of circumcision, and performing vows in the temple,
and the like were forced upon the attention and decision
of the men in authority; and meanwhile, too, strange
stories about Jesus were growing, and gaining wide
currency in Judea, and adjacent countries, – stories
concerning his birth, and the events precedent thereto;
strange stories of what he did as a little child. The
age was emphatically an age of wonders and miracles.
At every step the miracles were interwoven in the
stories told and retold, and they gathered weight and
size with each repetition. Meanwhile no man was at-
tempting to soberly write the story of Jesus simply as
he knew it, telling only what he actually knew Under
the circumstances it seems, therefore, to have been one
of the impossibilities to write a history of Jesus in the
plain, matter-of-fact way of modern times.
What then? In place of the sober biography we
have a growth in the mind of the first century which
is unlike the historical Jesus; but the growth produces
as its flower that ideal character, to know and love
which is life and peace. You do not have to ask
questions of history in regard to the value and glory
and excellence of that character. It shines for itself
like the dawn of day. It shines by a light which puts
all other light in shade. It appeals to us as a radiant,
divine, and earth-redeeming truth. This is the light
that lighteth every man.
XX.
TEIE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN.
AFTER Paul had written his letters to the saints in
various localities, other kinds of literature came into
vogue among the Christians. Of these none is more
puzzling, none apparently more inscrutable, than that
found in the last book of the New Testament. Many
readers have cast that document aside as useless.
Others have regarded it as a collection of the vagaries
of a person on the verge of insanity. It may safely
be said that the majority of the people to whom the
Bible is the infallible revelation of God do not get
much revelation, infallible or other, out of the book
which especially bears that name, the last book of the
Bible. It is true that its writer declares him blessed
who reads it, as well as those who hear it and keep
the things which are written therein. Yet with the
exception of the first three chapters and two or three
passages mear the close of it, there is nothing edifying
in it to the average reader.
For that there is an excellent reason. The book
was not written for us. We do not acquire any bless-
edness by reading it, because its application is not to
us. If in some manner we can be made to feel that
the book has a great revelation for us of things that
must shortly come to pass, then of course we shall
become greatly interested in it, and try to find out, if
possible, what it means; but it was written so long
236 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
ago, and had such distinct reference to things about
to transpire, that we fail to find it interesting. There
are truths in it which remain forever, but they are
merely incidental in the book, and do not constitute its
main theme.
It seems probable, contrary to the settled opinion of
earlier students, that this book may have been one
of the earlier of the Christian writings. It is not im-
possible that it was written before any of the Gospels.
If the books of our New Testament were arranged
chronologically, in the order of their composition, the
First Epistle to the Thessalonians, as before suggested,
would take the place of Matthew. Other epistles of
Paul would follow that. Perhaps the next book to
them would be this Apocalypse of John. So that if
all the letters of Paul were combined in one book, and
that book were placed at the beginning of the New
Testament, then it is quite probable that the second
book of the New Testament would be the one which
now closes it. This does not profess to be an accurate
opinion, nor one that can be substantiated by clear
proof, but I believe it to be approximately true.
If the first contribution to the New Testament was
written about the year 52, there is something to show
that this contribution by a (possibly) second writer
was made within fifteen or twenty years thereafter,
because we may well suppose that only a dire and
immediate necessity would call forth such a writing.
Such a necessity is plainly visible in the condition of
the Jews and the Jewish Christians in the latter half
of the sixth decade of the first century.
A bit of history may be gleaned from many writers.
One Florus was the Roman procurator of Judea, and
exhausted the ingenuity of a man of some talent in
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. 237
devising exasperations for the patriots of his province.
The people were insulted and made to feel the weight
of the foreign power as heavily as possible, and the
result was a revolt. Nero sent two of his generals
to suppress the revolution; and they, beginning with
Antioch, swept down toward the capital, leaving only
misery, death, and destruction in their wake. Whether
the Roman empire at that time was at its worst or not,
it certainly was worse than modern imagination can
easily picture. Nero has always been subjected to
the execration of mankind, and his tools and favorites
were men of the ferocious martial type. The Roman
armies were the scourge of the world. The Jews,
roused to the defense of their country, contested the
advance of Vespasian with the courage and fury of
despair. They were in no wise inferior to their con-
querors in courage, but were deficient in military or-
ganization, and so they were driven back, inch by
inch, toward the holy city. In it they were finally
penned, Vespasian establishing his army in winter
Quarters in the vicinity. Then broke forth such ter-
rors in Jerusalem, such atrocities, such sufferings, as
elsewhere the astounded world has not looked upon.
The French revolution, with its busy guillotine, its
drowning of priests in the river at Lyons, its far-
reaching Jacobin murder-society, was but child’s play,
compared with the destruction of Jerusalem. In its
wildest days, Paris was a regulated city, compared
with Jerusalem in its worst days, after the circum-
vallation of Titus. So dreadful a fate was accorded
to the Jews that the tongue refuses to speak it, and
the pen to write it.
The Christians fled out of the doomed city, went
across the Jordan to Pella, scattered everywhere, so
238 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
far as they were able; and everywhere they carried
the tidings of the most terrible times that had ever,
they thought, darkened the world. Either because
banished to a small island in the AEgean Sea, or wish-
ing to seclude himself, John, the writer of the Apoc-
alypse, was at this time leading a solitary life in the
Island of Samos, of the group of the Sporades. This is
said to be a desolate island, about thirty Roman miles
in circumference, and may have furnished subsistence
for a very scanty population. Thither John had be-
taken himself, and there his visions came to him. It
is possible that he had undertaken in that solitude
to write letters of affectionate greeting, warning, ap-
peal, and instruction to churches of Asia which he had
become deeply interested in. He may have felt that
the example of Paul, in that respect, was worthy of
imitation. At any rate, he begins his letter to the
seven churches of Asia, but in a style widely different
from that of the more educated and argumentative
Paul. One might be quite within the probabilities to
suppose that he had made the plan of his letters, and
was slowly working them out, adapting them to the
needs of the various localities, when the news of the
calamities of the fatherland came to him. The fervid
imagination of the Hebrew, coupled with the faith of
the Christian, forces him to send out a great message
of the last times to the Christians not only of Asia,
but wherever it may find them. The vision is not for
all men. It is for those who can understand it. It is
for those who have the knowledge of signs and figures
of speech peculiar to the Jews.
We shall go astray in our interpretation of this
book of visions if we fail to note that the seer devotes
himself only to the things which must shortly come to
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. 239
pass. What more natural than for John, hearing the
awful tidings from Judea, to see an end of the old
disorder, the crash of it in a final chaos, its reduction
to ashes, and the rise of an orderly cosmos, a beauti-
ful kingdom, to be ruled by the Lamb? The anguish,
pain, and terror of the time were to him like the final
pains of death, and like the pains of birth, as well;
but the keynote of the whole vision is in the antici-
pation that the events noted are about to transpire;
not after centuries, and not after weary and bloody
decades even, but at once. How one scene treads
upon the heels of another, each pushing itself forward
upon the stage to be itself crowded off without delay !
The main subject of the book is not a doctrine, prop-
erly so called; it is not a gospel, nor a treatise upon
any topic, but a schedule of things about to happen.
If John began with the idea of writing a pastoral
letter to the churches of Asia, and had gone as far in
that enterprise as the first three chapters (exclusive
of the introduction, which may well have been added
later), he abandoned it. The times were too pressing.
If we combine all the scenes into one, it is contained
in the words, “Behold he cometh.” All is an expan-
sion of those words.
Our religious teachers have had dogmatic uses for
all the books of the Bible, and they have made it ap-
pear to the readers of this last book that the author
was talking about the last things, or about the Second
Advent, whenever it might be. He tells us that his
vision is not of a second advent, or a last day, or any-
thing of that nature, to occur in some remote period.
What he saw was the immediate occurrence of events
like the siege of Jerusalem.
After the apocalyptic method, he sees all these
240 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
things, as it were, in heaven. Everything is planned
there, and symbolically represented, before it occurs
on earth. There is a door opened in heaven, so as to
permit the seer to perceive what is going on there.
Through the door he beholds a throne, and he imme-
diately hears a voice bidding him come up and see the
things which must come to pass. On the throne is
One who shines with an indescribable glory. A rain-
bow spans with its arch the awful presence. Figures
arrayed in white, and crowned with golden crowns,
surround the throne; and out of the throne proceed
voices, lightnings, and thunders. The picture is cer-
tainly a sublime one. Golden lamps are burning; a
multitude of eyes are gazing. The One sitting on the
throne holds a book sealed with seven seals, but to
remove the seals is beyond the power of any one, until
a Lamb appears (also called the Lion of the tribe of
Judah), who is able to open the seals. This book evi-
dently contains the things which are shortly to come
to pass. There is no one who can open the book of
coming events, except the Lamb. He opens the seals
one by one. At the opening of the first, there rides
forth a rider upon a white horse, one who comes to
conquer the world. At the opening of the second seal
comes forth a red horse, probably representing, quite
fittingly, war. At the opening of the third seal, a
black horse. At the opening of the fourth seal, a
livid horse, possibly representing famine. At the
opening of the fifth seal, the voice of souls is heard,
calling for vengeance upon tyrants, oppressors, and
murderers. Then an earthquake, together with the
turning of the Sun into blackness, the moon red as
blood, while the stars of heaven fall from their places.
The heaven is removed as a scroll, when it is rolled
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. 241
up; and then appears the day of the wrath of the
Lamb.
After the seven seals come the seven trumpets and
then the seven vials or bowls containing God's wrath.
These are one by one emptied of their contents upon
the earth. Upon the pouring out of the first bowl a
disease falls upon the inhabitants of the earth. The
second bowl is poured upon the sea and it turns to
blood. The third turns the waters of rivers and
springs into blood. The fourth renders the sun hot
with intolerable heat, etc.
The Jewish character of the vision is shown in the
sealing of the twelve thousand from each tribe, and in
the name “Lion of the Tribe of Judah,” as applied to
the Lamb, and in other ways. But there emerges to
view the Beast, who sets a mark upon all men, bond and
free, rich and poor, without which no one is permitted
to buy or sell. This Beast is to be recognized by the
initiated as the Caesar, Nero. In a mystic manner, the
seer spells out the name for those who can understand.
Pestilence, bloodshed, famine, every possible evil, be-
trays its dire presence in these visions. The very
sum and head of all evil, the dragon, or devil, having
but a short time, bestirs himself to the utmost in doing
all the mischief possible while space serves.
Such is the writing of a man who, in his cave on
the lonely island of the AEgean, can see the panorama
of the final conquest of good over evil. He sees not
only the glories of the opened heavens, and the activi-
ties of spirits good and bad, but he sees the great
dragon, the devil, at length laid hold of by a powerful
angel, in whose hand is the key of the bottomless pit ;
and the fiend is thrust down into the nether depths,
there to abide a thousand years. Then he is let loose
242 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
for a brief season, but it does not interest the seer,
because that period is so far away. What does inter-
est him is the event of the time, – the coming of Jesus
in the clouds, to be seen by every eye, to be hailed by
all mouths, to be worshiped by all men; and that is
shortly coming to pass.
So vivid are the waking dreams of this man, so huge
the disasters he sees, so bloody the color of all things,
so lurid, so awful, that we wonder if this man could
have walked about in the quiet paths of Judea or Gal-
ilee with the Son of Man, and learned of him ; but we
must recall the things which were transpiring in Judea
at that very moment. We must put ourselves in the
place of the seer, as well as we may, and think of the
ruthless Roman carrying fire and slaughter and deso-
lation through the fair land of the promise, — the
sacred city sacked, its holy places invaded, its inhab-
itants brutally slain. We must think of the deadly
hatred such things must needs evoke in the breast of
the Jew. We must think of the anguish of soul, the
despair, except for the vision of the coming triumph,
when all shall be reversed. Then the Beast, and the
false prophet, and the dragon, and all the enemies
of the sacred race will be shut up in the fire of the
wrath of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment
will ascend forever and forever, Could any pain be
too great for Nero and his hordes 7
Looked upon without sympathy and without know-
ledge of the circumstances, the book of Revelation is
an insanity. There is an order, a method in the scen-
ery, but the total is a frightful phantasm ; yet it is
redeemed by one of the sweetest and most entrancing
pictures of hope ever written by human hand. The
seer does not see through the open door of heaven the
THE APOCA L YPSE OF JOHN. 243
wreck of a world. He does not see purposeless agony
of human Souls, a meaningless martyrdom ; rather
there is an issue from it all of a world at last fit
for the habitation of gentle and just men. After all
the death supervenes life; after all the darkness and
gloom comes an unfading light. For the diseases
which have afflicted men there blooms the glorious
tree, whose leaves have healing power. The hunger
and the thirst, and the groaning, and the terrors, the
bloodshed, oppressions, falsities, are all going, and
they are going soon. That is the thing which must
shortly come to pass. The golden city which is the
true capital of the world, the New Jerusalem, descends
from God out of heaven, and becomes at last an
earthly city. The nations rejoice, and walk in the
light of it; the time of crying and groaning and
mourning is over. “Behold I make all things new,”
is the voice which thrills every heart.
This book, strange as it is, had its uses; but they
were for the most part exhausted in the lifetime of
the writer who wrote it. Like that other apocalyptic
book which was sent forth in the period of the Macca-
bees, to nerve the heart of the despairing with cour-
age and inspire hope in the hopeless, this message of
the seer of Patmos must have been the great divine
book of its day to those who could read its mysteries.
For those of a later time who have read it unintelli-
gently, it has been far other than a blessing. For the
most part it has been out of date since the century
in which it was written, and not only out of date, but
the inspiration of disordered dreams, and the cause of
religious frenzy in many.
Now it is this kind of religious literature which has
a transient value. It is not for future ages, but only
244 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
for the age in which the writer lives. When it is
taken to be a schedule of the events of the ages of
the world, to wind up finally with the triumph of the
Jews, it will be sure to be misunderstood, and to pro-
duce insane visions and baseless expectations.
There is another thing to be taken account of.
With the exception of the first three chapters, which
are advisory and appealing, and passages near the
close of the book, which are hopeful, there is not very
much which corresponds with the known facts. It is
impossible to identify the fulfillment of these predic-
tions. If we assume, as we must, that Rome, and the
Caesar, and the legions, and all the imperial power
are set forth in various vivid imagery, they on the one
hand, and the Lamb, or Jesus Christ, on the other
hand, with the hosts of heaven fighting under his ban-
ner, what are we to think of the result of their con-
flict? The victorious rider on the white horse, coming
forth conquering and to conquer, is to utterly annihi-
late the power and pomp of the enemy. Babylon, the
mystery of iniquity, the infamous woman, arrayed in
scarlet, and drunk with the wine of her fornications,
falls prostrate, and is thrust down to destruction, and
the smoke of her torment ascends, the sign that she
was, but is not. This is the expectation of the seer, but
Babylon stands clearly enough for imperial Rome, the
mistress of the world. She upon her seven hills, rul-
ing with wide-stretched arm the destinies of the habita-
ble world, hated beyond all by the Jew, fell not. The
Jew and the Christian did not conquer her. By that
slower process of downfall which has happened to all
nations, she after a long period came to the end of her
imperial power. The ardent prediction of John was
not fulfilled, and can never be fulfilled, because the
times have gone by.
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. 245
He who starts with the notion that the Bible is an
infallible book, and true in all of its statements, in-
cluding its predictions, is forced to one of two courses
with respect to this book of John the seer. He must
hold that the predictions were accurately fulfilled, al-
though we have no historic account of it, or else that
when the seer spoke of things shortly coming to pass,
he did not mean shortly in our sense of the word. He
meant shortly from the standpoint of God. I believe
that is the course usually followed by interpreters who
believe in the infallibility of the Bible. In support
of that theory is the fact that at the close of the
splendid scene, the triumph of God and the sover-
eignty of the Lamb is described as the descent of the
holy city, New Jerusalem, from heaven : then the re-
demption of the world is accomplished. That shows
that the seer did not limit himself to events near at
hand. Yet is there any trouble in supposing that the
seer did expect the ending of the old world in his
own lifetime 2 Is it difficult to imagine that he, in his
fervid faith, and with his soul aglow with the promises
of Christ, not understood by him, should see the end
of things at hand 2 Indeed, he takes the pains to say
as much over and over again. The plain fact is that
he was mistaken, as many another good and inspired
man has been, both before and since his time.
The body of his message is full of incongruous
imagery. The seer lets loose his imagination to riot
in the scenes of conflict and triumph. There is an
absence of that moral teaching which makes the sub-
stance of the instruction of Jesus. “The end of
things is at hand.” There is required no longer the
setting forth of the quiet and blessed ways of life.
The man is in a delirium. He has reached the climax
246 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
of that frenzy which has acquired the name of the
Second Advent. Yet that frenzy finds no real foun-
dation in him, because he is dreaming of the things of
his own time and not of our time.
In the three ‘Synoptic Gospels which have been
given a place in our New Testament, we find some-
thing of the same idea attributed to Jesus. We hear
him not only predicting the overthrow of Jerusalem,
but he is represented as saying a few of the things
spoken of in the Apocalypse. So strong a hold had
these ideas concerning the coming of Jesus in the
clouds upon the popular imagination, that we may well
conclude that some of these elements were put into the
mouth of Jesus, as predicted by him ; but it is diffi-
cult to reconcile them with his authentic teachings.
It is easier to think that from this very book, if it was
earlier than the Gospels, were taken the solemn words
of the Gospels about waiting and watching for the Son
of Man.
The historic criticism of the New Testament thus
opens to our view the necessity for a change of opin-
ion with respect to the contents and meaning of the
Scriptures. There may be many who are declaring
that since the fathers fell asleep all things remain as
they were since the beginning of the world. That is
a serious error. Nothing remains as it was, but all
things change in the order of creation. It is the order
of creation that all things should change. Therefore
many seem to be taken unawares with the influx of
the new opinion which the close of our century wit-
nesses. They do not know what they can do. There
is a kind of watchfulness to which they have not been
addicted. The old view of the Bible is utterly unten-
able. Watchful souls have discovered it, and have
THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN. 247
sought a better view. Perhaps it were most wise in
all religious men to be watchful of the present ways
of God in the continuing creation. They who are
watchful will surely see that if creation goes on from
one stage to another, revelation must also increasingly
go on from age to age.
XXI.
THE CERTAINTIES.
REFERRING incidentally to the genealogies given
respectively by Matthew and Luke, we discover ample
reason to be dissatisfied with them. They do not
agree. In Matthew the line of Joseph is traced to
Abraham, but the ancestor of Joseph who belongs to
the line is Solomon, the son of David. " In Luke, how-
ever, the progenitor of Joseph is Nathan, the son of
David. If the matter were important, we should find
at once that we cannot trust the narrative. It is not
of consequence, except to those who believe in the
infallibility of the Bible, and to them it certainly
ought to be weighty, because it disposes finally of
their dream of infallibility. The simple, honest, and
honorable way to treat the case is to conclude that
one or the other or both of the evangelists were as
liable to be mistaken as other honest men, and that
one or the other of them was surely mistaken in tra-
cing the line of Jesus through Joseph to Adam or
Abraham. Solomon was not the progenitor of Joseph,
if Nathan was.
From a strictly religious standpoint, this is of small
moment. The religious bearing of the ancestry of
Jesus is nothing to one who has once apprehended that
religion. If, however, Matthew and Luke are not to
be trusted in an unimportant matter, are they to be
trusted in matters of real religious consequence? If
THE CERTAINTIES. 249
they differ, by what means shall we decide which is
right? If they agree concerning any matter which
does not seem accordant with the teachings of Jesus,
how are we to know what the truth in the case is 7
These are serious questions, for which we need not
search unavailingly for answers.
We have seen already that during the period which
elapsed before the writing of the Gospel according to
Luke, at least, —if not before the writing of any Gos-
pel, - there came to be a feverish expectation of the
second advent. This expectation rose to the height of
delirium, as shown in the Apocalypse of John. The
heart of the Christian community was all engaged
with the second advent; and out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaketh. It became natural
for the people to put into the mouth of Jesus discourse
concerning the second advent, because they were so
full of it themselves. Yet it is in those passages
which touch upon that subject, in the three Gospels,
we find the sayings of Jesus which strike us as least
in his method, and least in accord with the tenor of his
other teaching. As largely contributing to the fever
of second adventism at the time, we may be sure the
book of Daniel was influential. In the book of Daniel
are found words of accurate prediction. “From the
time of the removal (or change) of the perpetual sac-
rifice, when the abomination of desolation shall be set
up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety
days.” It is supposed that the abomination of deso-
lation was either some image, emblematic of the Ro-
man sovereignty, or something connected with the
idolatry of that people. It is related by Matthew and
Mark that toward the end of his life Jesus went into
the temple, and was passing out of it, when his disci-
250 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
ples wished to call his attention to its beauty, and
especially the adornment of it. He assured them that
the overthrow of that temple was imminent : not one
stone should be left upon another. It is further
related that, returning to the Mount of Olives, his
disciples privately asked him about the destruction
of the temple and the end of the age when he should
have come again. In answering these questions he is
made to refer to the book of Daniel : “When; there-
fore, ye see the abomination of desolation spoken of
by Daniel, the prophet, standing in the holy place (let
him that readeth understand), then let them that are
in Judea flee unto the mountains; let him that is on
the housetop not go down to take out the things that
are in his house,” etc.
Luke, in giving his account of this conversation,
does not make Jesus refer to the book of Daniel. He
does not think of the desecration of the temple by the
introduction of the Roman ensign or some idolatrous
image into its holy place; and therefore he is not
obliged to have Jesus say: “Whoso readeth let him
understand,” because what he says is plain to any one.
“When ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then
know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let
them which are in Judea flee to the mountains,” etc.
It is therefore evident that while these three accounts
are all colored by ideas of the second advent, they do
not agree. Matthew and Mark say that Jesus referred
specifically to Daniel, and his enigmatical words about
the abomination of desolation; while Luke tells us that
he spoke of the armies encompassing Jerusalem as
the sign that the desolation of it had come. It is idle
to urge that they mean the same thing; they do not,
because in one case the sign is the introduction of
THE CERTAINTIES. 251
some heathen symbol into the holy place of the
temple, and in the other case it is the appearance of
armies around the walls of Jerusalem. Thus is indi-
cated to us the probability that there was some com-
mon stock of apocalyptic literature from which the
three quoted, only Luke changes the quotation to
suit the facts, which, when he wrote, had already
transpired.
. There is abundant evidence that the people of the
time when the Apocalypse of John and the three Gos-
pels were written did not understand Jesus. They
make him say things inconsistent with his real mission,
which was spiritual. That is largely because they are
filled and fevered with the splendors and horrors of the
second advent. They contradict themselves, therefore,
for they tell us that he talked of signs in the sun and
moon and stars; while at the same time they record
that he had already said that no sign should be given
to that generation. They make him foretell a great
tribulation (upon which John dwells much in the
Apocalypse), and that immediately after it the sun
shall be darkened, and the moon shall cease to yield
light, and the stars shall fall from heaven. If we
contend that this tribulation is some final catastrophe
in the still future history of the world, we are told
that he said that the generation then alive should see
the fulfillment of all these predictions. The tribula-
tion was soon coming, the darkening of the sun and
moon and the fall of the stars. If it be still further
urged that by “generation ” he did not mean what is
commonly meant, but rather the race (of the Jews),
note that Matthew makes him say that there wore some
standing by him while he was speaking who should not
taste death until they had seen the Son of Man coming
252 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
in his kingdom. That is to say, there were some living
at that time who should (as Matthew says) continue to
live until the Son of Man came in the glory of his
Father, with the angels, to judge the world.
These are the things in which it is quite evident
that the writers of the Gospels misunderstood Jesus:
for those writers, following the popular idea about the
second advent, lost sight of the moral regeneration
of the world, as the only thing befitting the character
and mission of Jesus, and thought of the conquest of
the world in some outward way, as by the advent of
Jesus with armies of angels in the clouds of the sky.
Whatever may have been their opinion, this one thing
remains by which to test their insight, or their lack of
it, namely, the fact that the Son of Man did not come
with the angels so that every eye saw him and all
the tribes of the earth mourned. What did happen
in that generation was nothing unusual in the clouds
of the sky, but something unspeakably dreadful upon
the surface of the earth; and that was the siege of
Jerusalem by Titus, and the awful scenes of famine
and madness inside the walls of the devoted city. The
judgment did not sit, with the Son of Man upon the
throne of his glory, in the sense which the words of the
evangelists imply. The nations were not gathered to
be separated from each other as a shepherd divides
the sheep from the kids. Those nations which had
not been kind to the brethren of the King were not
sent into the eternal fire with the devil and his angels.
Yet these are the events which the enthusiastic Jewish
Christian expected would happen in the near future,
— these are the things which the words of Jesus, as
the evangelists report them, would lead any one to
expect.
THE CERTAINTIES. 253
Now it is no pleasant task to show the deficiencies
of any one, least of all the faults of those who have
performed the inestimable service of giving the New
Testament to the world ; but the deficiencies are there,
open to the inspection of any who have eyes to see.
We are forced to deal with them, as best we may ;
but we shall not deal well with them if we slur them
over, or construct some theory by which we continue
to accept things mutually irreconcilable. The task is
being laid upon us of distinguishing between the actual
teachings of Jesus and those teachings which have
been credited to him, but which do not accord with
his method. All things in the world which appeal to
us for our trust and confidence must be tested. If in
so important an interest as religion we do not prove
all things, we shall not be likely to hold fast to that
which is good.
Two incidents are related in the evangelists from
which lessons are to be learned. The mother of the
sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with a request. “Com-
mand that these my two sons may sit, one on thy
right hand and one on thy left hand, in thy kingdom.”
Jesus told them that they did not know what they
were asking, as surely they did not; and the ten were
indignant that the two sons of Zebedee should thus
undertake to get the start of them in the coming
dignities. The scene gave occasion to Jesus to teach
them that those who are really first in the kingdom
of God are not those who have the best seats, but
those who do the best and most service. This lesson
is obvious, from the standpoint of Jesus, and it is
given in different forms by the several evangelists.
On another occasion Jesus took a little child and pre-
sented him to the disciples as an example of the hu-
254 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
mility they ought to have. It becomes evident that
Jesus discouraged the ambition of his followers, so far
as it related to having seats or thrones of authority in
the coming kingdom. As to authority, that at any
rate was God's matter, and he would attend to it as
seemed wise to him. Jesus would not give such a
promise as was demanded of him. He preferred to
promise that they should partake with him in the labor
and sufferings incident to his mission. All this seems
clear enough. We would suppose that no one could
be so blind as to err in respect to these solemn les-
sons. Yet that the evangelists did err in respect to
them is perfectly plain.
A young man who had great possessions came to
Jesus to learn of him the way of life. Jesus told him
what the way of life would be for him, but he could
not bring himself to undertake to walk in it, and
went away sorrowful. Then Jesus told his disciples
how difficult it must be for the rich to enter his
kingdom. Peter supposed, after his usual fashion,
that for such great sacrifices as this young man was
called upon to make there must be great reward. He
had the notion, so common among men of the less
spiritual sort, that one does everything for a reward;
so he said, substantially, to Jesus, “We have done
what you told that young man to do. We have left
everything behind in order to follow thee, and now
what shall we have?” If Jesus answered as Mat-
thew tells us he did, then his answer to the mother
of Zebedee's sons must really pass for nothing. They
were wishing for thrones on either hand of his throne.
He would not grant that. When Peter asks for some-
thing by way of reward for leaving their fishing busi-
ness and following Jesus, Matthew declares that Jesus
THE CERTAINTIES. 255
said: “Verily I say unto you, that ye which have fol-
lowed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man
shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit
upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel.” Probably some have supposed that in the
other world, beyond the grave, the twelve tribes of
Israel would be again reëstablished; but that notion
has only to be examined to be abandoned. The estab-
lishment of a tribal relation, an old primitive and
provisional arrangement in heaven, is not satisfac-
tory to the mind. What the evangelist undoubtedly
meant was the restoration of Israel, as a community
of twelve tribes, on the earth and in the land of Pal-
estine. Such restoration is plainly contemplated in
the Apocalypse of John. These tribes were to have
one imperial king, the Lion of the tribe of Judah ;
and the twelve followers corresponding with the num-
ber of tribes were to be assigned thrones over the
tribes, and so the ambition of the disciples, the sons
of Zebedee and the ten who had been indignant with
them, would be gratified. Their sacrifices would be
most gloriously rewarded.
That Jesus should once in a while say things of
this sort, absolutely contrary to his own deep con-
victions expressed at other times, or build up the
things he was mainly engaged in tearing down, is not
probable. How much more probable is it that his
disciples, and afterward the persons who undertook to
write his biography, fell into grave error and mis-
understanding of him, than that he should have so
grossly misunderstood himself. To put the case com-
pactly : in one breath he declines to promise the two
sons of Zebedee the thrones they asked for, through
their mother, and in the next breath he emphati-
256 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
cally promises them these thrones of authority and
dignity. I therefore hold the statement of Matthew
to be incredible. It is difficult to find an inner and
deeper sense in which the words may be true. The
reward promised is of the very kind Jesus did not be-
Jieve in.
It may be asked if any one has a right to set up
his individual judgment against a plain declaration of
the New Testament ; and I answer, not only a right
but a positive duty. Those who hold to the infallibil-
ity of the Bible may be said to give an equal value to
these two mutually destructive teachings of the New
Testament. In so doing the teachings necessarily
reduce to nothing. It is our right and duty to see
that the true teaching may be recognized as such, and
the false teaching be so classified, otherwise the word
of God is made of none effect by our tradition of
infallibility.
If Jesus characteristically teaches unworldliness
and a distrust of worldly ambitions, he cannot once
in a while countenance, much less stimulate, such am-
bitions. Whoso tells us that Jesus promised thrones
to his disciples, as their reward for making the sacri-
fice of following him, convicts himself, not Jesus, of
error. Very well, some one will say, if the evangelist
errs in such ways, how may we be sure that he does
not err in all ways? In answering that question we
ought to heed the principle that the truth which is
assured to us is self-evident. It is characteristic of
Jesus that while he lacks the authority of the scribes,
he has the far higher authority of the self-evidence
of what he says. One asks: “How do I know that
purity of heart is blessedness? May not that prove
to be an error, if Jesus is not infallibly reported 2’
THE CERTAINTIES. 257
If we cannot see that purity of heart is blessed beyond
all peradventure, we could not be sure of it if a dead
man were to rise from the grave and tell us so. We
could not certainly know it if an angel were to fly
down out of the sky and alight visibly before our
eyes and tell us so. It is a self-evidencing truth,
or it is nothing. So it is of that teaching concern-
ing humility and service; having once grasped the
idea of it, it is evident. We know it is true just be-
cause we see it to be true. That other statement about
sitting upon twelve thrones and judging the twelve
tribes of Israel, and all like sayings attributed to Jesus,
not only do not carry any evidence of truth in them-
selves, but they are contrary to the self-evidencing
truths we see in the other sayings of Jesus. There-
fore the one is to us an authentic saying of Jesus, and
the other is not. In the one we detect the truth of
Jesus, in the other the error of the evangelist.
Such discrimination is made obligatory upon us at
the present time. We simply have to exercise the
same kind of discrimination that those men did who
determined what should go into the Bible and what
should be kept out. Are we less responsible than
they 2 Have we not as grave cause as they to dis-
tinguish between wheat and chaff 2
All of the sayings of Jesus which have come down
to us in the New Testament were first committed to
oral tradition. They were repeated from mouth to
mouth. They were of the kind which do not pass into
oblivion. They were also of the kind that preserves
the sense, even if the wording be somewhat changed.
It is quite possible that not one in ten of these say-
ings of Jesus has been recorded in our Bible, for it is
evident that Jesus was a copious talker. Paul, for
258 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
instance, was familiar with a saying of Jesus which
none of the evangelists record. “It is more blessed
to give than to receive ; ” but many or most of these
sayings attributed to Jesus, and committed to oral
tradition, were not so self-evident as that one. Some
sayings supposed to have come from Jesus are sen-
suous, like that saying concerning the twelve thrones.
Irenaeus, one of the earliest of the Fathers, quotes one
of these sayings believed to have been uttered by the
mouth of Jesus. There was a Christian pastor or
bishop named Papias, earlier than Irenaeus, who dili-
gently collected the “sayings ’’ of Jesus which were
current in the early churches. The writings he seems
to have held in small esteem, compared with these
oral traditions. They came from the “living voice,”
and therefore he valued them. Now here is one of
the sayings attributed to Jesus, which he and Ire-
naeus were sure Jesus uttered. It was precisely as
good in their view as that about the twelve thrones,
and was in fact of the same order. After the second
coming of Jesus the saints would be put in possession
of the earth, but it would be a new earth, and much
more beautiful and fertile than the old earth. The
saints would have vineyards, and the vineyards would
be immeasurably better than the old ones. Here is
what Jesus is reported to have said of them: “Then
will grow vines having ten thousand shoots, and each
shoot ten thousand branches, and each branch ten
thousand twigs, and each twig ten thousand clusters,
and each cluster ten thousand berries, and the juice
of each berry will make twenty-five measures of wine:”
2,500,000,000,000 measures from each vine ! I That
was one of the sayings supposed to have come from
* See Cone's Gospel Criticism, p. 275.
THE CERTAINTIES. 259
Jesus. The people believed it; Papias believed it;
so did Irenaeus. Because they believed it we may con-
cede that there is considerable evidence for its au-
thenticity; but its meaning does not correspond, as we
may easily see, and as some of the later Fathers did
see, with the moral teachings of Jesus, and they re-
jected it. We may with equal certainty declare that
it is foreign to Jesus to say the words about the twelve
thrones upon which the twelve disciples are to sit in
the regeneration. As well believe in the marvelous
vines, each one capable of pouring out rivers of
wine, as to believe in such a regeneration of the world
as that the twelve tribes shall reappear and have
twelve kings. º
A gold mine is not composed exclusively of pure
metal. It is partly gold and partly other things. A
certain worthless metal, pyrites, resembles gold. The
people who work in the mines dig out the material,
and then they separate the gold from the refuse.
They sift, or wash, or try by fire, but in any number
of ways they seek to differentiate between the excellent
gold and the things which are not gold. Some are
more skillful in this than others, and the unskilled
cannot determine the difference between gold and
pyrites. At all events, the exceedingly necessary
process, before the gold is put into the money circula-
tion of the world, is to separate the gold from the
grosser or cheaper materials.
I believe the Bible to be a mine of truth, and in
particular the New Testament and the four Gospels
are rich veins in this mine. Some way or other, by
the cultivation of our faculties, we are to learn to
discriminate the real from the seeming ; the truth
of Jesus from the dross of the misinterpretation of
260 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
his biographers. If men can learn to recognize the
precious metals wherever they see them, and are able
to test them, there is no reason except indolence or
superstition, why they should not learn to recognize the
truth of God, the truth of Jesus, wherever it may be
found. The way of taking everything in the Bible as
the truth, even when shown that some things cannot
in the mature of things be true, is a way of laziness;
and not over conspicuous for its honesty. We do not
acquire the wealth of revelation in that way. Only as
we freely test the Bible, and learn how to test it, shall
we get its truth free from its dross, and be able to
enjoy and live that truth.
XXII.
THE FOURTH THE GOSPEL OF THE PRESENT TENSE.
A MULTITUDE of questions arise respecting the doc-
trines of the New Testament, after one has become a
little acquainted with the results of historical criti-
cism. If Jesus did not promise his disciples that they
should sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel, did he promise the success of his enter-
prise of saving the world? The three Synoptic Gospels
give us grand pictures of a judgment day. In the
first we witness the gathering of all nations before the
Son of Man, who sits upon the throne of his glory.
In the second Gospel we hear Jesus saying: “Whoso-
ever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this
adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the
Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory
of his Father with the holy angels.” In the third
Gospel we hear the same words, but do not find given
such a picture of judgment as is given in the first.
Nevertheless, in the first three Gospels we are led to
expect a judgment day, when the Son of Man shall
appear with the holy angels and consummate the
judgment of the world.
The judgment and other events associated with it
are to occur in the lifetime of those who live in that
generation. Now we reckon the life of a generation
to be about thirty or thirty-five years. That is the
average duration of life for the generation. By reason
262 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
of other sayings ascribed to Jesus, however, we are
not limited to so short a period as that for the fulfill-
ment of the predictions. We are permitted to take the
life of the man who survives his generation, and he
may live, as tradition asserts the Apostle John did,
to be a hundred years old. Therefore, we may con-
clude that the judgment of the nations, when the Son
of Man “shall sit upon the throne of his glory,” will
transpire within the century. So that according to
the predictions contained in the first three Gospels,
as well as in such portions of the New Testament as
Paul’s earlier letters, the Apocalypse of John, and
the Epistle of Jude, the judgment day must certainly
be before the year 150 of the Christian era.
Two things are evident: (1.) That if the prediction
of the coming of Jesus in the clouds of heaven with
the angels were really announced to take place in that
generation, that is, within a century, that fact would
not be forgotten by the people. Friends would tell
friends of it, and parents dying would bequeath that
promise to their children. The sufferings, privations,
and persecutions incident to the time would be the
more patiently borne because the day of judgment and
of vengeance was not far away. (2.) If, however, the
generation passed entirely away, and these things did
not come to pass, and if the harrowing scenes of the
Roman conquest of Jerusalem became less dreadfully
real to the people by the soothing effect of time, and
if instead of the end of all things there seemed rather
to be a new beginning of things, not in the sky, but
on earth, then surely a different notion of the meaning
of judgment would grow up. Other ideas, such as
the gift of thrones to the twelve, in the coming re-
generation, would lose their hold upon the imagination
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 263
of the more intelligent portion of the church. More-
over, ideas of those very wonderful events of which
Paul writes to the Thessalonians, such as the raising
of the bodies of the sleeping, or dead, and their ascent
into the sky, and the catching up of the living, to make
their abode in the sky, would be materially modified.
In three of the Gospels these ideas found very full
expression, and especially in the Gospel of Matthew.
Indeed, Matthew in particular is everywhere colored
with these thoughts of the impending judgment and
irruption of angels. The color is quite deep in some
of the last chapters.
There is, however a book of the New Testament
which gives a very different conception of judgment,
the resurrection, and the coming of Jesus; that is,
the fourth Gospel. This is the book which seems
always to have puzzled the students. It puzzled the
early Fathers. German criticism has long played it-
self out in force upon it; and no wonder. It is un-
like any other book in the Bible.
An immigrant in a new country compares the land
with the tales that have been told of it. He sees virgin
soil, great forests, plentiful water, and other natural ad-
vantages. If he has been led to expect that all man-
ner of fruits and good food will present themselves
ready to his hand upon his advent into that country,
he will suffer great disappointment. The fruits and
the food are there, potentially, and even beyond all
that he has been told, but he must make his own effort
toward their development. He must proceed to put
His own labor into the clearing of the forest, and the
tillage of the soil, and the actual raising of crops, and
then he will realize how true the stories were which
had been told him. They were true, only they had
264 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
left out a very important element of truth, and that
was the personal labor part.
The early Christians were hearing all the time
about the new kingdom of Jesus; they were for the
most part looking to see it drop into their hands, as it
were, from the skies, – a ready-made kingdom coming
with sudden pomp of judgment. Angels were to fly
down with all the blessings and rewards and retri-
butions of which Jesus had been understood to talk.
They watched for these events to come to pass because
they had been solemnly assured of their early arrival,
and they did not come. The delays were unaccount-
able, and hard to endure; the century in which it
was necessary for them to occur was waning, perhaps
had already waned, when a different Gospel was
written. Not different indeed from the authentic
teachings of Jesus, but a better exposition of those
teachings.
Recur to Paul’s first contribution to the New Testa-
ment, and what he said about the rising of the dead:
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven,
with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall
rise first ; then we that are alive, that are left, shall to-
gether with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air,” etc. In the fourth Gospel the truth
Paul misconstrues is given, clear of that air-castle ele-
ment which Christian imagination added. There is
the Lord, not descending from heaven, but present
upon the earth, and there is the voice, and the effect
of the voice is the rising of the dead; but the scene is
transferred from the future to the present, and from
the sky to the ground. Much more than that, the
transfer is also from the outward to the inward.
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 265
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour cometh and
now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God, and they that hear shall live.” A great cur-
rent of religious thought and feeling had been running
toward the hour which was assumed to be coming ;
and the present hour, with its possibilities, its resurrec-
tions, its judgments, had been neglected. It is quite
possible that the fourth Gospel was written partly to
counteract the religion of expectation, the religion of
sky-gazing. For in it the Son of Man is taken out of
the clouds, and his religion made to be no cloud-land
religion but the religion of the present hour and place.
We do indeed see the angels in this last Gospel and
last contribution to the New Testament, but even the
angels are not cloud dwellers; they ascend and de-
scend upon the head of the Son of Man.
Great attention has been given this fourth Gospel by
the critics. For long it has been discerned to have a
different method, and perhaps even a different truth
from other Gospels. They are narrations of events,
and of brief sayings of Jesus, each saying more or
less disconnected from the others. When we under-
take to discourse, we take our subject and develop it,
as we are able. We argue and illustrate that partic-
ular theme. Not so the discourses of Jesus as given
in the Synoptic Gospels. He is nowhere represented
as speaking consecutively at length. In the sermon
on the mountain, as well as in the sermon on the
plain, he speaks in short and more or less discon-
nected sayings.
A mass of bones, each perfect in itself, would un-
doubtedly have an interest for us, but would not im-
press us in the same way as if girt in a living frame,
bound together, and vitally coöperating. It is in the
266 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
fourth Gospel that we reach the discoursing Christ, —
the Christ who has so much to say and do that books
cannot contain the record. Therefore in this fourth
Gospel we may conceive ourselves as possessing a
few of the discourses of Jesus, or the sayings of Jesus
constructed together. It is the book of the talking
teacher, rather than the book of aphorisms.
A multitude of opinions have of course arisen as to
the authorship of this book, and the time when it was
written. It is probable that many of these opinions
are erroneous. Of one thing we may be certain, and
that is that the uncritical opinions concerning the
book which obtained in the past are no longer to be
rationally held. As to what new opinion may be
adopted, that will probably appear as one studies more
deeply into the nature of the book and the time of its
composition. But the fourth Gospel is such that,
when we are reading it, and feel the inspiration of
its sentiment, we care not to-ask about its authorship
or the time of its composition. Indeed, it is free from
time and sense, because it sees the whole mission of
Jesus, not more in futurity than in the present, and
not more really in either than in the past. “In the
beginning was the Word,” and the Word is always
speaking, has always spoken, will always speak. It
is when we study the structure of the Bible and its
various parts that we become interested in the author-
ship of the fourth Gospel; and then it is that we may
possibly discover in it a key which will unlock many
doors.
Let us go back to our immigrant, who has come to
a new land and is disappointed at its failure to cor-
respond with the stories he had heard of it. He sits
down and waits. He will see if these rich promises
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 267
are coming to pass. He provides himself with a rude
shelter, and contrives to get a scanty subsistence out of
the brook, and from the wild game; but he engages
himself, for the most part, in waiting for the spon-
taneous bounty of the new world to drop into his lap,
and it fails to drop. Then some one, having know-
ledge of his forlorn state, writes him a letter, bidding
him note that he has misapprehended the nature of
the information he received. The information is sub-
stantially true; the bountiful harvests are really there,
—fields of corn, widespread and abundant ; but they
are there to be wrought out into actuality by him.
Before he will ever see the promises fulfilled, he must
address himself to the necessity of doing his part
toward fulfilling them. Above all he must stop wait-
ing and watching for these things which will never
come by being waited for. The sooner he stops that,
and goes on to develop the bounties of the earth into
harvests, the better.
I take it that the fourth Gospel is such a message
as that addressed to a mistaken church. It revises
their truth, or their apprehension of it. The truths
of Jesus which had not theretofore been clearly ex-
pressed, or which had been so connected with clouds
and futurity as to be neutralized in effect, were now
brought into the foreground. Let us note specifically
how : —
Said the religion of the time: “The judgment of
the world is coming; the Son of Man will soon appear
in the clouds, and sit upon the throne of his glory.”
Said Jesus in the fourth Gospel: “Now is the judg-
ment of this world.” Said the religion of the time:
“When Jesus comes in the glory of his Father, and
all the holy angels with him, then shall we know the
268 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
truth and see all things.” Said Jesus in the fourth
Gospel: “Not when the Son of Man shall come in
the clouds, outwardly in the sky, but when the Spirit
of truth shall come unto you to be in you, then shall
you know the truth, and shall be free, and shall know
the things to come.” Said the religion of the time:
“There shall be great power and glory hereafter, and
thrones for those who have suffered with the Son of
Man.” Jesus in the fourth Gospel said: “In my
Eather's house are many abodes.” In the religion
of the time were the ceremonies of the new religion,
and in the three Gospels were to be read the conse-
crating words of one august ceremony: “As oft as
ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the
Lord’s death till he come.” In the fourth Gospel
Jesus does not appoint a ceremony; he rather says:
“Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the
Son of Man, ye have no life in you.” “He that hath
the Son hath the life.” These are words of inward
meaning, — words not related to the time when the
Son of Man shall come, but to the transfer of the
mission of Jesus from himself to his disciples, which
would come whenever they sufficiently partook of his
spirit.
The structure of the fourth Gospel differs from that
of the others sufficiently to attract the attention of any
one. The fourth Gospel introduces ideas from a Greek
philosophy. As in the older time when the Jews came
in contact with the Greeks, and were influenced by
them, so it happened again. Only the Greek influence,
shown by the fourth Gospel, appears to be unlike that
exercised upon the writer of Ecclesiastes; but the
structure, which is a proper subject of study, may for
the present be passed over. The difference between
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 269
the fourth and the other Gospels is in part this: that
it is not tinctured by second advent pictures and ex-
pectations. More than that, in place of the second
advent expectations it puts the mission of the Spirit.
If you search the three evangelists, you will fail to find
more than an incidental promise of the Spirit. We
see the Spirit, indeed, descending from heaven and
abiding upon Jesus. It comes like a dove, or as
though it were some outward agency, something to
abide upon the Son of Man, rather than to be in him.
The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness to be
tempted of the devil. It influences Jesus to go into
the temple, or into Galilee; but there is slight notice
of the Spirit in these synoptics. The hope of being
filled with the Spirit, and enlightened, and empowered,
the three evangelists do not aspire to. In the place of
the Spirit, they have the vision of the Son of Man
coming in the clouds of heaven, humiliating and pun-
ishing his enemies, and rewarding his friends.
On the other hand, in the fourth Gospel we have
distinctively the gospel of the Spirit. In the first and
third we find the disciples begging their Master to
teach them how to pray, as John had taught his dis-
ciples. Perhaps John had taught his disciples one or
more forms of prayer. If we are to credit the evan-
gelists, John did not belong to the new kingdom, but
to the old Jewish dispensation; and he acted in ac-
cord with the old order of things. Jesus taught the
disciples how to pray. It was not of his own motion
that he taught them, but by their persuasion. He
taught them to pray to the Father and to pray for the
coming of the kingdom. In John is introduced a dif-
ferent teaching. This teaching was not addressed to
the disciples, being perhaps too large and spiritual for
270 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
them ; but it was addressed to a woman, half or more
heathen, – one devoted to the worship of Jehovah in
Mount Gerizim, and after the manner of the Samari-
tans. To this learner, Jesus said that God does not
desire the Jerusalem worship, nor the Gerizim wor-
ship, but the worship in the spirit. “Neither in this
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, shall they worship the
Father.” “The hour is coming and now is.” All
Jewish attention was fixed upon the coming hour, but
Jesus adjourns nothing. If the hour is coming when
spiritual worship is in order, it is in order now. -
So in many ways the fourth becomes the Gospel of
the present tense. It calls attention from the bodily
form and presence of Jesus, and concentrates it upon
his spirit. It dissolves the clouds upon which reli-
gious imagination had held the Son of Man was soon
coming ; there had been those who expected, with
Paul, in his earlier days, to be taken out of the
world, to meet the Lord in the air, and so to be ever
with the Lord ; but in this fourth Gospel Jesus is
made to say, “I pray not that thou shouldest take
them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep
them from the evil.” e
It was understood by the early Christians that on
one or two occasions Jesus had taken a few little
loaves of bread, and had magnified them into a simple
banquet for a multitude. This was made much of
as a sign of great power, and power, too, of the kind
most attractive to men. In the fourth Gospel this
miracle is accepted, because upon it can be based the
doctrine of the Spirit, and the discourse of the bread
of life is given. The Christians had been fond of
reading Daniel, and his visions of the Son of Man
coming on clouds of heaven, and coming to the An-
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 271
cient of days. In the fourth Gospel their attention is
directed to another kind of prophet. Ezekiel has his
dreams as well as Daniel; and in his dreams the writer
of the fourth Gospel sees more than in the ambitious
spectacles of Daniel. The prophet is brought to the
door of the temple, and he beholds a spring of water
issuing from the threshold. This little spring in the
temple flows outward, deepening and enlarging as it
flows. It becomes a river, and it proves to be a river
of life to every region into which it finds its way. One
can conjecture that the prophet felt so about Israel;
that from its religion and its teaching, or its spirit,
would flow forth in due time influences which would
give life to the world. Now it is precisely this kind of
prophecy which is in accord with the man who wrote
the fourth Gospel. He does not think about the domi-
nation of the Son of Man by reason of his glorious
advent upon the clouds, when every eye shall see him,
and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn. He does
think about the diffusion of the influence and Spirit
of Jesus throughout the world.
In the fourth Gospel, we see Jesus standing in the
temple on the last and greatest day of a national feast,
and lifting his voice to say: “If any man thirst, let
him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on
me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water.” (But this spake he of the
Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.)
The common feeling of the people had been that Jesus
would rule, just as other rulers did, by force, only that
his force should prove irresistible, but the idea of the
writer of the fourth Gospel was that Jesus should
rule, not by force, but by influence. Therefore the
great discourses recorded in the fourth Gospel are dis-
272 CIEEA TION OF THE BIBLE.
courses of the Spirit. The kingdom shall come by the
Spirit. The earth shall become the abode of right-
eousness by the Spirit, or by the influence of Jesus.
So will be realized the vision of the prophet who saw
the spring bubble up at the threshold of the temple,
and flow out in a widening river to bless and heal,
and give life to the world.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews the courage and
patience of the Christians were stimulated by such
words as these: “Cast not away therefore your bold-
ness, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye
have need of patience, that, having done the will of
God, ye may receive the promise. For yet a very
little while, he that cometh shall come, and shali not
tarry.” That expresses the feeling which it was the
object of the fourth Gospel to counteract. Is it not
specifically counteracted in such words as these, found
in the fourth Gospel, as coming from the lips of
Jesus, “A little while, and ye behold me no more;
and again a little while, and ye shall see me”? All
the time Jesus is talking about the Spirit. It is the
Spirit which is to complete his work. It is the Spirit
which is to be born into the world, by being transferred
from him to them. They will be full of rejoicing be-
cause of that Spirit, and not because they expect to see
the Son of Man coming on the clouds.
The critics tell us that they are dubious about this
fourth Gospel, dubious about its history, — it differs
so greatly from the simple tales of the other Gospels.
There is such an air of elaboration about it, that they
do not credit it. Very well, but the fourth evangelist,
whoever he may have been, is trying, as best he can,
to reveal the spirit of the character and mission of
Jesus. He will take historical incidents, as they have
THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 273
recorded themselves in the Christian traditions, and
make them serve his purpose, of exposing the heart
of Jesus. He does not care for geography, as is evi-
dent, and he does not care to locate any incident in
its proper historical setting; he will open the heart
of the matter. So he tells us that Jesus says, “He
that believeth on me believeth not on me, but on the
one sending me ; ” that is, the Spirit.
The age was not ready for the work of Jesus, and
weary ages have passed since the days of the Son of
Man on earth. The adjournment of all things until
the Son of Man should come on the clouds has had its
fatal effect for a long time. Perhaps the world will
soon be more ready for the gospel of the Spirit, the
gospel of the present tense. But before any of us .
will be ready, we will have to discredit those visions
which filled the imagination of the first Christians.
When once we have boldness enough to credit the
gospel of the Spirit, we shall have boldness enough
to discredit the sayings of the writers of the epistles
and of the three Gospels about the coming of Jesus,
with all the holy angels, to judge the world. We shall
perchance be ready to have our judgment of the world
and its ways as we go along. Perhaps then there will
be some real belief in the Spirit of Jesus, as saving
the world.
XXIII.
AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
STUDENTS have long recognized this difference be-
tween the fourth and the other Gospels of the New
Testament: that while in the former are given the
discourses delivered in public, the parables and such
teachings as those contained in the sermon on the
mountain, in the latter the sayings of Jesus to his dis-
ciples, or on private occasions, are treasured up. It
is related in the Gospels that Jesus uttered his para-
bles on the shore of the lake to the crowds there
congregated, and that his disciples afterward asked an
explanation of these somewhat mysterious teachings.
That was accorded them: “To you it is given to
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to
them it is not given.”
There would seem to be a peculiar fitness in John’s
giving us the picture of his Master's inner life. He
was the beloved disciple. He came nearest his Mas-
ter's heart. Christian art has presented to us this
young man with the angelic countenance; a gentle,
winning man, just emerging from youth to manhood.
While it is true that Christian art has doubtless erred
in so depicting John (one of the sons of thunder,
Jesus called him), nevertheless no figure in the apos-
tolical college proves so attractive to all people as
that of John. While Peter is aggressive, and takes
the place of command in emergency, and while Paul,
A UTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 275
afterward connected with the apostles, is incomparably
more able to do the necessary work than any other,
perhaps than all others combined, we find something
in John we do not find in these others. Peter may
represent the truth and period of law, Paul of faith,
but John is representative of a still future period of
love.
The ideal John is perhaps widely different from the
real. We fail to find the ideal man in the three Gos-
pels. The real John is intense in his devotion to his
Master; but equally intense in his anger against any-
thing and anybody found in the opposition. He is not
even tolerant of that kind of friendship which does not
drive a man into personal following of Jesus. “Mas-
ter,” he says, “we saw one casting out demons in thy
name, and we forbade him because he followeth not
with us.” He will make no concessions, and despises
neutrality. If a man does not belong to Christ, he
must belong to the enemy. There is no middle ground
of suspended opinion. An enthusiastic son of thunder
is he, – not the mild and benignant man it seems that
he became late in life. There is a tradition that he
wished to call down fire from heaven upon certain
Samaritans who were not hospitable to Jesus. He
was an ardent hater, — a man who would see his ene-
mies burn in fire.
In the Apocalypse the imagination of the writer runs
riot in scenes of fire, famine, blood, and earthquake.
That book is not the production of a mild and gentle
spirit; it has not in it the sovereign feeling of Jesus:
“Forgive your enemies.” Experience shows, however,
that good men, vehement in their goodness, become
milder as they grow older. Clement of Alexandria
tells us how John, grown old, at Ephesus took a spe-
276 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
cial and loving interest in the younger members of
his flock. He was deeply solicitous for their faith-
fulness and spiritual welfare. Even if they went
astray, he did not abandon them, nor excommunicate
them. One of his young men fell away from the good
ways of Christ, and became a bandit. He rose to be
chief of a robber band. John did not abandon him
to his evil fate, but succeeded in winning him back to
truth and righteousness. After the apostle has be-
come very old, and incapable of work, when he can no
longer teach, his spirit is strong within him, and it is
a spirit of long-suffering love. He is able to do no
more than sum up the religion of Christ in a few
words, which he repeats over and over: “Little chil-
dren, love one another.” Hate has been quenched in
his breast, and all the simple philosophy of his soul
is that of love. One can hope that the ghastly and
grim images which thronged upon his middle life,
when he was on the island, and when tidings came to
him from Judea, had altogether faded from him.
We form our judgments of men by their charac-
teristic sayings, partly. To all men is attached an in-
dividuality which distinguishes each from all others.
While there are strong resemblances, there are dis-
tinct points of difference. We know the faces of
our friends, and their gait, and numerous other char-
acteristics. While men change from ruddy youth to
pale and gray age, we still recognize them by those
things in them which are most characteristic. We
learn to recognize men also by their mental charac-
teristics. If the last poem of Lord Tennyson were
attributed, by way of jest, and in all the press, to
such a man, for example, as Mr. Herbert Spencer,
those acquainted with these writers would at a glance
AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 277
discover the jest. The thought and the style of each
are as peculiar to himself as his countenance.
If any person with an appreciation of the meaning
and use of words were to carefully read the Apoc-
alypse, and master its contents, so far as they can be
mastered, and then if he were to read with equal care
the fourth Gospel, neither scripture having any author's
name connected with it, he would say with positive
assurance that the two were not written by the same
hand. Of course he might be mistaken, but following
the ordinary common-sense method of discernment, he
would have no resource but to declare the writings
produced by different men. The critics of fifty or
more years ago were so impressed with this common-
sense conclusion that they, or some of them, came to
another conclusion, which is not so obvious. They
concluded that the fourth Gospel was a forgery, per-
petrated by some man, possibly of the third century,
who gave it out as the work of the Apostle John; and
in its ignorance the church accepted it as genuine,
and gave it the sanction of a place in the sacred canon.
That is the way it is with many. If their notions
in regard to anything are shattered, they seem to re-
nounce having any notions whatever upon that subject.
They declare the thing itself to be a falsehood, or a
deceit. If John did not write the fourth Gospel, it is
assumed by the impatient thinker, it is a fraud and a
delusion. If Matthew did not write the first Gospel,
that is also a falsity. Some high authorities tell us
that if Moses did not write the Pentateuch, then it
is all an untruth. This is the feebleness of an im-
patient and hasty learning. This is resting every-
thing on some unintelligent assumption. It is parallel
with supposing that if but one error is detected in
278 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
the Bible, anywhere, — an error which is unexplain-
able, – then the whole Bible goes to pieces, and is of
no value.
If one is able to see the force of the oft-asserted
statement of John in the Apocalypse, that the things
there predicted are to take place at once, and sees
thereby that the writer was mistaken, he is solemnly
assured that he is destroying the Bible. Fifty years
ago there were people still in existence, and possibly
a few may survive to this day, who felt that if the
world was not constructed out of nothing, in a week's
time, then the whole fabric of revelation was under-
mined. Yet the world, at least, is here, and we stand
upon it, undismayed at all discoveries in regard to
its creation. It witnesses to itself with sufficient
power to command our assent. Is it not so with
truth? However it came to be spoken, by whatsoever
mouth, or written down by whatsoever pen, is it not
its own most convincing witness? It must be to
such as are capable of understanding and believing a
truth.
Were the fourth Gospel not written by John, it is a
foolish alternative to pronounce it a forgery. In re-
spect to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which in our
Bibles is called the Epistle of Paul, a critical opinion
is held by many devout scholars that it is not Paul's
epistle; but that opinion does in no wise invalidate
the writing. It stands for what it is worth.
The book of Ecclesiastes, in the Old Testament, is
largely supposed to have Solomon for its author; but,
as we have seen, there are very strong reasons for
believing that Solomon never saw it nor heard of it.
There are marks in it which identify it with a later
age. There are marks in the fourth Gospel which
A UTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 279
make it all but impossible for John to have been the
writer of it. Yet that it is “according to John,” or
represents the essential doctrine which was left over
in John after the failure of his wild visions of plagues
and judgments and all the like, is very credible.
Every one is entitled to his hypothesis. The hypoth-
esis of forgery, or a deceit practiced upon the early
church may be offset by another more reasonable.
We may concede that such a man as the Apostle John
would not only teach the churches of Asia by personal
ministrations, but that he would draw around him a
few disciples, to whom he would be able to open his
mind in the fullest manner. We are informed by
tradition that he had disciples, peculiarly attached to
his person, in his later days, – Polycarp, Papias, Ig-
natius, and probably others. Among the number we
are at liberty to suppose the presence of some man
of Greek descent, possibly educated in the schools of
Alexandria, more or less an adept in the doctrine of
the Logos. In the earlier half of the first century
of our era, a philosopher and author had flourished at
Alexandria, Philo by name, a man who achieved a
remarkable celebrity. This Alexandrian Jew is said
to have had a philosophy compounded of Platonism,
Stoicism, and Pythonism, taken from the Greeks, and
of Emanationism, borrowed from the East, all of which
he annexed to the doctrine of the Old Testament. He
was the mediator between monotheism and polytheism.
The central point of his philosophy is the doctrine of
the Logos, or the Word.
When we open the fourth Gospel, at its threshold
we confront the Logos doctrine. It is not necessary
to suppose that the idea of Philo is transmitted,
complete, to the author of the fourth Gospel. In-
280 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
deed, it is difficult to see how so compound a system
could well be entertained by any one except the com-
pounder. At all events, its central truth appears in
the last Gospel. It is not impossible that in his
maturer years the mind of John may have imbibed
the sublime views of the Alexandrian, in place of the
fantastic visions of earlier manhood. It would seem
impossible, however, that the Jew should have com-
pletely lost the Jewish method, and have been born
into a method of expression foreign to him and his
race. There is nothing strange in supposing that a
disciple of John, entering most heartily and intelli-
gently into the real heart of the man and his gospel,
attaining that profound and at that time difficult doc-
trine of the Spirit which we see in the fourth Gospel,
undertook to set forth the real meaning of Jesus, and
his mission, “according to John.”
Tradition has it that John spent his declining years
at Ephesus; and that his friends and followers pressed
him to give his recollections of the sayings of Jesus.
Those which were widely current were different from
those which John rehearsed in his maturity. The
other evangelists had neglected these most weighty
things, so that there was danger, as it seemed to the
elders at Ephesus, that these most important sayings
of Jesus would be lost to the world. To that effect
tradition speaks.
We may not be able to rely on the tradition, but it
accords with our hypothesis, which I hope is a reason-
able one. We strain no point in thinking that the
elders of the Ephesian church must have felt the su-
periority of these sayings of Jesus over those which
were everywhere repeated. The religion of Jesus, as it
was apprehended by the people generally, was a kind
A UTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 281
of body religion. An extreme reverence for the per-
son of Jesus, coupled with the expectation of seeing
him come to set up his empire in the world, would nat-
urally distract attention from his real teachings, and
go far to neutralize them. It is evident from the tenor
of the fourth Gospel that this feeling on the part of
the followers of John at Ephesus went to the extent
of proposing a kind of antidote for the prevailing
religion. It is quite possible that John, like other
men who feel their last days on earth approaching,
did, as opportunity served, write, in detached portions,
notes of particular discourses of Jesus. That he should
remember the exact words of these sayings is in the
last degree improbable. That he should rather give
in his own Hebrew method, in detached parts, these
recollections is more probable. That he should pro-
pose to some fittest of his followers the work of ar-
rangement is according to the mode common among
his people. The work of the editor had been of the
utmost importance in the history and religion of the
Jews. In the fourth Gospel we seem to have the fore-
most specimen of editorship in the Bible, or perhaps in
all literature. This is not a thing to be affirmed with
the confidence one would have in affirming the correct-
ness of an addition or a multiplication in arithmetic,
carefully revised. It is the kind of hypothesis which
we are accustomed to make to see if we can account
for a phenomenon. Now, when we come to the end
of the fourth Gospel we find a kind of a postscript.
This postscript is like the indorsement of a committee:
“This is the disciple which beareth witness of these
things, and wrote these things, and we (the committee)
know that this witness is true.” An author would not
speak in that way about himself, of course.
282 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
The work of reducing those sayings of Jesus which
John remembered, and in which his faith grew great.
in his later days, was committed to others. These
others would in turn commit the chief labor of arrange-
ment, and of composition, to that one of their number
best fitted by education, and by sympathy with the sub-
ject, to do the work. In the main, the critics tell us,
the work is by one hand. This editor, however, does
not content himself with stringing together, as may
happen, the fragmentary writings of John, – he pro-
poses to be an editor who edits. The conversations of
the aged apostle he may find of more importance than
the fragments of his writing ; moreover, he is a man
possessed of his own personal feelings and philosophy.
He has his idea of Jesus, and he has his philosophy,
learned of Philo Judaeus. In place of that genealogy
of Jesus, which may very well have seemed to him,
with his exalted conception of the mission of the Son
of God, to be flat and childish, he puts forth the sub-
lime postulate of the Logos. Jesus, to be sure, was
born and took his beginning in the world as others of
the children of men did. But what about the Spirit
of which John, in his last days, had so much to say?
Had that a beginning? Ah that was in the begin-
ning with God. That was God. It was that which
had become flesh, in Jesus, and manifested God to
men. So his prologue, almost identical with the doc-
trine of Philo, does not necessarily represent John,
for it came not from Jesus but from Philo ; and it is
the key of the fourth Gospel. In this Gospel we are
not interested in the person of Jesus so much as in
the Spirit which guided him. It is the spirit, not the
flesh, which profiteth.
Perhaps a question will arise as to the profound
A UTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 283
change which transpired in John. Certainly it was a
most profound change which happened to him. The
belligerent apostle ; the Seer of Patmos, driven almost
wild with grief at the calamities of his nation, attempt-
ing to play over again the part of the Maccabean
prophet, and saturated with the popular notion about
the return of Jesus, in the clouds — very quickly ;
how could he become the benignant father of the Ephe-
sian church, and the advocate of the Spirit.” It is such
a change in him, under the circumstances, as we might
reasonably expect. Not a change in method of writing
so that he could possibly write the fourth Gospel, but
a change from the apostle of the flaming advent to the
apostle of the Spirit. Jesus did not come ; the holy
angels did not fly in the sky; and while plagues devas-
tated the earth in some portions, the visions of the
Apocalypse were in no degree realized. Would not
this failure to a man who loved and believed in Jesus,
in spite of everything, prompt him to seek for a better
interpretation of Jesus? Would not this seeking lead
to a finding 7 Would not those sayings of Jesus,
which had made so little impression, even upon him-
self, now be brought more vividly to his mind? The
man who has been most thoroughly in the glamour
of the second advent is the one of all others to learn
a profound distrust of it; that is, provided he is a
Seeker for truth, and not the mere advocate of a
scheme. It is the enthusiastic and devoted man who
goes to an extreme, as John did; and when he finds his
error, he is likely to go as far away from it as possi-
ble. He who has found no redemption of the world
by means of outward displays, but only in a renuncia-
tion of our own interior evil, will cheapen all outward-
ness, and declare nothing of worth, except the spirit.
&
284 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
It is impossible even to hint at the many opinions
of this fourth Gospel which have been held by wise
men. They have been as diverse as possible. One
cannot take the time to examine the reasons why a
particular scholar should deem the prologue of the
Gospel as characteristically the work of the Apostle
John, while others see in it exactly the opposite. It
will suffice for our purpose to see simply the fact that
this fourth Gospel is peculiarly the Gospel of the
Spirit. It is a distinct modification of the Gospels of
the body, as we may call them, which precede it. It
introduces, as of the highest import, and makes large,
that which is small in the preceding evangelists. New
incidents come in, but their arrangement is of second-
ary importance. The author does not care for them
except for the purpose of building his structure of
“sayings.” Not only is it true that the incidents
are dealt with loosely, but they are dealt with inac-
curately. As Matthew Arnold has pointed out, the
writer speaks as if he did not know the relative
position of the cities of Judea. He places Bethany
beyond the Jordan. He talks of the “manner of the
Jews.” He says that such an one was high priest that
year, as if that office were annual, which it was not at
that time. He is manifestly foreign to the drapery of
his subject; but then he does not care for the drap-
ery. He cares for the spirit of the subject. Thus he
neglects the things the other writers have taken the
most pains with ; and in particular he dismisses that
subject which was uppermost in their minds, – the
second advent. The one great subject they had neg-
lected, namely, the subject of the Spirit of truth, he
magnifies.
Here is the creation; and here also, as part of it, is
AUTHORSHIP OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 285
the human mind to contemplate it. What shall we
think about this creation ? Is or is there not a Crea-
tor? Does the Creator take any means of manifest-
ing himself? Has he anything to say to us? Is there
any way by which we can discover his location, or
in any wise approach him or get speech with him 7
These are questions which not only the philosopher,
but the plain thinker would wish to ask. The Jew,
such an one as John the apostle, would have his answer
to these questions, but they would not be the answers
of the prologue of the fourth Gospel. He would say
that there is a Creator of this world, and of the stars
of heaven; that this Creator does manifest himself
to men through prophets and wise men; that he has
caused his will to be written, and thus has he spoken.
Here are the sacred oracles containing words of God.
The writer of the fourth Gospel, however, goes far
beyond any such concept of things. To him all crea-
tion, and every part of it, and from the very begin-
ning, is speech of the Creator. The Creator speaks
by creation. +.
To him God is not a being sunk in slumber, as an
Oriental philosophy declares; nor is God a creator
who creates from a distance. The sublime old thought,
“Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night
showeth knowledge,” commands his assent. A day, the
sky, the mountains, the sea, and all things are divine
expressions. More than that: the Word which has
always been with God and is God becomes the rocks
of the world, the waters of the oceans, the stars of the
sky, and in due process becomes flesh, and dwells
among us, full of grace and truth. Nothing is made
without that Word. Jesus certainly did not build
the worlds, but that manifesting Spirit, which became
286 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
flesh in him, has always been uttering God. This is
the fundamental idea of the fourth Gospel.
Herder, one of the founders of modern German lit-
erature, says that the fourth Gospel “is the echo of the
earlier Gospels, in a higher key.”" They are keyed
to flesh and sense, in some measure. They bind us to
incredibilities, and unless we are cautious, make us
superstitious. In them an unnatural order is made to
play a ruling part. In the fourth Gospel the natural
order is restored, and takes its place as divine. It is
true we have still the miracles, some of them not
recorded in the synoptics, but they are always subor-
dinate. We must not expect a writer of those times
to be free from the notion of miracles; but the writer
of the fourth Gospel does not care for the miracle
(the story of which has floated down to him), so
much as for the lesson and spirit of every incident he
uses. It is this fourth Gospel which above all other
books really preserves for us the religion of Jesus. It
delivers us a message which, in our doubting times
of religious transition, gives rest and peace to our
souls.
* Pfleiderer, Development of Theology.
XXIV.
CONFLICT AND HARMONY.
AN age of comparative freedom, or of awakened
thought, is also an age of great diversity of opinion.
If any powerful impulse is at any time given to
thinking, an inevitable variety shows itself. If people
are left in ignorance, only as they are kept in ig-
norance is there unity of opinion. When the think-
ing of a community is let out to some one person,
there is no difference of opinion. Indeed, it may al-
most be said there is no opinion.
The work of Jesus was moral and religious in the
truest sense; and yet by it a great impetus was given
to thinking, especially to those of the most active
minds. The age which begins to think in a new way
is an age of stir, and is likely to be an age of revolu-
tion. Such an age was that of the beginning of the
Christian era.
Among the disciples of Jesus were a few men of
strong intellectual force. It would of course be too
much to say of any of the apostles that they were
men of an independent way of thinking. On the
contrary, they were men whose capacity for thinking
had not been developed. The fisherman, the tax-
collector, and the peasants were all involved in the
settled modes of thought, or of so-called thought, of
their time and place ; there was cast into their minds
new seed sown by a divine thinker. Although this
288 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
new element was not immediately productive of result,
in process of time it became a powerful force in the
world.
Just what the relation of Paul of Tarsus was to
the earlier disciples and apostles of Jesus it is very
difficult to determine. Certainly we do not err in
recognizing him as different from the other apostles,
not only in temperament and character, but in a
marked degree in education and in native force of
mind. They were more like sheep, adapted to follow
a shepherd; he more like a shepherd, fitted to lead
the sheep; and it is significant that he worked out
his problem of the religion of Jesus by himself. He
did not refer his difficulties to them for solution.
He says that he did not confer with flesh and blood.
He had already received a training in the use of his
mental powers, which enabled him to be independent
of human sources.
Were we to attempt a chronological arrangement of
the experience of the apostle to the Gentiles, it would
perhaps be something like this : being on the road to
Damascus, in the enterprise of persecuting the new
religion, he is stricken with a sudden blow, is shocked
out of his old pursuits, becomes a convert to Jesus,
and goes on to Damascus. From Damascus he does
not go back to Jerusalem to consult with the leaders
of the Christian community there, but retires into
Arabia. What he did in Arabia is a matter of no
public concern; the common inference is that he re-
tired into solitude, to ponder the subject in its depths.
Then, after three years, he returns to Jerusalem, and
there abides with Peter for fifteen days. He sees
none of the other disciples except James, but he has
nothing to do with the churches of the region. He
CONFLICT AND HARMONY. 289
grasps the idea of a world-wide religion. He proposes
to cut loose from the trammels of Judaism, and carry
his message to the nations.
This manifests the breadth of his mind, and his
comprehension of the religion of Jesus. If Jesus
did say, as he is reported to have said, that he was
not sent save unto the lost sheep of the house of Is-
rael, Paul did not hear of it, or, having heard, did not
believe it. His mind and heart are set on more com-
prehensive things: he will leave Israel and go to the
Gentiles. Accordingly he proceeds to Upper Syria
and Cilicia, where he prosecutes his work on the new
plan.
Meanwhile Peter has broadened. He is in a lim-
ited way thrown into contact with Gentiles, and reluc-
tantly recognizes them as subject to the mercy and
promise of God, but he feels that the case demands
utmost caution. Peter is brave, but he will not en-
danger anything by haste. He has neither the cour-
age nor the greatness of mind to enable him to
abandon Judaism. It is perhaps better that he has
not. In fact, as to the essential truth of it, Paul
himself never did break with Judaism, but only with
its formal observances, its rites of consecration and
sacrifice. Judaism is the root out of which naturally
grows the plant of the religion of Jesus; but this
root had produced chaff as well as wheat. Jesus win-
nowed the grain out of the chaff; so in a degree did
Paul, and so in a lesser degree did Peter.
Differences of opinion arose between Paul and the
other apostles. It was natural that they should look
upon him with suspicion. His “call ” to be an apos-
tle was not one they would be likely to recognize.
Jesus had not called him as he had called them ; it
290 CREA TION OF THE BIBLE,
was the Spirit of Jesus which had called him. He
felt the call in his soul; he had no outward call.
Finally, however, the chief apostles, James, Peter,
and John, “reputed to be pillars ” of the new church,
gave Paul and his colaborer, Barnabas, the “right
hand of fellowship,” and they departed on their way
rejoicing. Yet there was a difference which drove
the apostles asunder. Peter, being politic, did some-
thing at Antioch which roused the indignation of
Paul. Peter found friends at Antioch, and was on
pleasant and familiar terms with them, eating at their
tables. When friends of James, the strict construc-
tionist, came from Jerusalem, Peter drew away from
his Gentile friends, and declined to eat at their tables.
He conducted himself as a Jew, not because of con-
science, but because of policy. Such action failed to
command the respect of Paul, but roused his indigna-
tion, and he withstood Peter, chief of the apostles, to his
face. Peter was a “pillar of the church,” but Paul
did not care for that. It was more important for even
a pillar of the church to be sincere in his conduct than
for him to be successful, and avoid scandal. There-
fore Paul asked Peter a question: “Why do you seek
to make the Gentiles conform to Jewish usage?” He
who believes in Jesus Christ is free from that usage.
In this is indicated the beginning of a separation into
two great parties of the Christian church : Paul, with
his doctrine of freedom, leading in one direction;
James and others with their doctrine of the “works
of the law,” — the ceremonies, circumcision, and the
rest, — leading in another direction.
Paul and Barnabas, however, being of one mind
for the time, went on their Gentile mission. Yet even
they were not free from differences of opinion, and
CON FLICT AND HARMONY. 291
Luke tells us, in his simple-minded way, that on one
occasion they parted, after having a sharp conten-
tion. Such were the divisions and subdivisions among
these early promoters of the gospel of Jesus. It is
well for any one who would know the Bible not to
overlook its difficulties; not to evade the facts, but
to try to understand them. If, in our endeavor to
understand them, we suffer the distress of seeing the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace broken, nev-
ertheless even that gives us its valuable lesson.
From such men as John and James, not to say
Peter, take away the stimulating presence and daily
contact of Jesus, and there may easily come a re-
lapse from the truth of his teaching. Paul could go
alone, without the consent or countenance of anybody,
but they were not of such strong stuff. And there
resulted something of mutual distrust. This distrust
speaks for the intellectual activity of the time. It
tells us that while good men could not think alike,
they could at least think to some purpose. The
progressive man was obstructed by the conservative
men. Hints of this we get in the epistles of Paul,
and elsewhere. It is well known that the Hebrew
Christians, especially those of Jerusalem and Judea,
were under a strong conservative influence. They
demanded of heathens that they should become Jews
in order to be Christians; they should submit to the
lite of circumcision. It came to be noised abroad
that Paul made no such terms with heathens; the
leaders of the church at Jerusalem sent out some
of their number to investigate that matter. Paul
boldly and somewhat harshly calls these brethren
spies. They were trying to spy out this liberty of
which Paul was an apostle. He would not yield to
them, no, not for an hour.
292 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
He would go his way, - they should go theirs.
Moreover, Paul manifestly rejects all authority of the
leading men at Jerusalem, no matter what their repu-
tation or high place may be. John and James and
Cephas are to him by no means infallible men. They
are not only liable to be mistaken, but he points out
their error. Note, then, that to these founders of the
religion of Jesus, after the departure of Jesus, there
is no notion of the infallibility of an apostle. Paul does
not dream that they are infallible, and they certainly
do not dream that he is ; yet they all had to do,
directly or indirectly, with the making of some por-
tion of the contents of the Bible. The Reformation
theory of the infallibility of the Scriptures finds a
most scanty proof in the pages of the Bible itself,
but there is much to disprove it. The fact that the
apostles made attacks upon each other furnishes a
startling evidence of the fallibility of all concerned.
Paul claimed to be an apostle of Jesus: the claim
was disputed. At one time he seems to maintain that
his accusers are over-apostolic, taking too much upon
themselves, etc. He reaches the summit of severity
when he talks of these conservatives, probably num-
bering among them some of the Jerusalem apostles;
but they are equally severe in their judgment of him
and his work. It was natural for them, because they
cared so much for some formulas and usages, that they
should be harsh to a man who had outgrown their
formulas. In fact, there is nothing in the whole
history of the founding of the church which does not
testify to its naturalness by showing how ambitions
and notions ruled then, very much as they have ruled
since.
Paul propounds the doctrine of justification by faith.
CON FLICT AND HARMONY. 293
He lays it down in the form of an elaborate argument,
and illustrates it historically: Abraham was justified
not by works, but by faith. Paul is ready to dispense
with all rites, and to say that circumcision, which is
outward in the flesh, is of no value. Not works but
faith is Paul's great dogma. This was not accepted
by the Jerusalem party; it awakened their strong dis-
sent. Of this dissent the Epistle of James apprises
us. “Was not Abraham justified by faith?’” asks
Paul. The Epistle of James answers, “What doth
it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith,
but have not works?” Can faith save him 2 “Was
not Abraham our father justified by works in that
he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar 7” Now
it may be supposed that James means by “works”
those deeds of righteousness which have nothing to
do with ceremonial performances; but he points here
to a work of sacrifice which belongs to the ceremonial
order. Abraham offers his son upon the altar. He
is justified by that act, his faith led him to it; and
faith without works (such works) is dead. Here,
then, is James, the righteous man (probably not
the apostle of that name), who distinctly opposes
Paul in a letter to the whole of Israel. Paul
maintains that Abraham was justified by faith, apart
from works, and James contends that Abraham was
justified by works. Here is an issue, and it was be-
cause of this issue between Paul and James that the
great reformer Luther wished to cast aside the Epistle
of James. He saw the real superiority of the doc-
trine of Paul; he had no patience with the conserva-
tism of James. Truly, if the Bible were to be re-
garded infallible, the Epistle of James and other such
material should have been kept out of it. But the
294 CREATION OF . THE BIBLE.
Epistle of James, while it has its defects, has its great
value. Moreover, the apostle to the Gentiles is not
without his defects; he does not claim to be without
them, but confesses them.
In that portion of the New Testament known as
the Second Epistle of Peter, certain of Paul's writings
are characterized as hard to understand and liable
to divert the unstable from the truth. This may, or
may not, represent the feeling of the Apostle Peter.
John may well have reference to Paul, in his mes-
sages to the seven churches of Asia. He speaks to
the Ephesians of persons who had called themselves
apostles. He severely animadverts upon the eating of
meat offered to idols, which Paul had taught was en-
tirely harmless in itself. He denounces God's fiery
judgments upon those who are misled by such un-Jew-
ish teachings.
These, and more instances which might be adduced,
sufficiently show the diversity of opinion, rising to the
point of violent denunciation, which obtained among
the first apostles. These are not things to be pru-
dently hidden, or explained away, but to be considered
in all their bearings. With such facts staring us in
the face, we must seek a better idea than the Refor-
mation has furnished of the real nature of the Bible.
Men's opinions are not infallible. Inspired men are
subject to the same infirmities which other men have.
They may misjudge each other; may fail, as the apos-
tles did fail, to heartily coöperate in their work.
If the matter were left there, —and many critics do
leave it there, seeing only the evidences of frailty and
blunder in these men of the Bible, – much would be
lost. There seems to me to be a grand proof of the
divinity of the Bible, its divine purpose and mission, in
CONFLICT AND HARMONY. 295
connection with these very things. When men meet
on friendly terms and agree to coöperate in any great
work, and for the most part find themselves in sympa-
thy and accord, they will subordinate many individual
preferences, and perhaps some individual convictions,
to the “cause ’’ in which they are engaged. A dis-
tinction of one of the great Christian churches of the
world lies in its unity. It is catholic, and in a way
comprehensive, and individual notions are subordi-
nate to the interest of the organizations. Perhaps
men of more than ordinary intelligence can be per-
mitted to entertain their personal opinions on many or
most subjects, but it would be harmful to permit a
public assertion of them. Such methods, however,
always suppress truth. Unity is desirable in the last
degree. That we should all be one family, and have
one religion, and one faith, and one spirit, is certainly
a consummation to be devoutly hoped for; but such
unity will not come by suppression: it will come by
free expression of differences. •
If, now, we regard the fourth Gospel as “according
to John,” representing his wisest and best days, we
may perhaps be startled by the fact that the highest
of John and the highest of Paul are one thing. These
two who may have been opposed to each other, teaching
doctrines the one against the other, yet arrive at the
point where they see chiefly one truth, and in this they
are united. It may be that John had warned the
churches of Asia against Paul, as one of those who
called themselves apostles, and were not. The iden-
tification of Paul with the object of John's attack
seems sufficiently clear if we remember that Paul had
called the eating of meat offered in sacrifice to idols
a harmless thing. John writes to the church at Per-
296 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
gamum, as well as the church at Thyatira, in stern
condemnation of such teachings. He mentions no
names; it is not his habit to do that. John is nar-
row, and Paul is broader.
The narrow man and the broad man tell us at last
the same story, and it is the story of the Spirit. Paul
says that whensoever Moses is read, a veil lieth upon
the heart of the hearer. He cannot see the real
meaning of Moses. Why? Because he is bound by
the letter or the writing of Moses; but, adds the
apostle to the Gentiles, whensoever the man shall
turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Very well,
who is the Lord? Let us see if we can gain the hint
which Paul gives. We can easily see how much of
the Mosaic Scripture was concerning things which
have no particular relation to a man’s moral conduct or
his spiritual life. Here, for example, is the book of
Leviticus, which belongs to the books of Moses. Mi-
nute instructions in regard to things of no importance
are there given, – ritual, the cult, the performance of
ceremonies; altars, priests, robes, things outward, and
tending to outwardness. When Moses was read, these
things were read.
Now the real spirit of Moses is not found in these
regulations, but in truths which belong to our inner
life, our relations with God and each other. However,
every Sabbath day Moses was read in the synagogues,
and a veil rested upon the heart of the hearer. Now
Paul declared that when the hearer turned to the Lord,
the veil would vanish. Well, were not the Jews always
turning to the Lord 7 Was not that their distinction ?
Alas! no ; for, as Paul goes on to say, the Lord he
is talking about is the Spirit. That which is properly
of authority in Moses is the spirit of his teaching,
CONFLICT AND HARMONY. 297
not the letter of it; and as for Moses, and all teach-
ers, the commanding fact is not that they wrote this
or that, but that there was truth in what they said.
The Lord of all is not a visible God, having a man's
name, but the Spirit; and where the Spirit is, there
is liberty. More than that: “We all, with unveiled
face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,
are transformed into the same image from glory to
glory, as from the Spirit, which is the Lord.”
All this in Paul corresponds with John in his ma-
turer years. It agrees with that saying of Jesus which
the other evangelists failed to note: “It is expedient
for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Spirit
will not come ; ” it corresponds with the axiomatic
teachings of Jesus which all the evangelists give us.
The outward is principal, it may be, in the three
evangelists, but the inward is there as well. For when
Jesus, in the synoptics, tells the Jews to make clean
the inside of the cup and platter, and that those who
seek for the Holy Spirit shall receive the Holy Spirit;
when he tells of the Good Samaritan, and speaks of
fasting and the Sabbath, the strain is the same as
that of Paul and the fourth Gospel. The things
which come from the unclean heart, they are the
things which defile, but eating with unwashed hands
is nothing; the kingdom of heaven is within you;
judge not according to the appearance, but judge
righteous judgment, — all these words of Jesus, given
in the synoptics, are exactly in line of the maturer
judgment of Paul and John ; and these are the very
things which are in line with the better judgment of
everybody; they prove themselves.
We are accustomed to the notion that the Jews
Somehow made a great mistake in their religion.
298 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
They were all astray; the proof is that they rejected
Jesus. How were they astray ? If we say that they
were unfaithful to their trust and did not live in
accordance with their religion, we shall do them an
injustice. For Paul, who seems to be an unprejudiced
witness, bears testimony that they were religious,
according to their method, and very zealous; but he
finds fault with their method. “They went about to
establish their righteousness, which was of the law.”
The law, as it had come down to them, was largely a
commandment about performances. They tried un-
successfully to establish a righteousness on that basis,
and, in the nature of the case, that is impossible.
The real mistake of the Jews is the mistake of the
Christians as well. It shows itself in such a passage
as that in Matthew, about the Son of Man sitting
upon the throne of his glory, and gathering the na-
tions to judgment. It shows itself in the promise to
the twelve that they should sit on thrones of judgment.
As if the world could be made better by having the
Son of Man seated on a throne; or as if the twelve
tribes could be made better by having the apostles
on thrones. Against all this outward business, be it
what it might, it was the work of Jesus to protest. It
is in his protest against these things, as well as in his
positive teachings of the blessedness of the good life
and the good heart, that Jesus is identified. The
spirit is all. Out of the evil heart proceed the miseries
and ills of the world. Out of the heart which changes
from evil to good proceed the blessings of the world.
It is in this good heart, this repentant heart, this life
of inward truth and rectitude, that God, who is a
Spirit, works the works of creation.
Some one wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews. In
CONFLICT AND HARMONY. 299
that there is a mass of reference to priesthoods and
sacrifices, and all the like. It was adapted to the
Hebrew, for whom it was intended ; but for us it is
dross. Mixed with the dross glitters the gold of
truth. There was an outward law engraved on stone
tablets; that passes away. With its departure comes
a new covenant, the covenant of the inward law, which
is engraved on our inward life. The fastings and
mortifications, the sacrifices and altars, belong to a
period which ought to pass away. To do the outward
things of worship belongs to the old childish order.
To be inwardly bent upon righteousness is to belong
to the new order; and that is the real order."
Thus it is the spirit, or inward life of man, with
which the Spirit of God has to do. To that agree all
the prophets and apostles. So long as the body,
letter, formula, or other outward thing fills the field of
faith, the Spirit is excluded. Wherefore, beneath all
the superficial show of disorder and disagreement in
the evangelists and apostles, their disputes about meat
offered to idols and circumcision, and their ambitions
concerning places in the coming kingdom, there is a
unity; and in that unity we may discover the gold of
their real subject-matter.
1 That the men of faith who lived under the old order really
belonged to the new is attested by the words of Jesus : “Your
father Abraham rejoiced to see my day,” etc.
XXV.
TEIE SOCIOLOGICAL RELIGION OF JAMES.
WHAT is religion ? A host of answers may be offered,
but all may resolve into two : both advocate and ad-
versary may answer that religion is a doing of some-
thing by which God, or the Superior Power, is affected
in feeling toward us. This answer comes out of human
experience. We may well conceive that the experi-
ence of primitive men who were conscious of having
done ill caused them to feel that something must be
offered to the gods to avert disaster, or retribution.
The doing of this, which ultimately takes the form of
sacrifice, is religion. Thus religion springs out of a
sentiment in us that we are ill-deserving, and out of
an imagination that if we have done ill there is some
way of averting the due retribution. All the part of
religion which belongs to sacrifice, or a propitiation of
the anger of God, rests upon the imagination. It is
because of the prevalence of the sacrificial idea in re-
ligion that many men of strong judgment have rejected
it. The sacrifice of a beast on an altar, or of a Son
of God upon the cross, for the purpose of averting just
retribution from any one, is seen to rest upon a purely
imaginary basis. Not only so, but it belongs to the
less developed imagination: the imagination of the
man who is trained in reasoning does not respond
to it.
Suppose we say that religion is not a matter of the
SOCIOLOGICAL RELIGION OF JAMES, 301
imagination, but of the heart; that however much the
imagination may be concerned in it, the man who turns
from that which is evil to that which is good is really
the religious man; we may be the better able to under-
stand some of the things which the Bible has to say
to us. “With the heart man believeth unto right-
eousness; ” that is to say, in striving to obey the de-
mands of right, in striving to go clear from the rule of
evil, one is living a religious life in the true sense of
the term. Of course such a man may be more or less
confused in his ideas of right and wrong, may be far
astray in his reasonings; but be he who he may, wise
or simple, he is truly religious. º
It seems to have been natural that religion should
have been regarded as for the most part theological, or
mainly concerned with our relations with God. Tem-
ples, altars, votive gifts, vows, and all the parapher-
nalia of religion have hitherto been strictly Godward.
The priest or medicine-man has been our agent to
adjust things between us and God. Having in some
manner achieved that adjustment, all is done that need
be done. Yet a change comes, involving religion:
while some fear that religion will disappear, others
perceive that it is undergoing that change which per-
petually increases its reasonableness and usefulness
and decreases its futility; because the old theological
religion does, more than all else, demonstrate its futil-
ity. Now it appears to have been conceived by some
of the early Christians that religion is not theological,
or Godward, chiefly, but sociological, or manward.
Changes do not need to be effected in God. It would
be better to accept outright the dogma of the Hebrew
prophet that God is the unchangeable. Changes in
man, and in his conditions, and in the mutual relations
302 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
of men, are the very things which are required, in the
nature of things. It is therefore hopeful to observe
that in our own times religion is undergoing the most
serious modification, — it is shifting its ground from
the theological to the sociological aspect of things.
This shifting of the ground is anticipated by some
of the wiser of the early Christians. Indeed, it is the
natural result of the teachings of Jesus, when those
teachings are understood. It comes from ceasing to
think of God as a transcendent Being stationed aloft
above nature, and learning to think of him as im-
manent in nature. It comes ultimately from faith in
a Being who immediately works in every department
of force and matter. Of this change from the theo-
logical to the sociological religion we see evidences in
James, the writer of a Christian epistle, whose contri-
bution to the Bible is characterized more by practical
common-sense than by flights of imagination. It is
this writer who says, “Pure religion and undefiled
before our God and Father is this, to visit the father-
less and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself
unspotted from the world.” Or, the religion which
meets the approval of God seeks chiefly to better hu-
man conditions.
As to James, the author of this epistle, he is one of
three or four of that name, some of whom we catch
but passing glimpses of in the Gospels. The first
James whose acquaintance we make is the son of
Zebedee, one of the twelve, and the brother of the
Apostle John. The second is James the son of
Alphaeus, also one of the twelve, and possibly brother
of Matthew the publican, the name of whose father
is Alphaeus. There is also a James rather mysteri-
ously spoken of as the “brother of the Lord ; ” and
SOCIOLOGICAL RELIGION OF JAMES. 303
there is “James the Just,” a citizen of Jerusalem.
It was surmised by Luther that still another James
existed, and that this other was the author of the
epistle. Like Luther, we are left somewhat to sur-
mise; but the most reasonable surmise is that James
the Just is the author. The man who could properly
bear such a noble title would be the one to write such
a letter. It is supposed that James the son of Zebedee
was beheaded by Herod a few years after the martyr-
dom of Stephen, and before the letter could have been
written.
Now the writer of that letter, as compared with
Paul, had a limited horizon. He addressed his letter
only to the Israelites. To the mind of emancipated
Paul, circumcision was nothing but a formal ceremony,
and had ceased to signify anything. To the mind of
James, circumcision was a commandment of Jehovah.
It was to be practiced, not because we find it necessary,
or because it is in any wise useful, but because God
commanded it. It is thus many good men seem to
think about immersion and other forms of baptism, -
we would not practice such ceremonies unless they
were divinely commanded. Inasmuch as we have the
commandment, we are assured that it becomes a part
of righteousness to perform the rite. Paul was less
Solicitous than others about such commandments. He
wanted to know the reasons for them, and whether
they were binding in their nature to all time. Having
satisfied himself that they were not, he had little use
for them. Paul, however, became a man of the world:
James was the man of Jerusalem. His sympathy
could stretch as far as the seed of Abraham, or that
portion of it included in the covenant of Abraham.
Further than that he was not prepared to go; but of
304 CREATION OF THE BIBLE,
the real essence of Israel’s religion he had nevertheless
the true idea. To him, Jesus was a Jew, and had never
ceased to be such ; but to Paul, Jesus was a man, and
with his mission commensurate with the human family,
not with the family of Abraham alone. James gloried
in his lineage. Paul declared that though a Hebrew
of the Hebrews, and of the tribe of Benjamin, and
circumcised the eighth day, after the regular order, he
counted such things as mere refuse, compared with
other things.
So then James has the limitations which Paul
does not share: nor is he limited in respect to one
class of subjects alone. In many ways he shows a
narrowness. He has not been able to comprehend the
meaning and blessedness of faith. For a man to be-
lieve in God is no great achievement. Demons believe
that God is ; but they are not thereby improved. To
believe things is a matter of theory, or speculation;
and one who lays emphasis on belief lives a life as it
were in the air. It is very much, as he explains, like
telling a hungry and naked man, who applies for help,
to be clad and fed. It is a kind of mind-cure for
poverty: he thinks it absurd. To feed the hungry
and clothe the naked, and to do the things of charity
in general; to speak soberly and with genuine sweet-
ness, that is what is necessary. “What doth it profit,
my brethren, if a man say he has faith, and has not
works?” Faith is visionary to this man; and yet he
has it. Only he does not comprehend what is said
about it by such a man as Paul. This doctrine of
being justified by faith does not meet his approval.
A man is justified by what he does. If he is com-
manded to sacrifice his only son on the altar, and
proceeds to do it, he is justified. Rahab of Jericho
SOCIOLOGICAL RELIGION OF JAMES. 305
was justified by taking care of the Hebrew men
who demanded protection. She was not a person of
stainless character: on the contrary, a fallen woman;
but by her works was made a just woman. Paul
elevates faith above works, James the Just elevates
works above faith. Each has his point of view; each
honestly speaks from that point.
What chiefly distinguishes this just man, this strict
man of Jerusalem, is his feeling that religion is
mainly the regulation of our social relations. The
sacrifices have their importance, but fall nevertheless
to a secondary place. He is troubled by the disparity
of condition among the children of Israel. There are
the poor, who are suffering their poverty, their life
embittered by it ; and over against them the rich,
who enjoy the good things of life, and oppress the
poor. This is of vastly more importance to this good
man than anything that Paul can say about the sin
of Adam, and the consequent sinning of all his de-
scendants, and the passing of death upon all for that
reason. That is in the region of speculation or the
realm of “faith,” and James the Just is impatient
with that whole department of thought. If James
were our contemporary, possibly he would object to it
all as belonging to the field of dogma. The president
of a great college and a representative of conservative
thought has said: “Now I say, I dare to say, would
to God that men would heed me, that if I must choose
between life and dogma, I will say that Christianity is
not a life, but a dogma. You cannot live the Christian
life without holding the Christian dogma. The one
emanates solely from the other. This dogma's great
supposition is that man is a sinner, and that without
the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Its
!
f
t
306 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
great fact is that Jesus was the propitiation for our
sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the
whole world.” +
It is conceivable that James the Just would have
even less patience with that than with justification by
faith; and. I am sure that Paul, after all his argumen-
tation about sin introduced by Adam, and death as
consequence, would maintain Christianity to be a life.
He seems to forever dispute our learned conservative
by his ringing words, - “For me to live is Christ.”
Our learned conservative, who tells us that Christianity
(if one has to choose), is not a life but a dogma, would
go far to rouse the wrath of James the Just, who is
endeavoring to clear the mind of Israel from mischiev-
ous notions of that sort. The theological aspects of
religion he diligently seeks to replace by the sociolo-
gical aspects. “See,” he says, “how it is with the poor
and with the rich.” The social condition, actual not
theoretical, fills his soul with grief and indignation.
Such a respect of persons, such sycophancy on the part
of the poor, such haughty pride and vanity on the part
of the rich, as may be seen in the synagogue itself,
he cannot bear. He asks if God cares for the rich
more than for the poor. Visions of harvests, owned
by the rich, and reaped by the poor, and the wages
withheld, torture him. It is all unjust, and he in the
soul of him is just ; therefore it is unendurable. A
sturdy democrat is he ; a man of practical common-
sense, and of a warm and indignant heart. He is far
more concerned with the evil conditions of Israel’s re-
ligion, and its social life, than with the new notions of
faith which are beginning to make themselves known.
* Baccalaureate Address of President Patton, Princeton, May
7, 1891.
SOCIOLOGICAL RELIGION OF JAMES. 307
Those notions are of great consequence and will bring
result in due time, but the time is too serious in its
delinquencies, in its corruption of religion, to permit
him to think of a doctrine of faith.
There is another thing of interest to us, and that is
the feeling which this just man had in regard to the
second advent. He could not have been unfamiliar
with the current interest in that matter; but here
again his common-sense and his abounding interest
in the social state of Israel led him to modify the pop-
ular idea. James does probably look for a coming
of Jesus in the clouds, but more clearly sees a violent
revolution coming on earth; he is very sure that is
coming, and shows his sagacity in taking the common-
sense view ; he proclaims the judge at the door, rather
than as coming in the sky; he waxes vehement in his
denunciations of the careless levity and corruption of
the rich. They are preparing revolution. This is the
sort of prophet who might have cried to the landed
gentry of France in the middle of the last century,
“Weep and howl for the miseries which are surely
coming upon you.” It is the social maladjustment,
rather than the coming angels, which will cause the
fiery and terrible days; and they are not far away.
This man speaks more in the tone of the ancient pro-
phets than does Paul. He sees a threatened ruin.
Neither fear nor favor restrains him from utterance
of the truth as he sees it, — a most brave and faithful
man, scorning all such notions as are conveyed by the
modern saying that if one has to choose, Christianity
is not a life but a dogma. To him the whole matter
is one of vital meaning; that is, a matter of life and
death.
The descendants of Abraham are destroying them-
308 CREA TION OF THE BIBLE.
selves and their heritage by their bad living. It is
evil conduct which makes for death. Not Adam and
his sin, but falsity, injustice, respect of persons, and all
the rest of it, bring ruin. It is possible that no phi-
losopher or political economist has ever put the case
more strongly, tersely, and intelligibly than did James
the Just. “Such and such a course, in our social life,
leads to the pit of social destruction. A nation, be it
Abraham's nation or another, cannot stand if it goes
not clear of these social wrongs.” That is his message.
Yet he does not counsel to take up arms. “Do not
the rich oppress you?” he cries to the people. We
should look for him, then, to advise them to strike down
the oppressor, to break the strong arm of tyranny, but
he does not. He does not say to them that they will
do well to rouse themselves, and combine to resist the
rich, and destroy their property, and sweep them from
the earth. On the contrary, he tells them that if they
will obey the royal law, “Thou shalt love thy neigh-
bor as thyself,” they will do well. He would free
them from the baleful influences of oppression, the
most baleful of which is to tempt the poor to be the
tools and sycophants of the rich. He would teach
them not to respect persons; but to revenge them-
selves upon their oppressors is foreign to his mind.
He is not a maker of revolution; he discerns the things
which do make it, points them out, and warns as best
he may against them.
One is reminded here of the attitude of Paul toward
slavery, which at that time was nearly at its worst in
the Roman empire. He proclaimed the brotherhood
of man, with fidelity; and all that is involved in that
condition he believed in. Yet he did not counsel in-
surrection of the slaves. He said, “Slaves, obey your
SOCIOLOGICAL RELIGION OF JAMES. 309.
masters; not with eye service, as men pleasers, but
with singleness of heart.” These men, James and
Paul, are not men of violence and passion ; they see
that wrong brings retribution. They stand by the
peaceable methods of Jesus. Both are reformers, but
they do not expect to reform murder by murder, nor
theft by theft. They will reform evil by means of
good. “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil
with good,” says Paul.
Now for the most part reformers are subject to that
kind of limitation which shuts them up to one object.
Having found one great evil in the world, they are
disposed to think that it is the one curse of human-
ity; and that if it is abolished, all will be well. The
temperance reformer refers almost all the evils to in-
temperance. To reform that out of existence will
clear the state of the one affliction which degrades it
in every department. “Wipe slavery from the country
and we shall be a most happy people,” was the feeling
of the anti-slavery reformer. We have wiped out
slavery, and still are not a supremely happy people.
There is something yet to be done; slavery was but
one form of evil. The oppression of the rich over the
poor in ancient and modern times has been but one of
many causes of public unhappiness and discontent. To
change these conditions without changing from other
evils which distress us is to fail of accomplishing
enough. Wherefore James the Just, clearly seeing
the line of cleavage running through the entire He-
brew community, with accompanying respect of per-
Sons, and other mischiefs, could also see that there
were evils of a radical sort, for which all men were
responsible ; and if they were not put down, the social
life would prove a dismal failure. If there should
310 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
ever come a time when there would be no rich and
no poor, but when abundance would smile upon every
corner of the world, and if the pest of the unbridled
tongue remained, we should still suffer from an intri-
cate and all-pervading evil, which would set the world
afire, as with the flame of hell. One can imagine how
the soul of this just man was vexed immeasurably by
the endless clatter and jargon of splenetic, peevish,
slanderous tongues, – a rain of bitterness, always
deluging society.
Here is no theory, and no attempt to account for a
condition, but a vivid exposure of the condition: He-
brew society everywhere was made all but unendur-
able by the poison of envenomed tongues. Had we a
land flowing with milk and honey, with abundant
springs pouring out of our mountains, and watering
all the pastures; had we fruit growing in tropical
luxuriance, and every man sitting under his own vine
and fig-tree, a pleasing prospect on every hand of
us, and labor reduced to a mere pleasant exercise;
had we Paradise expanded to all portions of the hab-
itable globe, – with the human tongue let loose to
perform its favorite work, our Paradise would be a
miserable failure. A wilderness with some govern-
ment of the tongue in it would be preferable. We
imagine our fellow-men of the older countries to be
groaning under the weight of czars, sultans, kaisers,
and all the like ; to be spied upon at every moment
by intrusive police; to be liable at a moment’s notice,
or without notice, to deportation from their homes to
the wastes of Siberia; to be shut up in prison, or set
at hopeless work in the mines. Such evils are un-
speakable ; but to burn all thrones from under all
despotic rulers, and to set up some other form of
SOCIOLOGICAL RELIGION OF JAMES. 311
government, or no-government, gives us no effective
clearance of our evils. Every man and every wo-
man, able to talk, and therefore to sweeten or embitter
the lives of their fellow men and women, possesses the
power to contribute to the continued reign of wretch-
edness.
Thus the reformation contemplated by James the
Just is one which purifies society of an evil everywhere
prevalent, and which is not imposed by one class upon
another. His religion is fundamentally practical,
shunning metaphysics, and in a remarkable degree
social. He does not denounce vague judgments against
vague iniquities, and he does not have to ask only the
wise to listen to him. The iniquity he chiefly speaks
of is one from which all suffer, and in the propagation
of which almost all are implicated ; and no one can
possibly fail to understand what he is talking about.
Let every person, therefore, give heed to do his per-
sonal part, putting the bridle upon his own tongue,
and so reduce the evil of the world.
Nevertheless, it is evident that the conduct and
teaching of Jesus had produced a strong feeling in the
early church respecting wealth. Jesus had been under-
stood to bless the poor, and to declare that it was next
to impossible for a rich man to have part in his king-
dom. James the Just shares this impression, and be-
lieves the poor to be specially favored of God. Apart
from the bitterness, he seems to have had the same
feeling about the rich of his time that the modern
social reformer has about the millionaires. It is for
that reason he lays so much stress upon the coming
revolution. It is unquestionable that wealth gained
by injustice, by the withholding of proper wages, by
chicanery, or by cunning, is at all times a menace to
312 CREATION OF THE BIBLE.
any society which permits it. Great wealth, such as
we see piling itself up in enormous bulks in modern
times, is at best a deplorable fact; one cannot intelli-
gently look upon it without anxiety.
The feeling of the early Christians is expressed in
the Shepherd of Hermas,” a book which Irenaeus and
others deemed worthy a place in the sacred canon,
and which was publicly read in many or most of the
churches at one period. This is a very ecclesiastical
book, and may have contributed much to the develop-
ment of the papacy afterward, but otherwise is of con-
siderable merit. The writer has visions, and in one of
them beholds six angels building a tower upon the
water. These angels are assisted by a host of others,
who bring them stones for the tower, and the stones
which are thus employed are found to be exactly
square, and to fit each other to a nicety. Some stones
are cast far away, and it is noted that others—white,
round stones — are left near the base of the tower.
The writer is told that these round stones represent
the rich, and that they cannot be built into the tower,
which is the church, until their riches are taken away.
Their impoverishment alone will make them also
square stones, fit for the sacred edifice.
Aside, however, from the prevalent feeling of the
church concerning wealth, this is evident : that the
Epistle of James the Just is in no wise a theological
1 “As respects [the Shepherd of Hermas], the conservative
Zahn remarks: ‘It enjoyed alike in the West and the East all
the rights of a Biblical book. . . . As respects circulation, ac-
knowledgment, and influence, the Shepherd surpassed, at the
close of the second century and beginning of the third, more
than one document which to-day belongs to the New Testa-
ment.’” — Professor J. H. Thayer, The Change of Attitude
towards the Bible.
SOCIOLOGICAL RELIGION OF JAMES. 313
work. His religion — the religion he seeks to teach —
is social in its reference. However mistaken in theory
— as concerning the sin of Adam, or the passing of
death upon all, and the position of Jesus in the rank
of being — any one may be, if his religion has the
social reference, that is pure religion and pleasing
to God. Perhaps there is nothing better for our
time, rife with just criticism upon the Christian re-
ligion and making honest effort to do without religion
in the reformation of the world, than the letter of
James the Just ; for in it he tells us the thing we
most need to know, and that is that the religion which
is not sociological is vain; and that all effort toward
the uplift of our race, done in the spirit of charity, is
religious, – and it is divinely religious.
Iliſiiii.
3 9015 O6351 1789

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