It

illi

fSSJL..

NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.

TV IK ESSRS. CLARK have pleasure in forwarding to their Subscribers
*¦*¦*• the Second Issue of the Foreign Theological Library for
1884, viz. : —
EWALD'S REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
RABIGER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THEOLOGY. Vol. L
The First Issue for 1884 comprised: —
WEISS'S LIFE OF CHRIST. Vol. III. (completion).
SARTORIUS'S DOCTRINE OF DIVINE LOVE.
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ROMANS. Two Vols.
HAGENBACH'S HISTORY OF DOCTRINES. Three Vols.
DORNER'S SYSTEM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Four Vols.
MARTENSEN'S CHRISTIAN ETHICS. (Individual Ethics.)
MARTENSEN'S CHRISTIAN ETHICS. (Social Ethics.)
WEISS'S BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMEN.T. 2 Vols.
VTEISS'S LIFE OF CHRIST. Vols. I. and II.
GOEBEL ON THE PARABLES OF JESUS.
The Foreign Theological Library was commenced in 1846, and
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A Selection of 20 Volumes may be had at the Subscription Price of
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CLARK'S

FOEEIGN

THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.

NEW SEEIES.
- VOL. XIX.

(BtoaWst Jftebrtattort ; its Jiature antt UecorB.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
1884.

PRIXTED BV MORRISON AND GIBB,
FOR
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBU'RGH.
LONDON, . . . HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO
DUBLIN, . , . GEORGE HERBERT.
NEW YORK, .... SCRIBNER AND WELFORD.

HEINRICH E.WALD,
LATE PKOFESSOK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN; AUTHOR OF "THE HISTOEY OF
ISRAEL," "PROPHETS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT," ETC.

SEtanglateti from tije ffierman
BY THE
REV. THOMAS GOADBY, B.A.,
PRESIDENT OF THE BAPTIST COLLEGE, NOTTINGHAM.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.,
1884.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

rpHIS first volume of Ewald's great and important work,
-¦- Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, is offered to the English
public as an attempt to read Revelation, Religion, and Scrip
ture in the light of universal history and the common experi
ence of man, and with constant reference to all the great
religious systems of the world. The task is as bold and
arduous as it is timely and necessary, and Ewald was well
fitted to accomplish it. Oriental literature, the Biblical
languages, the history of Israel and its relation to contempo
rary history, the exegesis of the prophetic, evangelical, and
apostolic records of Scripture were the study and occupation
of his long and laborious life. His mind, of singular penetra
tion and grasp, a*id of wonderful breadth and spiritual insight,
never lost its vigour even in his old age. If, in his spirit
and temper, Ewald had more of the fervour of the prophet
than of the calmness of the philosopher, and in his style less
of lucid brevity than of diffuse though magnificent eloquence,
his fault is more than condoned by the lofty moral earnest
ness of his faith and the poetic glow of his massive periods.
In the present state of religious thought in England and
America, the conceptions of a powerful, independent, and
original mind, whose reverent study of Holy Scripture has
greatly advanced the science of Biblical criticism, cannot but
be regarded as of unusual importance. The more complete

VI PREFACE.
the freedom from the traditions of the Church, the more
likely will it be that truth will be seen in some new fresh
light, and the more valuable will be the contribution afforded
to the readjustment of our beliefs. This is exactly the
position and this is exactly the merit of Ewald's work. Its
author stood almost alone among those who, on the one hand,
were guided mainly by Ecclesiastical Confessions, and who,
on the other, followed the changing light of an inadequate
and frigid Rationalism. He adhered to the conceptions of
Revelation and Holy Scripture, but he placed both upon a
scientific basis ; he opposed Rationalism, but he gave to his
opposition a validity and strength which even Rationalists
cannot refuse to respect. His doctrinal system is imperfect,
and falls short of the fulness devout faith demands, but it
harmonizes with the philosophical and scientific tendencies of
our time, and saves some of the main positions of Evan
gelicalism which the experience of centuries has verified.
Conscientious conviction, especially on such subjects as the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit, may carry us to conclusions
beyond those which Ewald states ; but it will be a great gain
to modern religious thought if, working upon the lines which
Ewald lays down, it is carried by the methods of historical
and critical inquiry as far as Ewald ventures. The principles
which run through this work are precisely similar to the
principles which modern science accepts. Everything rests
upon the basis of fact, and is ultimately subjected to the test
of experience. Revelation is treated as a great historical
process, a development, an evolution, and the consummation
which Christ brings is shown to be the result and issue of all
that had previously arisen. The history of Israel is regarded
as informed by one predominant purpose, working out one
great issue; and its culmination in Christianity is for the
enrichment and salvation of the world. The work has there
fore not simply a theological, but a high and significant
apologetic value, which those who are called upon to deal
with the various forms of modern scepticism will not be slow

PREFACE. Vll
to recognise. The age that is disposed to accept the " Origin
of Species," as if not the last word of physical science, at
least the new starting-point to its ultimate consummation,
may well be asked to ponder with thought .and care the
principles of historic evolution, of unconscious spiritual selec
tion, of survival of the fittest, conspicuously illustrated and
exemplified in Ewald's discussion of the nature and progress,
the conflicts and triumphs of Revelation, Religion, and
Scripture. It is needless perhaps to add that, while commending this
volume to the notice of all students of theology and Holy
Scripture, neither the publishers nor the translator wish to be
identified with the peculiar doctrinal views of our author.
In a subsequent volume, consisting of selected chapters from
the theology of Ewald, which it is proposed to publish as
soon as practicable, some of these peculiar views may be
presented and explained more at large. Meanwhile, the
present volume is issued as another proof, as Professor
Dillmann says, of Ewald's profound, original, and penetrating
mind, reverent and childlike spirit, nervous thought, eloquent
inspired style, and unsurpassed masterly skill in disclosing
the innermost thoughts and feelings of antiquity.
The translator gratefully acknowledges the ready kindness
and courtesy of the widow of the late learned Professor, in
placing at his disposal pamphlets and manuscripts helpful in
the better understanding of Ewald's theological position ; and
also the generous and friendly aid of the Rev. J. F. Smith
in interpreting this confessedly difficult author.
Nottingham, 1884.

CONTENTS.

Introductory. The Doctrine op the Word op God,

PAGE 1

PART I.
THE NATURE OF THE REVELATION OF THE WORD OF GOD.
I. Revelation and Religion, ...... 7
1. Revelation, .... . . 7
2. The Fear of God, or Religion, . . . .29
3. Reciprocal Influence of Religion and Revelation, . . 37
II. The Stages of Revelation, ...... 42
1. The Revelation of the Individual, .... 42
2. The Revelation of the Prophets, .... 47
3. The Revelation of Moses, ... . . .77
4. The Revelation of Christ, . ..•'.'. • ¦ 106
5. The Consummation of all Revelation, . . . 118
Special Characteristics of the Consummation of all Revelation, 136
III. The Results of Revelation, . . . . . . , 139
1. The Higher Community among Men, . . . 140
2. The Priesthood, ...... 148
3. The Spiritualization of Humanity and its Aims, . . 150

PART II.

REVELATION IN HEATHENISM AND IN ISRAEL.

I. The Founding of a True Community of God,
1. The Origin and changing Feeling of its Need,
2. The Imperfect Satisfaction of the Need,
3. Its Perfect Satisfaction,
II. The Conflict against all Degeneracy of Revelation,
The Opposition of Heathenism and True Religion,
1. In General, .
2. Specially, .
In the First Period,
In the Second Period,
In the Third Period,
3. The Final "Victory in this Conflict,
Special Characteristics of the Opposition to Heathenism,

155157165182 193 193
193 210
215223 240 251265

X CONTENTS. PAGE
III. The Rise of the Power of the Holy Spirit, . . . .270
1. Its Significance and Possibility, .... 270
2. Its Realization, ...... 276
3. The Holy Nation,  283

PART III.
REVELATION IN THE BIBLE.
I. 1. What preceded all Holy Scripture, .... 303
2. The General Relation of Literature to the National Life, . 306
3. Natural Simplicity and Artificiality in Literature, . . 318
4. The Advantages and Deficiencies of all Literature, . . 330
II. 5. The Rise of Holy Scripture, ..... 339
6. The Settlement and Limitation of the Canon, . . . 352
7. The Ante- Canonical and Post-Canonical Position of the Sacred
Books, ....... 367
8. The Sacredness of the Bible neither arbitrarily determined nor
arbitrarily determinable, ..... 375
III. 9. The Nature of the actual Sacredness of the Bible, . . 390
10. The further Significance of the Bible and its Sacredness, . 399
11. The Sacredness of the Bible in its Manifoldness and its Unity, 420
12. Conclusion. Comparison with other Sacred Books, . . 432
IV. 13. Consequences. Growing Value of the Bible, . . . 436
14. The proper Use of the Bible, ..... 443
V. 15. The Way through the Bible to Revelation and Religion, . 464
Index of Subjects, ....... 467
Index of Scripture References, .... 479

REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.

INTRODUCTORY.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE WORD OF GOD.
§ 8. TT is not the Bible only and the true religion taught
-L by it that knows something of a revelation of divine
words for man ; all historical religions without exception
proceed from such a basis. Islamism, as a perverse mixture
of Christianity and Judaism, may be omitted ; but all the rest,
whether fully or as good as fully independent of the Bible,
have sought superhuman words or in their place divine hints
and tokens, and have estimated above everything, where it
was thought they were possessed, divine words, commands,
and laws.
It is not then the word of God in itself, or even the fulness
of such words, nor their being revealed, by which true religion,
as the Bible requires it, is distinguished. Comparison of every
thing of a similar nature outside the Bible with what is con
tained in it is however essential; (a) to assure us from every
kind of religion, even the lowest, how necessary the revealing
of divine words is for man ; (b) to enable us the more surely
to understand the biblical revelation, from the nature of all
others ; (c) to show whether and how far the word of God as
the Bible presents it, as well in its first activity and mani
festation as in its distinct revelations and their subsequent
issues, itself actually excels all others in its ways of procedure
and results.
EWALD I. A

2 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
The Bible speaks throughout of two high divine powers
which mediate between God and the universe, and especially
humanity, viz. the Spirit of God and the Word of God. They
are equal, harmonious, lead the one to the other, or wait the
favourable moment when they can both work together. The
Spirit vivifies, energizes; the word determines and decides;
the Spirit gives the possibility of life to creation, the word
determines how the same is to shape itself in detail from first
to last ; the Spirit empowers to right conduct and action, the
word brings definite divine thoughts and determinations of
will ; the Spirit underlies life, the word directs it.
Hence the Spirit of God is not said to reveal or manifest
itself; it is recognizable only by its effects. The word is,
however, itself the revelation of the hidden thought. But
God, with His thought, mind, and will, is especially hidden
and deep for man. The word of God must be revealed to
man if he is to perceive and know it. With creation the
thought of God comes into the light of day. The Bible, after
mentioning the preparatory work of the Spirit of God, begins
with " God said," and in the course of human events often
repeats it. To know the divine thought, i.e. the divine truth
of anything, is to know the word of God concerning it. In
this widest and deepest sense the Bible everywhere teaches
that the word of God can be known.
But the word of God has a special signification for man ;
it reveals that will of God in conformity with which man is to
live and act. The knowledge of God's nature and why He
reveals His will to man in this or that way is given along,
with the revelation of the word of God in this special sense.
Two things are presupposed ; — the existence and efficient work
ing of a true God; and the capacity in man to ascertain
whether a revelation of divine words is actually from God or
not. These will be subsequently discussed ; our only pre
supposition here is, according to the feeling and faith of
antiquity in which the conception of the word of God firmly
developed itself, the following : — ,

THE DOCTRINE OF THE WORD OF GOD. 3
§ 9. " God stands over against man invisible and obscure,
inarticulate and mute ; only in moments of terrible danger and
with fear and trembling may He with difficulty be beheld or
heard, found or felt. To perceive a clear voice from Him, a
direction for the life, is the purest happiness and good fortune.
The darkness, the silence, the remoteness from God become
the greater and the more cheerless, the longer man remains
confronting Him without beholding a light or hearing a voice.''
Such feelings and experiences peculiar to antiquity have not
yet wholly^ passed away.
In contradistinction to this the Bible is full of the word of
God, shows it not as a possibility but a realized fact, pub
lishes it, rejoices in its truth. In the Old Testament we see
the pure Divine Ego face to face with man, revealing who it
is who speaks and what He commands. In the New, Christ
appears as Himself the Word of God, in human form bringing
that word as near as possible to man, but without contradict
ing, rather presupposing the truth of the word of the Old
Testament. § 10. But difficulties meet us on the threshold of our
inquiry. Since we ever think of human word and speech
under the terms word and speech, and we know that God is
not man —
(a) How can the word of God, in the biblical sense of the
term, be revealed, and how has it in reality been revealed ?
(b) Why in antiquity and perfected in the highest con
ceivable form only in one nation, Israel ?
(c) Wherefore handed down in Holy Scripture and to be
derived only from it ?
(d) Withdrawn as it is from all our present conditions,
feelings, and knowledge in its rise and development, how is it
by us to be found again, and how applied for our salvation,
in the restricted and limited form of a dead multitude of
books of a foreign tongue ?
These difficulties tower on high and bar the way to the
sanctuary where lies the costly treasure of living eternal

4 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
truths. But they admit of solution ; the remote, the unintel
ligible and strange may become near, familiar and loved, so
that we would not wish it otherwise than it is. If dust and
ashes are thrown upon these questions, and if some in our
day will not hear of divine revelations and doctrines, the more
ready must we be to elucidate them in their high importance
and for us fully indispensable truth. And since the matter
concerns obscure and strange phenomena, we must not pro
ceed as in a short course from above downwards, but rather
approach our subject step by step.

PART I.
THE NATURE OF THE REVELATION OF THE WORD OF GOD.
§ 11. rTlHERE is an immediate and a mediate revelation of
-*- God corresponding to the broader or narrower sense
of the term, Word of God. The immedate revelation is without
a perfectly clear and sufficiently sure word. It may become a
full living word, for a determinate thought and truth of God
is in it, but it lacks expression by the clear light of discourse.
It is of three kinds : —
1. The original revelation of God given with the human spirit
in creation. This involves the close connection and reciprocity
of the divine and human spirit, and nothing can compare with
it in glory and wondrousness. It is a faculty or inner power
of man; it has creative force, and a special history. It is
called " the Spirit of God in man," " spirit," " the inner light,"
" the lamp " in the dark depths of man, " which God Himself
holds in His hand," and in the later parts of the Bible, " con
science." But however glorious it is, and however wonderful
its influence, and whatever variety of strength, clearness, effi
ciency it shows in different men, it is not one and the same
with the word of God of which we specially speak. It is the
indispensable beginning for revelation, a laboratory in which
the divine word prepares and makes effective its utterance, a
haven in which it collects itself, a light by which it is recog
nised and attested, but not the word of revelation itself, and
sharply to be distinguished from it.
2. The creation itself as it stands in its eternal glory and
perfection before the gaze of man's spirit. The more God is
otherwise known, the more this whole infinite visible creation

6 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
declares His invisible glory and reveals His hidden nature
and will (Ps. xix.).
3. The whole history of the human race. To the mind
prepared for divine instruction, the painful or joyous
experiences of men in the world's great history, teach divine
truths of eternal significance and perpetual freshness and
force. Israel was to remember, and was often ' reminded, of
its past history, revealing- as it did God's saving grace: by
types of the old covenant our Lord showed the meaning of
His sufferings and death ; and youthful Christianity beheld
in Christ the fulfilment and realization of all that earlier
generations anticipated and desired. But human history with
its mighty pulsations revealing God's will to the mind
prepared to receive it, is not expressed in words, and is
wholly dark or dumb the less is known otherwise of the true
God. § 12. These forms of immediate revelation are taken up
and perfected in the mediate revelation, the word of God ; for
all revelation, so far as it is genuine and necessary, is
ultimately in agreement with itself. But mediate revelation
is that alone which deserves the name " Revelation " in the
fullest sense, and is so designated in the Bible.1 Mediate
revelation expresses itself in intelligible and distinct words.
Since word and speech presuppose thoughts and propositions,
and these are intelligible to man only by human language,
the word of God, as the Bible contains it, is understood to be
such sentences and discourse as express indeed what God
demands of man, and how He reveals Himself to us in His
true nature, but all mediated through human language. That
the word of God comes to us through human discourse is
assumed in the Bible as self-evident, and is characteristic of
revelation. Hence it is seen, revelation is an historical
incident or has come to man only in the course of human
history. And just this is its purest and eternal excellence,
1 1 Sam. iii. 7 ; Isa. xxii. 4 ; Dan. x. 1. In New Testament often with
aT?0KU}.u'Xvl<r6ai.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. ' 7
viz. that it presents to men clear thoughts, words, and
sentences that have already passed through the mind and
been articulated in the language of its human mediators,
expressing and • explaining both how man should act in
harmony with God's will, and the ultimate ground of it —
who the true God in His essential being is.
But revelation mediated by human i words is to be dis
tinguished also from that given on rare occasions, and
represented as coming from heaven in spoken words. The
ten commandments were so pronounced; heavenly voices
attended the most conspicuous events of Christ's earthly
history ; these are exceptional. Moreover voices from below
or from the mouth of a beast are known, but epistles or.
manuscripts falling from heaven ' are extravagant suppositions
foreign to the whole of the Bible.
Revelation mediated through clear human discourse is the
revelation of the word of God we are now to consider* and
upon the path of revelation true religion follows and then
inseparably attends it.
I.  REVELATION AND RELIGION.
1. Revelation. \
§ 13. Revelation has its peculiar contents; in other words,
its own proper subject and province. It expresses what is
the will of God to men, whether in a given case or in general;
how in conformity with true godliness human conduct is to
shape itself ; and if it speaks of the nature of God and His
relation to men, it is only to declare the more convincingly
how men should live and act in accordance therewith.
Within this special province of religious life and conduct,
revelation supplies what is not otherwise known nor derived
from another source. It is original, creative, flowing freshly
as living water from a spring.
It differs from poetry, which it resembles as a seizure

8 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
by an overmastering thought with which it remains in its
immediateness, in that poetry as a mood of mind yields to
and obeys every subject of thought, but revelation concerns
only a limited province of thought and a special feeling of
need. It differs from science which investigates, and demon
strates from their own peculiar nature, the reasons, the
connection, the worth and uses of all things, in that it has a
definite domain, a limited content and an immediateness in
its thought coming from above as command for man and
maintaining itself in this higher tendency. It differs from
doctrine, which it may nevertheless become, in that it does
not arrange a content already given or established, reproduce
it correctly and elucidate it, but produces what is original
and creative.
§ 14. As with everything creative, revelation has an activity
wholly peculiar to itself, and a corresponding active facultative
cause from which it flows as from a living spring. Misunder
standings and errors as to whence revelation originates arise
from not going far enough to the source of its activity, or
from going beyond it.
1. The well-spring of revelation is not the original faculty
in man whereby he knows God, which we designate the
original revelation given in the spirit of man in creation.
This faculty is a gift of God in all men equally and something
quiescent ; it is not yet activity, least of all that activity of
which we are in quest ; it is as mere spirit not word as yet ;
and historically it may fall into error in its outlook toward
God and even raise itself proudly against Him ; can it, then,
be one and the same with the revelation of the word of God,
or itself this word of God ? Nevertheless this original faculty,
the highest immediate revelation, is the ground and basis
without which and apart from which mediate revelation can
not occur.
The active facultative cause of mediate revelation may be
designated one of the many capacities of the human spirit,
but it is not to be confounded with any other of them. For

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 9
mediate revelation excites to activity the whole mind of man
as nothing else does, but has its own peculiar contents. It is
not to be traced back to reason or put on a level with it.
Reason perceives and knows thoughts and things, suffers them
not to be unobserved in their own nature, surveys and masters
them intellectually; just as understanding apprehends them
not incorrectly in detail ; and reason may err in details,
especially when understanding is wanting to it, and may
become vain and suppose it gains the mastery of what is yet
beyond its power of adjustment.
2. Conscience is not the invisible ground and flowing spring
of revelation. To seek the faculty of mediate revelation here
is not as in the former case to seek it where it is not found
at all, but to seek it where only its after-effects are active.
Conscience is the power of the aroused moral self-conscious
ness ; it is one of the original powers of the human spirit,
but it is not like reason and understanding, a way-breaking
faculty ; nor is it creative like the capacity of which we are
in quest; it is rather a preserving and restraining, not a
producing activity, and in connection with revelation it is a
subordinate or by-faculty, not the chief faculty itself. It
needs, as determinate contents and material, the certain and
undeniable; by which it is moved to stand firm, and according
to which its judgment is given. It varies in its activity with
the clearness of insight and the nobleness of motive. It wins
the greatest significance where revelation has replenished the
mind with truths dearer than all outward good. It is most
sensitive and tender, most enlightened, most powerfully
resistent, and most victorious in conflict where it has
appropriated most completely the highest truths revelation
furnishes.1 § 15. To find the true and proper activity and faculty of
1 It is thus not accidental that the word "conscience " does not occur in the Old
Testament earlier than Eccles. x. 20 ; in the Apocrypha nowhere but in Wisd.
of Sol. xvii. 11, and 2 and 3 Mace. ; in the New Testament is found only in
Paul's Epistles; not at all in the Gospels, John viii. 9 not being the Evangelist's.
But in Hebrew the simple word 37 was used with the same meaning as "heart"

10 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
the human spirit, of which we are in search, that we may
understand in what way it must be moved in order to attain
to revelation, the following preliminary considerations may be
best : —
In the human mind, of wonderful nature, there lie, as if
compactly enfolded within it, all the hardly numerable special
capacities which, on closer contemplation of the apparent
infinitude of the impulses, movements, and acts of the
intellectual life of mankind, we distinguish from each other.
Not one of them in reality can be fully separated from all
the others, the whole mind being in high efforts and struggles,
put in requisition ; only inasmuch as in accordance with the
limitation and divisibility of all human endeavours and works,
every intellectual movement of man shapes itself differently
as to time and person, the different capacities always become
conspicuous as the mind is in such or such a mood, and
turned in this or that direction. With these possible
diversities clearly in view, we must distinguish further —
1. There are capacities of the human mind which, with
respect to all intellectual action, we may designate way-
making capacities, such as understanding, reason, judgment,
and the yet obscure feeling preceding their exercise or
still remaining when they are insufficient. Nothing affects
the human mind but these spontaneously appear. — Other
capacities, like memory and conscience, if they are to become
active and fruitful, require a greater fulness of contents
which must be previously given to them, and also, as applied
with perseverance and discipline to wholly special human
needs and endeavours, unite one with another or with several
others, and so become wholly new capacities, which again
arise only historically and are not to be confounded with the
purely original. Thus, no man could become a poet if there
is in modern languages ; although Hebrew was furnished early with expressions
for intellectual and spiritual phenomena. [Ewald further says that das Oewissen
needs das gewisse; and JTID in Eccles. x. 20, LXX. euvtiinns is only equivalent
to "consciousness."]

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 11
did not lie in the human mind a poetic capacity ; this too is
not possible without the original faculty of imagination, and
moreover it does not arise from this alone, but is formed only
by closest union and co-operation with other similar original
faculties of the human mind, and only in a special mood and
excitement of the mind. So indeed the possibility of science
presupposes in him who seeks to work in it creatively a
corresponding scientific capacity, which however does not
consist merely in understanding, reason, and judgment. And
as neither the scientific nor the poetic are simple faculties of
the human mind, so they appear at least in any deeper
activity only as genuine historical powers,, the scientific later
than the poetic; thence also, in individuals differently
developed at different times and places, as everything historical
at once enters into the infinitude of individual phenomena
and culture.
2. These capacities that arise only with history show great
diversity in their activity when they once develop, or indeed
have already in many ways further developed, their active
energies. The simple capacities work in all times and in all
men so uniformly that nothing but the rare exception is
matter of surprise; but here, as with everything historical,
enters almost unlimited manifoldness and diversity. This
special conjoint working of two or three of the human
capacities, so different in themselves, may occur in some
particular men in a higher degree than in others; through
special incitements it may, in some particular periods of time,
be more strongly aroused than in others, and be more steadily
maintained at a fixed high pressure ; and in happy moments
it may pass from the mind of the one or the few in whom it
has been strongly called into action, and stir and influence
the minds of many others with increased fervour and force.
All this lies from the first in the alternatives of historic possi
bilities. We know, for example, that the poetic art is active
at all times among all nations ; but how rare are the occasions
when really great poets arise, and how little is it the case that

12 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
their most splendid creations are uniformly valued and
esteemed at all times and among all nations !
3. Two consequences of the most weighty significance
follow. The first is that (a) each of such special historic
capacities may furnish as its fruits truths and doctrines of its
kind which may serve, when once they have entered into the
day and the light of human history, for light and leading to
innumerable other minds. What a great poet or scientific
thinker or artist has created with more or less of perfection,
may be a joy and satisfaction, or a model and inspiration to
the end of time. The intellectual fellowship which for ever
exists among men, makes such fruits of genius, even amid
all the changes of human destiny and all the desolations of
time, with difficulty or not at all destructible. The other con
sequence is that (6) each of such capacities may for its special
activity make a corresponding way or create an impetus which
shall enable others to repeat this activity continually for
similar ends ; and whilst this living repetition becomes even
easier, the first effort and labour, of enormous difficulty,
through which only the way became possible, may gradually
pass into oblivion. The beautiful forms which poetry has
created for its own purposes remain for endless repetition,
even if their first creators with their creative pains have long
since passed away ; and the paths by which new scientific
truths and doctrines are discovered, when once made, stand
open to the easier steps of subsequent times. Indeed, it
may ultimately be found that the later workers scarcely
comprehend at all by what pains and under what actual
circumstances the way was broken at first, and they may
even use ungratefully what they ought to feel lays them
under continual and most thankful obligation.
§ 16. Revelation belonging, then, in its activity to this
last-named circle of human capacities, it must have a his
torical basis. The same conclusion has already been reached
from very evident premises involving its mediation by human
language. But to discover this historical basis, to trace the

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 13
way in which revelation became a historical power and
arrived at its highest development, is far more difficult than
to trace back poetry and science to their source, because reve
lation goes back to the very earliest ages of the world. Indeed,
the period of the first origin of revelation presupposes other
periods and conditions of the human race as such, which
must have preceded. Who can to-day, or could in the
remotest antiquity known to us, definitely determine when
revelation arose and became a historical power? In the
scattered reminiscences of its oldest history every nation
knows something of presages and the power of divine oracles.
All antiquity known to us by literature, lived under the
influence of the feeling that mankind without the knowledge
of God and His word is inconceivable. It is of consequence,
therefore, that we inquire into periods and conditions of
human development which can now be recognised more par
ticularly by the few great indestructible results and products
of spiritual endeavour, and on the other hand by the ever
similar nature of every human and of the divine mind. The
inquiry may be difficult, but it is necessary, since for many
reasons it is urgently desirable to find the true beginning and
ultimate impelling force of a movement so incomparably
unique, in order then to follow it upon the perhaps long way
in which only everything historical becomes rightly productive
of result. 1. It must in the outset be noted that the human mind in
its very creation is imprisoned as in a darkness out of which
only by efforts and endeavour it raises itself. Imprisoned
in the sensuous body, stretching forth the senses as feelers, it
does not yet know, which alone distinguishes man from beast,
but in feeling it finds an obscure and easily misleading begin
ning and incitement to knowledge. Buried in the feeble,
limited individual body, essentially the same in all men, yet
exposed to the accidents that beset the individual, it is easily
excited and aroused, and must indeed be first instigated from
without in order to acquire more definite direction of its

14 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
activity, and to develop all its powers. Incited by impressions,
desires, and inclinations, it struggles with great force outwards,
, and cannot succeed to its own true satisfaction with proper
enjoyment and gain if it does not learn at the same time
constantly and calmly to gather itself up into itself with all
its different capacities and endeavours. So is it still with the
child ; so is it to some extent even with the full-grown and
highly cultured man ; so must it have been, only with an
incomparably more protracted unreadiness, yet even purer
susceptibility, with the man of primeval times.
Every more violent incitement from without must have
been to the primitive man an advantage, even a beneficence,
for it summoned from their depths the hidden capacities of
his mind and set them at work. But all the experiences
and incitements of the mind from without were the more
powerful and impressive, the more freshly and susceptibly man
stood face to face with the varied changing universe around
him, and the less he knew of the deeper laws of creation.
Every severely-felt bodily want, every newly-experienced
need of life, roused most powerfully his slumbering capacities
that it might be supplied ; but he would soon feel that he had
not with this supply attained everything he desired. The
misfortunes, defects, and terrors of human life, with difficulty
or not at all mastered, of which there are always enough, were
the more numerous and burdensome in primitive times, the
less man had learned either to conquer or to endure the ills
and perils of nature ; but only the more profoundly must he
be stirred to realize the limits and weakness of his position, as
well as to struggle in his soul for new means to obviate
such dark evils. Every unforeseen occurrence, whether
painful or pleasant, forced the mind out of its obscure
repose, and compelled it the more irresistibly to look out
beyond itself.
2. As soon as the human mind through such incitements
from without had become sufficiently active and awake, its
feelings more tender and plastic, and its whole youth raised

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 15
to a double youth of buoyant energy, there would be developed
within it two opposite activities which indeed distinguish it
from the first and in all ages, but would then be capable of
such specially youthful quickening. On the one side it
would begin to project itself upon the whole universe visible
and invisible, in order, as its impressions were felt, the
more surely and perfectly to take it into itself ; to picture
everything visible or conceivable as like itself, living, that is,
after its own nature, and to express the diversities of individual
things by the gradations of life itself. Human speech, the
ultimately fixed expression of human thought, is the standing
memorial of this tendency ; some of its ramifications retaining
indelible traces of it to this day. To the primitive mind
everything lived and moved even as itself, no matter how
unlike it might be to perception. On the other hand, over
against this tendency of the human spirit to measure every
thing in accordance with itself, was developed the wholly
other power of comparing all the infinitely manifold objects
of its knowledge, of thinking the actual or possible contrary of
everything that once became a distinct object of thought, in
order to perceive the first the more clearly by its counterpart,
the second, and by the "No" here to recognise the more
surely the " Yea " yonder. For as this latter power of the
human mind meets the former as equal with equal, or as the
necessary complement of it, man is competent to perceive the
one object just as vividly, and trace it just as accurately, as the
other, its direct opposite, and thereby to know both alter
nately with the greater precision and certainty: and this
apart from all subsequent development of individual human
languages has remained for mankind a fundamental law of
thought. In accordance with this law the primeval man, as soon as
he had recognised his own power as insufficient in all the
most important wants and needs of life, would perceive over
against it a wholly other power, the opposite of his own. as
standing over him ; and if he could conceive the contrary of

16 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
many things as merely possible without knowing or maintain
ing it to be anything more than a mere thought, here had he
at last found the truest of all and the most real, of whose
existence he could be just as certain as of his own, whose
higher life indeed he had borne in his own without knowing
it — God. He finds Him who is most deeply hidden in his
own spirit, and therefore hides Himself also most readily from
him, who nevertheless may ultimately be less and less dis
regarded and a thousand times ignored, stirs Himself at length
the more vigorously and irrepressibly ; and in Him alone he
finds actually the inexhaustible help and power he seeks, the
infinite Spirit in which alone his own spirit can attain rest
and peace.
But his whole thinking now moved with logical consistency
in the antithesis of the Divine and Human. Conscious of the
Divine as the higher spiritual power behind himself, he must
feel the same Spirit as just as certainly existent behind every
thing outside himself. Moreover, with equal certainty must
he feel that this Divine, standing behind all visible things, is
to no other creature so near as to himself ; and only with
this feeling and the knowledge developing itself out of it can
the circle of all these movements or thoughts of the human
spirit be perfectly rounded and complete, and the basis of a
creaturely life be won which is found in no other earthly
creature but man alone.1
It is only the way just indicated which from the first
beginning of his creation led man to God, and leads him
similarly to-day. The beginning of this way points us
indeed far beyond all definitely-known history into those
primitive times the nature of which we can only infer from
1 The correctness of this whole view is shown in that the oldest Semitic
tongues endeavour to give as strikingly as possible the distinction as well as the
mutual relation of the ideas, God and man ; r\\pa and t5>'i3tf correspond in
formation as correlates, but the former signifies "strength," the latter "weak
ness." Only the oldest Semitic tongue, and no other tongue but the Semitic,
has such correlates expressing this double idea : God, the strong ; Man, the
weak.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 17
the traces that remain. As the Bible from its very first
narrative presupposes the existence of God as known to men,
so there is no single human language, from the earliest
moment when we can historically follow it, which does not
possess, as long since given in it, a word for God. In this
the Bible coincides with the oldest portions of the Veda and
the Avesta which equal it in age, and with Egyptian literary
memorials which surpass it, going back as they do to the
third and fourth millenniums before Christ. That the Chinese
language has no word for God is only a mistake of some
missionaries ; its oldest expressions for this idea suffered, it is
true, a violent shock after the labours of Confucius, but this
statesman himself falls in an age corresponding somewhat to
that of a Kant among ourselves, or to our own modern German
period. Moreover, if a single existent language in a wholly
decayed tribe of the great island- world should actually possess
no word for God, as some missionaries assert, this would only
be one of the many proofs how deeply such a tribe had
declined from its earlier and better times. Rather may we
maintain with certainty that human speech, as without the
antithesis of God and man so without a word for God, is not
thinkable and never actually existent ; but just for this reason
we can ascend neither by language, the oldest memorial of all
human culture, nor by any other historical proof, higher than
to the above indicated beginning of the way in which the
thought of God occurred to man.
If, however, man felt thus, not only the complete insuf
ficiency of his own power, but also in the midst of this and
because of it felt the more certainly and clearly that there is
a power standing over him and everything human, and yet so
near and so akin to him, and among all creatures only to
him, it is readily understood how he learned to direct. his own
spirit to that spirit; how he accustomed himself in every
more vigorous excitation of his spirit to think the more
vigorously of Him ; how especially he sought to draw from
this higher power confronting him counsel and help in every
EWALD I. B

.18 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
deeper life-need and despondency. Thus, in the twilight and
dawn of his youth, man found the infinite spirit in whom
alone his own spirit has rest and peace.
3. This first knowing, however, this continual seeking
anew of the already known God, is not the goal of all activity
thus aroused in the human mind. To the importunate quest
of the human spirit every other object that confronts it, at
first inflexible and dumb, or dark and terrible, may, the more
it is vigorously and unweariedly contemplated, questioned,
scrutinized, and not suffered to rest, disclose itself, reveal
its meaning and its nature, and as if echoing back the right
words make reply. Just this is the intellectual point of
connection which unites the whole creation on the one side
and the special spirituality of man on the other, viz. that to
his questioning mind everything in creation may become
vocal, that nothing need remain to him without meaning, and
therefore without words and thoughts, but rather the more
vigorous and directly penetrating his question is, the more
loudly the right answer appears to sound back to him, and
only the word that echoes back as if irresistibly from the
object appears to be that which is elevated about his mere
questioning and thought ; and how animated this questioning
and answering could be right in the primitive times is clear
from what has already been said (p. 15). How then should
not He answer the earnestly perse veringly questioning spirit
of man — He of whose spirit man's is but a luminous reflection
and an enkindled spark, and to Whom in his searching and
questioning he can draw near quite otherwise than to the
visible things of creation ? If these answer him as he questions
and inquires with intelligence and urgency, there come indeed
words in which he hears something of the import and nature
of things, but nothing which corresponds to his own intellectual
elevation and glory or to his own nature ; in the other case,
however, are words given which not merely correspond to all
this, but at once infinitely transcend it, which once heard
benefit and delight him as his own clearer light and his own

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 19
purer power, the like of which he ever seeks anew in new
needs without any failure of the supply.
§ 17. And yet many sceptics of our day would be able to
object here that all this may well have been only a fancy of
men of whom the Bible or antiquity speaks, who supposed
that in this or a similar way they heard divine words, did
there not come to us from the other side something just as
certain which may serve for further confirmation, and is not
less spoken of in the Bible. He who, for instance, will not
deny all truth of things and all firm persistence, that is, all
law of the universe, must concede that, supporting and
sustaining all visible things, there are invisible forces which
stand over man and exist independently of him, and which
he can know perchance only gradually, yet with more and
more completeness. The Bible everywhere presupposes this,
and sums up all these separate forces in living comprehensive
ness under the higher name of the Spirit of God. Now if
man had not in himself a capacity to know such forces (and
we may designate this capacity of his briefly, according to the
Bible, as his spirit), he would never know them, still less
would he be. able as he does to employ and use them
consciously at his own pleasure. But contemplating and
investigating the visible things of the universe and their
different properties, he learns to distinguish the forces of the
things of creation ; ' affected by the characteristics and changes
of human history, and applying his mind to their examination
and scrutiny, he learns to distinguish the forces at work
therein. All this happens to him more or less perfectly;
hardly only in the outset does it happen, or even in further
usage and facility, .at all events not accidentally as if it might
have been altogether omitted, but as may be said briefly, accord
ing to the Bible, because God Himself as creator so wills it.
God's Spirit in this way, notwithstanding its infinitude, stoops
to man's when man's raises itself to it in the proper manner, so
that gradually and progressively he may know those infinite
and in this union at least eternal divine forces as they are in

20 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
truth. If, now, man uplifts his spirit in the right way to God
as to Him who stands over all creation and all history, and
in whose mind alone they find their harmony, the same
result may happen as in the previous case ; the Divine Spirit
may actually so stoop to man's and meet it in all its verity
that the words and thoughts which in this communion live
and move, and come forth to man in their own power, form
at once words of command for him, because here, as he feels
and knows, it is not the universe and history that interpret to
him portions of their phenomena, but it is the voice of his
own true Ruler and Lord that speaks to him. The Bible
often expressly says and everywhere indicates that God
continually waits, that with His Spirit he may meet that of
man even of the feeblest and most solitary ; it expresses,
however, essentially the same truth under the image of the
friend who is properly nearest to all men if also in himself
the most wondrous. Thus we see the possibility of the
working together of the divine and the human spirit,. and the
still further possibility also that the divine may overpower
the human, and even wholly absorb it into itself. That this
possibility if realized might shape itself in a hundred
directions with the greatest diversity lies in the nature of
everything human and historical. But a mere commencement
and of inconsiderable extent may bear imperishable fruit.
If the sceptic is unwise in denying God, just as unwise
should we be to deny all truth to such conceptions as Divine
Word or word of God, or to seek, to banish them from the
speech of " cultured " men. He who to-day denies God
occupies professedly a position which strict logic compels him
to take ; but he who supposes, as the Bible does, that the
denial of God is folly itself, will not be unwise in his
handling of these conceptions and terms. The concession
that the word of God in its highest and purest sense comes
to us not without human mediation, and therefore is limited,
as man is, in place and time, involves also the concession that
every living man is justified, and, if he desires to appropriate

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 21
it to himself, obligated carefully to mark in what way this
word is always true. But with the earliest and just on this
account least perfect beginnings of revelation something of
divine truth is mingled; and without such beginnings all
further progress would have been impossible. The deteriora
tion of an impulse and precedent given by divine determina
tion is in this case, as in similar cases in human history, a
later occurrence ; how this prevailed will presently be
discussed ; but here it concerns us rightly to recognise with
respect to revelation that which is original and results from
the pure divine necessity, and is not yet influenced by humaa
vanity and weakness.
To man in that primitive age what a moment it must have
been when, from that Being who, he felt, was at once the
mightiest and most mysterious, from whom he sought in his
anguish and need to elicit speech and response, counsel and
help, and who remained nevertheless so long before him in
silence and reserve, he for the first time distinguished a clear
word sounding toward him, a short sentence, it may be, but
of luminous import and beneficent effect! The thought of
hearing such a response in all clearness from above was now
changed to actual realization ; that Ego, whom he was
sensible of not simply as his own better Ego, but as standing
infinitely above his mere puny self, and whose clear decision
he had so deeply yearned to hear, now became vocal before
him with word and encouragement. When once he had thus
heard words which, as if from the mouth of the otherwise so
silent Deity, sounded suddenly towards him, laid hold upon
him wonderfully, delivered him from his unrest and helpless
ness, why should he not again in similar circumstances hope
for similar aid ? ^
§ 18. But this is not all. It was not really with his
sense of -hearing alone that man in his profoundest wrestling
for his whole life and existence sought to enter the immediate
presence of God as the Being he had once known as invisible
yet actually present ; for properly speaking it is ever the whole

22 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
man that stands face to face with God. Struggling therefore
with all the deepest faculties of his mind for the revelation of
the unseen God, it was possible that there should arise
actually before the eye of his spirit a living image of that
God whose gracious presence and help he so eagerly sought ;
that a luminous splendour should flash suddenly before his
vision, and God Himself appear to move vividly towards him.
In point of fact, the whole incident attains its higher living
reality and revelation, in the truest sense of remote antiquity
reaches its highest stage only in this vision of God. Here
also presents itself what appears to us to-day probably singular
and strange — the same phenomenon as in the previous case
of hearing a voice from God ; although it is true that many
things not yet clearly thought and known before press, in
certain moments, upon the mind as if in solid palpable form
before the sight, and every thought becomes quite clear to us
only as it occurs to the soul in bright intuitiveness, or what
is essentially the same thing, is illustrated by some kind of
sensuous image. To primeval man, therefore, in moments of
highest tension and excitement of mind, why should it not be
that in full living reality, and thence seen as with the bodily
eye, He should appear whom it was the deepest longing of all
the best part of antiquity to behold shining forth out of His
darkness, and whose livingness and reality are without doubt
ultimately and alone the highest ? Man desires not simply to
hear, but also to behold; and only that which is clearly
beheld is for him the most certain and memorable.1 And
because with all this there happens only what in its last
possibility God Himself as Creator wills, so the Bible often
speaks of God as not only opening the ear, but also in higher
vividness the eye of man,2 so that he may behold Him near,
and hear the word from Him in such clear personal
directness as never before. But however much this vision of
1 Job xiii. 4, 5.
2 2 Sam. vii. 27 ; Job xxxiii. 16 ; Ps. xl. 7, cf. with Isa. 1. 5. Num.
xxii. 31, cf. with Ps. cxix. 18. N. T. Scmxct^ivTiiv.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 23
God may be the highest revelation, nevertheless revelation
itself is concerned with the hearing of clear words, as even
the oldest representations of such rare historical moments
give us clearly to understand.1
The peculiarity, however, of everything that can be
regarded as the word of God given in revelation is that it
sounds forth simply from above, and strikes man as inevitable
command, or otherwise as a sure saying and self-evident truth.
God speaks to man as He must speak to him, being his self-
potent Lord and self-confident God ; and unmistakeably there
is a truth to which man must submit, and to which he cannot
too readily adapt himself. In this way undoubtedly in the
highest antiquity, but at first only here and there, the feeling
of man in his direct relation to God was developed ; and
happy the place where this childlike sentiment, this beginning
of all piety, was early developed with the greater firmness !
But as certainly as this sun- clear transparency, this confident
rock-like assurance, marks emphatically the phenomena of the
word of revelation, and the simple elevation of the whole
incident rests in it, so no genuine revelation can overstep the
limit prescribed for it in its very origin. Revelation must
necessarily be mediated by human language as man hears the
divine truth from above, and a man also may become the
feeble instrument for manifesting a lofty truth standing over
him and over all other men ; but it is just this becoming
manifest, yea the irresistible and violent pressing through of
the divine truth itself, which steps into history in this whole
transaction. And so far as it is only the peculiar force of the
truth itself, and above all of the divine truth, that breaks the
way for it, there cleaves to it always something of mysterious
obscurity which has no place in the truth itself; for the
hearer, however, and for the man by whom it is made known,
something of mystery remains. " The silent God becomes
vocal; His inner purpose, till then hidden to man, becomes
1 Gen. xvi. 14, cf. with 7-13. Num. xxii. 31-33; Job xiii. 2-6;
Jer. xxiii. 18.

24 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
manifest; His secret is discovered, and He discovers it to
whom He will ; "* these are the old expressions which describe
this incident on its inner side. That there are indeed good,
necessary and permanently valid reasons for these inner
characteristics of this whole event, but that these as certainly
do but mark and distinguish in revelation the phenomenon
of its first and earliest occurrence, which, because it is first
and earliest, is creatively most violent, will be further evident
as we proceed.
§ 19. But, at all events, here what may be rightly called
revelation is an accomplished fact ; a very short, perhaps, but
yet a full and clear word coming directly from God, revealing
to man in his perplexity and helplessness the mind and will of
God, and suddenly enlightening and irradiating his own spirit.
Earlier than at this stage it does not exist ; but here it is
certainly found. It is thus something historical, and yet
reaches away up to the remotest primitive times, as may also
be seen to-day from human language. For as the words for
the idea of God are conspicuous beyond all history more
definitely known to us, so all the names for what we designate
God's saying (Lat. oracular) belong to the oldest of all lingual
possessions we are acquainted with. The best proof of this is
that in the oldest languages there are words which give this
idea of divine oracle in all brevity, although the idea itself is
by no means so very simple, and must therefore have been
originally expressed with much more definiteness. But the
infinite frequency of the occurrence, as it obtained acceptance,
created ultimately, even in those primitive times, such abbre
viated expressions as served exclusively to designate it.2 How
correctly up to this point the origin of revelation has been
1 Amos iii. 7 ; Jer. xxiii. 18. "TJD indicates that which is in itself dark,
mysterious, then " secret counsel;" then by a new derivative 1D1J, to "advise
with any one secretly. "
2 As oraculum, xiym. If the Hebrew, on the other hand, just as little as the
German, has such words, this is explained by the early loss of the oldest expres
sions for these ideas, since in both a wholly new age began early when a, more
definite expression was requisite. The English "gospel" is nevertheless still
short enough.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 25
discussed in detail, the Bible shows us clearly enough in its
narratives of those remotest primitive times.
For according to these a very long time passes away before
men hear such a word from God as could in the sense of
antiquity be held as revelation. What God says to the dif
ferent creatures at their creation, according to the Book of
Origins, is only the eternal will of the Creator ; to man when
just created He speaks more definitely than to the rest of the
creatures,1 only because man stands nearer to Him spiritually
than they, and there never was a time when, according to his
natural endowments, man could not have understood the will
of the Creator. Similarly the later narrator,2 only in more
vivid representation, depicts the development of the peaceful
primitive age of man, so far as there was in it something
corresponding to the pure divine will. But according to the
same narrator, a revelation of God very deeply affecting men
in actual opposition to God occurs as early as the time of
Paradise ; 3 and going forth as it does out of the midst of the
confusion of human affairs in order to publish to man, surprised
and alarmed, the will of God, it gives in the transition to the
common history of the world the typical example of the
exigency and distress of life in which most revelations happen to
man. Since then, however, according to this and subsequent
narrators, revelation is never discontinued in human history.4
But in order to understand more completely the eager
search after revelation on the part of man, and the very
violent and stormy way in which it readily surprised him
(§ 40 ff.), it may not be overlooked here that everything
wanting to man, the urgent need of which he deeply feels, if
long missed, is at length sought and even demanded with the
more uneasiness and violence. To-day all the truths here in
question have been long since given, are universally recognised,
and are so little denied by sensible people, that, strictly speak
ing, our concern is rather about their proper application. Yet
1 Gen. i. 28-30. Cf. with ver. 22. 2 Gen. ii. 5-25.
3 Gen. iii. 4 Gen. iv. 6 ff., vi. 4 ff., and so on.

26 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
what a world was tha't upon which either not at all or scarcely
more than at a distance the light of truth had yet risen, which
gradually felt the urgent need of it in this darkness with ever
deeper pain, yearned for it more and more eagerly, but only
with such difficulty could win it ! And yet must man learn
to win this, as every other boon, by his own proper toil, and
upon the right way, or it remains to him something distant
and strange; but here the question concerned truths with
out which, as man felt his darkness, neither the indivi
dual nor society can attain a peaceful condition and find
happiness in work and repose. Where an oppressive want
prevails, the search for the means of removing it may be all
the more active, and the endeavour to remove it as far as
possible only may when once excited become the more uneasy
and violent ; whilst every truth much sought when it breaks
upon men with its first force may seize him with deeper grasp.
But here the question concerns not merely truths which most
powerfully touch and most deeply -move the spirit of man;
but the question is also and at last exclusively whether man
will or will not hold fast these truths when they are once
known. So that, since the whole incident as to its possibility
rests ultimately in the will of the Creator alone, all this
cannot be better expressed than by the word of God in the
mouth of the old prophet, " in their distress will they seek
me." 1 But as certainly as such words of the best old pro
phets suggest it, the whole incident of revelation in its most
original form, as more particularly described above, occurs as
part of the divine will and purpose.
§ 20. Revelation, therefore, is a spiritual incident in human
history. In its origin it goes back to the very dawn of human
history, yet it was possible only at a certain stage of that
history. Having once taken place, as with every other mental
activity, it may readily be repeated, and from inconsiderable
beginnings may be carried forward infinitely whether for good
1 Hos. v. 15; cf. Amos viii. 11 f.; Isa. xxx. 21, and indeed Christ's last
public word to Jerusalem, Matt, xxiii. 28 f.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 27
or ill. As an incident of mental experience it goes back to the
mystery of all origination of thought and clear views of things.
What man can command the desired appropriate thought
to arise at his caprice or summons ? Every truly new thought,
much more every clear view of things, although never so
eagerly sought, comes only as if uncalled, involuntarily sur
prising and overmastering man, falling as a spark in the
prepared tinder, and in an instant seizing and illuminating
the whole mind. But revelation is distinguished from all
other thoughts and intuitions, in that it flashes in upon the
mind of man the conviction how the will of God calls upon
him to act, or also who God Himself is who impels him to
act thus. If the light of any other thought as it rises upon
man may lay hold of his whole mind, such a thought as this
must seize it with incomparably deeper grasp, and influence it
more powerfully, because it strikes the whole spirit of man
as the voice of the Lord from above; and man, too, on his
part feels indeed when he can walk in such a light and word
of his God that now he stands and acts in living connection
with Him who alone can supplement his limited power, and
lead his steps aright.
Furthermore, it does not admit of doubt that as man has
been placed in creation from the beginning, divine thoughts
and truths could flash forth upon him, and he could learn to
follow them, only in this way. The whole question respecting
the necessity and truth of revelation resolves itself in the last
issue into a question concerning the existence and truth of
God Himself. He who does not acknowledge God in His full
verity and His distinctness from man, cannot believe in a
divine revelation ; but he who acknowledges Him can under
stand that the process described above is the only, true way
in which revelation can come to man. For if man really has
from the beginning by the will of the Creator the capacity to
know God and His will, this original revelation is yet only
as a tinder waiting for the spark which shall fall upon it and
kindle it ; the falling and kindling of the spark could only be

28 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
by the movement and activity above described. And just as
little does it. admit of doubt that the thought of God and His
will coming to man in this way as a wholly new force, over
mastering and yet brightly luminous, could be of striking
truth and correctness; otherwise it must be denied altogether
that man is so created that he can know what is true and do
what is right. But if up to the occurrence of this wholly
new and wonderful movement and activity man had found
his way in the world, even only in small matters ; if he had
learned to distinguish that which is beneficial from that which
is hurtful to him, that which fills him with unanticipated joy
and satisfaction from that which occasions gloom and sadness ;
then, supposing an enlightening thought occurred to his mind
and a clearly heard word was given from Him who alone is
the highest and purest thought, and therefore the truest and
most necessary, he could also find his way in the sphere of
divine truth thus opened to him. Truth is for man what he
has verified, what he knows with his best knowledge as corre
sponding in all its parts with actual fact, and, so far as it is
supersensuous, with the higher necessity; and if on this
account there is here a shorter there a longer way for man
until he in his doubt finds truth wholly, yet it is not a boon
denied to him from the beginning.
Moreover, it is for this reason not necessary that the
activity of revelation, as soon as it is aroused, should furnish
man forthwith with the whole fulness and highest purity of
truth concerning God and His will. Rather is it of immea
surable importance that it should begin among mankind at all,
and that with this beginning there should arise an impulse, a
task, a toil to attempt everything on the once-opened way, and,
as far as possible, to attain upon it what can be attempted,
and may perhaps at last be perfectly attained. Only in an
isolated and sporadic activity, as the pressure of life's need
occasioned, did originally all revelation arise ; and only from
a coincidence and higher harmony of many such single oracular
fragments could a higher whole of divine truths be formed.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 29
But if in a deeper need and perplexity of human affairs God had
once stepped forth perceptibly out of His darkness to the spirit
of man, if He had revealed Himself as if visible to the clearest
eye and audible to the most attentive ear, why now should
not man in new and ever more severe complications and
despondencies, yearn again and again for the same incident to
occur, and, as far as he could contribute to it, endeavour with
all his might to reproduce it in his experience ? Thus this
special activity of the human spirit could be exercised and
developed with unwearied sedulity, with growing experience
and wisdom, with larger aptitude and fruitfulness ; similarly,
notwithstanding all diversity, as the poetic, or artistic, or
scientific, or any other even more special activity of the
human mind may, from the smallest beginnings if only they
are sound, be raised to power and elevation by no means
measurable beforehand. Errors and serious mistakes, too,
possible upon this as upon every other not merely divine but
human path, might always be retrieved by retracing the steps
and starting anew in better form. And so could the darkness
and the alienation between man and God arising out of it, and
readily growing more and more mischievous, be fully and
happily cleared up and removed, as far as this was possible,
upon the way here opening itself.
2. The Fear of God, or Religion.
§ 21. As soon, however, as man, to whom such a revelation
has occurred, resolves to follow loyally the clear word of God
he has thus received, and actually lives in accordance with it,
there arises further the wholly new relation of man to God,
which we rightly designate, according to the Bible, the fear of
God or religion. It does not arise earlier than at this stage
of the development of man's spiritual being, but here it not
only can, but must arise as the true aim of revelation. For
why should the divine fire fill the human spirit with the light
of insight into the divine will, and with its own impelling

30 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
glow, unless for the purpose of constraining to action in
harmony with the clearly-heard word of God ? And it will
certainly lead the more irresistibly to such conduct the more
clearly it shines as a new light of the inner life, and the less,
where it arises, obduracy and numbness of spirit resist its
impulse and fervour. But he who attempts to follow the
divine, light of truth which has dawned upon the mind, will do
it because he is afraid of violating the clearly perceived will
of his God ; in point of fact, therefore, from fear of God as
his highest Lord, and fear of violating His word. The
importance of this biblical fear of God as an experience in
this case already of the highest and most comprehensive kind,
makes it necessary to consider it more particularly in all its
elements. 1. It is certaia that fear must actually move man if, not in
one single act only, but in the whole of his earthly life, the
will of God is to be obeyed. Fear is given to all creatures as
a means of self-preservation ; and in man it is not originally
the low and unworthy thing it may become through his guilt.
As an original power of the human mind, fear may be exalted
and ennobled by its object ; and here that object is the highest
and the holiest conceivable, God. As all dangers culminate
for man in this one, that of disobedience to the clearly-known
will of God,1 it is self-evident that fear directed in all purity
and vividness to its highest object, God and His will, so far
from being without value- for man, can never be sufficiently
watchful and strong. It is necessary to make this conspicu
ous, because our subject requires it, and the whole Bible, as
well the Old Testament as the New, takes this view.
Moreover, it is asked, is the fear of God, or in Latin garb,
religion, needful for the men of to-day as it was for those of
old times, after it has once historically developed itself, as it
has, to its high significance and importance ?
1 Christ expresses this very strikingly, Matt. x. 28 ; Isaiah, too, long before,
says essentially the same thing, with strong emphasis, viii. 11-13 ; and the
Deuteronomist enforces it, xiii. 5.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 31
Now it is certain that the fear man may have may be
incomparably greater and more alarming than mere animal
fear. In all his growing efforts and enterprises he feels him
self surrounded by infinite dangers ; his spirit, too, sensible to
all fear, readily, as we have seen, beholds God over against
itself, and face to face with Him is most profoundly sensible
of its own impotence, or even of its own guilt and sin, and
alarmed for the future. " God has so done it," says the Bible
itself, " that men should fear before Him;"1 and what limit
is there to this fear ? But we must remember that in fear, as
a capability of the power of the spirit of man, lies the possi
bility of the most beneficent and salutary as well as of the
most pernicious effects. By uniting all the rest of the capa
bilities of the human spirit upon one single aim, fear can give
the most wonderful power to man, not merely in avoiding
threatening ill, but also by virtue of the necessary antithesis
in seeking and attaining salvation. It is thence nearly akin
to the sacred power of conscience, as is evident from what has
already been said. But, on the other hand, imagination can
fill the mind with so many groundless fears that it may be
depressed and darkened thereby infinitely more than is possible
to beasts ; and indeed close by the side of fear is found the
blood-curdling of a boundless superstition. In this case,
should it be directed towards a person, not a thing, the feeling
of timid shrinking back, common to all fear, is turned into
terror and slavish dread, or becomes absolute estrangement
and hate.
The more closely and intimately true religion brought
together, as person and person, man and God, the more it
became conscious that in the long run not fear but love
formed the strongest bond of union, that, indeed, all darkness
and dread lying in mere fear must be dissolved in the higher
serenity and joy of unconstrained love. Nor does the New
Covenant first teach this ; Moses himself, as we know with
historical certainty, already placed the love of God higher than
1 Eccles. iii. 14.

32 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
mere fear, and expected from it the best observance of the
divine commands.1 In a different connection Christ repro
duced this truth ; 2 but His favourite disciple, John, at a time
when the love of God to man had at length manifested itself
most intimately and perfectly, set the requirement of love in
sharp distinctness, and added without hesitation, "perfect
love," where it rules, "casteth out fear."3 So that from its
first beginning to its lofty close the revelation of the true
religion requires of man rather love to God than fear of Him.
Yet not even John could maintain, in contradiction to all the
well-known expressions of the Old Testament, that the fear of
God is something superfluous, or even pernicious ; he seeks
only to remove from it all that may be obscure, gloomy, and
dull, with which he saw it so conspicuously overburdened at
that time amongst the Jews. So far as man must ever fear
to violate the clearly-known will of the Lord his God, fear
must ever remain ; yet love, in its pure and genuine sway,
counteracts all doubtful hesitation and active misgiving, and
fear returns, indeed, but now purified, transfigured, restraining
itself to its proper function.
It may be noted further, however, that the Bible nowhere
commends " fear " in a wide and general sense ; but it depicts
frequently enough the salutary effect of religious fear in man's
indurated or careless estrangement from God.4 Moreover, it
shows, less frequently perhaps, but not with less truth, how
the unanticipated experience of the divine help and near-
1 The historical memorial (Exod. xx. 6 ; Deut. v. 10) is secure against all doubt.
The Deuteronomist (vi. 5, x. 13, xi. 1) simply introduces afresh with new
emphasis what had already been given by Moses in the early time of the
community. 2 Matt. xxii. 37. "Fear not!" is a word Christ often and emphatically
utters (Matt. x. 26, 31, xiv. 27, xvii. 7, xxviii. 5, 10 ; Mark v. 36). And yet
He speaks also as in Mark x. 28.
3 1 John iv. 18. Here, however, the discourse is specially of the personal
relation of the Christian to God in prayer and desire. In his Gospel John uses
the word " fear," " to fear, " only where it is necessary ; so free is his relation to
the thought itself. And yet he would certainly not disapprove what Paul says
appropriately in 2 Cor. vii. 15 ; Phil. ii. 12.
4 Ps. lxxvi. 8-12 ; John i. 5-16 ; cf. Jer. iii. 8.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 33
ness,1 or the marked presence, in the person or character of
another, of the divine strength and power,2 may overpower or
overawe the spirit, but only so as. to replenish it possibly with
a fulness of divine thoughts, and give to it an impulse to higher
and holier life. To this end simply does the Bible touch upon
such moments in the lot of man. Nor is it to be overlooked
that what we should speak of as " reverence " is often called
" fear " in the simple language of the Bible, although in the
oldest Hebrew what is to be revered or venerated on account
of its high character is not unrecognised.3
§ 2 2. 2. But fear in itself, however necessary, is insufficient
as the first element of true religion. To stop with it and be
content with it, although its object be a mysterious Being
high above man and far from him, a God known but dimly or
in a mistaken and perverse way, this is not the biblical idea
of religion, it is rather the mark and characteristic of heathen
ism. The Bible regards it as of first importance what man
fears as the mysterious power above him, associates the know
ledge of God with all true fear of God, makes such fear pro
ceed from knowledge as the very beginning and necessary
condition of its existence.
Already it is apparent that strictly speaking the Bible has
no word for the idea under consideration, so short and indeed
so indeterminate as the Latin religio. Now religio is undoubt
edly more suitable than metus or timor, because it -does not
indicate fear or dread generally, but only fear of that which
lays a man under obligation, and thence is akin to " con
science;" and further, it expresses, what was peculiar to the
ancient Romans, the deeper awe before all mystery, and
especially before that which is divine and cannot be disre
garded with impunity. A similar word is scarcely found in
1 As related with such striking truth and from primitive times, Gen. xvi. 13,
xxviii. 16 f.
2 As in the case of Abraham, Gen. xx. 8 ; Moses, Ex. xxxiv. 29 f. ; Christ,
Mark iv. 41 ; Luke v. 8-10 ; and the first Christians, Acts ii. 43, v. 5, 11.
3 By &013 in the old song, Ex. xv. 11 ; later in the Pentateuch and elsewhere
repeated often with the greatest emphasis.
EWALD I. C

34 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
any other purely heathen language. The Greek has no such
short word with the same distinct idea. Islamism, too, leaves
so little to moral freedom and spontaneity that it calls religion
'( guidance." Notwithstanding, it is to be regretted that the
word religio has become naturalized in the languages of Chris
tian nations, for it does not express the relation of man to the
true God. As with the " true oracle," so with the " true
religion," no single word satisfactorily describes it, for it arose
in a historical time far back in the primitive ages. The
Hebrew expressed it by the phrase " fear of Jahveh," x not
Elohim ; the name that gives the most determinate idea of
the true God appearing most suitable. Later poets (chiefly
Job, and in the mouth of Eliphaz) employ, for the sake of
brevity, and in a connection where the sense cannot be doubt
ful, the single word " fear," to which Hebrew usage neverthe
less shrank from giving the general sense of religio.
The phrases " knowledge of Jahveh," 2 or more fully,
" knowledge and fear of Jahveh," 8 are also employed by the
prophets to indicate true religion ; calling needful attention to
the fact of the actual existence of such knowledge, since the
hope is that by its own vital power it will spontaneously
bring forth fruit. But what this knowledge is, whether scanty
or abundant, whether more or less clear and reliable, much
depends, according to biblical teaching, upon obedience in the
fear of God to what is known as God's will. Indeed, all true
religion essentially consists in continual and anxious attention
to all real knowledge of God's will, with a view to ordering
the life more perfectly and happily in conformity with it.
Abraham is the highest example of this in the Old Testament.4
Job thinks he possesses the sound knowledge of a long godly
life, yet it is not till his eye is opened to truths before unknown
in their completeness that he comes to do right in the fear of

1 LXX. facri/Sux. The phrase in Gen. xxxv. 5 is no exception, because it
signifies "divine alarm ; " and Gen. xx. 11 comes from an older usage of speech.
2 Hos. iv. 1 ; Jer. xxxi. 34 ; cf. Isa. liv. 13.
3 Isa. xi. 2 ; cf. Handbook, § 3396. * Gen. xxii. 1-18.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 35
God.1 The disciples of Christ are animated by this fear, but
its salutary effect becomes most conspicuous after their eyes
are opened to many an enigma whose burden before oppressed
them.2 Not only in these cases of rare elevation, but every
where in the Bible, it is seen that our knowledge of divine
things can never be sufficiently rich and clear and certain.
Moreover, whatever it is, it gives simply the rules and mea
sure of human conduct, and prepares the mind to act in
accordance therewith; the power to act comes with the
uplifting of the heart to God and the fear of His holy name.
§ 2 3. 3. In the midst of the earnest realities of life, fidelity
to the known will of God is preserved whether in the peaceful
flow of events or in never-failing dangers, only as the know
ledge already possessed is not suffered to lie idle or slumber
in inactivity. Here again the fear of God is the motive
power ; and even if fear is transfigured to the purest love,
that love itself will not forget that it must not violate God's
will and offend God Himself, and cannot but fear lest it
should, so that the fear of God ever remains the impulse
to right conduct. Furthermore, in the experience of life,
knowledge grows in certainty and clearness by means of
right action ; new complications and conflicts show, too,
the deficiencies of existing knowledge ; and if in these high
struggles the mind is to be intent and ready for new knowledge,
as well as kept from abandoning the certainty of that already
possessed, it must still, in the fear of God, and in childlike
docility, listen anew to His voice, and obey it in the same
fear, raised, it may be, to a higher and purer fervour. For
in the relation of man to God, as everything proceeds from
continual intentness and turning of the mind to Him, resting
upon the immutable and therefore calm and deep foundations
of the knowledge and fear of God, so everything must come
back to it, and thus the relation becomes vital and fruitful.
§ 24. But everything spiritual is mysterious, — spiritual life
1 Job xxxviii. 1-xlii. 6.
2 In Luke xxiv. 13-32 graphically and truly depicted.

36 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
and its action, mystery itself. Nowhere is this recognised
more strikingly, and with more universal validity, than in the
apothegm, " God's secret counsel," i.e. His word and His
counsel, above all, the possibility that He should, as friend to
friend, disclose His secret mind, " have they who fear Him." 1
The true and necessary fear of God will always carry in itself
something of mystery. The knowledge it presupposes springs
from the deepest and most mysterious impulse of human
experience and thought, >and extends to the loftiest points of
human conception and inquiry, and is never perfected, because
it touches all the ultimate questions concerning God, the
universe, and man. Yet the mystery is not in this know
ledge, for the knowledge proceeds from revelation, i.e. the
dispersion of the original dark mystery. Nor does it lie in
the fact that the fear of God primarily makes itself felt as
indispensable in the restless yearnings of the most troubled
periods of human history, and finds its origin and the days
of its mightiest progress in the deeper sources and incitements
of human effort ; 2 but rather in this, that it places the histo
rical man, independently of his will, in some living relation
to God, unites the deepest experiences and endeavours of
the individual man with the divine will, — valid for all men
and the whole universe, and so for him, — and thus touches
all the eternal secrets of the divine nature and of human
destiny. As the converse with God of the hidden thought
and endeavour of man, as a continuous reciprocal relation
between the individual' and his God, it is in vain and even
mischievous to seek with rude hand to disturb, or with violent
hand to strip off this living mystery.
But it is not on this account a mere sentiment, nor to be
derived from the obscure source of mere sentiment or disposi-
1 Ps. xxv. 14 ; very similarly Job xxix. 4 ; Prov. iii. 32; cf. Job xv. 3 • Jer.
xxiii. 18 ff. ; also already Amos iii. 7 ; cf. p. 24, note. The older parts of the
Book of Proverbs do not employ the word "11D in this sense ( Prov. xi. 13 xx 19
xv. 22, xxv. 9). ¦ ' ' '
2 Strikingly depicted in its first sources, Isa. xxx. 19-21 ; cf. Ex. vi. 29-xv. 21
according to old reminiscence ; Acts ii.-v., according to newer.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 37
tion, as if, like joy or pain or desire, it were a mood of mind
casually coming and going. From its peculiar knowledge, and
as a wholly special kind of fear, it is rather a special faculty
of the spirit, just as powerful as any other, within its own
province mightier than all others, and being unique in itself,
not to be replaced or interchanged. Its characteristic is this,
it knows a will which all spiritual beings, the most isolated
and the strongest as well as the feeblest, must equally follow ;
it is itself resolved to follow it, and by nothing in all the
universe can it be deterred from following it, because this
fear is so great and so unparalleled that it conquers every other.
Its activity, like that of all self-dependent energies, is seen in
the two directions which are historically possible ; it throws
off what is foreign to it, and appropriates what corresponds
to its own nature, and aids in accomplishing its ever greater
and more manifold tasks that reach away to the infinite. Its
victorious power of resistance is shown in the lives of many
biblical heroes, pre-eminently in Joseph's, with its brilliant
deed and luminous word, and Joseph was neither a patriarch
nor a prophet, but a man as others, a possible example for
even common men. Once exercised and proved in its defen
sive energy, this power grows wonderfully in its own creative
enterprise and endeavour. Where, indeed, in the Bible or
out of it, is any divine service for man, whether apparently
small or conspicuously great, accomplished without it ? or
where has it not been proved that human work is abiding
and useful in its issues only in proportion as it is done in the
fear of God ?
3. Reciprocal Influence of Religion and Revelation.
§ 25. One of the first splendid results of the more energetic
activity of the fear of God is its purifying and fostering
reaction upon revelation. Itself a consequence of the still
imperfect stirrings of revelation, no sooner does it develop its
peculiar power but it influences revelation, its ultimate result ;

38 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
so inseparably are both united by a higher law superior to
both. The reason is this: Revelation throws out to man brief
thoughts of God and sharply-imperative expressions concern
ing His will. In these thoughts and expressions, mixed up
with what is true and salutary, may be found that which is
only half-true and obscure, or even erroneous. This is possible,
because revelation occurs only through the co-operation of the
human and divine spirit, and the contents of revelation depend,
therefore, upon special momentary moods of mind in the
individual man. But if the possible imperfection of revelation
in the beginning is not to be avoided, it may be removed
when the fear of God for which it is destined appropriates
the contents of revelation and seeks to follow them as God's
will. For in this attempt the whole man must act, the new
knowledge which lies behind the contents of the revelation
must adjust itself with all earlier established knowledge, and
the final result must show whether the hoped-for salvation is
here found or not. Indeed, the more frequently, the more
eagerly and thoroughly the contents of revelation are tested,
the more certainly must appear how much therein is true and
salutary ; and thus the active fear of God will refine or verify,
or even discredit these contents. If now a revelation, coming
to the individual man as long since otherwise given or in
new and creative form, consisting of a single sentence, or of a
number of previously received analogous sentences, whether
it be clearer in its setting or only simply verifying itself, — if
such revelation on its part ultimately reacts upon the man by
virtue of such active fear of God, there begins an ever-repeat
ing circle of reciprocal influence which, as it repeats itself,
may immeasurably increase on the one hand the truth and
certainty of the manifold contents of revelation, on the other the
power and salvation of the fear of God. That is to say, revela
tion awakens active religious life, which in its turn verifies or
sifts revelation, and this again, with purified or authenticated
force, may replenish or quicken anew the practical religious life.

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 39
In fact, the Old Testament sets before us in the most
graphic way in the Book of Job how fruitful and conducive to
salvation this round of movement may become. Job enters
into a circle of divine truths and precepts long since revealed ;
his fear of God leads him to order his life uprightly in accord
ance with them; but in the subsequent high conflict of
experience this fear of God, never wholly lost, constantly
renewing itself in its unwearied activity, enables him to see,
as never before, some of the old revealed sentences in their
imperfection and obscurity ; others, on the contrary, in their
firm, rock-like unchangeableness and luminous clearness ; then
comes for him the time when, casting off the imperfect, at
length with growing courage he wins in the more perfect a
most wonderful new certainty of his whole spiritual life, and
becomes thereby rightly prepared to receive, in other and yet
higher conflicts, the light and salvation of a revelation incom
parably surpassing all he had previously known and believed.1
Just at the close of its whole contents the Bible shows us, in
its lucid history of the most powerful of the apostles, the same
round of influences. For it is nothing but the old inherited
fear of God itself, specially quickened in him, that leads Paul
to see aright the whole compass and range of the old revela
tions as well as the true nature and demands of the new ; and
hardly has he done this in all thoroughness and sincerity when
the new revelation throws back its incomparably higher light
upon his mind, and invests his old fear of God with an energy,
confidence, and joy wholly new and sufficiently potent to
transform his whole spiritual life.
In this way revelation, as soon as it arose in its first least
perfect beginnings, had in its own active movement and the
primary issue of it, the best means of developing and perfect
ing itself; and nowhere can be seen so clearly as here how in
antiquity it was certainly one of the many possible capacities
and exercises of the human mind. Poetry or science takes
1 Cf. the chief passage, Job xxvii. 3, and the incidental but not on that
account unimportant expression, xiii. 23, with the whole grand close, xiii.

40 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
its rise from its peculiar inner necessity, in the great develop
ment of humanity ; but once arisen, its special , contents and
artistic charm induce numberless subsequent attempts and
trials; in like manner, the activity and art of revelation, once
begun, its own products led it ever forward until it had
accomplished the utmost that was possible in antiquity. If a
wholly special elevation of the human mind was needed to call
forth revelation and make a way for it, yet the way, when
made, would itself, with its special art and facility, like the
charm of the poet's numbers, or the convincing method of
proof in science, allure to endless repetition. Moreover, new
needs form always the strongest incentive to the production of
new poems, or the pursuit of new scientific investigations when
the way lies open ; similarly, the living experience of the first
less perfect utterances and claims of revelation, i.e. the active
fear of God, impelled the mind powerfully forward, and made
it possible that revelation should rise to ever new and ever
higher efforts.
But — to continue this example — poetry, when it has once,'
become an art, connects itself with every subject of thought,
and may be reproduced everywhere and at all times as fresh
needs arise, and with fresh grace ; revelation, however, has a
very determinate content of thoughts and truths, viz. such as
concern the right relation between God and man, and the
duties this involves, if man is to follow the will of God.
That these thoughts and truths thus limited and defined
should admit of final completeness is at least fairly conceiv
able. For they do not touch the realm of all possible inquiry,
experience, and knowledge; and if they did, science itself,
which seeks to take possession of this realm wholly and fully,
may perhaps anticipate an end, when all its material shall be
exhausted, even if this exhaustion lies to-day at an invisible
distance from us ; but revelation has only a limited domain.
Moreover, these thoughts and truths thus circumscribed must
have sought their earliest possible perfecting, because they
are indispensable for progress in all higher human life and

REVELATION AND RELIGION. 41
endeavour. The inner possibility for the attainment of such
perfection is given in just this wonderful reciprocal action
between the fear of God once practically awakened, and its
unfathomably deep original impulse, revelation ; a reciprocal
action. so necessary, and once properly set in motion so un
ceasing, that it could not come to repose again until revelation
brought the last word of God to light which it could express,
and published the purest and highest will of the true God
which it could reveal and declare. But in point of fact this
reciprocal action, although the only true and inexhaustible
agency which could in this case lead to consummation, did not
suffice for the outward perfecting; whilst here, as everywhere
in historical human affairs, everything must equally coincide
from without and from within, if a true perfection is to be
attained. Rightly to apprehend this, we must consider further that
the contents of revelation are completed only when they give
what they should give as equally valid and equally perfected
for all men without exception. For the question is concern
ing truths that are not simply to serve for special aims of
life, and perhaps special men, but which shall have authority
for all men equally as the necessary ground of all human life
and effort ; truths which may establish the same salvation for
the most isolated man as for every other, in which all meet as
spiritually equal, and without which no bond of common
salvation and beneficent effort is possible,- uniting the whole of
humanity of all lands and all ages. However much of wealth
of enduring truth a revelation may contain, however many
portions of revelation of analogous contents may contribute to
form what is a noble whole, so long as these can appear as a
genuine ground for the active fear of God only to the indi
vidual, or can have authority as such ground only to a
limited circle of men, they do not afford what is here required.
For this, more particularly regarded, two things are requisite :
(1) that the contents of the revelation in all the subjects here
essential can be esteemed as actually complete, therefore that

42 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
no single, important, and necessary truth belonging to this
province is wanting; and (2) that, since everything depends
upon the use of revelation and upon life in conformity with
its type, it shall admit of equal and easy application for all
men without exception. Only where both these coincide can
we speak of a true perfecting of revelation. . If it is con
sidered, however, from what limited, scattered, and imperfect
beginnings all revelation proceeds, it will readily be felt that a
further and more difficult1 way was to be made if revelation
should be truly perfected. And yet, according to the testi
mony of the Bible and all historical experience continued till
to-day, such perfection has been attained; it must be ours
then to note here more exactly in what historical stages, upon
the basis of the reciprocal action between revelation and the
fear of God, the consummation has been won.

II.  THE STAGES OF REVELATION.
1. The Revelation of the Individual.
§ 26. As with everything resulting from a deeper struggle
of the spirit, so with the seeking and finding of revelation, it
is pre-eminently an affair of the individual man. Only the
individual felt originally in the exigency of life this urgent
need to hear the voice of his God : it was assuredly the
extremest struggle of prayer which alone seemed capable of
drawing forth such a voice, and which for many actually drew
it forth; but this prayer, when it comes from its earliest
impulse and with original force,, breaks forth from the pro
foundest depths of the soul.
But whether this or another cause be active, even in later
times, not at all rarely, we meet with a revelation an indi
vidual experiences of which he remains conscious subsequently,
and incidentally mentions as expressly received by himself.
We do not mean revelations arising artificially, and on this
1 /. e. ampler, and more difficult to make. — Te.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 43
account often obscure and erroneous, of which also mention is
made in the Bible ; nor indeed such revelations as are spoken
of by the patriarchs and other men of primitive times ; nor
those introduced by artistic poets, like the writer of the Book
of Job ;x although all these bear witness that in the concep
tion of the Bible all revelation is originally the affair of the
individual, and needs not the mediation of a prophet. But
when a poet, who nowhere gives himself out as a prophet, but
everywhere pours forth the deepest thoughts of his heart in
the simplest strains, speaks of a revelation happening to him ; 2
or when Paul, before he was an apostle at all, or even a
Christian, had experience purely for himself of a revelation
of whose wonderful, power the New Testament cannot say
enough :3 in such cases We readily understand how, according
to the Bible, the ear of the man who is most solitary, and
perhaps but little prepared beforehand, may stand open to the
divine voice.
Speaking generally, it is a matter of little consequence, as
against the contents of a truth of revelation itself, through
whom it is revealed. Paul tells his Philippians 4 that if in
anything they are of another mind than he, God will reveal to
them in His own time where the truth lies. That is to say,
Paul intimates that they may follow his instructions in full
confidence with the reservation that they may in time to come
receive from above a still better enlightenment; through
whom, he leaves undetermined, since nothing depends upon it.
An extremely striking narrative in the Old Testament shows
also that even a hired prophet like Balaam must in a particular
affair become a true prophet. Moreover, it is not necessary that
the content of a revelation be in itself something entirely new ;
only to the individual whom it surprises perhaps in a moment
of severest spiritual conflict is it so new and so 'transcendent
that in his innermost spirit he can exult greatly in having
received it directly from God. It was thus that the poet
1 Job iv. 12-17, xv. 8, xxxviii. -xiii. 6. 2 Ps. xl. 7, E. V. 6.
5 Gal. i. 15 f. ; Acts ix. 1-19, xxii. 5 ff., xxvi. 12 ff. * Phil. iii. 15.

44 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
exulted as he felt himself overpowered by an impression of the
divine truth that the outward offering was not indispensable,1
although one or another great prophet, without this poet being
aware of it, might have already expressed the same truth ; and
Paul, too, by one of the most potent of revelations, was
first convinced of a truth which hundreds of Christians had
fully accepted long before, though the greater part of his
own race obstinately rejected it as altogether impious and
profane. § 2 7. The peculiar energy with which each revelation may
be charged may here be very clearly recognised. Bringing to
the spirit of man suddenly from above a new thought, and
claiming for it as divine his whole will, it readily drives out
all other free thoughts, and fixes attention exclusively upon
this : at least such is the case when revelation is as pure and
energetic as is possible to it. If now the new thought comes
at a time when the strength of the individual as against all
other men is profoundly needed and urgently claimed, the
effect may be conspicuously great. The spirit of the indi
vidual can never be invested with mightier energy than when
one new thought wholly fills it, whose truth is known to be
firmly grounded in the divine mind, and which contains at the
same time God's special will for him ; the whole uncertainty
of changing timid thoughts, dividing and deadening the hearts
of men, vanishes before that one thought which alone is
certain, overpowering, and dominant. Should it relate not to
the soul's salvation of this individual or of the few standing
near to him, but to the eternal weal of the whole community
in which he lives, then, the more difficult it is to execute it,
the more powerfully will it impel him, if only he seeks to hold
it fast. But if the times when the individual feels, himself so
impelled are times of dissolution and universal decay, in which,
if he seeks to follow the divine call, too clearly and too surely
received, he has all men against him, then the divine energy
of revelation must make itself so tense in him, and so mightily
1 Ps. xl. 7 (6).

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 45
increase and renew its own power, that in the fragile human
instrument its extremest effort is sustained. And since every
new thought touching the deepest mysteries of which we here
speak may not necessarily first flash up in its fullest clearness
and certainty only in one man, but assuredly only by the firm,
constrained, and concentrated power of the spirit of one man
can be successfully carried out ; we see that the energy of
revelation in the individual, and in the individual only, can
accomplish the highest task which is possible upon a deter
minate stage of the general development of the spirit of man.
In Moses, as in Christ absolutely, though in a wholly different
form, the power of revelation was active as the concentrated
energy of the individual ; the time in which each arose was a
time of general dissolution, and from first to last neither the
one nor the other was simply and only a prophet in the
customary sense of the term.
But as the revelation of the individual can thus accomplish
the highest possible task, and includes in itself that which
is earliest and latest in the course of this whole development,
so also may it most readily degenerate, as indeed in human
affairs everything may, which does not rest upon the common
practice of the many, but upon the exceptional capacities and
special efforts of the few. The individual man who,' possessed
by a thought that elevates him wonderfully, fights single-
handed against a whole world, breaks up with high victorious
power old and pernicious corruption, and effectually lays the"
foundation of a new and better condition of things, we may
designate, in the ancient sense of the term, a hero, and the
special spirit which must be pre-eminently active in revelation
(§ 16-18), the heroic spirit. But every spirit that uplifts
itself mightily in the world by work among men and becomes
victorious, finds its human imitators ; even Moses had his, in
the centuries immediately succeeding, when the growing dis
organization of the community he founded called forth anew
with extraordinary power the energy and efforts of the indi
vidual. The spirit of Jahveh came upon this or that valiant

46 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
hero of these centuries j1 or, as is well said, it " sprang upon
him,"2 since every new spiritual movement comes with a bound,
especially where it surprises men most with its wonderful
force, and hurries them along irresistibly ; or even more
strongly it is said, it "clothed him,"3 as if one could see by
the whole external aspect of the hero how the new spirit
which had seized him from within maintained itself perma
nently in his whole appearance, adorning him resplendently, or
being, so to speak, suffused around him like the splendour of a
new robe. These are the brief phrases by which posterity
sought to preserve the remembrance of the heroic spirit in
such men; and memorable heroes as they were in the best
sense of the word in the judgment of posterity, that there
actually came upon them something of the heroic spirit of
Moses, is not in the least to be doubted. If Moses, once
seized by the genuine spirit of revelation, worked on uniformly
through his whole life under its influence, this was not the
case with these successors of his, who in other respects
resembled him. Revelation may indeed at first very dis
tinctly enlighten and uphold the individual man, so long at
least as he suffers himself to be seized and sustained solely by
its energy ; but just because he stands alone, his moods and
resolves are prone to change ; and if by the utmost strain of
the energy of the heroic spirit then aroused the one thing
which first urged him forward is attained, there comes back
upon him, because he is alone, increasing lassitude, or perhaps
a carelessness unknown before, and culpable infirmity. In
addition to this, the individual just as such supposes he has
no need always and perfectly to maintain his standing on the
same elevation of life as the great predecessor he imitates.
And history teaches that, in the course of those centuries, not
1 As Judg. iii. 10, xi. 29, cf. iii. 15, and many similar passages.
2 This is the signification of r6tf, Judg. xiv. 6, 19, xv. 14 ; 1 Sam. x. 6, 10,
xvi. 16, xviii. 10 ; since it is related to T>Di p3T ; but n?X, " to be fit," is wholly
different. 3 Judg. vi. 34 ; otherwise employed, 1 Chron. xii. 18 ; 2 Chron. xxiv. 20.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 47
one of the heroes of the Spirit, nobly as they struggled at
times, and unlike as they were to each other, ever became
equal to Moses. The transition from the highest and mightiest
of its kind to the deepest degeneracy is easy ; it is only a very
gradual process, it is true, but in the example of Samson it is
already seen to be complete.1
2. The Revelation of tlie Prophets.
§ 28. Above the initial stage of revelation, which, although
it is essential in itself, is exposed to all human alternations,
there arises another, not the highest, yet conditioning the
necessary progress to every higher. This is the revelation of
the prophets. Here is presupposed a distinct Deity, with His\
peculiar characteristics, whose revelation is already the means
of salvation to many, and whose word is sought through the
mediation of one who is capable of eliciting it. The firstj
simplicity and immediateness of the search for revelation and
the experience of it now cease, and it will be shown as we
proceed how readily also in this case, as in every case of com
plicated relations, the first purity might more and more
disappear. But nevertheless a great step forward was here
possible, and, moreover, the only step which could now be
taken. For this species of revelation must, before all things, raise
itself above the mere accidents of the revelation of the indi
vidual, which, as we have seen, is capable of accomplishing
the highest tasks, yet may also too easily sink down lowest of
all. The man who is here the instrument of revelation must \
in his inquiry direct his mind to a definite Deity, acknow
ledged not merely by himself, but also by others ; and only
what is in conformity with the nature of Him whom already
others know and fear can he hear and announce as the right

&*

1 The phrase "the Spirit of God began to pierce him," Judg. xiii. 25, indi
cates sarcastically how little this Spirit was supposed to dwell in him peacefully
and uniformly.

48 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
word of revelation.1 Not what the prophet, as the casual
individual man, knows and counsels, but Only the knowledge
and counsel of the Deity standing as well over the prophet as
over the person for whom he acts, does this latter seek to learn ;
it is held then as a supreme law that the prophet shall not
speak that which pleases himself, but only that which pleases
his God ; and what a significance this principle may have as
soon as it is vivified in the light of the fear of God ! For
the revelations sought for others, though in the highest degree
different in occasion and character, yet proceeding from the
same well-known Deity, a like spirit must penetrate them all.
Thus in the outset is given, besides elevation above the caprice
and arbitrariness of the individual, besides consistency and
higher uniformity, the possibility also of a more and more
refined practice and culture of revelation.
Moreover, to the men who seek it, revelation may also become
in this case more perfect. He who speaks for others must be
able to elevate his mind freely above itself; how much more
must he do this who desires to be capable of communicating to
others the clear divine sentences and words he has heard, and
to communicate them as clearly as he has heard them, and
penetrated with the same fear of God with which he himself
would execute them. The certainty and distinctness of all
knowledge grow when there is the capability to impart it to
another with the like certainty and distinctness, especially of
knowledge which enters into the world with new and creative
force, and is to serve at the same time as another's rule of
action. But here are sentences whose contents are to impel
him who hears them as divine to carry them out in the fear of
God ; he therefore who will communicate to others, that they
may act in conformity with it, a word of God he thinks he has
received, must communicate it to them in such a way that he
does not fail to awaken with respect to its observance the same
fear of God with which he himself would carry it out.
1 Num. xxii. -xxiv. ; Jer. xxiii. 16, 21, 32 ; Ezek. xiii. 2 ff. Cf. Jahrb. der
Bibl. Wies, ix. p. 15 ff.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 49
But still another thing is to be added which, especially in its
consequences, is very important. For in verifying all that may
be held as the word of God, it is of service that not merely the
individual can follow it, but every one who is in like position
as to the knowledge or also as to the practical need of it. And
this general validity of a truth of religion grows the more he
in whom the light of a revelation shines can secure the com
munication of it in the same divine light to as many others
as possible, or can induce them to act as far as may be in
accordance with it. For the highest result here attainable is
that revelation, taken as a mere capability, should, though not
all at once, yet progressively in successive stages, more and
more publish such truths as may be of universal validity and
thence of eternal duration, — such as are calculated to promote
the soul's salvation of all men without exception. Moreover, it
is a great step if, beyond the individual man in whom it first
strongly moves, it even attempts only to work upon others, and
to accustom them to its voice and the importance of it. All
the energy which dwells in revelation, and which, as we have
seen (§ 27), is so intrinsically great, must thus be doubled, and
can grow from stage to stage still higher. For this reason it is
the oracle that first lays the foundation of what in human
affairs the farther they are developed is the more indispensable,
viz. a community of men, growing ever larger and more com
pact, and based upon similarity of spirit and of spiritual
endeavours. At first this would naturally be attended with uncertainty.
The impulse of revelation must have moved powerfully in
individuals until some one of them was emboldened, in answer
to the request of another or several others, to draw forth for
them also in their need a voice of God ; but how much would
be requisite besides to give to such a mediator an enduring
confidence among others ! And yet this higher cultivation of
what belongs to the essential nature of revelation must already
have taken place in prehistoric times, since the words for the
idea of the prophet or foreteller go back in all languages to
EWALD I. D

50 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
those primitive times which we can only approximately esti
mate aright by their abiding results. Only the first movements
of poetry are to all appearance earlier, for the oldest portions
of revelation known to us always flow in the same lofty speech
that befits the higher excitement of the human mind and the
impulse to illustrate it by a corresponding elevation of dis
course.1 As this tendency of revelation became more com
pletely developed and strengthened there grew up, without
doubt, a peculiar language as the constant uniform vehicle of
all divine words or oracles, the language which, varying
according to its special subject, elevates itself to the sweep of
the poet's lines. Through such an utterance there sounds
conspicuously the sublime ego of the Deity in whose spirit the
human voice of the prophet spoke ; and this short but mighty
word, with the corresponding elevation of all the thoughts and
words that found expression, was the characteristic mark of
the divine discourse.2 What at first involuntarily, simply
from the inner pressure of the man as he struggled for a
divine word, resounded towards him in surprising tones, might,
if the oracle became farther developed, easily become a mere
standing custom of prophetic speech ; but it served at all events
to maintain for a long time the universal mysterious style of
this high discourse.
§ 29. That among the people of Israel prophets were
sought out in the most ancient times, and that Moses was
not chronologically the first of them, admits of no doubt.3
What Moses was is clear enough. He was the greatest
prophet, not merely of Israel, but of all antiquity, and his
life-work having essentially a prophetic character, yet at the
1 What is said in the Proph. des Alt. Bundes, i. p. 51 f. with respect to
Hebrew, applies just as well to the oldest prophet-like pieces of the Egyptians
and Greeks and other old nations, and is repeated in the Koran.
2 As may be seen now very clearly in the sacred speech of the Egyptian hiero
glyphics. 3 Hos. xii. 13, Moses is called quite indefinitely a prophet, as if he were only
one of the many prophets mentioned in ver. 10. The meaning is, one who was
a mere prophet once sufficed to lead Israel so nobly. That there were prophets
in pre-Mosaic times, Gen. xx. 7, xxv. 22 clearly express.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 51
same time transcends it as a new creation. After he became
the founder of a community of the true religion in which
everything spiritual, and so the working of the prophetic
spirit, took its true course and aim, and with this for the first
time obtained its full freedom, all prophecy, as was possible
in antiquity, became more and more transformed in freer and
higher exercise. The prophet of the true God did not merely
wait for those who sought him out and wished through him to
hear the voice and receive the counsel of God. Moses did
not wait thus, but rather, as the spokesman and servant of God,
worked freely in relation to all men, and his word became
the freest expositor and defender of the mind and being of
God to the world. Accordingly each member of this
community has the unimpeachable right to step forth as a
prophet of the true God, and attempt what may be possible
to him as such ; and while it was admitted that there can
never be too many genuine prophets in Israel, it was held to
be Israel's peculiar glory that it had had an abundance of them
from the earliest times.1 If, now, the highest freedom which
prophetic action could win for itself in antiquity was thus
.given, this freedom had yet its proper limits, since the prophet,
standing in this great compact community of the true God, and
conscious that his freedom was preserved only through its
continuance, was under restraint to the main characteristics
and unalterable laws of the true religion, which had authorita
tive sway only in that community. The co-operation of these
two apparently opposite yet mutually necessary powers that
conditioned and ennobled everything, viz. freedom and its
proper limitation, must have become most active and fruitful
after the time of David and Solomon, when the very existence
of this community of the true religion was imperilled as it had
never been before. It is from the prophets of these centuries,
whose works, moreover, have been most completely preserved,
i Cf. Hos. xii. 10 and the proverb explained in the Lehrbuch, etc., p. 680 ;
but also all we know of the schools of the prophets (Hist. ii. 59'9 f. ). Such
extremely free prophetic schools, with the freedom of prophecy itself, we find
nowhere else in antiquity.

"52 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
that we shall show upon what a new and elevated stage
revelation can be placed by the labours of prophets, if only
they truly strive after and more and more perfectly accomplish
what lies in their destiny. And collating with care all that
is known to us from authentic and trustworthy sources, we
can sketch so clear a picture of the actual work of the men
of the Divine Spirit, that we may in brief refer its five principal
features to the five principal but different names by which
the old language designates the genuine prophet in the mani
foldness of his vocation.
1. Nothing is more noteworthy, in the outset, than that
everything attests how vigorous the reciprocal action between
genuine religion and revelation was among the prophets. This
fear of God, according to the fundamental law of the com
munity of the Old Covenant, was to animate every member of
it, and must constantly dwell in the prophet in the most active
and the purest form ; this is regarded as so very self-evident
that only one of the latest prophets, at a time when it was of
moment once more to reawaken in Israel the undiminished
ardour and the thorough integrity of the old lofty prophets,
designedly places before our eyes 1 a vivid ideal description of
it to arouse emulation where he could, and first of all to
stimulate and admonish his own spirit. It is the most
animating and inspiring description possible, and might be
applicable equally to every member of the community of the
genuine fear of God, did not one see that pre-eminently and
necessarily the prophet himself is meant. The older prophets
did not deem it essential to draw such ideal pictures of the
life and aims of the genuine prophet, but so much the more
clearly in the case of every one of them does his own actual
life speak, as all the strictly historical traces show.2 Of Amos,
1 Isa. 1. 4-9 ; a universal application actually follows, ver. 10. The better life
of the godly is sketched, 1. 10, cf. xli. 5, lix. 19. The great Unnamed repeats
in all his discourses his great word, "Fear not !" (similarly to Christ), but still
in the proper place lays stress upon the right fear, so confirming our previous
remarks, p. 29 f.
2 Such traces are given in the Proph. du AU. Bundes, and in the History.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 53
Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, enough is known to-day to enable us
to say this.
There is one conception especially, taken from the wide
circle of such a God-fearing life, which admits of a primary
reference to the prophets ; viz. that of a " disciple " or pupil,1
as employed by the same later prophet. As the good disciple
must constantly turn the eye and the ear most intently to his
master, eager to catch even the smallest hint or the faintest
word, and when once convinced what his will is, must be
ready to carry it out with the purest devotion and solicitude ;
so the prophet is to act in the presence of his invisible and
eternal Lord. And if men commonly learn only of men, yet
however it is to be desired that they act as confidently, as
discreetly, as joyfully as if God Himself had taught them ; so
the prophets are to be taught constantly and immediately of
God, as the hope is all men will be some day in the consum
mation of things, according to the same later prophet.2 But
if this habit of mind is to endure and to be ever the same in
the life of the true, ideal prophet, he must, on the other hand,
even if it were in a moment of rare emotion of mind, have
previously known the true God, vividly and profoundly, in His
whole truth and glory, as never before; he must have
trembled before the divine holiness, and been touched im
pressively by the Divine Spirit, and received new and
wondrous strengthening; he must have heard a clear call
from God as from his immortal Lord; or he may deceive
himself from the first as to his entering upon the career
and doing the work of a prophet. Such a solitary
moment of divine consecration has with genuine prophets
a powerful influence upon the whole subsequent life,
and some of the greatest of them, upon a retrospect of
their protracted and changeful labours, seek to depict the
rare sublimity and power of such a first memorable beginning
1 Isa. I. 4. [The word in this passage is translated "apostel" in Ewald's
Proph., etc.— Tk.] ,
3 Isa. liv. 13, cf. Jer. xxxiv. 34 ff.

54 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
of all their divine 'work with a corresponding elevation of
thought.1 But in everything that is properly designated revelation, the
human spirit has a wholly peculiar mood and energy, and in
such moments may feel itself absorbed into the divine, so that
the Divine Spirit alone is active within it. Moreover, it may
be surmised that where revelation struggles to communicate
itself, another spirit stirs in man than that which commonly
animates him. It is thus explained how the prophet may be
called " the man of the spirit," 2 or, as we should say, " the
inspired man." Nor is it surprising that afterwards, when the
prophetic spirit had for many centuries produced the most
extraordinary results and authenticated itself in imperishable
deeds, it should at last be conceived and described as itself a
distinct mysterious power. That the Spirit of Jahveh laid
hold upon a man with overmastering force is an old way of
speaking ; towards the eighth and seventh centuries before
Christ some writers venture in higher discourse and narrative
to speak of " the Spirit " without any additional phrase, when
they mean properly the mighty power the prophetic spirit had
in those centuries long since gained. And the fact that this
term by itself may indicate even the seductive charm of the
misguided prophetic spirit, shows how prevalent this way of
speaking became.3 Commonly, however, it is only the
wonderful, mysterious influence of the prophetic rapture itself
which is thus designated, especially in the peculiarly new
phraseology of Ezekiel.4
Although the prophet could thus be called " the man of the
1 Isa. vi. ; Jer. i. ; Ezek. i.-iii.
' Hos. ix. 7, but only interchangeably with the name for prophet in the other
member of the verse ; and this shows that it had not yet passed over into
common speech. But even in Paul this name is by no means frequent.
3 In the singular narrative, 1 Kings xxii. 21-23 ; in its mode of expression it
stands almost alone in the Bible, and suggests an author whose style is not
otherwise known.
4 Nevertheless Ezekiel speaks in narration only indefinitely of a spirit which
has penetrated him, strengthened him, carried him to this place or that, ii. 2
iii. 12, 24, viii. 3, xliii. 5, cf. with the contrary xi. 5, and the similar case
1 Chron. xii. 18.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 55
Spirit," yet this name was not so frequently employed in those
older times as might be supposed from later conceptions of
what is " inspired." For in those days the healthy conception
of the Divine Spirit, revealing itself manifoldly elsewhere than
in the prophets, was still fresh and powerful. And another
right feeling of high antiquity declared that in addition to
inspiration as the commencement and the general basis of the
prophetic activity, still other properties and powers must be
found, before a prophet steps forth who really deserves the
name. For
§ 30. 2. there is a very striking representation that every
genuine prophet in his public appearance and work was to be
a "messenger" of the true God sent to men. As a great
lord cannot himself do everything the wellbeing of his house
or kingdom demands, but instead of himself sends everywhere,
where it seems good to him, one of his confidential servants 1
armed with his commands and his authority ; so the prophet is
nowhere to prosecute his own affairs, but only the business
which God appoints in His kingdom. The figure of messenger
with the word itself is taken from the administration of the
great kingdoms of ancient time, and it is finally appropriate so
far as it represents the world of humanity as the great distant
realm to which God is always devoting His special care.
According to primitive conception the prophet might also be
held as pre-eminently " the servant of God," serving Him out
of love and loyalty, and as a loyal servant sustained and aided
by His protection ; that is to say, not as a bond-slave, but as
a free house-servant or client of his Lord, whose confidence he
possesses, and whose will he executes. With the great
Unnamed especially these are favourite images, by which he
presents the ideal not merely of the prophet, but of every
member of the community of the true God, and so ultimately
J Cf. concerning the signification of this "imperial messenger" in the
old empires, Hist. iii. p. 641 f. Their name, 7]&OD, received ultimately in
jEthiopic (like our " statthalter " or rather "proconsul") the sense of a foreign
ruler (Dillmann's Christ. Mth. p. 124, st. 73).

56 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
of all Israel as one man.1 In the case of the prophet,
however, the ideal is to have its primary and distinctest
realization. But the prophet receives his special divine call for a wholly
special situation and period of human affairs ; and serious
complications and dangers threatening the whole nation and
kingdom leave to the spirit of a truly great prophet no rest until
of destinies so dark he obtains the divine solution. If, how
ever, the condition of one out of many human kingdoms,
and particularly of one suffering from grave defects, cannot be
thoroughly estimated without an exact and comprehensive
survey of all the rest, the prophet must be lifted up to such
a high point of observation as will enable him at one glance
clearly to grasp the entire position of all human affairs as
before God. It is this calm and elevated, yet keen and
watchful survey of things in their temporal variation and
eternal similarity which from the first distinguishes every
genuine prophet, and which he must constantly maintain ;
as, indeed, the ancient prophet Amos begins his prophecy
concerning the kingdom of Israel with such a glance at sur
rounding kingdoms.2 And as from this pure divine height
all the different classes and families of his own people are
alike comprehended in his view, so in the wider survey over
all nations his own nation does not appear as a favourite
whose profound defects he must not see and condemn. But
if the prophet, in intelligent retrospect of the past, has obtained
this wide sweep of vision over all human affairs of his time,
it is not for him, with precipitate judgment and confused
onward look into the future, to speak of anything that has
perhaps moved and agitated him most profoundly. As a
" watchman " of the night, continually alert but cautious,
1 Isa. xiii. 1-4, xliv. 26 ff., with the passage previously explained, 1. 4-9. It
is as if Haggai, i. 13, formed the name "messenger of Jahveh "for prophet, accord
ing to the then new expression, Isa. xliv. 26 ; it was imitated only in higher
discourse, as Mai. iii. 1, but never became prevalent in common speech.
2 Amos i. 2— il. 16. No great prophetic writing, however, lacked such a sur-
' vey, as I have long since shown.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 57
marks every sound, even the faintest, and listens to every cry
for help,1 or as the " outlooker " at hot high noon peers forth
from the lofty watch-tower far and wide to descry the distant
approach of thunder-storms or foes,2 so is he to remain in calm
persistent watching, till at the favourable moment he discerns
in the Divine Spirit what he must announce and hears the
divine word he must repeat.3 But, standing as he does upon
his high watch-tower above the din of the world, especially is
he to look stedfastly to heaven itself to mark betimes and
distinctly the signs and the soft or louder voices that , come
from thence.4 Such conceptions of the higher, duty of every
prophet were formed with increasing facility and growing
completeness, so that, at least in the higher speech, the pro
phet is already characterized briefly as the " outlooker " or
" scout." Yet such a name could not as yet be his common
name, because everything hitherto described relates rather to
the preliminary conditions under which a genuine prophet
could arise and enter upon his work.
§ 3 1. 3. The function of the prophet peculiar to him, expected
of him, and without which his further activity is impossible,
is that in the complication and darkness of human affairs he
should behold distinctly their necessary divine issue, and
things which no mortal eye has seen as yet, he should see
already close at hand and in all certainty. Now it must be
noted here that there is a possibility of foresight in human
affairs, because these affairs, however endlessly diversified and
varied, however complicated and confused by the intermingling
of human guilt, yet ultimately, both in the great whole and in
1 In the old prophet, Isa. xxi. 11 f.
2 The image of the sultry noon, Isa. xviii. 4-6, but there not immediately of
the prophet ; the image cf the outlook is a very favourite one from Mic. vii. 4, 7,
and Isa. lvi. 10 ; see Jer. vi. 17 ; Ezek. iii. 17, xxxiii. 2-7 ; of. also Hab. ii. 1 ff.
3 Thy "outlooker," i.e. thy prophet, Isa. Iii. 8, indicating briefly and specially
the watchful foresight of the genuine prophet. The figure of the shepherd is
Tarely used, because the idea of rule is connected with it (see Proph. i. p. 24) ; in
Zech. xi. 4ff. the reference is to the kingdom of the ten tribes, where the prophet
might be actually held as co-ruler with the king.
* Hab. ii. 1 ; Isa. xxi. 6-10.

58 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
the minutest detail, have their possibility, their limits, their
course, and their issue only in God Himself and His powers.
Is there then in all human affairs connection and progress,
and limit also, and an issue that differs according to the dis
turbance of human guilt, there is also for the human mind
that moves in the midst of this flow of events the possibility,
not merely of some foresight of their development and calcula
tion of their issue, but also of an accurate foresight, if only
that mind does not remain at a distance from the divine mind,
and does riot assume in such foresight more than is admissible,
considering its conditions in this sensuous body. A capability
of accurate foresight may therefore be spoken of as, amongst
a thousand others, possible to the human mind ; but at once
it is evident how different it may be in degree as the individual
(1) more or less is versed and watchful in human affairs in
whose current he has placed himself, surveys with clearness
the experiences and teaching of the past, knows with exactness
the relations of the present, and is fully accustomed to draw
from the one and the other conclusions with respect to the
future ; (2) more or less allows himself to be possessed purely
by the Divine Spirit, and permanently led by it, so that he is
not himself beclouded and enfeebled by obscuration through
human guilt ; and (3) more or less is from the first of energetic
temper, — for this last weight is also to be laid in the scale.
And then it follows that the foresight of the human mind,
especially capable in the proportion that these qualifications
exist, is in so far limited that it can only foresee (1) what, from
the divine teaching of all history already experienced, and from
certain insight into the actual affairs of the present, presents
itself to the human spirit as it is quickened by the divine ;
and at the same time, which is just as important, (2) what is
directly perceptible by certain inference from the smaller to
the greater with which it is essentially related. Everything
that goes beyond these safe limits may indeed be a more or
less striking conjecture or guess, or may result from the noblest
and purest effort of the mind to penetrate the darkness of the

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 59
future, and to measure the temporal progress of the develop
ment of human affairs ; but of more precise significance and
of decisive truth it cannot be.
For many reasons it is well to bear in mind these limits
of all prophecy so far as the foresight of things future is con
cerned. But What indispensable value, what wealth of know
ledge, of admonition, of consolation belongs to prophecy when
it is perfected in its own sphere, full of energy in itself, and
rich in blessing from without ! A good capacity of foresight
in the small things of daily life is always useful ; and the
more extensive and complicated human affairs become, the
more necessary is such a gift ; but where can this necessity
be greater than in the important affairs of whole nations and
kingdoms of the earth ? And it is just these which absorb
the attention of the true prophet.1 But prophetic foresight
has in it something more than mere foresight : it starts from
the divine certainty of the development of human affairs in
conformity with their origin and continuous impulse, and it
shows how the divine will, standing in its inviolability high
above them, guides them ever and only in consistency with
itself and to its own ultimate aim. It is this calm penetrating
glance toward lofty heights and most difficult complications
of human affairs, this clear retrospect into the distant past,
and sure forward look into the future which are united in
the genuine prophet, and which, in the consciousness that he
beholds only, even against his human will, that which the
Spirit of the true God allows him to behold, make him what
he is as a seer. Since he always starts from some special and
definite complications of human affairs, and seeks divine light
upon their darkness, his glance into the future does not lose
itself in indeterminate generalities ; and there ever float, as
in the most vivid forms before his seer's eye, the firm outlines
and radiant splendour of pictures of the future, always new
and always changing, as the rays of certain knowledge of the
1 As the last prophets themselves confess most plainly, Jer. i. 4-19 ; Ezek.
xxxiii. 2 ff.

60 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
divine harmony of things vivify and illumine them. And
since the power of foresight was not to be preserved by arti
ficial means, but to be sustained simply by the overshadowing
presence of God, it was able in the free emulation of the
efforts of great prophets to rise on this basis to an elevation
otherwise unknown, and everything connected with prophecy
could here perfect itself as, historically speaking, nowhere else
in antiquity.
But just on this account can we here so clearly see the
ultimate bounds that are set from the first to prophetic
prescience. All the incomparable prophets, even the greatest,
in the centuries intervening between David and Solomon
and the first destruction of Jerusalem, prophesy within two
high and insurmountable limits — that of the age in which
they lived, and that of their own thought and foresight.
Lying far back in the past, they beheld not only the brilliant
origin and unchanging fundamental laws of the community of
the true religion which alone are to fill the eye and all other
senses, but also the noble indications never to be forgotten of
a national prosperity and happiness, culminating in this com
munity in the time of David, which already had more or less
seriously deteriorated, and was at present profoundly imperilled.
That the people themselves bear the guilt of this decline and
threatening ruin of the nation of the community of the true
God is just as much the firm conviction of these prophets as
it is their sure and certain hope that the genuine fear of God
here established would nevertheless not for ever remain
without the eternal blessing of heaven, and that the deep
underlying principles of this community of the true God, once
firmly established, would never more be utterly destroyed.
And so in the deepest darkness of the present they look into
the future with no comfortless despondency, and foretell, even
amid all the misery and subversions of the times, with the
purest confidence and the most inflexible strength of divine
certainty, the surely coming perfection of all the germs of the
higher and better life once implanted in humanity in accord-

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 61
ance with the will of God. With such firmness and assurance
did their presaging spirit move within the utmost bounds of all
human time, and thus are they the founders of a hope never
to be quenched, and of a prophecy that in its simplest elements
endures for ever. It is part of the assured serenity and divine
truth of their prophecy that they nowhere discover in their im
mediate present this ultimate consummation of all human things,
but at most see around them only the germs of it and the indis-
. putable signs of its coming, and to these they point the despair
ing in the conspicuous darkness of their time. Certain stages
and transitions they also on this account always depict as neces
sary between their present and that ultimate consummation.
But he who should demand to-day that with historical exactitude
and fulness they should indicate all the particular incidents,
great or small, that lie between the then present and the last
consummation of all human affairs, would not only make a
great mistake himself, but would also attribute to them what
is without justification and wholly inadmissible. All prophecy,
even of the greatest and most accomplished prophets, can only
express the divine truth and necessity of the relation of the
present to that eternal development and consummation of
human affairs that answers to the will of God : and the more
correctly a prophet perceives and adjusts in this sense the
most minute detail of confusion in the present, the more
accomplished is he as a prophet.
Now it is certain that in the Bible no piece of prophetic
writing, small or great, is found which does not open its glance
into the mysteries of the future. Not as if the prophet in his
thoughts and discourse ever broke out altogether abruptly into
prediction concerning anything lying in the remote and wide
future, or as if he would merely predict a thing for the sake
of predicting it ; rather does he always, whether he directs the
mind at once to the future or points to it in the progress of
his discourse, proceed from the firm ground of his present,
and from important phenomena which then agitate the world,
and mark in the future only what has its connecting link in

62 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
the present, and may be either the divinely necessary and
direct development of it, or its just as divinely necessary and
certain reversal. But if he has firm standing-ground in the
present, whence he, looks into the future, and if his mind per
ceives exactly how the things of the present and the past
project into the darkness of the future, or how their reversal
must be accomplished in it, yet the true prophet nevertheless
neither can nor will predict what does not already lie hid in
the eternally predetermined development of all earthly things
in accordance with the divine laws and truths ; so that in the
true, prophet's prevision it is the infinitely manifold sides of
this development that shift and change, and the measure of the
clearness and certainty of the objects foreseen is thereby the less
or the greater. But since, as already observed, his glance into
the future never stops short with generalities, but always sees
what it sees with the highest vividness and distinctness, and
in strictly definite forms, whilst at the same time the human
mind is unable newly to perceive in definite form what is not
analogous or similar to that already seen or heard before, it is
evident that the particular shapes the future takes to his view
can only be pictures of these surely coming things themselves,
— pictures borrowed from experience, yet in their last meaning
and scope pointing beyond it, and causing phenomena to be
anticipated which have first actually to occur in the earnest
pressure and flow of events, before it is seen how in detail the
fulfilment answers to the prophetic forecast. If any one shall
say that so far the prophet with his pictures of the future only
casts riddles into the world, whose right solution the fulfil
ment alone can bring,1 it is to be added that because of the
restraint of the present, and the suspicion or even the open
hostility of men, the prophet, should he desire to place the
solemnity of the future directly before the eyes of his oppo-

1 This is the peculiarity of the ordinary prophet, which is conspicuous as so
full of significance, in the lofty picturing of Num. xii. 6-8, to be further
considered below ; a passage which manifestly floated also before the mind of
the Apostle Paul in his words 1 Cor. xiii. 12.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 63
nents, might prefer to do this in brief significant pictures,
stimulating curiosity rather than fully satisfying it ; which
again comes back to the idea of the enigmatical.1 If, now,
certain of the prophets were fonder than the rest of dis
coursing in skilfully pointed enigmas, and both Isaiah and
Jeremiah rather avoided them, it yet admits, of no doubt that
prophetic discourse of the future does not seek, as a whole,
to predetermine and portray a series of historical events
already witnessed, and which, therefore, one need not really
wait to see, but the truer the discourse is the more does it
give only divine certainties, and in these certainties what is
seen in vivid figurative form. And that all true biblical
prophets sought to present such certainties only, is just one of
the best marks of their simple unsurpassed veracity. Every
one of their writings is in this respect a divine verdict.
Here, however, may be most plainly observed how the
prophet in the midst of his discourse might lose himself, as it
were, altogether in wide realms of thoughts, visions, and antici
pations purely divine, and float away out and beyond the
whole present, his eye being intoxicated with the wonders of
another world. For that he is full of divine thoughts as he
discourses, and is sustained and led by God Himself, is with
him indeed self-evident ; but when his spirit is once in train
to behold only the consummation, as it must one day surely
eome, in opposition to the confusions of the present, and to
touch those higher things after which he has so long and so
often profoundly yearned, then his discourse expands with
ease into an infinitude of ineffable delight and divine cer
tainty, his eye hastens from one sublime picture to another,
each enrapturing in its outlook, and the stream of his words
swells, not indeed as if it would break through all bounds, but
as if restrained within its full banks it would now flow along
1 Without using the name, Amos (vii. 1-9) gives examples of it ; but the
name occurs in Hab. ii. 6 ; Ezek. xvii. 2 ; the so-called " Song of Judgment,"
Isa. xiv. 4-23, after the manner of Ezekiel (xvii. 2, xxi. 3, xxiv. 3), belongs
also here.

64 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
with the more calmness and repose. Here, in fact, we plainly
see the two boundaries of all movement of prophetic thought
and discourse. The first overpowering seizure by the divine
thought and luminous vision transports the prophet in the
highest excitement beyond himself ; he is lost in rapture, or,
in Greek phrase, in ecstasy;1 but then follow passages in
which, nevertheless, in the midst of this at first so stormy
enravishment of self, he sinks as into a long, peaceful, divine
dream ;2 comes to far-extending rest and composure, after his
most troubled unrest, merely by the happiness of beholding,
and in the very beholding itself, of such divine glory ; collects
himself again with difficulty from the dream which oppresses
him, and returns as by a sudden and violent effort to his
customary thought and into the full veritable present.3 All
this with the older prophets is involuntary, and varies in each
of them with the special occasion, and as the special spirit
each happens to possess determines ; the later prophets, how
ever, accumulate artificially a multitude of anticipations of the
future first awakened by the older prophets. But the less
those men of God had actually seen of the" further develop
ment of the kingdom of God in the following thousand years,
and the more profoundly they yearned to see in the unfolding
of it what in their past had been scarcely experienced at all
save in its beginnings, the more readily is explained the free
scope they give to their power, and their inclination to con
template what no one of them actually witnessed in such
perfection. But here we must also remember, that in proportion as
antiquity had no background of numerous and great all-
comprehending experiences and teachings, such as we have
to-day, the darker and the more dismal appeared the whole
1 Cf. Isa. viii. 11 ; Ezek. iii. 14.
2 As a poet once similarly expresses it, Ps. cxxxix. 17, 23.
3 Such passages as Joel ii. 19-iv. 21 ; Isa. x. 24-xi. 14 ; Zech. ix. 9-xi. 12 •
Micah iv. f., are here meant : from which is seen that only in certain prophets did
the power dwell of a vision so vivid and sure, and reaching so widely in all
calmness hither and thither.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 65
future, and the more powerful must be the longing for new
light to disperse this darkness; just as it is to-day in like
manner when all the great light the past may have brought is
again extinguished. As in the primitive time revelation was
only sought the more vigorously because of the lack of it, so
in this higher stage of- revelation were visions sought ; and we
know that in the nation of Israel the oldest and most popular
name for the prophet was " seer."1 At the time of the
prophets of the higher type, with whom we are here con
cerned, the new and exacter name, " beholder," " spectator,"
is preferred, and what was uttered was called a " vision " or
" spectacle ;" but these new names continue a long time in
the narrower circles.2
§ 32. 4. But after Moses another name still came into use
and obtained general currency, expressing in point of fact the
idea of the prophet of the true religion much more completely,
and describing exactly his proper distinctive work. For the
right understanding of this, we must remember here more
particularly how little the mere " seeing," necessary though
it was, sufficed for the best aim of prophetic activity. The
prophet is not to discourse for himself, or, as a poet, chiefly
for his own pleasure and satisfaction. Of what advantage is
it to him to have, merely seen what no other mind has seen in
the same way ? To behold things most vividly and creatively
only places him on a level with the best of poets. What he
has seen and heard, in the spirit, of divine things of the future,
must he rather with the same vividness and truth publish to
men as revealed to him by his own and their 'God. But here
1 According to 1 Sam. ix. 9 ; but that this name PIX"I maintained itself inthe
nation still longer, either poetically or provincially, is clear from Isa. xxx. 10.
2 Historically it is of course important that the name Pith, "beholder," and
Htn, "to behold," in the sense of "to prophesy" (as PIK"I, Isa. xxx. 10), with
T T T T
all further derivatives, properly distinguish the prophets alter Samuel and David
only, as is evident from Joel iii. 1, Amos vii. 12, and all other indications ;
thereby is seen the more clearly that prophecy in Israel ran through many dif
ferent stages, and built itself up with increasing elevation and freedom through
long periods of time.
EWALD I. E

66 revelation; ITS nature AND RECORD.
difficulties accumulate before him to the last degree. If the
condition of mind in which a man seeks to penetrate an over
shadowing present darkness, and to obtain a new, bright con
ception how the future must shape itself out of existing
confusions, is one of unusual excitement, the excitement
increases if, as a prophet, he desires to elevate his spirit above
all his perhaps most cherished human purposes and wishes to
the pure sacredness and awe of the divine will, and to obtain
a clear image, in strict conformity with it, of what the future
must bring. Yet the higher enlightenment does not come at
his arbitrary beck and call, but as a surprise, and indeed the
higher it is the more profoundly does it seize and agitate him.1
If, now, in such moments, the most dazzling, and yet, in
accordance with the divine righteousness prevailing over all
human sin, the truest picture of what must come confronts
him, how shall he not himself as a man tremble with fear in
its presence ? But his agitation may in the same moment
mount still higher should his spirit be overpowered also by a
vivid conception of the frightful perils to which he will be
exposed in publishing before men, with all divine confidence,
freely and clearly, everything the Spirit impels him to
publish, and should he be the more deeply sensible of his own
feebleness as compared with the task he is conscious the
Divine Omnipotence demands of him. There are times when
the prophet has to contend, temporarily it may be, or even a
whole life long, against the most stiff-necked obstinacy and
hostility of men towards divine truth and the best prophetic
counsel.2 A human tremulousness then readily overpowers
him ; and, even in the case of many an otherwise approved
prophet, the divine confidence perhaps suddenly transforms
itself into gloomy human fear, whose overmastering force leads
him to persist more and more in the most perverse con-
1 As later writers in the ' ' prophetless " time experience the more definitely,
and make the more prominently conspicuous, Dan. x. 8 ff. ; Rev. i. 17 ;
Acts ix. 4-8.
2 As was the case with Jeremiah ; with Isaiah, probably, also during almost
the whole of his life ; even Elijah desponds temporarily, 1 Kings xix. 2-15.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 67
duct.1 But should he nevertheless remain faithful, as the true
religion directly and emphatically demands of him, and as the
early and fundamental idea of a prophet in this community
presupposes, — for when once he was seized by the all-powerful
hand of God and impelled to speak the word of God before
the world, resistance on his part was inadmissible,2 — then his
zeal for that which is holy may be the more profoundly
enkindled in proportion as the opposition and hatred of men,
as he may be well aware, are directed with the more bitterness
and blindness, not so much against himself as against the
word of God he publishes, and his whole prophetic work ; and
still further, that zeal may culminate in the highest conceivable
passion if he sees those who should be the foremost guardians
of divine truth, even the prophets, advising and working
corruption and ruin, seduced by the errors and blandishments
of the time, and if he finds himself alone against the whole
world in which he lives.3 Deeply hurt and bewildered by this
ceaseless antagonism, his word, turned vehemently against all
the world, may diverge into rashness ; in such excitement even
the best prophet may by his gesture and discourse seem
bereft of his senses, if he does not actually become so for life ;4
and since the prophet is called to action, his whole appearance
as he enters upon his work may be that of a madman.5
Perhaps we understand now how the individual man, seized
by inspiration, may sink down to this low level both in action
and speech, as before stated (§ 2 7). But of the prophet who is to
speak, not for himself but for others, something quite different
is fairly expected ; and therefore he alone was held to be a
genuine prophet who was capable of proclaiming clearly and
1 As the Book of Jonah teaches so picturesquely.
2 As likewise the Book of Jonah teaches ; but cf. also the express assertions in
Amos iii. 3-8 ; Isa. viii. 11 ; Jer. i. 4-19, xv. 15-21 ; Ezek. iii. 14.
3 As Jeremiah so often says, and expresses it in the clearest way, xxiii. 9-24.
1 As Hosea says, ix. 7, with a clear reference to the peculiar peril to which
he himself had been so near.
5 That such instances are not wanting even in Israel in certain times of utter
declension is evident, not only from the express words, 2 Kings ix. 11, Jer.
xxix. 26, but also from such descriptions as Isa. xxviii. 7 ff., xxix. 9 ff.

68 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
in full possession of his faculties whatever he had seen in the
hour of inspiration and had heard from his God. The prophet
is to be the " spokesman " to men of the God who in HimseK
is silent ; and the more suitably, with eloquent tongue, yet
in harmony with the holiness of God, he publishes His will,
the more perfect must he be held to be as a prophet. Hence
it is that he receives what in Hebrew is by far his best and
at the same time his ultimately prevailing name, Nabi ; x but
even the Greek name " Prophet " also signifies one who speaks
forth clearly the word of his God,2 and thus is essentially
distinguished from that of the " Mantis," who, as individual
revealer merely of his own private inspiration, according
to the common heathen view, can discourse the more freely
as one carried away by fanaticism and frenzy. Such a pro
phet, in the genuine sense of the term, was Moses ; 3 but his
word of Jahveh was of the most antique type, short, sharp,
decisive, full of definiteness and authority, like the word of a
field-marshal ; and it took this form with him the more
readily, in accordance with this oldest mode of its delivery, in
proportion as he, being a prophet, was at the same time the
leader df his whole nation. But in this respect also he was
as good as unique in Israel ; and in the times after him, as, on
the one hand, new and grave dangers of all kinds became more
1 Cf. Proph. of the Old Test. i. p. 7 f., 14 (Eng. ed. i. p. 8, 16). The true
signification of K'OJ, as a speaker discoursing distinctly and clearly, is not
opposed to the fact that the genuine oracle of Jahveh is introduced or even
closed with the archaic expression " DSO, and this rather indicates the sound
mysteriously coming forth out of the depth of the chest (cf. Arabic for " swan
song" of the Phoenix, Hariri, p. 172, 3 f . sac, and also for "to charm," p.
379, 1) ; for this word, heard by the prophet at first as in dark secrecy, is he
to speak out clearly, and so as to be intelligible to every man. The newly-
formed PIJWDE', Isa. xxviii. 19, Obad. ver. 1, signifies more clearly an "oracle "
as " something to be heard," "a piece heard," as the prophet has heard it of
God, that others may also hear it. Yet the usual name for it is w ~\y\, ' ' word
of Jahveh."
2 The pro signifies in this compound word, as in pronuneiare, proclamare,
the distinct loud sounding forth. The sense of " foreteller " the word does not
give originally ; but how much in reality the Greek vpotpfcn was nevertheless
distinguished from the Hebrew Nabi will be evident below.
! See further, below.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 69
and more oppressive to the community of the true God he
founded, and on the other, the published word with poetry, prose,
and all other forms of intellectual activity in Israel were culti
vated with growing freedom and success, prophetic discourse
also here fashioned itself from one stage to another, until the
highest point was reached which in the whole of antiquity
was possible. And by far the greater part of the literary
productions of a prophetic character which we now possess
come to us from this same period of highest development of
prophetic work in Israel — the period in the midst of which
we here stand.1
It is not to be overlooked, it is true, that although the
prophet took the name which became so prevalent from his
clear utterance of the word of God, he is by no means to be
estimated by his mere capacity to express such a word ; rather,
indeed, when the fine mode of prophetic expression was once
highly perfected, might the untruest word be dignified with
the smoothest, most ravishing, or even most thrilling prophetic
style, as was actually the case at times in Israel. Ultimately
the great matter is what the prophet has seen (§ 31) in
moments of inspiration previously to all discourse to other
men, whether it contain truth or untruth, good or ill counsel.
Moreover, since the prophet in his excitement and ecstasy may
be too vehemently moved, and be scarcely capable of giving
adequate expression to what he has seen or heard, or from
other reasons, may not be very apt in clear, eloquent public
discourse, persons were early found who were held to be
capable of better understanding the obscure, fragmentary,
hesitating word of the inspired man, and explaining it to the
waiting audience, and their services were in request; these
are interpreters, or if the inspired man is called a prophet,
these are, so to speak, under-prophets, in Greek, hypophetes.2

1 From the older time comes principally the fragment, Ex. xxiii. 20-33, as
explained in the Jahrb. der Bibl. wiss. xii. p. 193 ff.
8 iiretpmvis, or as below, p. 75, he is also called the mouthpiece. Theocr,
Bid. 22, 116.

70 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
Such a rather artificial development of the oracle was, from
special causes, very prevalent in heathenism, and even in the
Israelitish nation was not unknown, at least in the earliest
times.1 The creative prophet who could thus hold himself in
the background was then regarded by strict analogy as the
God, his interpreter as his prophet and mediator to men.1
But it is one of the many marks of a healthy growth and
unfolding of prophecy as a whole, that in Israel this artifi
ciality in the progress of years found less and less approval ;
and at the time of the great prophets among whom we now stand
every trace of it in actual life had been obliterated. What the
seer had seen, it was understood to be fitting that as a prophet
he should know how to express clearly before all the world.
It is wonderful to note how in general and in detail the
word of God, or rather of Jahveh, took shape in the mouth of
these prophets. They had no longer, as Moses had, the leading
of the nation so completely that the mere word of Jahveh
was implicitly obeyed as it flowed in inspiration from their
lips. It is still, no doubt, the highest Ego alone from whose
lofty elevation they ever discourse of the world, of the
mightiest kings of their own nation and all other nations, to
whose mind superintending and governing the world they have
sole regard, and whose invincible word about the world they
boldly publish with the same irresistible energy with which
it flashed in upon themselves. Moreover, still bears sway
within them as steadily as ever the old faith that this word
of His, as the word of truth, is not made known in vain ;
that its consolation and its promise build up, its condemnation
and judgment overturn and destroy ; 2 that it will penetrate
as fire, and as a hammer smite the rock.3 But the powers of
the world had undergone vast changes since the time of
Moses. Kingly power in the State had assumed amoncrst to
1 As we see both cases in the narratives to be explained below, Ex. iv. 10 17
vii. 1 f. But in like manner arises the same ip/itmuris, also in that time as it
were overflowing with never visible inspiration, 1 Cor. xiv. 27 f.
2 See both in conjunction, Jer. i. 4-19.
3 Jer. xxiii. 29 ; and already earlier, Micah ii. 11, iii. 8.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 71
themselves an increasing rigour, and become more and more
jealous of its own authority ; even in the kingdom of the ten
tribes it was so ultimately, and with the more one-sidedness,
as it proved, after the long struggle with the purely spiritual
force of prophecy. Intellectual culture among the people had
become, step by step, after so many centuries, broader and
richer, especially in oratory and literature ; but their old
spiritual freedom, fostered and favoured as it was by the
fundamental laws of the community of the true religion itself,
now turned itself in its high vigour against even the prophets
themselves, and treated with suspicion, and indeed open
mockery and scorn, their venerable authority ; moreover, the
office of the prophet, through the number of low-minded,
mercenary men who had filled it, had itself sunk very low in
general esteem, and now suffered severely enough under the
prevalent impression that it was no longer, as in Moses' day,
the safest refuge and the noblest redeeming force of the nation.
Indeed, the better prophets had long been conscious that if in
these times the word of Jahveh were to be published with
the success worthy of it, it could keep no longer its severe
simphcity, or stand on its old lofty height; it therefore
deigned to take note of all the objections of opponents, to
discuss at large and in full detail everything affecting its
message, to change with rapidity, as the need of the moment
suggested, the colour of its language and the mode of delivery,
to adopt every varied resource of art — the sententiousness of
the sage, the grace of the poet, and to carry its activity every
where openly in every place before the people and before
judges and princes when the higher aim demanded it. The
prophet became a kind of popular orator, his word the most
flexible and fluent, emulous in its form of the charm of all art,
and ever ready as well and without trace of fatigue. It was
no longer possible to make conspicuous at once the highest Ego
in every passage of the discourse ; the human feelings of the
prophet also, his joy, his deep pain, even the blazing up of
his fiery zeal and the sorrowful dejection he could scarcely

72 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
hide, found manifold expression. Thus the strongest human
element pervaded the prophet's word, and to men this was
most ravishing, and where possible, instructive ; while every
where the higher dignity was still maintained, and in every
suitable place there resounded freely the voice of that highest
Ego by whom alone the prophet was consciously supported
and upheld ; indeed this Ego, with its unique elevation, is in
the last issue supreme over all, so that the most human and
the most humanly deferent discourse remains nevertheless the
most divine. This is the true characteristic of this discourse,
its wonderful charm, its undecaying power ; there is absolutely
nothing like it in all antiquity. Nor can we fail here specially
to note that it is not in vain that man bathes his spirit thus
completely in the Divine Spirit, suffers it, as it were, entirely
to disappear before it, and to be invigorated and led by it
alone in thought and discourse, even as in action also, pro
vided only he does not thereby at any moment lose the
distinct consciousness of his own limitation and weakness and
the necessity for an ever uniform godliness of life.
Furthermore, mere speech of itself, even the aptest, most
ravishing, and truest, does not suffice with the prophet. Just
as certainly as clear, eloquent utterance of God's word is his
chief duty and chief accomplishment, is it also certain that
his whole higher duty did not end there. As in speaking he
is to be the most active and unwearied promoter of the divine
cause in humanity, so his whole life must be devoted only to
this one true aim. Accordingly, in the case of all the great
prophets, the more particularly and fully we contemplate them
in the traces and evidences of their history preserved to us,
the more certainly do we see that their whole life and con
duct was ever in keeping with their public discourse. Besides
prophets like Amos, who felt suddenly impelled by the Divine
Spirit, and perhaps only for a short time, there were always
some who from their early years devoted themselves wholly
to this one vocation. In such cases the prophet found in
every important experience of his life indications of the work-

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 73
ing and purpose of the same true God whose mind and word
he felt himself called to publish ; and everything he had to
do in all freedom, he did spontaneously in the same mind
and spirit; even his whole house was for him the seat
sometimes of the living recognition, sometimes of the an
nouncement and preservation of the same divine truths he
represented openly before the world.1 But if any truth,
notwithstanding luminous image and parable in artistic
discourse, would scarcely be plain to the people, or if the
fulfilment of any important promise he had publicly uttered
was unexpectedly long delayed, and it seemed necessary to
keep a memorial and pledge of it distinctly and palpably
manifest before the eyes of all, then, of set purpose indeed,
through some action of his, he gave signs or symbols of it that
should arrest the attention and not be easily overlooked, and
instituted pubhc witnesses that might speak in future in like
manner ; and in all this he acted spontaneously, as it were,
sustained by the same spirit that prompted him to open
discourse.2 But even authorship, especially the collection and
digest of public addresses, and the record of public acts, was
to these noblest of prophets simply the appropriate continu
ance and confirmation of the chief part of their work,
since it would serve just as well for the better preserva
tion, diffusion, and perpetuity of their thoughts as for the
calm and abiding vindication of their whole public activity ;
and the last consideration was by no means the least
important. § 33. 5. But there is something still beyond all this about
which the prophet is in the end to make no mistake. His
prophetic work is to be regarded as closed, his divine com
mission, he may suppose he has received, discharged, with this
fearless but prudent utterance of the word of God, and this
action in a single given case otherwise supporting it. In
1 Cf. Proph. of Old Test. i. 182 ff. [Eng. ed. i. 223 ff.], 280 ff. [Eng. ed. ii.
12 ff.], ii. p. 460 f. [Eng. ed. iv. 130 f.].
, 2 Ibid. i. p. 27 f. [Eng. ed. i. 45 f.].

74 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
every suitable way it is competent to him to publish and
advance the divine truth, and that he becomes its herald and
defender at the right time and place, undismayed by opposi
tion and unappalled by danger, — this is his virtue, his glory,
his highest merit. But he is not arbitrarily and with violent
hand to seek either to aid or anticipate the divine will, nor
to invade with disturbing hand the sphere of other powers of
human government. He has legitimately one single authority
and force, that of divine truth ; and this in a well-ordered
commonwealth has its divine right and a use nothing else can
serve, but it bears its divine fruit only as its activity is con
fined to its own authorized province and bounds. When,
therefore, in a fixed case he has done all that his good offices
can accomplish, and has done it often in the hot turmoil and
conflict of the world, he is quietly to withdraw himself, and,
as one who on his part has acted in all good conscience in
harmony with the will of God, is to wait in patience the
result and issue of his public work. All this is for him the
more necessary, the more readily he may be carried away to
all kinds of excess and violence, because of the storm-like
outburst of his soul, and his glowing zeal for that which is
holy (§ 32), and the more certainly every prophetic work is
essentially an irresistible summons and command from above.
If, now, the great prophets of the older time had not them
selves gradually recognised more and more clearly and observed
with an ever greater loyalty this last necessity and these divine
limits, yet the later prophets act more and more inviolably
within them,1 and at length give distinct expression to them
as fundamental laws.2 So that it is here noticeable how the
fruit produced by the steady action, the one upon the other,
of genuine godliness and prophecy, was the riper and more
abundant the longer such action continued.
1 As the whole life and suffering of Jeremiah pre-eminently show.
2 As is instanced by Ezekiel's words, which in their style have a wholly new
and sharp definiteness. Cf. Proph. of Old Test. ii. p. 325 f. [Eng. ed. iv. p.
5 f.].

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 75
The genuine prophet may on this account, finally, be con
ceived and described with special appropriateness as the " inter
preter " of the true God.1 For the interpreter or dragoman
is the indispensable mediator between two parties who without
him could not understand each other, nor unite in a common
beneficial work, and he has also nothing more to do than
convey in words faithfully and intelligibly what the one com
missions him to convey to the other ; just so is it with the
genuine prophet, he stands in this highest relation between
God, who Himself continues altogether silent and hidden, and
man. Or, as on the one side there is the high Lord and
Buler of all men, and the matter in question affects His
kingdom and authority on earth, the prophet likewise is
appropriately enough likened to a chief minister — not as if he
had the material power of his sovereign, but only in so far as
he has been taken into his secret counsel, and is his confi
dential adviser, and expresses and communicates publicly as
the mouthpiece of the mighty and scarcely accessible or
visible Lord what the royal counsel has determined.2 It is
evident that when such a first confidential counsellor does not
answer to his trust, he must experience the more severely the
anger of the king to whom he has access as no other has ; so
the prophet also, should he become unworthy of his name,
forfeits implicit confidence and incurs heavy responsibility.3
Or since love is the mightiest attribute of the true God, the
most beautiful image offers itself, viz. that of God as the
higher friend and older relative who honours the prophet as a
younger friend with the charge of His house and goods, but
only that He may have in him in the conflict with men the
best advocate of His cause and defender of His right.4 And
1 This figure is not found till a relatively late period, at the time, namely, when
the nation of Israel had learned most fully to appreciate the services of a good
interpreter. Isa. xliii. 27, cf. with Elihu, Job xxxiii. 23.
2 This image, borrowed from the Egyptian kingdom, is found in Ex. iv. 16,
cf. vii. 1 ; Gen. xli. 40, 44 ; with this must be taken what Jer. xxiii. 18, 22,
and Amos iii. 7, say of the secret counsel of the king.
3 As Jeremiah makes this so properly conspicuous in chap, xxiii. 18-22.
' According to Isa. v. 1-7 ; but the representations so profound in contents

76 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
this conception of the prophet as " mediator " between God
and the nation, representing as it does most finely and
strikingly his entire character, becomes ultimately the pre
valent conception,1 and passes over at the right moment into
that of "intercessor," when the nation is so deeply bowed
clown under sufferings of all kinds that only the prophet him
self does not despair of its salvation, and fights for it in God
with the most timely and heroic courage.2
Such are the essential characteristics of these prophets.
That many of the people sought from them also help and
deliverance in all bodily distress is easily understood; and
also that they rendered help in such cases where they could,
and that not a few of them were held to be equipped of God
with wonder-working power in delivering men from all kinds
of ill. But that this is the first and most necessary service
expected of a prophet, the Old Testament nowhere holds, nor
is it related of the genuine prophets themselves that they
treated this as their primary vocation and business. It is
possible, indeed, that to prolong his temporal life a while, or
even out of pure sympathy with the sufferings of the people,
many a prophet cumbered himself much with such needs- of
the people, and that the power of his mind, so wonderfully
stirred and so wonderfully active, worked in this direction also
with marvellous energy and helpfulness ; and, indeed, we can
very well picture to ourselves that greatest prophet Isaiah,
who devoted his whole life to the prophetic calling, as early
occupied to a large extent in the kingdom of Judah "in such
subordinate service.3 But that an Amos, a Jeremiah, an
Ezekiel, of whom nothing of the kind is reported, were on this
account not such great prophets, the Bible does not even
and so perfect in art, Isa. i., Micah vi. f., Hab. i.— iii. , Isa. lxiii. 7-lxvi., are,
however, thus further explained.
1 According to Jer. xiv. 11 ff. ; Ezek. xiii. 5 ff. ; in accordance with the image
of the combatant stepping into the breach of the wall against the last rush of the
advancing foe ; but to this belongs Hab. i.— iii., cf. with Gal. iii. 19 f., and the
like elsewhere.
2 See last note. 3 As may be inferred from Isa. xxxviii. 21.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 77
remotely suggest; and we must be on our guard against
coupling together as necessarily united characteristics which
only occur together casually ; although, to be sure, in this case
accident is in the higher sense not accident, at least so
far as we here plainly see. how easily the quickening of one
faculty of the mind tends to quicken another.
3. Tlie Revelation of Moses.
§ 34. Moses was, as we have seen, a prophet, and his
whole work was essentially a prophetic work, as will yet more
clearly appear. Nevertheless he was at the same time very
different from all the prophets hitherto particularly contem
plated, and his work had a wholly other significance than that
won by any one of them in his highest conflict. It is of
moment, therefore, rightly to ascertain in what respect he as a
prophet was yet a wholly different instrument of revelation,
and how far his work was raised to a higher stage, and in so
far altogether peculiar.
1. It must above all be borne in mind that a prophet, when
he began to work, found the distinct God, whose spokesman he
was to be, long since known in His definite character and
special honour ; for a special honour may here very well be
spoken of as accompanying the knowledge and public
announcement ' of a God in antiquity which His prophet
sought to maintain. But a prophet who was the spokesman
of a God already known in His distinctive character would
find also a circle of men who sought from such God counsel
and salvation, for whom he proclaimed the divine oracle, and
who, whether more or less exclusive, or of larger or smaller
extent, might with fitness be called a divine fellowship of men,
or briefly a community of such God ; and the labour of
1 What is announced in all opening words concerning the God of Moses, Ex.
iii. 15, may here serve as an example : " This is my name for ever, and this my
glory from generation to generation;" and only thus is explained the high
significance of the name of Jahveh in the Bible ; it is just this distinct God,
so named and so famous, of whom one is to think.

78 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
prophets would serve not a little to increase or maintain the
number of such worshippers.
If, again, it is asked, whence comes ultimately the conception
and the first celebrity of such a wholly definite God, about
whom a stricter or freer society of men gather, we cannot
possibly mistake that at the first beginning of such a
phenomenon there must always stand a man in whom were
united in an exceptional way the first and second of the
possible stages of revelation already mentioned. Upon that
first stage lies the ultimate creative faculty which may here in
general be active ; the individual in whom this faculty of
revelation is present in most original form and with truly
creative power, may know God as no one before had known
Him, in a wholly new and distinct aspect, and with new truth
and certainty ; he may possess also the special capability of
influencing others by his own inspirations from this definitely
known God, and of associating men together in larger or
small numbers on the basis of His word and counsel, and in
the hope of His salvation. If both these qualities met in a
God-fearing and thus doubly-gifted man, and if, around a God
known in a new aspect, and reverenced as dispenser of the
highest word and salvation, he could thus gather for the first
time a community, and establish a sanctuary for man, he
would become in this way the founder of this new intercom
munion between a distinct Deity and a large * and unlimited
number of worshippers, and would be the first of an incalcul
able series of prophets of the same God and the same sanctuary
who. might succeed him within these firmly-marked bounds.
Thus is explained at once how Moses could be a prophet,
and yet at the same time something more than a prophet.1
If as the announcer of a God known under a new and distinct
aspect, as the founder of a new community, and as first of a
multitude of similar prophets succeeding him, he resembled
1 What is briefly suggested on this point in Deut. xxxiv. 11 f., cf. xviii. 15,
corresponds with all the earliest and oldest authentic reminiscences and testi
monies of the Bible.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 79
many others who in ages before him had worked in like
manner, yet he at once surpassed them all in each of these
three characteristics, and became a prophet with whom no
other, whether in Israel or elsewhere, in the whole history of
the world can be compared, and raised the whole development
of all revelation to the essentially new higher stage upon which
we here stand.
But what above everything else is here of utmost moment
is this, that Moses for the first time in all human history
makes the perfect idea and vivid sense of the true God the
starting-point of his activity. That the God whom in His
sharp distinctiveness he placed over against all other gods,
and distinguished by the name Jahveh, is really the true
God, to be recognised as such by us for ever, can only be
proved- further on ; but this indubitable matter of fact we here
assume in order to explain what is relevant to our present
subject. Not as if Moses was the first to conceive the thought
of the only true God, and to raise his own heart to His pure
and infinite height ; rather was it the case that he and all the
better members of the nation gathered about him were
made glad and brave by the conviction that it was the same
true God whom in remote and ancient days their noble fore
fathers had known and worshipped,1 of whom Moses was now
the new messenger and herald. For as a right conception,
and especially that of the true God Himself, is capable of an
infinitely expanding and more exact apprehension and defini
tion, so Moses, by the experiences of intervening centuries,
through the deeper wisdom of Egyptian sages and his conflict
with them, and with the whole high Egyptian culture of his
time, and from the pure, noble fire of revelation enkindled
in him whose sacred hearth he knows how without inter
mission to guard, was much more definitely acquainted with
the old true God of the patriarchs, at least in many aspects of
His character. Above all, it was essentially the pure spiritu-
1 The noble preamble to the higher history of Moses, as we have it in Ex.
iii. 17 ff., vii. 3 ff., expresses only what the whole Bible attests.

80 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
ality of this God that Moses apprehended as no one before
him, from which he sought the corresponding purification and
strengthening of his own spirit, and to which he held it to be
the highest task of his earthly life permanently to lift up the
whole nation ; and with this, as already remarked, there stood
in closest connection that the highest attribute in this purely
spiritual God was love to those who loved Him. In the
certain and definite knowledge of this true God, Moses found
the breath of life as no one before him, by His strength
overcame the consuming evil passion of youth, and from His
holy inspiration drew the pure nourishment of that gracious
inextinguishable fire that glowed through a long life in all his
words and deeds. To our modern view it has long been
apparent enough what a mighty power of the knowledge of
the true God animated him and his clear-visioned inflexible
labour in harmony with it ; and how in all this he is, prior
to Christ, unique.1
The decisive significance with respect to Moses of this
complete accord between the knowledge of the Highest and
the conduct that professes to follow it, cannot be made too
conspicuous ; in divine things, as they touch our human life,
everything turns upon it, as will be more and more apparent
as we proceed. If the greatest temptation that can come
upon man in this connection is that which the desire for
earthly power and glory involves, and afterwards the posses
sion of it itself, and if Moses was the potent ruler we know
him to have been from reliable historical reminiscences, we
know also besides how completely he resisted all such tempta
tion ; and there is especially one narrative in the rich store of
these reminiscences which allows us to see in clear light the
most striking example of such resistance. When Moses had
attained permanently to supreme power over Israel, and had

1 Cf. History, ii p. 60-323 [Eng. ed. ii. 47-228]. If in our days reliable
contributions to the history of Moses should be found, they cannot lessen his
true greatness. Already in the last centuries before Christ many heathen
scholars took pains to darken his fame, but all in vain.

TnE STAGES OF REVELATION. 81
attained it after many and severe conflicts with the Egyptian
monarchy, and with the errors and imperfections of his own
people, and purely by means of his prophetic word and the
sure and incomparable skill in leadership it gave him : and
when already, as if from long and open gazing into the
radiance of divine truth and glory, a reflected splendour played
about his countenance before the eyes of the people, we ask,
how now will he conduct himself afterwards before the nation
and before its chief and prominent men ? A ruler of the
common type cherishes and fosters the halo of glory that
surrounds him and his public appearance, especially in the
presence of his own nation ; he is quick and eager to do this
if he has suddenly bounded to a position to which his bare
birthright gives him no claim. The glory of a kingly crown
was then directly enough suggested to the wonderful leader
of his nation; and Moses had only by his own will and
desire to make more brilliant and blinding still the glory
which illumined his countenance before all eyes, and to turn
towards every one with increased boldness and hauteur, and
especially against the best men of the nation who might resist
his new ambition, and against the rest who would timidly
shrink back, and the king already stood before them, but a
kino- no better than the Egyptian, or rather since he had
originally proposed something the direct opposite of this, a
kino- still more undivine than the Egyptian. But what was it
he actually did ? He would certainly have preferred that the
people should have borne calmly and bravely the glory which
with no cunning hand, of his own mere pleasure and greed,
but by striving and wrestling with God, had come to play
around his countenance ; that they should have sunned them
selves in it, and accustomed themselves to it in love ; for then
in thousandfold reflection would it have irradiated also all who
thus held intercourse with him, without vanishing from his
own countenance. But they were not yet prepared for this,
and withdrew timidly when he showed himself openly before
them. Nevertheless this did not prevent him, notwithstand-
EWALD I. F

82 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
ing the glory of a light kindled at the fount of Eternal Light,
from going amongst them in a friendly manner as equal with
equals, and seeking to take away their human timidity, and
accomplish what he must ; but, in doing it, he henceforth put
a mask upon his countenance, veiling all its effulgence, that
the people might have no blind dread before a glory which
was not the imperishable Eternal Light itself, but only a mortal
reflection of it. So little did he seek his own aggrandizement,
and honour from men, — the glitter and glare or the terror and
force of common human kingship ; so carefully would he wean
the whole nation from anything like abject or blind reverence
for human power or government, that they might more and
more learn to fear and love Him who alone is ever to be
feared and loved. Thus, too, he prevented all slavish prostra
tion before himself, as if he were their king and lord, — a habit
too common in antiquity, — -and led the people in the hours of
holy festival to render homage perpetually to Him whom all
humanity should worship. In such complete and perfect accord
even in highest things were his conduct and requirements as
ruler with his teaching and aim as prophet.1
§ 35. If Moses is so great and noble in himself, he is
nevertheless still greater and nobler in his prophetic activity.
In this we see how he succeeded in emancipating his whole
nation from temporal as well as spiritual servitude, in gather
ing them not so much about himself as about the true God
and His inexhaustible and saving word, and in forming not a
merely transitorily independent, noble, and prosperous nation,
— one among the nations of the earth, — but rather a com
munity of the true God. Here everything is equally wonder
ful. For the first time in all human history a whole nation
1 This difficult and important incident (Ex. xxxiv. 29-35, xxxiii. 7-11) is here
explained somewhat more fully and explicitly than in the History of Israel,
ii. 315 [Eng. ed. ii. 223-4], and in the " Epistles of Paul," 2 Cor. iii. 7, 13. It
is thus understood what a vivid group of manifold and lofty intuitions and truths
of the Old Testament is found in this brief yet, if rightly apprehended, rich and
clear narrative. Out of this wealth Paul only took what material he in that
passage needed.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 83
passes through such a purely spiritual new-birth that it puts
itself under obligation to live henceforth only in accordance
with true religion and her requirements, and to look for
salvation in all time to come only from loyalty in its religious
life and the love of the true God which this loyalty pre
supposes. Further, the groundwork and first principles of all
true religion were at that time provided for a whole nation, —
already great comparatively when its antiquity is considered,
and they possess an imperishable life and may render the
same service far beyond the circle and the changing destiny
of this single nation to the whole of humanity. Still further,
all this was attained purely by spiritual means, by prophecy,
by the inherent truth and rectitude of this revelation and the
wondrous charm of its word. And this last is so important
in our contemplation of the power of all genuine revelation,
that we cannot be too strongly convinced that it really was
the case. But all careful investigation tends to dispel every
doubt about it. For although obstinacy, disquiet, and revolt
of various kinds that could not be suppressed without violence
occurred subsequently under Moses himself, yet it must be
remembered that the new constitution of the nation was based
upon its own free compact and co-operation, and every con
stitution of this sort, both in its own interest and in the
interest of those who remain loyal to it, must be protected
against the outbreak of revolution. But what is truly grand
and unparalleled in this matter is, that purely by his prophetic
activity and power Moses succeeded in permanently gathering
the nation together in Egypt around the centre of the word
of the true God, and in eliciting the free desire and resolve to
follow in a new organization of its whole life only this true
God and His word. Prophecy thus in antiquity attempted
the highest task and attained the largest success that was
possible to it.
It can now be seen most plainly and in detail how far
Moses differed as a prophet from all who were before or after
him. An ordinary prophet is but the spokesman of a God

84 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
already known in a stricter or freer community united about
Him as a centre ; he has not to lay the first firm foundation
on this basis, not first to form a circle of such as are desirous
of listening to the voice of this particular God ; he makes his
appearance therefore only when something new occurs in this
circle, and a matter of special business urges him. Wholly
otherwise is it with Moses. He announces, it is true, no
entirely new God, and least of all puts himself into a more
exclusive connection with Him, as did that crude untimely
after-fruit of all ancient prophets, Mohammed ; he but renews
the remembrance of the true God of the patriarchs, defines
afresh the idea of Him, and with so much greater exactitude
that not till he works in direct relation with the mind of God,
and announces Him, is the true God perfectly known. But
a community has to be formed finding its bond of union in
Him;1 and this community, both in the nature of the true
God now so fully revealing Himself, and in the mind and
spirit in which Moses worked under His guidance, must be a
community, the like of which till then the world had never
seen. Thus an essentially new institution was required ; and
in addition to this, it was in a time of complete dissolution of
all national affairs that Moses appeared, and he must make
everything new in the midst of it. With, the vocation of the
prophet he must combine that of national leader and law
giver, and become one of those mighty founders of new
kingdoms, of victorious energy and toil, whom pagan antiquity
honoured as the best of its heroes. Moreover, after the first
powerful establishment of the new constitution and legislation,
as befitted the new community, he must, in a long life, secure
them against every new danger, supply their first deficiencies,
and as the sole, acknowledged, chief leader of the nation, give
new decisions continually as the daily course of events
required, and for this purpose maintain the word of God in
1 And how it was formed is so graphically and strikingly represented by the
later narrator, Ex. iii. 11-xv. 27, that, as far as the profound meaning and
higher truth of these narratives is concerned, there is nothing truer.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 85
constant and perpetual flow. How far did all this distinguish
him from the ordinary prophet ! Everything is easier when
the community of God is once for all firmly established ; only
some particular matter of business occupies the prophet's
attention ; his work is either more quickly done or is com
paratively fragmentary and isolated ; and only when a most
difficult case surprises and takes possession of him has he to
secure a new, sound, divine idea of it or insight into it (§ 31),
or obtain, in short prophetic phrase, " a vision " from God
concerning it. But Moses, up to his last life-breath, ordered
everything in a way that, in his case, was divinely necessary,
and indeed peculiar to him alone; in such character he survived
in the stedfast remembrance of later times ; and since it was
pre-eminently the same tranquil knowledge of the true God
which he proclaimed and from which he worked, the third
narrator of the early history expresses the distinction between
him and the well-known crowd of later prophets by an
extremely appropriate representation in four long lines of
higher discourse, and as a true word from the mouth of God
Himself: — " Is there a prophet among you
or a seer out of your midst,
By vision I reveal myself to him
and in dream discourse I with him ;
Not thus my servant Moses ;
in my whole house is he accredited ;
Mouth to mouth do I speak with him without vision,
and not in riddles beholds he Jahveh's face." 1
1 Num. xii. 6-8 ; cf. Ex. xxxv. 11. In harmony with what I have said in
the History of Israel, ii. 251 [Eng. ed. ii; 178, n.], I remark still further, that
since the structure of these four long lines, composed in the higher prophetic
style, is clear, the words of the first line, unintelligible as they are now, may
best be restored by reading as above : —
naainp nth dki I dsd twj nw dn
"Prophet " and " Seer " are thus parallel with each other in the two divisions
of the first line, and essentially the same as in Amos vii. 12-14 ; and the Q^l
nth stands for the unmeaning fllPI*. Besides, the narrator is not thinking of
prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, but rather prophets of the northern kingdom,
to which he assuredly belonged. Concerning the "dream," cf. further, below.

86 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
The image by which Moses is described is very ancient.1
It is that of a chief servant or steward of a great lord, who,
because he is implicitly trusted, is set over the whole house
to order and manage everything as seems best to him, while
his lord favours him continually with direct personal audience,
speaks with him in familiar converse, and imparts to him
counsel of which the world knows nothing. The ordinary
prophet beholds divine things, as later writers would say, only
in a mirror ; sees distant events, in a sleeping or waking
condition, as if suddenly present to his view, and made thus
vivid to him by his God (§ 31) ; and hears veritable words of
God, but yet not in all respects perfectly clear and immediately
applicable words, but as riddles that need first the proper
solution and explanation. Furthermore, his God is not so
perfectly and constantly near to him that he converses with
Him in full confidence as friend with friend, beholds im
mediately in highest clearness and with the same tranquil
aspect the loved image of His countenance, and talks with
Him and consults Him without any mediator. For then
there is no longer need of mere vision and riddle ; in the
continually unvarying and pure divine clearness and certainty
of knowledge and discourse all human sense and thought are
lost. But just this describes as plainly as possible the higher
stage on which Moses stands as revealer; and as to the
conception of revelation itself, no passage marks the tran
sition from the Old Testament to the New so luminously and
surely as this.
Another narrator, presenting with equally rare elevation
of form a reminiscence of the characteristics of Moses, starts
from another side, but comes back to essentially the same
conception of the higher stage upon which this prophet stood.
If the gift of facility and skill in public discourse is with the
1 How ancient this image is, is evident from what is said in the History,
i. 421 [Eng. ed. i. 414] ; yet such an olxcvopos is spoken of again in Luke xii.
42-44 in such a way that Matt. xxiv. 45-47 interchanges this name rather with
the simpler old Hebrew-like 2oSa.os. The image in Isa. xiii. 1-4 is different.
Cf. Antiq. p. 287 f. [Eng. ed. 250].

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 87
ordinary prophet so necessary (§ 32) that without it he
does not answer to the idea of God's spokesman and
mediator with men, it is readily seen that such gift is no less
necessary in the case of a recognised national leader who
is primarily much occupied with most varied and urgent
matters of everyday business. Now, an old reminiscence
concerning Moses was that when he entered upon his divine
vocation of emancipating his people he was not a ready and
fluent speaker,1 and yet the issue showed how nobly, in spite
of this original defect, he fulfilled, as great leader of the nation,
the duty which God had assigned him. The narrative, in
representing his greatness, tells of his hesitation and doubt
when, fully equipped and prepared for undertaking the whole
charge of Israel's mighty deliverance, he suddenly remembers
in his converse with God that he cannot use the Hebrew
tongue as a fluent popular orator; it is then added that God
strengthened and encouraged his spirit by showing that above
such particular natural defects there stands an incomparably
higher spiritual power that can make him equal to his task,
and further, that there are always other men who might
supply the want in a national leader of such a special facility
and gift, as indeed in this case his elder brother might, and
become thereby his prophet. And so it was. Before the
king and all the wise men of the Egyptians, Moses stood as the
mighty spokesman of the true God and deliverer of his people,
but before the people themselves Aaron acted as spokesman
and mediator — that is, prophet of Moses.2
With such thoughts, reminiscences, and narratives did the
late time seek to preserve distinctly in the nation of Israel
the truth that a prophet of a wholly new type might arise,
who should stand far above all ordinary prophets, and that
Moses alone had borne such character in antiquity. For it is

1 This old reminiscence is certainly well founded, for Moses was trained from
his youth rather in Egyptian than Hebrew culture, and not until late in life did
he become a prophet, and then suddenly.
2 Ex. iv. 10-20 ; cf. the words of the " Book of Origins," Ex. vii. 1.

88 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
not prophecy, or the capacity clearly to expound divine truths
in all the charm of style and the force of words as a spokes
man and deputy of God before the people that satisfies the
deepest needs of revelation and perfects its highest aim in
humanity; the constant tranquil intercourse with the true
God, the continually repeated complete entering of the human
spirit into the divine, and the clear radiant light which is
thereby enkindled in man, glowing in his heart and shedding
forth its effulgence in his life, so that the man becomes more
and more a reflection of the eternal light, or in other words,
the trusted friend of Him who is ultimately his only true
friend ; this, as was the case with Moses,1 is, according to the
Old Testament, a lofty height of life upon which the true God
reveals Himself to the world far more than through mere
prophetic speech and toil.
§ 3 6. Moreover/ if Moses in his knowledge of the true
God, and in his own prophetic work and effort, perceived what
spirit is, and spiritless matter, practically realized spirituality
and the perishableness of all visible' things, and how the
Divine Spirit should be specially active in man and in all
affairs of the human kingdom, at length also is explained
thereby the third point which just in this connection is still
more important and decisive. The Divine Spirit, in whatever
way it may move in men, and however manifestly it may
work forth from the spirit of men, is not to be repressed, nor
to be dreaded, nor in any instance to be checked with violence,
if only it be in reality the Spirit of the true God ; and as he
himself, the greatest of all the prophets of antiquity, had led
the nation, nay, had founded the community of the same true
God, purely by the power of prophetic discourse and action,
one may say with right that he could not but conceive that
the prophetic activity must exist in this community with the
1 According to the narrative, Ex. xxxiv. 30-35 ; cf. History of Israel, ii.
315 f. [Eng. ed. ii. 223 f.]. It is the narrative which may be best indicated as
that concerning Moses' conduct with respect to the reflection of the visible
glory.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 89
same perfect freedom continually. It is not recorded that as
a Samuel or an Elias in later times he founded schools of the
prophets; he did not regard this as at all necessary, for
through him the work of the prophet had become powerful
in a way till then unknown on earth, and had acquired such
glory that hundreds of their own accord might readily fol
low with pleasure the example he had given. Moreover,
among all the reminiscences of his life the finest is that which
shows how, when his subordinates looked with suspicion and
envy upon the free moving of the prophetic energy and
joyousness in a number of new men, and sought to restrain it,
he rebuked their mistaken and officious zeal, and expressed the
wish that rather all men without exception might speedily
become prophets.1 Thus through Moses the freedom of pro
phetic activity became a law in this community, a law which,
if unwritten, yet by constant usage and as a matter of prin
ciple, was the more indelible, and was the very breath of its
best continuous life and progress, as indeed throughout the
long and changeful period of his leadership of the nation it
had been the highest power that had fashioned and sustained
the community ; and what was held elsewhere in antiquity as
either very difficult, or very dangerous, or as attached
only to particular places and persons, was here, in these
earliest times, and at the very beginnings of the everlasting
community of the true God, a free art, having its limits only
in itseK, if it preserved its original purity as it was the unique
privilege of this community to preserve it.
§ 37. 2. But further, with this great distinguishing work
of Moses there was given in this community from the begin
ning, and by its own fundamental law, the most powerful
means antiquity knew of perfecting further the revelation of
the true God, of perfecting it, indeed, in an entire national
1 Num. xi. 24-29 ; cf. what is observed in the Antiq. p. 333 f. [Eng. ed.
p. 252]. That the addition ISD'' iib) here actually signifies our dass sie nicht
mehr Tconnten, that is, "unsurpassably," " excellently," may also be concluded
from the opposite, 2 Chron. ix. 6 ; it was manifestly a short standing phrase
having this meaning.

90 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
community, both, in a purity and an unrestrained extension
and continuance that could not be surpassed. Prophecy was
the oldest and most successful means of establishing more
definitely and diffusing in wider circles the fear of God and
all its good fruits ; and if it was a matter of importance to
preserve and increase constantly the fear of the perfectly true
God, here in very deed was established a great national com
munity in which this high free activity of mind could be
exercised without let or hindrance if possible for evermore.
Strictly speaking, there are only two of the higher accomplish
ments of life in which the mind moves with all freedom ; the
one is poetry with its kindred arts, and the other is prophecy ;
the former an individual gift called into activity by every
strong experience of the mind, the latter having a wholly
special province in which from the individual it works out
upon a whole nation and even beyond, directing the great
affairs cf all human effort, and leading ever to the universal.
All that we characterize to-day as freedom of mind most
desirable for public life had full scope in this community at an
early period, and with an absence of outward restraint unparal
leled in antiquity. And so there sprang forth from this soil
that marvellous fulness and glory of prophets known to us in
the long series of centuries after Moses, working most zealously
and in greatest numbers just when the higher needs of
this community required it, differing very much in speech
and skill, as in power and influence, according to the great
spiritual freedom then prevalent, but in essential principle
all in perfect agreement ; moulding themselves manifoldly
according to time and place in personal intuitions, pursuits,
and habits, but amid all these transformations always pro
gressing in the depth and purity of the prophetic faculty and
achievement ; bound every one of them to the ordinances of
Moses, and not one of them to be compared with Moses as a
popular leader or founder of new organizations, — not even
the mightiest in external power, as Elijah, or the most dis
tinguished in inward force, as Isaiah; and yet all of them,

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 91
in their close, successive, most unwearied onward working,
preparing unconsciously something new which should surpass
incomparably the whole institutions of Moses. The most
successful labours and conflicts of all human aspiration, with
the most happy ultimate issues, are possible where spiritual
activity and freedom — hazardous apparently, in point of
fact easily deteriorating, though necessary nevertheless 1 —
are united so inseparably with the fundamental constitution
of a nation, that without them it could not be believed to be
capable of life at all ; only such freedom in pubhc affairs is it
we here contemplate ; but as it is in a purely spiritual respect
the purest and highest freedom, so it bore at last the richest
and most incorruptible fruits. But even when this prophecy,
after almost a thousand years of ever progressive development,
gradually deteriorated, and on this account suffered a limitation
by law of the freedom which had been so long unrestrained,
yet were they then very far from wishing to abolish it in this
community, whether for a time or altogether.2 It continued to
exist, therefore, that it might not cease until it had attained the
very highest and best, the possibility of which lay in its nature.
It is in point of fact very instructive, and, moreover, in this
place necessary, to mark somewhat more particularly the
effects of prophecy upon the whole spiritual condition of the
ancient people of Israel — not, indeed, such effects as were more
remote in operation and period of time, but such as were
apparent during the centuries when prophecy flourished. The
most immediate and important were, that amid all change of
time and destiny, and notwithstanding every new error that
prevailed, the nation nevertheless, as it advanced from stage
to stage, more and more surely perceived the highest truths
1 As among the Romans the tribunicia potestas ; in our days the freedom of
election in Church and State, of transactions in all matters of law and govern
ment, and the freedom of the press.
8 The Deuteronomic laws concerning prophets, Deut. xiii. 1-5, xviii. 9-22,
are wholly new ; earlier the prophets came into collision with other powers in
the kingdom, and had often on that account to suffer severely, but laws for
limiting the power of prophets were occasioned only by subsequent degeneracy
as it acquired increasing prevalency.

92 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
which in this progressive development of all true revelation
were given, and that it followed the known will of God in
everything with increasing loyalty. Thus was gradually
fashioned to growing perfection a nation that understood very
well that, as with the individual man so with a whole people,
there must be a higher end appointed than to be the victim
of the caprice of an earthly king, or of the passion of a
casually powerful faction, or of any kind of perverted ambition;
that the unchangeable holiness and righteousness of the true
God ruled equally over all nations, but that the one nation
that did not idly deem itself specially admitted to His love
and sanctity must find in its privilege an emphatic summons
to pre-eminent fidelity to Him under all temptations. As
now in this nation everything of the nature of prophecy, of
which antiquity was capable, mounted up to its highest power
and perfection, so its spirit penetrated both the fulness of its
single intuitions and the usage of its speech and art, and
indeed more and more all literature flourishing as it did in
this nation with increasing variety and splendour ; even poets
of all kinds and historians also became profoundly touched by
this spirit, and perceived with growing vividness what true
revelation in humanity is, and transfigured their works by the
spontaneous influences of ideas that had become fixed and
luminous by revelations of the true God. The remembrance,
too, of the sublime forms of antiquity, of the patriarchs, and
ultimately of Moses himself, revived anew in such prophetic
intuitions and impulses ; and every scene and subject of the
remote past suited for the nights of prophetic thought and
speech was suffused with its spirit and hues. The profound
fundamental conception of a Book of Job and its transcendent
art now became possible. Even the ordinary language of
Hebrew authors gradually received that point and brevity as
well as vivid clearness of style which are peculiar to it as the
mirror of oracular utterances.1 And it was not through a
1 Cf. the dissertation " on the brevity of Bible sentences " in the Jahrb. der
Bibl. Wiss. i. p. 154 ff. All that is stated above has been hitherto but briefly

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 93
crude narrowness or any constraint whatever that all this so
fashioned itself, but it occurred while the nation maintained
fully with original energy and quick living capability its
ancient independence, and like every nation of the kind
unfolded its spirit on all the varied sides of life ; for not till
later times, to be spoken of below, did all this which, during
the most glorious period of its life, side by side with all other
pursuits and necessities, had been thus active in all original
freedom, become gradually cultivated with much one-sidedness
and rigidity.
Meanwhile there are still special indications by which it
may very clearly be perceived how prophecy was cultivated
in this community to the highest perfection. On the one
hand, it is certainly a sign that an art and aptitude exerts
itself most freely and powerfully, if it can afford to jest in an
easy and natural way at its own defects and imperfections, or
to listen to such jesting from others. If it was a mark of
the prodigiously growing power of philosophy when Aristo
phanes was allowed publicly to ridicule it with impunity, we
possess also in the Bible, in the narrative of Balaam, an
extremely satirical and derisive account, presenting to us in a
graphic picture -all the mistakes of a debased prophecy, and
how it always works in the long run to no purpose.1 Some
what about the same time we see also a great Isaiah inveigh
ing in the chief city itself with annihilating scoff and scorn
against all perverse prophets ;2 and the more simple prophet of
the country, Micah, attacking them with the sharp sting of
his earnestness and candour.3 On the other hand, every art
noticed, and in general has been treated with too little of accuracy, although it
is of great importance both for the complete history of the ancient nation and
the right estimate of the Bible and its entire varied contents. Only a book like
the 2 Mace, admits of an over-artificial, diffuse style of language.
1 Num. xxii. -xxiv. with the explanations in the Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss. viii.
1-41. 2 Isa. xxviii. -xxxii., especially xxix. 1-12 ; also the lying prophets as the tail
of the nation as it publicly makes its appearance, ix. 14 ; and the first words of
the first discourse, ii. 6, are not to be forgotten.
3 Micah ii.-iii., especially ii. 11, iii. 8.

94 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
and science perfects itself from the first in so complete an
unconsciousness and serenity of earnest labour that it realizes
its inner laws and proper limits in its very working and
exercise, and for a long time does not think of them or regard
it as at all necessary to make them the subject of special
reflection or exact discussion ; but if it has already a brilliant
existence in its great works of immortal instructiveness, and
has called forth also a multitude of bad imitators and
blunderers, it is just as much a mark of its significance and
power if it elicits at length a striking decision as to its own
true nature and use. So an Isaiah and a Micah prophesy
without pronouncing any doctrine of prophecy and its real
characteristics ; but at the verge of the whole activity of
prophecy which had been cultivated to the highest point for
so many centuries, we see at last, over against all who misuse
and mistake it, a clear view given of what it is in itself, and
a kind of doctrine pronounced, showing the marks by which
genuine prophecy may be distinguished from false, and this
by one of the greatest prophets of that very declining age
itself.1 Nor can anything more striking be said of it than
Jeremiah has said in his homely words, and Ezekiel in his
more ornate manner. Certainly, if after all the changes
through which it had passed, and the ever-abiding effects it
had produced, this prophecy, highly developed as it was, was
destined to vanish at last from the public life of the nation
and so find its proper close, it could not better go down, as
an art and aptitude of life, than with this distinct exposition
of all the innermost impulses of its beating heart, and this
clear intelligent consciousness of its own nature.
§ 38. 3. For even the noblest kind of prophecy antiquity
can show must one day work itself out and come to an end ;
this lies in the nature of all prophecy (§ 16, 2); and the
1 No passage can here be more instructive than Jer. xxiii. 9-40, cf. with
xxix. 8-32 ; but, to be sure, from such narratives as Jer. xxvi. is seen how far
remote that age already was from the calm and even sportive prophetic serenity
of an Isaiah, and what implacable hostility had arisen between the prophets of
the same God. Ezek. iii. 16-21, xxxiii. 1-9, but also xii. 21-xiv. 11.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 95
seventh and sixth centuries before Christ were the stormy
and unrestful time in whose rapid changes this event occurred,
approaching with gradual and sure steps ; but no prophetic
activity in the whole ancient time was so energetic and
fruitful in its last healthier movements, and died at length at
the seasonable hour of its ripeness with a bequest of such
imperishable wealth, as this. On the one hand, after so many
centuries the whole range of ideas and claims that formed the
starting-point of the prophets who succeeded Moses had
become less and less strange to the community itself, for
whose benefit mainly they worked ; the God whom at first
they felt in their innermost souls as pressing hard upon them
with His omnipotence and fixing their destiny in everything,
from whom Elijah, as he stood before Him as a servant before
his mighty Lord, became consciously armed with the most
wonderful energy, and whom, in the highest excitement of his
life, he found to be pre-eminently his God,1 had been brought
nearer and nearer to the whole nation, even penetrating the
wall of partition between the prophet and his hearers ; whilst
the violence with which these men of the spirit had worked,
impelled by the irresistible moment of inspiration, showed
itself in Isaiah only in its very last traces.2 On the other
hand, fettered by the limits of the existing community and
the whole age, they could not bring in the more perfect
condition of things which, nevertheless, they so ardently long
for and so correctly foretold; and as the best of them became '
more and more conscious that their work had no longer
immediate and satisfactory efficiency, the respect in which
they were formerly held was gradually and indeed rapidly
lost, whilst great crowds of vain and frivolous prophets who
flattered the power and passions of the hour, produced a fatal
rupture in all prophetic work in this community, and suggested
the wish and called forth the anticipation even in the circle
1 1 Kings xvii. 1 ff. ; Isa. vii. 13 ; more after a mere literary fashion, Deut.
iv. 5 ; Isa. lvii. 21. Expressions such as 1 Kings xvii. 20 f. we exclude.
2 Isa. vii. 13 f., xxii. 14.

96 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
of genuine prophets that the whole prophetic order would
cease.1 It is without doubt wonderful to mark how, after
the first bloody persecution of the true prophets in the
kingdom of Judah under Manasseh, a mere literary renovation
and amendment of the old constitution by the fundamental
thoughts of these prophets, as reproduced in the Book of
Deuteronomy, could bring about a great transformation in the
still existing kingdom. A manuscript breathing the prophetic
spirit and accompanied by the ancient and sacred name of
Moses seemed able to establish permanently a new order of
things beyond the power of the living prophets themselves in
their public work to estabhsh! But, nevertheless, no mere
book is really equal to this task ; the quickly succeeding
destruction of the kingdom involved in its own ruin the last
efforts of the public activity of the true prophets, and Only
transiently did the immortal energy of this finely- cultured
prophecy raise itself once again with irrepressible strength
amid the early years of the New Jerusalem, in order that
after this, its last and ultimately most glorious work, it might
be extinguished for ever.2
Thus two causes of a wholly different kind — viz. its success
in establishing divine truth, and its failure to bring the desired
perfection — contributed to this appropriate end of all purely
prophetic activity in the history of revelation. Publicity of
labour in a free nation of the community of Jahveh had been
from Moses downwards one of the two mightiest living
impulses of this prophecy ; such a genuinely free nation was
not to be re-established in the New Jerusalem ; but in it
prophecy ceased the more readily, and was the less capable of
restoration in its original type and form at any time subse
quently, the more it had then no true place in the nation any
longer so far as its essential impetus is concerned, whilst all
1 The last in Zech. xiii. 2-6 ; but it lies at the basis of Jeremiah's words,
xxxi. 33 f.
2 Cf. History of Israel, iii. 713 ff. [Eng. ed. iv. 127 ff] ; and. Proph. of Old
Test. ii. and iii.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION, 97
the sublime truths it had published in the community, through
out a period of more than a thousand years, and had at last
made perpetual in the most magnificent literature, exerted
their influence in it for ever after. But if its spirit, possessing
as it were an ineradicable energy, was afterwards repeatedly
active at least in literary efforts, — partly because it could not
absolutely perish, and partly because the completion of the
great work of Moses in the world was still an unaccomplished
task, — yet these were merely aftershoots of prophetic power,
and originated in the desire to imitate the older writings that
were charged with the prophetic spirit, and on that account
highly venerated. But, nevertheless, even in these imitations,
the unsurpassed glory and living energy of the originals may
be correctly estimated, since many a gem of vital truth is
hidden in them, and some of them almost equal in artistic
power and effect the earlier models.1
§ 39. 4. Something more, however, was found in this
community in the course of the succeeding centuries, as the
result and issue of the profoundly effective activity of this
long compact line of genuine prophets, than the mere remem
brance of their former high significance, or even the splendid
collection of their imperishable writings. There stepped
forth, indeed, no distinguished man dressed in the simple gar
ment of hair, by which the prophets had once been known ; 2
no one discoursed publicly to the nation in their marked and
peculiar style, or was publicly honoured with questions a
prophet only could answer;3 still less did any one speak
1 It deserves to be noted, as a remarkable sign of the tenacity with which
in its decease the prophetic spirit sought to preserve itself where it could, even
in its ashes, that these later writings were not written and were not read as if
coming from the older prophets, but were anonymous, and were publicly used,
for example, in festivals. Here may be classed the Book of Lamentations,
Ps. lxxxv. , the fragment of the Book of Baruch iii. 9-v. 9 [cf. Proph. of Old Test.
iii. 267-282, Eng. ed. v. 123-137], all showing the genuine prophetic spirit, and
in poetic art like the writings of Habakkuk, but designed only for public festivals
in the temple and elsewhere. Concerning the similar " Psalter of Solomon," see
Oott. Gel. Am. 1871, p. 22.
2 That prophets in their public appearances wore a special costume up to the
first destruction of Jerusalem, is certainly evident from Zech. xiii. 4.
3 Why nothing similar occurred after the last example that we find of this
EWALD I. G

98 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
publicly in the name of Jahveh, and with the demand to be
heard as His immediate messenger. The prophetless time
now spread the veil of its desolation and stillness over the
land once resounding with the mighty voices of so many
prophets, and since prophetic agency lay at the basis of the
old constitution of this community, and was even one of the
conditions of its life, the want of it now, everywhere so
apparent, could not but be publicly recognised,1 though no one
had a clear conception how it was actually to be removed.
Indeed, the special peculiarity of this time was that people felt
vividly its real need, for the continuance of which there was no
higher necessity and no divine predetermination even if there
was no idea at all how that need was to be supplied. Moreover,
as there was a vivid consciousness that in these centuries, as
compared with the elevation and glory of the earlier, there
prevailed a painful diminution of such energies as were
essential to make a nation independent and free, contented
and happy in its God, and highly esteemed by other nations,
so there was a strong conviction also that revelation in Israel
was not yet perfected, and that many things could not be so
definitely done, and so securely adjusted, as would be possible
if that consummation had come. Such was the prevailing
view in these centuries, as it is expressed most frankly and
most effectively in the finest and noblest moments of that
interval between the golden evening and the dark impending
night of the ancient nation, in the time of the Maccabees.2
But in reality this obscure feeling contains a most important
element, ' the very pivot, indeed, upon which in the mean
time everything in this history of all revelation must turn.
questioning in Zech. vii. f., is clear from the explanation in the Hist, of Israel,
v. p. 152 ff. [Eng. ed. v. 175 ff.].
1 Strictly taken, the Deuteronomist, xviii. 15-22, already marks a time when
there is no longer a generally recognised prophet, although it was desired that
one like Moses should come again ; so much the more readily were the later
times, according to Mace. iv. 46, ix. 23, xiv. 41, regarded as prophetless.
2 It is observable that the question is then concerning a new, supreme, free
sovereign authority in the nation, and other highly important matters of the
kind.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 99
For if we ask more definitely whence then this feeling
came, — a feeling which, it is true, found inevitably in the most
decisive and elevated moments of those centuries conspicuous
expression among the best of the people with the most
important results, but which in fact, in the slow course of
those centuries, penetrated, albeit obscurely and secretly, the
whole hfe of the community of the true religion, and even
when unexpressed determined its most important conduct and
bearing, — we can answer only somewhat in this way : It cannot
have had its strongest originating cause in the mere analogous
feeling of the diminution of the old national freedom and
power, for, as we see, it prevailed most distinctly just in those
few intervals when the nation experienced once again greater
freedom and glory, as in the Maccabean period ; and, besides,
the feehng of the need of a new and perfect revelation has in it
elements entirely peculiar to itself. That the great prophets
who worked in the last centuries before the destruction of
Jerusalem, and at the commencement of the new city, had
pointed more and more emphatically to the ooming of the
Messiah, exercised undoubtedly a powerful influence, because,
amid all the diversity with which they presented His image to
the thought, they had all with one voice declared : " the king
dom of the community of the true God has not yet found its
consummation, but shall yet surely find it ; " nevertheless, since
the mighty sway of a king can be sketched in detail only
very indefinitely, but little light was thrown upon the actual
consummation of revelation itself by this prophecy. The
most profoundly influential originating cause must therefore
be sought elsewhere.
Now these great prophets, closing the long series of men
who worked publicly in Israel, did not simply point onward
to the future sublime King who should bring the consummation
of Israel's hope, they also pointed back into the past, to the
incomparable glory of the revelation under Moses, and to the
happy time the community enjoyed under its protection so long
as it remained faithful. And as a matter of fact, even so early as

100 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
the calamitous times of the Judges, the remembrance of the glory
of the revelation under Moses had become bright and vivid,
and amid the heavier calamities of the last centuries of the old
kingdom it became still brighter and more vivid. The whole
period when the community of the true God was favoured
with the leadership of Moses and Joshua, was very early felt
to have been the period of His most lofty as well as most
blessed and triumphant revelation, and was celebrated as
such in the immortal words of poets.1 If, now, incomparably
the highest moments of that period were those in which the
sacred covenant between Israel and its people was concluded
at Sinai on the basis of the Ten Commandments, and if the
best men in the nation in the early times of the Judges felt
deeply enough that the thunder- voices of this highest law, that
had once under Moses made the heart of the nation tremble, and
transformed it to a new nation worthy of that new covenant,
ought to shake and move it henceforth for ever, it is not sur
prising that this narrative of the most thrilling revelation of God
a nation has ever received, took early a fixed and finished form.2
Conceptions of this kind, and narratives which most vividly
mirror them, were in fact only the plainest expression of the
certainty that beyond the revelation of the ordinary prophets
and its easily observable influence, there is a revelation standing
far higher, corresponding to that whose transcendent influence
this community had once experienced, a revelation never
again to pass away. In this sense the whole remembrance of
that revelation of Moses, its immortal result and indestructible
monument, the written law, having come into existence, became,
long before the end of the last great prophets, i.e. before the
sixth and seventh centuries before Christ, more and more
a highly transfigured remembrance. Why, therefore, with
the gradual vanishing away of the guiding power of prophetic
1 Judg. v. 4 f. ; cf. History of Israel, ii. 306 f. [Eng. ed. ii. 354 f.].
2 Ex. xix. -xxv., with the special dissertation concerning this fully unique
narrative in the Jahrb. der B. Wiss. xii. p. 198-211. In another connection it
is already mentioned above, § 12.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 101
activity, should not the need, now manifestly arising, be
supplied by a return, the more decisive and faithful, to this
old revelation, ratified as it was by the history of a thousand
years, and distinctly recorded for each and all in the old
written law ? In this way already the Deuteronomist had
aimed to afford in creatively prophetic style the true supply
of the prevailing painful want threatening a thousand serious
ills : his effort was not without result ; and at length, after
Malachi had in briefest and most decisive words pointed all
the best minds of his time once again in the same direction,
the broad path was fully levelled, and a new and great turn in
thehistory of revelation in Israel had already been fairly started.1
This reverting to the past was for a series of centuries the
best possible step, so far as it was of moment, to keep the com
munity of the true God in the course of history. The mightiest
incitement of all higher spiritual effort which had served
hitherto to protect and advance the genuine fear of God in
this community, and to avert its deterioration, was now dead ;
and indeed the living memory and clear conception of what
prophecy and revelation really are, were more and more lost
in these centuries. For a long time people lived in this com
munity in the immediate after-effects of the sublimest and
most fruitful activity of all revelation that had occurred
anywhere in the whole of antiquity, or that occurred then
amongst other nations of the earth ; they read in writings
grown sacred, multiplied a thousandfold, of its number
less words and deeds, and they moved everywhere as amid
echoes of the voice of the true God, to Abraham, Moses,
David, and to many others, like them, of prophetic gift ;
and they felt themselves once more withdrawn afar from
the familiar nearness in which, according to Scripture, these
favoured men stood to the true God; they yearned for His

1 Mai. iii. 22 (iv. 4), by which may very well be observed that this last prophet
by no means merely points back to Moses, but just as strongly, nay, rather far
more strongly, points onward, iii. 1, 23 f. (iii. 1, iv. 5 f.) to the new period
which must come; cf. History of Israel, iv. vol. throughout (Eng. ed. v.).

102 REVELATION ; ITS'NATURE AND RECORD.
new living voice and heard it not, for prophets and found
them not. Many new phenomena occurred and new pursuits
were followed in this twilight; yet none of them actually
sufficed to supply the want. The living activity of all reve
lation of the ancient type having exhausted itself, and these
later men thinking that they moved as in cold dark rooms
where no new ray of revelation any longer penetrated, the..
mind, saturated as it was with the rich blessing of the old
revelations, and yet feeling itself in the present so dry, longed
with more profound and eager desire to hear at least some
short brief word from heaven, if only as a broken mysterious
sound, and the hot eager longing did indeed hear the divine
true word brought surprisingly near to the enraptured ear,
which, moreover, already pressed overpoweringly upon the mind
so prepared.1 Of the possibility of such voices sounding
mysteriously from the heavenly regions, which not merely the
prophet, but every man, or indeed the whole nation, might hear,
the heathen also frequently speak ; but it is remarkable enough
(p. 7) that they are foreign to the Old Testament, and are
repeatedly mentioned only in those later centuries after the
living stream of revelation, that flows through the times the Old
Testament chiefly depicts, had been dried up. But how much
the hearing of such abrupt heavenly voices depends upon the
tension and mood of different minds, is clear; what the
heathen supposed they heard2 in this way was sufficiently
unlike that which found similar expression in the circle of the
community of the true religion,8 or indeed in the schools of
1 The Rabbinical expression, ?ip P)3> is not so much Hebrew as Aramaic, and
signifies (L. B. § 287 f. ) nothing but a single voice, ipmri, as this Greek word ex
presses just the same idea in Hellenistic speech and in the N. T.
2 It may be said with truth that the first voice of this kind in which the nation
extensively believed, and with which was given an example of far-reaching
influence, was that of the Hasmonsean Hyrcanus I., according to Josephus,
J. K. i. ; 2, 8 ; arch. 13 ; 10, 3 ; in him the oracle of the high priest appeared
in this way in these late times to be revived ; but the powerful precedent once
given in his case produced effects in the nation to an incalculable extent after
wards. 5 It cannot be denied that the powerful inclination of that time towards such
kinds of revelation had its effect also upon young Christianity, although, to be

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 103
the -Eabbis. In fact nothing is to be seen here but how the
stream of genuinely prophetic revelation in Israel, wholly
interrupted, sought at last in this way to restore itself in
single drops falling here and there ; and another means,
similar in kind, with which the deficiency sought to supply
itself, will be further noticed below. But how little, in all
such ways, the void could be filled up is readily evident.
§ 40. 5. When now the old revelation, as the Pentateuch
presented it, and in the application of it which logically followed,
had become as law the firm basis of the whole spiritual life of the
community, and the teachers of the law had accordingly made
their appearance as the highest judges of this life, and more
and more the sole successors of Moses, in the place of the
prophets, then the thread of further development of revelation
appeared to be entirely broken, and broken for a future no
longer capable of measurement. The learned schools, estab
lished for the exposition and application of the holy law, in
reality presupposed this, and based upon the presupposition
their tedious toils and the whole confidence of their work.
In this new state of things in the community centuries elapsed,
and the position became more strongly and immovably fixed.
Anticipations and promises of the old prophets that ran con
trary to it were easily disregarded or were wrongly explained ;
and those of the Pentateuch, fewer in number and more
difficult to understand, were still more readily set aside. In
fact, this age of the Hagiocracy, resting upon the holy
law, intervened in order to remind the later days, and
to remind them at length when the need arose with the
greatest emphasis, that all prophecy, even the most potent and
the most freely obeyed, fails to bring the highest revelation.
sure, in this case the method was wholly new and the purport altogether
different. Instances of such a <pavn as John xii. 28-30, Acts ii. 2-6, ix. 4ff,
x. 13 ff., afford us a sufficiently historical glimpse of the possibility of the occur
rence of such experiences and reminiscences ; but very early such higher repre
sentations as Mark i. 11, ix. 7 followed. That what is to be called, whether in
the best and purest or in a less pure sense, the piety of such thoughts and
conceptions, was of a deeply- tinctured and saturated type, the Rabbinical narra
tives almost superabundantly show.

104 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
For prophecy, pursuant to its nature (p. 23), expresses divine
truths as demanding unconditional obedience. If, therefore,
a larger series of divine truths once made known in this way
form a law-book in conformity with which all the spiritual
life of a community is to be directed, the entire spiritual life,
even if the truths so prescribed actually coincide with all true
religion, as is the case here, yet is bound to this law as to a
restraint ; what should be the freest purpose and act of the
human mind, becomes, notwithstanding the fact that here it is
divine truth with its light and power that alone has to rule,
a matter of outward constraint, to which submission is to be
rendered out of mere slavish fear if it is not comprehended or
approved in the heart, so that the choice offered is servile
submission or revolt. This inconvenient state of things,
tolerable at first when divine truths are only seeking their
entrance into the world of humanity, becomes more and
more injurious when such truths, surrounded by a glimmer of
ancient sanctity and in the midst of a world altogether differ
ently fashioned, are dealt with by learned schools, and become
subject to the contingencies of such treatment. If a man has
an inclination to submit himself slavishly to every sentence
and thought from which he expects salvation, so much the
more does every divine word expose him to this danger,
especially should it be radiant with an ancient sanctity. But
how much greater must the danger be, if a great collected
work of old divine words is regarded as the basis of all spiritual
life, and yet has to be explained by learned schools and applied
as they think proper ; if men suppose they have all the divine
wisdom of life summed up in such work, and might well have
it indeed, but they know not how rightly to estimate and use
it ! What at first was a hving stream of divine truths and
salutary precepts, becomes then a stiff and benumbing lifeless
form ; what was thought to be held in the hands as the word
of God, is turned into arbitrary command of man.
Another disclosure was also made in the time of the
HaSiocracy. The immediate power of the prophets of the

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 105
last centuries having been gradually broken (§ 38), as their
activity divested itself of the violence that originally charac
terized it, these prophetless days must show conclusively and
with growing distinctness that even this violence, with which
the oldest revelations, now regarded as law, had first entered
into the world, and had in reality formed the sole dominant
power of those centuries, did not in the long run suffice. In
this is found the true primary cause that led the entire
development of all revelation not to rest at this stage, and
that unveiled more and more the deep want inherent in the
prophetless time, and made it more heavily felt. The old
presentiments and prophecies that a higher consummation, as
of aU the immortal blessings of Israel so also of its revelation,
was to be expected, united their living power the more readily
to this most urgent feehng, with which indeed they were akin.
In fact, the last of the great prophets had not departed
without indicating briefly, but with most luminous glance,
what here was felt to be lacking, and must in the future
come ; so rightly sensible were they themselves of the imper
fection of all that till then had found place, even of their own
prophetic activity. Isaiah complained that the religion of
most men was only human command learned by rote, as was
most distinctly shown when the dangers and distresses of
public life became suddenly most grievous.1 The Deuterono
mist concluded his renewal and spiritualization of the old
sacred law with the most emphatic suggestion, that every
divine law of the true religion is at the same time most
human, not something seeking to remain over against man as
simply outside him, or too obscure or too difficult for him ; 2
and still more simply and distinctly Jeremiah declared the
necessity of a new covenant between God and man, in which
man should no longer contemplate what is divinely needful
for him as a written command, constraining him, standing
over against him, but should already carry it in his heart, and
1 Isa. xxix. 13, cf. with i. 10-20, but also xxix. 18, xxx. 19-22.
2 Deut. xxx. 11-20, cf. xi. 26-28.

106 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
fulfil it freely from the heart.1 So in this community there
remained at last only the question how the swanlike word
of all the old dying prophecy could find fulfilment, and how
in this fulfilment the thread of all revelation, long broken off,
could be picked up again and woven in afresh ? And when
the hour was ripe the right answer was given by the revelation
of Christ. 4. Christ's Revelation.
§ 41. At the expiration of the prophetless time, it had
become clear to the best part of the nation how httle the
rigid reverence for the old written law, and the national
illusion based upon keeping the law sacred in this way, were
really well-pleasing to God, and how certainly both must
rather lead to the inevitable destruction as well of this nation
as of the true religion thus ineffective and quiescent in its
midst. As soon as this was fully realized, we see, in a wholly
new form it is true, the most vigorous efforts made which
could possibly be made in this community to reach that
consummation of the divinely-human life which the old
prophets had foreshadowed, and which alone could be the
consistent issue of this whole great development. But since
the days of Moses the prophetic spirit alone, notwithstanding
all the imperfections inherent in it, and all the aberrations
into which it had often fallen, had nevertheless been the
profoundest, and in its deepest purpose the most indestructible,
power that had preserved and further unfolded, as weK as
creatively called forth, the main thoughts upon which this
whole development was based. Accordingly, now at the
close we see this spirit quite unexpectedly yet nevertheless
irresistibly raising itself anew, and attempting the ultimate
task that was possible to it. First of all, in keeping with
the nature of the times, new writings of the most diverse
1 Jer. xxxi. 33, with which stands appropriately in close connection, according
to the sense the word of the great Unnamed, Isa. liv. 13.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 107
kind,1 whose inspiration was entirely kindled at the inextin
guishable fire of the ancient writings, now become sacred, poured
themselves over the new world after the Maccabsean age as a
stream rising continually higher and higher ; and these contri
buted not a little2 to soften the frozen and benumbed ground of
those centuries of winter, for the sowing of a new spring, and to
quicken to intensity the expectation of a great harvest long
since fervently desired. Afterwards occurred the advent of
the Baptist and of Him for whom the Baptist broke the way,
Christ Himself, both of whom, it is undeniable, were regarded
during their public work as prophets who at last, after long
ages, had once again arisen in Israel ; 3 and this view of their
character found currency in the nation, although neither of
them directly aimed at being accepted as a prophet of the
earlier type.
The event showed, however, how little these new prophets
in Israel resembled the old prophets. The Baptist, it is true,
started in his public ministry, as they did, from the funda
mental thought of God's kingdom, considered properly what
was its present condition upon the earth, and especially in
this nation, and renewed the demand for a return to the better
state of things as urgently as the time desired it, — the very
demand with which the last great prophets had closed their
labours. But nevertheless he could not work, as they did,
from the very central point of the community, still less did
1 [Cf. History qf Israel, v. 461-491 [Eng. ed.]. Ewald means the four Books
of Maccabees, the Books of Judith and Enoch, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the
Greek Book of Daniel, etc.— Tk.]j
2 According to most recent discoveries and investigations, this may with
justice be maintained ; and it is equally certain that for these two or three
centuries these writings had a great influence upon the whole widely-scattered
nation, and even reached to the heathen. I have proved this abundantly in
earlier writings.
3 Of the Baptist this is self-evident. Cf. Matt. xi. 9, xiv. 5, xxi. 26 ; John
i. 21-25. Of Christ, however, it is certain from such reminiscences as Mark
vi. 15, viii. 28 ; John iv. 19, vi. 14, vii. 40, ix. 17 ; but John shows himself
most acquainted with the opinions of the learned and unlearned of that time, so
far as he gives it to be most clearly understood that with the more learned the
question was whether in Christ the prophet promised in Deut. xviii. 15 were
come or not.

108 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
there revive in him that Ego, bending everything before it,
which had found utterance in them.1 Christ, however, from
the very beginning of His public Kfe, professed to be some
thing wholly different from them, and He was so. He
brought the consummation of all revelation, so far as an indi
vidual spirit encompassed within the limits of the earthly body
can bring it. Let us now explain this more particularly, and
according to the twofold aspect the sentence just expressed
presents. In the outset it is above everything certain that, from the
first moment of His public work to the last act He could
perform in the flesh, and the last word that broke from His
mortal lips, Christ always, with absolute uniformity, felt Him
self to be the Messiah whom all true prophets long since
expected, and whose coming was desired with purest longing
by all the pious in Israel. It is of no consequence when He
regarded it as the suitable time to be recognised as such by the
Twelve as the basis of His community, by the whole ancient
nation, and at last by the heathen magistracy ; 2 certain it is
that from the first moment onwards He acted in the conviction
and inner certainty of it, and that nowhere, even before His
express announcement of His full claim, unfolded step by
step, did He deny Himself to be the Messiah where such
denial would have been an offence against the truth.3 If,
however, the idea of the " kingly " among men has in general
more than a casual signification, it can only imply that which
proves itself in human affairs to be purely elevated above
what is defective and erroneous, or, indeed, what is perverse
and corrupt. For that the king knows how to take up and
maintain such a position in his nation, is the presupposition
1 Since we possess only the few fragments of his discourses which the Gospels
contain, we are not able to come to any other conclusion than that he did not
renew the Ego of the old prophets ; but this is very probable also for other
reasons. 2 These are the three stages which, with such perfect accuracy, the Gospels
well distinguished, Mark viii. 27-30, xi. 1-10, xv. 2 ; and essentially in just
the same way John vi. 66-70, xii. 12-36, xviii. 33-37.
3 Just this is most essential in the matter.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 109
about him, and the necessary reason that he is desired and
honoured ; but if an individual king may make himself
unworthy of this presupposition and honour, as he may, it
does not then follow that the idea itself, and the special
dignity of the kingly among men, become beclouded or illusive,
and are to be cast aside to the mass of other confused thoughts
as superfluous or misleading.1 What there is in the idea that
is really true and ever elevating, what is unique in it, and
not to be otherwise supplied in the circle of human relations,
it was not Christ's business to render conspicuous in detail,
though He peacefully acknowledged in national affairs the
legitimate kingly authority.2 In discoursing, however, of the
" kings of the earth," He made prominent also the feebleness
and imperfections which clung to them as they were in His
time.3 But there is still another idea which is not borrowed
simply from human relations, bears a universal signification,
and comes back essentially to the same conception. It is the
idea of the " perfect," which is to be put, in the main, on a level
with the divine itself, yet is set up also before men as their
divine goal ; and so by Christ Himself, where the context of
the discourse makes it suitable, is conspicuously presented as
an aim that is at once highest and most necessary.4
But what a thought is this idea of kinghood, if it is raised
to the height to which, in this case, it was to be raised ; if it
should have its real import in that sphere of all human
relations into which Christ, as Christ, entered ! For the true
King was to come for the community whose every member
was already bound to lead a divinely-elevated, i.e. a kingly
life, so that no earthly king was needed, and in which should
then be peremptorily issued to all earthly kings — since they
were nevertheless necessary — the demands of aU true religion.
He was to establish, as the long-expected One coming from
1 Cf. further upon this, vol. iii. 2 Matt. xx. 25-28 ; Luke xiii. 32.
» Matt. xxii. 21.
4 Matt. v. 48. The idea of perfection in its relation to God and to men is
here more exactly described than in Gen. xvii. 1, although this relation is at
least correctly indicated there.

110God, armed with His full authority for the work, a kingdom
which should start, it is true, from the immovable basis of
the old community of the true God, but a kingdom that was
the fulfilment of all the sublime hopes inspired in this
shattered community, and the consummation of a divine
salvation such as never within nor without this community
had ever before been experienced by man. He was to establish
it, indeed, with the inherited treasure of all the wonderful
powers of spiritual knowledge, of faithful activity, and blessed
hope vouchsafed to this community since the primitive times ;
but as a King who must know best of all how to apply anew,
and to increase the inherited treasure of the ancient kingdom,
in order to found a new kingdom, manifestly necessary, but
never yet actually begun by man. He was to establish it as
a kingdom of pure divine knowledge and love, grace and
freedom, as opposed to all kingdoms of human unwisdom and
caprice, and of dark, stern human force, that in heathen kingdoms
had alone been dominant at all times, and now also had long
since broken in upon the old community again, overwhelming
everything ; as a kingdom standing above all humanly-limited
kingdoms, immovable to all eternity, of continually progressive
salvation for all humanity, and yet, notwithstanding all imper-
fections and difficulties, forthwith as such in the midst of
them to begin. He was to establish a kingdom of God as
His Son, who had been predetermined for it in accordance
with old sacred hopes, and was to be its human judge and
king. But, above aU, He was to become its first subject and
citizen, in order to show to all men, by His own obedience
and service, how they also must first be genuine subjects and
citizens of it if they would rise up to be its freemen and
lords.1 Such was the position which Jesus, as Christ, must occupy
in this community; such the height of the work to which
He must uplift Himself, if He would fully answer to the
1 Matt. xx. 28. Cf. how a similar thing already occurred with Moses, Num.
xii. 3 with Ex. xi. 3.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. Ill
divine summons which here went out to Him. Only in this
community, and at this stage of the long, changeful develop
ment of all true religion in its midst, was His public advent
and work possible. It is wonderful how, upon a firm basis
once laid, and by the struggling of all beneficent forces once
properly started towards a high, divinely-prescribed goal,
everything may combine at last to make possible the actual
attainment of this goal. Thus there pressed upon Him, who
was the right man to carry off this prize, all that the past had
wrought ; whilst in the present all that was old lay in a state
of dissolution and ferment, tending with potent energy towards
a new formation. The times of Moses had come back again,
so far, but it was only that what it was possible then but to
initiate amid severest conflicts might now be perfected. That
Christ came only " when the times were fulfilled," is the right
acknowledgment of the New Testament ; x and the mightiest
lever to this fulfilment was the perfectly accurate and prompt
realization of the nature and duties of the Messiah demanded.
But if the thought of the expected and demanded kingly
and perfect One was itself, in this whole, great, and stedfast
coherence of all relations and of all times, an influence in the
highest degree impelling and elevating to all that was here
necessary, three things must yet be added, that this Jesus
may, as Christ, become the right instrument of the highest
revelation. In the first place, the possibility, as a matter of
fact, that feeble, mortal, individual man may also actually
suffice as such an instrument ; that is, of course, at the appro
priate time, and in the right conjuncture of all humanly-
divine affairs. But this possibility is given from two opposite
points, which include everything in question. On the one
side it is firmly established that the individual man can
indeed form and attune his spirit by the knowledge and
admonition of another, or even of all the rest of men, and in
his own knowledge and action receive aid from them ; but in
1 As this is said in the briefest and plainest way in the latest writings of the
Hew Testament, Eph. i, 10 ; Titus i. 3.

112 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
everything which the will of God demands of him he stands
face to face with Him alone, because his spirit is something
firmly shut and hidden to all save itself, but can immediately
participate in the divine spirit, and must participate in it if
he will actually fulfil that will. No man can either violate
or fulfil the* will of God for another, as the Old Testament
most emphatically teaches.1 If, therefore, the will of God
can be perfectly fulfilled by man at all, one man must first
so fulfil it, or it will never be perfectly fulfilled in the human
race, and the whole aim of man's creation will thereby be
missed.2 On the other side, all human fulfilling of the divine
will in the individual man consists in an unbroken series of
temptations to the contrary overcome, whether with less or
more difficulty ; but if even one temptation may be overcome
by the individual man, which no one denies, then an individual
has power to overcome all temptations, and to breathe that
perfect divinely-human life in which the whole good pleasure
of God, and the whole happiness of man, meet and coincide.
Thus then the possibility here in question must be conceded ;
and how Kttle the Bible contradicts it, whether the Old or'
the New Testament, will be further shown in the following
chapters of this work.
Secondly, it is evident, it is true, that the practical possi
bility just mentioned may take shape and form in very
different ways, in accordance with the incalculable variety and
force of natural gifts in individuals, and that not all human
spirits as they step into history are from the first equally
competent to lead the way in attaining the highest aim
here proposed, still less to maintain such competency for a
length of time. But what may rightly be called the divine
spirit is in itself ever a whole, and endowed, moreover, with
the special faculty of striving intelligently and effectively for

iAsPs. xlix. 8 ff. , li. 6.
2 These general propositions, as well as that immediately following, can only
be more definitely discussed and demonstrated below, vol. ii. and iii., but in
this connection they must at least be briefly stated.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 113
the whole,1 although it is confined in the hmited and frail
body of an individual man, and works from this limitation.
Here, however, the question is not general, does not concern
the infinite detail of everything man in his mental activity
may inquire into and know, or may attempt and accomplish
in the world; the problem is simply that of never at any
moment violating the principles of true religion, that of
obeying thus the divine will only, even where it is most
difficult to obey it, in thinking and speaking as in doing and
suffering ; and for such a task the spirit which an individual
has received may suffice, even where the utmost measure of
attainment is demanded of it. It is said also, where from the
context it has its proper import, " not by measure " — as if He
were Himself a heathen god, and so possibly envious, who likes
to give what he gives only piecemeal and in scant measure
ment — " does God give the Spirit," 2 but if He gives it at all,
and to any one in special mode,3 He gives it wholly, so that
it can accomplish, through that man from whom it works,
even the most perfect and abiding results. Christ proclaims it
as a universal truth, not one merely applicable to this man or
that ; He does not say it immediately of Himself. But the
truer the general proposition is, the more vividly and obvi
ously it is realized by the individual by whom it is actually
reahzed; and how it was realized by Christ in a peculiar
degree, is evident enough from the whole phenomenon of His
life. But if this practical and this so to say personal possibility
were both realized by Jesus as Christ, there must still be
added at last, in the third place, the one possibility, which to
have made a reahty is His peculiar and immortal merit alone,
1 [I.e. contains in itself all possibilities open to it, and the capacity to realize
them.— Te.]
2 John iii. 34. [Ewald ascribes this saying to Christ. — Tr.]
3 To what is special there is already reference in that the discourse here is of
' a special giving of the Spirit by God, and of Him whom God sent. But the
idea of " not by measure " leads back also essentially to what is said in John i. ¦
32, cf. 52 (Eng. version 51), of the special manner of the descent of the Spirit
upon Jesus in baptism.
EWALD I. H

114 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
viz. the perfect, unobscured, conscious submission to the
divine will, and harmonious co-operation with it in every
moment of His public activity which we can observe ; and
this, too, in a life-work incomparably important for the salva
tion of the ancient community, and through it of all humanity,
and just as incomparably burdened with temptation, diffi
culty, and sorrow, and whose only joy was the pure realiza
tion of divine assurance and hope. But through this, and
through this alone, did that wondrously elevating thought of
the kingly and perfect, demanded in this community by old
prophecies and expectations, and sustaining Him all along
from the beginning, receive at length its fulfilment and satis
faction ; and when a king had come, who, standing infinitely
abased amid all other so-called kings, yet eternally overtopped
them all, and transfigured at once and for ever the idea of the
kingly, and when a kingdom was founded, .differing from all
others, yet alone able to give to all others salvation and
perpetuity, and unite all together in a common divine security,
then already the whole development of millenniums of antiquity
in this community and all the rest of the nations attained its
perfect consummation, but only to make room for a wholly new
fellowship, whose light and whose revelation now at once begin.
For Christ's revelation is His public appearing and work in
themselves, as they must take shape and form by the full
living concurrent action of all these four potencies.1 It is the
consciously-certain word of a King who founds His own
kingdom of the perfect true religion, expected in the disinte
grated ancient community of the true religion, and who calls
all who will listen to Him to participate in it. But as
certainly as the kingdom He founds as its human King is none
other than the kingdom of divine truth itself,2 so certainly He
1 [These four forces (machte) are — 1. The idea of the kingly and perfect de
manded by ancient prophecy and expectation ; 2. The practical or objective
possibility of its realization within the limits of our humanity ; 3. The personal,
or subjective, possibility of its realization by the God-given Spirit : 4. The
actual realization itself in Christ's own experience and work. — Tr.]
2 John xviii. 37 f., with all similar sayings in John.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 115
has but to lay down in all calmness and all clearness the
fundamental conditions of it, and by His own work corre
sponding to these conditions, and by the formation of a com
munity resting upon them, actually to begin it. And as
certainly as the expected King coming at length into His
kingdom has to apply afresh for the purposes of His kingdom
all the old inherited treasures and forces increased by His
own, so certainly nothing is lost to Him in itself and in His
new community, — no truth spoken, no blessing secured at any
earlier period of this community's history. Still further, just
as certainly as. He knew that the God whose kingdom of
truth He had to found by all such means in the new com
munity, is ever the same both in Himself and towards His
own people in the world, so certainly He never at any moment
despaired of the victory of the kingdom set up by Him on
earth, but discoursed and worked even in the conspicuous
destruction of His own mortal body as the King of this
kingdom, and by the divine Spirit eternally triumphant.
Therefore from the very beginning of His public work He does
not, in an individual case or generally, first seek divine truth,
as the prophets do, who often become certain of it and publish
it only after most violent unrest and agitation ; He has it
already, working always as a King in the divine kingdom in
blessed repose, and He obeys it without hesitation even where,
from the vicissitude of the times, it is of importance to be
ever freshly certain of the divine wiU in particular affairs ; so
that even the most fearful experiences from without shake
and thrill Him indeed humanly, but yet leave Him divinely
undisturbed. He does not, as the prophets, struggling often
with the darkness of other thoughts, first transpose Himself
into the divine mind, and then from the sternly authoritative
and sharply reproving Ego of God Himself, discourse over
against the world (p. 48) ; He speaks and works directly
from His own Ego, but as if that Ego were never accustomed
to be without the divine light, and in no case were without
the divine will. The divinely-human life exists in Him

116 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
already as a sure boon and most blessed possession, and
revealing itself more widely to the world, it acts in all repose,
whether others, as they observe it, make it their own or not.
He can therefore calmly say, Every one may know, even from
his own earnest will, to obey implicitly the divine will,
whether His doctrine be an arbitrary invention of His own,
or that of God Himself.1 The prophetic element in Him,
apart from the clear glance into all the future, is therefore
also the inner certainty of mind as it reveals itself in its
truth over against the world. But on this account also, words
and works, doctrine and conduct and suffering, are with Him
in such perfect agreement and harmony, that the former only
illustrate the latter, the latter the former ; in everything He
presents equally a revelation of what the divine life in man
should be. And not till this is reached do we find the
supreme revelation (p. 72). It is because the separate
works a man performs may without doubt be most easily
known in their true character, whilst mere thoughts and
doctrines, notwithstanding their inner certainty and absolute
clearness, may involve truth so high and so new that many
to whom they are made known may not be equal to the
task of raising themselves at once to the most entire acqui
escence in them, that He says, He who will not believe in
His divine mission on account of His words, ought at least to
believe Him on account of His deeds, since to deny the light
of facts is pure sin.2
It is thus, in fine, one of the best witnesses for the truth
of His revelation that His whole public work is devoted so
purely and so singly to His vocation as the glorious King of
the kingdom of the perfect true religion, that, in fact, He
fulfils this vocation in the most complete way imaginable, and
that neither in word nor deed does He intermingle with it
1 John vii. 17.
2 All the earlier Gospels allow this to be inferred. John, however, at last
expresses it throughout his entire Gospel most clearly. Cf. The Johannean
Writings, i. p. 27 ff. The principal section, John xiv. 11 ff.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 117
anything in the smallest degree that is irrelevant and would
only disturb or obscure it, and inweave error afresh into the
most unsullied and transparent truth. Where power that is
unalloyed and so far immeasurable holds itself in act, in
knowledge, in judgment, in speech on all sides every moment,
voluntarily, discreetly, firmly, within its proper and therefore
inviolable human limits, and where the highest display of
energy shows the greatest self-restraint, the most laborious
work the serenest joyfulness, the most vehement unrest and
agitation and the, keenest smart the happiest repose, there all
the divinest that is possible in man may reveal itself, not only
most perfectly as to its nature and contents, but also most.
clearly and most conspicuously over against all the world, and
most convincingly over against all convictions. But the most
searching and repeated investigation attests how absolutely
and firmly Christ observed due limits ; and most readily is
it seen how He observed them in public action with un
surpassable accuracy as well in the least as in the greatest
affairs. Just as prudently and firmly did He keep within
them, also, in all family concerns ; by His mere authority He
would not forestall the decision of any lawful tribunal, nor
strain a right to any one's advantage or disadvantage.1 And
if with one who is held to be a sage, a teacher, or a prophet,
the temptation is always great to make a display of superior
wisdom by giving judgment upon some abstruse subject, or
to show transcendent prophetic power by foretelling what'
ever men desire to know ; yet in His case we never find
even in the least that He speaks and judges so that, from
His assumption, error and injury must sooner or later
necessarily accrue. On a question of critical knowledge, He
gives, a decision only where and so far as it was necessary,
• — in the right place, and then with striking completeness ; 2
foretelling what only God could know, He expressly dis-
1 The reminiscence in Luke xii. 13-15 shows this pre-eminently.
2 As cases like Matt. xix. 8, John v. 45-47, vii. 22, show most plainly ; also
Matt. xxii. 41-45, if it is taken accurately.

118 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
claims.1 And as He could thank God,2 when prepared for
death, that from the ranks of those who were truly His own
not a single one had been lost through Him, so there never
came from His lips a word of corruption or even of error ;
and indeed this was the less likely, from His own strong
assurance of the wondrous power of the good word and the
deeply pernicious power of every evil word in human affairs.3
Thus, then, in the only true and therefore most beautiful
manner, was fulfilled on this side in Christ everything that
the old anticipations finding expression in this community
had fervently desired (p. 98). As the truth and love, and
thereby the definite will of God to men, may become in a
man most perfectly living and effective, so this truth and
this love of God and His eternal will to men were now
manifest in the most perfect clearness and certainty,4 — no
longer as from an invisible distant Deity, or according to the
demand and prescription of a law; and the Word of God
which, comprehending in itself the whole mind of God, pene
trates and orders and sustains the whole universe from the
beginning, but before all the universe is addressed to and seeks
to guide mankind, — this Word, as we may now briefly say
upon a calm retrospect of the appearing of Christ, was
embodied and made human in the life of this one man, and
in His perishable mortal body itself, that it might be manifest
to all humanity as it was first manifest in Him.5
5. The Consummation of all Revelation.
§ 42. It would be a great mistake, however, to suppose
that the revelation which is the subject of our discussion
was already perfected during the earthly appearing of Him
who brought its consummation, or that there is any one
1 Matt. xxiv. 36. 2 John xvii. 12. 3 According to Matt. xii. 36 f.
4 Cf. how this is expressed just as briefly as appropriately in John i. 17.
5 For the introduction to John's Gospel, i. 1-18, was after all the only intro
duction with which a Gospel could be most suitably prefaced.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION, 119
moment of His human hfe, or any single word or deed of His,
in which it is already perfected. For the first certainty of
this whole development takes us back to the conclusion of
§ 1 9 f., that not single words, were they the eternally truest,
and not single deeds, answering exactly to the import of such
true words, but only a finished history, embracing, everything
that is relevant to the subject, can give the complete revela
tion which, for the needs of our present-day knowledge,
we here seek as in reality entire antiquity had sought it.
Even the last divinely-joyful surrender of Christ to death, and
His last words on the cross, perfect this revelation only so
far as He as this unique special man could contribute to it ;
it was perfected only as this whole human appearing and
activity of Christ "Himself was for ever perfected, and now by
reason of its entirety and its finished and settled significance
it stood in connection with this long development as a divine
whole before the world. For if an individual life can be
rightly estimated, as well in itself as in its connection with
the rest of mankind, only when, being fully concluded, it
becomes conspicuous as a finished whole, but then, however,
this right estimation, disconnected from the will of him whom
it adjudges, becomes irresistible, by reason of the pure work
ing back of divine impulses and powers whose activity the
individual history itself has occasioned ; how much more must
all this have been the case here, where the lifework of this
unparalleled personage had been the most difficult in itself
and of the highest nature, and, moreover, had formed the con
clusion of a most protracted and changeful development, upon
which depended the deepest spiritual life of all mankind !
When, therefore, the apostles, and soon incalculably many
others, gazing upon this wholly perfected divinely-human
life, became certain of its infinite significance and purely
divine glory, and, notwithstanding all mistaking and hostility
of the world, maintained this significance with unshaken
faith ; and when, as they were suffused with the radiance of
the glorified Christ, they found their own enlightenment and

120 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
that of the whole world only in His light and in His
truth, their own immortal life only in His immortal life :
then was the revelation perfected, which since the time of
Moses, nay, since the beginning of all human history, as will
be yet further evident, struggled all along towards its con
summation. But this perfected humanly-divine life having
entered into the world, produced already, even in its first
body of disciples, fruits of imperishable life, of which we
shall soon speak more particularly.1
But there is yet another point of view from which a
perfecting of revelation may and indeed must now be affirmed.
For if the utmost that the perfect true religion demands of
men (§ 41) had first to come in One who is in full reality so
perfect, that His whole conspicuous historical manifestation
was in everything — in all He spoke, taught, or strove after, in
all He did, attained, endured, or suffered — nothing but one
free outflow of that perfect true religion itself, and one un
paralleled effulgent transfiguration of it for all the world ;
now had this unique personage come who must thus first
come, and He had come not in the simpler conditions of the
higher antiquity, but in circumstances already the most
developed and the most gravely complicated into which
human society could grow, and not among the heathen, but
in that society which from its peculiar world-old culture
possessed in all these things the longest experience, the most
intent expectancy, and the ripest preparation, but also the
sharpest glance and suspicion, and when once inclined to the
right the most accurate judgment as well ; a society, indeed,
in which before such a claim as Christ raised His work must
be regarded as everything or nothing, and could find only
either the most terrible end, well-deserved in the judgment
of all the most sagacious, upright, and incorrupt of His fellow-
countrymen, or at least with some, and these an ever-
1 Cf. § 46 ff. One cannot refrain in this connection from involuntarily
referring to the word with which John concludes his preface, i. 14-18, and whose
further elucidation his great Epistle gives.

)
THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 121
increasing number, the highest reverence and the most
faithful following. If, however, He had now come in this
way, and by the whole of the now concluded phenomenon of
His Hfe had so completely stood the test, that at least with
the few whom He had first of all gathered about His own
person in close attachment, and had taken into His full con
fidence and love, He found the purest faith ; then the
acknowledgment must also have been made, that no other
man could come in whom should be manifest a yet higher
king of the kingdom of all true religion, and who should
fulfil the will of God more perfectly both in his humanity
generally and in the special capacity of spiritual kingship.
Therefore, as they banded themselves together around Him, —
notwithstanding His invisibility to the sense, — the immediate
duty x could only be to participate in the kingdom He had
founded, and in its requirements and hopes ; the immediate
task, too, was to obey Him in all things as the faithful
subject the King, or rather, as He Himself most loved to
indicate the relation, as a friend the friend, or a younger
brother the elder ; and the consecrating bond that made
all one was that everything material and sensuous was
with this King excluded, and only the purely God-like and
the divinely-transfigured had authority in the whole king
dom. And in point of fact there is no change in the
position of things to-day, for we still hold that revelation is
completed with Christ's historical appearing, since a higher
and more conspicuous revelation has neither actually come
in the ages succeeding Christ, nor upon closer consideration
is it even possible.
With all this coincides ultimately the idea of the Truth as
its highest generalization. The Apostle John, indeed, in all
his three Epistles loves no idea more than this, with that akin
to it, Light. He characterizes it in his Gospel also as the
i The idea of divine duty incumbent upon men now the oldest apostolic
preaching made in reality very prominent (Acts ii. 38-40, iii. 12-26, iv.
8-12, etc.).

122 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
conception in which the whole now finished manifestation of
Christ culminates,1 and he makes it recur in Christ's sayings
themselves2 with the same high significance in which he
otherwise renders it prominent. Why truth in this whole
sphere should not from the first arise to men save from its
own necessity, is indicated above (§ 1 6), and will be yet more
evident subsequently (vol. ii.) ; but if it has become known in
a matter affecting, as truth in this department must affect, all
men alike, then it lies in its nature, which is above human
caprice, that it should secure its own preservation among men ;
and we saw above how it had constantly been preserved in
the great several portions of it which had come to be known
in the old community, and had formed its very ground and
basis. But just as much does it lie in the nature of truth
also, that in a definite department of knowledge ahd activity
it should become the more conspicuous and incapable of
being lost again, the more completely in the whole range of
it it has found manifestation. And this was just the case
now. As in the highest question of the relation between
God and man, so also in all other principal questions, truth
had arisen in such absolute lucidity and trustworthiness, that
Christianity itself, as it had now once for all come to be
known in the world, might be regarded, as John regarded it,
as virtually synonymous with it.3
Nevertheless this is not equivalent to saying that truth in
this whole sphere has not still to struggle for its further
unfolding in special particular aspects of it, still less to
asserting that among Christians it is everywhere always con
spicuously heeded, and, as the divine will enjoins, practically
used, even indeed in those portions of it long since become a
sure p6ssession. Eevelation is now, it is true, completed in
1 John i. 14, 17.
2 From John iii. 21, iv. 23 f. onwards often ; and with no word is it more
distinctly felt than with this. How spontaneously to the grey-headed apostle
this word so exceptionally dear to him flowed into Christ's sayings, as they
became freshly vivified again in his own mind !
3 2 John 1-4 ; 3 John 1-4, cf. with 1 John i. 6, 8, ii. 21, iii. 19, iv. 6.

THE. STAGES OF REVELATION. 123
itself, perfectly, and historically, in the sense that no higher
revelation is yet to be expected ; but concluded and become
unnecessary as an activity it is not ; rather may its activity
be still further highly desirable, nay, indispensable in the
right place. But if the spirit in its purest, and, so to say,
most spiritual sense (§ 36) was in the earlier day held in
Israel to be the true spur of revelation, so now, after the
highest revelation had been manifest in Christ, must Christ's
spirit in a wholly analogous way be contemplated as itself
alone capable of carrying forward the work which He Himself
had once so powerfully begun. This is the all-prevailing
feeling which dominates aU apostles and other writers of the
New Testament, as in reality it completely penetrated the
whole of youthful Christianity.1 And thus the principle still
stands good, notwithstanding, and most palpably so with every
Christian, that revelation is essentially perfected and finished
with Christ.
§ 43. By this perfecting of revelation is understood —
1. As far as the past is concerned, that of all the truths
of this sphere nothing which has been already won upon any
previous stage is allowed to be lost on this highest and last.
For if there are actually divine truths, which should guide
the life of all men equally, and which the more surely and
completely they are known, and the more deeply and many-
sidedly they have become part of living experience, are the
more fit to guide this life, it becomes possible, with a continu
ously progressive development especially, that no truth should
be lost upon a higher stage which has already been won upon
a lower, since this higher stage itself can only be reached by
means of the gains of the lower ; and further, that least of all
can an essential truth be lost when the highest stage is
reached, and when it is thenceforward without interruption
maintained. But this continuously progressive development
1 Thence in purely prophetic writings the Old Testament, " Thus saith
Jahveh," passes over into the new expression, "The Spirit saith," Rev. ii. 7,
ii. 17, etc. ; then with special emphasis twice, xiv. 13, xxii. 17.

124 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
here presupposed is possible where, upon the basis of at least
some entirely irrefragable truths of this sphere, a community
is once upbuilt of such as find in them the only true salva
tion of their whole life and effort ; for then the efficacy and
preservation both of an individual truth that belongs to this
sphere, and of the coherence of all truth, no longer depends
upon the frailty of one man, or of a few men, but finds security
in the abiding aims and regulations of the community itself,
and in the continual succession of generations of men born,
or newly naturalized, in it. Since, now, such a community
had been already firmly estabhshed from the time of Moses,
and had become, at least in its deepest foundations, more and
more immovable through all the long and stormy centuries
that had succeeded ; and, moreover, since Christ had upbuilt the
new community of His perfect truth upon just the foundations
of the old community that were firmest, and the treasures
that had received the longest attestation, it is evident how in
the new community no single fragment of true knowledge,
and no single means of reviving it ever afresh, could be lost.
This, indeed, Christ Himself in His whole public action had
.shown,1 and the immediate and best continuers of His earthly
work at once further attested it.
In fact, however, this supplementing of what Christ had
said and done was the more necessary, since Christ neither
had the intention nor found the time to teach every indi
vidual thing Himself that belongs even to the fundamental
truths of this wide circle. It is true, indeed, that, according
to all our most exact investigations, it is incorrect to say that
His public activity lasted only for a year ; it extended rather
over three or four years. But even in the wider course of
1 That by Matt. v. 21 ff. Christ would not even remotely put Himself in
real opposition to Moses and the prophets, I have long since proved ; the men
of old time He opposes are wholly different men, and perhaps the' same as those
meant in John x. 8, as the latter passage is explained in the Jahrb. der Bibl.
Wiss. ii. p. 40-47. Just as certain is it that such words as Gal. iii. 19 f., 2 Cor.
iii. 7-15, John viii. 5ff., are not even remotely intended to detract from the
high authority of Moses himself, which in its measure is rightly conceded.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 125
these years He had other pressing business than to teach once
again everything that already stood secure in this community,
completely verified by the labours of the old great revealers
and the experience of all earlier centuries. What is of
moment here is that He could presuppose so calmly and
self-certainly, as He continually did, the anciently-attested
rich treasures of revelation as a divine and acknowledged
possession. Upon this wonderful structure, for the founding,
defence, and further progress of which the whole antiquity
had laboured, He placed only the still wanting last coping-
stones and sheltering roofs, without which it must certainly
have become disintegrated by exposure, and have fallen into
decay. As those old verified rudiments and mighty fragments of
revelation, by their very contents, and by the imperfection
which still characterized them, side by side with all their
indwelling truth that could not easily be destroyed, spontan
eously tended and led to an actual consummation of revelation^
so long as a breath of fresh pure life still animated this
community, and as the best prophetic minds had just on this
account with increasing confidence ultimately anticipated, and
as it were challenged this consummation, so when it had now
come it threw back its luminous splendour upon all the
separate truths which had been won in earlier days in this
community, or even elsewhere, sporadically in all antiquity.
The profoundest vision of the great unnamed prophet of the
Old Testament,1 and the most difficult task he had in his time
demanded as Israel's higher duty, unattainable then, listened
to fondly long afterwards as a beautiful tale of antiquity, but
lying as if spell-bound and dead upon the ground, woke up
anew, one wonderful, word after another, till all became wholly
living again in the new higher light that now flashed forth ; 2
the radiant splendour of Moses also, obscured by the later
1 Cf. Proph. of Old Test. iii. 21 ff. [Eng. ed. iv. 245 ff.].
2 From Matt. iii. 3 to .1 Pet. ii. 21-25 what progress there is ! And yet it is
only one direct and necessary progress.

126 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
scribes, now emerged from eclipse;1 and the stories of the
patriarchs of the yet freer, clearer, remote time, irradiated by
this new and intense effulgence, became luminous with
meaning never known before.2 And so the same new light
would arise at that time upon all the scenes and fragmentary
records of the earlier stages of revelation,3 the light which from
other causes and yet similarly to-day amongst ourselves is
shining, and might still further and more freely be diffused. .
But just as the consummation of revelation looked baclc
upon this its peaceful height with brighter vision upon all
things historically developed during its own earlier stages, and
projected into the present, so it was also keen-sighted enough
rightly to perceive the deficiencies that were there prevalent,
and, moreover, felt itself energetic enough at the same time to
liberate itself from them. Yet, indeed, there is nothing more
difficult and critical than emancipation from conceptions and
usages of life long since deeply rooted, irradiated widely as
by a divine splendour, and upheld by the dominant schools ;
and should the individual recognise also with sufficient
certainty what is pernicious and perishable in them, the
most careful reflection is continually needed to determine how
far he might venture to go as a member or leader of the
community, in order, in some definite matter, not to produce
at the time greater mischief. But it had been seen already
how, with respeet to old sacred customs, Christ Himself had
moved in that spirit of perfect piety which was destined to
prevail in the community ; 4 the new community, therefore,
that gathered about its heavenly Head immediately after His
1 Heb. xi. 24-28, cf. 2 Cor. iii. 13-16 ; above, p. 82.
2 John viii. 39-58.
3 The example of Heb. xi. 3-40 is only the most manifold and in so far most
masterly and greatest which the New Testament affords us ; the copious treat
ment of a thought in harmony with the Old Testament by Stephen, Acts vii.
is to be coupled with it.
4 Not merely with respect to the law of the schools concerning the Sabbath,
but also otherwise frequently ; the lasting impression the certain and variously
attested reminiscence of this must make in the earliest time of the apostolic
activity is too much overlooked to-day.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 127
glorification, attempted to shape its actual life in accordance with
His ; -1 and the further step which Paul somewhat later boldly
ventured upon with the certainty peculiar to him and victori
ously accomplished, is so instructive for us in this case chiefly
as we have so clearly in view the unusual difficulties which
then presented themselves, and were yet so happily and
harmlessly overcome. Thus the apostolic age shows with
what power and success the new original force of the perfected
revelation can work retrospectively in order rightly to appre
hend all that is incomplete in past historical developments,
and estabhsh something better in its place ; as Christ did this
Himself everywhere, and once incidentally gave expression to
it clearly enough as a principle.2
§ 44. 2. For the present, however, it must be matter of
importance to discourse in spirit about all serious questions as
Christ Himself had been heard to discourse about them. It
was not in the garb of the old prophetic speech that Christ
discoursed, but with an inner certainty, clearness, and by
consequence simphcity, that reproduced the old prophetic
speech in its finest characteristic, and caused all His words
to be soon customarily designated prophetic sayings.3 Now,
therefore, that which once seemed to have belonged to prophets
only was to be among Christians common custom, so that every
one, even if speaking of other subjects and occasions than Christ,
should yet discourse with the same inner certainty and simple
truthfulness as He had done ; and the incomparably high sig
nificance which Christ attributed fundamentally to sincerity
of word as the corresponding outcome of sincerity of spirit,4
1 Also often overlooked, although as a model for the time immediately follow
ing it must have been of the greatest importance ; but we overlook it because
we no longer possess such copious witnesses of it as of the changes introduced
by Paul. But the vast importance of these earliest changes is shown in the
History, vi. p. 138-193 [Eng. ed. vii.].
2 Matt. xiii. 52.
3 In Greek or Latin, according to p. 24, much more simply and briefly,
Xtym, macula ; the German Spriiche is less adequate. As to the subject itself,
see Die drei ersten JEvangelien, 2nd ed. p. 63 ff.
* Matt. xii. 36 f. may be taken with Matt. v. 33-37, xxiii. 16-22.

128 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
anticipated this requirement. As a matter of fact, the
language of the two writers of the New Testament who had
once stood very near to Christ, and who at the same time, as
writers in the Greek tongue, are more independent, answers
most faithfully to this demand ; pre-eminently the language of
John in his great Epistle and in his Gospel, then that of
James also. Peter, however, although his Epistle inclines more
to the type and colour of Greek discourse that became customary
through Paul, expresses most plainly the original Christian
requirement in the sentence, " Let every one, when he speaks,
speak as God's oracle." 1 Paul himself discourses indeed with
less simplicity, with less absolute directness and absence
of all consciousness of his own Ego and adornment of Greek
colour ; but where he enters into the discussion of special
difficult questions (and just in this he is altogether peculiar
among New Testament epistolary writers), it is felt at once
how the nervous brevity and simple directness which Christie
anity brought into the world again in such thoroughly new
form, seeks to take possession also of questions which are
properly speaking scientific. The Epistle to the Hebrews
follows Paul in this only at a wide interval in its principal
discussions and dissertations. The three pastoral Epistles are
colourless ; the transition to more artificial discourse we do
not mark until the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Second
Epistle of Peter, the last being parallel especially with the
Epistle of Jude.
What better conclusion could there be of this whole matter,
than that without continually introducing God as the ultimate
originator or pledge and witness of truth, as the greatest
prophets of Israel had once done, always in the highest and
purest sense, nevertheless human discourse should be commonly
spoken as if it were His discourse and His word ! For even
1 1 Pet. iv. 11. All this is to be taken into account, that we may understand
what new healthiness and quickening of mind in this direction Christianity
brought. In the Old Testament only Jeremiah touches upon this demand for
simple transparency and plain directness in human discourse, xxiii. 25-40.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 129
in word, nay, first of all and most necessarily in word, the true
God was not now to. come among men and make Himself
audible and perceptible to them as it were ever anew and
from His lofty and remote height ; He was to be present with
men always in all repose and equalness, so that nothing
should be thought and nothing should be spoken which had
not the mark of veracity He required, and was not, though in
humble and limited measure, a kind of revelation of His
mind and thought, or at least could not be answered for at
last before Him as a conscientious word.
§ 45. 3. With aU this, however, the eager looking for divine
enhghtenment with respect to the darkness of the present and
the future, and the special department of ancient prophecy to
which this belonged, were so little to be repressed, that they
rather freshly awoke with new ardour and new boldness, and
seemed capable of entirely recovering once more the old power.
Whilst for many centuries the prophecy of the palmy days
of the nation had been as good as dead, and dragged on but a
poor existence in anonymous writings (§ 38), now itTenewed
its strength, as did all the deeper life of the spirit, which in
the nobler times of the old community flourished spontaneously,
and it reappeared openly with its task and its whole entire
effort in the different new Christian communities.1 Yet
certainly its slumbering fire was first vividly enkindled with
special force amid the new and severe persecutions which so soon
broke out, threatening afresh the whole existence of this com
munity ; and accordingly, in the first larger book of prophecy,
replete with art, that issued from, the midst of its life, the short
all-explaining sentence is given : " The witness of Christ " — up
lifting itself boldly even amid the direst temptations and pains
of the world — " is the spirit of prophecy ; "2 the former called
forth the latter, and is virtually one with it, so that he who is
most ready for that " witness " is also easily most irresistibly
possessed of this " spirit." This is as much as to say, it is
1 Cf. History of Israel, vi. p. 185 f., 694 ff, vii. p. 361 ff.
2 Rev. xix. 10.
EWALD I. t

130 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
only the genuine spirit, which shows itself active in Christianity
in so perfect a form, that can now possess the prophets and speak
forth from them. And if in a book so highly esteemed at that
time as the Book of Daniel, it might be read how the prophet,
falling down and doing homage, humbled himself profoundly
before the radiant form of a mighty angel that appeared to
him,1 the new Christian spirit rather felt aversion to such slavish
fear and adoration of an angel,2 since it seemed as if every
other spiritual existence must now vanish before the solitary
grandeur of Christ. Accordingly, Paul also, regarding it as
opportune to seek to confine within its appropriate bounds the
stream of prophetic ardour, soon overflowing again in the new
Christianity, briefly counselled that all Christian prophecy
should shape itself " according to the proportion of faith," or
in that measure and in those contents that agree with the faith
that is established independently of the prophet, and with his
own conscience, and should be approved only in so far as
the prophet would be answerable for it to these authorities ;
and it is self-evident that this " faith " is in Paul's mouth the
Christian faith.3 In another passage, where he sees himself
obliged to deal very definitely and copiously with all the
diversified manifestations of higher inspiration as they occur in
youthful Christianity, — partly in an altogether new and even
strange form, — he concludes the long discussion with the
brief general proposition : " Even the spirits of the prophets
are subject to the prophets," so that they are under control and
orderly if only the prophet knows how to curb and guide
them.4 There is no need to suppose that the maxim, the
motto of a golden seal, impressed at last in the New Testament
upon all prophecy and to be legible for ever, contradicts the
view of the best earlier antiquity (p. 63 ff.) concerning the
relation of the prophet to the spirit impelling him ; it only
1 Dan. x. 4-10 ; which passage probably floated before the mind of John of
the Apocalypse.
2 Rev. xix. 10, xxii. 9 ; with which must be taken as the counterpart, i. 17.
Thus also the end of the Apocalypse points back to the beginning.
3 Rom. xii. 6. * 1 Cor. xiv. 32, cf. with the discussion, xii., xiv

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 131
supplements it, while it admonishes the prophet in the very
inidst of his self-surrender in some obscure matter to the
urgent and all-powerful impulse of the true spirit, not to suffer
anything undivinely conceived to intermingle, and to hold the
bridle of the horse the more firmly, the more swiftly it runs.
For the whole individual man and prophet can ever stand
superior to a particular thought that has seized him.
But it is worthy of note, and instructive to mark well and
somewhat more closely, how Christian prophecy, suddenly
springing up thus with unanticipated boldness and independence,
actually shaped itself in detail. The highest art in which
prophecy could ever clothe itself together with the sublimest
and most lasting contents were already found in the treasury of
the Old Testament prophets, and the reading of old writers in
conjunction with immediate authorship were then two of the
living impulses that flourished in the highest degree. It is
quite in harmony with this that Christian prophecy, newly
struggling forth, should throw itself with youthful zeal into the
glow of that imperishable centre of divine fire ; should nourish
to still greater vigour by its warmth the Christian hopes now
so wonderfully attained, whose mighty life was kindled chiefly
at that central-hearth ; and should not merely replenish itself
afresh with the contents of those old sacred works, as far as
they appeared applicable to the present, but above all should
be newly vivified and sustained by their unsurpassable art.
The Old Testament prophecy, with every charm of its high art
and holy word, born again, however, in the Christian spirit,
found once more a resurrection to life, and the old shadows,
freshly animated by a new spirit, stepped forth anew into the
full light of day. Of such works, of which, according to all
indications, many appeared, the best, the Apocalypse of a
John otherwise almost entirely unknown to us, has alone
been preserved in the New Testament. Who would wish
to hinder this kind of resuscitation of the old sublime
prophecy of the true religion ? Or if, in quite a different
sphere, the unsurpassable art of Homer were to-day imitated

132 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
for a new purpose, who shall prevent it ? But the resuscitation
of the art of Old Testament prophecy was at that time only
one of the many means by which the consummation of all reve
lation in this its right sphere sought the more surely its own
preservation and defence. But because this renewal of exist
ence was possible only by means of literary art, and by no
means proceeded from the midst of a great public life, as did
that immortally perfected Old Testament prophecy, it could well
serve its special aim as a wholly appropriate instrument, and
illustrate one and another of the finest Christian truths ; but the
real old prophecy in its living art, it could neither completely
renew nor surpass, as indeed from that day to this has never
happened, notwithstanding varied and successive attempts.
Christ Himself, however, even in the midst of His public
activity as it became more extensive and difficult, and its day
was felt to incline to its end, had spoken more frequently and
at large words which after His departure were rightly felt to
contain the presages of His prophetic spirit, and on that
account were the more carefully weighed and the more eagerly
collected.1 They were spoken, as their occasion and varying
special contents demanded, in very manifold form, — in signifi
cant parables, in abrupt sentences, and in longer discourses,
and also as additions to a special word of prophecy from the
Holy Scriptures ; 2 but they were all without exception just
as purely creative, and therefore as simple and transparently
clear, as all other words of His revelation; and even the least
fragment of them showed that artistic beauty and perfection
which marks everything that is truly creative. They were
spoken, moreover, as publicly as all that Christ spoke,3 and,
1 That the prophetic words of Christ taken from the *' collected sayings," and
as a whole well preserved in Matt. x. , xiii. , xxiv. , xxv. , are in all that is essential
really His, no competent critic can deny. John, who regards it subsequently
as superfluous to give a similar collection, shows rather how Christ expressed
such anticipations in living connection with His other thoughts and discourses,
experience and acts.
2 As in the addition to the words from the Book of Daniel Matt. xxiv. 15.
3 That Christ said nothing to the Twelve alone that had it been advisable at
the moment He could not have said before all the people, and that was actually

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 133
as the occasion offered, in a wider or narrower circle ; 2 but
they concerned, as did everything that proceeded from His
spirit, only the great affairs of His kingdom. And since in
these prophecies, as collected and compared one with another,
was presented in all simple brevity an adequate image of
the whole infinitude of the future development of His kingdom,
so far as its founder in the midst of the limitations of His
particular time could present it, revelation in this aspect of
it was perfected as far as was necessary for its absolute and
supreme aim; as, indeed, this might be perceived with the
greater certainty as soon as the most vital part of those
prophecies began to be fulfilled.2
It is true, however, that not every Christian at once and in
all situations of life has that higher rest and unshaken com
posure in which Christ Himself, amid temptations and suffer
ings which He only could experience, ever looked forward to
all the future, and in which He lived, as if wherever He might
sojourn a longer or shorter time, He carried about with Him
self everywhere, in the frail perishable human body, a con
tinually uniform perfect revelation of God and His will. Nor
is it less certain that, face to face with the darkness of the
present and the inscrutable enigmas of the future, not all even
of the most intimate chief witnesses of His glory and heralds
of His gospel could constantly maintain this same unclouded
serene repose — all sharp dissimilarity notwithstanding — as
the Apostle John had won it according to the testimony of his

said before them as soon as possible, is partly self-evident and partly follows
from the right sense of the words, Matt. xiii. 13-17, cf. with v. 13-16, x. 27.
The same thing is true of what He said to His specially trusted three disciples,
or to one of them ; but what was elsewhere said to an individual, as in John
iii. 1 ff., iv. 7 ff., is only in its ultimate import what, the occasion being
different, He said also everywhere.
1 See preceding note.
2 It is well worthy of note that the Apocalypse of the New Testament was
written in the midst of the exceeding unrest and insecurity which might well
take possession even of the best Christian hearts, before the destruction of
Jerusalem had brought the first great confirmation of Christ's prophetic words.
It can therefore be rightly appreciated only as it is firmly held to be the last
mighty outcry of Christian longing ere the first great realization of it.

134 , REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
three Epistles and of his Gospel narrative. Every Christian
may always find himself still in a position of things in which,
with respect to great Christian affairs or the experiences of
his own life, he yearn.s for new revelation, that he may clearly
and confidently know how he has to act so as to conform to
God's will ; but as to the glance of the soul that longs deeply
and painfully for new revelation in great universal humanly-
divine issues, this, during the whole continuance of youthful
Christianity, might really be excited most vividly, nay, to over-
measure and intoxication, not only by the greatest wonder
which so far human history could experience, and which, as
seen in Christ's history, still stirred men's minds with all
freshness, nor merely by the severest straining of all expectation
and hope thus occasioned, but also by the rare abundance of
what may briefly be called (p. 97) apocalyptic writings, which,
in the glowing heat of those years, excited the imagination
most vehemently, and could easily throw susceptible spirits
into a similar fervour of intuitions of heaven, of hell, of the
judgment of the world, and the ultimate eternal consummation.
A man of such glowing thoughts, longings, and imaginations
was Paul, and especially so as being yet a wholly new disciple
of the Lord; but he not merely possessed at that time the
most burning longings for revelations concerning the infinitely
great last Christian things, he had also subsequently to fight
resolutely enough with all the world, nay, even with his own
sick body, that he might not ever be struggling anew in most
urgent prayer for immediate divine revelation. But from the
way in which in his later riper days, under special but un
avoidable circumstances, he once expresses himself 1 concerning
two things, different in themselves, but with him very closely
connected, his word may be taken as the soundest doctrine
upon the subject. For he was perfectly conscious, indeed, that
a Christian in his highest excitation and most blessed rapture
could feel himself transported to heaven and hell, nay, to the
1 2 Cor. xii. 1-10, with what is said in the Sendschreiben des Apostels Paulus,
p. 301-308.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 135
near -vision of the glorified Christ and the judgment of the
world, and he did not reject such extreme inspiration with
the revelations received in it concerning the last things ; but
he knew also that a man must not lose by means of it his
composure and presence of mind.1 And once in the wrestling.
of his prayer he thought he heard an immediate voice from
God Himself and the glorified Christ, and he was not deceived
in this ; but that he was not deceived lay merely in the clear
truth, firmly estabhshed, independently of his excited feeling
and perfectly normal character, of the brief twofold word ¦ he
had heard in the way not infrequent in his age (described
above, p. 1 0 2), and whose normal character consisted just in this,
that it finds its response so perfectly in every genuine Christian
mind, and, moreover, contains in itself for him as for every one
similarly suffering the most wonderful uplifting and consola
tion. If, now, Paul presents, in general, a typical example of
the individual Christian in all situations of hfe, he also may
show us here that, in the two great directions which can occur
in practice, the universal and the special, the potency and
truth of revelation, of course in the midst of the consummation
of all revelation brought by Christ, may be active continually,
if it but keeps itself within those firm limits which this
apostle has himself traced out from his own living experience.
For the perfecting of a spiritual and so an eternal beneficent
activity is not to bring for the future its cessation, or indeed
its ignorement and disregard, but only the proper laws and
limits within which henceforward it has to move. And as
the perfecting of the creation of human speech does not demand
the cessation of this activity, or seek to hinder its infinite appli
cation and extension, although never again may its proper un
alterable foundations be destroyed, so similarly this activity of
all divinely-human speech is never again to be restrained where
it keeps itself in its right limits as they have now been won.2
1 In ver. 2 he speaks as one may discourse of every Christian, so little
does he seriously wish to boast of himself only.
2 That revelation might go on in the community, indeed, even without Paul,

136 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.

Special Marks of the Consummation of Revelation.
§ 46. In all that has just been said, there lies the general
proof that upon its fifth stage revelation is in reality so perfected
that to expect or attempt a higher would be folly indeed.
But there are yet distinct marks by which this perfection
may ever be recognised with the same certainty in another
aspect, and by all.
1. As touching its expression, revelation has come in
Christ to a stage which, because it is the highest, is also the
simplest ; this must be said if what is essential is considered.
The particular outward husk and variegated diversity in
which it made its appearance all through the previous stages,
so long as the pure divine Ego still suppressed as it were
every human Ego, it has now stripped off; this Ego still
speaks down from its lofty height only as a lingering echo, and
more perceptibly in the imitations of learned writers. The
proud, high growth and luxurious bloom vanish ultimately in
the firm, solid fruit, and the most motley and manifold as it
perfects itself changes to the most simple. When divine
thought feels itself now no longer strange and foreign in the
world, and sure divine certainty needed no more the distinct
affirmation of God Himself to accompany it in order to find
acceptance among men as divine word and be regarded as
divine certainty, then it is that according to the will of Christ
all human thoughts and words are to be full of divine
assurance and joyfulness. Now sounds indeed from the lips
of Christ Himself the certifying " Verily," or rather, according
to John, still more strongly the " Verily, verily, I say unto
and in a particular matter run counter to his way of thinking, he says himself,
Phil. iii. 13, cf. with 1 Cor. vii. 40 ; upon the same belief rests the whole
Apocalypse of the New Testament ; and this does not assert that with it any
future revelation is to be excluded. But the most general witness for the faith
in a continuance of revelation in great communities, and strictly taken in the
individual also, lies indeed in the faith in the Holy Ghost, as this is indicated
above, p. 122 f.

THE STAGES OF REVELATION. 137
you," mingling in all earnestness with His words in the
proper place as opposed to common thought and discourse ;
for that not every Christian as he speaks is moved by God's
Spirit, and that this Spirit, even where it is dominant, may
readily be misunderstood, Paul tells us definitely enough;1
also nothing whatever is to be lost of all the mighty words
and commands of the pure divine Ego which, thrilling the
world of mankind, became the support and stay of its higher
fellowship; but just in order that the highest Ego should
have neither been revealed in vain, nor where it shows itself
less discernibly should be actually mistaken, is every one to
hear the divine word speaking even in the simplest word if it
accords with the Holy Spirit called forth and become luminous
by the fulness and clearness of the supreme revelation now
vouchsafed. For —
2. As a second mark of perfected revelation, there is now
apparent the full agreement of this essentially mediate (§12)
with the threefold immediate revelation which is collateral
with it, and just as infallible, only it is mute in itself, and
has not reached the distinct hght of word and clear thought
(§ 11). If revelation, briefly so called, just so far as it is
genuine, and especially when it is perfected, but expresses in
clear words and thoughts what without it lies already in the
relationship of the human and divine spirit in the whole
creation as the spirit-informed work of God and in divinely-
ordered human history, then it may be cultivated somewhat
exclusively by itself alone never so long, albeit affected
consciously or unconsciously more and more by influences
from the three kinds of immediate revelation, yet at last a
time must come when it perfectly coincides with them all,
announces nothing as God's will and word that contradicts
them, but expresses all that lies unspoken in them, and so
attains in that very circumstance its supreme consummation.
Precisely this had now happened. For during this somewhat
exclusive development, the mysteries of the human spirit
1 Cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 32 with vii. 40.

138 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
had become more and more profoundly understood, the things of
creation had been investigated with an ever-extending research,
the grand teachings of history had grown irresistibly clearer
and clearer ; and the longer revelation had continued to work,
the more completely had it quickened the spiritual eye and
ear to note all this. The great Old Testament prophets
already found support for their oracular utterances in the
reason of men,1 in the indications of God in creation,2 in the
divine teachings which history may offer.3 But when Christ
in His revelation had pointed so simply and with such deep
creativeness to all that the inner light and salt of the human
spirit when well-guarded might effect,4 when He had placed
in bold relief with unsurpassed and thousand-fold variety
what the infinite analogies of the whole human and not-
human creation could witness for the kingdom of God,5 and
when He had set up for the light of it at every fitting point
the inexhaustible teachings of all history,6 then at length the
two sides of all revelation exactly met in a new and still
higher revelation, such as never before the world had seen.
Not that it was necessary that all details of the knowledge of
things of the human spirit, of creation, of the history of all
ages and of all nations, should thereby be exhausted ; they are
not yet exhausted to-day, notwithstanding all the new eager
attention bestowed upon them ; and for the matter in hand
nothing depends upon this exhaustion. But that revelation
had now placed itself with such absolute clearness and con
fidence in the - midst of this whole circle of thinkable things,
1 In cases like Isa. i. 3, xxviii. 23-29 ; Jer. ii. 31 ("see ye yourselves,'' as
Luke xii. 57, aip' ixvrSv, " of yourselves ye judge "), and elsewhere in so many
passages, especially by the style of discourse more and more strongly appealing
to the hearer's own conviction.
2 As Jer. x. 12-16 ; Isa. xl. 12 ff. ; it is in this case chiefly the later prophets
who more and more strongly take this way of proof.
3 From Amos vi. 2, ix. 7, down to Jer. ix. 24 f. and beyond.
d Matt. vi. 22 f., xii. 34-36 ; Mark ix. 49 f.
5 To which belong so many parables, as Matt. vi. 26-28, xiii. 3 ff. ; Luke xii.
28-28. 6 Mark ii. 25 f. ; Matt. vi. 29 ; Luke xiii. 1-5, and the passages mentioned
above.

THE RESULTS OF REVELATION. 139
and was conscious that its high conceptions were in the most
perfect harmony with all that could be thought and known
beyond its primary sphere, so that it brought all the sources
of immediate revelation of God flowing into one channel, and
mingling completely with its own word of God, and knew
that it derived from them nothing whatever that is dark and
obscure, — this is the mark of its consummation also on this
side. And accordingly —
3. Having founded for itself through the collective labour ,
of its millenniums a new bright world, the world of divine
thoughts and truths and words now manifest, it was able at
length to address itself without distinction to every human
mind, that it might replenish it with their light, and awaken
it to new life. For the perfected revelation no longer, as in
its youth, is ever putting itself here and there spontaneously
to the test, and aiming in this or that more limited circle
towards a firmer self-development ; it knows that for every
man without exception it possesses the same alhembracing
truth, and for every foe that opposes it it has the same over
mastering strength. And that already upon its fourth stage,
and still more absolutely upon its fifth, this full consciousness
of its destiny for all the world and for all eternity has been
won, here is the last and most palpable mark of its perfect
consummation.

III.  THE RESULTS OF REVELATION.
§ 47. It has now been seen that revelation, just as its
activity shaped itself upon the highest and therefore simplest
of its stages, having reached in antiquity its high perfection,
can continue also without let or hindrance for all the future ;
that, from the special aspect it assumed in prophecy, enough
that is imperishable and eternal ever remains, and can continue
to work in other ways when the modes of action in which it
appeared for a time are laid aside and destroyed ; and that

140 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
this whole energetic development returns in its last stage to
its first, but with the infinite gains superadded the inter
mediate stages alone could secure. It is therefore open to
us finally to contemplate in particular, and, now with the more
absolute and complete accuracy, just this gain itself, or rather
the results of all revelation, and the fruits this whole potent
spiritual movement of antiquity produced. Not that are
thereby meant the more remote consequences of revelation,
different in different places and times, and compared with the
chief matter somewhat more contingent, as, for example, that
a special and moreover very rich and eternally fruitful litera
ture could arise from its activity ; this is to be discussed in
detail by and by. Bather are meant the consequences which
are first of all to be found upon its path, which attest to us
that its mighty toil was not without its immediate effect upon
the wellbeing of humanity and the advancement of its divine
destiny, and from which only a complete and just estimate
can be formed of its whole effort. They are such results as
are in all that is essential alike at every stage, but are
necessarily greater and more noble upon the higher stages.
1. The higher Community among Men.
% 48. The first great and splendid boon revelation can
bring is the possibility, which it alone possesses, of establishing
among men any higher fellowship. It is true there are impulses
enough which bring individual men, and even many of them,
into fellowship with others, but there is only one impulse
which can make such fellowship firm, enduring, and salutary.
Where outward pleasure, or the pursuit of temporal gains, or
force, or artifice and persuasion, found among men a society,
whether of the most exclusive or broadest character, the germ
of death lies in it ; and this is the case even where the com
panionship is the most exclusive and isolated of all, viz.
marriage ; for all these impulses unite men, indeed, for the
moment, but still sunder them again even more sharply and

THE RESULTS OF REVELATION. 141
destructively. The power to estabhsh a better fellowship
between men must proceed from what can alone subject their
spiritual efforts, readily going asunder to infinity by the
impulses just mentioned, to a unity which stands over their
spirits according to their own obscurer or clearer feeling of its
spiritual nature. For in the last analysis, man, in opposition
to all other creatures, is a spiritual being who alone can be
led by his spirit, so that two men come into permanent
agreement only if that which impels them in common, and
which therefore, itself of a spiritual nature, stands oyer each
of them singly and both of them together, has become obvious
to the spirits of both. But what stands over the spirit of the
individual, and of aU men simultaneously, itself of a spiritual
nature, so that men can come to a common understanding in
it, and find, through repeated new understandings, a permanent
union, this may in general be rightly designated the divine.
The earliest nations already felt this, and so there arose, even
thus early, among men of all nations an eager desire to hear
the voice of God, or the oracle, and to suffer themselves to
be guided by it. The longer the seat of an oracle could
maintain its authority, and the more widely that authority
extended, the more numerous was the spiritual fellowship of
men that gathered around it, as we shall have yet further to
consider below, § 52 ff. The fellowship so formed may,
however, be called a higher fellowship, because it is essentiaUy
spiritual, and so necessarily rests upon such foundations as
are far more enduring than those, upon which unspiritual
communities are based. From all this it is evident that the
higher the perfection revelation attains throughout all its
stages, the more indestructible must be the foundations of the
fellowship which such revelation yields.
Meanwhile the particular elementary materials, essential to
the construction of such a fellowship from the first, stand out
upon the higher stages of revelation accurately distinguishable,
and more and more clearly conspicuous. , This is the place to
examine these original elements more closely.

142 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
1. The idea and influence of the " light " are pre-eminent,
and receive through revelation a higher significance. What
the will of God to men is comes by revelation into the light,
first of all in detail and specialities, afterwards with growing
completeness in all its parts and as a whole. At length man
can enjoy the light of revelation irradiating his spirit more
and more as the light and warmth of his own best life, can
permit himself to be enlightened, yea, to bask in the light of
the old, already granted revelation, and can also seek in every
new darkness of his life new light in that light which has
been kindled for perpetual guidance. Last of all, he can
recognise that this light is inseparable from God Himself, and
for him, from this point of view, God is light. This progress
in the apprehension of the light, in the course of time, may
be traced clearly enough, so far as it is relevant to our subject.
Isaiah, on the point of discoursing to the men of Israel, calls
upon them " to walk with him in the light of Jahveh," — to
suffer themselves to be enlightened and guided by the old
revelation, as it is just about to arise again in increasing
effulgence ; 1 and it becomes a brief, firmly- established
principle that His word is this light, or rather, in further
application of this image, " a lamp," the right use of which is
necessary in order to have for the earthly course the higher
light of all life.2 But when it is said further on, in elevated
prayer, " in Thy light let us see light," 3 there is expressed
quite generally the truth that men must ever raise themselves
anew to this light, and the graciously-conceded possibility of
this is joyfully greeted ; nay, we instinctively feel here what
ineffable blessedness, in the devout remembrance of this
possibility, now streams through man's heart. Last of all,
He comes manifestly into the world, in whom the Christian
heart exulted, as He could say concerning Himself, " I am
the light of the world," for the Word (the Logos) of God, who
by His life and action in the world was its light from the
beginning, had now become in Him the divine light for all
1 Isa. ii. 5. 2 Ps. cxix. 105. 3 Ps. xxxvi. 10 (A. V. 9).

THE RESULTS OF REVELATION. 143
men, so far as that Word could be manifest as a mortal man
whose whole life was for aU humanity the most conspicuously
luminous exposition of the divine will.1
This light may also be designated the plain evident "truth"
which in this whole province has its vahdity for men.
Whilst light is something self-active, and according to its
pecuhar property efficiently working, truth is the unalterable
and positive ground of things, to the weak and enfeebled eye
wholly dark and quiescent, to the spiritual eye becoming
apparent at length just as it is and as in its nature it must
be ; the ground of things which neither is nor can be other
than it is, of which therefore account can be given and for
which proofs can be brought, although it does not depend
upon them. For this reason, as revelation tended more and
more to its consummation, one might say, according to this
way of looking at the somewhat different conception of truth,
that revelation is, in briefer, more incisive language, truth
absolutely ; 2 or, somewhat more definitely, that the aggregate
or sum of the word of God is truth,3 so far as every various
detail which was in later times reckoned as the existinc
revelation is comprised under one head or sum, and this very
sum:total comprehending all that detail in itself comes to be
estimated with revelation. And such short expressions were
the more proper at a time and place where God HimseK was
already characterized as " truth." 4 In the New Testament,
however, the idea of the truth is- connected immediately with
that of light.5
2. But this hght is not kindled and this truth is not firmly
1 John viii. 12, cf. with i. 4 ff., and 1 John i. 5-7, ii. 8-10.
8 Ps. cxix. 142, 151.
3 Ps. cxix. 160, as the words in themselves run, —
The sum of Thy word is truth ;
Thy judgment is ever wholly righteousness.
As the two parts fully correspond if tOSE'D is read for OBE^D
4 Jer. x. 10 ; said similarly as, God is Spirit, is Love, John iv. 24 ; 1 John
iv. 8, 16.
5 As follows in particular from John viii. 32, cf. with 12 ; but it is also
apparent here that the idea of light is easier of comprehension and earlier.

144 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
held that the one or the other should exist for itself alone and
remain inoperative. Nay, in revelation, from the very first
the more purely and creatively it breaks forth, these twin-
forces of light and truth never appear without teaching how
man should act so as to conform to them, as already has been
shown in § 13 ff. To know and to maintain firmly the right
way of life, both in its whole conduct and in every special
embarrassment and difficulty, is for every man so much a
matter of primary importance, that the light and the truth do
but serve ultimately to this end.1 Properly speaking, there
fore, every revelation, if it be persistently active and vital on
all sides, proposes to make or ensure a special course or way
of the spiritual life,; 2 or, in other words, every religion has
its own type or character and mode of life.3 But revelation,
the more perfect it is, affords the more surely and adequately
the possibility of their attainment; and it does this not
simply by the clear shining light of its pure truths, but also
by the equally luminous models of life presented by the
revealers of those truths and their immediate and most loyal
followers. But the ultimate goal of this course can only be the true
God Himself ; and this whole conduct and life of individual
men is to bring them nearer and nearer to His truth, to His
will, and His whole life.4 If, then, to our thought the truth
that is known and walking in the truth are indeed separable,
to him who reveals it they are essentially one ; thus we
understand how upon the highest stage of revelation He
who could call Himself the Truth, can also call Himself the
1 In such older utterances as Ps. xxxii. 8, Isa. xxx. 21, the mere showing of
the way stands, it is true, more alone ; but in Ps. cxix. both are equally
prominent ; cf. vers. 27-32 with 142-160.
2 This is so necessary, that Christianity, in the very first years of its existence,
and before Paul became a Christian, had already its own peculiar ' ' way, " and it
was characterized in the language of its confidential friends with appropriate
brevity as "the way " (that known to all its confessors), Acts ix. 2, xix. 9-23 ;
cf. History of Israel, vi. 386.
3 As already Micah iv. 5 intimates, otherwise than Isa. ii. 5, yet similarly, and
more plainly because later.
4 Cf. in the prayer " Thy way," Ps. v. 8, xxv. 4, xxvii. 11, lxxxvi.

THE RESULTS OF REVELATION. 145
Way ; but we comprehend also how it is He can put the Way
before the Truth, since the movement of the light, it is true,
takes place first, — to repeat here that great image, — in order
that the Truth, in conformity with which this movement pro
ceeds, should come to the day ; but for men since His glorifica
tion, the first and most necessary thing is that they enter upon
the way with which for them He has now become identical.
Furthermore, what at first we seem unable to say, viz. that a
man should be the way which every one who strives towards
God must take and traverse, we can now say, if He is in
reality the historically unique personage who by all He said
and did can become to all who look to Him and make Him
spiritually their own, Himself the way that leads to God.
3. Yet this mere way is not, furthermore, the object and
aim itself to which revelation points as its end, and which
alone it seeks ultimately to serve. Its purpose is, in the last
issue, life, the promotion and so far as possible the diffusion
of life, — that life which, more closely considered, is for the
creature the sole highest conceivable good, the participation in
the divine life, restricted it may be, but, as far as understand
ing and actual entrance upon it go, complete ; a life which,
conceded to men by the will of the Creator, is only too easily
forfeited and lost, but is brought near to them in such a way
in its whole purpose and claims, even as in its clear contents
and worth, by no new impulse as it is by revelation. For
what do that light and that irrefragable truth ultimately
afford, but the sure glimpse into this life of infinite duration
and blessedness ? And whither can that way lead but to life
as the highest good, destined for man indeed from the begin
ning, but to be won by struggle and conflict ? Now the brief
term life, taken in its whole possible infinitude of contents, is
employed here,, it is true, in its proper connection with
perfect fitness ; but it is not to be overlooked that it has
become capable of this its highest possible comprehensiveness
1 John xiv. 6 f., cf. with ver. 4 f. ; but already the light and the truth were
spoken of, viii. 12, 32.
EWALD I. K

146 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
first of all in Hebrew, and is the favourite and customary
term, because Hebrew prefers to avoid compound words. In
Greek and in all languages akin to it, the idea of " the
immortal " expresses the same thing, and is readily inter
changeable with it, not merely in the Greek parts of the Bible,
but also in the Hebrew.1 But what is this idea of the
immortal, when referred to man as mortal, other than that of
" the resurrection " ? This also in the. proper place is inter
changeable with it.2 In another aspect, however, the idea of
" salvation " is equivalent to it, and is ultimately inseparably
connected also with all that revelation has in view, and in the
high signification of the " divine " salvation, as alone worthy
of the name, it is made distinctly prominent by the revelation
of Moses.3 But still more clearly and fulty it may be
characterized " the eternal salvation." 4
Accordingly, on the highest stage of revelation, no utterance
is found more briefly and appropriately comprehending every
thing here relevant than that of Christ at the close of His
earthly course, " I am the way, the truth, and the life." 5 Yet
here again is the main ultimate principle indicated, that not
one of these blessings, desired by revelation and supplied to
i Sentences such as Ps. xxxvi. 9 (where in the other member " light " corre
sponds to it) may be taken together with Prov. xii. 28 ; and h t.u>i still more
plainly passes over into h X"" aimm in John, and then even more so in the
pastoral Epistles.
2 When Christ says, John xi. 25, " I am the resurrection and the life," He
makes the first emphatic only because of the special occasion of His words ; the
chief thing, however, is that not till now is this third and highest idea added to
the others, "light" and "truth," and that where everything is to passover
into the life and conduct of the community, they are placed in the enumeration
after the "way," John xiv. 6.
3 In the first flush of the salvation of indestructible continuance then obtained,
how could this be expressed more exactly and for us also more significantly and
memorably, than in the name Joshua. Cf. Num. xiii. 16, with History of
Israel, ii. 332 [Eng. trans, ii. 236'].
4 As the thought and eternal hope of it in the song of the community in the
primitive age (Ex. xv. ) are already expressed, but in its conclusion most briefly,
ver. 18.
5 John xiv. 6 ; it is here seen how, according to the plan of this Gospel, every
thing which it seeks to make conspicuous as duty for man, just as the course of
this earthly appearing of Christ up to the very end had taught it, culminates in
tiiis saying.

THE RESULTS OF REVELATION. 147
the measure of its power, is given to any one individual man
simply for his own use, as if intended merely for him and to
remain his own exclusive possession. Every one of these
three blessings is, as revelation desires, for every man ; and
any one of them also, if only put into activity and made
effective in the right way, is of such a quality by its very
nature that it is able to form a fellowship among men.
Therefore where all coincide in the right way and find their
proper activity there, the essential elements of a permanent
fellowship of spirits are given ; and it is this we call the
community of God, or, more briefly, the community, which
again under another name is itself the Church.
The community, therefore, in this- higher sense, or the
Church, is the first result aud abiding fruit of revelation upon
its higher stages. With it is established among men a
fellowship which, as it is created by these three first elements
and fundamental powers alone, so only by them can it be
further sustained and preserved ; consequently it must ever
expel all foreign material that may possibly penetrate into
it, if it will not become a prey to. dissolution. These first
elements and fundamental powers are, however, of such a
purely spiritual nature, that the fellowship which is continually
upbuilding itself anew, and is preserved by them, cannot
deny its own essential character, and so a fellowship arises
among men whose sole and simple function', it is to exhibit
and promote none other than that humanly-divine life
as it should be upon earth. However difficult its task may
be, however much there may yet be wanting to it on all sides,
here now at length it has stepped forth on earth a veritable
reality, and it will for ever continue to exist. If, however,
those first elements and fundamental powers are the only
forces which can found and preserve such a fellowship, and if
they are given here in purity and perfection, then the fellow
ship they produce must be capable with humanity itself of
perpetual duration ; and notwithstanding every vicissitude to
which as historically arisen it has been subjected in the

148 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
further course of history, it must bear in itself an indestructible
life, so that it can see, it may be, all other communities
dissolve at its side, but neither with them nor by them be
itself dissolved. Already present in the germ, and indicating
its profoundest struggle and ultimate aim in the Old Testa
ment, it sustained the extremest and most painful shock
which could befall it in its earthly existence, — the breaking
up of its own national home under whose shelter and protec
tion alone it could first arise and grow strong ; and even thus -
it but emerged, papilio-like from its sheath, that it might find
in the New Testament a fuller and freer life. Such is the
fellowship which made its appearance with the consummation
of revelation as its first and abiding fruit.
2. The Priesthood.
§ 49. A further result of the consummation of revelation
is, that in the fellowship thus established the right instruments
are found to undertake the special charge of its preservation,
and to bear at the same time the responsibility of upholding
all its principles and activities. Prophecy, it is true, is
throughout the creative power, standing in the midst of the
whole movement, described above and advancing the power of
revelation in all its stages ; and much of its inmost essence
still works even in the fourth and fifth stages, as we have
seen. But just because prophecy' is the creative power in
this case, it is also in its time the freest and most spontaneous,
deriving its origin from special urgency in most pressing
circumstances, and displaying subsequently on suitable occa
sions a wonderful activity, but having from its very nature no
uniform continuance, and at best being never intended as a
standing office. Only in heathen religions was it readily
made, into a standing office ; 1 the purer and the higher its
1 As among the Egyptians, where in the latest times the prophets still
remained externally at the head of the whole hierarchy. Cf. History of Israel
ii. p. 201 [Eng. tr. ii. 140].

THE RESULTS OF REVELATION. 149
development, the less could it assume this character. Having
accomplished its mission in founding a community, it is
relieved as a matter of course by another activity and power,
whose task and business it is to preserve and advance the
fellowship thus founded ; and this may properly be termed
the priesthood. Priests are elders, in the sense in which
elders are the primary leaders of every community. It is
almost accidental,1 however, that this term means pre-eminently
the leaders of the higher fellowship of men of which we are
now speaking. Elders arise after the community is estab
lished, not before ; but they become then indispensable.
Undertaking the leadership of the society already founded,
their office, unlike that of the prophet, at once becomes
perpetual, continuing with an uninterrupted and uniform
necessity. Upon them principally does the continuation of
the aims and efforts of the community now rest, and its
increasingly beneficent influence in the world ; but they can
actually preserve these blessings only as they revert constantly
to the first principles and fundamental truths which, as
dominant in the minds of the prophets themselves, were the
true founders of this community. So side by side with Moses
arose in Aaron the whole priesthood of the Old Covenant,
stretching as it were in one long unbroken chain over a period
of a millennium and a half; and the twelve apostles were in
their turn the true first priests of the New ; 2 for we ought to
accustom ourselves to restore to the good word priest its
proper rights, since in German we have now no other name
with which intelligibly to replace it.
Of all this a subsequent volume must speak more at large.
Here only it is maintained that the priesthood is a result of
revelation and the community founded upon it, but a result
necessary in its nature, and therefore perpetual in its continu-
1 Accidental, so far as the Greek word irpar^inpiu passed over into the Christian
community among ourselves, and our own " priester " arose out of it.
2 That the Twelve actually were the first priests of the Christian community
is unquestionable. Cf. History of Israel, vi. 186.

150 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
ance, as already Jeremiah has very definitely said,1 at a time
when it was threatened most palpably with destruction. Of
what kind of men the priesthood should be formed is a
question by itself ; but whoever makes some important contri
bution, from the free impulse of his spirit, to the maintenance
or new enforcement of the principal truths of revelation, may
here be called, in a certain sense, a priest.
3. The Spiritualization of Humanity and 'its Pursuits.
§ 50. But neither with the rise of the priesthood nor the
founding of the higher community are the results and noble
fruits of the consummation of revelation exhausted. Each of
them is but an organic instrument through which the spirit of
true religion, that has its source in revelation, actively works.
The result of utmost importance and the fruit of noblest
growth is the larger final issue which by means of its organic
instruments, distinguishable indeed, yet intimately allied and
never fully separable, the spirit of true religion produces.
This is nothing less than the formation of a new humanity ; a
humanity in which the imperfections and mistakes of immature
youth no longer prevail, but there rules more and more abso
lutely and perfectly that spirit alone which, upon its higher
stages, revelation demands with increasing precision and
indicates with increasing clearness, and whose vital and
salutary influence it gradually extends through its whole
realm. This genuine divine spirit is to be absolutely and
solely more and more, from the midst of its own organization,
the informing and guiding spirit of all other organizations,
and ultimately of every individual man, as indeed the perfect
true religion now expects and demands that it should be.
The clear and convincing proof of the possibility of this is
afforded by the entire history of the nation of the Old
Covenant; for who will deny that within the period that
elapsed between the founding of the Old and the New
1 Jer. xxxii. 19-22. Cf. with the narrative, xxxii.

THE RESULTS OF REVELATION. 151
Covenant, more than a millennium and a half, this nation
underwent a complete inward transformation, and, notwith
standing all the grave errors by which it allowed itself to be
gradually ensnared to its deep and final destruction, was
nevertheless in intellectual culture highly accomplished and
wonderfully capable of every new spiritual development.
And what greater praise can be given to it than that at last
it was the only nation qualified to be the source whence
Christianity could go forth into the world ? Moreover, how
Christianity, immediately upon its establishment, could produce
a wholly new humanity, spiritually superior to all earlier
generations of men, we know sufficiently from the New
Testament and other books, as well as from the great history
of all mankind. Yet all this in detail can be discussed only
in a subsequent volume.
But humanity does not consist merely of an infinite number
of individuals, but also of an incalculable number of common
interests. As a whole, of many parts and organs, and all in
their last issue related to mind, humanity has necessarily very
different activities and aptitudes, that make its great life
possible, and fit it to reach by progressive steps its ultimate
goal. Every one of these activities and aptitudes has its part
in the collective intellectual existence, and has also its peculiar
inner necessity. But however different in themselves these
activities and aptitudes may be, and however divergent they
ever anew tend to become, yet, classified according to their
fundamental differences, in addition to revelation and priest
hood sufficiently described above, they may be reduced to
three, which may briefly be designated Law, Science, Industry.
All things, for example, have by creation and the unvarying
uniform eternal will of God, and by inherent nature, their
original right relations with and towards one another, relations
which may change through the mistakes of men and because
of their own progressive development, but which must ever
revert to their normal determination if humanity is to con
tinue its existence happily and make good progress. These

152 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
are the bases of law, and fully to respect this law everywhere
in its whole range and establishment; and to maintain it
among men wisely and successfully, demands an activity
and aptitude which has its proper place and high value in
all humanity. There is also a not less necessary activity •
which .investigates the grounds of all visible or merely con
ceivable things without exception, and ascertains the inter
dependence to the thought of all the most diversified parts of
creation, as well as their relation to God ; science also has
its proper place in humanity, and is in large measure indis
pensable. And from all this may be distinguished countless
arts and activities, in which not any one of the previously-
named activities is conspicuous, which as such are purely of
the mind, but in connection with which physical labour pre
dominates, however little they may be able to dispense with the
elements of science and the protection of law. But all these
activities, — revelation, priesthood, law, science, industry, —
in which we may truly say all human pursuits and efforts
consist, different as they are in themselves, do not stand side
by side with each other in such a way as that one of them
can dispense with the aid of the others, or that the individual
man engaged in any one of them as his special pursuit can be
truly successful should he ignore all the rest. If, however,
they are all to work together to a happy final issue, it is
revelation that has rightly recognised this final issue, and
showed to the others without exception what it is and how it
is one and the same for them all ; and it is to the priesthood
that the destiny and duty primarily belongs to lead them all
forward ever anew towards this final issue, and unite them in
seeking it. That all this is possible, is a result of revelation ;
and how it is possible that a single higher spirit should guide
all the different activities of a broad, wide fellowship to one
far-off divine event, the long and changeful history of the
continuance of the Old Covenant is fully competent to teach.
True, unfeigned piety, such as genuine revelation produces
in humanity, gives, it is true, in itself nothing but the right

THE RESULTS OF REVELATION. 153
attitude and tendency of mind; a boon simple and incon
spicuous, yet affording the sound basis for every human activity
and experience, and involving as a consequence infinite joy ful
ness. But if this right attitude and tendency of mind gradually
exercises increasing influence upon all men individually, upon
all human fellowships, and upon all their different activities
and pursuits, this influence shows itself also in magnificent
results upon such apparently remote lying provinces as it
would not at first sight be expected to reach. The Bible
itself offers sufficiently instructive examples of this. Thus
in the narratives of the creation, with which the Bible opens,
there is, without any need to overestimate or misapply the
details, a higher dignity and truth than similar ancient repre
sentations and narratives possess, as in modern times it is at
, length beginning to be felt ; but it should not be overlooked
that it was the whole life and movement of the spirit of true
revelation that contributed to make these narratives so finished
in their form, and so incomparable in their grandeur. Again,
though monogamy is not, it is true, required by any precise
command, yet it wins its way in the Bible nevertheless chiefly
through the growing power of the whole spirit of the more '
perfect revelation. In fine, a short maxim touching every
thing that is relevant to our subject is found in one of the
latest books of the New Testament, " Genuine piety is profit
able for all things,"1 — penetrating humanity with its spirit
more and more deeply, in full harmony with the ultimate
purpose of true revelation, and transforming it to a higher
divine life. 1 1 Tim. iv. 8 ; cf. Tit. iii. 8 and 2 Tim. iii. 16.

PART II.
REVELATION IN HEATHENISM AND IN ISRAEL.
§ 51, ^ICABCELY, however, have we ascertained what
^ revelation is, through what stages it has reached
its consummation, and what benefits, indispensable for the
salvation of all humanity, result from it, than there obtrudes
upon us the more irrepressibly a question, the answer to which
we have hitherto taken for granted, viz. why is revelation per
fected in antiquity, and why has it attained this perfection in
Israel only, and in no other nation of antiquity whatever ?
Simply to evade this double question by asserting that both
these events actually occurred, and that to investigate such
•matters of fact minutely now is useless or presumptuous, as it
might prove embarrassing, — this is impracticable. Amid the
prejudices so widely diffused to-day, and everywhere penetrat
ing so deeply, such evasion would be of little avail. The objec
tion would always be confronting us, it is inconceivable that
antiquity should have had an advantage of so large a kind over
our presumably so much more cultivated age, and still more, that
amid so many great and renowned ancient nations, and at the
time of Greek and subsequently of Boman culture, this one
nation, seemingly so insignificant, and partly by its own fault
so contemptible, should have carried off this prize over the
heads of them all. The careful consideration of these questions
is not therefore to be avoided. Moreover, the right answer to
whatever comes within the scope of them will serve, not
merely to scatter all prejudices now entertained, but will carry
us still further into the apprehension of those great truths
upon which in this matter everything depends, and finally
154

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 155
lead to our holding the more firmly and consistently from
another point of view the result obtained in the previous
discussion. It is not to be denied, however, that the task that lies
before us is not an easy one, involving as it does the con
templation and full knowledge of history, of the history of
antiquity especially, but still more widely of all experiences
of a similar kind which modern history may afford. Unless
the precise points this whole question raises are definitely
handled, the task cannot be discharged, and for this an
accurate knowledge not less of all other nations than of this
special nation is requisite. At the same time, if a comparison
is instituted in conformity with such knowledge between the
history of this particular nation and that of all others, and if
the few but marked differences which grow into prominence
during the course of two, or it may be said three, thousand
years are fully grasped, it will be perceived that everything
essentially belonging to our inquiry proceeds from three
impulses, which in the slow but at last so much the greater
progress of events arose one after the other, and ultimately
all of them co-operated tp produce the result at first sight so
wonderful.

I.  THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD.
§ 52. The significance of this first impulse will best be"
seen if we recall, from the close of the previous discussion
(§ 48), the fact that the establishment of an enduring higher
fellowship among men is one of the greatest and noblest
immediate consequences of revelation. But it is not this
bare special consequence alone that we have now more par
ticularly to consider : where it was found, the expectation of
the best effects that antiquity looked for from revelation was
realized. For, besides the light and divine guidance which
the individual man desired for himself, it was principally the

156 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
higher unison and guidance of a whole nation, the impression
a divine oracle would produce far beyond its primaiy sphere,
that might, it was thought, be justly anticipated from revela
tion. That the divine voice alone was capable of reconciling
antagonism in the conflicts of public opinion, of investing the
laws with sacred authority and respect, of showing in the
most helpless position of affairs the true way of national
deliverance, was the prevailing view of all the nations of
antiquity. Enfeebled at times, and in certain localities, this
faith ever grew strong again, and at least, in the hour when
dire calamity befell the land, was irresistible. It was regarded
as the greatest possible misfortune for the whole nation, nay,
as proof of the implacable anger of the Deity, if in great
straits no divine voice were to be heard.1 In comparatively
peaceful and happier times, the principle held good which a
didactic poet of the Old Testament, in the midst of the finest
development of Israel's national glory, once expressed briefly
and incisively : " Where there is no revelation the people are
dissolved," i.e. are without discipline and order, without morality
and cohesion.2 Wholly in the sense of this principle does
the corresponding second half of this wise poetic maxim echo
back : " But he who instruction," that higher instruction and
teaching of which alone the poet speaks, " heeds," so that he
does not violate it and go contrary to the will of God clearly
expressed in a definite situation of life, "salvation to him."
And if the voice of God were rarely heard in distress and
embarrassment, because no great and acknowledged prophet
was found, it was held to be a misfortune for the national life.3
1 If such complaints were expressed at a late period in the community of the
true religion, Lam. ii. 9, Ps. lxxiv. 9, it can readily be conjectured how much
more frequently and heavily they broke out among the heathen. In addition
to this, the distinction may be noted between Lam. ii. 9, when the prophets
can find no oracle (Jeremiah could often find none for days, Jer. xiii. 1-7), and
subsequent times, Ps. lxxiv. 9, when there was not even a prophet in Israel
at all.
2 Prov. xxix. 18. The min here and Isa. ii. 3, as elsewhere, devolves upon
the prophet ; in Jer. xviii. 18, Ezek. vii. 26, upon the priest only.
3 This is the meaning of the narrative, 1 Sam. iii. 1.

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 157
These were the sentiments and experiences that prevailed
in antiquity, and unless we note them carefully we cannot
understand the histories of ancient nations at all.
1. The Origin and varying Feeling of the Need of it.
§ 53. Although it is unquestionable that such convictions
pervaded the whole of antiquity, and could not be repressed,
it would be a great mistake to suppose that they were felt
with equal clearness and certainty, and the like vividness and
strength, in all nations. More or less distinctly the necessity
was realized of founding a genuine community, in which the
divine will should always have the supreme place of power,
and all men might readily know and obey it. But what is
the mere consciousness of a need, especially in things purely
spiritual ? In climate and in fertility of the soil there is an
extraordinary variety in different lands, and obscure causes,
not yet adequately explained, make the seasons here very
unfruitful, there very fruitful, elsewhere moderately good,
and so on in hundredfold gradation ; but the deficiencies such
variations produce are soon removed by a general readjust
ment of things, and it is only lack of foresight or of industry
that occasions intolerable hardship ; for this whole physical
order of the universe is so beyond man's control that he cannot
alter it if he would. But in everything spiritual the individual
man has incomparably freer and wider scope for expectation
and choice, and on this account there is far more difficulty in
basing a powerful common interest upon the bare feeling of
spiritual need ; and what a distance there is here also between
this mere feeling of need and its satisfaction, or even the true
beginning of satisfaction ! It cannot, therefore, surprise us
that nothing in antiquity varied so much among different
nations as the consciousness of this need- and the supposed
methods of satisfying it.
But just for this reason there might be found, in the long
course of all these varied changes, special historical situations,

158 revelation; its nature and record.
when the essential conditions favourable to such a satisfaction
would be present, at first only in some particular place,
but resting on so firm a basis that, a true beginning having
been made, the desired blessing could more and more perfectly
be secured. What is, above all, to be noted here, however, is
that in the period we now designate by the name antiquity, a
period of great length and of highly diversified character, there
were important changes which cannot be overlooked. As the
eye strains to penetrate the more remote expanses of all past
human history, very hard for us to measure, it may be seen
surely enough that the need we speak of could begin to be
strongly felt only at a very definite point in the life and
development of collective humanity ; and if it is difficult for
us to speak with, certainty of these wide and now most
obscure realms of remotest antiquity, yet because of the great
interdependence- of all these things, we cannot here omit what,
according to traces still discernible, may to-day be said about
them. Now, with respect to the remotest periods of human history
as a whole and generally, we can without doubt distinctly
see — (1) that they were very different from one another in
their immediate needs and dominant tendencies ; and (2)
that they followed one another, as the needs and tendencies
determined, in necessary succession. As much as this may
be discovered, because the imperishably great results of every
period lie clearly before us, nay, at every moment we live
upon them, as upon, fruits every one of which has matured
amidst the mighty labours of some past age ; for fruits won
by the mind, unlike material fruits, do not perish with the
using. These great gains, indestructible as long as humanity
endures, it is our special aim now rightly to estimate, and
the significance of each of them, and the order in which
they must have been won, well to understand. It is not
admissible, it is true, to suppose that at any of the great
successive periods of all these highest human efforts some
principle or factor made its appearance not already given in

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 159
the divine determination, not given, that is, in its germ or
rudiments, from the beginning of all human creation ; not in
this sense is the succession we here speak of to be under
stood. But the needs of , all historical humanity, and the
corresponding great efforts and tasks, are too numerous and'
too varied, and, considered separately, too mighty and too
difficult, to take their rise simultaneously, and to reach their
consummation side by side. The consequence was, speaking
generally, a succession ; the one or the other was called forth
powerfully at an earlier period, and became operative in an
ever ascending scale of activity through the pressure of indis
pensable need. And if we put together exactly all that we
are able, from universal historical testimonies, as well as from
the things in themselves, to infer to-day concerning this great
course of the development of humanity, we can maintain
that —
1. The high task of revelation described in the previous
discussion by no means fell in that period we must here dis
tinguish as the first. Not that humanity could have at that
time no conceptions of God and divine things, and no names
for them ; these undoubtedly are of very early origin (§ 16) ;
nor that the power of revelation could not then have com
menced its activity, for this activity goes back likewise to the
remotest primitive' ages (p. 17). But the earliest task and
first immortal fruit of the efforts of the human mind must
have been of another kind, viz. the fashioning of human
language as the firm basis for all subsequent endeavours in
the supply of the needs of the human spirit, the smallest
and commonest needs as well as the highest, and those at
first virtually unanticipated. It would, be irrelevant to discuss
here the origin of human speechi and the ever invariable
principle underlying its formation j1 ina special instance and
1 No existing work meets the demands of our present knowledge and aims,
least of all Renan's ; cf. Gbtt. Gel. Anz. 1859, st. 1, 2. How the solution of
the problem must be approached step by step I have sought to show in the
SprachvHssenschaftliche Abhandlungen (i.-iii., Gottingen, 1861-1871).

ICO revelation; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
pictorial sketch the biblical history of creation gives the
briefest and most striking outline of the true representation.1
But nothing is more certain than that the whole of the first
period of human history is filled up with this preliminary
task, and that the fulness of language and its ever unvarying
solidity could not easily be attained. For that language arose
altogether historically admits really of no doubt, least of all
to-day ; it is the ultimate successful issue of the full co
operation of two different capacities of the human mind, viz.
the capacity to represent by means of sounds the numberless
different sensuous or mental impressions received, and the
capacity to put together in the same sounds all such impres
sions as rational thoughts. But that the perfecting of each of
these capacities is easy, and still more that their subsequent
thoroughly-harmonious working is easy, are suppositions pos
sible only if there be no close investigation of all that is
germane to this subject. On the contrary, searching inquiry
convinces us that as all other great possessions of human
society have been won not without mutual co-operation, so
it was only after repeated commencements and protracted
attempts that language grew to the perfection in which,
without essential change and as a means for different purposes,
it has since been preserved. And as in the perfecting of all
other human capacities that are only historically developed,
some prominent individuals led the way, so was it also, we
doubt not, with the primitive language of mankind ; its last
firm shape was given to it by the commanding influence of
the few who incited the many to imitation ; whilst there is
no ground to question that at that time humanity was con
fined to a very limited area, and made up a comparatively
small but compact and homogeneous whole.2
2. When mankind had already tasted the good and bad
fruits of this its first imperishable gain, a wholly different a^e
1 Gen. ii. 18-23, above touched upon (p. 15).
2 The original unity of the human race will be further discussed in a subse
quent volume.

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 161
must have supervened. Language, when made capable of the
perfect and easy use just described, is the first and most
neeessary means whereby the many may act as with one
mind and one hand, and human efforts and toils be directed to
one common goal. But it serves just as well also to disclose
the more quickly and surely, and make palpably manifest or
even deceptively to veil and hide, the incompatibility of the
thoughts of different men; and the higher the development,
by means of language, of reciprocal interest in human pursuits
for the attainment of a special good, the deeper the disunion
and division become as soon as, by means of language, from
honest or dishonest motives, the emptiness of this fancied
good is pointed out, or perhaps the passion for evil possessions
is inflamed. It was at such a time mankind began to be
scattered over the face of all the earth, manifestly rather from
inner estrangement than mere love of roaming ; and the incident
the Bible somewhat -casually connects with the remembrance of
ancient Babel has so far its good significance. Mankind fell
apart into different nations and languages ; the sharper and
the wider the separation, the more quickly would languages
vary. But when once such a universal spirit of unrest and
wandering had taken hold of mankind, thousands of years
might pass away before, in this ceaseless whirling and surging
to and fro, the current would steadily set towards the forma
tion of distinct nations and the culture of definite tongues.
Even then the first and second attempts would not secure
permanent results ; and nothing can give us to-day a clearer
idea of the long continuance and the many successive stages
of this conflict and commingling of the people of the earth,
when once separated, than the careful comparison of the oldest
known tongues, and the endeavour to find out their closer and
more remote affinities.
3. The breaking up and disorganization of a Whole so
infinitely divisible as humanity, when once it begins has no
limits ; but after it has gained ground and the evil of it is
sensibly felt, the desire to check it must more and more
EWALD I. L

162 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECOED.
strongly be aroused. No longer, however, could language
merely be the instrument by which a closer bond of higher
community of interest could unite men's minds again ; for the
subtle process of dissolution might ever begin afresh in a
nationality held together chiefly by language. It is true,
nevertheless, that the means to a new understanding and
union must be found in language ; but this language could
only be the higher language of revelation, the voice coming
down from above, as explained in § 11-48. Only the power
of revelation, and of practical religion arising from it, could
now offer the strong attractive force by which men should be
brought together again, and form the firm bond by which they
could be permanently reunited, — a bond consecrating every
other, and making it perpetual, whether in marriage, govern
ment, guilds or fellowships of any kind. It might be only
upon some particular spot, and in a wider or narrower circle,
that revelation should prove itself the power that could raise
mankind out of its condition of dissolution and ruin ; 1 but it
was this power alone which in some such way actually created
at first enduring fellowships, kingdoms, laws, morals, and gave
birth out of its own life to the earliest civilised nations.2 As
it works towards this goal, the history of all nations becomes
for the remembrance of later generations illumined with clearer
light ; and as far as we can look back into the known history
of distinct nations and kingdoms, we see them clustering
around the seats of oracles, listening to the voice of prophets
of all kinds, or it may be spiritually led by priests, and living
according to customs and laws the more difficult to keep in
proportion as they depend upon a divine sanction, and suggest
the divine earnestness of life. Eevelation and religion, with
all their large demands, were thus a necessity for nations and
kingdoms ; and mainly according to the depth of this feeling
1 That every nation has its own special god or gods the prophets themselves
say, Micah iv. 5; Jer. ii. 11 ; Deut. iv. 7 ; but the history of all antiquity
shows it as well.
2 According to the bold but true image, Isa. i. 2, Ixvi. 9.

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 163
of need, and the reality and fulness of its satisfaction, the
spiritual life and effort of the nations varied, especially in the
remotest antiquity.
But just when the need of revelation and religion was thus
sensibly felt in all its urgency on the part of whole nations
and kingdoms, a relapse to barbarism, which had made its
appearance amidst the great division of mankind into different
nations and their violent streaming and surging to and fro for
the possession of the fairest portions of the earth, had spread
so widely, that it threatened to hinder with insuperable
obstacles all progress to a better national condition. Every
degeneracy and relapse to barbarism, with individuals and
mankind in general, but increases the darkness which, by its
very creation, hes about the human spirit, and makes more
and more dense the sensuous rind in which this spark of
divine life is enclosed awaiting the coming and awakening of
the higher hght. The temporal development of humanity, or
in other words " history," by changes dependent upon the
bent of the human will, determines whether this sensuous
rind, growing perchance harder and harder, caii be effectually
reached and penetrated by the higher light ; and as there is
an historical illumination and transfiguring of all human
effort and toil, so there is an historical darkening and indura
tion.1 But during the previous wild conflicts for the acquisi
tion of the primary earthly possessions, and for the primary
security of the earthly life, and during the first great misuse
of human language that attended these conflicts, the darkness
had become deeper, the sensuous rind harder. Nevertheless,
the first sure beginning of a better life for a whole nation
could never be made until first of all in its guidance and
moral bearing, and chiefly in the culture of its deepest con
victions, of its faith and its whole spirit, and then in its
permanent constitution, a reversion to the original rectitude
1 Apart from its pre-eminent final Christian teaching, the Bible nowhere repre
sents this so boldly and clearly as in the important section, very applicable
here, of the history of Pharaoh and Moses, Ex. i. 8-xv. 21.

164 EEVELA TION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
and purity of the human spirit had not only been attempted
but also firmly established, against all growing perversity and
prevailing miseducation. If, therefore, the need above described
. were now to be in reality as fully and permanently satisfied
as obscure desire and longing suggested, a double task must
be undertaken, involving the indefatigable straining of all the
better spiritual energies on the part of those who would lend
their aid to it. The advent of heroes as, in the original
acceptation of the word, mighty founders of mighty kingdoms,
ancient legend places very appropriately not before the
beginning of the third age of the world, but even earlier
traces of them are to be found in the Bible.1
Such being its origin and the problem it had to solve, the
great diversity in the realization and satisfaction of this need
among the oldest nations of the earth is now understood.
For in those far-off times, the duration of which is no longer
precisely determinable, as the seats of oracles arose here and
there among the nations, humanity itself in its great essential
constituents was unusually broken and dissolved, and the
condition and predominant aims of the greater or smaller, and
the more or less powerful of the nations of the earth were
very dissimilar, notwithstanding all higher resemblance in
general circumstances. Especially had the struggle for the
fairest and most fruitful regions, and the mutual enmity and
estrangement it occasioned, become very violent ; and nothing
now appeared less practicable than the formation even of a
national earthly community with the necessary provision for
its long continuance, whilst here the task was to found a
community of the true religion that should continue for ever.
Nay more, it was simply an emphatic expression of this
dismembered state of mankind, and of national diversity
in condition and aim, that every nation had its separate
deities, or at least its separate chief deity, whose worship and
whose oracles formed the centre of its life. Moreover, since
revelation and religion are not the only means by which a
1 Cf. History of Israel, i. p. 367 ff, 412 ff. [Eng. trans, i. 288 ff, 381 ff.].

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 165
confederation may be established among men, and whilst it is
possible that mere human compulsion, for example, may
uphold it by arms and punishments, an explanation presents
itself why this need was by no means everywhere equally
realized and still less equally satisfied. Hence most nations
had recourse to revelation only occasionally, and chiefly when
driven to it by severe straits, or they relied too exclusively
upon various additional perverse means of establishing and
preserving the common bond. All this, however, makes it
intelligible that at first

2. Imperfect Satisfactions of the Need
§ 54. Were manifoldly conspicuous, and seemed, in spite
of their imperfection and variety, to find nevertheless an
abiding foothold in human nature. So difficult was it to
attain to even the beginning of right action in this matter, as
will be sufficiently evident in the subsequent course of our
inquiry. The unusual importance of this phenomenon, how
ever, makes it the more necessary to explain particularly
every detail of it relevant to our subject, at least in its main
features, and to note the significant points of difference which
became prominent in imperfect satisfactions of the great
universal need. Everything that is yet imperfect, as it enters
into free open history and develops itself vigorously according
to all its impulse, makes sooner or later repeated experiments
testing its adequacy to supply in this or that new way the
deeply-felt but still unsatisfied needs, and its insufficiency
may be shown not less clearly in every fresh trial. In
matters of a grave and far-reaching significance, we can
observe this the more distinctly. At the same time, however
great, upon close and detailed examination, the diversity of
all these imperfect attempts appears, — attempts which even
to-day in a large section of the nations of the earth still
have force and acceptance, nevertheless if we look at what
essentially distinguishes them, both in relation to their inner

166 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
nature and their historical rise and issues, we find that they
diverge mainly in three directions, and in the third branch off
forthwith into three different subdivisions. There are thus
five distinct species of communities, all of which may be
called " sacred communities," because they seek to unite and
rule men by their need of higher truths. On this account,
too, they are the antithesis of worldly kingdoms or States,
which hold men together by the mere external authority of
laws or mandates, and they are able to maintain themselves
purely by their own inner or spiritual energy, notwithstanding
the mutations of these earthly kingdoms. We may call them
sacred communities, in so far as their inviolable and perpetual
bond of union is that which is most sacred to man ; and they
might be called communities of God, if the last of the five
did not reject the living idea of God and seek to be content
with a mere equivalent, which, however, in that case has
always a kind of sanctity. Into these five kinds of imperfect
sacred communities, then, everything is divisible that does
not yet rise up to the perfection of a true community of God,
or that this community alone with all its power strives
against ; and we may briefly designate them as the com
munities (1) of prophets ; (2) of prophets and priests ; (3)
of the pure ; (4) of the saintly ; (5) of the learned.
§ 55. (I.) 1. The original and essential power of that
species of divine oracle, that must be indicated as prophecy,
may have such large influence as to assemble about it not
merely a small and in many ways limited fellowship of men,
but also a very wide and varied one, or a whole nation and
kingdom ; and it may do this not merely once in a way, but
so that its reputation seems to stand, as far as this fellowship
is concerned, firm and stedfast for ever ; and a nation or
kingdom, in all times when the higher counsel is needed, may,
either of its own free will or at length as an old custom or
law, invariably apply to it. That everything in the case in
hand springs from this definite sort of oracle, is shown in
§ 28 ff. ; and that this is the simplest and most ancient way

The founding of a true community of god. 167
in which the more durable fellowships reaching beyond the
circle of mere house and tribe were formed among men, is
evident from all that is adduced in § 48 ; indeed, we possess
proofs enough how great in this respect was the power and
activity of the oracle. Moreover, how sacred and highly-
esteemed the prophetic power ever remained from the earliest
times in the consecrated centre of the Egyptian kingdom, has
already been mentioned (p. 148); by this conspicuous example
we may perceive most clearly with what persistency and, so to
speak, conformity to the laws of the realm, the prophetic
power could, in this highly-cultured nation and kingdom, be
regarded as an ultimate means of union and safety. But
nothing prevented nations and kingdoms that had not a unity
and power so ancient and so firmly based as Egypt, from
deriving such counsel from a foreign source, and allowing
themselves as mighty nations to be influenced and led by the
fascination of a renowned prophet ; and if Israel even, during
the prophet labours of Moses, suffered themselves to be led a
long time by a Balaam, as an old and in its essential contents
certainly authentic reminiscence affirms,1 we see how in later
times, when the high reputation of Israel's prophets as men of
God, of rare elevation of character, had been long established,
foreign kingdoms much more depended upon their utterances,
were eagerly bent on receiving their active counsel, and hoped
to constitute themselves anew in improved and more compact
fashion by means of their word of God.2 But how significant
in antiquity the power of such oracle-seats was in the guidance
of whole nations and mighty kings, how their efficiency was
acknowledged over the entire old world, and how until even
1 The purely historical element in this narrative is pointed out in the History
of Israel, ii. 301 ff. [Eng. trans, ii. 213-216].
2 Not merely such longer and more definite narratives as those preserved from
the reminiscence of the life of an Elijah, Elisha, and Jonah (History of Israel, iii.
575, 609 [Eng. trans, iv. 128, 196]) prove this, but also such (rightly under
stood) wholly clear utterances and intuitions of the prophets themselves as Isa.'
xxi. 11 f. ; Zech. xi. 4 ff. ; and utterances like Jer. i. 10 are only late echoes
from times which so far for those prophets had to be sure already greatly
changed.

168 revelation ; its nature and record.
later times the primitive reputation of many of them was •
preserved, may be seen most obviously in the writings of such
Greeks as Herodotus and Strabo,1 who best knew the old
world and most copiously described it; and even Boman
writers also say enough of such things.
But if such a seat of divine oracles remained isolated, and
unconnected at all with a great national sanctuary of sacrifice,
presently to be described, a permanent community could not
easily be formed around it ; and even if eagerly resorted to
at first, and in favourable times subsequently, it was with
difficulty that it preserved its original reputation for any
length of time. For it is true every such seat must have
first arisen from the exercise of a new power of prophecy, and
in this found its special incentments and stay (though these
were very manifold, as will be evident below) ; but since there
always intermingled much that made the stream of prophecy
flow rather artificially than purely (as this will presently have
to be explained in detail more precisely), it was not possible
that any one of these kinds of revelation of divine oracles
should long preserve its reputation on a wide circle un
diminished. Everything lacking in transparency, and on this
account artificial rather than self-active and purely spiritual,
may indeed for the moment, so long as it is new, seem to be
satisfactory, and draw the eyes of the world upon itself, but it
does not satisfy for any length of time ; the artificial element
appears soon to be the chief thing, and is cultivated with
increasing one-sidedness ; and as thus the small streak of
purely spiritual vein operative at first was more and more
enfeebled, the power of beneficial revelation, originally hid in
such oracle-seats, was gradually and inevitably lost ; whilst
in such case, because there has been no pure beginning, no
possibility of progress in that which is better presents itself.
1 All through Strabo's Geography it may be observed that he (otherwise than
Herodotus) had purposely directed special attention to such things, appearing as
they did in many ways so strange in his time ; and he even seeks to entertain
his readers facetiously with them.

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 169
Neither the very ancient oracle of Dodona nor that of Delphi,
whose reputation continued longer, nor the foreign Egyptian
oracle of Ammon, whither at last their eyes were turned,
remained permanently in extensive influence among the
Greeks, or could assemble about it a more settled community
of adherents ; and what is so plainly observable in the case of
the Greeks, repeated itself in like manner more or less through
the whole of antiquity.
But this is not all. Such an artificial means of obtaining
oracles, if it had once won for itself a wide reputation by a
notable instance of success and through a highly-esteemed
prophet, might be carried, by mere imitation on the part of
men of inferior spirit and more doubtful calling, into ever
narrower circles, and thus it would become less and less
capable of forming around itself a great community of
sufficiently broad aims and common pursuits. A conspicuous
example of this has been preserved from the most ancient
times of the community of the true God. Scarcely has the
new species of revelation, one that seemed compatible with the
higher religion, gained its high credit with some measure of
permanency in the nation of Israel through Aaron, the elder
brother of Moses, than it sinks into caricature at the hands of
a grandson of Moses himself, and is degraded to a miserable
paltry means of livelihood. The story is frankly told in the
Old Testament,1 it is true, but every attentive reader can mark,
for it is self-evident, how gravely censurable the transaction is,
and to what serious errors and misfortunes and multiplied ill
effects it led in later times ; and he must surely be a man of
very little discernment who professes not to perceive this
from the whole tone and purport of the simple narrative.
Now this trivial-minded grandson of Moses, seeking his
worldly hire, had at least inherited so much of better sense
that, furnished as he was with a new and at that time highly-
reputed piece of workmanship for obtaining oracles, he desired
1 Judg. xvii. f. ; cf. History of Israel, ii. p. 491 f. [Eng. trans, ii. 347 f.],
and Antiquities, p. 295 [Eng. trans. 264 f.].

170 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND , RECORD.
to preside as leading priest over as large a portion of the
entire community of Israel as possible ; but when once,
through him and other young people like him, the broad way
had been opened to the dissolution of the great community
Moses founded, and to more and more paltry and narrow
prophetico-priestly guidance, this mischief grew aud spread,
so that soon every single house in the nation, if perchance it
could defray the cost of it, sought to have for itself a similar
oracle-giving piece of workmanship, and readily forgot in
selfish interest the common good.1 For a long time the
tendency in the nation to this miserable state of things and
this secretly progressive dissolution of the great community
could not be prevented ; for it always seemed to be a voice of
Jahveh that was thus drawn forth. Not till the great
prophets of the time of the kings arose, and the lurking
corruption had caused such great and palpable mischief, was
this degeneracy resolutely grappled with and resisted; and
many centuries passed away before the wounds Israel had
inflicted on herself were thoroughly healed.
§ 56. (II.) 2. Something altogether different must arise,
if an organization for revealing divine oracles, and a permanent
place, were not left for this purpose in solitary isolation,
but became elevated, in inseparable connection with a great
sanctuary of sacrifice and a priesthood belonging to it, to the
position of a centre, or even the sole sacred centre, of a whole
kingdom. This wholly different possibility must be fully
and accurately considered, that we may understand wherein
its peculiarity essentially lay, and why, notwithstanding its
superiority to the previous means of founding a community,
it nevertheless could not form a community much better in
character and of permanent continuance.
In the outset, it is to be distinctly noted that the revelation
of divine oracles does not of itself suffice for the needs of
religion, if religion is to have an enduring and even uninter
rupted significance and authority for man. The oracle shows
1 Cf. Antiquities, r,. 296 ff. [Eng. trans. 264 ff.].

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 171
simply how man should act ; but he who desires to fear God
continually, and to be loyal to Him amid all the most manifold
temptations of the world, or if he has done amiss, to return to
Him with new energy and enlightenment, will not be satisfied
with hearing new divine words addressed to him, as the
growing darkness of the time may demand ; he needs also,
and above everything, the continually new participation in
truths long since given, and the powerful influences of godli
ness, — an ever fresh baptism, so to speak, in the unexhaustible
tides of the ocean of divine purity, grace, and glory. And if
this is true of the individual man, how much more of a
whole' nation ! Now the priesthood, in its distinction from
prophetism (§ 40), is exactly fitted to maintain continually
in life and practice the firmly-standing truths of revelation ;
and prophetism associates itself spontaneously with the
administration of the corresponding offices of religion, or,
what is essentially the same, in the sense of the earliest
antiquity, the performance of the sacrificial service. Such
service must have in its perpetuity a very definite order,
which may constantly be observed, especially and most con
spicuously amid the changes of human life and destiny ; and
precisely in the exact maintenance of this sacred ordering of
things lies a great part of the power and influence of this
service. If, now, an accredited seat of oracles were connected
with such a sacrificial sanctuary and priesthood, if this double
sanctuary were elevated to the position of a true centre, and
formed, as it were, the living heart of a whole kingdom, and
if it were made perpetual, with its constant repetition of the
order of its services and its whole splendid ceremonial, it
might very well be thought that the whole of a great nation
might be captivated by the charm and authority of such a
sublime sanctuary, and that even far beyond the primary
circle of its influence it might attract to itself the sympathy
and conciliate the goodwill of men.
The way in which such a thought could occur to the mind,
and could be carried out more particularly in detail, is

172 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
explained if the following considerations are taken into
account. There was certainly, long before this close, intimate
union of prophetic and priestly activity on a large scale, such
an alliance often attempted and much accredited on a small
scale. As soon as it had been recognised anywhere in the
wide circle of humanity how indispensable the prophetic office
is, and how not less necessary also is the priesthood, an attempt
might be made in the very earliest times, and in the smallest
circle, to unite both as closely as possible with each other,
and become accustomed to such a union. The smallest
original circle of a human community is that of the family or
house, the next that of the tribe or clan, which is but the
extension of the family according to ancient usage. The head
of the household or tribe could then regard himself as likewise
the natural priest of this often very numerous community;
and how long this relation continued, especially among the
old shepherd nations, the ancient reminiscences of the
patriarchs of the Israelitish nation still sufficiently indicate.
For the official service of sacrifice, partly very laborious, the
first-born sons were, however, regarded from the oldest times
as having special obligation and right, — a primitive custom
of which, until the times of Moses and farther down, many
traces were preserved.1 The image of a household god, which
served as a source of oracles, completed this simple equipment
according to primitive usage ; and we know with sufficient
certainty how difficult it proved in the ancient nation of Israel,
long after Moses, to abolish a custom that had become sacred
by its antiquity.2
If now, in the chief city of a kingdom, a great sanctuary
was established with a united order of high prophets and of
numerous priests of all kinds, the clearest example of which
1 Cf. Antiquities, p. 349, 377 [Eug. trans. 263, 302].
2 Cf. Antiquities, p. 296 ff. [Eng. trans. 223 ff.]. The old sacred tradition
held, and rightly so, that the three patriarchs wero too elevated in their ideas
to seek oracles in such ways ; but that a Rebecca or Rachel was not considered
to be above this ignoble custom, follows from the style of discourse in Gen. xxv.
22, and from the narratives, Gen. xxxi. 19 ff., xxxv. 2-4.

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 173
is seen in the old Egyptian kingdom (p. 148), this in its
constitution would still be only that old house sanctuary
raised to its highest stage of splendour and magnificence.
The whole kingdom was now regarded as the wide household,
in which this sanctuary formed the centre of all that was
sacred, and where the prophetic and sacerdotal office was ever
ready to serve the king as well as the whole nation. If the
separate provinces which belonged to the kingdom chose to
serve different gods, as in Egypt every Nomos had its own
specially sacred god and cultus, the great sanctuary at the
seat of the government and in proximity to the king was
regarded as the consecrating bond which should enclose and
guard the whole kingdom. Here, therefore, one might suppose,
could have been formed a great compact national community ;
in point of fact, however, this was impossible from the very
constitution of the sanctuary. For the prophetic as well as
the sacerdotal office stood altogether apart from the nation as
a sacred order by itself, which required, indeed, that the king
should take an immediate part in its sanctity and its sacred
aims, and become himself a kind of priest, that he might not
be the enemy and opponent of the priests, but contemplated
the nation itself as standing far below. The three constituent
parts of a human kingdom with which we are here concerned,
the kingship, the priesthood, and the people, still therefore
remain as three ever widening circles surrounding an invisible
sanctity, the exclusive knowledge and the sole guardianship
of which the middle circle arrogantly assumes to itself, and
which is not equally near to all three circles, and cannot
accomplish the same ultimate salvation for all. Thus, then,
is wanting even the beginning of all true unity and equality,
the first characteristics of a community, and the great nation
takes part either not at all or only superstitiously in that
sanctity which is nevertheless the best refuge and defence of
its whole earthly life.
Precisely the same thing occurs where there is not, as in
the old, highly- cultured, and more compact kingdoms, a great

174 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD. '
visible sanctuary, as that of Egypt at Memphis or Thebes, and
that of Assyria at Babel or Nineveh, but where, through a
peculiar development, a special race succeeds to the priestly
dignity, as the race of the Brahmins in India, or that of the
Chaldseans in later Babel. Indeed, in this case a true com
munity is even still less likely to arise, because distinctions
of race and mere external advantages become much more
strongly and oppressively conspicuous. Such a priestly caste
has ever originated from a race or stem dominating the whole
nation in the beginning ; it has lost, indeed, the supreme
power, but still retains enough of ancient culture or know
ledge to desire at least to take the lead as a sacerdotal caste.
But just on this account the petty inner jealousies and quarrels
of the nation become at length only more and more incurably
incited, as the early and middle history of India throughout
such long centuries may attest. Of the formation of a genuine
community here, then, can we still less speak.
§ 57. (III.) The inadequacy of an isolated prophetic
activity, and of an artificial blending of prophetism and sacer
dotalism, for the leadership of a nation, at last more and more
strongly felt, called forth in many regions other endeavours,
proportionately more energetic and victorious, but not the
less perverse, to found an enduring sacred community of men.
But to this end a radical improvement in the prevailing type
of religion itself was needed. And it deserves the highest
attention that even in those early times the powerful amend
ment of the prevalent kinds of religion was essential for the
formation of a better community. For the conscious feeling of
the need of an organized community, compact but just and
beneficial, is something in itself desirable ; even though only a
single nation should thereby be fashioned after such an ideal, a
higher good is won, worth all the pains and effort it costs. More
over, in kingdoms raised to such a high measure of power and
wisdom as the ancient Egyptian, it might be seen early enough
how little the mere force of weapons of war enable a govern
ment to secure a permanent good understanding and union in

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 175
a nation. Only a higher religion, subduing self-seeking and all
other evil desires, and a moral life in harmony with it, can
permanently establish a better community among men, and
especially among members of the same nation ; but just in
this was ever, and is still given, the necessity to rise above
the lower views and perverse tendencies of a religion once
prevalent to such as are better, and to bring these to
sovereignty; and thus the earnest desire and powerful effort
to create a morally improved, and so more united and happier
nation, may be a means of amending the traditional usages of
religion itself. Nay, it is to be said that never is a great
and enduring reformation of the underlying elements of all
human piety attained without the spirits of men being seized
deeply and powerfully with an eager desire either to heal or
to avert the mischiefs and miseries that have oppressed the
life of the nation. And it is just as noteworthy that such a
genuine reformation, wholly independent of biblical religion,
was accomplished at an early period in two ways, sharply
divergent in themselves, but of far-reaching influence, and
for the entire history of humanity of the most decisive
character. These two entirely opposite ways may be said to move
along the two paths which, speaking generally, are available,
if the aim just indicated is to be reached. Either the path
long since, nay, from all primitive time, opened, as is evident
from § 21-24, — that of religion itself, — may be kept, as
the direct path which in reality, however earnest the desire
is to avoid it, is not to be permanently avoided, as further
experience and even the case itself alike show; but in keeping
this path, clearing it also from the perilous and evil obstruc
tions upon which so many have stumbled and which indeed
must ultimately make it, for whole nations and the mightiest
kingdoms of the earth, a mere path to destruction; or,
purposely diverging from this, a cross-path rather than a side
one may be J;aken, which at first promises to lead the traveller
aright in safety and ease, but soon proves itself nevertheless

176 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
only too certainly as by no means tending to the wished-for
goal. Now it is instructive to note how that first path was taken
by the people who, apart from Israel, must be regarded as by
far the most cultured, sensitive, and' tender in religious feeling
of all that higher antiquity, whilst they distinguished them
selves above so many others, and particularly above Israel, in
obtaining, for that early time, a widely-extended power and
influence ; we mean the Indian people, who also adopted two
very different modes of effectually clearing the path, in the
sense indicated above.
3. One of these modes, originating in the higher antiquity,
and spreading powerfully from the primitive seats of the
people towards the west, took such a deep and lasting hold
upon many west Asian nations, that only by violence was it
ultimately broken. It is connected with Zoroaster's name of
old-world celebrity, but became powerful and successful prin
cipally through the ancient Persians. This mode of action, in
direct contrast with that presently to be mentioned, though
springing from the same source, starts, in the ancient way,
with the reformation of an entire existent nation, and carries
it out on the two sides which in point of fact perfectly
correspond, and taken together but make up the whole higher
life of man. On the side of religion, in energetic counter
action against errors already formidable, it rejects a too
sensuous divine service, stands rigorously by an ultimate order
and unity in all that is divine, and seeks to reduce every
thing that must be reverenced as holy to the elements and
forces which are simplest but purest and most wonderful, and
apparently primordial. On the side of human affairs and
correspondent duty, it seeks, by a strict separation of the pure
and impure for man, and by a series of high moral require
ments, to train up an energetic, self-conscious, proud but
strictly exclusive race ; and its principal achievement was the
preparation of the Persian nation for the victorious part it
played in the history of the world, the after-effects of which

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 177
were destined to be so powerful and long-enduring.1 But
since the ideas and assumptions concerning the divine powers,
and the distinction between the pure and the impure, were
very erroneous, and since a one-sided development of a nation
to a proud, dominant, martial people, accustomed to victory,
can nowhere produce a healthy national life that shall endure,
it is easily understood that here also no such community
could arise as should become the nourishing mother of a
rehgion in any sufficient measure both salutary and true.
4. Altogether different was the new mode, springing out of
the high and rare culture of the life of the Indian people in a
comparatively speaking later age, whose chief movement was
mainly eastward. This purity and hohness of life, which all
prophetic and priestly activity did indeed demand ultimately
of every man, and which nevertheless was always so little
visible in general among the people, nay, was often in times
of prosperity and abundance so painfully wanting even among
priests themselves, was not this to be possibly won by the
individual man, independently of all traditional prophetic and
priestly aid ? And may not the individual man who wins it
completely, become for every nation the most living and
persuasive exemplar of this life, and even a new sacred centre
around which shall gather a new world of better and purer
men ? Such a living centre must be incomparably mightier
and nobler than any mere seat of an oracle or any altar-
furnished sanctuary, even the most resplendent and alluring.
Such was the latent drift of thought which in antiquity, in
regions most dissimilar, early enough forced its way with
tovermastering power, and wrought at last the most far-reach
ing and wonderful results. Even where an actual community
of genuine religion already exists, as is subsequently to be
explained, this new thought may at times be very powerful,
1 Only fragments of the old Zoroastrian writings remain to-day ; it is far more
difficult, therefore, to pronounce a final judgment upon these matters, than in the
case of Buddhism, but our short summary contains what may be said with cer
tainty. When and where Zoroaster lived, and what was the fortune of his faith
in the pre-Persian time, are, moreover,, questions still not satisfactorily settled.
EWALD I. M

178 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
and produce a multitude of new creations : in the Old Testa
ment there was no other ground for the origin of Nazarites,
Bechabites, and Essenes j1 and in the mediaeval Christian times
it was from the like, impulse that Franciscans took their rise."
But altogether differently must this impulse have worked
where as yet no actual community of the true religion had
been established ; and in this the old Indian peoples are
distinguished above all others. From an early period many
individuals among them threw off the Brahminical rule, and
sought by an escape from society and a life of lonely seclusion
to attain the more readily the highest purity of character;
and at length out of this vast mixed and motley multitude
Buddha issued, to become the founder of a purer life that
should serve as a luminous example to the rest of men, to
break the restraints of caste imposed by the Brahmins, and all
merely national limitations, and to make himself for now
nearly two millenniums and a half the divinely-honoured saint
of an innumerable host of disciples. Whether from such a
movement a genuine community could possibly arise, no other
precedent helps us to determine so correctly and with such
certainty and clearness as that of Buddha. What then has been
the result ? To the competent judge it is evident that in the
whole nearly two millenniums and a half during which it has
existed, and amid all the varied and changing forms in which
it has established itself firmly in different lands of the earth,
and still maintains its powerful sway, Buddhism has never
anywhere taken the shape of a true community. Bather
does it break up everywhere, to speak briefly, into two
communities : the body of saints who teach and who have to
live as Buddha lived, and the men of the world who support
them with temporal resources and catch the reflected glory of
their sanctity as they submit to their spiritual guidance.
Only the inner community has perfect holiness, and, moreover,
in this there is no equality, since one only of its members is
1 Cf. Antiquities, p. 118 [Eng. trans. 84-89], with the subsequent observations,
p. 150 f. [Eng. trans. 152] ; History of Israel, iv. 483 ff. [Eng. trans, v. 370 ff.].

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 179
the representative ever self-regenerating Buddha. It is not
to be denied, it is true, that the conception taken of the pure
life is, in this whole wide institution of renovated religion, on
the one hand much more rigid, and on the other much
more tender than in Brahminism or elsewhere in ordinary
heathenism, and that the thorough discipline of the whole
popular life resting upon this basis worked very salutarily in
many directions. But there is something one-sided, over
strained, and contrary to nature underlying this whole system,
and showing itself prominently at almost every point; the
severance and dislocation of all that is highest in the efforts
of the human spirit — in that as a matter of principle the
saintly stand upon the one side and the less saintly and
perfect upon the other — leads also as a direct result to a new
chilling and repression of all human aspirations, when once
this institution of life is firmly established in a nation ; and
there - is, further, no proper beginning even possible of the
varied, flexible life, progressing in the freest rivalry of all its
members, that marks the true community.1
5. If, then, the old prophetism and priestism, even in their
artificial combination, could not create an enduring community,
could not give to a people that firm, compact unity which a
large or small empire requires, was it not the best conceivable
course to abandon both ways, and the piety that arose from
them, and to hold fast simply and suitably, and develop
1 A correct knowledge of Buddhism ought to obtain amongst us. The
importance of Buddhism in human history is unusually great. It is the only
kind of religion which independently coincides in so many points with that
taught in the Bible, is indeed most similar to it, and though of an earlier date
than Christianity, yet resembles it in so many directions. The knowledge of it
therefore contributes largely to the better judgment of Christianity itself in its
further development. That Christianity is liable to fall into the Buddhist error of
separating the community into the saintly and the secular, its history teaches ;
yet it possessed in its youth energy enough to reject the Sabsean heresy as well
as the Manichsean, which was still more inclined to this error (History oj
Israel, vii. p. 172-184). Only in the Middle Ages was it too feeble and too
perturbed to save itself from injury by such a division into the saintly and the
secular which pressed in upon it powerfully through the Papacy : there needed
the mighty labours and efforts of the Reformation of the sixteenth century to
deliver it from this relapse.

180 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
further what had proved itself a surer possession as the result
of the noblest endeavours and spiritual toils of the past, viz.
the wisdom of life and the best morals ? This is the funda
mental thought which in the extreme East, in the Chinese
lands, where civilisation was almost as early and as highly
developed as in Egypt, became ultimately dominant, and
obtained at length through Confucius so decisive a victory
that it is to-day the true soul of the vast Chinese Empire.
Confucius did not immediately assail the old religions' of those
wide and populous lands ; he let them subsist so far as they
were able to subsist by their own inherent force. But his
own thought turned away from them ; he imagined that the
empire, and the government over it, if it were small, and
still more if it were large, could flourish purely by the best
morals and the healthy principles of a righteous administrative
wisdom ; and he based upon this supposition a system of
doctrine which, propagated by schools, is to-day the founda
tion of that vast empire, embracing the finest and most
populous parts of the earth. Confucianism demands our
attention here, partly because it belongs to the pre-Christian
era, and coincides in point of time very nearly with the
attempt of a directly contrary nature which Buddhism made
towards founding a better community; partly because its
fundamental thought is one very likely to be entertained by
a highly civilised nation, and recurs to-day amongst ourselves
with great force ; partly also because the truth we here seek
to set forth may become the more evident by its direct
antithesis. For the course which Confucianism takes involves
conduct and aims the very reverse of those which result
from the direct way of religion, is indeed as a cross-way
which of set purpose intersects the way of religion, and
would, if it were at all possible, lead men further and further
away from it.
But, as a matter of fact, this whole view of things and
mode of action rests upon an entire misconception of what
religion is in itself, and what it ought to be for man ; and,

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 181
moreover, only becomes possible when in the long course of
human development religion has given to nations as to indi
viduals so many noble fruits that hving men can forget the
more readily upon what stem alone they could have grown
and ripened. By the long persistent practice of the commands
of a definite kind of religion, certain moral usages are firmly
established in a nation ; by long experience of the changes of
human destiny, certain intuitions relating to the best possible
conditions for the continuance of human kingdoms become
fixed and permanent; and subsequent reflection develops in
addition a new insight which shows how the best of these
moral usages and intuitions may be applied in governing men.
The clear, fine racking off of such better morals and principles
appears, moreover, to be the most effective expedient in ruling
simultaneously many different races with their different, kinds
of religion and religious cultus ; and it must be confessed that
in this respect it has proved an admirable means of holding
together, even amid the constant change of the most dissimilar
ruling houses, the different peoples of a most powerful and
widely extended empire. Politics here take the place of
religion, the rigid penal law that of public freedom ; and the
wisdom of one man, Confucius, — preserved by means of a
well-graduated series of schools, and by an official system in
which promotion from stage to stage depends upon passing
the severest tests, — this is to suffice in all the highest and
most intricate questions of life. But the result is, that
the human having to enter, after it has reached a certain
divine culture, into the position of the Divine itself, the Divine
avenges itself against it unceasingly in thousandfold reactions.
Beligions are not suppressed and extirpated as this State
policy intends ; deprived of their higher guidance, they only
degenerate more and more deeply and perniciously ; while
statesmen superstitiously burn incense and offer sacrifice
before the statues of Confucius and virtually worship him as
their true God. Still further, if the wisdom of this man-god,
as it is treasured up in sacred books and reverenced above

182 REVELATION-; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
everything, but barely suffices through long ages to keep a
tight rein upon a confused crowd of people, it becomes also
to the rulers themselves a bondage and barrier, a hindrance
to all higher understanding of things, — the more disastrous
the later and more changed the times become, — since it is
only the manifoldly narrow and limited spirit of this one
man, and not the infinite Spirit of God, under the power of
which they permit themselves to unite, and then again to
spread out and extend. In addition to all this, whilst appa
rently this broad empire forms the greatest single community,
in reality it is divided into a community, on the one hand,
of those who know, rule, and punish, — for the empire is held
together by stern law and the sword ; — and, on the other, of
those who are ignorant, ruled, and punished ; and beyond the
needs of the outward life the whole range of education and
discipline does not necessarily reach.1
3. Its Perfect Satisfaction.
§ 58. It is certain, then, that by none of these forms and
regulations of religion among men the need of a true community
has either been met in the earliest or latest times of antiquity,
or can be met to-day, although in the historical phenomena
presented there is a wide difference, and the beginnings of
such a community are more observable in some cases than in
others. So much the more wonderful is it that this need
was perfectly satisfied in Israel in those ancient days under
1 From all that is said here about the Chinese Empire, it is evident how entirely
our modern European kingdoms, especially as they have sought to shape them
selves since 1830, 1848, and 1866, are in a fairway to sink down to a thoroughly
Chinese condition of things. It is not a question of mere names, that of Con
fucius or any other, nor of accidentally similar phenomena ; alas ! under a
smooth and ever splendid exterior it is just the spirit of Atheism and the con
tempt of all true religion that brings on such a condition, only those who are
responsible for it are far less excusable than Confucius or the philosophers among
the Greeks, who in many things were equal to Confucius, but inferior to him in
the practical issues of their wisdom. There is no danger to-day of our sinking
into Brahminism or Buddhism, but there is great danger of our falling back into
a Chinese condition of things.

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 183
Moses, and yet nothing is more certain than this, if we follow
accurately all historical traces. But we must also consider —
1. That if this need was to be satisfied in those early times
and in this nation through Moses, then all the pre-conditions
which alone made it possible that a true community of God
could arise there must already be fulfilled. Now what were
these fundamental conditions, and how were they certainly
and really found in those primitive times, and just with this
so far unique nation of antiquity ?
The first, that which is primaiy in this whole question, relates
to the nature of the conception of God Himself and of the hal
lowing of His will. Certainly in few places of the whole earth
at that time, when by a conjuncture of most favourable circum
stances the community of the true religion was to arise in this
nation of Israel, had a simpler and truer kind of piety been
preserved than among this people. It is evident that out of
the mist that had already arisen in the earliest ages of humanity
(p. 1 6 3), a simpler, less firmly developed indeed, but truer godli
ness might emerge, here and there at least, in regions where
the heavy vapours of all error had less thickly and densely
gathered. Now, shepherd nations with their simple life, their
free upward glance to the stars glowing in the clear heavens,1
and their plain moveable sanctuaries, might readily remain a
long time accessible to a simpler and yet true religion. That
the forefathers of the nation of Israel belonged to shepherd-
tribes ; that they preserved strictly their simpler, freer manners
when in conflict with long - since settled but degenerate
southern peoples ; and that the nation itself, even in the
changed circumstances of its life long after Moses, held fast
tenaciously its peculiar and simple manners : all this we
know certainly enough. Such circumstances must already in
that age, three thousand years before Christ, have favoured
an unusually lofty movement under national leaders like
1 It is remarkable that the grand images of the stars of heaven are nowhere so
largely conspicuous as in the reminiscence of the patriarchs, Gen. xv. 5, xxii. 17 ;
picturings such as Isa. xl. 60 but follow these old reminiscences.

184 revelation; its nature and record.
Abraham and men of kindred spirit, the victorious result of
which was, for the first time, a deeper knowledge of all
genuine religion, and a stricter faith in the one true spiritual
God ; so that a foundation was laid for such belief, which at
least in this populous circle it was afterwards difficult to
shake, and which was never again to be completely destroyed.
To be sure, during the centuries after Moses, the reminiscences
of this once powerful spiritual elevation of its first great
leaders and heroes gradually became more and more feeble,
but the hold upon some of the more tenacious elements of it
was sufficiently strong and unrelaxing, and the whole subse
quent history of the development, as well of the manners and
customs as of the religion of the nation, is unintelligible
without this first energetic beginning of a very definite
religious culture.1 However far, therefore, scholarship in
more recent days may have thrown doubt both upon the
historical character of that early time everywhere presupposed
in the Bible, when the formation of a community of the true
religion took its rise, and upon the significance of the formula,
" the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," we have
nevertheless an unquestionable right to see here the first
mighty step taken towards such possible formation, and the
first fundamental condition of it.2
The second was, that this nation, Israel, in a wholly new
position, into which it fell through the national entanglements
of the time, and in which it experienced and painfully
endured what was the direct contrary of a genuine community
of God, nevertheless did not abandon again the true religion
deeply rooted in it from the beginning. In Egypt at that
time, human government, with a national community which,
as its counterpart, may be designated a merely human com
munity, already flourished in a high degree. All human
1 As all this is so fully shown in detail in the first three volumes of the
History and in the Antiquities, it may here be taken for granted.
2 Cf. Hist. i. p. 454 ff. [Eng. trans, i. 317 ff. , ii. 34 ff. ] with the Dissertation in the
Jahrbucher der Bibl. Wiss. x. p. 1-25. The hackneyed doubts of some recent
writers rest only upon ignoring pr mistaking what is already scientifically proved.

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 185
pomp and glory might be seen there; kingly authority
embracing and upholding firmly a great composite, well-
administered realm, and a people progressive, inventive,
familiar with science and art. Every nation that came, like
Israel, into close contact with it, allured by its charms and
influenced powerfully by the discipline and rigour of its
singularly elaborate government and highly-cultured national
community, was dissolved and lost in its midst. But perver
sity in its religion and in its rule of prophet and priest was
also, as we have seen, p. 1 6 8 ff., very fully developed ; and the
kingly power, touched by the degeneracy that had found
place in the high spiritual impulses of the whole life of man,
had long since grown into an arbitrary and violent despotism.
Judged by the motives and forces of the true religion, here
then was an example of the very antithesis of what a national
community should be; and not in such mean and obscure
circumstances as might' elsewhere easily be found, but on a
grand scale, and to those who did not wish to be in subjection
to it, of the most oppressive and burdensome character.1 If
Israel would not yield to pressure that first commended and
then enforced the perverse religion and rigid mandates of this
fully-developed and despotic government, and of the similarly
organized national community which it controlled, and so far
felt itself strengthened by the healthy vigour of its own
religion, yet it could and must see here how civil and religious
government and the national community should not be. But
is it of any service to be obliged simply to see and endure all
this ? The nation did endure it for a long time, and without
entirely despairing of the better religion inherited from the
patriarchs, or becoming at once completely broken and destroyed.
But even the most tenacious national energy may at length be
impaired and exhausted, if it is not reinvigorated anew from
the only source from which such reinvigoration can come.
Thus, then, has the third fundamental condition, viz. the
1 On this whole subject, cf. History, i. p. 552 ff, ii. p. 5 ff. [Eng. trans, i. 386 ff.,
ii. 3 ff.].

186 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
advent and whole mission of an unparalleled God-sent man,
like Moses, its all-decisive significance. Without his coming,
the long deep sighing and yearning for redemption from
Egyptian bondage which, according to the brief and striking
reminiscence of the Book of Origins,1 vyent up to heaven and
to the God of heaven, would not have been answered ; but
how far he could appear upon the scene as in the hand of
God the only efficient instrument for this task, and could
bring the only possible true deliverance, has already (§ 34-36)
been discussed.
§59.2. For, indeed, everything that Moses established that
is immortal and unchanging culminates in the founding of a
community of the true religion. This is the eternal sum and
crown of his work.2 In directest contrast to an Egyptian
national community, and a government corresponding with it,
which, in all its seductive sensuousness, and all its terrible
reality as irreconcilable with the true religion, floated vividly
before the vision of the great prophets and leaders of the
people, and before the vision of the people themselves ; — this
community, speaking from a purely historical point of view,
could arise only in the midst of constant observation of that
great mistaken system, and after sensible experience of its
frightful effects. But, once arisen, it is of eternal significance
and validity, reaching far beyond the circle of its first historical
origin and establishment, forming the sure basis of aU real
persistence and all real progress of insight and activity in
true religion, and being, in fact, the indestructible beginning
of a development corresponding to such persistence and
progress by its incalculable duration and inexhaustible fruit
fulness. The full handling of this subject comes properly in
a subsequent volume, but we must here offer something of
an explanation of it.

1 Ex. ii. 23-25 ; cf. xiii. 19-22, xiv. 30 f.
2 What is here so briefly sketched is shown more in detail in the History,
ii. p. 193 ff. [Eng. trans, ii. 135 ff.], but it is so important and decisive in
itself that nowhere can it be made sufficiently conspicuous.

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 187
Pre-eminently and emphatically, all possibility of the rise,
much more of the development, of a community of genuine
religion rests upon the perfect knowledge of the true God and
its all-embracing significance for men. He who recognises, as
Moses did — (1) that there is only one true God, and all men
without distinction are equal before Him ; (2) that only the
government of this God, and His will in all human things,
are indestructibly eternal, and amid all changes of human
condition immutably the same ; and (3) that this one true
God is He who embraces all men in the equal measure of
His power, punishing their deviations from His will, and still
more in that of His infinite love approaching them with
condescension and grace ; he who recognises this — if, at the
same time, he is animated by as pure and ever equal and even
glowing a love to his people, and to all men, as Moses was,
and is adapted also, as he was, to be the leader and builder
of his nation — will be able to sketch also the proper. outlines
of that community of the true God which is the only genuine
community; and he will not simply trace these outlines as
a teacher and introduce the details as a legislator, he will
introduce them into the world as Moses did, luminous in
their own splendour, and by the living example of his own
character and work. Thus, then, it is already of incomparably
great significance if, for the first time in the history of the
world, a community ,is founded in which all men, without
exception, are contemplated as equal before God, and as having
in Him only their inseparable cohesion, because finding in
Him their inextinguishable light, their better mind, their
common wellbeing, so that the distinctions of prophet and
priest, or not-prophet and not-priest, of human king and ruler
and human subject, of learned and unlearned, of rich and
poor, of free citizen and slave, completely vanish, and are
recognised as necessarily vanishing before the true God of this
community, but only in order to emerge again in a second
series, illumined by the sun of righteousness and love of the
same true God who is common to all, and of His will, and

188 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
henceforth to pass for as much as they are really worth under
the light and will of God. But of far greater significance is
it that, having been born from the noblest energies and efforts
of all true religion, in the most wearisome and painful conflicts
with the perverse government and national community that
were its direct antithesis, it has known from the beginning, by
deep and most memorable experience, something of all human
suffering, and also the true salvation, divine love, and redemp
tion. The sublime primary ideas and forces of the true
religion are thus, all of them, efficacious in its midst from
the beginning ; and it is these that are able, after they have
once established the solid structure of this community, to
maintain it unshaken for all time to come. For this reason
also this firm basis and healthy germ of a community of the
true God does not thereby admit at all that its circle is at
once closed with the one nation, Israel. If this had been
the case, it could never, in accordance with the historical
conditionedness of all development of human things generally
in those early times, enter into the process of growth; but
sustained, first of all at least, by the firm concentration and
inner energy of one nation, taking deeper root in its sacred
enclosure during a long series of centuries, and bearing the
finest bloom and fruit, it becomes capable at length of em
bracing all nations.
The founding of this community of the Old Testament
goes back into an age so remote that we no longer possess
reminiscences of it so direct and lucid as those of the foundino;
of that of the New, which, indeed, is the consummation not
the destruction of the Old community, and in which the Old
community preserves for ever its simple irrefragable founda
tions. But we can still recognise with certainty that, in
point of fact, this achievement, as it was the most arduous,
was also the greatest and noblest of that ancient time — an
achievement incomparably more important and richer in
results than a hundred victories on the field of battle. By
means of it the nationality of Israel became seized by a pure

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 189
divine thought, and more and more completely transformed,
—a thought uplifting this single nation, of scanty numbers
and scanty earthly power, to a nation of a wholly new kind,
and with wholly new influence, the like of which all antiquity
cannot show, and which just in this its community lived on
ineradicably after all that was imperfect and perishable in it
had found its end. What the whole of antiquity, in its very
different nations and national institutions, strove after in vain
(§ 54-57), or at best attained only in imperfect organiza
tions, was here attained even before there was any particular
recognition of it in the wide realms of antiquity, and before
its whole significance was properly appreciated.1 For in this
case no one-sided predominance was possible, either of the
authority of the priesthood or of that of the learned ; and the
power of the prophetic office, most essential and fundamental,
as we have seen, in a nation not wishing to live without
divine sanctity, found here both its freest scope and its wise
limit and divine law. All members of the community, guided
by the inviolable principles of the true religion, and upheld
by the same firm unchanging foundations of fellowship, could
strive toward the same goal of pure divine salvation, and
enjoy the same fruits of such effort, without any one having
the occasion or right to feel himself unsatisfied, or in all
seriousness to withdraw for a time from fellowship. Here
was that which is truly pure and holy ; and here was set up
at length a government which was to be the very reverse of
a ' government of human caprice and unrighteousness, and
which, in spite of all earthly imperfections and changes
possible to it, could nevertheless offer the firm beginning of
1 The unusual and joyous images with which the restoration even of the later
community after the exile of Israel is delineated in such passages as Isa.
lxvi. 7-9, Ps. lxxxvii., cxxii., cxxiv.-cxxvi., xlvii., lxvii., lxviii., suggest with
what effect the creation of the original community would have been described
to us if we had sufficient literary memorials from that ancient time. We are
able, however, from the narratives, Ex. xix.-xxi., and from other reminiscences
given and elucidated in the History, ii. p. 305 ff. [Eng. trans, ii. 216 ff],
to gather what was the nature and influence of the original creation of the
community.

190 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
an unchangeable power, marked by continual progress in all
divine blessings humanity can enjoy, and by eternal salvation.
§ 60. 3. For the purest and highest advantage which a com
munity of the true religion can afford is this : — when once
well established and making good progress, it becomes an
abiding safeguard against all perverse efforts as they newly
intrude, and the best security of all further progress. If with
every better fellowship among men and every well-organized
civil community this is the case, how much more is it possible
with a community of the true religion, and, indeed, has it
actually occurred with this community in the course of the
long series of centuries ! And just this is the best proof of
the unsurpassed perfection and glory of this new creation,
going back into that high antiquity, and standing alone in the
history of nations and in the history of religion.
Every well-organized community indeed especially tolerates
and protects, it is true, the most diversified efforts and labours
of its individual members, so long as they have in them
selves a good aim and do not run counter to the highest and
chief aim of the community ; nay, by the closer unions of a
spiritual kind among men, of its own creation, it calls forth
whatever is possible in this direction, but assigns to everything
its proper bounds and demands that no single movement
overstepping its true limits shall be dangerous to others; and
in this not only is the healthy rivalry of individuals incited,
but the highest and best service one man can render as
against others is the more fully elicited and its advantage
secured. Thus, too, must the power which in this whole
sphere is most creative and commanding, the prophetic, exert
most profoundly its noblest energies and learn to work
altogether with its own peculiar means ; and we see therefore
in this nation prophecy more highly developed and more
vigorously and happily working than in any other nation of
the whole of antiquity. But, still further, how government
over men must shape itself at its purest and best, does not
appear so plain and is not so suggestively taught for all time

THE FOUNDING OF A TRUE COMMUNITY OF GOD. 191
to come in any other ancient nation as in this, in which in
almost all the most different eras of its history there arose a
numerous and brilliant series of men most serviceable to the
State, the larger and more luminous stars of which afford us
joy and guidance to-day.1
Moreover, should new errors and perversities arise, as is
possible within this as every other organization that is not
purely but only humanly divine, should they press in often
with stormy violence or maintain themselves in its midst for
long periods of time, it was proved again and again that here
they could not produce such devastation or work such destruc
tion to the deepest foundations of society as in other national
fellowships. For at the right time one of the good and necessary
powers of this community always acted with a beneficent
regulating and restorative influence upon that which over
stepped its due limits. Should priests degenerate through
pride and luxury, the common people, who had their just
rights as well, rose up against them ; should prophets or
learned men or authors lapse into love of idle thinking and
insincere speaking, the whole nation exercised a check upon
them, for the freest access to all arts was open to it, and the
remedy of direct divine thought and discourse was not denied
it ; and should the rulers abandon themselves to caprice and
despotism, the other existing powers of the community could
at once take vigorous action, and the courage to rush in
antagonism against this solid bulwark of defence would soon
fail them. All this lay in the fundamental laws of this com
munity of the true religion, and in the moral usages that
from ancient days established themselves more and more
broadly and firmly in it ; and in spite of the many raging
storms that disturbed its repose, the higher equilibrium ever
recovered itself again and peace returned.2
1 To this Zech.ix. 16, x. 4 very significantly alludes ; a witness all the more
important because referring to times from which we have not so many witnesses
as from others.
2 I give here but a brief reflected image of historical details that meet us on
closer contemplation.

192 revelation; its nature and record.
But that ultimately all good progress becomes possible
from imperfect to perfect development of the least that is
obtainable through the unshaken continuance of such a com
munity as well as of the greatest and most decisive, is not
less certain. In point of fact, this last possibility already lies
in the two previous ones ; for where they are not present in
vain, but grow more and more irresistibly into realities, there in
the onward stream of all higher efforts once powerfully called
forth this possibility presses from goal to goal to the gradually
more complete attainment of the ultimate goal, or if there is
one, and from the beginning there was in this case, to the very
highest of all. He, therefore, who is perfectly acquainted
with the entire history of this nation in all its aspects will
not doubt that within the two thousand years, or nearly so, of
which we now speak, it passed through the most violent
changes and most extraordinary transformations that any
nation can experience, and that these occurred with respect to
all the very manifold, nay, even conflicting tendencies and
efforts for which the life of a nation can complicate or divide
its organization. But he will just as surely find that in spite
of all the errors and declensions into which at times it fell,
nevertheless a series of progressive movements was made in
it, most memorable in themselves and important in their con
sequences, varying no doubt as the needs of the time varied,
but in their entire tendency all of them, so far as they met
more than transient needs, verging coincidently at last
towards the only highest goal, to which the first steps of the
series, conditioned by the original beginnings and fundamental
aim of the community were directed, and which is none other
than the perfect true religion at length to be won. But this
last and highest goal could not be reached without the steps
to it being taken within the irrefragably firm deep founda
tions and high mural defences of this community.

conflict against degeneration of revelation. 193

II.  THE CONFLICT AGAINST ALL DEGENERATION OF REVELATION.
The Opposition of Heathenism and True Religion.
1. In General.
§ 61. The correctness of our last observation must now be
fully shown by a distinct but great and all-prevailing pheno
menon, the right understanding of which, and the knowledge
of all aspects of it in their indubitable certainty, are here
specially relevant. We must come now to the more parti
cular consideration of the danger of degeneracy to which all
revelation may be exposed ; and we take the word revelation,
as often in common discourse, in the double sense it may
bear, viz. as indicating its inner impulse and original activity
(§ 13-20), and also its enduring noble fruits, or the divine
truths which are ripened by it and already work anywhere in
humanity. Now it is certain that every activity of the mind, even the
noblest and most necessary, when once vitalized and more or
less developed, may in various ways deteriorate, and in like
manner its fruit may in various ways be perversely sought
and perversely applied. Why should this not also be the
case to the same extent with revelation, which, considered on
its primary, that is, its human side, is likewise an activity of
the mind, historically arising and historically developed, and
whose fruits, that is, the divine truths it seeks to reveal and
make famihar to humanity, must first find a true domestica
tion in this human world, and therefore must encounter and
contend with all impulses and powers hostile to them !
Precisely when such a special facility and activity of the
mind has already won high credit among men, and become
much in quest, may it be most readily and persistently
misused by those who practise it and those who resort to it ;
and precisely when its fruits have been longest admired and
most highly honoured may they become most easily dis-
EWALD I. N

194 revelation; its nature and record.
esteemed by the concupiscence of men, and also wrongly
applied by their unwisdom. The higher revelation stands
among all the spiritual efforts and activities of antiquity,
the more possible was its perversion ; and the more strongly
the divine truths and commands it brought to light as the
fruits of its arduous toil impose obligations upon the human
will in its deepest impulses and determinations, the more
vehement may be the resistance and hostility of that will
against them, and the more obstinate its entanglement in
delusions and a whole wide network of new and grave
errors. Bevelation in the nation of Israel under Moses had
developed an activity for the true rehgion, and as its best
fruit had created a community the like of which till then the
whole world had not seen. For the first time in the world's
history, a whole nation had been born again through the spirit
of the true religion ; and true religion, in order to facilitate
its longer continuance and its progress on the earth, had
found, in a broad, well-organized national community, a firm
hold and a sacred seat for further development. Those
sublime days and years of more remote antiquity under Moses
tower on high in the midst of all the millenniums of entire anti
quity as for the history of the true religion the lofty boundary
beyond which true religion has as yet as good as no sure seat
at all among the nations of the earth, and on this side of
which only it could begin its consecutive and extended
efficiency for all mankind, although it was provisionally
limited to this one nation. And if the times of Moses had
not the large far-reaching significance of the early days of
Christianity, a millennium and a half afterwards, yet from the
first creation of mankind onwards there had been no such
decisive revolution as this, which alone was capable of preparing
the way for Christianity that should at length complete every
thing, that is, all perfect religion.
But wonderfully elevated and glorious as the revelation of
Moses was (§ 34-37), it nevertheless suffered from the first

conflict against degeneration of revelation. 195
from two somewhat serious deficiencies, less noticeable perhaps
in its new powerful and splendid commencement in the world,
yet making themselves gradually more and more perceptible
in the long course of the following centuries. This revelation
remained in its inner impulse and spirit essentially of a purely
prophetic character ; but the more imperfect element in
prophecy is the violence (p. 23 f.) with which the divine
truth it proclaims breaks its way as if from without irre
sistibly into humanity ; and this peculiarity showed itself in
its fresh and undiminished strength as the revelation first
became conspicuous in those still early times, and took for
such long centuries its limited but immovable seat upon the
earth. The other deficiency is in itself, it is true, of a wholly
different kind : this revelation, as it ran its course in its
whole most wonderful power, could find nowhere else upon
earth than in this one nation a favourable place for intelligent
acceptance and firm ground for efficient working ; and it must
confine itself to this one nation at least provisionally, if it
would make for itself and for true religion in general a home
upon earth, and find as it were a refuge and sacred ' seat of
operation in some spot, limited it may be, but secure on all
sides because of the firm bounds of a nationality. That it
could not for ever seclude its community in this narrow
space was indeed certain ; it had in it from the beginning too
much pure truth for all humanity pressing to overflow its
bounds, to be able to stay for ever within a limit into
which it was directed for that early time only by the
comprehensive and guiding law of all historical develop
ment.1 But that which is once so deeply settled in the life
of a nationality, and becomes so much, in accordance with
national sentiment, its defence, its pride, nay, ultimately its
sole highest good, — as to this nation was the case with
the true religion more and more after the time of Moses, —
finds also its primary limit in such national life increasingly
strong ; and the merely provisional element in the life of a
1 Cf. History, ii. p. 169 ff. [Eng. trans, ii. p. 117 ff.].

196 REVELATION; its nature and record.
nation at first, an element that could not from the very nature
of that life restrain it for ever, extending itself in this narrow
bound over many centuries, becomes thereby >at length all the
more a hindrance to the freer movement desirable for such
life. This second deficiency, however, ultimately coincided
quite closely and in new form with the first. For the earlier
and more necessarily it was adjudged that this revelation, in
its first and most energetic action, should find its place only
in this one nation, the higher mounted that violence essentially
cleaving to it, since its community became now also a national
community, and the spiritual power provisionally blended
with the national which can nowhere be maintained without
external constraint.
All this, indeed, was but the operation in this special case
of the general law of all new historical development in human
affairs, — a law which works with the greater stringency the
more creative the new element is that seeks to become
historical. Nothing new that is in itself purely spiritual, and
tends to take immediate effect in humanity, enters into the
world of human relations which are restricted in a thousand
ways as to time and space, without confining itself first of all
within the limits in which it becomes historical, — limits
which subsequently are obstructive to its essentially boundless
energy and to its innermost movement struggling after wider
and wider extension, but which surround it at first only as its
protecting walls, that, however, must remain as long as it is
necessary. But these limits within which all revelation of
the true religion was to produce new fruits from fruits already
matured, were not so impenetrable as to prevent many
impulses more or less incompatible with the spirit of this
revelation forcing their way through and attempting to mingle
with the better impulses or to stifle them again. Many old
sacred customs irreconcilable with the innermost impulses
of the genuine revelation and its continuous progress were
preserved from the long days before Moses, or returned with
fresh vigour after the time of Moses, especially in periods

conflict against degeneration of revelation. 197
of new confusion and despair; and a series of centuries
passed away before the last traces of these old sacred usages
were lost, since in a nation not disloyal to its youth nothing
maintains its existence more tenaciously than such old inclina
tions and customs. But from the foreign nations, also, with
which Israel in all the turning-points of its long and compli
cated history ever remained in the most manifold and unavoid
able contact, there penetrated many ways of obtaining oracles
irreconcilable with the instincts and truths of the genuine
revelation, which were sought after in times of prosperity in
Israel from wanton desire of innovation, in times of disaster
from dull despair.1 In such continual seeking with curious
and itching ears after new kinds of oracles, all antiquity,
especially in the livelier and more cultured nations, occupied
itself the more unweariedly and insatiably, the more the
oracle itself in general was unperfected, and in so many
places in the full bloom of its youth ; and Israel also had
times when it yielded to this disposition and temptation only
too wantonly, as the excitement grew to find new and higher
oracular responses, and to become acquainted with the
religions connected with them.2
Furthermore, in the use of the genuine means of obtaining
divine responses, and in the application of truths long since
acknowledged among them, Israel did not always show the
wisdom, loyalty, and perseverance without which progress is
so little possible that the want of them must sooner or later
lead to the most dangerous retrogression, and to new obscura
tions of the light of aU true religion. No nation in the midst
of the complicated and difficult course of its history, and after
it has once made the surest headway in disclosing grandly all

1 That Israel is a nation qf most peculiar kind, calmly dwelling alone,
becomes conspicuous first in Balaam's mouth, Num. xxiii. 9, then in somewhat
later prophetic passages, Deut. xxxiii. 28 ; Micah vii. 14 ; rather, however,
according to a pious wish which became increasingly strong after experiences of
ill, but was only partially fulfilled in history from the eighth century before
Christ. 2 See all this picturesquely described, Isa. lvii. 9 f. ; Jer. ii. 18, 36.

198 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
the tasks and activities of higher spiritual effort, is safe in the
presence of relaxations of strength and mistakes which may
throw it back again ; and if, indeed, a much larger and
mightier nation like the German, to whom as to no other the
guardianship and furtherance of Christianity have fallen, never
theless ever since it should have known its better divine
determination has been so much mistaken about it, and is still
to-day so seriously wanting towards it, how then should not
such human infirmities manifoldly visit a nation much smaller
and far more exposed from its situation to conflicts for its
very life, and where amidst all of them and so with the greatest
difficulty true religion first sought an enduring community upon
earth ! For in a nation once energetically aroused and vivi
fied, all such purely spiritual aims and aspirations, and most
of all this first and yet most elevated and arduous one, float
before it in purest essence and intent, remain always unattain-
ably beyond it, and absolutely independent of it, and as it
were wait to see whether in favourable times it will by such
influences be developed from stage to stage more widely and
nobly ; but they never cleave to it hke earthly material, and
they easily pass over to other nations. Nevertheless reveia*
tion, in its purest effort, its most active beginnings, and its
inexhaustible pains, was, according to § 36, subsequently to
Moses the profoundest occupation of every mind, and the
beating heart of the community he founded. And as revela
tion was placed in indispensable and unceasing reciprocal
action with the unshaken basis and innermost impulse of all
true religion, so the latter depended in its purer continuance
and its progress upon the former as its motive -fire ever
impelling onward, and at the same time as its necessary and
radiant light. Nay, it may be truly said, if revelation or the
oracle is in question, the faith of man is also above all in
question, whether, for example, he will believe or not in this
or that word, this or that thought, as giving him counsel and
strength in the needs and doubts or temptations of his life ;
or whether, if he cannot directly find such higher word or

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 199
such thought, he will believe in this or that means of finding
them. For such thought, whether consisting in a longer or
shorter series of clear or obscure words, will always be that
higher power he seeks, and from which he expects at the
moment his salvation. If the question were therefore essen
tially of the movement and direction of faith, it was also at
the same time concerning the movement and tendency of the
deepest needs of the seeking and struggling human spirit, and
of its corresponding energy which stands in the centre between
the impulse to seek new light and help, and the light already
given and the means of seeking further light. But if, now,
since the time of Moses faith was in this community to be
placed wholly and uninterruptedly upon God alone, and the
spirit in the new needs and despondencies of life, struggling
for new light, was to find again by further care and toil only
in Him all light not yet revealed by Him, in this was given
the possibility of always rejecting both the perverse seeking
of oracles and the fruits of it. And the basis of the true
religion, as it lived in this community through the institution
of Moses, was so sure and firm, and the treasure of radiant
eternal truth so highly valued, that all perverse means and
supports of faith were at the right time always rejected ; and
accordingly revelation itself in its inner impulse and essence,
and in its fruits, became gradually from stage to stage riper
and more perfect, till the highest .development was reached
possible in antiquity, and the profound yearning after an
ultimately completed revelation in some measure met.
In such a manner, indeed, may this development as a whole
be conceived, incomparably wonderful as it was in the whole
of antiquity. But what an immense multiplicity and diversity
of hindrances of perverse enterprise and endeavour presented
themselves in the course of more than a millennium and a half
which must elapse in this community before they were all
fully known in their perversity, and strenuously avoided ! In
what did not man fondly believe in order to find for himself,
if he could, the confidence and salvation of faith ! And to

200 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
leave nothing of the kind untried seemed to be the lot of this
community, because by dint of its own irrefragable foundations
it had to do apparently the most difficult thing which man
ever learns, and so often would fain not learn, viz. always
and only from the true God alone to seek and expect the true
light and salvation of all human life.
§ 62. This whole incomparably great and eternally signi
ficant transaction which was here accomplished, we can most
briefly explain by the antithesis a name offers whose proper
meaning it is now necessary to fix. That name is " Heathen
ism," or as it runs still more vividly and originally in the
Bible, " the nations," that is, the nations in general, in opposi
tion to this one nation which, as the nation of the true rehgion,
separated itself from them in the course of centuries more and
more sharply and definitely. Only by the nature of its reli
gion and its oracles, different from all that had hitherto arisen
among men, was this one nation strongly and perceptibly
distinguished from all others from the beginning; but the
distinction was in its essence so necessary and grave, that it
gradually became a solid partition -wall which never seemed
capable of being broken through again. In the earliest ages,
when this nation had first to win for itself a firm position
among all other nations of the earth, this opposition,
showing itseK rather in sharp warlike expedients and old
national badges,1 becomes more and more a purely spiritual
one, and thus has the deeper hold, and is for all time, as it
were, unconquerable. Accordingly the distinction appeared
in the language, at first gradually, but at length with greater
firmness and graver significance. That this nation early felt
itself sharply and incisively separated from " all the nations,"
or more briefly, from " the nations," is intelligible enough, and
living as it did in Palestine in a restless tumult of nations, it
learned to look upon its neighbours, and soon upon all the
1 Cf. History, ii. p. 219 f. [Eng. trans, ii. p. 154 S.\ and Antiquities, p. 102 ff.,
118 ff. [Eng. trans, p. 76 ff., 89 ff.] ; cf. with what subsequently was to enter
as an open badge as if in the place of circumcision, p. 307 [Eng. trans, p. 231].

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 201
rest of mankind, as " the nations ; " and to designate them
chose a word somewhat rare and foreign,1 using it ultimately
in this sense as a short and standing expression.2 A similar
distinction obtained in Hellenistic Greek 3 when Israel, widely
diffused amongst the nations, felt its distinction from them
the more deeply. So arose the conception now expressed in
the words " heathen " and " heathenism."
It was not, however, the bare national distinction that
raised this barrier between Israel and the rest of the world ;
there was a spiritual significance connected with it from the
beginning, and this grew in process of time into fuller meaning.
At the same time the spiritual significance, in so far as Israel
formed itself into a community of the true God, overleaped
all national limits so constantly that even from the first
foreigners could enter ; 4 and as foreigners were never altogether
wanting in it during the long succeeding revolutions of its
history,5 this community passed over into all nations ulti
mately, under Christ and His disciples, without being in any
way hampered by national restrictions. Nationality played
its part, but never alone, rather only as conditioned by the
nature of the development in the higher antiquity of all true
revelation and religion (p. 193), and it vanished, as at last in
actual fact, so already very early in the desire and longing of
the best prophets of this community.6 If, then, the distinc-
1 Ms, ?''ij in the ancient Hebrew are rarer and more poetic than OJ7, D^lSy ;
somewhat like our " nation," in opposition to "volh."
2 In the old portion, Lev. xviii. 24, D'ijn are not yet briefly and simply the
foreign nations ; but already in the Book of Origins the short expression occurs,
Gen. x. 5, 32 ; in Balaam's speech, however, the opposition is sharpest, Num.
xxiii. 9. As the word in common speech became more and more a proper name
for the foreign nations, it could lose in the higher discourse the article ; yet Cia
without the article is rare in Isaiah's time, and not frequent until afterwards.
3 shos, not SifjiMs ; ™ U>*. Such short words as ISvmZs, Gal. ii. 14, and ihixls,
Matt. vi. 7, xviii. 17 (from the hand of the last editor), do not occur in the Old
Testament. 4 Cf. History, ii. p. 118 [Eng. trans, ii. p. 82].
5 Cf. History, iii. p. 195 [Eng. trans, iii. p. 144], iv. p. 457 ff, 517 f. [Eng.
trans, v. p. 350 f., 396 f.], vi. p. 531 ff. ; and Antiquities, p. 316 f. [Eng. trans.
p. 237 f.].
6 This was a great and indeed the finest part of the Messianic hopes, from the

202 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
tion between heathenism and the true religion has the all-
penetrating significance it unquestionably has, this significance
must lie elsewhere than in the sphere of nationality ; and at
this point of our discussion we perceive the distinction most
palpably. True heathenism exists everywhere where revela
tion and religion, once won, and whether in a high or low
condition of cultivation, fall back and deteriorate, and cannot
find again the path by which they may be led out and beyond
the increasing power of error and decay. The characteristic
mark of true religion and revelation, as of their impelling
fire and clear light, is that at the right moment and by the
original truth already surely won, they always find again the
way that leads out beyond every new darkness and confusion
obstructing and hindering their progress. Heathenism, on the
contrary, is enervation and torpidity upon this way ; and as
there is always movement in the world, a declension upon it
further and further, even to death itself, may follow. But
since revelation is the innermost and most essentially potent
impulse to remove every obstacle checking its progress and
to increase the clear light already won, it is evident that
heathenism arises most immediately and multiplies its power
most perniciously just where the living energy of revelation
is becoming paralysed and its light is on the point of going
out. The more important the great opposition between heathenism,
in its innumerable forms, and the true rehgion is, — the latter
becoming ultimately the perfect true religion, — the more
indispensable is it to have exact ideas of both, and of their
relations the one to the other. Nothing would be so perverse
as to place the distinction in something merely accidental.
To suppose, as is often done, that it lies only in this, that
heathenism accepts the principle of polytheism, the true

old portions of Joel in Isa. ii. 2-4, Micah iv. 1-4, to the latest times ; also pecu
liarly in Zech. xiv. 16-19, but most copiously and beautifully in Isaiah himself,
chap. xix. Nowhere can we see how the fulfilment corresponds to the prophecy
so definitely and clearly as here.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 203
religion that of monotheism, is not sufficiently determinate,
since every heathen nation has ever sought to think of and
hold fast in its faith one God as its supreme deity ; and, on
the other hand, in the circle of true religion, a plurality with
respect to the divine subsistence at least is admitted, and
only Islamism has suffered the doctrine of the divine unity
to become petrified through exaggeration. But this distinction
is also wholly insufficient in itself, since it extends to one
only — an important one, certainly — of the many pure truths
upon which in religion everything depends. Heathenism has,
however, a general significance, affecting all the great truths
rehgion involves, as well as its moral principles and its
human home, the community ; in short, heathenism is religion
that has made a substantial beginning but is arrested in its
free development and progress to perfection, and so has
become retrograde ; and it is less in its commencement, or in
its course up to a certain stage, than in its lacking direct and
proper onward advancement to the real ultimate goal, that it
is seen to be the contrary of all true religion, much more of
true rehgion in its perfect consummation.
It is not denied, therefore, that heathenism may have its
better elements. Historically it arises from the same common
source as true religion ; and side by side with its superadded
error there is in it what it is difficult wholly to suppress, the
originally direct aspiration of every human spirit. The first
beginnings of all revelation and religion as they appear in all
human history (§13 ff), and as without them history is not
to be thought of, are also the beginnings and original impulses
of all heathenism, and so the very mainspring of its existence
and of its otherwise inexplicable continuance before our eyes
to-day. All heathenism has also its gods and its revelations,
and whether they are more or less living and true, whether
they are reminiscences from the primitive age and obscurely
inherited traditions or not, is at this point matter of no
concern. But it has also its flowers of Vedic songs, sprung
from the bright childhood of the world ; its Homeric poesy,

204 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
charming and simple in its art, yet with all its exuberant life
unhealthy in its sensuousness ; its Egyptian priest-religion,
sternly severe, and menacing with the dark shadows of death
and the rigours of eternal judgment ; its community-founding
Zoroastrianism and Buddhism, struggling painfully and self-
sacrificingly with the problem of extirpating the infirmities
and ills of human life ; its lofty Chinese State-wisdom ; and,
finally, its manifold attempts, through the doctrines and morals
of schools of deeper reflection and inquiry, to supply what the
old and worn-out ways of revelation and religion would no
longer afford. Moreover, in those nations where it flourished
in connection with a happily-thriving high culture, heathenism
had attained by such means so conspicuous a development of
the powers of conscience and reason, powers original to the
human spirit (§ 14, 2), therefore God-given, but capable only
historically of manifold growth and discipline, that the apostle,
who had these nations constantly under his eyes, could appeal
to this active twofold power of their mind as a witness in
themselves against their own deeply-seated moral corruption.1
Thus heathenism and true religion flow at first from the same
source, and resemble, so far, two streams which, taking their
rise from one spring, flow together undivided a longer or
shorter distance, but subsequently parting at this or that
rock, one diverges into side streams which, following different
courses, run on a longer or shorter time, some of them
with much grandeur and magnificence, but all at last
alike losing themselves in the sand, while the other goes
pouring on in its straight direct course, is never again
completely broken or divided, and grows mightier and mightier
as it flows.
§ 63. For it is certain, furthermore, that everywhere where
in antiquity in the special development of each nation,
heathenism, in order to strike out upon its side-ways, broke
loose sooner or later from the more innocent and oldest kind
1 A union of the two powers of conscience and reason is implied in Rom. i.
19 f., although their names are not given.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 205
of simple revelation and religion, it formed itself in the
highest degree differently, since just caprice gaining ground
with power determined its nature ; nay, it must shape itself
more and more differently, the less it was able thoroughly to
overcome the thousand hindrances opposing the direct perfect-v
ing of all revelation and rehgion. It may still be recognised
with sufficient certainty that all the Semitic nations in that
primitive time, when they had not yet separated from each
other as they did afterwards, possessed in common a simpler
religion, the visible remains of which may still be met with
in them all; but after their separation how utterly diverse
was the development of the religion of the Aramaeans, the
Phoenicians, and the Arabians ! 1 Similarly with respect to
all the nations of the midland family of languages, at length
spreading much more widely and freely than those of the
Semitic, it can still upon closer investigation be clearly seen
how in their earliest age they were held together in their
original seats by a common simpler religion, whose traces,
after their separation further and further from each other,
could never be fully effaced. But among the western portion
how differently did the religion of the Greeks shape itself
from that of the old Italians and Bomans, and from both of
these that of the Germans and the Celts ! whilst in the
eastern portion, among Persians and Hindoos, though religion
for a longer time was fashioned in common after a pecuhar
type, it finally fell asunder into very different forms quite
distinct in type, and more and more irreconcilable with each
other. But what is so observable, according to authentic and
manifold testimonies of antiquity, in these powerful and for
all the higher culture representative families of nations,
occurred unquestionably everywhere else, and has continued
till to-day in an increasing degree in Africa, Australia, and

1 I have shown this in many ways, in the Antiquities, in the Dissertations
concerning Sanchmiaihon and other Phoenicians, in the Gbtt. Gel. Anz., and
elsewhere. A summary of Kenan's errors is given in the Jahrb. der B. Wiss.
x. p. 283 f.

206 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
America, so far as heathenism in such lands is at present an
actual potency of life.1
Still further, the various forms of heathenism, developed
to the utmost by means of art or science or any honest effort,
even should they seek ever so assiduously, and for a long
time perhaps ever so brilliantly, powerfully to strengthen
themselves by such aids, are never able to reach the goal of
genuine perfection and unbroken continuance. Looking at
the infinite diversities which appear in the historic course of
heathenism, it is observed that in many nations attaining early
a high culture or aim of life, the pure original energies of all
revelation are just as early overtopped and overgrown by
other energies and activities of the human mind, not less
noble perhaps, but still heterogeneous. For example, among
the Egyptians and many Semitic nations, and then more
especially among their later scholars the Greeks, they were
completely surpassed and thrown into the shade by the
wonderful efforts and splendid works of art and science,
among the Bomans by the single and powerfully-cherished
ambition to conquer and rule all nations far and near. Since,
however, the needs of religion and of revelation lying behind
it were irrepressible, even in the midst of the eagerness to
follow wholly other impulses, the endeavour was made to
satisfy such needs by closely connecting these impulses with
them. The nations that specially cultivated art and science,
by art sought to glorify their gods, by science to investigate
their nature more profoundly, and so give to them a more
vivid existence, while the Bomans thought they should renew
revelation and religion sufficiently if they introduced from
foreign sources the oracles and faiths that were most famous.
But how little could the consummation ¦ of the energies and
truths of revelation and religion, thus blindly sought, be
reached by such intermingling of the most different objects
1 The Fetisch is the last outcome of this, i.e. any visible thing you please
which any man accepts as his god, to-day in this way, to-morrow in that ; cf
A. Bastian's Besuch in San Salvador. Bremen 1859.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 207
of human aspiration ! Wholly different phenomena present
themselves among heathen nations within which, after a higher
culture had been acquired, the original energies of all revela
tion and religion nevertheless remained active, put forth new,
peculiar, and powerful efforts, and so created new forms, some
of which had the most wonderful consequences and a long
existence. This was early the case with the Egyptians, so
far as we now can judge ; J but it is seen most clearly and is
of longest duration among the ancient Hindoos' and Persians ;
and Buddhism, by a genuinely creative transformation of the
old Brahminism, in accomplishing which it was inspired by
some of the purest impulses of all revelation and religion, has
won that high significance and capacity of life which, in the
remotest lands of Eastern Asia, still characterize it to-day.
Only here, indeed, do we see the noblest development, the
most commanding power and persistent duration of which
heathenism is capable. Moreover, thus is explained how it
is that precisely these most flourishing forms of heathenism
show the greatest similarity to true religion, and are most
easily, though superficially, mixed up and confounded with
it ; 2 and still further how it is that just with them the true
revelation and religion has had the severest and most obstinate
encounters. The conflict of Moses and Aaron with the Egyptian
priests and magicians (p. 87 f.) is the eternal type of all such
struggles. But, however far isolated sections of heathenism
may carry their development, they are never able to reach the
true goal of all revelation. The history of nearly two thousand
years, with all its costly and painful experiences since the
establishment of Christianity, enables us to maintain this with
more simple definiteness and universality than is found in
the brief assertion or prophetic anticipation of Scripture.
Thus, then, heathenism is the potency of all error and mis
guidance that stand in the way of the direct progress and
1 Cf. History, ii. p. 56 f. [Eng. trans, ii. p. 39 f.].
2 As in earlier times Manichseism with Christianity, in the Middle Ages and
later Buddhism with Popery.

208 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
perfect consummation of true revelation and religion. In
point of time it is the first, in point of extent and force the
most pernicious and powerful of all errors ; revelation and
religion may indeed have an incomparably wider and more
permanent influence, but not till first of all these hidden and
secret toils have been escaped. All error is infinitely diversified
in contents and changing in form, and this most potent and
pernicious of errors, in all 'its possible ramifications and com
binations, is not to be evaded or anticipated ; whilst here, as
everywhere, truth is one and unchanging, and its progress
resembles a straight hne and course. The direct and com
plete antithesis of true revelation and religion, and their
onward progress, heathenism thus interposes with manifold and
mischievous effects before the goal is reached, and may after
wards penetrate again and again by new efforts of greater or
less significance into the wider circle, as did, for example,
mistaken Islamism, or into the narrower circle, as Popery has
done. But it is the divine destiny of all human error to
serve only as a palpable contrast and antithesis to truth, and
of truth to recover itself from the toils of error and disclose
its real nature ; and thus the true revelation in its first
conscious and clear beginnings extricated itself from the
hidden snare, in its further and greater advances struggled
forth from amidst entanglements of increasing difficulty, till
at last it reached its ultimate and highest goal, -¦ and now
stands there the bright, clear mirror that shows in their true
feature and image all forms of error, whether descended
from antiquity or newly arisen.
As, therefore, the community of Israel, sprung forth under
Moses in sharpest conflict with heathenism, and appointed by
its very origin to the continuance of this inevitable and direct
conflict, was the community within whose firm walls this
conflict actually reached at last its ultimate goal ; so the
Bible shows us as a whole and in detail the history of this
conflict in all its different aspects and stages up to the
highest victory which could be won in this community, and

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 209
then the gradual breaking down of these walls, now become
too narrow, that the whole wide world of men might share
the struggle. This conflict with heathenism — for the first
time and so in the severest form in human history, begun on
all sides with deep earnestness and the assembling of the
human forces of a smaller circle, continued with yet deeper
earnestness and more powerful concentration of all forces as
every new inroad of frailties and discomfitures furnished the
occasion, and finally perfectly victorious after the direst
distresses and perils — is the chief phenomenon and indeed
the • summary of the whole history of this community ; and
that it was fought out within the firm stability of its walls,
and could only be fought out within them, is its highest
glory. Moreover, as the nation of this community in its
difficult and long course gradually came into closer and closer
connection with the most different nations of the antiquity
that lies nearer and is better known to us, so also the
passages of the Bible which incidentally or at large discourse
immediately of heathenism, are very ' different in character.
In the oldest portions of the Bible, the peculiarity of
heathenism as it affects individual nations, Egyptians,
Canaanites (Phoenicians), and others lying around and in part
akin to Israel, is rather referred to, and as the occasion offers
somewhat particularly indicated ; and the more vivid the
reference ih the writing, the older that reference is.1 But
after Israel, from the eighth century before Christ, was flung
out in great numbers into the wide world of nations, and its
conflict with heathenism must be carried on in a far more
complicated and severe and wholly new form, then the first
attempts are made to deal consecutively and exhaustively
with the nature of every kind of heathenism on earth without
exception, and to portray it in living colours and sustained
descriptive pictures.2 What a change ! In the earliest
1 The oldest laws in the form in which we find them in Lev. xviii., xix. show
this ; and the very peculiar passage, Ex. xxiii. 20-33.
2 In Deut., Nah. i.-iii., Jer. x., and then still more in many longer passages,
EWALD I. 0

210 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
times this nation in deep and perilous tumult of life, and in
quest of a fixed abode on earth, had fought with heathenism ;
but afterwards for long centuries had found its joy in calm,
secure, peaceful dwelling in the beautiful fatherland, and had
accustomed itself to this as the sweetest happiness of life ; and
now pitilessly thrust forth amongst far-removed and mostly
ruder nations, it was to maintain even among them its
peculiar revelation ; nay, as it no longer possessed weapons of
war, to seek peacefully to draw them over to itseK •' And
this, too, was only the prelude to the dispersion in the Greek
period when Israel must learn to know heathenism more
intimately from a wholly different side, and when the
picturings of its seductive art accumulate in the Bible in
wholly new form.1 In the New Testament, on the other
hand, the inner strife in the community is renewed once more,
and now as never before ; and yet the New Testament, too,
closes nevertheless in the Apocalypse with just this opposition
to heathenism and, as not before depicted, the unfulfilled
profoundest opposition in its extremest power and most
frightful violence. So true it is, that according to the entire
Bible, the all-pervading, all-penetrating conflict is simply
that between the true revelation with its community and
heathenism. We must, however, now all this,
2. In Special Detail,
§ 64. More particularly consider, since only such more
exact consideration of all the details can give us an adequate
image of the whole ; and it is the more necessary since the
direct progressive impetus of all revelation, becoming more
and more powerful and at length wholly perfect, has con-
Isa. xiii. f., xl.-lxvi., Jer. 1. f., and in the piece Bar. iii. 9 ff. ; also Ps. cxv.
and the Psalter of Solomon.
i Daniel, the Greek Jeremiah (Proph. des A. B.'s, iii. p. 382 ff.), Book of
Wisdom (cf. History, iv. p. 626 ff. [Eng. trans, v. p. 479 ff.]), the Books of the
Maccabees, and the like.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 211
tinued its development only by its opposite, and therefore
cannot be understood in its progress without it. For from
the beginning of the creation God placed man upon the earth,
it is true, with this purpose and destiny ; — to acquiesce in
His will more and more perfectly and obey it, that is, to
learn from the midst of the universe the will and so more
plainly the voice and words of Him who does not discourse to
the senses, and to behold the whole being of Him who is not
perceived by the senses ; but He left to man to put forth the
necessary effort, and find and employ the right means to this
end, as might be requisite in the gradual progress of his
inquiry and task. Such means, therefore, if they answer their
end, are upon each of the many stages pure and innocent,
until some stage is reached upon, which' their insufficiency to
advance the necessary further progress of revelation is iclearly
proved, and a better and more adequate way has .' been* found.
Now every means to an end is in the hands of men by mere
repetition and imitation readily impaired and becomes duller
and less effective than it was originally ; but if merely from
custom and indolence it is firmly retained when already a
better exists, the insinuating error that claims to be right in
its methods becomes more serious and obstinate continually ;
and all kinds of low cunning and artifice are then the more
readily connected with the growing perversion. This is the
nature of the perversion which shows itself in the course of
this highest spiritual effort of all antiquity ; whilst in the
midst of this course only in the nation of Israel was a com
munity established which from the time of its sound and
better, beginning of things was destined to withstand . all
deterioration in revelation already influential, and subsequently
to become influential in the community. Not till, then' does
there occur, therefore, a more concise, definite, and continuous
development of this great incident ; and as . we depict its
stages in detail according to history, we shall at the same time
be able to survey • with more luminous • glance the infinite
particulars the consideration of which now opens upon us.

212 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
It is not necessary, however, to describe all heathenism as
it unfolded itself in its endless diversity in antiquity, and as
it may be seen to-day in the best and highest form possible
to its peculiar spirit in the lands of Eastern Asia with
their ancient culture. Sufficient for our aim will it be to
consider particularly the various types of heathen thought
and feeling in the search after revelation as the Bible presents
them ; and indeed the subject itself requires no more. For
not only did this whole singularly earnest and consistent
conflict of genuine revelation with all its opposites start from
an earthly surrounding in which heathenism had attained
among the Egyptians and Canaanites the highest, finest, and
most varied development possible to it at that time, but, it
was also continued in the bosom of the community itself still
more earnestly and extensively, until the consummation was
reached. And so there is no species of heathen feeling and
thought which at least in its drift and tendency is not men
tioned in the Bible either incidentally and by insinuation or
more definitely and at large. The- impulse itself which in
heathenism and in the sanctuary of the community of the true
revelation is alike the spring and source of all activity, we
may briefly designate " faith" (p. 198 f.) ; but how the heathen
form of it, which may be designated " superstition," lays hold
of ever new and subtler and seemingly more divine expedients
in the whole course of this long development, may be best
seen under the three great decisive periods which divide the
whole history of the community wherein everything is per
fected. These three great periods of change we must take,
however, rather in accordance with the underlying charac
teristic of each of them than with respect to external
limitation. In the first period, the primary means of drawing forth
revelation or communicating its contents to others to which
faith turned were just those chiefly which since primitive
times had become increasingly powerful almost equally
amoug all nations, and with the more cultured were in a hiofi

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 213
degree of artificial development. They take their rise amid
the simplest conditions of all human civilisation, and lead us
back to the guileless innocence and childlike trust of the
earliest ages of all nations. They were resorted to, therefore,
in the days of the patriarchs up to the time of Moses in all
the natural ingenuousness but broad manifoldness and diver
sity peculiar to that primitive era ; and indeed Moses' revela
tion had to fight earnestly against them from the beginning,
just because they were so steadily practised in those remote
early times, so deeply rooted in tlie life and conviction1
of the nations, and so prevalent almost everywhere with the
like fascinating power, although in very varied development.
Even after Moses some apparently less pernicious, and one
may say more innocent, usages were retained, on account of
their ancient sanctity, a longer or shorter time in the customs
of the community ; and the entire atmosphere these world-
old practices and conceptions breathed, pervaded the regions
where the true revelation gradually grew to perfection, and
to such an extent that without the recognition of it many
passages of the Bible cannot be understood.1 Moreover, in
themselves and apart from the seductive art with which their
votaries have loved to clothe them, they are all so congruous
to common human thinking, that not merely did they seek to
penetrate more and more into this old community of the true
revelation, and in times favourable to them often became
extremely dangerous, but so far as their inmost essence is
concerned, they are in our days still in existence everywhere,
spontaneously or of set purpose, even where it might scarcely
be expected.
In number, these and the more artificial kinds of supersti
tious usage following later, are, if the whole length and breadth
of their development is traversed, incalculable. Since, how
ever, the conflict in this community after the days of Moses
was in principle at least directed against them all without
1 Where, for example, as in Job, Gen. xv., or with respect to Balaam, Num.
xxii. -xxiv., the higher antiquity is artistically depicted.

214 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
exception,1 whilst they sought ever again in continually new
and manifoldly seductive art to force their way in, it is not
to the older laws of the community,2 but to Deuteronomy that
we look for a brief, round enumeration of the worst kinds of
them in its time.8 For the satisfactory understanding of all
the different kinds mentioned in Deuteronomy and elsewhere
in the Old Testament is involved in difficulty, partly because
most of them are only briefly and abruptly mentioned, partly
because the designations of them come from the oldest Semitic
nations, and many such usages first found their way into
Israel from the Phoenicians, Syrians, and other alien Semites.
Great caution therefore is needed in speaking about them
particularly.4 If we look, however, at their significance as
expedients to obtain revelation, and at the same time at the
great historical development of all human impulses that in
this matter are active, we may very well distinguish them
according to the three following tendencies : —
1 It is undeniable that the better men in the time of the patriarchs and their
kinsfolk opposed them ; this, indeed, is presupposed in the narratives of Genesis
and by the poet of Job, who was well versed in history (esp. xxxi. 26 f.). But
the more general and earnest conflict against them did not begin conspicuously
until the days of Moses.
2 These describe superstitious usages generally as in the Ten Commandments,
Ex. xx. 4f., and in the oldest explanations of Lev. xxvi. If., or forbid specially
dangerous species of them, as Lev. xix. 31, Ex. xx. 7 ; thus also may the oldest
documents be recognised.
3 Deut. xviii. 10 f. Enumerations in the round number 7 are preferred by the
Deuteronomist ; cf. Hist. i. p. 342 [i. p. 238] ; here 9 are given together. The
early estimation of this passage is seen from its imitation, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6 ;
for that it is an imitation is apparent by comparison with 2 Kings xvi. 3 f.
1 To understand the obscurer names in this chief passage, it is well to observe
that the series is not accidental, for (1) the Moloch oracle is placed first because
at the time (2 Kings xvi. 3) it occupied special attention, as follows from Deut.
xii. 31 also ; (2) from DDp to ETDDl three kinds of oracle by omens are given ;
(3) two connected with sorcery succeed (here the existing division of the verses
is at fault) ; (4) three resulting from artificial questioning conclude, so that necro
mancy is the last. The two that were regarded as most mischievous close the
long series (2 Kings xvi. 3 ; Isa. viii. 19), whilst those in the middle fall into
groups according to their likeness to each other. The actual life of such pro
phets of superstition is depicted nowhere so copiously and with such graphic
irony as with respect to Balaam, Num. xxii. -xxiv. Elsewhere, apart from various
Eastern writings, see especially jEschylus, Prom. 483 -499 ; Porphyry's chief works ;
Just. Apol. i. ch. 18 ; Tatian to the Greeks, ch. 33 ; Origen against Celsus, 7, 1.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 21 5
§ 65. From the First Period. — 1. One of the first and
deepest impressions upon the spirit of man would be made
by the place itself where once, as if unawares, a divine voice,
or a heavenly vision, or some unexpected divine help had
touched and strengthened it. This is the simplest and most
innocent way in which a special place could become sacred.
Ever again the desire would be to return to such place in the
hope that some new voice and help from God might be
received, because once known and experienced there. So the
whole record of the life of the patriarchs in the Holy Land is
full of such reminiscences.1 Yet, innocent as this belief is in
its beginnings, other anticipations and thoughts that are more
from the very midst of the life of the higher revelation
indicate early enough how little a man's being touched by
divine words and influences depended upon mere place,
whether the beloved and hallowed native land or any special
locality in the patriarch's world.2
But the belief that signs and voices from the Deity may
be received better in one place than another was once deeply
rooted, and all kinds of efforts were made in harmony with
it. The high places of the earth, especially some peaks of
mountains sought out with special skill, seemed to bring man
nearer to the God of heaven, and to facilitate the survey of
human destinies on the plains below ; but, according to the
Old Testament, it is only a diviner like Balaam who purposely
selects such places.3 On the other hand, no places seemed to
be able to send forth as if from the mysterious depths of the
dark earth such earnest, solemnly-warning, divine sounds as
certain caves and chasms ; but whilst such places were more
and more misused by superstition chiefly amongst necromancers,
the oldest law of the Old Testament warns against all oracles
of the dead.4 If also deeply rushing subterranean water
1 History, i. p. 434 f. [Eng. trans, i. p. 302 f.].
* For that is the real meaning of such narratives as Gen. xxviii. 11-22, xxxi. 3,
xvi. 7-14, and similar ones.
3 Num. xxii. 41, xxiii. 14, 28. * Lev. xix. 81.

216 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
could be heard in such positions, there would readily be
associated with the dreadfulness of the place the primitive
feeling of a certain life of the water and awe of its sanctity,
which among the ancient Persians and Indians expressed
itself so strongly in reverence for springs and rivers ; and the
awe thus occasioned led to the Sibyl-oracle, which, according
to all traces, was artificially practised at an early period in
anterior Asia and Syria, though accidentally it is not anywhere
mentioned in the Bible. Throughout we see here a feeling of
awe, originally harmless enough, obscured early in its child
like innocence, and misused as an artificial oracle, whilst
nothing bears less all artificial change and formal repetition
than the impulse of genuine revelation, and the Sibyl-words
so extremely celebrated at length through the gross supersti
tion of the Bomans acquired a more enduring fame by their
complete transformation in the spirit of Hellenistic and
Christian poets.1 Or if hot springs and vapours issuing from
deep caverns seemed in an unusual way to transport into
inspiration by restlessness and heat men who sat above, and
to carry them out of themselves into a divine ecstasy, it
would appear that there was the best place for divination.
To this also by accident there is no reference in the Bible.
It is true that after Moses, in the course of the earliest
centuries of the founding of the community of Israel, the
sacred ark of the covenant became gradually regarded as a
sacred instrument near which it seemed possible that the voice
of God to this community should be again and again expressed
distinctly and without interruption ; indeed, the traces of this
belief are strongly impressed upon some passages of the Old
Testament. But the early destruction of Shiloh,2 and the
admission still early enough into the innermost sanctuary of
1 Cf. the Dissert, concerning the origin, contents, and value of the Sibylline
Books, Gott. 1858. The name ^i/iukXx, which the Greeks could only interpret as
A/os $ov\ri, appears to me to be derived from TV2&, ''stream." For if the
^Eolians say 2i«, yet the abbreviation to 2i has still to be established. The
T\72W is, however, more Aramaic than Hebraistic.
vCf. History, ii. p. 582 ff. [Eng. trans, ii. p. 413 ff.].

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 217
Solomon's temple of this holy relic, inherited from the grand
days of the founding of the community, and since too much
reverenced, checked for the present any possible germ of
superstition beginning to show itself ; so that the transfigured
remembrance of it, taken up into the circle of Messianic hopes,
held at length an honourable place. The temple itself, how
ever, with its restoration by Zerubbabel and Herod, especially
since the thousandfold glory of heart-stirring song and inspired
prophetic hope made it illustrious, seemed, in the last century
before its first destruction, and again in the last before the
second destruction, to win anew a sanctity which might have
become a hindrance to the free perfecting of all true religion
and of genuine revelation as well ; x but before the overthrow
of the first and second temple the best oracles always sent
forth earnest warning against the indulgence of such super
stitious reverence.2
§ 66. 2. But the charm of flowing and rushing waters, in
those lands especially great, forms an easy transition to another
series of such primitive fascinations for the human mind.
Vegetation has an inner strange life, and much about it sur
prises and captivates the attention of simply reflective but
keenly discerning men, especially in the case of particular
kinds of it, and pre-eminently trees, tall, or apparently ever-
living, or rare trees, such as terebinths, oaks, cypresses, balsams,
and the hke.3 Their tardy or rapid, their ordinary or extra
ordinary putting forth of bud, leaf, and blossom, seems to
indicate something wonderful ; and some usages of a varied
kind arising from this belief long maintained their existence
in Israel.4 But it was principally the agitation and whisper
ing of the tender leaves, on the top of the trees in which, as
1 History, iii. p. 795 [Eng. trans, iv. p. 265 f.], vi. p. 678 ff.
2 As in the Old Testament strongly, Jer. vii. f.; in the New, Christ Himself,
Matt, xxiii. 37 f., xxiv. f. ; John iv. 21.
3 ipds fixvrtvo/iivn in Tatian to the Greeks, xxi. xxxiii. ; concerning the balsam
plant, see 2 Sam. v. 23 f.
4 As is clear from Num. xvii. 16-24 [Eng. ver. 1-10] ; cf. Antiq. p. 344 [Eng.
trans, p. 259 f.].

218 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
in other sudden, strange rustlings and seeming voices, signs
of the Deity approaching and making Himself audible were
found, — a divine speech whose meaning the soothsayers pro
fessed to be able to decipher.1 This is a kind of soothsaying
that was apparently much in favour among the oldest ances
tors of the people of Israel,2 and was retained as it were
involuntarily long after Moses, sometimes, indeed, being put
upon a level with the existing oracle of Jahveh.2 And if
ancient Israel could with difficulty wean itself from the belief
in the sanctity of certain trees, because the entire old world
was full of it,3 the employment of such trees in prognostica
tion and soothsaying in the primitive age certainly formed the
main cause of the difficulty.
Whilst now all this practicable effort to obtain divine
oracles from visible things by careful listening, and to publish
them to others, was continued with the highest diligence
when once begun, different kinds of audible oracle were
further cultivated — a special oracle to which in the metaphors
of genuine prophets very graphic allusion is made.4 To these
various kinds of audible oracle there were soon added as
counterparts several very diverse oracles of vision. Strange
occurrences suddenly and unaccountably taking place were
1 The JJIJJi according to all indications, means divining by means of myste
rious sounds; the old expression D'JJIVD pPX, Jud. ix. 37, is thus explained^
'•' Terebinth of whisperers," i.e. of those who hear and interpret the whispering
as the name of the place ; cf. 2 Sam. v. 23, 24, and the order in Deut. xviii. 10.
This art of the pijj is one of the oldest and simplest in this nation ; and the word
is frequently employed. It is derived from the Arabic and Syriac, not from i"D3y>
"cloud;" in the circle of the old omens is no inspection of the clouds. The
Greek exactly corresponds, *\ni»vl%uiai, from x\$av, i.e. tpj/in ; the LXX.
actually render piy in Deut. xviii. 10, 14 by xx>!&avi%urt)xt, and so elsewhere.
The omen in Latin arose perhaps from audmen= "signs heard in the air," as
augurium is the " hearing," and auspkium the "beholding " of birds.
2 In that passage, 2 Sam. v. 23 f. The LXX. little understood the words,
although the translation euemr/urn (to be read instead of trwyxXtirpoii) for pnj)X
contains an anticipation of the right meaning.
3 History, iii. p. 199 f. [Eng. trans, iii. p. 146 f.], vii. p. 534 ; Antiquities,
p. 160, 439 f. [Eng. trans, p. 120, 331 f.].
4 Such vivid picturing as Hab. ii. 1, Isa. xx. 7, is specially to be regarded.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 219
supposed to give, in the first sight of them, divine tokens
affording counsel and suggesting decisions for difficult situa
tions of life. Nothing of this sort so obviously presents
itself as watching the flight of birds ; the bird comes out of
the heights of heaven as if to betray heavenly secrets, and
from the nature or direction of their flight, as well as from
the diversity of the birds themselves, signs and indications of
the divine mind were sought. That this observance of birds
was one of the oldest expedients for obtaining oracles, and was
widely diffused among all nations, is shown by the usage of
words found alike in the most different families of language.1
And just as readily intelligible is it to us now that the notes
or cries of certain birds at unusual times and on special
occasions were regarded as giving divine prognostications and
warnings.2 It cannot be doubted, too, that in Israel from
ancient times such customs prevailed,3 many relics of which
were preserved long after the time of Moses, although only in
reminiscence and speech. When, however, the oracles of
vision were in this way in high favour, there was no reason
why diviners should be always content with watching the
flight of birds or similar rare phenomena, an expedient tedious
in itself and often tardy in its results. Balaam is fetched
1 Among the Arabians "bird " signifies " destiny," " fate," although it is not
the oldest Semitic word for this idea, Sur. xvi. 14 ; and long before Mahomet,
Porphyry, Concerning Abstinence, iii. 3 f., 5, iv. 9 f. (326-328), spoke of the
divining birds ; so also Cicero, de divin. i, 2, 92, of the aves of Asia Minor and
Arabia. The same usage is found in ^Jthiopic. The almost lost old Semitic
P|1JJ in this signification reappears in Arabic compounds, Hamasa, p. 121, 127.
3 Thus augurium, spoken of notes, is manifestly distinguished from auspicium.
3 Since fjij;, "bird," nowhere bears the superstitious sense, it appears doubtful
whether among the ancient Hebrews reverence for birds was known. But the
doubt is removed by Gen. xv. 11 (History, i. 473 [Eng. trans, i. p. 330]).
ETO was apparently the primitive word for augury. The Syriac corresponds,
and the root is found in Arabic in the signification of "to inquire,'' and with a
bad sense, "misfortune." To this agree Num. xxiii. 3, xxiv. 1 ; the verb
CPU, augurari, ominari, " to forebode ; " the LXX. translation of E'riJD
by oimttfiiuvK, Deut. xviii. 10, and of D'E'ni by >Umi, Num. xxiv. 1, cf. xxiii.
23. But it cannot be proved that t^nj itself ever means "bird;" the root
suggests only " to inquire after." See below.

220 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
from afar by a prince, and seeks in the open air the right
place for obtaining an oracle, and looking out with special
care for omens lights upon them at last, as the Bible recalling
ancient times relates with fine irony and in agreeable
fulness ; 1 ought all princes or even prophets always to take
such pains in seeking divine counsel and decision ? Thus
there came into use early a substitute for this looking out for
divine hints and tokens that could more readily be employed.
Eeliance was placed upon an image of the god most loved, the
eye -was fixed upon it during petitions and prayers, and it
was thought perchance a favourable answer might be read as
the eyes of the image moistened. This is the deeply-
cherished reverence for the Penates amongst the ancestors of
the nation of Israel from which many families and branches
of the people could in many later centuries only with
difficulty be weaned, and which ought after the time of Moses
to have been rejected by the whole community. The best
prophets ultimately complain bitterly of the questioning of
staff and stock.2 Or a sacred luminous ornament of precious
stones or an actual mirror was taken, fastened to some part of
the body upon which the eye could rest intently, and more
over the consecrated medallion was watched in the solemn
hour, in ceremonial robes, that during prayer an oracle might
be found in it ; which in particular cases through the power
ful efficacy of art could be made to assume very different
aspects.3 Or with greater facility a costly cup of hallowed
1 Num. xxii. 41, xxiii. 4, xxiii. 14-16, xxiii. 28, xxiv. 1; cf. Jahrb. der
Bibl. Wiss. x. p. 46 ff., 178.
2 Hosea iv. 12, cf. iii. 4, with Antiq-uities, p. 296 ff. [Eng. trans, p. 223 ff].
3 According to the list in Deut. xviii. 10, and the description Ezek. xUi.
17-23, it is probable that the DDjp was a decision, i.e. an oracle which was woii
in such method, deviating from that of the Urim and Thummim, yet somewhat
similar ; it may perhaps have been first used by kings in judgment and been
introduced from Syria, and manifestly was only gradually perverted by abuse.
In the ancient proverb, Prov. xvi. 10, it is found still in a good sense. The LXX.
commonly render it by fixvriix, which only expresses its meaning in a general
way; on the other hand, in Prov. xvi. 10 by pxvnTov. In the bad sense D'ODp)
prcesagia, is used ; and the Arabic "to swear" is taken from the " higher" or
"inspired " discourse.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 221
associations was taken, and by the ringing sound of it, or the
mixing and bubbling of the liquid poured into it, signs and
intimations were sought as to the incidence or flow and
mingling of things in the world of mankind.1 But although
by an arrangement of a species of glittering ornament in the
old way the high-priestly oracle was obtained in Israel (the
Urim and Thummim), yet this was originally regarded as a
supreme judicial resource in doubtful matters in the com
munity rather than in civil affairs ; 2 it was substituted,
moreover, for the purer oracle of Moses only when that was
wanting ; and though it was long employed by the successors
of Aaron as a means of answering the questions proposed to
the priests, still it never had even as a priestly oracle (§ 49)
so high a respect as the free prophetic oracle, and it vanished
from the life of the nation on the destruction of the first
temple as an ancient mystery, of hallowed memory according
to Scripture, but not to be restored. In the great history of
the development of these things all this properly attests
nothing but the singular vitality of the desire for oracles as in
all the higher antiquity so in Israel, and in Israel still more
from the best motives, so that the people were content with a
confessedly lower means of obtaining them 3 when and so far
as the freest and best kind could not be had. The divining
cup, it is true, is mentioned in connection with Joseph,4 but
in connection with him only as an Egyptian prince, and as
something naturally understood according to Egyptian usage,
§ 67. 3. All audible and visible oracles have, moreover, this
in common, they depend always upon what is casual, that is,
1 Cf. Isa. ii. 6 ; Proph. of Old Test. i. p. 301 [Eng. trans, ii. p. 37]. The
Greeks called it «ottk/3« ; concerning the Persian custom, see in the Shdhname
Bischen, xi., xii., xiv.
2 Cf. Antiquities, p. 385, 389 ff. [Eng. trans. 290, 294 ff.].
3 The Book of Origins, to which alone we owe the exact description of this
oracle, because in its time it stood in full respect, Ex. xxviii. 15-30, Lev.
viii. 8, regards it, according to the whole sense of its description of the old laws,
as something of less importance. Moses, according to this book, did not need it ;
rather is it assigned by him and limited only to the priest.
4 Cf. History, ii. 96 [Eng. trans, i. 419, ii. 66].

222 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
upon a casual coincidence with, and in the case of those
described more particularly at last a casual mood and deter
mination of, the mind that seeks the oracle. On this account
for the sake of simplification a step farther is at length taken,
and the lot is regarded as the simplest of all means of
securing a divine decision, i.e. a decision binding the human
will. In point of fact, the lot as the simplest expedient
certainly, but one presupposing much of deeper reflection, is
the close of this whole development. What men do not
venture to decide is, when decision is nevertheless felt to be
necessary, decided by a man's freely taking and choosing
from a given number of equal possibilities casually ; and yet
in so far as the will of the person drawing the lot decides, the
decision is by him and for him rather than purely casual.
This simplest expedient, as it may mark the close of this
whole development, we therefore find chosen rather in highly-
cultured times as a last resort in cases of indecision, and
employed also in connection with urgent questions, among the
common people, too, after mutual agreement. The more
noteworthy is it, however, that according to an old sacred
custom it was always associated with the oracle of the high
priest, the better to avoid all human caprice in the oracle of
mere vision.1
All the formal expedients hitherto explained for facilitating
recourse to oracles are the simplest and most ancient. If we
regard the motive which first calls them into existence, we
see only what powerful longing and irresistible impulse to
elicit in the dark present divine counsel and . determination
marked that long period of human history. In their orioin
therefore and in the first attempts to employ them they are
innocent, and resemble the childlike urgent seeking for the
invigorating voice and sure guidance of a God who is felt to
be rarely present and never for any length pf time. The
1 Antiquities, p. 385, 391 f. [Eng. trans. 290, 294 f.]. Reference is made in
Ezek. xxi. 21 to a lot very common amongst the Arabians, viz. by the shaking
of arrows, as a then existing Chaldsean custom.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 223
heart sighs amid the dark moments of life for some decision,
some reliable determination of the will, and that such help
comes from the Almighty Being whose mysterious reality is
felt, fills it with new pure confidence in seeking thus what it
so eagerly desires. But let it be granted that one particular
place can inspire the spirit of man more than another and
suggest to it what is divine, that the artificial straining of the
whole attention to hear and see divine things can perhaps
bring them nearer to man, and that the chance of the lot can
deliver him from painful uncertainty and indecision of
purpose, and give him a kind of divine confidence ; yet belief
in all this is not faith in the true God and His already
revealed eternal word ; rather does such belief, as it becomes
a habit of life, lead men away from God and His word, if
already known, and if not, instead of bringing them nearer, it
but blocks up the way, especially if the mind is more and
more exclusively and obstinately occupied with it. Since,
now, the unsatisfactory nature of all this to nations that had
already made progress in various pursuits and many kinds of
culture must at length be sensibly felt, there arose,
§ 68 In the Second Period, new and stronger attempts
-to draw forth out of its seeming hiddenness and aloofness
divine aid for human salvation. As, however, there was no
abandonment of the more or less perverse methods just
described, but a further extension of them in various ways
by means of newly -won appliances -and newly -developed
powers of mind, the ultimate issue was rather worse corrup
tion than greater salvation. Moreover, as in everything of
this sort there is a tendency to extremes, the number of such
new methods increased very largely ; and, since all that
advanced culture brings shows itself, so far as living activities
are concerned, in arts and sciences, and, so far as individuals
are concerned, in extraordinary men who gain wider confidence
for their special exercises of skill, we can see readily, in this
way of looking at it, how belief in those simpler expedients
for obtaining oracles and all possible divine certainty sought

224 REVELATION-; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
to renew and strengthen itself by the aid of these new-
branches of culture. Among nations of such early and high
civilisation as the Egyptian and some Semitic nations, these
artificial kinds of superstition were much resorted to long
before Moses, so that even he had to combat them very
sharply ; but since they penetrated with a new and greater
seductive power into the community of Israel, imperilling its
interests, after it had already walked in the way of true
religion, and had won a peculiar high cultivation and repose
of life, we direct our attention to them now. For, as with
everything original and creative, so with the true revelation
and religion when they transformed Israel into a new com
munity, both were in the highest degree simple as well in
their principles as their appliances ; and it was only when
the nation, by virtue of the strength which this salutary
transformation gave, had attained a new position in the earth,
and a luxurious repose of life in which simplicity would no
longer suffice, that there pressed in these new and more or
less heathenish practices, in contrast with which the true
revelation and religion had taken all pains to continue to
advance in their direct path.
1. Among the arts by which it was sought to facilitate
largely the quest of oracles, one of the earliest in certain
nations was the inspection of sacrifices, an art that arose from
combining with the sacrifice itself the observation of all the
movements and rarer peculiarities noticed especially in the
inner and secret parts of the warm victim. Sacrifice was
regarded in itself as a supreme and awfully mysterious
transaction; how easily, therefore, by careful and intent
examination, might signs and foretokenings be found, not
only in all the different movements in the sacred act, but
also in all the varied peculiarities of the innermost organs,
which were held to be the subtle and delicate seats of life 
signs and foretokenings which Deity itself might o-jve in
so hallowed a moment through the medium of the skilled
interpreter! Thus an art of inspecting victims, cultivated

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 225
with unusual care, arose amongst many nations ; but the
examination ot the viscera of sacrificial victims was never
conspicuously introduced in the nation of Israel, probably
because in their view the blood only seemed to be sacred.1
It was more in favour among northern nations, and is
mentioned in the Bible only once, viz. in the account of the
proceedings of a Nabu-Kodrossor.2 The old Semitic custom
was to pay heed only to the movements of the victim itself,
and, indeed, mostly when the victims were children offered in
sacrifice to Moloch.3
On the other hand, the manifold arts employed to get the
absent, and especially the dead, to discourse, as if the truth
sought everywhere in vain might be learned from dear
absent ones, and still more from the highly-honoured or even
much-feared dead, were certainly first called into existence in
Egypt, which lived upon a religion of the dead, and was early
gifted with unusual skill in all rare arts ; and from Egypt
the custom spread widely, not merely in Palestine and other
neighbouring lands, but elsewhere.4 With the prevalence of
these practices the peculiar delusion of superstition began to
play its part, and it was the more mischievous, when true
revelation was already exerting its power, in proportion as the

1 Antiquities, p. 48 ff. [Eng. trans. 38 ff.].
2 Ezek. xxi. 21. How the Shamans still prophesy from the fractures of
the shoulder-blade of the burnt sheep-offering is described in the Ausland,
Febr., p. 194, and in Vambery's Sketches from Middle Asia (1868), p. 232;
cf. Spence-Hardy's Eastern Monachism, p. 152.
3 As is seen especially from the narrative 2 Kings iii. 27 ; but it is even yet
to be perceived clearly enough in the story of Gen. xxii. 1-19, trembling, as it
does, with the heart-beat of the noblest piety, and transfigured by the light of
all the highest genuine straggling for true revelation.
4 31N, plural ni3X (Lehrbuch, § 177 d), "leather bottle," or "a hollow
tiling," "the belly," designated in Hebrew one who could imitate perfectly
another's voice; the ventriloquist 21K ?J?3, according to 1 Sam. xxviii. 7 ff,
or shorter yiH ; the LXX. render it, Deut. xviii. 11, by a newly-coined word,
lyyxirTplfitifos. It may very well be used of the necromancer who practised his
art by aid of ventriloquism, but in Deut. xviii. 11 it is distinguished from the
necromancer, and it is therefore evident it could be used of those who knew
how, at their pleasure, to make discourse, say a god whose words it was desired
to hear, as the priests of Isis did.
EWALD I. P

226 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
skill used in these frauds was highly cultivated, and a dull
feelino- of despair led men to desire extraordinary excitements
and violent agitations of mind. But precisely for this reason
there are from the earliest times more stringent admonitions
from the mouth of true religion against this superstition than
against any other.1 Closely related to this there was, how
ever, according to all indications, the equally primitive
application of the Egyptian art of serpent-taming for a similar
end, although the sense in which the serpent had significance
in revelation and religion was ultimately so manifold that the
different cases must be well distinguished. In the end it was
regarded as the biting and healing creature, the most artful,
and in a good sense the most sagacious ; 2 but originally it
was considered as to men certainly only the beast of the
abyss, dismal, ferocious, and frightful ; 8 and as the imagination
figured to itself the dreadful outermost abyss of the universe
inhabited by a huge serpent, a dragon, so a similar monster
was supposed suddenly to fill the lower heavens in the black
thunderstorm. But after taming was practised a long series of
new conceptions, and soon also of corresponding arts, became
attached to the serpent. As the great monster appeared to
be the epitome of all corruption and death, the serpent-tamer
juggled before his credulous public as if he were just as able
to call up and bring hither the dead as to tame or untame
these serpents; and as the underworld was considered the
inexhaustible seat of all the mysterious forces and treasures
of the earth, the same conjuror could show the serpent under
his hand as the wonderful creature entirely in his power, and
acquainted with all the more hidden things of the universe.
In the earliest time, nevertheless, the serpent-oracle must have
1 As the old laws show, Lev. xix. 31, xx. 6, 27.
2 The proverb, Matt. x. 16, is plainly suggested by the words of the well-
known narrative, Gen. iii. 1 ; the Greek, indeed, has in both places the same
word, ippovifiios.
3 Clearly to be seen in the old poetic image, Gen. xlix. 17 ; but in heathen
mythology this is the oldest conception of serpents, as it has been, preserved so
conspicuously in Bfahminism and Buddhism.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 227
been a kind of oracle of the dead or of the underworld, and
the reasons for this are obvious enough -,1 later it was employed
in many other ways, and it declined more and more to a feat
of jugglers. But against the old horror this superstition
awoke, Moses guarded the faithful of the better sort by
setting up overhead the image of the dead serpent, there
fore no longer to be feared ; similarly as, according to
an old reminiscence, he once contended victoriously with
Egyptian magicians whether he or they could the more
readily change the serpent into a rod that would be of service
for man.2
The art connected with man's dream-life was harmless.
The belief that divine forms and divine words come near in
dreams with special clearness and intensity when one is
sleeping hard by a sanctuary was a world-old belief, and very
prevalent among the ancestors of Israel.3 But all dream-life
is too mysterious and captivating not to tempt the addition of
many kinds of art and stratagem, in order to excite more
1 For example, the word ^ifl11 stands everywhere in the closest connection
with 31N, and, according to its derivation, corresponds fully to Tlvlm as signify
ing "much-knowing;" just as certainly this is originally the S'p« -xUm. But
if the "Vedic Ahis budhnjds, that is, "the serpent or the dragon of the abyss "
(hell), preceded this Greek term, then the Greeks could the more readily find in
it their -xiSm, since the second word of the term in Sanscrit admitted of a play
upon the word buddha. The LXX., to be sure, translate the word in Deut.
xviii. 11 by npavwxines, and in Lev. xx. 27 understand it less accurately ; in
the last passage both words, 318 and 'Ojn'S placed close together, indicate
merely the miSfix vuttmt, or, according to a better reading, vitmx, and appear
also in a phrase corresponding to %xm '"'"'fix, Acts xvi. 16. They understand
it better in Isa. xix. 3 as "that which speaks out of the earth," and translate
it well by yvanvs, 1 Sam. xxviii. 3, 9 ; 2 Kings xxi. 6, xxxiii. 24. Ironically,
Isa. viii. 19, cf. xix. 3, imitates the ventriloquists, as they make innocent
children, called from the underworld, speak delicately like chirping birds, and
old men growl hoarsely and heavily ; but these really black arts, by which it
was thought evil might be banned, were preserved the longer among the heathen ;
cf. concerning inBS Isa. xlvii. 11, 15. How serpents are still worshipped in
Africa, Livingstone describes in his New Travels, 1866, trans, i. p. 50.
2 Cf. History, ii. p. 249 f., 90 f. [Eng. trans, ii. p. 176 f., 63]. The Greek
figure of the serpent as tame to Esculapius offers a resemblance here.
3 The typical instance. Gen. xxviii. 10-22 ; narratives such as Gen. xxxi.
.10 f., xxxvii. 6 ff., xxvi. 24, and especially the graphic representation Gen. xv.,
show this ; cf. also Judg. vii. 13.

228 . REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
strongly feelings of awe of deity and the desire to hear divine
words of consolation and prophecy, and so the aid of sacrifice
and various holy preparations was employed to make sleeping
by the sanctuary more effective.1 Since this custom was held
sacred in Israel from of old, and manifestly by ancient tradi
tions of the patriarchs, it sought to find points of new
connection with Jahveh-worship for some time after Moses.
Indeed, it cannot be denied that different kinds of dream-
oracles were long considered compatible with Jahvehism ; 2 but
in high esteem they never were in Israel. The poet of the
Book of Job represents the pious of the world's patriarchs as
hearing divine words in dreams without any special artificial
preparation,3 and at length Jeremiah's simple rigour rejects
briefly and decisively all such oracles,4 whilst in highly
cultured heathenism, for example among the Pythagoreans
and in Athens, they remained always in high honour.5
With all such arts did man, now at least with pecuhar
freedom, seek for expedients to obtain divine oracles. Very
numerous, too, were the arts of magic also, using that term in
the stricter sense ; the magician by a play of the hands or the
eyes, or an artificial instrument, sought to draw man to him
self, and as it were put him within a certain circle under a
spell, that he might chain him as with divine power and
compel him to listen to the words of the oracle; and yet
there were men enough who soon learned to believe in the
power of such arts, and readily placed themselves under their
1 The iytui/mris ; cf. Antiquities, p. 344 [Eng. tr. p. 259 f.].
2 As follows from incidental references, Num. xii. 6 ; 1 Kings iii. 5 ff. They
are distinguished as appertaining to priestly arrangement, 1 Sam. xxviii. 6, 15 ;
Deut. xiii. 2-6 ; and opposed to waking face-to-face vision, and ascribed to the
aged as coming slowly, Joel iii. 1 (ii. 28).
3 Job iv. 12-21, in splendid picturing which the later poet imitates with
respect to Elihu, xxxiii. 15-17. But nothing of the kind is said of Job, who
stands far higher than Eliphaz, so finely does the poet discriminate.
4 Jer. xxiii. 25^32, cf. xxvii. 9. But far earlier the Unnamed had already
(Zech. x. 2) briefly referred to the vanity of all oracles by dreams.
5 Cf. the writings of Hippocrates, c. I. iii. p. 167 n., 4331, and elsewhere;
lamblichos Pythag. ch. xv. (65) ; Porphyry, On Abstinence, ii. 41, 53 ; Tatian,
To the Greeks, ch. i. ; Justinus, History, 44. 5, 2.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 229
influence that they might hear divine words, or be delivered
from ill by divine salvation.1 Moreover, binding and banning
by such magic arts was well represented to the senses by the
tying of magic-knots.2
Furthermore, all such arts were supported by the charm of
verses, songs, or words otherwise regarded as sacred, designed
and employed in various ways as appeared best to suit
the special aim, but everywhere with the most assiduous
skill, so that such' as were aptest or were united with
new arts were again specially distinguished.3 Speaking
generally, it is hard to say how many kinds of expedients
were used in order to secure the help of the oracle. When
the interrogation of the ancient house-gods appeared no longer
altogether suitable, the more ornamental and agreeable
" Heights," as they were called, were introduced.4 A prophet
of Israel too, it is true only an Elisha, had recourse to music
to transport himself into the right elevation of spirit ; 5 and
almost playfully is it related what means Isaac when feeble
with years adopted in order to put himself in the right mood
for prophesying.6 But how little all the various, more
sensuous arts above described could permanently secure high
respect in Israel is evident from the fact that they were early
abandoned to women, as this also finds expression in Hebrew
1 I regard lEOD as the old name of the magician, especially of one working
with the hands, with a magic staff or in a similar way, according to Micah v. II.
The word stands with IDh in Deut. xviii. 10 f., Isa. xlvii. 9, 12, which
bears a similar signification ; the existing plural form of each, DISC'S and
D'HDn, is the same (cf. also Ps. Iviii. 6), and corresponds to such Latin words
as prcestigke ("allurements," "magic arts," so called from "tickling,"
"alluring," cf. instigare). The idea of alluring, captivating, is also alone pre
dominant in 2 Kings ix. 22, Nah. iii. 4, Mai. iii. 5, and the tpxppaxis of the
LXX. leads to it on another path. That the word is very old follows from Ex.
xxii. 18.
2 "Oh might owe its origin to these witches-knots, only that elsewhere, Ps.
Iviii. 6, Isa. iii. 3, the charm of words is more appropriately connected with it.
3 The LXX. rightly express (Deut. xviii. 11 ; Isa. xlvii. 9, 12) by i^xcitr, these
incantations. 4 Antiquities, Eng. trans. 120, 227. History, Eng. trans, iii. 306, iv. 27.
5 2 Kings iii. 15. 6 Gen. xxvii. 3 ff.

230 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
speech.1 Now, where a sacrificial priest must be employed, it'
was not held to be proper that a woman should officiate ; the
same remark applies to the introduction of the aid of
§ 69. 2. Science in this matter, which indeed is of such
great significance that this stage of the whole question must
be specially noted. The term science, however, must be
understood in the strict, limited, and somewhat prejudicial
sense in which the ancients spoke of mathematicians. The
wonders of the heavens were profoundly recognised, the course
of the stars accurately traced and determined, their great
diversities observed, in ancient Babylon and among- their
rivals in Egypt. After these wonders, for which the common
eye of men has httle discernment, had been investigated with
scientific precision, the new science, which embraced such a
wide range of material, and involved so much that is mysteri
ous, came down from its lonely height, as every riper science
does, and gradually penetrated into the thought of humanity
in general, and sought to serve common needs and aims. To
apply the knowledge of those mysteries for the gratification
of the desire, now become so intense and shown in so many
ways, to know divine mysteries, and to have palpable guid
ance by visible revelations ; and to meet in this way the
want which, it was beginning to be felt on all sides, existing
arts, old and new, had not yet adequately met, — all this
followed as a matter of course. So arose a vast science of
the relation of heavenly mysteries to human affairs, and in
particular of the influence of individual stars on human
destiny. The assistance hitherto afforded by rude arts, already
for the most part deeply touched with moral deterioration,
seemed now to be proffered in an incomparably better and
more appropriate way by the fascination of the most exact
calculations and predictions the new science gave. And,
1 Cf. the old word HSE'DD, Ex. xxii. 18, and HMJI, Isa. lvii. 3, formed after
,t : - : t;
the same manner ; and especially the narrative, 1 Sam. xxviii. 3 ff. It was the
case among other ancient nations. The plural form, however, is, with all such
names, masculine in Hebrew.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 231
indeed, before the consummation of all revelation, why should
not this grand and earnest attempt to promote it be made ?
How this new doctrine, with its professed unveiling of divine
purposes and powers, spread in heathenism is otherwise
known; what is here to be noted is that from the eighth
century before Christ it had an influence in the circle of the
community of the true religion which was the more dangerous
just because at that time the earthly prosperity of Israel
waned, and a longing arose among many of its prominent men
for innovations from without. Among Biblical writers the
shepherd Amos is the first who, still in the ninth century,
discourses much of the particular wonders of the heavens ;
yet what he says is simple and steeped in the spirit of true
religion. But we know that in the eighth century the arts,
the scientific discoveries, and beliefs of Babylon and Nineveh
were in growing favour at the court of Jerusalem ; x and the
poet of the Book of Job refers throughout the whole of his
poem very frequently to the sublime wonders of the skies,2
which are also much mentioned subsequently in other writings.
But presently we see also the strong admonitions of the
Deuteronomist against the worship of sun and moon and the
whole heavenly host ; 3 and then Jeremiah teaches how little
the signs of the heavens should occasion alarm, since merely
the heathen had any cause to fear them.4 So thoroughly was
his new superstition banished from the midst of the com
munity of Israel, whilst for many centuries it spread most
powerfully among the heathen.
§ 70. 3. All expedients for obtaining oracles hitherto described,
whether the simplest or the more artificial, were necessarily
dependent upon the action of men, and flourished as exercises
more or less of special skill and habit. Thus arose not merely
a belief in the efficacy of such means and aptitudes them-
1 Cf. History, iii. 664 f. [Eng. trans, iv. 169], and later, iii. 798 [iv. 208].
2 Cf. Poets of Old Test. iii. 62, 282 ; later, especially Isa. xlvii. 13 and Daniel ;
a later Biblical allusion is Matt. ii.
3 Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3. * Jer. x. 1-10.

232 ' REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
selves, but, on the part of the multitudes who sought thereby
their own advantage, a belief also in the few men who possessed
and employed them. However innocent and even desirable
and beneficial such a behef may be, and indeed in the Bible
itself, but only in the proper place, it is commended and called
for,1 yet it may easily deteriorate and become a superstition
if it does not rest upon the divine truth of the prophet's mes
sage rather than upon the prophet himself as a mortal man.
Among the heathen, prophetism degenerated early in this way,
and could never free itself again afterwards from this most
dangerous of all corruptions that threaten it. Especially was
the idea early prevalent among them that the prophet was the
more deeply seized by the spirit of a deity the more that
spirit, as it were, unmanned him, and by its overpowering
violence deprived him of his senses ;2 a danger to which also
the true prophet in the community of Israel might easily be
exposed (pp. 44, 54, 64), but from which all the great pro
phets following one another in so long a series always knew
how to keep themselves free. A heathen prophet therefore
liked to have his interpreter as an under-prophet, whilst all
the genuine prophets in Israel were too fully and absolutely
qualified for their task, and therefore too self-possessed, to
think they needed, any of them, expounders of their utterances.
If, however, the prophetic gift were held to be something
exclusive and connected in an obscure way with the prophet,
1 Ex. xix. 9 declares how desirable it is that the nation of the true community
believe in Moses ; but this is from the fifth narrator of the primitive history
[Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss. xii. p. 211). With Christ also, in relation to whom
" faith in Him " had from the first a wholly different basis than with the pro
phets, the high word, "whoso believeth in me," runs only through John's
Gospel, and in such brevity only from vi. 47. The reading of Mark ix. 42 is
inaccurate. It appears in Matt, xviii. 6 in place of the simpler reading of the
' ' collected sayings " Mark retained ; cf. also Matt. ix. 28 with the older form of
the narrative, Mark v. 36, ix. 23 f.
2 If the old fixlm, " to rave," is derived originally from a Zendic mainju, i.e.
"spirit," as the later Sxif&ov'iZofixi and Ssi/hhm in the same sense from Sai^a/*, so
fixvris again was not so called from i^xivm, but from the same mainju as one
" driven by the spirit ; " but it early received the same secondary signification
as txipovi %op.ivos, and is in comparison a much older name ; but just this name
was the customary name for their prophets with the Greeks.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 233
it might be thought further that it clung to the individual
man as one of the many physical and psychical peculiarities,
and was transmissible to his posterity; thus, indeed, the
Greeks had races of hereditary prophets.1 But where public
opinion was sufficiently favourable, prophetism readily became
a mere high dignity in the State, which, as others, had its
uninterrupted continuance and definite place in the depart
ments of official life.2 How free from all such impediments
and limits did prophetism flourish in Israel ; in times of distress
and great need withdrawing into itself in self-confidence by
means of schools, and becoming stronger from without ;3 yet
never by such rare efforts long diverging from its higher
freedom and direct onward development ! It is not surpris
ing then, as a further consequence, that in so many places
heathenism entrusted prophetic power, obscure as it seemed,
to women rather than men ; whilst in Israel a woman, possess
ing the whole power of a genuine prophet, was tolerated
certainly, according to the freedom which every purely
spiritual impulse and enterprise claims for itself neces
sarily the higher it goes, but the prophetess was always
exceptional. The decline of prophetism is to be attributed in part to the
people of the nation itself, who sought divine decisions on so
many questions. It is in many respects really useful, and
even inevitable, that in cases when uncertainty and suspense
are too painful, some decision should be found which precludes
all further uncertainty ; individuals desire it when they have
to act and they do not know how ; magistrates, too, when they
wish to follow a decision acknowledged by all on account of
its divine origin. A word from God, however, was held to be
the supreme and final decision — it had either this unique
1 As the Melampodides, similar to the Homerides, but more limited locally.
2 Cf. above, p. 148. With what dignity did a srpttpirqs tUs "liriSos enter !
Aristophanes in the "Peace," v. 1085 ff, favours the high estimation of the
prophet; so amongst the heathen in Africa to-day the prophet stands high,
Livingstone's Travels, ii. p. 81 ; Bastian's Journey to San Salvador, p. 91 f.
3 Cf. History, ii. 599 £, iii. 70, 544 ff. [Eng. trans, ii. 424, iii. 311, iv. 129].

234 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
significance or none at all ; and the prophet had just on this
account in the high questions of the guidance of the national
government and in the crises of the national destiny an
incomparably high importance. As, according to old custom
and the old way of looking at things, no treaty of moment
could be concluded without sacrifices, which were made
specially impressive and solemn in order to remind men in a
<way they should never forget that divine punishment must
fall upon the covenant-breaker;1 so in those times, when the
prophetic power in Israel aspired most disinterestedly after its
inner perfection, no covenant with a foreign nation was
regarded as properly entered upon without the counsel and
approval of the prophet.2 But since it is certain that the
prophetic activity is from the first purely spiritual, and must
find in its relation to the true God alone the eternal law of its
right exercise and application, the decline of prophetism was
owing in far larger measure to itself, if it yielded to these
allurements which pressed in upon it from without, or sought to
facilitate its task by any of the perverse means above indicated^
or by others lying closer to hand. In point of fact, however,
these two different kinds of corruption easily run into each
other, since the prophet, if he does not withstand outward allure
ments, will readily make, what should be the most spiritual
and therefore independent activity, an indolent art and a
profitable and mercenary craft ; and the more resolutely and
persistently prophecy in Israel withstood such inner and outer
seductions without doubting its divine vocation, the more
strictly and happily did it widen the distinction between itself
and that of the heathen. When in the kingdom of the Ten
Tribes, in which, conformably with its origin, prophets as a
class received the highest consideration, but also earliest
degenerated, the elder Micah, as the only undeceived prophet,
held firmly the real divine truth against 400 of his contem-
1 Cf. concerning such treaty and covenant sacrifices, Antiquities, 91 f. [Eng.
trans. 21, 68 f.].
2 This is clear from Isa. xxx. 1 and xxviii. 7, 15 ; cf. Lehrb. § 156 e.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 235
poraries,1 and when an Elijah had also been possible, there
was given the possibility that even this seceded kingdom;
which succumbed to its fate so early only because a heathen
element was more and more predominant in it, should not go
down without seeing before its ultimate overthrow a great true
prophet like Hosea working in its midst. When in the darkest
distresses of the eighth century also, Isaiah, in a weary and
heavy conflict against degenerate national leaders and their
prophetic counsellors, maintained with the greater stedfastness
the eternal truths by which alone nations and kingdoms can
subsist, there was secured by him even more than the continu
ance of this kingdom of Judah for nearly a century and a half
longer. Even the delicate and tender-hearted Jeremiah could
become inexorably severe when defending these same eternal
truths, as against all the world, so against stiff-necked and
erring fellow-prophets especially ;2 moreover, in his old age,
after the destruction of Jerusalem, when he was the only pro
phet in whom the nation generally had confidence, and in a
most difficult case he was urgently entreated for an oracle from
Jahveh, so little did he hasten to pronounce an inconsiderate
judgment, that it was only after being absorbed in prayer for
ten days that he found the divine response.3
The heathen oracle declined more and more, not only because
of a perverted zeal to serve men without delay, but also because
of the eagerness to give divine decisions, when they were
called for, upon all possible affairs. The temptation to do
this in Israel was felt in times of prosperity the higher the
respect in which the oracle of Jahveh was held ; in times of
misfortune, too, there was a readiness to enter into all ques
tions, and at least to anticipate the prevailing inclination to
procure heathen oracles.4 These were the two hidden rocks
upon which the better prophecy in Israel in the earlier as
1 1 Kings xxii. 5-28.
z Cf. especially Jer. xiv. 1-xvii. 18, xxvii., xxviii., and xliv.
3 As in the case of Saul's inquiry of Samuel, 1 Sam. ix.
4 As Elijah's history abundantly proves, 1 Kings xviii. f. ; 2 Kings i.

236 Revelation ; its nature and record. '
well as in the later times might be wrecked ; it was not able
to avoid having to do with obscure and more complicated
questions of human affairs of purely material significance,1 but
it ran the risk at first of mixing itself up with matters of too
trivial and casual a character, and subsequently of engaging
in perverse rivalry with heathen oracles. It must therefore
be borne in mind that the range of subjects about which
prophetic decision was sought in Israel, and also the know
ledge and aptitudes which such decisions required, were ahke
extensive, as indeed the large number of contemporary pro
phets proves ; and in this breadth of comprehension and the
increasing multiplication of prophets there lay new danger of
growing corruption. The more wonderful is it, therefore, that
prophetism in Israel, amid all such allurements, always at the
right time found its way back again to the higher tasks of its
mission, and followed these alone with firmer decision ; and
thus when the better prophets considered it wise to enter into
the more casual perplexities of common life, or into questions
of temporal wellbeing, they did it with that freer superiority
of mind which would prevent any detriment to their higher
vocation.2 There was still another snare to which the heathen oracle
was exposed, viz. the mode of expression supposed to be most
suitable for divine decisions, and which in its verbal form and
colour was at once recognisable. An oracular utterance must
carry its truth in itself; it does not wait for the proof to
make it a truth, just as indeed every true proposition does not
first become true when its proof is brought forward, and proof
is necessary simply for what in its announcement meets with
no acceptance. If the oracular utterance is able to keep this
absolute elevation, it may be as brief as it will, provided
1 In cases such as 1 Kings xvii., 2 Kings i., and for the most part iv.-viii.
2 As all such older and more extended narratives as 1 Sam. ix. f. show. The
narratives from Elijah's and Elisha's life are of another kind, partly because they
present to us the deeply-distracted and severely-strained condition of the king
dom of the Ten Tribes, partly because they have passed through many stages of
tradition ; cf. History, iii. 548-554, 573 ff. [Eng. trans, iv. 63-70, 80 ff.].

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 237
always it is definite and exact. But the men who delivered
the heathen oracles exaggerated this peculiarity, and endea
voured to compensate for the uncertainty of their thoughts by
ingenious brevity and equivocation in expression ; it is well
known how in this way all Greek oracles became at length
ridiculous ; and even the many long Sibylline sayings, often
merely imitations from the heathen by those who were not
heathen, have this characteristic of compression, and conceal
half-obscurely the pure truth. How entirely different were the
oracles of God in Israel ! It is remarkable that in the Biblical
collection of prophetic books we possess but two brief, concise
divine oracles which give evident illustrations of this style ; 1
they are certainly from a very old prophet of the kingdom of
the Ten Tribes, and indicate the peculiarity of those prophets.
Usually it was in the mind of the great prophets, much more
perhaps in its delivery, that the oracle took the form of beautiful,
simple clearness and superabounding vigour of expression, with
out losing thereby any of its pure elevation and sharp conciseness.
Short sententious utterances are peculiar rather to the higher
antiquity,2 or to the artificial oracle of the dead ; 3 artificially
veiled oracles arose only with the later merely literary after
growths of the once so highly developed prophetic literature,4
§ 71. But the more the divine oracle kept its original
absolute elevation, and the more it rejected such merely
outward and sensuous preparations and helps, with which as
we have seen heathenism could not dispense, the more difficult
must it be for the grand prophets of Israel to find at once
and always belief for their responses, while at the same time
only behef in the truth of. their utterances assured their
efficacy. If, therefore, in the community of the true religion

1 Isa. xxi., 11 f., 13 f.
2 Such as Ex. xvii. 16, xix. 4-6 ; Lev. x. 3 ; Ex. xxxiv. 6 f., xxxiii. 19 ;
Num. xiv. 18 ; the Decalogue, and Lev. xviii., xix.
3 Cf. Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss. xii. p. 189 ff.
4 Cf. above, p. 102, and Prophets of the Old Test. iii. 251 [Eng. tr. v. 107] to
the end ; the' Dissertation on the Book qf Enoch, 1854, and other things specified
in the Prophets, iii.. 490 f. [Eng. tr. v. 324].

238 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
the question is more and more, whether in spite of all new
darkness of the times and doubt of men they will or will not
remain loyal to the eternal truths already revealed and strug
gling for further revelation ; then the purer and more elevated
the truths are which faith should embrace and maintain with
firmness in the direst temptation, the more difficult does faith
become to those who have not yet reached such serene heights ;
and yet there are gloomy complications of public life when faith
in such truths as are announced by the prophets appears for
the moment most necessary. In the midst of such heavy
complications and conflicts, prophets otherwise of the noblest
and most perfect character began to think they could not
more emphatically render aid to the feeble faith of their con
temporaries than by pointing to wonderful deeds and works
performed outwardly before their eyes, or yet to be performed,
as proofs of purely spiritual teaching, and of promises the senses
could not grasp. Everything unusual that strikes the sense
may serve as a sign and token to men that there is very much
in God's universe which surpasses their present conceptions
and expectations, may rouse them from their stupidity and
indifference, and may liberate and strengthen the feelers of
their faith so that they may realize the existence of invisible
divine forces and truths. In particular, such rare yet
palpable deeds and works as a prophet, by faith in God and
the deepest efforts of his spirit, executes before the world, so
that it is not himself as a man like other men, but rather
God in him who appears to do them, and thus to reveal Him
self in His actual existence to mankind, may very well tend
to strengthen the conviction that the same God whose power
is so visibly working through this man, may also work in
him yet further by publishing to the world through him
truths and promises the senses cannot apprehend. Thus it
was men learned to ask for such signs or provisional proofs of
the truth of the prophet's announcements, or the prophet
himself offered to give them when men doubted. All this
formed in Israel, as it were, a school of faith as well for the

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 239
prophet as for the nation, a reciprocal exercise and training
which, upon this high level, and with this end in view —
referring always only to the highest truths and to God Him
seK as the verifier — was possible nowhere else but in this
community. But if this school was beneficial for the com
munity during many centuries,1 and Isaiah was a master in
it,2 it does not follow that it always worked so well. For in
reality the proof which is given by such signs is from the less
to the greater, from the sensuous to the supersensuous ; and
if the sense and mind in other respects are not directed with
a wholly youthful freshness of interest to the supersensuous,
and prepared gladly to behold its wonders still further, but
are already too surfeited, too unreceptive, and too old for this,
then the proof if offered may not be obtruded ; 3 and further,
it is improperly demanded where it is not necessary, and
where from love to the prevailing unbelief and from obduracy
it may be employed merely to evade that renewing and
invigoration of faith in the supersensuous which is in the
highest degree desirable.4 But thus from what was at first
an aid to progress in revelation and religion there grows up
what is rather a hindrance to progress, which indeed occurred
in Israel during its earliest times, but especially as its greatest
prophets endeavoured zealously to lead on the community to

1 This benefit is presupposed in the conflict of Moses with the magicians of
Egypt, Ex. iv. 2, 9, vii. 8-12 ; but also Isa. xxxviii. 7, by Isaiah himself.
2 Isa. vii. 11, xxxviii. 7 ; only more remotely similar are the two cases, Isa.
viii. 1-4.
3 The conflict between Isaiah and King Ahaz, Isa. vii. 1, 17, was specially
significant and fruitful in results, because the king (although only in order to
find a pretext for his superstition) appealed to the principle manifestly taught
even then in the best books and schools, viz. that one ought not by the
demand for signs to tempt God. Incidentally this shows that before Isaiah's
time the highest problems of faith and true religion were much investigated in
Israel, and indeed in everybody's mouth.
4 The history of this community from the time of Moses onward shows this
— especially the narratives in the Pentateuch, cf. 1 Cor. i. 22 ; yet there is a
great distinction between cases like Ex. xvii. 1-7, Num. xx. 1-13, when the
people from actual want of the necessaries of life fall into despair and tempting
God, and cases such as are meant in the New Testament. In the one we
observe the youth, in the other the surfeited age of the nation.

240 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
its higher perfection. Moreover, since the attempt to give
such sensuous proof of something supersensuous may easily
be misused by prophets of all kinds, the Deuteronomist warns
the community expressly and strictly against every prophet
who seeks to work upon such a principle ; J and the last great
prophet Jeremiah, even as his successors, by no means desire
to confirm the truth of their words by such proofs. Thus a
formidable hindrance to the consummation of all revelation
and religion was removed, a hindrance which in its whole
perilousness was possible only in such consummation. But
the more
§ 72. In the third Period do the last and most serious
hindrances of this consummation show themselves ; they come
all along from two different and even opposite sides, and
developing themselves first, to speak briefly, on the side of
the tinbelief just mentioned, at length, from the opposite side
of perverse faith, they assume the extremest power possible in
this whole long course of things.
Unbelief, as we just remarked, was not introduced into the
community from without, but sprang up from its own soil ;
and not first in late times, but occasionally and very readily
passing over from the most ancient times. But still it may
intrude at a later period from a wholly different quarter, and
then indeed with the greater danger, because emanating from
the very substance of all religion and revelation itself.
Genuine religion claims the whole man ; it claims him not
merely as a reflective and energetic, but also as a practical
being ; it demands not simply his thinking and reasoning
faculties, but also his sentient and imaginative faculties ; pre
eminently it requires also a distinct and certain perception
not only of earthly and visible, but also of invisible and
divine things. Now all invisible and still more all divine
things can be known and apprehended by man only by the
help of the faculty of imagination. But what is known by
man by means of this faculty only, even when it has sunk
1 Deut. xiii. 2-7.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 241
most deeply into his spirit as though it were an eternally
abiding possession, may nevertheless, as soon as the first glow
in which it was warmed and illumined by the fire of imagina
tion has passed away, again and again be doubted by the
understanding. That is to say, the understanding may be at
issue with the imagination or its images, and may reject, as
incongruous with certain already accepted truths, the whole
luxurious brood imagination has called into existence. Now
it belongs, it is true, to the very nature of all genuine revela
tion and religion, that, when and where they are in full
activity, the mere faculty of imagination can no longer
exercise itself so exuberantly in relation to supersensuous and
divine things ; rather is such exuberance a characteristic of
heathenism and the result of a perverted impulse which con
tributes not a little to its ever deeper degeneracy.1 The
extraordinary superiority of the community of the true
religion over heathenism in this respect is attested indirectly
in that its sacred tradition never degenerated to a heathen
mythology ; a matter lying somewhat remote perhaps, but of
great importance, because sacred tradition is most closely
connected with all revelation and religion, and, as remote
reminiscence, is their ultimate support. But without the
activity of the faculty of imagination true revelation and
religion did not arise among men, nor can they continue to
exist. Indeed, this faculty has preserved in all vividness the
most imperishable and truest representations and pictures of
the primitive age of our race when revelation and religion
were all-powerful ; it produces also in times of new, more
general, and stronger religious interest, when it is itself also
powerfully stirred, a fulness of new intellectual growths ; and,
moreover, by means of it every original poet and thinker
creates fresh, striking, and appropriate images which enter
into the existing circle of ideas and seek to adjust themselves
with it.
The creations of the imagination, springing as they do from
1 Cf. History, i. 20-69 [Eng. trans, i. 13-45].
EWALD I. Q

242. REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD. >
the quickened life of the spirit, can nevertheless, even in the
circle of the true revelation and religion, maintain themselves
vividly and fruitfully only in the like warm glow of feeling.
If, however, to the first creative years of the community and
its happy development there succeed years of lassitude or
despair, and the impulse of scientific investigation becomes
likewise sufficiently dominant and commanding, this moral
lassitude and despair readily unite with the boldness and
indeed the cold arrogance of the new wisdom of the schools,
in doubting the congruity of ideas accepted as valid in
revelation and religion, in rejecting the necessity of these pure
activities of the spirit, and ultimately denying both the
accuracy of their perceptions and the soundness of their
works. And thus doubt as a spiritual power, and con
sequently in the end Atheism, open their paths in this
community, not indeed chiefly from the influence of heathen
nations without, but from influences working in its own pale,
as a careful study of its history shows. Such paths were
ventured upon with increasing peril during the centuries of
the old kingdom's decline,1 but they were reopened the more
readily in periods favourable to them, and repeatedly even
in the regenerated community of the New Jerusalem, now
in occasional and feeble attempts, now more widely and
formidably.2 The schools and morals of the Sadducees were,
it is true, ultimately best known as of this tendency, but it
would be a mistake to suppose that similar schools and morals
did not seek for power in Israel in yet earlier times. If we
see, therefore, that the true revelation and religion always in
due time obtained the victory in this community (as is indeed
historically established), whilst heathenism, even amongst the
most cultured nations of antiquity, sank deeper and deeper,
not a little also through the growing mischief of unbelieving
wisdom ; we anticipate what deep and inextirpable roots
1 Prov. xxx. 1-14 is the chief witness of the Atheism that prevailed in Israel ;
cf. Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss. i. 100 ff.
2 Cf. History, iv. 249 f., 357 ff. [Eng. trans, v. 193 f., 274 ff. J.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 243
revelation and religion must have, had in the community of
Israel. And, strictly speaking, short sayings 1 from the more
ancient time, all-decisive words2 from the later time of Jeremiah,
suffice as a defence against this danger, which might well be
much more serious in the prophetless days than earlier.
§ 73. But just when the power of. true revelation and
religion in the community obtained this victory over what we
should now call the philosophy of religion, — in that case,
however, a philosophy made foolish, — and when everything
so shaped itself in the great world that the sacred truth in
Israel, after it had become more deeply and. securely estab
lished in its own limited community amid'' all temptation and
change during a millennium* and a. half, appeared to- be com
petent as it broke through its- temporary bounds to overcome
the whole heathenism of the world,- there intruded a perverse
faith, which, precisely because it is in appearance the very
antithesis of all heathenism, is fraught with the greater
clanger. That is the belief that in the Scripture which gives
the essential contents- of true revelation and has become sacred
to the community, the holy and the divine itself is possessed
and is to be reverenced as such. It is this faith in Holy
Scripture that becomes ultimately comprehensive and deter
minative of everything- in the ancient community ; it is faith
in a visible object, cherished as its only precious and sacred
treasure, nay, as its very deity, and tenaciously and spas
modically grasped in the deepest trials ; — a faith with which
as the surest product of its whole changeful history it supposes
itself to be perfectly in the right as against heathenism, and
which, nevertheless, on the contrary, tends to make the
community familiar with a most pernicious element of
heathenism, and threatens to hinder all progress to real
perfection. It well deserves, therefore, to be considered at this
point with all attention and carefulness.
1 Such as Prov. xxviii. 4, 5 ; ver. 4 has iTufli as ver. 7 in the old prophetic
signification, noticed above, p. 156.
2 Jer. viii. 8 f., ix. 23 f. ; cf. what is said below, p. 249.

244 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
Now the origin of this faith itself is very readily explicable,
and the error that creeps in with it and becomes at length so
extremely dangerous is at first very harmless, nay, hardly an
error at all; just as with the oldest kinds of faith that in
their course became superstition, so it occurs here with this
last kind, which precisely because it is the last involves the
greater peril. Two observations will suffice to open this
question so far as it is proper to do so here.
(a) Writings that contain what is elevating and permanently
instructive for the mind of a nation, and of an almost inde
structible force, become by their own beauty and splendour
gradually so indispensable, so worthy of honour and even
sacred (using the last word in a general sense), that they are
raised to a position far above the current value and common
destiny of all other writings; and the actual or accepted
authors also cpme to share the radiance of this glory which
gathers about the writings themselves. This is especially the
case in the particular circles in which these writings have
their immediate significance and importance ; as indeed the
best grammatical works of the old Indians have thrown a
broad halo of glory around the name of Panini, and the works
to which the name of Hippocrates is affixed make that name
iUustrious to all physicians. But they readily attain even
beyond such special circle a yet higher and typical or even
unique significance, a significance almost on a par with the
notion of sanctity, i.e. inviolability and supreme reverence, if
from special causes they become the sole all-important writings
for the instruction and elevation of nations generally. For
example, Homeric poetry, chiefly, it is true, as poetry of
imperishable inborn splendour, is the standard of all poetry,
and for the purposes of criticism and imitation cannot but be
so regarded, but it has at the same time for the later Greeks
a more general significance as presenting to view the beautiful
and immortal forms of their noble past. So in the case of the
writings composed or approved by the Chinese Kung-tso (Con
fucius), intended especially only for his pupils, yet because they

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 245
were held to contain for the entire Chinese Empire the very
highest wisdom, they obtained so high a significance that they
might be called the sacred books of the Chinese, did not all
such writings answer to the idea of superior or classical rather
than that of sacred ; for only if writings of this kind contained
something that reminded members of a smaller or larger holy
community of that which for them is holy or divine, could
they be considered as sacred, or can we so consider them.
Finally, it is easily understood that such writings possess their
whole peculiar utility and charm chiefly for the people among
whom they first came into existence, whose interests they were
intended to serve, and who alone at the time they were
written could understand with perfect certainty their language
and import. But nevertheless by special fitness and destiny
such writings, after once winning for themselves high respect,
may also find currency in foreign nations, and amongst them,
for reasons more or less sound, obtain -perhaps a far higher
respect, and be abundantly employed for wholly different ends.
(&) The other thing here to be noted relates to the special
impression all writings as such may readily make upon men,
and which in those ancient days they could make far more
readily than to-day amongst ourselves, seeing that now they
are far more generally estimated aright in all their inimitable
excellences and in all their less favourable qualities, inasmuch
as their diverse nature, their varying fitness and uses, have
become incomparably better known. A writing serves, when
well preserved, to immortalize thoughts and doctrines unchange
ably for all time ; and in its minute and manifold characters,
seemingly dead and cold and for most men, too, it may be
illegible, it conceals perhaps the highest truths that may
suddenly vivify and can continuaUy instruct mankind. If it
comes down from distant, perhaps better and happier times,
or is brought from remote lands reputed to be the abode of
sages, there is a special charm about it. The charm is the
greater if fame has already prepared its way, announcing it as
coming from the hand of an unusually holy man, or an

246 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
honoured founder of religion, or as containing wonderful
divine suggestions and predictions. Hence spring up many
applications of sacred writings which often seem to us so strange.
When Mahommedans turned to their Koran as a book that, in
anxious desire for divine help, they had only to open to find in
the first word or sentence that caught the eager eye the best
counsel and guidance for the decision of some urgent affair,
they were not the first who thus acted ; even Boman priests
did a similar thing with their Sibyl-books that were brought
to them from afar. A sacred writing appears at least incom
parably better, more divinely suggestive and distinctly decisive,
than the glance at the mere image of an idol; and the clear
word that is found in it has its surer significance which may
be further pondered with collected mind.
These £wo things thus presented are not to be overlooked.
Both were con tributive to the formation of a comprehensive Holy
Scripture, and to the higher regard felt for it in the very com
munity which was founded under Moses, and which flourished
for the longer and more independent period of its pre-Christian
existence without any such aid. In this Scripture the com
munity had not only the richest collection of precepts concern
ing the whole round of duty, but also the sublimest declarations
concerning God and concerning His kingdom and its history and
future upon earth, and, moreover, the plainest admonitions for
the religious life as presented in the whole grand and typical past
experience of the community. All the divine voices and doc
trines which had directly or indirectly quickened genuine piety
and promoted true blessedness were now, in the form in which
they were first known, compactly treasured up for further and
perpetual service, and could never again be lost. This, too,
was the more useful and necessary, the more the immediate
activity and living power of all genuine revelation as developed
by the prophets gradually came to a standstill, the probable
duration of which no one seemed able to fix. And thus this
Holy Scripture, although it corresponded only to the present
Old Testament, yet included in itself so much that had

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 247
wonderful interest and fascination for all men, that it became
With each century more known and admired among the
heathen, nay, was soon recognised as the most powerful means
of diffusing among them true religion ; so that ' it could ' throw
upon- the community, even from the heathen, the radiance of
the splendour and truth of this religion, differing as it did
essentially from all forms of heathenism.1 Among the sacred
books of the other nations, however, those of the Persians and
Indians were scarcely known familiarly to the Greeks and
Bomans even by name; of the Egyptian books something
more was known ; but, as far as we can judge to-day,2 they are
so much inferior in intrinsic value and the charm of style to
the books of the Old Testament, that they could hardly come
into serious conflict with them at all
But apart from the reverence which 'these sacred books of
Scripture found amongst many of'the heathen, and the increasing
sanctity with which they we're tlms invested in the eyes of the
old community, everything in the cou'rse of the latest Centuries
Conspired to add to their sanctity and strengthen the faith
with which they were regarded. As 'these books, not merely
because they were indispensable to the continuance of the
community, for that could not be said of all of them, but
mainly because of their own intrinsic excellence, were raised
to a high position and rendered incapable of being lost, the
1 Cf. History, iv. 331 ff. [Eng. trans, v. 255 ff.], v. 109-112, 116 f. [Eng. trans.
vi. 81-84, 87 f.], vii. 396 ff., 638, vii. 384 ff, and elsewhere. Not simply up to
the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, but until the Hadrianic extirpation, with
every closer contact with the heathen, the heathen reverence for the Old Testa
ment grew, and this reacted upon the growing reverence for it in the community.
Not till the issue of the Hadrianic war did the great change in this matter come.
2 The so-called writings of Hermes Trismegietos are not to be regarded as
containing the latest elements of the old Egyptian sacred writings ; they were
written in the third, or fourth, or fifth of the Christian centuries by some who
wished to freshen up Egyptian heathenism by Christian phrases and thoughts, or
rather to show that Christianity is not absolutely necessary to those who desire
true religion ; they were therefore written originally in Greek, and afterwards
translated into the languages of Oriental Christians. The Book of the Dead, and
what has been otherwise preserved of the genuine sacred writings of the Egyptians
may here be put in evidence. Cf. Herm. Tris. Poemander, ed. Gust. Parthey,
Berlin 1854 ; and the Atabic H. Tr. of Fleischer, Leipsic 1870.

248 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
admiration of them would become more and more general, and
especially would this be the case the longer and the more
carefully they were read by large numbers of the people who
were eager for knowledge and salvation. The community
also found in them the permanent standard and law of aU its
higher life, and had not merely an incomparable treasure of
higher wisdom, art, and culture, but also, and conspicuously,
the most brilliant testimony to its whole past with all its
imperishable glory. And if in these later days it was almost
always subject to heathen power, and had lost the living
breath of revelation by the prophet, and the vivid feeling of
the nearness, help, and grace of its only ruler and Lord, yet
did He seem palpably recognisable and near enough still in
this His written word, if only it were rightly understood.
But the more readily could an exaggerated reverence for
Holy Scripture now also arise ; and as in all times unjust
contempt of what is sacred only in the long run increases its
sanctity, so this feeling of the sacredness of Scripture reached
its highest point when the perverse wisdom of the schools
(§ 72) had for a long time energetically turned itself against
its authority, and the Maccabsean struggles had embittered
very much the conflict with the heathen and their wisdom.
The scrupulousness of the Essenes and the busy officiousness
of the Pharisees completed this exaggeration. Holy Scripture
became the sole foundation, not only of all decision concerning
what is lawful in the community, but also of all higher
instruction x and of all permissible wisdom ; heavy penal
statutes soon avenged the contempt or violation of it, and
even touching it with unclean hands was deprecated as if its
very leaves were the inviolable God of the community ; 2 and
the more ingenious and severely orthodox a new school of
scribes pretended to be, the more did they seek by new arts
1 "Higher," because besides Holy Scripture various accredited school-books
were used as Catechisms ; cf. Die drei ersten Evangelien, p. 264 f., 2nd ed., and
Sendschreiben an die Hebrder (Gottingen 1870), p. vii.
2 History, iv. 251, 641 [Eng. trans, v. 194 f., 491], vi. 551.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. , 249
of exposition and affected sublety to extract wisdom out of
the mere letter.1
§ 74. The Deuteronomist, it is true, at a time when grave
offence had already been committed against the contents and
spirit of genuine revelation and religion, long since vouchsafed,
— offence as well on the side of frivolous school-wisdom as
on the side of too punctilious reverence for the sacred letter,
— earnestly admonished against either withdrawing from the
word of God, by perverse denial, what necessary belongs to
it, or adding, through anxious fear, what is unnecessary and
pernicious ; 2 as indeed it is generally speaking the character
istic of precise, and precisely to be followed, truth, that it may
neither be augmented nor diminished ; and more than this is
not intended by the Deuteronomist when he points to the
true revelation long extant, and the necessity of being loyal to
it, while not denying that in the future a great advance may
be possible through a second Moses.3 Still earlier also Isaiah
had warned against those to whom the word of God, that
ought to be taken and understood in the very depths of its
divine meaning, is merely human command to be learned by
rote ; 4 as also against those who in hke manner make religion
the formal repetition and multiplication of sacred exercises
and rites such as prayer and sacrifice.5 Still more definitely
had Jeremiah rejected all perverse wisdom and authorship,6
and sharply rebuked the folly of seeking a magical charm in
old sacred words, as false prophets were fond of doing.7 He,
therefore, who took all these things in their true sense, would
be able to find in existing Holy Scripture the right course to
pursue ; and it is one of the finest proofs of the excellence of
the Old Testament that it guards, equally and securely on the
1 History, vi. 269 ff, vii. 53 ff, 379 ff.
* Deut. iv. 2, xiii. 1 ; cf. with the image of right and left, v. 29 f., xvii.
11, xxviii. 14 ; Josh. i. 7, xxiii. 6.
3 Deut. xviii. 18 f. ; cf. xxxiv. 10-12, and above, p. 97.
4 Isa. xxix. 13.
6 Isa. i. 10-17 ; Micah vi. 0-8 ; cf. Ps. 1. and xl. 7-11 ; Jer. vii. 22 f. ; cf.
xxxi. 31-34 ; and already Amos v. 25, and Hosea similarly.
« Jer. viii. 8 f., ix. 22 f. ' Jer. xxiii. 30-40 ; cf. Ezek. xii. 21-xiv. 11.

250 revelation; its nature and record.
two opposite sides, both the whole compass of the higher
knowledge already won, and the whole practice of genuine
religion. But that Holy Scripture, so complete, so well
collected and preserved, as well as the exercises and usages
it prescribes and allows, could be so seriously abused, and
that this whole perverse tendency of mind could be so fatally
fostered as it was in these last centuries by schools of learning
under the old true religion, — this was something new, some
thing of which there was no experience in the times of the old
prophets. It was a new kind of heathenism1 that, in those
half-obscured days when at length everything pressed forward
to the consummation of all true revelation and religion, ever
yet refusing to come, poured its seductive influence over this
community just as it thought of fighting most bravely and
indefatigably against the ancient heathenism of the world, and
even boasted most loudly of this conflict and its cost. As,
however, all errors diverging from the same truth are related
to each other, and one mightily prevalent error can overpower
all truth more and more fully-; so the danger was now
imminent, that at last through the perversity penetrating into
the deepest heart of all 'true revelation and religion 'already
won, both the one and the Other with the community in
which they arose would be -completely obliterated from the
earth. For nothing could be w.orse than that, amid the
luminous splendour of true religion as it struggled onwards so
powerfully on all sides to its final victory, a new heathenism
in veiled form should insinuate itself in its place and obtain
the pre-eminence.
1 So Christ Himself regards it, Matt. vi. 7, cf. xviii. 17 ; but Paul also speaks
of this whole tendency quite similarly, Rom. ii. 17-24. In the face of modern
error all this is very important. The Hegelian school, flattering heathenism too
much, has done mischief; while some modern Jews, with their misstatements of
another kind about Sadducees and Pharisees, are already forgotten and scarcely
deserve notice.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 251

3. The ultimate Victory in this Conflict.
§ 75. But in point of fact it is shown from another side
(§ 41) how certainly Christ alone brought this consummation.
The revelation of the divine will man may not seek ¦ through
any insufficient or wholly perverse, i.e. purely sensuous means,
nor by such aid hope to fulfil what is already revealed. So
long as something of the kind, whether subtler -or coarser in
form, is mixed up in the matter, genuine revelation cannot be
fully attained nor genuine religion in «11 its power and
blessedness be fully realized. Only as it purely and uprightly
strives after the true God can the spirit 'of man be. touched.
by the light of His revelation, and only as he works just as
purely and uprightly in this light can man hope to live in
harmony with his revealed will. In tlie long conflict with
every type of heathenism before "Christ this was the result
surely won ; to have recognised it as such and to have made
it an inalienable possession, is the glory and, in the noblest
seDse of the word, the pride "of this community ; and the faith
thus shown is the ground of the bright confidence and
ineradicable eternal hope of the nation. But only when Christ
— over against the means of revelation and religion held to be
sacred and right, which as they had arisen in this community
and had been highly developed in the practice of centuries
were also generally esteemed the most genuine, and neverthe
less were perverted — followed purely with the direct divine
means the direct way of all true revelation and religion up
to the very highest goal ; only as He throughout His whole
life taught the right use of Scripture, suffering nothing of its
higher sanctity to be wrested from it by the mere sacredness
of the letter,1 and also in harmony with all this as He allowed
neither Himself "nor His disciples to darken in the least living
divine holiness and righteousness by the whole round of old
venerable usages : 2 only then was the victory complete over
1 Cf. History, v. 308 f. [Eng. tians. vi. 233 f.]. '' 2 Ibid.

252 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
everything which must be held as heathenism, i.e. defection
from the true religion and hindrance of its power. For it is
readily understood that in this way was annulled, not only
for that short term of all human history in which He sojourned
till His death in the midst of the old community, everything
that till then had attained a perverse sanctity in this com
munity contrary to its original destination and tendency ; but
now also the condemnation is pronounced beforehand upon
every perverse sanctity which may arise in His own com
munity, and appeal for support to His own word and
institution, as He Himself anticipated and explicitly enough
declared.1 § 76. This form of heathen superstition, concealed under
the guise of the utmost sanctity, did not, it is true, thus
gradually and imperceptibly take root and spread mischievously
until the centuries when the vigour and bloom of the ancient
nation declined. Although it wanted then some five hundred
years to the public advent of Christ, the beginning of this
tendency in the community led more and more to prepare the
way for the subsequent great defection, which no one more
quickly perceived and combated in all simplicity with more
certainty of victory than Christ. It was this five hundred
years immediately before Christ which He Himself well dis
tinguished from the old splendid era of purer faith, and, when
it was necessary, severely condemned.2 But if any one asks
how it was possible that this tendency, which is most appro
priately designated in one word as that of the hagiocracy,3
could be so overpowering that no less a personage than Christ
Himself must come in order to open again the direct way of
all true revelation and religion which had thus been barred,
the answer takes us back to the very founding of the com-
1 Matt. vii. 21-23, xxv. 44 f. ; cf. xxiv. 11, 24.
2 By "those of old time," Matt. v. 21 ff., and by "all" who came before
Him, "thieves and robbers," John x. 8, are manifestly meant the same persons,
since He condemns the former ; the context made the different designations
necessary ; cf. Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss. ix. 40-49.
3 History, iv. 3 ff., 213 ff. [Eng. trans, v. 1 ff, 165 ff.].

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 253
munity by Moses. It was remarked above (p. 195) that
two deficiencies adhered to this community in its establish
ment, the first of which was that it was not founded without
the immediateness and violence of spirit which is peculiar to
every prophetic work the more it comes into activity purely
in the ancient time. The light of the stream of divine truth
as it looks forth radiantly from the words, the irresistible
violence of conduct in conformity with it as it displayed itself
in the spirit of this purely prophetic and sublime national
leader, overpowered the nation. Thus the truth and will of
this highest Ego, revealing Himself by Moses, took at once
the form of law, i.e. compulsory precept for the life, and did
so necessarily in proportion as the community, which gathered
itself in all severe earnestness solely about this word of God
revealed and authenticated in it, and desired to recognise no
other Lord and King but God, was one and the same with this
single nation, Israel. A single nation, however, in order to
maintain its own existence, and to continue independent of all
other nations, cannot dispense with outwardly compulsory
law, so that the divine law must become national, and its
penalties be inflicted by bodily punishment. If, then, revela
tion and religion as they created this community under Moses
bore in themselves the character of law, afterwards, it is true,
by a movement of more than a millennium and a half in duration,
they unceasingly aroused in this community its native force
and freedom, and already the imprisoned butterfly long desired
to break through the narrow bounds thrown round it in its
first immature youth, as the history of the whole first thousand
years of this national community shows. But the law had
become since that early age the firm all-embracing sheath of
this wonderful form, which no power could break through
with safety, and, above all, without mortal injury to the life
of the true revelation and rehgion hidden within it, if it were
not a power which stood as to its spirit high above that old
type of revelation. But just because this immortal treasure
might be manifoldly injured and wasted by base and destructive

254 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
hands, the sheath encompassing it had hardened and thickened
anew in the last five centuries, so that now it was as difficult'
as possible to break through it. All revelation and .religion
had become law as never before,1 a law, moreover, contained
in the great book of law written in ancient days, and to be
derived from it by the scribes as the true spiritual masters of
the time. Thus the imperfectness which originally adhered
to this type of revelation was now obstinately preserved,
increased a thousandfold in force, just as old deficiencies
everywhere when most urged to vanish altogether are fond of
seeking to maintain themselves tenaciously ; and whilst the
whole freedom! and glory of the second five hundred years
of this community, with* its great prophets, was forgotten,
a mere deficiency of tlie initial period of the community
became now the sole- mighty means. of its full upbuilding and
whole perfection.2 Bub then it was that, with sure glance
and peacefully fearless mind, Christ showed clearly how even
Moses, as a lawgiver, must be estimated if the divine contents
of his law were not to' be dissolved, but, on the contrary,
what the law imports were to. be perfectly fulfilled.
This is the wider significance of. Christ's conflict ; in
waging it, however, He wenfcat once far beyond the limit of
the tendency that had prevailed for the last five hundred
years, a tendency which im its opposition to the true religion
can only be characterized as- heathen, and He touched immedi
ately the high boundary which a. millennium and a half ago
the founding of the community of this nation in the midst
of all antiquity had set up. as a barrier of rock. Indeed, the
Apostle Paul quite justly perceived that in Christianity the
question was essentially this — whether a system of things
that had obtained since Sinai, and had become, to be sure not
1 "The law and the prophets" paraphrases the whole condition and inner
most life of the community, Matt. v. 17, xxii. 40 ; transposed Matt. xi. 13,
because spoken of Messianic things ; restored in this sense in customary order,
Luke xvi. 16. But still more briefly "the law" now means both the whole of
the Old Testament and the condition of the ancient community.
2 History, iv.-vii. [Eng. trans, v. -viii.] passim.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 255
till the last times, so elaborately complete, should or should
not continue ; that is to say, whether the true revelation and
religion should or should not remain under the constraint of
the law 1 x But this sacred law, as it had been understood
for centuries by the scribes, and been made by their use of it
into so irksome a yoke of faith, a yoke which the Pharisees,
as the predominant national party, had in the most perverse
way devoted themselves to make as comfortable as possible,
had now created out of itself the existing spiritual, and, as far
as it went, also secular, magistracy of the national community,
a magistracy which had ruled for centuries, and which, as a
member of this community, and having a just claim to work
in it, Christ recognised as a magistracy existing according to
Qutward right.2 If, now, in the presence of this law so exist
ing and so administered, Christ taught and acted as we have
said, and the entire power of the law as it culminated in the
government of the community at that time fell upon Him at
last in deadly conflict, deeply conscious that the government
and the law itself thus administered could not exist side by
side with Him, then, in that very moment, as may be said
perhaps boldly but still with truth, was death inflicted, not
upon Him, but rather upon the government and its law, since
with the irremediable fatal shock death itself begins. For if
it is an eternal divine ordinance that what is truly holy, when
the attempt is made to destroy it, turns round rather with'
irresistible energy upon its destroyer and destroys it instead,
so upon this law, that with all, its imperfection cleaving to it,
and all its perversity developed to the highest degree, directed
itself in hostility against Him, who rather sought to elevate
1 According to Paul, everywhere this is»to,Christians self-evident. He proves
it, however, more definitely in the Galatians, the 2nd Cor., and in new form in
the Romans. If he does not start from historical investigation and the criticism
of details, as we should do to-day, so much the more is his simple keenness of
discernment to be admired.
2 Matt, xxiii. 2-36 does not therefore contradict Matt. v. 21-40. In the
higher sense, too, it is correct that the scribes were thieves and robbers, John
x. 8, seeking more or less forcibly to lay hold of and appropriate the more pious
souls of the community, and yet finding amongst them no true audience.

256 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
it to its perfect sanctity and splendour, was death self-inflicted ;
that is to say, the law as it then was proved itself incapable
of coming to Him and making Him its own, and it could now
no longer binder the direct progress to the perfect true revela
tion and religion He would give to the world, and whose way
He broke by all He did, and especially by the death of
sacrifice He freely offered for the world. On the other hand,
also, all that was imperishable in the law and in the com
munity till then, and that had more and more perfectly
unfolded its power since the community was established,
liberated now from the fatal deficiency which had ultimately
led to the worst heathen aberration, could at length be
recognised the more distinctly and work the more freely.1
With the death and resurrection of Christ, therefore, was
also removed, as by a single quick and sudden stroke, the
other deficiency which adhered to the community of the true
religion and its law, as they had hitherto existed. The
breaking of the hard sheath in which the law had imprisoned
the better soul of the true revelation and religion, broke also
the limits of its community, and opened to all nations free
access to the community, of transfigured revelation and per
fected true religion, a community born again by the new law
of divine love and redemption one and the same for all men.
Israel as a nation might now decay and vanish away, and, in
point of fact, it did so soon enough, so far as it offered resist
ance to the better way;- but it vanished only to live on
immortally in the better community expanded into a divine
home for all humanity, and enriched by all the possessions
that had ever been won.
1 That Paul was the first to perceive and express all this is a grave error of
modern writers. The breach that could not be healed without full conversion
to the better way was by Christ's death and resurrection so sensibly and power
fully effected, that the apostles from the beginning could never think and speak
essentially otherwise than Paul (Acts ii. 22-40), and all later controversies
between Paul and them, however important they were at the time, altogether
vanish in comparison. Indeed, in accordance with Messianic hopes, reference
was already made to the admission of the heathen in the words, Acts ii. 34 f.,
39 ; cf. xxii. 21 ; Eph. ii. 13, 17.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 257
In this way the same result is obtained which has been
obtained before from a wholly different side (§ 42), viz. that
not till the apostolic time could the conclusion of this two
thousand years' development be reached. What has already
been shown in the history of the inner forces and pure
impulses of all revelation is here attested in the very com
plicated, manifold, and changeful aspects of its great conflict
from without, i.e. against heathenism. The issue is the same
there as here, and the same Christ is in both, at the end of
convergent ways, the sole person who perfectly attains the
goal. Yet it is not the mortal part of Him, but only the
immortal and indestructibly eternal that attains this goal, as
the apostles could not experience until after His bodily depar
ture, and could not till then announce it to the world as they
thus perceived it. When, therefore, the apostles summoned
the entire old community, in which alone all this could be
consummated and whose limits could not be broken through
but by His death, to a repentance and conversion now incom
parably more urgent, and for all who had the mind to see it
obviously the more necessary than for those whom Christ at
the beginning of His public work in the community had
Himself admonished, and when they turned soon enough with
still more urgency where it was possible to the heathen to
invite them to enter the old yet fully new community of
Israel,1 then only was everything heathen in the ancient Israel
overcome for all who did not cling to its last and hardest
shreds, and thereby imperceptibly, yet surely, seek to fall
back again gradually under its power ; and then only was
the right time come to call the heathen with all good
confidence into a community so purged from the last im-
1 The Epistle to the Ephesians, standing alone amongst New Testament
writings as written purely for heathen Christians, presupposing as established
their full, equal right with the members of the old community to everything
Christian, yet regards the commonwealth of Israel (*i ¦rAiriix nu 'lo-px-fa, ii. 12) as
continuing to exist in Christianity, and lays emphasis upon the fact that heathen
Christians have the same part in it as Jewish Christians.
EWALD I. R

258 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
pulse to heathenism that every relapse to it is henceforth
inexcusable.1 § 77. If, however, Christianity, contemplated in this aspect
of it, is nothing but the consummation of all that with clear
consciousness and true earnestness was already striven after
in the community of Israel long before this its transfiguration,
the consummation of that which, strictly speaking, already lies
in the spirit expressing itself creatively in the founding of
this community and its simple original law, the Ten Com
mandments, the consummation of that which, a thousand times
injured or obscured, more and more powerfully and surely
combated its contrary as it arose, and that could only in the
midst of this community be perfected as Christ at last perfected
it; then no view is so incorrect as- the view which declares
that Christianity originated in its time from the working
together of the now so-called Judaism and heathenism, and is
therefore a kind of mixture of both. Such a view could arise
only from the monstrous confusion of historical comparisons
now-a-days so freely, and for the most part so perversely
instituted, and from the not less vast mistakes in judgment
concerning the three great spiritual powers here compared ;
but besides this, it has sprung principally from the weak
preference for heathenism with which more recent scholars
among us are afflicted. The question as to the thousand
better aims, wholesome, or at least useful fruits of their genius,
the most cultured heathen nations have left behind for our
perpetual enjoyment and unfeigned gratitude, is here a wholly
foreign question ; we need not ignore or deny the smallest of
them. But that Christianity did not arise from a mixture of
heathenism and Judaism is certain. That it did cannot be
proved from the ultimate prevalency of the Greek language
1 Not in vain does the Apocalypse in Old Testament words make conspicuous
the necessity of the purity of the Christian community (xxii. 15, cf. xxi. 27),
agreeing in this with Paul, 1 Cor. v. 1-8, and reject indeed the existing, i.e.
non-Christian Jerusalem decisively, but picture heathenism as the direct anti
thesis to Christianity, and as the foe against which the glorified Christ must
Himself fight in the last decision of the destiny of the existing world.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 259
and of Greek authorship, i.e. from the spread of HeUenism: nay
rather, it was Christianity itself, far more than the pre-Christian
Hellenism of adherents of the true religion, that impressed its
own spirit upon everything Greek. Nor can it be proved from
the elementary intuitions and popular conceptions, or indeed
tendencies a-nd aims, which Christianity derived from the
existing heathenism, or by whicli it was, so to speak, unin
tentionally overpowered : if by this anything more important
is meant, there is no ground for it. That the idea of the
Logos was not borrowed from Greek philosophy has been
¦abundantly proved. Youthful Christianity in its prominent
upholders was in all such things dominated far more by the
deepest spirit of piety towards God, and was much more
circumspect and chaste than, for example, the Alexandrine
Philo, of whose influence upon new Christian thought there
are no traces until the Epistle to the Hebrews. Christianity
is, in point of fact, nothing but the consummation — surprising
perhaps in the highest degree arid in its definite creative form
unexpected, but still, strictly considered, the most direct and
consistent consummation of the true revelation and religion
whose development went on unceasingly in the profounder
striving of the community from its very beginning. The
stream of revelation and religion was never wholly interrupted,
the life-breath never stifled, till by a last mighty movement
this new and transfigured life was won. Then, indeed, all that
was noblest and most imperishable, that in two thousand years
and more had become an inalienable possession and pure good,
passed over into Christianity ; and not less a benefit was it,
that just in its most tender and susceptible youth Christianity
entered into the enjoyment of all this large wealth, approved
and inherited from old time, and especially that it received
from the Holy Scripture of the mother community the most
salutary and strengthening nourishment possible. Historically,
however, it is notorious that Christianity, even leaving Christ
out of view, issued purely from Israel, so far as its first heroic
preachers and champions are concerned, and upon them the

260 revelation; its nature and record.
earliest heathen Christians, who like Luke clave to Israel with
their whole heart and laboured earnestly in the gospel, were
conscious that they were virtually altogether dependent.
Christ Himself, as the power of the purest divine love and
salvation become human, was just as kindly-disposed towards
all heathen men, as men, without exception, as towards the
members of His own nation; but He held firmly (p. 201, n.)
with sure insight and consistency to the irreconcilable opposi
tion between heathenism and the community of the true
religion, and He knew perfectly well how and where as Lord
in His domain to maintain or relax the limits of this com
munity.1 And just as Lord, and Lord in His domain, must
He everywhere be first contemplated, if all that is still higher
in Him is to be properly estimated. The bitterest foe,
ultimately the most faithful servant of the glorified One,
transformed as no one else into an apostle to the heathen for
many years, speaks everywhere about the heathen calmly and
respectfully, nowhere mentioning their name with a curt and
harsher word;2 and yet he, too, firmly and constantly holds
the complete irreconcilability of heathenism with Christianity,
whilst he feels only a sorrowful regret for the stiffneckedness
of his Jewish brethren who persist in their hostility.3 The
Apostle John, in his old age, throwing himself back into the
times and conflicts of Christ, spontaneously becomes, in the
speech of Christ Himself, a severe but not unjust judge of his
former countrymen,4 so that nowhere else in the New Testa
ment is language so peculiar held concerning them ; and yet,
looking back in Christian light to the beginning of the
Decalogue, and once again as with the final effort of his mind
making conspicuous the sharp opposition between all true and
false religion, he concludes his own last great word with the short
1 Cf. History, v. 454 f. [Eng. trans, vi. 347 f.] ; and concerning His relation
to the Hellenists, p. 526 f. [ib. 402 f.].
2 As 1 Pet. iv. 3 ; the long description of Rom. i. 24-32 was, on the con
trary, unavoidable in that connection, and, moreover, is calmly historical.
s Rom. ix.-xi. ; earlier somewhat otherwise, 1 Thess. ii. 14-16.
4 Cf. Die Johanneischen Schriften, i. 10 f., 37 f.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 261
saying, " Little children, keep yourselves from idols," J as if this
were the last will and testament of his whole life to all Chris
tians. At the same time, however, it is seen here how after the
conflict of true revelation with heathenism had come to its proper
end, the idea of heathenism found a wholly other import than it
had found formerly, if passages of the great prophets of the
middle period, which anticipate the later view, are excepted.2
§ 78. But, speaking generally, it is altogether wrong to wrest
Christianity perversely from its spiritual and historical con
nection, and to seek one-sidedly to estimate by its last great
phenomenon the entire changeful conflict of true revelation
with its thousand-headed foe, a conflict extending over more
than two thousand years. If we survey this conflict on its
purely national side as it took form and shape in the whole
long history of nations, we do not see this one nation of
moderate numbers, upon whose better life alone the decision
turns, withdrawn in silent seclusion from the theatre of the
great history of the world ; this was only the case in a very
limited sense (p. 195). On the contrary, no nation of such
moderate compass ever lived in such a constant changeful
turmoil of nations as this, or was involved so deeply with its
whole best life and effort, nay, with its entire heart and soul,
in conflict with such different nations, great and small, or
maintained in such a conflict its better nucleus and noblest
aim so indestructibly, and in the best sense of the word so
purely, in spite of all its distresses, errors, and defeats, and all
the great vicissitudes which marked its course. That in this
sharp encounter with the most different nations it was always
the soul of the nation that was sensibly touched, and that
participated therein with the most lively emotion, is, in
relation to a people so profoundly seized by a higher aspira
tion of spirit, as self-evident as that its spirit was manifoldly
1 1 John v. 21.
2 So, from their connection, Isa. i. 24-31, xxx. 22-32 ; and similarly others,
precursors or successors of Isaiah ; also Ps. L and Ixxiii. speak thus of
heathenism, i.e. of the idols in Israel itself. Jeremiah's words, ix. 24-x. 16,
strike especially deep.

262 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
and often deeply and fruitfully stirred. All quickening and
close contact of this kind must, however, more or less influence
the religion of this nation and its idea of revelation, since it
was just these forces of religion and revelation, powerful in
themselves and lying near to the heart of the people, that
could be variously excited and newly adjusted or even
transformed by some judicious development in a particular
direction ; and even new materials brought nearer to the
mind of the people would largely influence it. If it is
remembered, too, how one-sided the spirit of every nation is
before it comes into close and vigorous contact with other
nations ; how much this particular nation in its first youth
and even higher cultivation had still to learn ; how greatly
seductive and manifold the dangers were (§ 64 ff.) whicli
menaced the tendency of its spirit that since the time of
Moses was a settled question ; how high was the culture, in
other respects so different, of most of the nations with whom
its intercourse was familiar ; and how incomparably difficult
notwithstanding the problem appeared which this nation had
to solve if it would not be disloyal to its proper divine origin
as the community of the true religion, — then we shall readily
concede that by all these close and intimate relations it
could obtain many and extremely useful aids and encourage
ments to its spiritual life.
It is worth while to follow up this subject more in detail ;
and although the farther back we go into remote antiquity
the more difficult it is to get exact knowledge, yet some
elements of valid knowledge are obtainable. But even with
these it is most difficult indeed to determine trustworthily
how far the old Egyptian ideas of God and their other wisdom
influenced the structure of religion in Israel and of its new
community at the hands of Moses, trained as he was in
Egyptian schools ; it is just in the certain disclosure of the
more spiritual side of remote Egyptian antiquity that our
science to-day is very backward ; and whatever else found its
way into Israel from that powerful source is of little moment

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 263
compared with these all-important matters. But when it is
considered that the question concerns just the most peculiar
and creative element in the knowledge of God and the
application of it to the community, and that what Israel
under Moses partly defended and partly acquired anew in
vehement strife with the Egyptians is precisely the opposite
of what the Egyptians desired, it will not be expected that
this was derived from them. According to ancient tradition,
the Egyptians allowed their ceremonial vessels and festive
dresses to be stolen from them by Israel under the guidance
of Moses ; 1 but what Moses is thought to have stolen from
them was in reality something which they ought to have
defended a thousand times more than mere costly vessels and
dresses, if they had possessed it and knew properly how to
defend it. But from the primitive times long before Moses
many a precious fragment of reminiscence of more than
national and human things was preserved ; 2 and after it
had found its home in Canaan, how much did this nation
appropriate from old traditions and other spiritual treasures of
this land even of the oldest times ! 3 In the happy days of
the kings when the blessings of a long peace and of wide
commercial intercourse were enjoyed, and in arts and sciences
even the most distinguished nations: were rivalled, a multi
tude of higher conceptions and wonderful traditions of divine
things streamed in from the neighbouring Phoenician and
other nations, and from far distant eastern lands, and
blended with the old treasure of like conceptions and traditions
the nation long had possessed.4 The dispersion of the nation,
1 Cf. History, ii. 95 f. [Eng. trans, ii. 65 f.].
2 As the story of creation, Gen. i. ; cf. History, vii. 529 f.
*. As the tradition of Sodom ; History, i. 347, 449 f. [Eng. trans, i. 242, 312 f.].
4 Cf. History, i. 60 [Eng. trans, i. 39], iii. 378 [Eng. trans, iii. 276]. The
name of the mother of mankind, i"nn, chawa (ttlx, LXX. Gen. iv. 1), i.e.
Life (LXX. Gen. iii. 20), is apparently derived from the Phoenicians ; this is
indicated by the sound of this non-Hebraic name, which nevertheless was not
unintelligible to the Hebrews, Gen. iii. 20 (for just these sounds are in the root
merely Phoenician for "life"), and by the way in which in Gen. iii. 20 the
name is interpolated. Cf. Jahrb. der Bibl. Wiss. ii. 165.

264 revelation; its nature and record.
when it's earthly power had declined, taking place early,
introduced from all sides, but chiefly from the Assyrians and
Persians, new and highly attractive doctrines and images of
things divine, and completed the remodelling of its religious
phraseology, giving it greater freedom and flexibility, a
remodelling initiated long before by the great prophets and
poets, and rendered desirable by the over-simplicity the rigid
doctrine of the divine unity had occasioned.1 With the
Greek and Boman dominion came the freest intercourse with
nations from the remote east to the remote west, and the
widest diffusion of Israel, increasing its susceptibility to
foreign impressions still further, giving richer fulness to its
circle of conceptions concerning things divine and to its
practice of the divinely-human life,2 and thus facilitating
more and more the transition of its type of religion, and
finally of its community also, into the great wide world.
But amid all this contact with foreign nations, foreign
opinions and customs, and even amid all changes in universal
history, the divine fundamental thought, which was the life of
this nation, remained untouched. It had sunk too deeply
into its spirit, since the regeneration of the nation under
Moses and the founding of its community ; it had grown with
its growth too firmly amid all the sorrows and joys of its
changeful career ; it had become too much its sure consolation
and pride, and, above all, it was in itself too perfectly and
absolutely true, not to maintain itself .in such a way that it
should never more be lost. At times, however, it was in
great peril, and seemed about to suffer eclipse. But as the
earthly fortune of the nation rose higher and higher in the
first half of its long history, reminiscences of its sublime origin
restored this thought to its full vigour and integrity ; and
during the deeper and deeper decline of the power of the nation
1 History, iv. 237-239 [Eng. trans, v. 180-185], and Dichter des A, Bs.
iii. 62 f.
2 Whether the sacred customs of India had early influence is touched upon in
the History, v. 223 [Eng. trans, vi. 169] ; the most powerful influences came
from that quarter only in the times of early Christianity, vii. 178 ff.

conflict against degeneration of revelation. 265
in the second half of its history, Messianic, i.e. Christian,
anticipations in due time reinvigorated it again ; until finally,
when most violently threatened and well-nigh wholly eclipsed,
Christianity itself raised this grand fundamental thought to
perfect conquest over all heathenism from without or within,
carrying it forward into the Christian community energized by
higher power and transfigured in more effulgent light.
Special Indications of the Opposition to Heathenism.
§ 79. Meanwhile, in surveying this obstinate struggle
between heathenism and true religion in Israel, it may very
well be perceived, by a few specially strong and conspicuous
indications, how mighty was the original impulse, how
effectual the vehicle of true religion, notwithstanding all the
dangers that menaced it from the spirit of heathenism. The
struggle through more than fifteen centuries was indeed
always of such a kind that heathenism, with all its long,
powerful, and continually-changing assaults, was never able to
touch the life-veins of the true religion that flowed with vital
energy from the time of Moses, and were so well concealed
and so firmly protected from the beginning by the living
structure of the community. Apart from the proof its
finished history gives, many an involuntary expression of its
inextinguishable vitality manifests that this community itself
could never be utterly destroyed. When, for example, after
the first serious relapse into heathenism the whole community
is threatened with extinction, and it is proposed to form a new
community from Moses alone as the sole survivor, and instead
of desiring this honour Moses pleads against it, and becomes
still more urgent as intercessor for the existing community,
what is there in this sublime narrative x but the breaking
forth of the feeling that the community, when once established,
has from the beginning, by virtue of the higher divine energy
working in it, an indestructible life ? When afterwards, at the
1 Ex. xxxii. 7-9 ff.

266 revelation ; its nature and record.
commencement of the declining day of the old community, the
gathering clouds, forecasting the overthrow of the kingdom of
the Ten Tribes, threaten the overthrow of the whole community,
and it is said that yet seven thousand loyal worshippers,
untouched by heathenism, remain,1 what does this indicate but
the deep consciousness that the community, once built on the
true foundations; can never subsequently fall into utter and
irrevocable ruin ? And when at last, as the declining day
drew to its end, and all the great prophets from Joel and Amos2
onwards so surely and constantly anticipate that, after the
great inevitable blow had descended, a nucleus or remnant
will survive as the beginning of the transfigured community
which by divine necessity will come, what do we see in this
but that the fundamental thought of the indestructibility of the
community has now found standing figurative expression, — a
figurative expression representing with the historical growth of
the community the growth of the certainty of this funda
mental thought and hope? But unconnected with tlie
fluctuations of this great conflict, an obvious witness of this
inner energy is found in indications more and more settled in
the course of this history, showing only the deep feeling
calmly dwelling in the life of the community, that cannot be
otherwise than it is, and that again and again breaks out
announcing its signal and abiding presence. The outward
palpable marks of opposition to heathenism that find embodi
ment in law, such as that connected with material images of
God, are not intended here ; for they are not vital in themselves,
and do but imperfectly correspond to the truth they aim to
express; but rather are meant such marks as spontaneously
show themselves in language and thought, as well as in the
principles, manners, and usages of the community. Now it is
1. A well-known indication of heathen life that in common
speech and in the prevailing intuition, much more in the freer
picturing of poetic imagination and in imitative art, the
divine is lowered too much to the level of the human, and
1 1 Kings xix. 18. s Joel iii. 5 ; Amos ix. 8 ff.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 267
confused with it. How far the ordinary custom in this com
munity was from such a confusion- is clear from this, that in
their language the ideas of God and man are always very
definitely and sharply separated, and in the delineation of' the
human there was never such a mingling' of the divine in
pernicious flattery as was always usual in heathenism, and
ultimately became an ineradicable custom. Nothing is more
common in heathenism than to speak of divine men ; in the
Bible, however, " men of God " is a phrase not employed,
although sometimes an individual is called " a man of God ; "
but this is rare and exceptional, and occurs only in. relation to
one who merits the highest distinction for service in the
advancement of divine things in humanity ; and, moreover, it
is used strictly not till long after his death, and with free
retrospect upon his whole completed life,1 and in ordinary
discourse in the case of a prophet only in the early time
during the purer theocracy and for temporary reasons.2 Still
more strictly, as if by the mere force of a fine feeling, it was
never customary to call a man, even if he were the lawful
king, " son of God," although the possibility of some such
phrase was conceded ;3 but the term itself, with its combina
tion of ideas, was reserved for one unique personage. Even
with the use of the name of honour, " servant of God," the
language was sparing, so far as it might apply to an historical
' Moses is spoken of as simply as possible in the Pentateuch. He is called
" the man of God " in Josh. xiv. 6 in solemn discourse, but in the Pentateuch
only by the last editor in a superscription (Deut. xxxiii. 1), and later in
Ps. xc. 1 ; Ezra iii. 2.
2 This is evident from 1 Sam. ix. 6 ; 1 Kings xiii. 1-31, xvii. 18, 24, xx. 28 ;
2 Kings i. 9-12, iv. 9-40, v. 8-vi. 11, viii. 4, xiii. 19 (xxiii. 17) ; Jer. xxxv. 4 ; and
the explanation is found in the meaning of the word D^npijli God, gradually
received in certain phrases during the theocracy, and which obtained till the
first times of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes ; cf. History, ii. 443 f., 581 [Eng.
trans, ii. 313 f., 412]; concerning Chanan, mentioned Jer. xxxv. 4, cf. History,
iii. 22 [Eng. trans, iii. 14, n.]. The frequent use of this name, "man of God,"
is found only in the narratives of Elijah and Elisha. David is so called only
Neh. xii. 24, 36. On the other hand, plain words are employed in the proper
prophetic books of the Bible.
3 But only so freely, with such, little ambiguity and flattery as in Ps. ii. 7,
Deut. xiv. 1, and the few similar, passages.

268 revelation; its nature and record.
man ; when the dead were distinguished by it, the simple
honour was therefore the greater.
2. Similarly heathenism is readily prone to elevate
man as such above what is human, and to give divine
honours to the living and especially to the dead. How
far Israel was from doing this in all the centuries of its
history, under the influence of an ineradicable feeling, cannot
be made too conspicuous. Even the most respected prophets,
who might readily be in danger of being worshipped as gods,
and powerful kings, who in heathenism least of all withstood
such temptation, were in this community constantly regarded
only as purely human ; and if any of them had basely desired
deification, they would at once have seen such desire
summarily extinguished. It was simply by the heathen,
according to the Book of Origins, that Abraham was addressed
as "Prince of God."1 As a matter of fact, however, the
disposition to attribute divine prerogatives to certain men
on account of their position or their descent, and, what is
essentially the same, to concede to them immunities to which
in themselves there is no true claim, does obtain far more widely
than is usually supposed. Thus, as this community in the
course of its earliest centuries became more firmly established
amid a thousand severe struggles from within and without, the
priesthood was at last, it is true, made hereditary in the house
of Aaron and the whole tribe of Levi ; but although this house,
even in the Pentateuch, was invested with full legal authority,
and although, in the earlier times of the community of true
revelation and religion, its sacerdotal prerogative, in a certain
respect rightly considered divine, might easily become danger
ous, and at a later period also there was always a danger of
relapsing in so far into a heathen way of things, yet in point
of fact the other spiritual forces in this community contributed
so powerfully and so salutarily to prevent the possible worst
consequences, that the longer its priesthood existed the more
it shaped itself after a wholly different type than among the
1 Gen. xxiii. 6.

CONFLICT AGAINST DEGENERATION OF REVELATION. 269
heathen. The hereditary high priest in his unique pre-eminent
distinction as the medium of the oracle might have degenerated
with the greatest facility; but he always stood far removed
from any divine reverence, and in the times of Christ belief
in his gilt of divination existed only among the common
people as the Colourless remnant of an antique reminiscence.1
But the chief thing was, that so certainly as, according to the
Pentateuch, true religion in this community always contem
plated the prerogative that fell to the lot of the priestly tribe
as not purely inherent, but only given by God under special
historical circumstances, and therefore under similar circum
stances revocable, so certainly might it at once cease in
Christianity ; as in fact it actually did cease without its being
felt that any real contradiction was thereby involved. Now
it is, it is true,
3. Not to be ignored that the rigid opposition in which
the community at its founding was at once placed, not merely
against all the perverse inner impulses of heathenism, but also
against all previously made attempts to represent the divine
to the senses by means of art, called forth a sudden breach
with such attempts, and led to a new simplification in human
thought and discourse and imagery, which, persisted in too
obstinately, and conceived in a spirit of such one-sided anxiety
as obtained during the last of the three great changes in its
history, would have caused early the same irreparable injury
to all the efforts of the human mind as we may see clearly
apparent in Islamism. But every earnest and irreconcilable
breach with perversities and errors deeply implanted in the
mind, and every new tendency of mind arising, as in the
primitive time of the founding of this community, under the
overpowering constraint of law, involves this danger. But
we have already seen how little this danger occasioned
mischief for any length of time. A new freedom in discourse
and imagery, corresponding to the requirements of true reveia^
tion and religion, must here break for itself a way ; and it
1 As is very strikingly apparent from the incidental remark in John xi. 51.

'270 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
did this so completely and so well during the middle and
finest period of this whole development, that, after the new
rigidity that prevailed in the last period, Christianity perfected
everything that had thus been begun. Side by side with the
highest revelation and religion, no greater and more creative
freedom of the faculty of imagination exists than that found
in the New Testament, which combines in itself all that the
Old Testament contains of such freedom, and all that the new
Christian freedom further matures. Thus everything in which
this community, as against heathenism, appeared to be at a
disadvantage at last turns out rather for its benefit.

III.  THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.1
1. Its Significance and its Possibility.
§ 80. Necessary for the community of true religion, when
once founded, as was that whole long conflict against
heathenism, it was not competent to form the last aim of
the community itself, nor to satisfy the main essential idea
upon which it was based. When a living organism has to
defend itself against the obstructions which from any quarter
attack its very life, every conflict finds its necessity; and if
what may be called the inner power of this life succeeds in
such conflict in overcoming all the obstructions which throw
themselves in long succession one after another against it,
this power and this life, from their first violent breaking forth,
that is, from their birth, grow more and more within the
bodily limits the life itself gives, grow, indeed, as long as the
outward body with its hidden life can grow and thrive, until
the fruit of this life can no longer be kept in its bodily limits,
but breaks forth from them by a violent final effort correspond
ing to its commencement. Thus it was that the life-impulse
of true religion, as soon as it had become incarnate in this
1 Explained below, § 132 a, as " the entrance of the Holy Spirit as a conscious
power into humanity." — Th.

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 271
community, turned itself against its foe in a first mighty
movement. The rupture with heathenism accomplished under
Moses, and made the law of the community, could not have
been more violent or, if one may so say, more convulsive than
it was ; 2 so the conflict began precisely as it was continued
through the long series of changing centuries, and against ever
new obstructions, until the fruit of this impulse of life, fully
ripened at length amid uninterrupted struggles, broke the
hard, strong, ancient limits of the community by a last all-
powerful conflict under Christ, in order from its midst to form
a new body corresponding to its spirit. If, therefore, the
conflict itself from that first violent beginning to this still
more violent end was necessary, it yet had its aim never in
itself alone, but rather was initiated and inspired by a principle
standing high above it, which found for itself in this com
munity a new invigorating sphere of activity, and when this
was dissolved continued its work in a new and transfigured
sphere with larger designs and still greater vigour. And if
the contemplation of that conflict through all its varied
changes is instructive enough, nay, absolutely indispensable
in order to trace distinctly the onward historical development
of all that is at last preserved, not only as the highest but
also as the purely immortal element in the life of the old
nation of the true religion, yet we cannot stop with this, but
must ultimately contemplate more directly what stands high
above it, and yet, because 'it is not the purely divine, but the
humanly-divine, finds advancement likewise with all the pains
and labour of this long conflict.
This is nothing, however, but the impulse of the life of
true religion itself. True religion alone was the continually
uniform immortal life of the community founded by the
forces of the spirit of it ; and only because this life had from
the beginning ever inspired the community all too purely and
1 Apart from outward conflicts, the second, not the first commandment is
here meant, with all other laws similar to it ; cf. History, ii. 177 ff., 219 ff.
[Eng. trans, ii. 124 ff., 154 ff.].

272 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
energetically, was there kindled in it that conflict against all
hindrance and opposition seeking to limit and even stifle and
suppress a life that in its purity and inborn divine energy is
nevertheless immortal. If, now, in the struggle and conflict
with obstructive errors, the human spirit, by the impulse and
also by the light of revelation, approaches the divine, which
always waits the favourable moment and the true point of
communion in this approach (§ 17), and if both persistently
and arduously co-operate permanently to win and successfully
to maintain the truth and active energy which check the
growth of human corruption and advance the interests of
human wellbeing (§ 21-25), there arises thus a new humanly-
divine spirit, which, as it has once worked effectively to this
end, may work again more and more in a similar way and
under similar circumstances. This same spirit may revisit
the man it has once animated and, possessed, guide him anew
in every new complication of affairs, become the unvarying
and predominant motive-power of his activity, nay, the very
life of his life and spirit of his spirit, making its home within
him, and filling with its own fulness his whole moral being.
Nay more, an entire community may be decisively and
powerfully influenced by it, and as an attendant spirit it may
ever afterwards hover near, to inform it again in moments of
conflict and trial, and renew its impelling power when new
energy and inspiration are especially desired. Very appropri
ately may it be designated " holy," since it is no longer the
merely human spirit, declining more and more in its indiffer
ence and ahenatioh from the divine, a spirit that some definite
historical period, with its earlier spoil of spiritual wealth, but
also its new errors and darkness, infuses spontaneously into
individual men, but it is the spirit long familiarly known as
co-operating with the divine and therefore Holy Spirit, the
spirit that is replenished with purely divine energies and
inviolable by human corruption.
§ 81. If it is maintained, therefore, that what thus gradually
grew in efficacy more and more in the community of Israel

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 273
during its mighty conflict, standing high above it and directing
its cause, was the holy spirit, the new power that in such a
way and in such efficacy could arise only in this community,
there is nothing inadmissible in the statement. Eor when
the Spirit or the Holy Spirit is in question, as a purely divine
power, it would be altogether inadmissible to speak of it as
growing in efficacy or arising ; the Spirit is, with God Himself,
primordial and ever the same. It is otherwise, however, when
we speak of this spirit in human history. For this history
is in itself nothing but a certain co-operation of the spirit
dwelling in man by his very creation (§11 f., 14) with the
spirit acting upon it and influencing it from without by virtue
of the entire creation and the divine forces dwelling therein ;
and this co-operation may by man's fault become so obscured
and enfeebled that it is gradually more and more repressed,
and then disappears altogether. But though such interaction
may become in thousandfold gradation so dull and languid
that it scarcely seems to exist at all, yet it does exist always,
and always may one speak therefore of a spirit which, in a
definite position of things and a definite age, arises or is formed
historically, as with the individual man in actual life, so also
in the pursuits and ways of human fellowships of all kinds,
or even possibly in the whole of humanity. Moreover, if in
a certain condition and age of human history an unholy spirit
can arise, constituted of several mingled elements, as the Bible
manifoldly shows,1 so also a holy spirit can arise historically,
as we maintain it has arisen in the community of Israel as
the power of the Highest and Divinest that was possible in it.
But further considerations will enable us to understand this
possibility more surely and in detail. What is termed spirit
can be thought of as the impelling force of a life, especially
of a higher, i.e. a rational life. Every force seeks to maintain
1 One takes such delineations of the TOT and ncv/ix as Isa. xxix. 10, xix. 3 ;
1 Sam. xvi. 14 ff., xviii. 10 ; 1 Kings xxii. 22 f. ; 2 Kings xix. 7 ; Hos. iv. 12,
v. 4 ; Zech. xiii. 2 ; Rev. xviii. 2 ; 1 John iv. 1, 6 ; Eph. ii. 2 ; 2 Tim. i. 7.
The different ways in which, according to the Bible, the Spirit can be Lord over
men, and how God sends the Spirit upon men, will be subsequently considered.
EWALD I. S

2 74 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
itself and to continue in operation in its own province. Now
if we speak in this sense of the humanly-divine spirit, we
well comprehend that such a spirit, because it is historical,
may suddenly be strongly moved and powerfully excited by
a special conjuncture of circumstances ; we comprehend just
as well, that to become so powerful it must be cherished for a
length of time and grow, and that it always seeks, neverthe
less, to maintain itself in that force and form in which it has
once arisen; even as it takes its name from the incessant,
unremitting, ever-recurring expiration and inspiration as from
a hidden depth. Thus arises among men that historical spirit
of which we speak ; it does not come from mere thinking and
discoursing, or from occasional, detached acts of mere external
necessity. Only as the spirit of man is consecutively and
continuously moved by the Divine Spirit, moved more or less
and with greater or feebler impulse, and chiefly in the great
conflicts of life whioh violently stir and call forth its activity,
does this historical spirit assume a definite existence, standing
above man in this definite form and efficacy as a special spirit,
and seeking to react upon him. For whatever has spiritual
contents and force, and has once passed through the mind of
man and taken more definite shape as it comes forth out of
it, confronts him again as a spiritual entity from without, and
seeks to determine his spirit still further where and how it
can.1 The spirit that flashes from the word can ever again
present itself to the mind as a more or less distinct form ;
every completed act of man, the outcome of his mind, may, in
the determinate intellectual shape it has taken over against
the mind which has impelled it forth or beheld it, react upon
the mind; word and deed can react upon the same mind
from which they issued, or upon innumerable other minds
which hear or see representations of them made clear by
1 How the best thought and counsel lie chiefly as deep water in the well-
spring of the soul, and become clear only as discreetly drawn forth, i.e. only as
brought into clear words that perfectly exhaust the whole question in hand, the
proverb (Prov. xx. 5) strikingly expresses.

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 275
conspicuous expression ; if once, then also innumerable times,
in a good or bad sense, according as the mind in its activity
in speech and action may be impelled by the Divine Spirit
or not ; and all this in incalculable gradation. But by this
reaction is already formed historicaUy a definite spirit standing
above the individual man or a whole human society, a spirit
which, however powerful it may be, can yet, by every new
excitation and elevation, be newly determined in character or
force. But where true revelation and religion are once in proper
activity, according to § 21-25, there, on the part of those
whose spirit is in suchwise most purely touched by the Divine
Spirit and whose discourse and action place them before the
world, words and deeds more perfectly agree, succeed each
other more uniformly, and react more powerfully and empha
tically upon themselves and upon all whose spirit is thus
loyally guided. If, now, for this end those upon whom a spirit
that is becoming historically more and more distinct and
stedfast reacts, are enclosed by the firm native wall's of the
same community, the reactions and the further creations of
this spirit will alike follow one another the more closely, and
will maintain themselves the more firmly in a higher uni
formity. And the same spirit which has estabhshed the
community by its own mighty efforts will more stedfastly
maintain itself in it, and continue to fashion itself more
fruitfully in its own way.
It is thus clearly conceivable what the result must be when
there worked in the community such men as Moses and as
the rest of the founders of this community of whose labours,
alas ! reminiscence has left to us but scanty memorials, though
along with Moses they certainly put forth for this object the
highest exertions ; x when subsequently to Moses similarly
inspired men similarly worked in long, often slender, but
never wholly interrupted series ; when in the later changes
1 Reference is once made to them outside the Pentateuch and the Book of
Joshua in an old writing, 2 Sam. xx. 18 f., according to the better reading.

276 revelation; its nature and record.
of the history of the community the more complicated and
confused the conflicts of the time became, the more aims of a
higher kind were striven after and obtained by ever new men
of essentially the same spirit ; and even the entire nation of
the community was by this same spirit more and more
informed. The new power that here arose is a power fully
unknown, nay, impossible in all heathenism, — the power of
the Holy Ghost resting in the community and at the same
time sustaining it and leading it onward with an energy
unattainable and inviolable by all the world. This power
could be secured only along with and by that incessant con
flict against heathenism already described, but it is something
wholly different from that conflict, — a purely elevating and
inspiring energy, ever as in a luminous cloud hovering about
the community, available for all who sought to be elevated
and sustained by it, uplifting and informing first of all and
pre-eminently the sublimest and purest prophets, then with
increasing influence others — poets, rulers, and incalculably
many of the nation besides. And this alone was the power
that could raise this community high above its extremest
perils ; and finally, when it had become in its whole divine
strength and purity more and more palpably conspicuous,
transfigured in itself in the highest degree, it could similarly
transfigure the community also.
2. Its Realization.
§ 82. For what is most noticeable here is that this power
of the Holy Spirit was actually enjoyed before the community
itself was conscious of it ; and indeed it was not possible that
it should be otherwise. That which is purely spiritual (and
there is nothing in humanity that could be so purely and
definitely spiritual as the Holy Spirit) cannot come by human
arrangement and institution, still less be manifest at the
caprice of man. It either never makes itself felt among men
at all, or it is in their midst before they are aware of it ; and

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, 277
it is then a blessing of eternal and wonderful efficacy, never
again to be withdrawn.
Indeed, the wonderful operations of the spirit in general,
so far as it became, in the sense explained above, a humanly-
divine power in this community as nowhere else, could very
well be recognised early enough, as in fact they are recognis
able. The power of revelation and religion was nowhere so
intensely quickened and so often kindled to an all-irradiating
and effulgent glow as in this community ; and this is always
a manifestation of this spirit-as it should be active in humanity.
It was active first of all most vigorously and persistently
through the prophets (§ 29), and became at length pictured
by Ezekiel in the midst of the exile as the inspiring energy
which caught up and carried away the prophets whither it
would ; for Ezekiel with his vivid imagination readily repre
sents such spiritual powers in sensuous figures, and lends to
them definite shape and bearing. No power, however, was
so purely Israelitish as this ; and in the midst of the exile
and of foreign surroundings it could on this account occur to
the prophet as such a special power, high and long holy to
Israel, far earlier than to the prophets who lived in great
numbers in the old fatherland itself. Yet from the unique
character of this community it could never be seriously sup
posed that the spirit in its wonderful manifestation and power
necessarily belongs to the prophets alone, and could not influ
ence other citizens of the community with its peculiar force
and impulse perhaps suddenly, and fill them with its whole
energy; as indeed the possibility of this was early enough
admitted.1 But it must not be overlooked that here the
reference is throughout simply to the spirit in this special
signification ; of the " Holy Spirit of God," or more briefly,
the " Holy Spirit," there, is as yet no mention, although this
spirit alone gives the wholly special conception and contains
the full, true, all-comprehending energy here implied. In
our immediate discussion the holy spirit is that which can
1 Num. xi. 25-29 ; cf. above, p. 88 ; Joel iii. 1 f.

278 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
take possession of man, and strengthen him wonderfully
with its power, withdrawing him from all contact with the
unholy world, so far as the world might estrange him from
the sanctity of the will of God and a holy course of life ; or
in other words, is the ultimate and at the same time highest
protecting power of the holy God, which stands continually
as a luminous cloud above and beside the individual man and
the entire community to render aid and support when the
danger is greatest.
According to all indications, it was not until the time of
extremest peril, when tbe continuance of the community with
its thousand years of high development was once more
threatened, that this thought of a holy spirit penetrated it, a
spirit for the community itself and the most isolated members
of it inalienable, whose wonderful energy would forsake no
one who once appropriated it and was earnestly desirous to
follow its impulse in everything. When the old national
realm of Israel sank to its decline and was soon to be over
thrown, when consequently the protecting wall, that stood
ready during the continuance of the old strong community to
guard every member of it, seemed to be utterly demolished,
and innumerable devout souls saw themselves wholly isolated
in the midst of the heathen and exposed to thousands of
unexpected and severe temptations testing their loyalty to the
true rehgion; then for the first time the thought flashed
forth clearly and attained its irrefragable certainty, that a
power of holy spirit had long existed in Israel, and would
forsake no one who in the deepest need of life should cherish
it firmly, or in complete moral declension wrestle profoundly
to win it back from God.1 It must have been perceived,
moreover, on glancing freely back into the whole past of the
community, that this same holy spirit was already active from
1 Ps. li. 13-15, cxliii. 11 ; Ezek. xviii. 31. This historical connection
ontirely agrees with the otherwise recognisable indications of the true period of
Ps. li. ; if in any far earlier psalm holy spirit must have been mentioned, it
wonld be Ps. xxxii. ; but in vain is this mention sought in that song whose
Davidic origin is historically established.

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 279
the first founding of the community, and never since had
there been a time when it had completely abandoned the
primary sphere of its operation on earth.1 In like manner,
in the outlook into the whole future the thought was now
suggested that the holy spirit could never again be actually
taken from the community in its dispersion and contrition,
much less in its return and renewal of strength.2
§ 83. The idea of the Holy Spirit and its consolation was
afterwards firmly established in the renovated community
assembling together again about Jerusalem's ruins. Yet it
did not receive its full transfiguration until in Christ Himself
in everything He spoke and did Without exception the power
of the Holy Spirit was manifested upon earth in its im
mediate presence and perfect and transparent operation,
as never before, and possible only in Him. Under the
assumption and claim that He spoke by the Holy Spirit, He,
indeed, said nothing ; still less did He, under such assumption
and daim, perform even the smallest, most special and
peculiar of His works. Yet never from mortal man flowed
words and acta which came so clearly, so mightily, and in so
direct and unbroken a stream from the purest impulse of the
Holy Spirit as did His. In full historical light we see this,
and the New Testament attempts in some passages to express
it by general images and sayings drawn from undoubted
experience. Here, then, was the ultimate issue as it must
come. If, as remarked before, everything spiritual, having
passed through human discourse and action, creates an image
of itself more or less clear and of definite form, that will react
upon the spirit of man and does more or less react upon it,
1 Isa. lxiii. 11. The brief mention of this so important subject suggests that
the prophet quotes from an earlier fragment, in which it was more copiously
presented. The Book of Wisdom ix. 17 f. certainly pushes back the sending
forth of the Holy Spirit beyond Moses to the beginning of human history. Cf.
ix. 2 ; the division of the chapter in recent editions is still unfortunate.
2 Ezek. xi. 19, xxxvi. 17-28 ; cf. xviii. 31 ; also especially briefly and
emphatically at the end of a long description, Isa. lix. 21, where the " Spirit of
God," according to lxiii. 11, is essentially one and the same with the Holy
Spirit, but the simpler name suffices.

280 revelation; its nature and record,
and if since the early dawn of the community this was an
essential basis for the development of the power of the Holy
Spirit ; then, after our Lord's departure, the collected image of
His discourses and deeds, and all that befell Him, must so
influence those who believed in Him, that the same power of
the Holy Spirit that working secretly and on separate occasions
in the mortal Man had flowed from Him into the world, would
now from the glorified Lord, united as into one intense energy,
lay hold upon them with far greater and more irresistible
force; and this power aroused anew by new circumstances
and needs could, in the course of its operation, become still
mightier.1 Thus the Holy Spirit won its full significance and
efficacy ; and if, in the entire Old Testament, it is but seldom
mentioned, and in the Apocrypha or intermediate books yet
more seldom,2 because in these last intermediate times every
thing which had been won before in the community sank
back again into the most serious peril of derangement and
dissolution, nevertheless the whole of the New Testament is
full of its power and its wonderful fruits.
§ 84. Meanwhile there is a special idea which can come
into consideration with this great chief all-embracing idea of
the Holy Spirit only as collateral, but which nevertheless may
prove to demonstration that the important agency which is
here alone ultimately in question was active in its proper
principle and elements long before it entered in perfected
power and form into the history of the community of the Old
Testament and then into that of the New. It is not
surprising that, in a nation that at an early period must have
reflected much and keenly as to what revelation is and should
be for men, inquiry should just as early arise as to what it
1 John xiv. 12-14. A passage important but obscure, perfectly clear, however,
in this connection ; repeated because of its importance, xvi. 23 f. ; a principle
not so definitely stated as in John's Gospel, yet essentially conspicuous in the
synoptics, as is clear from Mark xi . 22-25.
2 Wisdom of Sol', ix. 17 f., and Sus. 45, where the " holy spirit of young
Daniel " is spoken of. The Apocrypha of the New Testament is a late and loose
appendage, that of the Old an " intermediate " and transitional literature.

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 281
cannot be if it would be accepted as a true revelation at all ;
for, according to a known law of human thought, truth is
recognised most distinctly by its direct opposite. It can now
clearly enough be seen how easily and how certainly the right
answer was -found to this question, and with what sharp
brevity it was expressed. He who will know whether he
actually possesses a revelation from the true God or not,
inquires whether what he regards as guch has not been
derived merely from his own heart, and from what is simply
pleasing to himself.1 Every one, if he will be candid with
himself, may institute such an inquiry in his own case ; but
others may also perceive, whether what is regarded as reveia- "
tion is actually revelation or not, since the mind of man in its
deepest ground and eternal essence is everywhere the same.
What is to have authority as revelation must therefore be
derived, not from man, but from the mind and heart of God,
and must correspond to His inmost will and nature as well-
pleasing to Him ; but what is in this respect the truth to the
distinct apprehension of one man only, he may be sure, must
be current as truth among all men equally. Nevertheless,
since the word of God and His will to men cannot be
externally published like a human command and a human
word, self-deception concerning what is God's word and will is
always possible, and every one must therefore verify what he
regards as God's word and will by acting in accordance with
it in all strictness and integrity. Only what in this way at
every step by practice and experience verifies itself as right
and well-pleasing to God can be ultimately accepted as the
word of God, Thus, then, a circle of necessary movement
opens so far to every man ; he must (1) withdraw himself
from himself, not regarding his own capricious fancies, and
such opinions as are simply well-pleasing to himself, as right
1 The oldest relevant passage is from the Book of Origins, Num. xvi. 28 ;
another old passage is found in Prov. xviii. 2 ; but Jeremiah presents the funda
mental conception most clearly, xxiii. 16, cf. xvii. 9 ; and similarly Christ
discourses, Matt. xvi. 17. Cf. also Ps. xxxvi. 2, according to the right reading.

282 revelation; its nature and record.
and therefore divine ; he must (2) be always on the alert to
attend to every actual word of God, come to him whence
it may, whether immediately from God or indirectly from
tradition and instruction ;^and with every individual and all
men there are times when to learn the true will and counsel
of God is most Urgent and most earnestly desired ; 1 but he
must also (3) test by his own conduct and ascertain by
experience whether what he regards as God's word and will
be so actually, that he may not deceive himself.
This, then, is the outline of all true procedure in this com
munity from the earliest times in inquiry after revelation
when the starting-point is the idea of the revelation of one's
own heart. And no one expresses it in every way and in all
brevity more definitely and clearly than Christ Himself, when
He says, according to the reminiscences of His beloved dis*
ciple, that faith is to be placed in Him, because He knows
certainly that His will and His word agree with the will of
the Father ; if that is refused, however, one may seek to do
the will of God itself earnestly, or, what is still more easy
for every one, believe in Christ " on account of the divine
works themselves " which He does and which every one may
do after Him, and in the doing of them learn by experience
that they bring salvation. It is therefore self-evident that
no one may first demand of Christ outward signs and wonders
for what he is to believe, since already such signs and wonders
are abundantly manifest if one will see them ; and no one is
excusable who will not see the great divine work itself which
is accomplished, in Christ as revealer of the word of God.2 If,
however, all the better members of the nation of this com
munity, all through so long a series of centuries, continually
acted according to these clear principles, as in the plainest
manner Christ Himself ultimately disclosed them, and most
1 Amos viii. 11 ; Deut. viii. 3 (cited Matt, iv, 4).
2 This is the sum of what is said on this subject in John's Gospel, especially
cf. John vii. 16-18, xiv. 11 f., with ii. 18 f., iv. 48, vi. 30 ff, and xii. 37 ; and
it does not in the least contradict Matt. xii. 89, xvi. 4.

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 283
fruitfully too, because He could point to His own lofty
example, then the explanation is thus given what super
abundance of a new spirit, such as no single heathen nation
ever experienced, and for which there is no more appropriate
name than that of the Holy Spirit, could at length firmly
upbuild its power in this community.
§ 85. It is just such a residue1 of spirit and life, accumulated
in a nation from past ages of splendour as an inexhaustible
treasure, that can lead it happily through the darkest periods
of distress and dissolution, repeating themselves anew and
with increasing gravity. What would have become of this
community, grown grey as it were before old age, in the times
of the dissolution of its old kingdom, had not the power of
the Holy Spirit already been so efficacious as to be able, even
out of this dispersion and gloom, to bring it together again
for its final development ? And what would have resulted
from the last and permanent dispersion of the nation, had not
the power of the Holy Spirit before its commencement becbme
incomparably purer and mightier still through Christ and His
disciples, and with sure hand saved from destruction at least
all that was immediately essential for the building of a trans
figured community ? No single heathen nation, how much
less one of so moderate an extent, ever experienced, in the
midst of its gradual decay, such a history of new resurrection
to nobler and immortal life ! In short, as Christianity
brought the true consummation of this whole incomparable
history on the side of revelation and of the community
(§ 42-48), so also it brought the same consummation on the
side that is most wonderful and sublime, the power of the
Holy Spirit. 3. The Holy Nation.
§ 86. If it is not until the last period of the history of
Israel that the name and idea of the Holy Spirit are perfectly
realized, there is another name that from the earliest age of
1 Ueberschuss, i.e. superabundance,, surplusage. ^Tu,

284 revelation; its nature and record.
the community was employed to designate the destiny to
which this nation, as possessing the true religion, was to feel
itself, and in its noblest elements did feel itself appointed, as
its history ran its course in the midst of that of all other
nations. Under the prophetic leadership of Moses, and amid
a movement that affected the destinies of the whole existing
world of humanity,1 this nation had been made familiar, and
in a most impressive and memorable way, with the knowledge
and fear of the true God, and it had learned that it could find
salvation and peace upon earth under His holy guardianship
as it listened to His word. It must now also remain con
tinually in this attitude of mind, and know also distinctly
what eternal obligation, what security of trust, what inex
haustible hope such loyalty of mind to its calling involved.
Every permanent relation into which an individual man enters,
and every system of things under which a whole nation places
itself, must necessarily have its clear ground of expectation,
and if it should proceed from a message of divine assurance
as here from the prophetic message of Moses, it may well be
called a gospel. And this gospel of the Old Testament
corresponding to the gospel of the New, yet having the
colour and form of the ancient oracles of Israel, runs thus : —
So shalt thou say to Jacob's house and tell to Israel's sons ; —
You yourselves saw what I did to the Egyptians,
And how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you home to me ;
Therefore, if only you listen to my voice and keep my covenant,
So shall you become my peculiar inheritance,11 above all the nations !
For mine, indeed, is the whole earth and the circle of all the nations ;
1 Ex. xix. ; cf. Judg. v. 4 f.
2 I.e. immediate property and eternal and favourite possession. The old
German word allod is, alas ! obsolete, but expresses as nearly as possible the
meaning of the word i"!?JD preserved in its fresh signification in this ancient
oracle. Deut. vii. 6, xiv. 2, xxvi. 18 f. repeat it ; Ps. cxxxv. 4, Mai. iii. 17
imitate it ; Eccles. ii. 8, 1 Chron. xxiii. 9 give a new, freer, and late use of it.
The old German word comes from the feudal age, and contains precisely the
image here employed; for the distinction between an allodial estate (i.e. an
estate held of no one, a free and independent property) and an estate held of a
superior, was known in the early Persian, Assyrian, and Egyptian empires, and
-is not first found in the German feudal age. The word PI52B is derived from
73D = ?3ti>, to look at, behold, as J5«f from CHas.

THE rise of the power of the holy spirit. 285
But you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.:
These are the words that thou shalt declare to the sons of Israel.1
Here, then, are the mutual terms which must ever be found
in a covenant between two free spiritual beings, viz. promise
and the fulfilment of conditions, privilege conceded and obli
gation imposed, each binding on each side in a sort of
reciprocal interest as the special case requires ; for here, of
course, the agreement is not between two parties in every
respect equal, the one being, so to speak, the self-mighty lord,
the other the servant whose happiness depends on his intimate
association with his lord. If, therefore, the true God, who as
such is Almighty, may be compared to a great lord who in
his wide domain has a number of larger or smaller well-
appointed estates, all of which, however, he cedes to lower
lords, retaining and cultivating one only as his true allodium
and treasure, his special and favourite immediate possession ;
then in such comparison God here undertakes to deliver over
the rest of the nations as estates in fee to other gods,2 feeble
and subordinate, and to retain Israel alone as His immediate
most cherished possession, to care for it as property specially
dear to Him, and to consider the advancement of its higher
salvation as His own peculiar solicitude, — if only Israel on its
part will always diligently hearken to His voice4 and keep in
all faithful submission the covenant thus set forth. That is
to say, more particularly and in other forms of expression,
this one nation shall not stand at a distance from Him as the
other nations, i.e. the heathen do, having long since gone
astray, and shall not be separated from the immediate know
ledge of Him, and from His love and grace, by any insur
mountable barrier ; but as priests, according to an ancient and
invariable custom, immediately surround their God, listen to
His voice, and perform His works, i.e. offer sacrifices well-
1 Ex. xix. 3-6; cf. Hist. ii. 195 [Eng. trans, ii. 142f.]. From the form of the
oracle, the fifth verse requires "and the circle of all the nations," or some such
words, to complete the sense.
2 The same image subsequently expressed in passages like Isa. xix. 1, Deut.
xxxii. 8f., with the peculiar, Deut. iv. 19, and many others.

286 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
pleasing to Him, so shall this whole nation be a kingdom
whose King is the true God, and whose citizens are all priests ;
or in one brief and now clear expression shall be a holy
nation, a nation in which not merely a few, as priests and
kings, are holy, but all the members of which shall be alike
invested with divine sanctity, and because so near to that
which is holy, and so like-natured with it, shall be covered
and protected by its own inviolability. Such, then, is the
reciprocal relation between the true God who expects such
obedience from the nation, received into His love and holiness,
and promises protection on His part, and this nation which
promises obedience and may expect protection in return.
Nevertheless, this reciprocal relation, henceforth to be per
manently obligatory, that is, a " covenant," has not casually
arisen, and is not purely arbitrarily entered upon ; it is
rather the outcome of the lofty earnestness of that history
through which already the nation itself has passed, — as
indeed the first couplet of the oracle points out by lofty
expressions that sound J as from the very sanctuary of Jahveh
Himself. This, therefore, was the fundamental thought upon which
the community was based, which filled and sustained the
spirit of the- nation with just pride, illumined it with hope,
and by its claims and disciphne was the formative principle
of its life. The whole passage is as the high clear note in
which at length is summed up sharply and pointedly all the
impressions and all the teaching of a mighty and decisive age
just past; and indeed there is no lack of incisive expressions
in it.2 As the sublime oracle closes with the phrase " a holy
nation," so in this name the whole fundamental conception
1 This, lies clearly in the word N3X1, which from its essential signification
and its connection may here be translated : " I brought home " to my house
my sanctuary, as similarly in the ancient, song, Ex. xv. 17. The first half of
the whole image only is followed further by the later poet, Deut. xxxiii. 11 f.
* What an i^vfuapit lies in that one phrase "a kingdom " (i.e. properly fO^DD)
" of priests ;" nothing can be more creative and at the same time more incisive ;
and in that primitive time !

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 287
had its firmest root, and by means of it retained its lasting
hold upon the memory of every one. Not that in the life of
the ancient nation this name was of common and everyday
use ; it would soon have lost its original elevation and full
significance if it had been ; on the contrary, it is never
employed in ordinary speech. Only late poets, about the
time when the idea of the Holy Spirit (§ 82) more and more
strongly penetrated, venture to designate the members of the
nation generally as " holy " where it appears suitable thus
to distinguish them from the heathen.1 But neither the name
nor the entire fundamental thought could ever be forgotten in
the community; and as soon as in apostolic Christianity
everything that for a millennium and a half had been struggled
after in the old community found its consummation, and the
Holy Spirit was operative as never before, this foundation
thought in the same words, now newly vivified, is applied, by
no less a person than Peter, to the new community,2 and
Christians are now " holy " with a reality, an emphasis, and a
just right such as never before had been known. In other
respects, however^ this idea of the Holy Nation is so extremely
fruitful in its application to Israel by prophets and poets in
the Old Testament, that many similar names and ideas are
created after its likeness, which reappear in the New Testament
with similar renewed freshness.
§ 87. For here it must be said further, that there is no
nation, ancient or modern, that is not nourished upon some
fundamental thought peculiar to it, as upon its imperishable
life-bread, and that does not gather about some sanctuary
which appears to it indestructible. But in investigating more
closely the nature of that immortal element which, as an
inspiring thought and a sure hope, was the soul of any ancient
nation except Israel, not to speak now of modern nations,
nothing will be found that can compare with what is observed
here. In that grand august fundamental thought which in
1 Ps. xvi. 3, xxxiv. 10 ; Dan. viii. 24, xii. 7 (not, however, Deut. xxxiii. 3).
2 1 Pet. ii. 9 ; but also Rev. i. 6.

288 revelation; its nature and record.
its youth had fallen to its lot, as the true light and life of
the spirit, Israel had everything that could serve as undying
reminiscence, as all-pervasive discipline, as lofty sublime hope,
and which, even if what is perishable in a nation does at
length fall into corruption, should survive the mortal com
munity in order, transfigured in purer light, to serve the same
end in a new and immortal community.
1. No energetic and noble nation ever lived in antiquity
without looking back to an elevating past, and without
possessing in the remembrance of its ancestors and ancient
heroes a perennial spring of fresh inspiration. But what
nation could look back, as Israel could, upon a lofty primitive
age, when it was itself born again into a genuine nation by
means of the purest impulse and forces of true revelation and
religion alone ? Only implicit loyalty and confidence in the
firm holding of divine truths once known, only unbending
stedfastness in long deep sorrows, and self-denying and
courageous turning back from error and stumbling to ever
greater divine truths, and ever surer conviction of eternal
human duties, — only qualities such as these in the highest
measure possible to any nation of antiquity, together with the
prophetic power of a Moses amid one of the most energetic
national movements, and the very shaking of heaven and
earth,1 were the true founders of this community ; and when,
also, at length the recollection of this grand age firmly
imprinted itself upon the mind in brief luminous pictures or
in longer stories, certainly no other nation could look back
as this could to such a period of its own great origin. The
retrospect extended, moreover, beyond the special age of its
origin to forefathers, as to distant and therefore purer exemplars,
in whom already the first germs of all true religion began to
appear ; and upon what a brilliant array of mighty prophets,
national leaders, and men otherwise wrorthy of honour, did the
eye rest the wider the extent of the long succeeding ages of
1 According to the ancient lofty figures in the song of Deborah, Jude. v. 4 f.
and other older reminiscences ; cf. History, ii. 306 f. [Eng. tr. ii. 217 f.]

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 289
changeful destiny through which the nation lived ! But the
chief thing was the very rigour of its religion had long since
taught this nation to conceive and to retain in the memory
every historical event with greater simplicity, sharpness, and
truth than was easily possible among heathen nations, whilst
in the survey of all divine and human things its lofty sweep
and range of mind, in purity and energy impossible to the
heathen, and possible to Israel only through true religion,
sufficiently saved its historical intuitions and reminiscences
from too prosaic and frigid a severity. And whilst a keener
perception of what was historically elevated was native to
this people, without at all accustoming them to overlook
human weaknesses1 in their own history, or even in the
remembrance of their remotest forefathers and the noblest
of their leaders, the penetrating backward glance into their
whole changeful past must thereby be the more richly inspiring
and instructive. But when at length the purest, and in all
its apparent insignificance, nay, humiliation and dishonour,
sublimest kingly life that could possibly enter into human
history was yet, during the continuance of the limitation of
this community, beheld in Christ, and threw back its soft
but widely-illuminating rays upon all that was once resplendent
in the whole past of this community, an historical light was
shed over all the truths of revelation and religion such as
nowhere else in all antiquity could be found, nay, rather such
as must soon penetrate even this antiquity everywhere by its
own excess of radiance.
2. Thus, then, was that fundamental thought historically
attested and transfigured. If the nation that possessed it and
bore its name was ever at any stage of its changeful life and
1 It is remarkable that, according to the Pentateuch, even Moses standing
already in the full sunshine of his whole historical elevation is overtaken,
although only by a moment of unbelief, and Abraham alone appears as perfectly
faultless. In the third division of the history greater anxiety and one-sidedness
prevail, as in departments of the spiritual life, so in historical narratives and
reminiscences, as the Chronicles compared with the corresponding older historical
books shows ; but how it is surmounted again by the first Book of Maccabees,
and then far more by the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles !
EWALD I. T

290 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
endeavour, transiently or more permanently, easily or with
more difficulty, hurried away by caprice, or arrogance, or any
other mistaken feeling, the same thought was an irresistible
means of correction and discipline, because it would then
become a question whether it still deserved the name under
whose radiant lustre it once became a nation. Just then,
therefore, the genuine prophets and other men like them arose
to make clear to the mind the glaring contradiction in which
the nation found itself with its own better destiny and its
sublime past, nay, with its own fundamental laws and vows,
old and yet ever new and ever binding. The idea of the
covenant relation as the most evident and obligatory in which
the relation between God and man can be conceived, or more
strictly speaking, between the true God and the nation that
had promised fidelity to Him, becomes then a luminous argu
ment against obvious aberrations and disloyalty ; the prophet
becomes the advocate of the violated true God and the accuser
of the nation, and the discussion of the most complicated
situations and most grievous offences, whether of the whole
nation or of some of its most powerful leaders, becomes an
open plain transaction in the light of that divine truth which
the audience itself acknowledges. Because the voice of the
prophets, or of any one who will express his thought in
prophet-like way, must now be heard without let or hindrance,
according to the essential constitution of the community, the
way was ever legitimately free upon which the inexhaustible
fulness and clear light of divine truth could more and more
be manifest, and could accomplish whatever might yet be
possible within the community as the change of the times and
continually new necessities permitted. And thus it was, above
all, the lofty straightforwardness and frankness of the prophetic
reproof, as it ever maintained itself subsequently in this com
munity amid altered circumstances, and at length through
Christ was transformed to gospel utterances in the mouth of
a Peter, a Stephen, or a Paul, which so powerfully contributed
to its further progress.

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 291
Now, in the different tendencies and movements possible
to human freedom, the law of contradiction involves that just
where the simplest, plainest, and therefore apparently the
heaviest demands are made upon the human will, there
opposition may assume the strongest form; where such
demands, in the presence of open and mischievous resistance,
must consequently rise higher and higher, there the opposition
becomes most obstinate; and the more unreservedly and
consistently the fundamental truth advancing unceasingly in
its direct course unfolds itself to its supreme point of develop
ment, there all such resistance may also show its boldest
possible front. And thus errors and offences against true
revelation and religion, whether in public life or in writings
of all kinds,1 are nowhere so apparent as in this nation, and
lamentations over the obstinacy of the people are nowhere so
increasingly loud,2 and against divine truths, as they became
more manifest, complete, and conspicuous, nowhere did so
decided and powerful a resistance show itself as here ; and
towards the end of each of the three great turning-points of
this entire long national history, this resistance grew from
stage to stage to the highest possible degree of force.3 But
that upon all these stages the divine truth was, on the other
hand, the more perseveringly maintained and the more con
sistently promoted ; that the increasing stiffneckedness was
gradually broken and overcome, even amid the direst tempta
tions and distresses, owing to the high measure of flexibility
1 The Pentateuch shows clear traces of manifold refractoriness, transparent
by their inner truth, History, ii. 239 ff. [Eng. trans, ii. 169 ff.]. So the New
Testament. Where, indeed, do doubts, refractorinesses, stiffneckednesses against
the truth already known, show themselves conspicuously in more or less artistic
discourse in the whole of ancient heathenism so strongly and openly as in Job,
in Ps. Ixxiii., in Malachi, Ecclesiastes, and still more in the New Testament ?
2 Only writers from the time of the divided kingdom onwards discourse
frequently of Israel's stiffneckedness, from Prov. xxix. 1 ; Ex. xxxii. 9 ff. ;
Deut. ix. 6, 13, x. 16, xxxi. 17, to Jeremiah, with the yet stronger words, Isa.
xlviii. 4, and others later.
3 At the end of the first turning-point such incidents as Judg. xvii. -xxi. are
not so properly thought of (they are from an earlier age) as of 1 Sam. ii. 22-25 ;
at the end of the second, Ezek. xvi. 22, where he speaks summarily ; at the
end of the third, the New Testament.

2 92 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
and pliantness of spirit induced by contemplation of the
clearly-known divine will ; and that thus there was added a
brilliant and numerous succession of witnesses of divine truth
revealing itself to the world, witnesses or martyrs equally great
in misfortune as in triumph, till, as the greatest witness J of all,'
Christ with His disciples closed the series, — all this was only
a further consequence of that fundamental thought.
3. Now it is the essential nature of every true fundamental
thought, that even wholly apart from the special historical occa
sion which first called it into being, it retains its inner truth and
fruitful influence wherever it is applicable. But where there
is no point of connection for it, it remains as certainly always
dead, although elsewhere it might long since live ; and that
in no heathen nation in antiquity, the longer human affairs
developed themselves, was there a place for such a thought
where it could have sprung forth with equal original energy,
and have prepared a sphere for its own evolution, is evident
from all that has previously been said (§52 ff). According
to the difficult course which all human movements take, when
once set on foot for the highest task of all human history,
only in Israel and during the existence of its national com
munity could such thought at last completely work itself out ;
but the true possibility for it was already given in Israel's more
definite constitution as it was fixed (p. 284) from the beginning
of the community. For it was never said that every individual
member of the nation, although he should sink down into an
unholy life, should in any case belong to this " holy nation ; "
for excommunication was known and practised even in the
oldest period of the community.2 In this way it was under
stood for all time that in its ultimate fulness the promise of
blessing in this as in every other divine utterance prac
tically falls to the lot of those members of the community
only who fulfil its conditions. Since, therefore, in the course
1 Christ Himself is distinguished from all others as "the true witness,"
Rev. i. 5 ; cf. Johan. Schrift. ii. 105 f.
2 Antiquities, 101 ff. [Eng. trans. 75 ff.].

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 293
of time, amid all the never-failing trials and afflictions, it was
more and more clearly shown how few at all perfectly fulfilled
these conditions, a threefold conviction established itself from
an early period in this community, viz. (1) that inasmuch as
in no God but Jahveh Himself, so also in no other community
is that salvation to be found which is the one ultimate aim
and the indispensable hope of all true revelation and religion ; a
(2) this salvation is never lost in this community, but rather
out of all its temporal imperfection will ever arise again still
more powerfully to its last great perfection ; but (3) just as
well in its efficacy as in the hope of it, this salvation belongs
to the approved fragment or " remnant " 2 only of the actual
people of this community, and therefore also to all men who
fulfil its already established and eternally necessary conditions,
for with the distinction of the spiritual Israel from its con
trary, mere nationality with its outward limitations is already
in point of fact broken.
Accordingly it was the Messianic hopes, with their new
wonderful leverage for consummating everything that is yet
incomplete in the ultimate vocation of this community, and
for reforming everything that has become defective and per
verse in its historical situation, which as a remote result sprang
forth out of its fundamental thought. And thus, after the
sultriness of the high mid-day of its history had made per
ceptible enough how much that was necessary was yet wanting
to constitute it more emphatically and more surely, and not
merely in name, a holy nation, the great prophets arose in
long and varied series, rivalhng with each other, and yet
essentially agreeing in pointing out in luminous imagery and
in demanding in struggles of soul, as it were, from the future
the perfected salvation of this community and the Perfecter
Himself; until in the sluggish course of the last period of
this history, when these Messianic hopes gradually threatened
1 A double-thought, by no writer so profoundly apprehended and so impres
sively set forth as by the great Unnamed, Isa. xl.-lxvi.
2 P. 265 f.

294 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
to languish, Christ with His disciples at last fulfilled them
most completely so far as in their time they were to be
fulfilled, vigorously recalling the fundamental thought of the
community, creating out of it for the entire body of mankind
a holy nation, and leaving its further growth to that power,
not till then wholly conspicuous (§ 83), the power of the
Holy Spirit, which alone, as it must work in Christianity, can
maintain and perpetuate a holy nation.
§ 88. In all this there is continuity, a single great history
in spite of all deviations and entanglements ever returning
afresh and finally perfecting itself upon its chief fundamental
lines. This nation, in its first entrance into the great history
of the world, had too truly experienced wherein lie the energy
and work and the salvation of a true revelation and religion ;
it had accustomed itself since its first firm consolidation
as an organized and well-ordered community, with too much
difficulty at the outset, too deeply afterwards, to the laws and
institutions of such a religion and to the rights and duties of
its community ; it had subsequently in a long and changeful
history, by all its new offences and their issues, and by all
the gains and losses of its earthly state, ever at last recognised
anew the sole fundamental thought of its spiritual hfe as too
well-grounded and too conformable with truth, to be able in
its inner feehng and clearest perception ever to abandon it
again. From a shepherd tribe it had become a settled nation ;
from a simple, thoroughly warlike people it had become an
eager sharer in scientific and sceptical wisdom, and all the
finest arts and practices of a tranquil and peaceful life, even
finding at times its highest joy therein; from cleaving to its
native clod it had been thrown into all the world, and had
accustomed itself to the widest intercourse, and yet had
assembled again on its old sacred soil as the dearest spot of
earth; and from regarding the heathen with dread, it had
become from various motives more and more familiar with the
great heathen world ; and yet in all these transmutations it
was ever the same revealed word of God which formed its bond

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 295
of union, the same fundamental thought which sustained and
supported it, the same true God who was held to be its highest
good of life and its inalienable heirloom ; J whom it sang in
its martial youth as its sole God of war and giver of victory ; 2
whom it found again in the age of its wisdom as the spring
of all knowledge and the light of all life,8 whom it cherished
continually in its deepest sorrows with new and wonderful
fervour, and celebrated to all the heathen at the commence
ment of its great dispersion with even greater courage -as the
only true God,* and whom it would never really forsake in
the darkest labyrinths of its latest life.5 So completely did
the highest truths of all revelation and religion, as well as the
related problems of all knowledge, penetrate deeper and deeper
into the whole life of this nation. What Moses and the great
prophets first published as the sure word of God was immor
talized in the actual life of the whole nation in home and
kingdom, in charming reminiscence and sweetest refrain, by
the flowing song of innumerable singers ; was investigated,
sifted, deepened by the schools of wisdom, and transfigured by
the rare art of sublimest poets and practised writers of all
kinds. All higher life of the spirit concentrated itself, there
fore, with this people more and more upon the one endeavour,
to protect and to maintain the more carefully that which it
had perceived to be the highest good of its life, and whereby
it found itself placed, with an ever clearer consciousness, high
above all the heathen ; and also to search into it, and in its
1 According to the fine but originally purely poetic figures, Ps. xvi. 5 f.,
cxlii. 6; Jer. x. 16 (li. 19).
2 Ex. xv. 1-18, xvii. 16; Judg. v.; Ps. xviii. and the rest of the Davidic
Psalms ; also 1 Sam. ii. 1-10.
3 According to Prov. xiv. 27 ; cf. with Ps. xxxvi. 10 ; Jer. ii. 13, xvii. 13 ;
Prov. xx. 27 ; Ps. xxvii. 1, xxxvi. 10 ; cf. with Isa. x. 16 ; Micah vii. 8 ;
Bar. iii. 24-iv. 3.
* As is evident not merely from Isa. xl.-lxvi., but also from many psalms of
those days ; among them, however, are some much older than that long pro
phetic book.
5 Taking all the three great Roman wars, that after Herod's death, that under
Titus, that under Hadrian, and also that against Christ and His disciples, and
the truth of these words will be found.

296 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
truth defend it against all doubts whencesoever they might
come. Thus its glance and its judgment were on this side
sharpened more and more in the long lapse of centuries, as if
it were to be among all nations the only properly God-taught
or theological nation. And the more the external power of
the nation sank at last into gradual and irrevocable decline,
not solely because of, yet indisputably side by side with this
eager direction of its energy to, so to speak, divine life-ques
tions, and the all-absorbing heated internal controversies
about them, the more profoundly and exclusively it felt itself
charged and summoned to maintain the spiritual boon, for
such it certainly believed it, which had fallen to its lot from
the hand of God.
§ 8 9. Yet the plainest proof of all this is that this nation
was very early, with sufficient clearness and certainty to
itself, impelled by its own true God to recognise as the
highest and last aim of its life the maintenance of this very
blessing and its diffusion among the nations. The inner
fulness of knowledge of the true God, and the readiness to
live according to His word alone, grown stronger and more
concentrated during so many centuries, at length, in the time
of the ripening fruit, pressed toward the world without ; and
when this nation in the Assyrian-Babylonish dispersion had
so deeply experienced the corruption of the heathen, and the
danger of losing entirely under their yoke its own better
knowledge and activity, it felt itself for the first time
summoned by its God, as with the loudest voice, to serve
Him as an instrument in spreading His name and His honour
among all the heathen. It was, as may truly be said, the first
and most mighty stirring of the Holy Spirit itself, entering
as it did at that time into the consciousness of this nation,
which impelled it to recognise this vocation as the last and
highest aim of its whole life j1 and if this, the divinest
1 Nothing can arise more creatively than this new thought as it came to the
great Unnamed, Isa. xl.-lxvi., who at the close, lxi. 1, cf. with xlviii. 16, not
in vain appeals to the Spirit of God as no older prophet had done.

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 297
aspiration of its whole earthly existence and every other
that waited for consummation, could not be adequately and
certainly fulfilled until Christ Himself, in the limits of this
community, had brought the inner perfecting, it found its
fulfilment at once the more irresistibly in order spontaneously
to seal the dissolution of the perishing old community, and
its transition to that which was hew and imperishable.
Indeed, about those. times, when the whole ancient world was
in a state of dissolution, great numbers of priests of Isis, of
advocates of the heathenism of Asia Minor and other old
and celebrated systems, and of Chaldaean mathematicians,
forced their way from the East to the West, which was eager
for such innovations ; but a pure energy of the spirit impelled
those only who had received the divine call into the West
as into the whole heathen world.
The question is therefore no longer asked, why only in
this ancient nation true revelation and religion moved on to
their proper goal, and rounded the course marked out for
them in antiquity ? It is no longer asked why Christ and
His disciples could go forth only from this nation — at once
its greatest and most immortal glory, and its last and deepest
divine humiliation ? The nobler and more distinguished of
the other nations of antiquity, each allowed some other high
endeavour and task to be dearest to its heart, and to absorb
its most earnest efforts ; no one of them applied itself to the
problem which filled the whole being of Israel with increasing
purity and strength. By pursuing the end which appeared
the highest, each attained fruits of imperishable value ; but no
one of them attained, as did this, a fruit of such indispensable
and eternal value in relation to all other nobler human aims.
§ 90. But as we must here close, not so much with the
perishable nation of Israel as with the growth of the wonder
working power of the Holy Spirit, whose high significance we
shall still further consider in the discussion of Holy Scripture,
just as definitely must we make it conspicuous that this power,
even where it enters into history in its highest manifestation,

298 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
as in Christianity, is never active without conflict against
heathenism, indispensable everywhere (§ 61), as heathenism
is explained above. This marvellous power is the freest and
most mighty, but also the purest spring and impetus of the
force with which this irremissible conflict is to be waged ; so
that whether it is as free, powerful, and pure in its impetus
as it must be if it is really the power of the Holy Spirit, can
clearly be perceived by this, — does it actually direct itself
against heathenism, or have heathen errors and impulses
possibly intermixed themselves with it ? For this sacred
power in man, like everything spiritual that moves him,
may be again obscured and confused.
Here then is the most important fact to be noted, viz.
that Christianity as soon as it appeared became deeply and
seriously involved in the conflict against the principle of
heathenism ; so little did it originate in part from heathenism,
according to the grave error of some modern scholars (§77 f.),
that at once in its freshest youth, as we see it in the New
Testament, it struggled most profoundly and sincerely against
it. What was the whole wide aberration of scribes and
Pharisees against which Christ and His disciples had unremit
tingly to contend, but a most dangerous outbreak of an
element of heathenism, not, however, coming from without ?
But in those centuries, when the old community by its own
error deeply declined, various heathen superstitions pressed
in from without ; and the whole demonism which Christ
combated as no one before Him had done was essentially
nothing else.1 Moreover, the endeavour to amalgamate
isolated propositions and truths of the true religion which at
that time sought to penetrate the great heathen world so
powerfully from the old community, with propositions of
heathen school-wisdom, or indeed with the allurements of the
more subtle arts of superstition described above (§68 f.), was
1 To what is said in the History, v. 292 f. [Eng. trans, vi. 221 f.J may be
added, Philostratus' Life of Apollonius, iii. 38-40, iv. 20, 45 ; and Plotinus'
Enneads, II. ix. 14.

THE RISE OF THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 299
quite a common occurrence in those times. These attempts
rapidly increased as the ngw knowledge of Christianity,
deeply agitating and putting to so high a strain the minds
of men, overran the world, and the first germs of gnostic
false doctrine of every complexion appeared. We know how
much the apostle had to contend against manifold species of
this newly tricked-out heathenism.1 The wonderful power of
the Holy Spirit was active at that time as the genuinely
Christian power, and its genuineness might be recognised
perfectly as it directed itself against everything heathen, and
did not allow itself to be obscured by it.
1 The cases in Acts viii. 9-24, xiii. 6-12, xix. 11-19, may be taken. If
that Syrian magician Barjesus (p. 229) sought to fascinate his victim with a
glance, the apostle's threatening him with divine blindness is explained. What
is the strife against Gnosticism, beginning in apostolic times and showing its
elements in the New Testament, and subsequently rising higher and higher, but
the powerful conflict of youthful Christianity, breaking away from everything
heathen which would take possession of it because of the great essential freedom
native to it !

PAET III.
REVELATION IN THE BIBLE.
§ 91. rriHAT the revelation of the way in which the perfect
-L true religion must exist among men could only
be won in the ancient nation of Israel, stands now historically
established, as previously explained. Just as undeniable is it,
that in the higher historical connection in which all members
of humanity and, as the chief members, the nations stand to
one another, no true spiritual good obtained by one people is
to remain useless and unfruitful to others. The greater such
a good is, and the more inexhaustible its value, the more is it
destined to pass over to all nations, and to serve for incal
culable ages as the means of advancement and salvation.
But of what significance this boonJ is, and how, when once
surely obtained in one nation, it is to serve to all for the same
firm basis of eternal ever-progressive salvation, is shown above
at the end of the first principal sections (§ 48-50). Now in
the right use of such a boon, the longer it is properly
employed the more is it indifferent from what men or nation
it has been transmitted to later times ; just as we use the fine
completeness of the arithmetical notation, unknown to the
Greeks and Eomans, without thinking very much that we owe
this advantage to Arabians at present so deeply degraded, and
more remotely to the ingenuity of the Hindoos. But if such
a boon in its whole historical significance and its true nature
and extent is recognisable perfectly by modern nations only
from the carefully preserved writings of an ancient nation, it
is indispensable to investigate and to understand those writings
thoroughly ; indispensable first of all for those who are re-

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 301
garded as the special administrators of this boon for the rest,
and who take upon themselves in so far special duties, and
further, for such also as seek by their own investigation to be
assured how the boon is rightly administered, and whether
it is so by those who are specially called to administer it.
This is the case here, since according to § 2 we have had
for a long time no other historical means than the Bible by
which to satisfy ourselves of the nature and content of true
religion as it has been revealed. And the investigation must
here turn specifically upon three questions carefully to be
considered; —
First, upon the question what the Bible is in itself, con
templated as a collection of different writings ; how it arose,
and what actually belongs to it. In this special science we
nevertheless do not desire to teach how the Scripture of the
old Israelitish nation is to be explained in language and
substance ; how it has grown from time to time as a whole
and in special parts, and what contents in particular it com
prehends ; nor how the smaller part now called the Bible has
separated itself at length from its wide circumference, and has
been preserved up to our times ; these are three very compre
hensive subjects of inquiry and knowledge, properly included
under the science called at present with good reason " Intro
duction." Everything belonging to that department of inquiry
we presuppose here. Nevertheless we must here touch upon
as much in the wide circuit of this science as is indispensable
from the intimate connection of everything that is to be said
on this subject.
Secondly, however, a wholly different question arises which
belongs entirely to the science here under consideration, since
it refers immediately to the nature of revelation. Everything
we rightly call revelation consists as to its contents, (a) of
words concerning God and the relation as well of the universe
as of men to Him and His will, words which were spoken
or written down by men whom we briefly designate revealers ;
and (b) of the deeds and fortunes first of these revealers who

302 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
standing in closest connection with such divine words, must
be regarded as clear witnesses to the world of their truth ; and
then also (c) of the deeds and fortunes of the whole people in
whose community and for whom they workedi For only in
the full accord of these three elements lies the full and certain
witness that the divine truths of which we here speak, as of
that which is obligatory on men, in those human ages and
relations were actually manifest in such a manner that we
have not still to expect what is higher and truer as the guide
of conduct. What we call revelation is therefore the divine
truth as it reveals itself to men with its own peculiar force
in the first instance, and by consequence also operates in a
purely creative manner in the course of human affairs ; nay,
it is as a force and impulse, the most independent and
powerful that can lay hold of the human spirit and determine
it to corresponding action. But the Bible as it has come
down to us, contemplated as a whole, does not give this
original and immediate stream of revelation ; it contains por
tions too various and at first sight too little in agreement
with each other ; many portions, moreover, which only remotely
from that highest aim serve to impart to us pure divine truth,
and finally it stands as literature far away from the original
activity and first marked occurrence of revelation, which is the
chief and most important point. For revelation permits those
nearest to it in place and time to hear in their original clear
sentences the words which flow forth from the lips of the
revealers, and enables them to behold immediately in those
revealers, and in the whole nation in which they worked,
correspondent deeds and destinies. All literature which
discourses of revelation is, on the contrary, somewhat more
remote and mediate, with respect to which we ask only how
far it is adequate as a mere means of giving to us the pure
and perfect image of the original revelation. Therefore we
cannot evade the question, how far the Bible, taken for what
it is and must be, answers its aim as a means of representing
to us the original truth and splendour of revelation.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 303
Thirdly, the reply to the question why just these books
retained in this collection we now call the Bible are recog
nised as sacred, belongs to this place, in conjunction with the
other question how in that case we are to understand and
employ more particularly the idea of sanctity.
In answering these three questions the whole subject here
to be handled will be compassed. But since our present
concern is rather with the many proper points of view from
which the Bible has to be contemplated and employed in
relation to revelation and religion, we most easily arrange
everything relevant here concerning the historical development
of the Scripture, and at the same' time correspondingly to the
nature of the subject, according to the following considerations
successively : —
I. 1. What preceded all Holy Scripture.
§ 92. Now it is especially clear that revelation itself in its
entire movement and in its highest effort is prior to all that
is sacred, and also to Scripture itself. Bevelation is the
original force which in this domain first puts everything in
motion ; it existed already in the most distant primitive ages
before Moses, when yet very little or nothing at all was
written ; it existed also after Moses, when writing was
employed in the community with increasing frequency ; it
determined for a long time its whole spiritual life originally
and creatively; and to it, as the starting-point, everything
ultimately returns. Indeed, it may be said that at first
between revelation and Scripture no connection was found, no
link necessarily uniting both. It may be compared in this
aspect of it with poetry as another original faculty of the
human spirit, whose similarity has already been pointed out
(p. 10 f.).
But so far as revelation in the old community from the
time of its founding occurred chiefly in prophecy, and prophecy
had the principal share in the public guidance of the nation,

304 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
it stepped forth into the wide publicity of the whole national
life from the first. The highest affairs of the community as
they took shape in the changes of the times became the great
permanent sphere of its activity; an abundance of great
prophets worked, vieing with each other with their purely
spiritual power ; and as the market-places of Athens or Eome
echoed with the public discourses of great orators, so in this
community the public places by the sanctuary and elsewhere
were resonant with the voices of the prophets ; J only with
this difference, the prophets spoke in a kingdom that was laid
under obligation to remain ever faithful to the true God, and
they always entered upon the scene chiefly as His public
advocates. Had revelation at any time degenerated as deeply
in this community as the oracle did among the heathen, it
would just as little have borne the freest publicity as the
oracle ; but it was plainly distinguished from all heathenism
in that, as the pure truth, it demanded as well as bore the
greatest publicity. The great Unnamed among the prophets,
glancing back, however, to all older prophetic revelation in
Israel, expresses this briefly and expressively from the mouth
of Jahveh Himself in the words,2 —
" Not in secret discoursed I, in a corner of a dark land. "
We no longer know exactly how Moses himself made his
appearance as a prophet among the people. His mode of
presenting himself changed, indeed, with the times. From
the Pentateuch 3 it is evident that when he had become the
great recognised national leader, and spoke to the people as
such, or rather Aaron for him, there was such change of
manner. But in those centuries when revelation worked most
1 The form of such discourses of the great prophets as Joel i. 12, Hos. iv.,
Isa. i. , ii. , v. , Micah i. and vi. 1, 9, Jer. vii. 2 ff. , is significant ; the poet, Prov.
i. 20, viii. 1, borrows his lofty images from this source ; and, moreover, Amos
vii. f., Isa. xxix. 21, Jer. vii. -xliv., speak sufficiently of their public discourses.
2 Isa. xiv. 19.
3 History, ii. 250-255, 315 f. [Eng. trans, ii. 177-181, 223 f.]; Antiquities,
421 f. [Eng. trans. 318]. The reminiscences of the Pentateuch clearly indicate
that in his appearing Moses was a wholly different prophet from the later ones.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE, 305
perfectly, and the life of the old nation was yet wholly
independent, it was in the way just described that revelation
developed itself, that is, amid the freest publicity of the
entire national life; and this would not have been possible
had it not taken such a position in the community from the
first. But in this, as in everything else, the end corresponded
to so high a beginning and so luminous a middle period, ,
surpassing, however, in its inner perfection everything that
had preceded it. For what can be more public and open
than the whole work of Christ, notwithstanding that in His
day the old independence and freedom of the nation had long
since disappeared ? The double rule of the Bomans and
Herod oppressed the land, and in addition the scribes and
Pharisees put their ban upon conscience. But men like the
Baptist, and afterwards Christ with His disciples, made use
once more of the original freedom and publicity existing in
this community by the fundamental law of revelation and
religion. Ever since its leadership by Moses, this nation, not merely
in politics, as was the case with many other Semitic and with
Graeco-Italian nations, but also in religion, had allowed itself
great openness, freedom, and frankness of life, and it could
not live otherwise. The whole first thousand years of its
existence passes away while it is engaged in the highest task
which could be committed to the mind and heart of a nation
in antiquity, viz. by profound inquiry, free knowledge, open
self-determination to bring its politics and its religion into
perfect harmony ; and when at length, during the long last
centuries of its life, it lost its political freedom more and more
irrevocably, it at least held fast with much tenacity, within
the protecting limits of its community, freedom and pubhcity
in all matters of religion. In this the nation stood alone in
antiquity; and if pecuhar dangers and ills were occasioned
by such openness, there was in this, as in every similar case,
the compensation of still. higher blessing in that, once for all,
in the highest affairs of human life, it had the courage not to
ewald I. u

306 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
shun the light, and it could not again depart from this settled
constitution of its public hfe.
A clear and vivid conception of this whole relation of all
revelation in Israel to public activity is most essential. No
where during the earlier centuries is there anything said of
Scripture, or at least of Holy Scripture. Even the Ten
Commandments were first received by the whole people
purely by word of mouth, and by word of mouth were
approved by them ; their committal to writing, as the oldest
reminiscences clearly attest,1 was of later occurrence. From
the nature and designation of Scripture it is thus very manifest
that no greater, no more irreconcilable contrariety is to be
conceived than that between the true revelation, as the Bible
shows it to us, and Islamism, which from the first is based
upon its sacred writings as its foundation. Whence this
sharp distinction arises will be considered more particularly
below ; here, however, it is necessary to make the distinction
itself conspicuous in its fuU importance.
2. The General Relation of Scripture to the National Life.
§ 93. Now the question the Bible raises is not at all a
question of a mere manuscript, or of some special sacred
fragments of a manuscript, as in the case of the Koran, but
rather of such a vast multitude of books, diversified in character,
yet all regarded as sacred, and handed down to us as sacred,
that when we speak of it we can speak at once of a whole
body of literature. If we consider, therefore, according to
our previous remarks, the relation of the literature of a nation
to the entire movement and development of its life, we find
everywhere, both among ancient and modern nations, that it
may be an exceedingly potent lever, incomparable of its kind,
for the advancement and culture of the spiritual life of a
people, but only with the coincidence of many other circum
stances favourable to it. It is idle to expect from the best
1 Ex. xix., cf. with xxiv.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 307
writing much influence with a nation little familiar with
letters or practised in their use ; idle, too, to commend a
composition to it as sacred and authenticated, if it knows
nothing of sacred writings or desires to know nothing of them.
One of the vain fancies and delusions of our journal writers
to-day is that public opinion, or at least such a public opinion
as shall be of real use and steady continuance, can be created
by mere books and newspapers. All literature is rather only
one of the many intellectual forces which contribute to the
guidance and culture as well of the individual man as of an
entire nation and age ; it is never once an original power
laying hold of the spirit with direct energy, but it arises
slowly, is late in coming to* perfection, and impresses men in
different ways, not by itself, but by its good or bad contents,
since, indeed, all literature is in itself only a means for
attaining other ends. As a single and not at all primary
spiritual power, hterature only follows the far more potent and
originally energetic aspirations and efforts of the human mind
as they appear chiefly and specially in different stages of the
life and aim of a nation, and ultimately also in periods when
a higher impulse of universal humanity as it stands above
them is fully pursued by separate nations. All this may be
recognised the more surely among the oldest and earliest-
cultured nations, the more everything is developed in their
midst from its original sources. We may trace it also in the
ancient nation of the true revelation and religion as plainly
as possible, if we only follow exactly the historical indications
which may with sufficient certainty be discovered.
1. Has a nation experienced something great and noble in
its history, has it won and victoriously maintained its freedom,
or better still, has it proved itself to possess the persistent
courage to break the old inward bonds of its spiritual life, and
subject itself to a legal constitution in which restraint is
placed on base impulses and passions, literature will then
acquire in its midst a new significance and authority; and
should it have had up to that time little practice in letters,

308 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
and little pleasure therein, independent and creative minds at
once readily rise up to make use of this agency for the nation's
permanent elevation and instruction. Individual inclination
and necessity co-operate happily to this end. The new laws
and organization of public hfe must be perpetuated for
constant use, and this is best done by writing. The over
flowing stream of memorials of great experiences of life is
collected from the wide flood of national songs and oral
narratives into the firm channel of written composition for
enduring remembrance ; even for admonition and instruction
in new dangers of the national life, the living word begins
now gradually to avail itself also of the more widely-reaching
literary publication.
That writing was known among the people of Israel before
the time of Moses, and was apphed to manifold needs, we now
know with sufficient certainty ; but their literature, rightly so
called, without doubt commenced with the sublime age of
Moses, and in the immediately succeeding centuries was
further developed in various ways. It is self-evident, how
ever, that since the spiritual life of this nation, after the
founding under Moses of its religious community, began
directly to take a direction quite peculiar to itself, and soared
to a height unknown to the rest of the nations of those days ;
its hterature also, from its first rise onward, could not but be
wholly different from that common in the world of the nations
up to that time, alike in contents, in import, and in spirit ;
and that it was so is fully attested by the few but genuine
fragments of the literature of Israel that have come down to
us from those earliest centuries, and are found in various
parts of the Old Testament. Just as we have here a nation,
wholly different from any other anywhere else upon earth,
securing its formation and culture in this remote antiquity,
so we have also a literature shaped and fashioned under a
spirit, and thence also with results wholly different from
those of foreign or of other Semitic, nations, although in
external literary forms Israel followed the old models of

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 309
earlier Semitic culture. Where do we find in all the hterature
of those ages a fragment comparable in contents with the Ten
Commandments, and at the same time in such good preserva
tion ? Where is there a composition like the responsive song
of Deborah, sweUing with such inward force and magnificence
notwithstanding all ancient severity ? Or like the oldest
prophetic warning of Israel, still preserved ?J
§ 94. 2. Meanwhile, in no ancient nation possessing a
peculiar literature known to us to-day in its whole range, do
we see the different possible branches and arts of literature
developing themselves perfectly in the earliest age, even
should this age extend through many centuries : the germs
capable of highest growth lying in every literature once
vigorously flourishing are too numerous to ripen all of them
in one outburst. We see this in the case of Chinese, Indian,
and Greek hterature, and we see it also in the case of Hebrew
literature. When the people of Israel towards the end of the
time of the judges, half broken up as they were, learned to
reconcile the greatness and strength of a lawful human
government with the purely divine to which they had been
accustomed ; when under the kingly rule they felt themselves
transformed to a wholly new energetic nation, reached in
national power, in prosperity, and in aptness for government
the highest point attainable in their mortal state, acquired
a taste for the more exact knowledge of all nations and
kingdoms and treasures and peculiarities of the broad earth,
for universal science and for all kinds of higher art, and
entered upon a competition in these pursuits with the most
cultured of the older nations ; and when by this wholly new
elevation of their earthly life they became exposed to the new
grave danger of losing altogether the foundation of all divine
life already won, — then it was that their literature renewed,
uplifted, and broadened itself with a surprising rapidity and
marvellous power, and unfolded its wealth in the succeeding
three or four centuries to the highest perfection which, so to
1 Ex. xxiii. 20-33.

310 revelation; its nature and RECORD.
speak, was within its reach. In all this it followed only the
new wonderful impulse which at the beginning of this whole
historical period energetically seized the better minds of this-
people, and which, allying itself and blending with the eternal
and divine elements already historically possessed, brought as
the result this double glory. If this glory could not be
unfolded, however, but as that new impulse seized the whole
nation more and more deeply, yet it must be remembered
that after all it is only spiritual incitements and powers
which form the basis and entire structure of a literature, and
upon whose special character its special value depends. But
here these incitements and powers were the creative thoughts
and pure energies of true revelation and rehgion which,
inherited unenfeebled from the previous age of the com
munity, passed over into the new state of things and into the
new impulse of their hterature, and sought and found in that
literature the finest and most perfect expression possible.
Springing immediately from the warm glow of this new
inspiration were the immortal songs of David and his
imitators, which diffused the charm of a sublimity and dignity
and a deep fervour and tenderness, with the polish of a
perfected art, over all the Hebrew lyric poetry, so that it
remains unsurpassed by the lyric poetry of all ancient nations.
All other kinds of poetry also flourished at this time with an
inward exuberant fulness of power and splendour. Didactic
poetry transfigured the selectest fruits of independent wisdom
or philosophy ; dramatic poetry, in its lower form as comedy,
sharply castigated the follies of the day in playful mood, in
its higher form as tragedy addressed itself to high earnest
problems of the relation of man to God and God to man ; and
the drama of Job, notwithstanding its simphcity, surpasses all
the later Greek tragedies in sublimity of conception and depth
of feeling, just as the true revelation and religion of this
nation are superior to those of the Greeks. Moreover,
historical composition displayed its strength early in every
direction to satisfy the higher needs as they arose. In the

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 311
Book of Origins it attempted about the beginning of this tune
to fill up the outline of all old histories of men, and of
nations, of customs and laws, from the creation, downwards,
and the result was so complete, so luminous, so worthy of the
high theme, that neither a Herodotus nor a Livy can be put
in the scale against it. In later- times it undertook to call
back into remembrance in graphic narrative the gigantic con
flict between the new kingly and the old prophetic power in
Israel. These were only two of the principal directions it
followed. The knowledge of the separate objects of creation
found its literature also, but owing to causes mentioned below
we are not now adequately informed of the more particular
contents of it. Indeed, it is the nature of all literature, once
carried forward to a higher stage of cultivation, and sustained
in further progress by the expanding capacity of a nation
nourished upon its fruits, to endeavour to bring within its
scope everything in which the desire of knowledge can find
interest. In the meantime, whilst hterature advanced thus on all
sides with such creative force and originality to its purest
perfection, there sprang forth in the nation a wholly new
offshoot, which had nowhere its like in the works of any other
ancient people, and which in Israel itself was destined to
overshadow all other achievements of its literary activity.
This was prophecy. In the age when the new kingly power,
after it had won its highest merit and brightest glory as
deliverer of a nation almost disorganized, was already
succumbing to the danger of abusing its authority thus
gained, prophecy developed rapidly and to high excellence ;
and the entire conflict between these two chief independent
powers — a conflict possible in the midst of this community in
the mid-day of its history — attained its sultry height. If the
prophets of Israel, and most of all those of these centuries
(§ 26-33), are unique in character, it is easily understood
that the literature which sprang from this lofty conflict has
nowhere its equal in all antiquity. And the more the con-

312 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
flfct concerning the perfecting of all true religion became
gradually the deepest and most vital thought of which this
people was'X'.onscious as of the best part of its life, — a conflict
whose mightiest lever the prophets always were, — the more
highly significant must, this new branch of literature become.
For it sprang as no other did from the conflict of the hour,
from the pressing momentary needs of the higher life of man,
and may be compared with the daily stream of pamphlets of
our time, or with those wonderful Epistles which ardent toil
changing every day wrung from the Apostle- Baul. From
prophecy, therefore1, all Hebrew literature first received its
peculiar impress and acquired its inestimable worth ; it was
not earliest in the field, but it could not but become the firm
substantial centre from which all the brightest radiations of
Hebrew thought streamed forth.
§ 95. 3. But this whole literature must assume, in many
respects, a very different attitude and form when the nation
itself, from the ninth century before Christ, was gradually
and unremittingly with violence and completeness torn from
its native soil, just after its happiest condition had come to it
there, and was scattered in the midst of the heathen. Its
literature, cultivated to its perfection through so many
centuries, was now too dear and too much a part of its life
not to be found a priceless treasure and source of consolation
in the Captivity ; and the most pious were always, to be sure,
the most assiduous in the preservation and in the study of the
best of these books. In the thoughts and prayers and songs
of the Exiles many of the old tones are heard again in new
strains ; and that a great number of the songs then collected
in the psalter were composed in those times, earlier or later,
and in those regions outside Palestine, we know to-day,
after close inquiry, with sufficient certainty. But the same
investigation has taught us that even apart from Ezekiel's
great book not a small number of prophetic writings originated
in the " strange land," called forth as it were by the powerful
after- working of the genuinely Hebrew '¦ literature of the

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 313
earher prophets with all its imperishable richness and high
culture, and yet were sufficiently independent and original to
obtain equal estimation with many of the best works of the
former period.1 Indeed, we are able to mark a new feature
which is important in relation to the history and significance
of this whole literature of the ancient nation. Members of
the community who felt themselves prophetically inspired in
the strange land, if they delivered their divine utterances in
the old way, could find few hearers or none at all ; but they
felt themselves irresistibly impelled nevertheless to put their
words in circulation, and they therefore wrote them down at
once, perhaps as whole pieces and books, and sent them forth
into the world as shorter or longer pamphlets (the name is
not to be feared), certain that they would find consideration
enough from all who were sufficiently prepared to understand
them. And the result shows us to-day what a rare influence
must have proceeded from many of them.2 For the first time
in the history of this literature we have here therefore clear
and evident examples how words and speech, without having
been spoken in public, as was formerly the case, at least in
their chief purport, and even without bearing the name of
the author, can nevertheless purely by their own beauty and
truth at once exert a rare influence. This is possible ; but
it can occur only when literature has long since become one
of the first needs of a nation. But if such wholly special
circumstances are present as in this case, it finds in its
explanation its defence as well.
For many reasons it is best carefully to separate this whole
powerful new stream of writings as it must have poured itself
once into the wide lands ; all the most important of them
must naturally have found their way into Palestine sufficiently
early, and increased the already broad volume of the rest as,
1 The Book of Nahum is the first clear example of this. Cf. Proph.
of A. T.
2 The Book of the great Unnamed affords the chief example of this, Isa.
xl.-lxvi. ; it was evidently first compiled from several pamphlets by the same
author. '

314 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
indeed, they were preserved along with them ; but historically
they can be again understood with sufficient certainty, and
rightly estimated only as they are thus separated. They
represent a first great powerful echo of the loftiest notes of
that earlier genuinely Hebrew literature without which they
could not have originated. But in other respects they are
fully inspired by the breath of the most genuine revelation
and religion peculiar to this people ; and some portions of
them are of equal rank with the earliest in creative originality
and power.
§ 96. 4. As soon as the remnants of a larger community
of the old nation found themselves firmly settled in the
ancient home again, the activity of its literature, so peculiarly
cultivated for a thousand years, reawoke also in its old way ;
and the first elements of the community chiefly that, sustained
by august Messianic hopes, gathered about the new temple in
Jerusalem, raised this literature once more in all its branches
to its ancient elevation. Nevertheless, the new literary
impulse was but as the fine evening-glow of a bright day in
which the purest and mightiest forces of the true revelation
and religion had produced their master-works. In the suc
ceeding centuries, as the old spirit of the community declined
from stage to stage, and the original power of revelation was
more and more enfeebled while religion became proportionately
formal and dull, the characteristic literature of the people
could less and less retain its old pure elevation ; and during
the prophetless time a literary spirit prevailed in which a lofty
creative originality was conspicuously wanting. For a long
time, indeed, the inherent energy of all true revelation and
deeper religion reacted salutarily, forming as it did the inde
structible constituent principle of this community, and ever
breaking forth afresh, vitalized anew by the old literature
whose more important parts were now collected and pondered
with growing zeal ; only very slowly did the spirit that had
vivified it earlier disappear from the national literature, which
nevertheless lived and according to the needs and expedients

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 315
of the age became extremely fruitful again ; and in the declining
stream of these centuries there still emerged many a compo
sition as if newly created by the purest impulse and inspira
tion of the ancient time.1 But in the main the wide and
varied hterature of these later days was but an aftergrowth
of the best literature of the community, more and more feeble
in conception and degenerate in spirit.
Influences from without are closely connected with this
declension within. As these last centuries came to their
close, and the life of the community was thrown into greater
confusion, the disposition increased to give precedence to the
literature of the foreign nations who swayed the destinies of
the time, and the wider the diffusion among the heathen the
greater was the blending of the style and manner of heathen
models. When the resuscitation which the Maccabsean age
brought both to the whole nation and its literature was attended
With no results of permanent advantage ; when also the most
ambitious poetic authorship of the time assumed the dress of
the Sibylline oracles, and a man like Philo in Alexandria
knew only how to flavour the old native wisdom of Israel with
the Greek in order to make it palatable, — then death itself, one
may well imagine, must have already cut the lengthened life-
thread of this literature once so wonderfully proud, and for so
long a period running its mighty course.
§ 97. 5. But when Christianity appeared, at once the
inner and immortal life of this people, grown grey with years,
rose again in literature also, and the risen Christ wrought this
marvel. Indeed, it may be truly said that Christianity,
bringing, as was shown above, the fitting conclusion in the
development of revelation and religion, gave also to this
literature the true perfection. It is of no moment that in
the new literature which streamed forth from its inmost heart
in the early years, the Greek tongue was soon exclusively
1 The Book of Daniel, the oldest contents of the Book of Enoch, the first
Book of Maccabees, and the Book of Wisdom may be mentioned ; but, alas !
many that must have had a quickening influence were subsequently lost.

31.6 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
prevalent ; the spirit from which it flowed is the most genuine
and at the same time the dearest and mightiest that ever
breathed in the literature of this people. It is of no moment
also, in this most important aspect of it, that through the new
stream of writings there ran two clearly distinguishable colours
of thought, indicating the two different provincial springs
from which it flowed ; for the earliest portions of the Gospels,
even as the Apocalypse, the Epistle of James, and the four
writings of John, bear the most genuine Hebrew impress,
whilst Paul's Epistles, with others dependent upon them, come
from a Hellenistic source ; in Luke's writings, however, there
is a kind of mingling of both colours, and the rest of the later
writers more and more divest themselves of the Hebrew dress ;
but such different peculiarities are lost and vanish in the
mighty homogeneous spirit that penetrates them all. It is
the spirit of true revelation and religion that moves in these
writings in the richest and most varied way that it can move
in any mere writings; and when the stream of thoughts,
reminiscences, and intuitions it originated flowed in the fullest
and purest force, the pages of Christian literature gave them
an imperishable record, the noblest and brightest possible.
It is idle to suppose, then, with respect to the spirit that
inspires the literature of this nation, that the latest and
noblest expressions of it now blended in the New Testament
are different in their origin and source from those immortalized
in the Old Testament. The truth is rather that in all kinds
of literary art, in narrative, song, prophecy, admonition, and
doctrine, the same spirit which dominates in the Old Testa
ment once more revives in the New in all creative ardour and
power, in order that there may be a fitting receptacle for the
highest truth and knowledge which on the basis of the old
true revelation and religion could come at last to decisive
clearness and eternal certainty. Where a branch of literature
like the prophecy of the Old Testament, so wholly special and
possible only under special historical conditions, had lost its
fitting place (§ 38) in the progressive life of revelation, it

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 317
could flourish once more only as it was artificially resuscitated,
as the Apocalypse shows. Nor is a perfect work of art
like the Book of Job to be expected ; in this time of dissolu
tion of all the main conditions of the old national life, the
peaceful happy moment for its creation was wanting. But,
nevertheless, each of these writings is conceived with a literary
skill with respect to which one does not know which most to
admire, its simplicity or firm and certain execution. Yet
most of all to call forth our wonder is the fact that writings
like these, composed principally by new authors in the most
changeful and transient moments of an age which oppressed
them severely and persecuted them with hostile hate, are yet
characterized by so great an inward and outward perfection,
and form the eternally eloquent and noble witnesses of the
loftiest and purest thoughts of all true revelation and religion.
§ 98. These, then, are the five distinctly-marked periods in
which the long history of this literature faUs. If we see now
how in its general unfolding it always follows essentially the
great impulses and needs of the history itself, we can clearly
observe also it has one special tendency. If we cease to look
exclusively at the mere length and temporal change of this
literature, and consider its breadth or the compass of the
different great subjects which with special zeal it drew, as it
proceeded, into its circle, it is not to be mistaken that only in
the second of these five periods did it unfold itself most
copiously. The different kinds of poetic art flourished at that
time, but the memoirs of all the objects in the universe
exercised its powers also, as well as the free wisdom of the
world; and scarcely among the Egyptians, Phoenicians, or
Greeks was the circle of the departments of all literature ever
so widely extended as it was then among the people of Israel.
In the following three periods, on the contrary, this circle
became increasingly contracted, whilst writings on the ques
tions of revelation and religion continually multiply, and not
only in number, but above all in contents and significance also
far surpass just as certainly those of all the rest of the nations.

318 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
Even in this the literature follows only the powerful course
of the general development of the nation. As it was more
than all others (according to p. 295 f.) a theological nation, so
its literature became with growing exclusiveness and complete
ness a literature that can very well be characterized in one
word as truly theological ; and in this it stands alone in all
antiquity, as will more particularly be shown below. Thus
was perfected on the side of literature what (§ 86—90) was
specially significant in the growth of this nation. With
every people of antiquity its highest and most perfect aspira
tion and its noblest wealth always found corresponding
expression in its literature : so was it with Israel, and hence
it became possible that a literature was formed in its midst
which has not elsewhere its equal. Nevertheless, before we
consider this more at large in its more particular significance
and issues, we must direct our attention to another of its
features. 3. Natural Simplicity and Artificiality in Literature.
§ 99. An immediate consequence of this relation to public
life is that the literature of the nation of- Israel arose and
continued to shape itself just as freely as that of all other
ancient nations. To this its essential naturalness and
simplicity belongs also the circumstance that the prevailing
form in which the writings appear publicly is in the highest
degree simple. Public documents, such as the Ten Command
ments, always bear in themselves their own authentication.
But a book of history was issued in this nation, pursuant to
a standing custom, without any indication of its authorship ;
indeed we can trace this custom down from the oldest to the
latest book of history, so long at least as the genuine Hebrew
usage was faithfully retained. The superscriptions of the
books, according to the same old custom, continued to be very
simple, very different from the ornate and over-ornate style
of the superscriptions in books of the later Semitic peoples ;

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 319
of prologue or epilogue there is in the later books scarcely the
first rudimentary forms, as will soon be noted more at large.
Even coUections of songs appear without the names of the
particular poets being indicated in them ; and indeed to such
splendid old artistic poetry as the Song of Songs or the Book
of Job their authors did not subscribe their names, although
the artistic poets gradually became fond of superadding their
names. At a subsequent period, when it seemed necessary or
useful to distinguish the names of authors in historical books
or coUections of songs, it was done with aU antique simplicity.
The single branch of literature in which from the first, and
as an invariable custom, the names of the authors were specified
was prophecy ; not, however, from literary vanity, but from
quite another cause. The writings of the prophets, far more
than all others, excepting public documents, proceeded from
the public hfe of the nation itself; and as the prophet must
answer for all he said in public, so it was only a corollary of
this that he should publish nothing in writing without his
name. Moreover, what he published of the winged words of
his discourses was intended to remain as a permanent witness
of the truth of his prophecy, and on this account his name
could not be omitted. Thus it is sufficiently remarkable, that
just in that branch of literature that was most important and
characteristic, and by which Israel was distinguished so highly
above all other nations, the exact indication of its authorship
was in earliest times a necessity. Still more easily is it
understood that each of the Epistles, more and more numerous
as they were in the times immediately succeeding Christ,
must bear at the top the designation of the author ; the two
exceptions, the Epistle to the Hebrews and the First Epistle of
John, are explained from special causes which in each case
were decisive.
It is this grand simplicity and naturalness, visible every
where by a thousand . signs, which distinguishes the Biblical
writings so pre-eminently. It is seen even in the only two
prologues and epilogues which are found, one in one of the

320 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
latest books of the Old and the other in one of the latest books
of the New Testament, for each is a model of its kind in
brevity and modesty.1 Certainly it is not the. high antiquity
alone into which a great part of these writings runs back
which explains this simplicity, for all kinds of rhetorical art
flourished among this people, even to over-refinement and
fastidiousness, long before there is any mention of them
among the Greeks.2 Only the dominant power of a true
religion could have preserved simplicity and simple vigour for
a longer period, as well in the entire life as in the literature of
this nation.
§ 100. But nevertheless in this literature we must distin
guish from this predominant simplicity some kinds of
artificiality which occasionally prevailed in it, and at a later
period increased. We mean simply the artificiality in relation
to what at the moment of hearing an address or reading a
document is most decisive and effective, viz. the way in which
the author introduces what he has to say. If a man speaks
or writes not in his own name, but in another's name, we
may generally designate that an artificial way of introducing
a subject, because it is always the most simple for the ego of
the speaker to coincide with the ego of the writer; whilst in
the opposite case the hearer or reader has to reflect who this
ego is, and also the speaker or writer himself must take care
that he carries out consistently the discourse of the foreign
ego he introduces, and does not, according to the common
expression, depart from the role. Meanwhile the widely
different cases here possible must be weU distinguished ; and
as we look at them more closely, everything pertaining to this
subject resolves itself into one of the following possibilities : —
1. That a man should speak in the name of another is
generally in actual life of very frequent occurrence. How
many messages, for example, are delivered wholly in the words
of the sender, namely, those of persons in authority and kings ;
and in antiquity this was so much the more common the
1 Eoclesiastes and Luke's Gospel. - Cf. Poets of Old Test. ii. 352, 2nd ed.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 321
simpler the times were ; if, therefore, such a discourse is only
introduced perspicuously, and the speaker pointed out before
hand or even at the end, the foreign ego is self-evident. But
this takes place often and much more artiflciaUy in the epic
poem, and still more in the drama ; for no artistic poet has the
least hesitation in introducing the men whose fortunes and
deeds he seeks to represent with new vividness, each speaking
from his own ego, whether to the mere hearer as in narrative,
i.e. epic poetry, or stiU more vividly in full impersonation in
acted, i.e. dramatic poetry. Nor is this at all simply an
invention of the Greeks, but it was employed previously in
the far older and more primitive literature of other nations.
If modern readers ascribe the Book of Job to Job and the
Canticles to Solomon, the authors of those poems are quite
innocent of the mistake, indeed the more innocent the more
clearly the discourses of their heroes are introduced with great
fitness in the proper place just as the plan of the poem
requires. Now it is certain that even historians of antiquity readily
took the liberty to represent the words and discourses of the
personages, whose advent and fortunes they related, more
vividly and completely than they had received them by mere
reminiscence. In the earher ages this easily happened, as
history was based in great part upon traditional materials;
in later times, too, it easily happened the more history learned
to pursue stiU higher and still wider aims than are necessarily
associated with the mere rehearsal of past deeds, — for example,
the aim to call back the events of the higher antiquity into
the recollection with the greater vividness the more remote
they were, and consequently the_ less intelligible to contem
porary times, or to teach by a new representation of the past
what was of importance for the immediate present. How far
this complete freedom was carried by Greek and Boman
historians is well known ; in this as in other things, however,
the Hebrew felt himself restrained by the more rigid religion pre
vailing in the community, and is therefore generally much more
ewald I. x

322 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
limited to sober fact.' Where, indeed, is a more faithful mirror
and model of all true history given than in the discourses of
the men the history of David presents in the great Book of
Kings in the Old Testament, or than the discourses of Christ
and the apostles in the Gospels and the Acts ? Even John's
Gospel carries this freedom of presentation in no way beyond
the limits which antiquity regarded as allowable, since an
exact reproduction, wholly documental, from notes made at
the moment, of discourses of living men, was in the entire
condition of antiquity very rare. But when the historians of
this nation would revivify the phenomena of far more distant
times, such a freer mode of representation and rehearsal
readily and spontaneously began to intrude ; as may always
be clearly recognised in proportion as the history goes back to
those times. And the employment of this complete freedom
was modified, it is true, conformably with the special spirit
which prevailed in particular ages, as well with respect to the
endeavours of men as in the style of narration and historical
composition; as is proved in the Old Testament principally
by comparing the Chronicles with the older historical books,
and in the so-called Apocrypha by comparing the later with
the first Book of Maccabees.
2. The most conspicuous example of the way in which a
speaker and author can discourse in the name of another is
given in the Bible by the prophets themselves when they
introduce that Ego which, to be sure, should be present in all
vividness to every man without exception as the true Ego.
But since they introduce this Ego, speaking always so as to be
c'.early recognisable, or its import, where it enters into their
discourse here and there suddenly and frequently, is always
perfectly apparent from the connection, no one can ever
seriously have taken offence at it unless he was disposed to
deny everything divine in whatever way a man may feel and
express it.
But long before this august " word of Jahveh " first
resounded in the world in imperishable tones through Moses,

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 323
there was in the nation of Israel, as it existed in the oldest
times, another immortal spirit, which it was the task and
function of its oldest prophets, in moments of deep need
and despair, or even of other higher moods of feeling, to bring
to hving utterance. This was the spirit of the patriarchs of
the nation, long since dead, and yet regarded as immortal ;
and the higher the repute among the Egyptians of the oracle
of the dead (according to p. 225 f.), already in the most ancient
times, the more must the- ancestors of the nation of the
community of the true religion have preferred, at least in
those early days, to- listen to' the voice of their patriarchs
as it found expression in the mouth of their prophets. A
complete and instructive example of this we still possess -in
the voice of Jacob concerning Joseph,1 which, according to all
indications, goes back to the times before Moses, and belongs
to the very few small fragments o£ the oldest Hebrew discourse
which have been preserved till to-day. But as the first early
veneration of the patriarchs, and with it many a sacred custom
from those most aneient days, was, according to p. 215 ff.,
very tenaciously retained long after Moses,, this old custom
also did not die out for a) long time ; and in the d&ys of the
later judges, when the new prophecy, after the creative
precedent of Moses, together with the whole condition of the
nation in its oldest form,, had become weak again, he who did
not venture to discourse publicly in the name of Jahveh
sought to revive this most ancient type of genuinely Hebrew
prophecy. The great fragment of Jacob's blessing 2 is of this
type, and it has come down to us having incorporated into
itself the far older utterance concerning Joseph. But if, in
the conviction of the nation, the patriarchs were regarded as
such immortal spirits, ever newly living and calling forth new
life, the freedom with which the narrators of the primitive
history continually reanimated them and their words, as we
see this now in the Book of Genesis, is thereby the more
readily explained. 1 Gen. xlix. 22-26. 2 Gen. xlix. 1-27.

324 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
Meanwhile the memory of Moses also had long since
been surrounded with a halo of glory. Supposing, then, an
old custom existed in this nation of eliciting from the immortal
and exalted dead of previous glorious days new living words
in the darkness of the present, a prophetic spirit, not wishing
in the clouded time of those early centuries openly to discourse
to the nation as a prophet of Jahveh, might cause a Jahveh-
voice to sound forth artisticaUy from Moses' time at least, and
as it were from his mouth. From that time onward this is
the new artificial type of prophecy in the name of Jahveh.
Of this we possess still a very old fragment, which, for an
already less, vigorous age, scarcely a century after Moses, lifts
up the voice of Jahveh as Moses would have lifted it up had
he been then alive.1 But we see also how readily such a
type of prophetic discourse, once formed, could continue in
existence in this nation the more persistentry,„and rise higher
and higher, the more it accustomed itself, by its whole culture,
to understand and relish also such noble, copious, clear, and
determinate divine utterances. Yet we do not find that this
artificial kind of prophecy, with aU simUar literature, was
continued in special writings during the splendid times of the
ascending kingly power in Israel. It is not to be overlooked
that, like all artificial discourse and indirect literature, it is
only specially necessary in such junctures when the entire
national life is in sad obscuration and deep decline. Such
times in the early periods of history were more and more
quickly survived.
3. But in the long series of centuries in which the old
national life of Israel fell completely into weakness and
decline, from which it never sufficiently recovered itself for
any length of time, there were many intervals when the
recollection of the old high personages, who once had ruled
in this community, scattering benediction for all eternity,
could revive the noblest courage, and when many supposed
they could speak to their contemporaries most effectively if
1 Ex. xxiii. 20-33.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 325
they spoke as from their mind and lips. These were just
the times, as we can still plainly recognise, when the activity
of the great prophets, after the first half of the seventh
century before Christ, suffered gradual and severe paralysis,
and at length wholly stopped ; and it seems as if the never-
resting spirit of the higher revelation and religion, the more
these times were destitute of prophets, had the more diligently
laid hold of this device to advance its own work. Add to
this that all literature had then been cultivated in the nation
most faithfully in all its capabilities and possibilities, and
had attained the unusually high attractive power which
marks a hterature that has succeeded in forming permanently
the spirit of a nation. The energy and resources of such a
literature are not exhausted for a long time after it has
achieved the finest and noblest development that appeared
possible, and always new paths are opened in each new age
to suit the changing need. Accordingly, an artificial literature
sprang up the more luxuriantly in many of these later periods
that seemed favourable to it, yet only as a supplemental
growth on the old fruitful soil, though bearing many noble
blossoms and fruits. But however widely this literature
extended itself, and however distant its remove from its
origin back in the oldest times, it is ultimately nevertheless
faith in the immortality of the earlier spirits of these exalted
figures which calls it again into life ; and thus the latest and
amplest creations of this artistic authorship are closely con
nected again with the ancient brief discourse from the mouth
of the dead. As the last moments before death appear to
open to the mind the freest outlook into all the past and all
the future, it was always at the moment before his death that
this artistic writing delighted to make some one of the august
ancients discourse. Works of art of this kind were not only
increasingly numerous, but for the most part increasingly
perfect in their grand and delicate finish.1
The special importance which this kind of authorship has
1 So the Book of Jubilees, the now recovered Book of the Ascension of Moses.

326 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
in connection with our present subject necessitates our regard
ing it still further in detail. It was pre-eminently the lofty
spirit of Moses whose irresistible heroic power was desired in
vain for the maintenance and advancement of all true revelation
and religion, and of the community he founded. Many, there
fore, had recourse to him and his time most earnestly in order
to speak to the present in his spirit. The Deuteronomist is
one of the earliest examples, and at the same time the greatest
in the extent and importance of his work. But similar
attempts also occur before him and immediately after him ;
indeed, down to the last days of the existence of the old
community the endeavour is made again and again to influence
contemporary thought and life from the lofty age and the
hallowed lips of Moses by the charm of an extremely artificial
literature, partly narrative and partly prophetic.
But to pass from Moses, who might already appear as a
patriarch, by a direct transition to later prophets, was a very
great leap in this form of authorship. The leap was taken,
so far as we know to-day, just after the powerful reinvigora-
tion of mind which the dispersion of the nation and its
unexpectedly speedy and happy close produced; and the
immediate occasion was the work of a prophet who, like
Jeremiah, had fallen as a last among many martyrs, and
whose works at this period of change enjoyed the highest
honour. It was, however, only a fragment which an unnamed
younger prophet, when a new edition of Jeremiah's great
book was issued, appended to it, charmed, as it were, by the
vehement longing with which the book closes to attempt to
discourse as Jeremiah would have done had he been still
alive.1 And so in this case it was also the spirit of the
great dead which filled with its immortal power the mind of
the younger prophet. But in the course of the following
centuries the age and the discourse of many other prophets .
were soon made to live anew, — those of Baruch, for instance,
with a new edition of Jeremiah and likewise in the appendix
1 Jer. 1.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 327
to it, of Daniel in the book still preserved, further on of Elijah,
and at the end, of Ezra also, as if he had been a prophet, and
of many others.
The boldest attempt that was made in the old community
was that of venturing back beyond all the patriarchs of Israel
into the early dawn of all human history in order to give
narrative and prophecy from the times of Enoch, of Seth, and
even of Adam himself.1 Such book appeared after the impulse
which the Maccabsean wars and victories imparted to the spirit
of the nation ; and the Hellenists were soon just as quick to
discourse similarly in their own tongue, ot indeed in the new
style borrowed from the Greeks. But such books as the Book
of Tobit or the Book of Judith and the later Maccabgean books
— half narrative, half poetic ot prophetic — were the outcome
of the increasingly prevalent literary freedom with which in
those times subjects connected with the religion of a country
were celebrated. Or where the aim was to teach something
of higher importance, the attention was confined to an old
renowned personality, the reader was transplanted into the
old better times of the nation, and taught and addressed from
famous lips ; as the Book of Koheleth under this name
introduces the old wise great king in Jerusalem whom every
one recognised as Solomon. Such books as EoheleSth, Enoch,
are, as it were, rude fragments of plays (dlamas), which the
authors could have easily remodelled into perfect dramas had
they not found it better to leave them as they were, Koheleth
as a portion of a drama to be recited, En°ch a portion of a
drama merely to be read ; since, indeed, in the flourishing
times of the nation, the drama proper had once been the*
adornment of this literature, but was now no longer cultivated.
But the literature of this altogether special art flourished in
these later times more and more. The nation, whose better
soul now lived only by the inspiring memory of its earher
glories and by all the varied contents of the Pentateuch long
1 Josephus speaks of a work from the history of Adam and Seth ; Arch. i. 2, 3.
Dillmann's iEthiopic version of the Book of Adam is wholly different.

328 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
since become sacred, felt itself in this literature transported
into the midst of sublime eras and subjects affording the
richest nourishment to its spirit ; and how fruitful this whole
series of after-growths from the old independent literature
of Israel was, we can scarcely picture to ourselves with
sufficient vividness to-day. Yet as the imitation of the voices
of the great dead was the beginning, after the early times of
the nation, of the whble system of artificial discourse and
writing, as we said above, so in the first Christian age this
highly-cultured artistic activity was abandoned again for the
simplest style; so that Christianity in its youth, though
surrounded by an over-wrought artificial age and condition of
things, may be said to have returned to the utmost simplicity
possible. Nothing can be simpler, nothing more touching and
impressive, than the way in which certain gifted authors,
towards the close of the first century after Christ, recall
the tones of the great Apostles Paul and Peter, then so
painfully missed and so urgently needed by the wants and
requirements of the time. The voices of the dead, thus
speaking again as memory suggested they would have spoken
in such a conjuncture of affairs had they been still alive,
were the voices of leaders, of powerful mind, but recently
lost ; and that the immortal spirits of such men were per
ceptibly near to the beloved brethren they had left, if only
they could but realize it, was a prevalent belief not without
its justification ; but since the age was apt and experienced
in Uterary work, unlike that distant early age of the nation,
it is seen at once that in the department of epistolary
composition only such spirits were likely to be recalled
whose actual Epistles were already known. Four such Epistles
written in the name of Paul and one in the name of Peter
have been admitted into the New Testament ; — the only five
portions of this artificial literature which enjoy this distinction.1
1 The Epistle to the Ephesians ; the three pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Tim.
and Titus), and 2 Peter. Cf. The Seven Epistles of the New Testament,
Gottingen 1870.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 329
A similar example is seen in the Epistles of Ignatius from
the second century;1 and thus a wholly similar artificial
after-authorship, so to speak, which followed the beaten track
of the language of Holy Scripture, came into existence in
Christianity, and at certain times and in certain localities was
much in request and much read ; and such authorship con
tinued, in Christianity as in Judaism and Samaritanism that
had broken off from it, until far into the Middle Ages.
§ 101. Such is in short this artificial literature. It
indicates the end as well of the nation as of the literature of
the old nation whose first bright light it follows at last as a
shadow. As it was ultimately cultivated in many different
branches, and in each in a special way and for the most part
with delicate taste, it is evident that its peculiar qualities of
skill and cleverness increased with its growth, and that its
more simple forms of presentation are to be distinguished
from the highly artificial. The like ending, the like after
growths, are found in connection with every highly-developed
literature among the ancient nations, but nowhere did so rich
an after-bloom find so luxuriously fruitful a field as here,
where the highest aspirations and the most difficult problems
of man's spiritual life invited ever to new efforts, and a Holy
Scripture long since accepted offered for use its stimulating
language and its high forms of thought and imagination.
If such were the circumstances in which this peculiar and
vigorous branch of the literature of this nation flourished, it is
clear that we must hesitate to speak of it with reproach
and distrust as the work of intentional misrepresentation
and falsehood. We have before us here a special and in
creasingly extended deviation and deflection from direct
discourse and authorship, innocent enough in its first
beginnings, perfectly excusable and justifiable by the historical
situation of great affairs, and in its time doing really good
service ; but afterwards as it reached high artistic cultivation
and authority, degenerating more and more in rank exuber-
1 Cf. History, vii. 318.

330 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
ance, as everything does which from the first is not wholly
direct and pure, till at length it is utterly dissolved and
lost. But there is no falsification ; and if we must in
general be on our guard against lightly branding anything
with the mark of " counterfeit and fictitious," so it would
be a great injustice to the varied fruits of this literature
if we were to speak of it in the mass as pseudo-Scripture.
It should be considered, too, that misrepresentations and
forgeries, in the proper sense of the words, occur only in the
case of historical books and documents, or with respect to the
superscription and signature of old favourite works much in
request, and when discovered to be absolute frauds may also
be suitably dealt with ; but here we have in question writings
whose sole aim was instruction and admonition, and which
would in no wise be regarded as historical ; although, to be
sure, this whole literature if cultivated one - sidedly may
deteriorate more and more completely, and if it mingled with
the more direct literature and gradually displaced it, would
be pernicious in its influence and result.
4. The Advantages and <bhe Deficiencies of all Literature.
§ 102. If we look now once more upon this literature as a
whole, not upon its manifoldness and diversity as in the two
previous sections, we shall see that the great advantages
which all literature afforded to the ancient nations are not to
be mistaken, and that to the Israelitish nation its literature
was a special boon.
What influence and effect the introduction and growing use
of writing had in this nation, we possess now too little
detailed information from the earliest centuries of its history
to enable us clearly to trace. But, in truth, it is the same
with respect to all nations of antiquity, and the use of writing
in these nations is much older than many scholars fifty years
ago would allow. .That long before Moses Semitic writing
was in use in the nation of Israel, and that Moses availed

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 331
himself of it for the service of the nation, is now scientifically
established ; moreover, our exacter investigations leave us in
no doubt to-day that subsequently, in the first centuries of the
existence of the community, writing was handled with con
siderable versatility, and all the beginnings of the peculiar
literature of the nation, diffusing itself so widely at a later
period, reach back into these centuries. But that condition
of things in the Persian age, when Koheleth complained of
the rank exuberance of all literature and the mischief it
occasioned too frequently, lay far distant then from those
oldest centuries of the community ; and we can confidently
assume that only , what was necessary or what appeared
worthy of everlasting remembrance was in the oldest times
of the community carefully committed to writing. That
the Bible contains no observation at all concerning the origin
of writing and its first notable employment, and does not
even trace back its discovery and introduction in any way to
Moses, is at bottom a very plain proof that, according to all
reminiscences of this nation, it was known in very ancient
times ; for in other respects the Bible contains many traditions
and much information about the origin of memorable things,
and writing is highly enough regarded in it.
But already the committing to writing of the new funda
mental laws of this community, begun under Moses as all
indications show, and carried on eagerly after him, principally
in connection with the old divine oracles ¦bearing directly
upon the law, was a great advantage to the spiritual life of
this nation. The first, and at the same time the most per
manent service of writing is, that it seeks directly to immor
talize thoughts and words, to form an exact and trustworthy
record of them, and preserve it. The diffusion of human
discourse is not its original aim, however increasingly important
this became at a later period, but its certain preservation for
immediate use, whether in the home or in the larger sphere of
public life. If the laws by which a nation desires to be ruled
were indeed elsewhere in antiquity a first and most important

332 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
subject for activity in the use of writing, among this people
it was the principles and the eternal conditions of all true
religion that were so perpetuated. When, thus, the remem
brance of the great events of history and the utterances of
their heroes were by this means firmly retained ; when so
many a noble song, sung in the community on high festivals
or composed by a singer distinguished in his lifetime, was in
this way rendered immortal ; when subsequently the prophets,
who arose in the earlier and later times, in such numbers and
splendour in this nation as in no other, sought by this agency
to work for all the future, and the whole literature of the
nation acquired an ever readier use and aptitude, and learned
to embrace an ever wider range of materials of all kinds, —
what an incalculable multitude of subjects worthy of everlast
ing remembrance and regard were then rescued from the
danger of gradually vanishing again more and more irrevocably
from the mere memory of man !
The second advantage which writing offers — united
inseparably with the first — is this, it preserves all the
different discourses and thoughts in smaller or greater sections
with the most absolute exactitude and authenticity. Nothing
is more important, however, for a thousandfold apphcation of
them, than that there should be a possibility of preserving
such sayings, thoughts, and reminiscences as in general seem
worthy of preservation, just as correctly and as definitely as
they were originally expressed. There can be no period, how
ever remote, when their original import may not shine forth
again with the same clear radiance, inspire the hearts of men
with the same warmth, and kindle the same enthusiasm as
when they first entered the world with their fresh creative
power. The human spirit in its deepest ground is always the
same, and centuries and millenniums may thus shake hands.
All this, however, is the more important and the richer in
results, the more such original literature itself is replete in its
contents with eternally significant and eternally vivifying
thoughts and truths ; and where, among the literatures of the

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 333
ancient nations bearing upon revelation and religion, is this
the case more completely than here ?
In proportion as a nation developed its literature a long
time with persistence, giving it a peculiar form and filling it
with creative force, the more liappily and helpfuUy there
grew up for it, in the longer life its inherited literature gave
it, a second, a higher and immortal life out of its own past,
that in the darker days of its present especially might be an
inextinguishable lamp, and for all its future a support and
stay; a bright world of its own past in which it could ever
again find a home, and which in new and difficult questions of
life served as a guide just as well as, and often still more than,
its traditional usages and institutions. Usages and institutions
of hfe are, to be sure, very tenacious threads upon which the
life of a nation may continue to hold, but they may gradually
and imperceptibly pass through great changes, while a writing,
aud so a whole comprehensive literature faithfuUy preserved
by a nation or community as the best treasure of its
antiquity, remains unchanged, and may serve indeed as a
mirror and a shield for the best of its old institutions and
customs. Without referring at large to Islamism, which pre
serves itself tenaciously by nothing so much as its Koran and
its ancient literature closely connected with it, we see how
such communities as those of the Parsees of India and Yezd,
long since fallen through the disfavour of the times from their
old grandeur and glory, those of the Mandseans or Sabaeans,
and those of the Samaritans, preserve themselves even till
to-day by writings inherited from antiquity.
Now an inherited literature is best understood chiefly by
those who still speak its language, and who know from their
ancestors more intimately the matters described in it. But,
nevertheless, owing to the eternal similarity of all human
feeling and perception, the special language, with all other
peculiarities of an old literature, forms no hindrance at all to
strangers, and does not prevent them from deriving from such
literature all the benefits it affords. Moreover, if there is a

334 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
long interval of time between the origin of an old literature
and the life of the subsequent, much-changed descendants of
the nation in which it arose, every national distinction or
excellence will have long since vanished on this side, and
strangers may well better recognise and more correctly apply
the true original import of such old writings than the still
living but intellectually altered representatives of the original
people. § 103. But all literature has its deficiencies and imperfec
tion. In the case of the literature we have here principally
to consider, the most lamentable imperfection seems to be just
this : of those minds which must rightly be held by us as the
greatest in the great affairs of revelation and religion, we find
few or no writings at all which we can trace back to their
hand, or even to their suggestion and approval. Of Moses we
possess only little that we can refer immediately to him,
though what we have is in the highest degree important.
That the most powerful of the prophets of the elder race after
him, Samuel and Elijah, used the pen, and wrote what was
most worthy of remembrance, admits of mo doubt ; but not
even a single composition, however small, has been preserved
which we can now refer to their hand by sufficiently certain
proofs. But what is here of far the greatest importance is
that Christ has left nothing written by His own hand, because
perhaps His earthly life was occupied too seriously and too
closely with other things, themselves too. immediately neces
sary, to allow the possibility in. His case of leisure or desire
for literary labour. With the Twelve it is, however, essentially
the same ; there is only one Epistle of Peter's which we can, if
not on account of its verbal structure, yet on account of its
contents, ascribe with full certainty to him ; and we should
possess nothing from John's hand had not wholly special
circumstances impelled him in his extreme old age to labour
as a writer. All this seems now indeed very much to be
regretted, and yet, more particularly considered, is neither so
surprising nor so irreparably detrimental as it at first sight

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 335
appears. It may serve us rather as a first and most emphatic
sign that all writing and all literature, so incomparably use
ful as it is in itself, yet like everything external and sensuous
has always its deficiencies ; and just the deficiencies here most
perceptible we can in other ways so completely supply, that
in the end, so far at least as the great interests of revelation
and religion are concerned, on which everything here turns,
there remains no very serious deficiency after all. What
those lofty minds that availed themselves of writing, but
whose works have suffered greatly from the ravages of time,
desired and accomplished in their whole life, we can supply,
if their own existent writings, whatever they may be, are
insufficient, from other literary reminiscences, at least to such
an extent that we are in no. doubt about its principal features.
This is a distinguishing excellence of the literature we are
more especially' considering, of which by and by more is to be
said. With respect to Christ Himself, His whole purpose and
work upon earth were too extraordinary and too wonderful,
and accompanied immediately by consequences too mighty, for
men not to be found early enough who, in spite of all opposing
difficulties, nevertheless recorded what appeared generally and
for all time most memorable in His discourses, His deeds, and
His lot. That this actually is the case we can satisfy our
selves to-day with adequate sufficiency.
§ 104. But there are deficiencies which belong inherently
to literature from the first, and can never be altogether avoided,
only in antiquity, as it is sharply distinguished from our own
times, they arise most readily and with the least hindrance,
and make headway through many centuries without becoming
very perceptible and without being painfully enough felt.
They have not spared the literature now specially in question,
and the somewhat more precise discussion of this matter is
here unavoidable. There are two principal deficiencies arising
from very different sources.
1. Every literature which continues to develop itself more
and more richly and even luxuriantly for a long time and in

336 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
manifold new deposits and transmutations, suffers at last from
its own ever-increasing extent, its prolixity and bulk, and on
this account from the separation and dismemberment which
then takes place, as well as from the change in the needs and
(what is specially influential) in the tastes of men. The new
writings, increasing in ever greater redundancy, displace the
old, and the more readily if, in the meantime, literary activity
continually seeks out and works up further material, or if
practice in composition develops new arts and graces of style,
or the language of the older works becomes more or less
obsolete. The older books are then less sought after, and
perhaps at length gradually disappear ; while another and yet
more powerful reason for their withdrawal from notice is that
the most important contents of the older writings are by
degrees more and more transferred or artificially worked up
into the newer, so that the former seem superfluous and very
easily get lost. Such causes are at work very little to-day,
since the art of printing and the desire to arrange numerous
collections of books on definite scientific principles has grown
to so high a degree ; but in the antiquity of all nations
they had most important consequences in proportion as all
literature developed itself without artificial restraint; and
imperceptibly the most varied losses occurred. Severe shocks
of ill-fortune befalling a nation or recurring frequently had
besides a specially disastrous effect ; chiefly on this account,
that as every literature has its origin and growth in its own
nation so as to become its treasure, its pride, its stay and con
solation in misfortune, foreign nations therefore neither heeded
nor spared it, or if they recognised its significance for the
vanquished people, burned in wild fury against it. How did
the Greeks rage against the sacred writings of the Persians !
How did the Bomans recklessly throw away the very
celebrated works of conquered Carthage ; and how, subsequently,
did they vent their fury, at first in occasional outbreaks,
and at length in systematic hostility, against the Jewish
Scriptures !

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 337
So common a fate the special literature now particularly
under notice did not escape ; and our investigations in the
present day afford the means for correctly estimating, at least
generally, the losses it thus sustained. Taking the five chief
parts and periods into which according to § 93—97 this
hterature is best divided, the whole matter stands thus : From
the centuries comprising the oldest period up to the time (to
give a definite date) of the first destruction of Jerusalem and
the years immediately succeeding it, the portions of literature
saved were few and of smaU extent although highly significant
and in a measure indestructible, and even these were saved only
as they floated into the rich literary stream of the following
century, and were taken up by it. On the other hand, those
saved from the second period, the period of the broadest and at
the same time the finest unfolding of this literature, constitute
still the main body of the existing Old Testament (§ 94).
From the third period, that of the first great dispersion of the
nation, not many writings have been preserved, but some that
in their significance are important. From the fourth period,
when once more this literature gradually streamed forth in
rare amplitude, at least as far as the number of its productions
is concerned, many a work has been taken up into the Old
Testament, and from that stream as it spread in the old com
munity up to the age of Hadrian, and at last more and more
appeared in the most different languages, we should certainly
have possessed a great number of books, smaU and large, had
not the violent destructions of the Eomans and the over-
anxiety of the Jews unfortunately co-operated to occasion the
loss of most of them ; so that from these long centuries we
have preserved, apart from such as have been admitted into
the Old Testament, scarcely anything save the Apocrypha,
understanding that word in the broader sense to be explained
below. Of Christian writings many of the earliest were
evidently lost in the devastations which mark the course of
the wars of Vespasian and Titus.
2. If the greatest pains are bestowed upon a written com-
ewald I. Y

338 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
position, it is possible to execute it entirely without mistakes ;
and it was customary in antiquity to bestow such care upon
public documents and inscriptions, although our investigations
in the present day with respect to inscriptions in all possible
languages have shown that even here mistakes have crept in,
and were not always avoided. But in the making of ordinary
manuscripts such care was not always taken; and through
the caprice of readers or of subsequent new editors many
readings found place which were not the original readings.
This was known weU enough in ancient times, and many
artificial contrivances were employed to protect an author's
exact phraseology against misapprehensions, and to maintain it
subsequently with the greatest possible accuracy. It is not
to be supposed that such a scholarly carefulness arose first
among the Greeks through the zeal of the Alexandrian
grammarians ; it was cultivated, as we are now able fully to
establish, among the ancient Israelites, and most of their
works were published all along with the highest verbal
accuracy, although with some of them, particularly in a
degenerate age, this might not be the case. But, nevertheless,
writings at first published with the greatest care were never
whoUy exempt from the inadvertencies or indeed the
arbitrariness of subsequent transcribers, whilst the original
copies were readily altogether lost; and of no single work
now preserved in the Bible can we maintain that it is faith
fully preserved exactly in conformity with the original.
Whether, however, there might possibly be any alteration in
this respect, or whether there actually was such alteration
after the compositions preserved in the Bible were regarded
as sacred, wiU be touched upon below.
Similarly in the repeated remodellings of a work, or even
in the multiplication of copies, the original superscriptions
and divisions and subdivisions were often omitted for the sake
of brevity. The oldest Hebrew writings, as all our most
careful researches teach us to-day, were at first exact in
such external particulars ; but transcribers did not afterwards

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 339
always keep rigidly to these original guides to the correct
acceptation of a work ; or with repeated new editions, new
superscriptions and divisions were also arbitrarily introduced.
But all such observations only confirm the truth otherwise
known, viz. that written composition, whatever its inestimable
advantages for the promotion of our whole spiritual life and
also for the interests of true revelation and religion, never
theless has its imperfections and deficiencies ; so that we
understand at once how it is that we cannot rely upon it
alone, although it cannot but serve us as a mighty aid and an
indispensable support in all our higher aims and efforts.
II. 5. The Origin of Holy Scripture.
§ 105. If the case stands as we have represented it, not
only with literature in general, but with that of the people of
Israel in particular, it is difficult to explain, at first sight, how
in this nation a Holy Scripture could ever have been formed.
In point of fact, a break is here recognisable separating this
wholly new development of things from that which is primary
and aU-essential according to our previous representation. That
is to say, in other words, something special and substantially
new must be added if upon this basis a Holy Scripture is to
be formed and to win for itself the unbounded respect
which it secured, and which, according to § 73 ff, ultimately
exercised so deep an influence upon the entire view of revela
tion and religion in this community, and indeed upon the
final destiny of the community itself. It is desirable,
therefore, at once this new additional element properly to
understand. Only God- Himself and His revealed word can be in like
manner intrinsically and eternally holy. Now it is certain
that in that sublime moment in the incomparably instructive
history of this people, when they submitted themselves for ever
of their own free will to guidance by means of the true revela
tion and religion, a pure recognition of that which is alone

340 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
and for ever alike holy, and a deep overpowering awe before
it, must have penetrated the heart of the whole nation (§58 f.„
86). Nor is it doubtful that such moments, whose irresistible:
energy can illumine the mind of a whole nation as with a
sudden lightning flash, were repeated subsequently at different
times in the long and changeful history of this community.1.
But in ordinary times such a rare exaltation and tension of
the mind of a whole nation is not maintained with equal
loftiness and force ; 2 and under the pressure of new events
and experiences, new distractions and complications easily
follow, leading the eyes and hearts of the people in a totally
different direction. But if ever such seasons returned when
the nation was arrested anew and more widely and intensely
than before by the truth of the divine word, which, in the
pride and aberration or the languishing and embarrassment of
its better life, it had long mistaken and despised, then the light
and splendour of that which is eternally holy was involuntarily
transferred to the divine utterances previously heard and
brought nigh to its heart, and the old record of them, itself
suffused with a divine sanctity, shone forth in holy radiance
as never before. To a nation in which the hght of God's
oracles shines with purest splendour and deepest truth, the
record which fixes them in firm stedfast limits for aU succeed
ing ages will also shine with a wholly different light from any
other record ; awe in the presence of its contents wiU blend
easily with the venerable character of its age and origin, and
even what in itself as a sensuous object cannot be holy, in the
acceptation true religion gives to the word, may become holy
in this way in the common estimation. But as this nation
in its long history was destined to pass through everything
which a nation of antiquity could pass through in order, under
the impulse of all true revelation and religion, to rise up to
perfection, this deepest experience of life was repeated in it in
1 1 Chron. xxviii.; 2 Chron. xv., xviii.-xx., xxiii., xxix. -xxxi., xxxiv. f. ;
Ezra i., iii.; cf. Judg. v.; Ps. xviii., xlvi., xlviii., Ixxv. f., xiv., and others.
2 Ex. xx. 18-21 in its permanent import.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 341
ever stronger alternations and greater results ; and when once,
even with a small work, a real beginning was made in the way
of regarding a writing as holy, this basis of a new power in the
community would extend with every great succeeding accession,
as often as the higher truth and significance of writings became
manifest by the clear light of history with the most evident
certainty and in ever wider extent. Thus in process of time
was formed in this community, where alone it was possible,
and with increasing determinateness and permanency, a very
comprehensive Holy Scripture, which amid all the old nations
is just as peculiar and as elevated as the revelation and reli
gion itself of which it was to become the safest possible out
ward haven. We must, however, first of all distinguish the
different gradations and stages that have marked the process
of its formation.
§ 106. (I.) 1. The first foundation of Holy Scripture is to be
discovered in the Ten Commandments, upon which rested the
whole original constitution of the community after its . inau
guration at Sinai ; and it was of the highest importance that
this foundation, though inconsiderable in extent, yet great
and indestructible in its significance, should actually remain
the undisturbed foundation through all the long and changing
ages that followed. No wonder, then, that with this wholly
incomparable written memorial should be connected in later
literature a diversified reminiscence, and in the Pentateuch
mamfold sacred traditions. Already in the Book of Origins
it was held that these two tables of stone were inscribed as
with the finger of God ; and since they had been deposited from
the times of Moses in the ark of the covenant, instead of
images of deity with which the heathen usually filled their
sacred chests, it was quite in harmony with the tradition of
their divine inscription that along with the ark, the most
venerable and, next to them, the most sacred of relics, they
should form anew, as it were, when the temple of Solomon
was built, the consecrated basis of the earthly sanctuary,1 and
1 1 Kings viii. 9.

342 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
as it would' then be thought, for perpetual generations. A
community accustomed to no free and lavish employment of
divine names and attributes could scarcely form a higher
conception than this, — that these two tables of stone were
inscribed with the finger of God ; of not a single memorial
beside this is such language used in the whole Bible. Never
theless, the oldest narrators in the Pentateuch do not hesitate
to represent the sanctity of the Ten Commandments as much
more immediately conferred. Before the assembled nation,
God Himself is said to have uttered aloud the words of the
commandments, while every heart trembled with fear. Ac
cording to this account, Moses is still regarded as the divine
amanuensis. But according to another old reminiscence, the
first original record was lost ; the tables of stone received
directly from God, before men could see them, were thrown
down to the ground and broken in pieces by Moses in his
first deep anger at the unexpected defection of the people ; the
covenant of the nation with the true God, almost before it
was concluded, was demolished as its contents had been ; and
Jahveh was obliged with His own hand to write another copy
of the commandments upon other tables of stone which Moses
prepared. This the fourth narrator mentions in a representa
tion conspicuous on account of its deeper truths, but easily
misunderstood, as is everything so transcendent. The
Deuteronomist, however, stiU proceeds from the same Ten
Commandments as the groundwork of all the rest of the
laws. From these manifold and inextinguishable reminiscences it
is not possible to doubt that the Ten Commandments were
the first and firmest ground of aU Holy Scripture in Israel.
Whether other ancient systems of law, obvious remnants and
traces of which of all kinds we discover principally in the
Pentateuch, were so early regarded as sacred, is extremely
doubtful: they might serve to judges and princes as the
groundwork for the administration of justice, and on this
account be held as sacred, but not in the same way as the

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE, 343
Ten Commandments. For Hosea's bitter complaint from the
mouth of Jahveh-^- " I write for him a myriad of my precepts
As something foreign he esteems them " J —
opens to us a manifold glimpse into the true condition of
those times in which prophetic oracles that might be current
as laws in far greater numbers than are now extant, of more
ancient origin and preserved in a fair literature, might lay
claim to popular respect, and yet were esteemed as something
foreign, i.e. of indifferent value ; but the complaint refers
especiaUy only to the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, in which the
original Decalogue so far as it forbade images of deity was
despised, not because it was not then known, but because
all kinds of misinterpretation and evasion of the plainest
commands were then resorted to. But we cannot prove,
even in the case of the kingdom of Judah, that in the
earher times the rest of the laws were held as equally
sacred with the Ten Commandments.
If, however, we observe the great commotions and dis
quietude occasioned in the community in the earliest times
by the question whether and in what way the laws of the
true revelation and religion were to be regarded, commotions
distinctly reflected in the Pentateuch, particularly in the
narrative just mentioned concerning the broken and replaced
tables of the original Decalogue, it admits of no doubt that
this first firm basis of Holy Scripture was secured only after
a long and severe conflict. The sanctity, too, that is, the
inviolabUity of this first basis of Scripture, must be contested ;
and not till the contest was won did it shine with that
inextinguishable divine hght of which the Bible is now the
witness for all time. According to all the clearest evidence
this took place, however,
§ 107. (II.), 2. In the first further progress which ensued,
but not till a much later age, and which for that reason
introduces us at once to wholly different conditions of the
1 Hos. viii. 12.

344 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
community. In the days after Josiah, when in the kingdom
of Judah a dissolution was on the point of occurring similar
to that in which the kingdom of the Ten Tribes was destroyed
almost so as to obliterate every trace of it ; when the very
existence of the true religion in this kingdom was severely
threatened, no longer as so frequently before merely by the
follies of contending factions, but by the kingly power, and
when the prophetic word itself, till then continuaUy
esteemed as the living spring of all progressive revelation,
was violently interrupted : at that time an admirer of Moses,
influenced and moved by a prophetic impulse, though pre
vented from oral utterance, felt himself constrained to
revivify in one great connected work the divine truths and
corresponding regulations for the life held in regard in the
community since the time of Moses, and to revivify them
in such a way that they should sound forth to the nation as
a last striking and impressive word of admonition from the
mouth of the dying Moses himself, and also so as to be
exactly adapted to his own later age. It was as if this
second Moses felt most profoundly the need of a sacred book
in compass, and in power to captivate, far exceeding those
Ten Commandments, and that he could satisfy this need only
as he, following the precedent of the oracle of the dead long
sacred in Israel (p. 225 f.), ventured upon the boldest experi
ment that had ever been made in the way of posthumous
prophetic utterance, if such a phrase may be aUowed. In
such cases antiquity looked rather to the contents and
influence of a writing than to its authorship or form, as was
stated more at large, § 100 f . ; special fortunes, too, might
await such a work; and the unexpected turning of the king
dom to the higher aims which took place under the young
Josiah, helped to secure for Deuteronomy the high position in
the public esteem, which it obtained. This great prophetic
elaboration of the law, which surrounds the Ten Command
ments, long since regarded as holy, just as a broad out-
streaming circle of radiance surrounds a bright and luminous

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 345
centre, appears to have arisen as by an imperative necessity, .
the necessity that a great book, invested, with more than merely
lawful dignity, might be elevated to the fundamental book of
all life conformably with the purpose of the true revelation
and religion: and indeed the work transports the spirit of the
reader from the first to the sphere of that far-off freer and
happier age in which is heard, not the voice of a contemporary
little esteemed, but the voice of a holy man long since removed
beyond aU this perishing scene of things, and in which is felt
the breath of an inspiration that moves with thousandfold
power the men who receive it in faith.1
And yet the sanctity which this work soon won for itself
in that very century in which it came into public notice was
not so great as to prevent talented writers from attempting to
connect it more closely with selected earlier works concerning
Moses and the whole primitive history. Certainly it is the
best of the comprehensive works on the primitive history
which immediately after the foundation of the new Jerusalem
appeared under the name of the Pentateuch as the permanent
sacred book of the new-born community, and which secured
ever afterwards the highest esteem. One great book had now
happily overcome all hindrances and opposition that could
prevent its attaining the highest respect in this community.
Embracing the history of all primitive ages, and especiaUy
that of the sublime founding of the community of all true
revelation and rehgion, there was comprised in it everything
of eternal value that could serve as inspiring retrospect into
the creative past, as doctrinal guidance for the present, or as
comforting hope for the future; and if, almost a thousand
years before, the Ten Commandments by their sanctity had
become the firm basis of all higher life for the community, so
now the whole glory of this great book which had such high
influence and respect was ultimately traceable to those same
Ten Commandments.
1 Cf. how the law-book of the Hindoos, long venerated, is said to have been
spoken by God in the primitive time to Manu.

346 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
§ 108. (III.) After the great advance from the sanctity of
the Ten Commandments to that of the Pentateuch had in
this way been made, and a foundation had thus been laid, as
excellent as it was broad and firm, for a Holy Scripture which
should consist of larger books, the extension of the founda
tion presented less difficulty. Indeed, if it is remembered
that in the old community, as it existed from the time of
Moses, all revelation and religion had a marked and powerful
leaning towards the law, and that this leaning alone became
more and more predominant from the beginning of the third
great crisis in the history of this community, as is shown
more at large in § 76, it will readily be understood that
the Pentateuch, specially devoted as it was to the exact
knowledge of the old law now become sacred, must always
maintain a significant pre-eminence. Every subsequent and
further development of this community shows that ; and it is
essentially appropriate that the law, as it is here given, should
contain not merely prescriptions for common life in the home
and the State, but also all the higher truths so far as they
could find expression in a legal form : and what should have
a greater sacredness for man than these ? Nevertheless in
succeeding centuries, at least when the spirit of all true
revelation and religion prevailed over adverse prepossessions
and errors, the right conception at the same moment pene
trated the mind with victorious power, the conception, namely,
that among the vast treasures of the entire literature which
had accumulated in this community there were stiU other
books beside the Pentateuch which, measured by the canon,
that is, the standard of the Pentateuch, might be associated
with it, and raised by their superior sacredness above common
books. For the clear conviction had long been entertained,
among the most experienced and ablest men of this com
munity certainly, that there must be perhaps one among
the unlimited number of books in circulation best suited to* % *"
communicate the nature and contents of the revelation and
religion, now recognised indeed as the right as weU as the

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 347
true ; and the Pentateuch, already acknowledged to be such a
book, might serve as a first considerable and evident portion of
the presupposed standard, rule, or canon. This later expression,
starting from the idea and word " canon," is simply of Hellen
istic origin, for Alexandrine scholars set up similarly a canon
of the best poets and authors in each branch of literature, and
the question was then asked in particular cases, does this or
that work belong to it ? In Latin the corresponding idea is
found in the term " classical." Because, however, in those
books which were to be equally valued as corresponding to
the presupposed standard, that which is holy and divine, and
inspired by its spirit, must be found, the definite name " Holy
Scriptures " most readily occurred as determinately distin
guishing them from aU other books. Of the rare occasions,
however, when additions were made to the canon in this
sense, the three following are instances, and we see from them
exactly how from this time forward the progressive develop
ment of the canon, together with that of all true revelation,
was uninterruptedly accomphshed.
3. About the same time that the Pentateuch began to be
fully accepted as the great canonical book of the community
of the new Jerusalem, a very considerable effort was made,
also, with a zeal wholly new, in coUecting and diffusing afresh
the best of the other writings which in the great interest of
true revelation and religion might be of certain use and
kindle in the mind a new and abiding enthusiasm. The
severe sufferings in the destruction of Jerusalem, and the
wide dispersion of the whole community, had occasioned a
great winnowing of the minds of men, and also of the books
of a hterature continually accumulating during many centuries ;
and as the fidelity of the better spirits became wonderfully
strengthened, and everything that affected the old fatherland,
so often grievously despised before, was held in new honour,
it happened -also that the best ancient and modern books were
carefully collected together, newly elaborated, and zealously
circulated. More recent inquiries enable us to know that

348 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
this was done in the case of the prophetic books, the songs
suitable for pubhc use, the historical books, and also the Book
of Job and the Proverbs. A new and extremely lively move
ment and interest in all literature that might have any higher
religious significance had seized the mind, and out of it had
grown the determination in Nehemiah's time to annex to the
Pentateuch — (1) a great collection of the best prophetic
pieces ; (2) a great historic work which, dealing with the
history of the progressive movement of true revelation and
religion in the community, might embrace at the same time
the history of the community itself from the death of Moses
to the destruction of Jerusalem ; (3) the psalter, especially
for use in the new temple ; and (4) a book of documents con
cerning the foundation and public relations of the new Jeru
salem. This is the Canon of Nehemiah. The most important
enlargement before the addition of the Christian literature was
thus made; and the three great branches of the old literature
being each distinct in itself, viz. prophecy, poetry, history,
and all three being united as a whole much more completely
than in the Pentateuch, here for the first time an unmistake-
able selection from the whole of the ancient literature of this
nation was compiled in such a way as the aim of the
collection required.
4. Meanwhile an idea may be formed how the remainder
of the best books, not yet admitted into the canon, but which
had been preserved from antiquity, were collected together
with increasing carefulness and more correctly estimated,
whilst from the flood of new works many a better one would
emerge. The aim which an enlarged edition of sacred books
should have was fully decided by the previous enlargement ;
more particularly considered, it was a double aim, so far as
that with the more general aim there was associated the
special one, viz. to give the preference to writings which,
regarding pre-eminently the interests of the true revelation
and religion among men, yet dealt particularly with the
history and privUeges of Jerusalem. In the course of these

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 349
centuries there was a point of time in which an extraordinary
enthusiasm for this twofold aim blended itself with a nobler
courage ; and this led to its successful issue the second
enlargement of the canon, whereby the extent, and soon also
the whole arrangement of the books, called afterwards by
Christians the books of the Old Testament, were determined
as they have since been preserved in the schools of Jerusalem
and their successors. This was the Canon of Judas
Maccabams. 5. Already, however, by that first enlargement of the canon
was it decided that this whole coUection of Holy Scriptures,
notwithstanding its essentially more general destination as the
literary medium, sacred and venerable with years, for the pre
servation of the true revelation and religion, was nevertheless
first of all and specially intended for the use of the com
munity gathered about the new temple in Jerusalem. From
that moment, accordingly, the Samaritans, with the Pentateuch
alone as their Holy Scripture, just as decisively severed them
selves from this community. The separation would have been
very prejudicial to the happy forward development of all true
revelation until it attained its perfection, as well as to that of
the canon of Holy Scripture, if the greater aptitude to contend
for true revelation and religion had actuaUy remained always
on the side of the Samaritans. But, in point of fact, notwith-
¦ standing the strict provisional limitation to the sanctuaries in
Jerusalem, in which amidst the prevalent great darkness of
the time the active spirit of all true revelation and rehgion
must now be found, the thread of development was far more
firmly held and more directly carried forward in Jerusalem
than in Samaria. The proof of this shines forth most con
spicuously, since directly after the Maccabsean age this
revelation and rehgion were openly published and defended
in heathen lands with a lofty confidence and boldness
unknown before ; attempts at exposition and commendation
by means of the most polished forms of heathen wisdom
increased, and the translation of the Holy Scriptures into

350 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
foreign tongues was more and more zealously prosecuted.
Thus a greater freedom now spontaneously appeared in the
contemplation and critical estimate of such writings as were
best calculated to explain true religion and kindle its light in
the hearts of men, and even in Jerusalem the number of such
writings increased. For why should the attention be hmited
merely to writings approved by the schools of Jerusalem ?
Must Holy Scriptures, written in the old sacred language
known at present only to a few, but now also to be read
in Greek, the greater their number became, and the more
zealously they were read and_ investigated, appear more and
more exclusively the only fitting channels to dispense instruc
tion and edification in holy things, the only source whence the
spirit of all true revelation shot forth its living radiance ?
Why, in addition to them and along with them, should not
other writings of a similar spirit be gladly read and admired ?
As the Greek language and the outward forms of Greek life
overspread the world, many were fond of reading such addi
tional writings in Greek or some easily intelligible form, and
collected them together, and combined them with the older
writings, sometimes even as interpolations. Translations from
the ancient tongue were always the first to be added ; but
why not add also at length such works as were written in
Greek in such increasing numbers, if only they did not con
tradict the spirit of the older writings already acknowledged ?
Under the predominating influence of this new freer
tendency a new canon was in reality to arise, which we may
designate the Hellenistic Canon, and which remained for a long
time flexible, as we can still very plainly trace by the most
obvious signs, until at length it became fixed by reason of the
sudden appearance of the lofty Christian impulse, and when it
was fixed it may very properly be named the Christian Canon.
For since the question here turns, as we have already seen,
upon the ultimate prevalency of an opinion, conviction, and
usage, flexibility may be predicated of the canon ; and just
because the opinion, conviction, or usage does gain ground, it

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 351
tends also to form, and in the end may legitimately form a
standard. In matters so essentially belonging to the sphere
of mind as the opinions and views of men concerning the
value of writings, a standard, by which the procedure in
actual life may be readily regulated, can be formed in no
other way than that of conviction and faith ; and it is possible,
should serious errors and pernicious preconceptions mingle
from the first in the views that tend to prevail, that a very
bad standard may be the result, a canon that becomes the
law indeed, but is nevertheless pernicious. In this flexible
canon, however, which we may designate the HeUenistic
Canon, there had mingled from the very beginning no views
and aims that had to be fully rejected, and consequently it
became possible, without the serious difficulty that would
otherwise have occurred, for Christian writings, with their
wholly new and yet very similar spirit, to be taken up and
become a part of it. In recent times this has been doubted.
But, in the first place, there existed all along something
which, in relation to books, could properly be called a canon ;
writings were to be judged and estimated by it, whether they
might be worthily placed by the side of those long since
recognised as sacred, therefore whether they might form part
of the same standard or rule, or not. And secondly,- no one
acquainted with the subject can deny that in the course of the
second century after Christ, or about the time when the
whole wide circle of the fuU development of the true revela
tion and religion altogether closed, it was out of this flexible
canon that the stationary Christian canon arose. Moreover,
we see here much more definitely what we recognised above
in all other matters as important and decisive, that with
Christianity only did the true end of all development come,
whdst with the adoption of a third and essentially Christian
enlargement of what may be called the first greater canon,
and not previously, could the whole canon of Holy Scripture
be closed.

352 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.

6. The Settlement and Limitation of the Canon.
§ 109. Such, in brief, is the history of the rise of a
collection of books, which once formed was to be the firm
foundation of all exact knowledge of the origin and the
eternal essence of the perfect true religion. The conclusion
of this history comes into the full light of facts best known
to us ; its beginning is more obscure, but may be traced with
sufficient certainty if the few, but by so much the greater,
facts which we can still discover to-day are taken in close
and proper connection with the stages of the larger history,
that of the community of this revelation and religion, in which
this special history moves. For as it is one of the best
features of this entire hterature that it came forth out of the
whole public life of the ancient nation, so the rare excellence
of this choicest kernel of it is likewise guaranteed, because it
was not selected and set apart arbitrarily according to the
taste of a few unknown individual men, but it resulted from
the deep living experience through which this whole nation
had to pass in its conflicts for the true rehgion.
Very different, hovrever, from the rise and growth of the
canon of these books, hitherto contemplated, was its final
settlement and limitation. For this canon of Holy Scriptures
had been formed, as § 106-8 clearly showed, in direct
relation with the five great periods which we must distinguish
(§ 93-98) in the history of the growth of the entire litera
ture of the ancient nation. Naturally the kernel, or choicest
and most comprehensive abridgment, of an extensive literature
is not rightly formed till the end of its fuU growth, and so
the canon was formed in each case at the verge of one of
those five great periods ; and that just in these five ever-
widening circles it developed itself onward to the close, is
one of the plainest indications how little arbitrarily it arose.
This kernel of sacred writings was at first the smallest and
most exquisite that is conceivable ; and just as many a nation

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 353
of our modern centuries may rejoice if, out of the mighty
strife of so-called pohtical principles, it has rescued at the
end, as inviolable by any further caprice, even the brief
aphorisms of one constitution, so the much smaller and much
more significant, and certainly much more contested, Ten
Commandments on the verge of the first circle was the first
portion of writing which had surmounted for ever all the
testings and destructions of the time, and become in a sense a
sacred writing, a sense, in this case, the most essential and
strongest of all. For every pure divine truth, and every com
mand grounded upon it, should be holy to man; it was so
here ; but this portion of writing became holy also, because at
length it was elevated by the faith of the whole nation above
all doubt and conflict, and for that reason was acknowledged as
inviolable. About this small but solid and indestructible
kernel were grouped at the verge of the four foUowing
periods, as in four ever -widening circles, a constantly
increasing number of books, attracted as it were by this
living centre, and resembling it in firm, unshaken, verified,
indestructible contents, and sharing accordingly in its honour
and splendour. Each of these four circles had in itself its
own special claim to the glory radiating at length over the
whole wide circumference. The first surrounded the original
centre only to make it shine the more brightly, and to guard
it the more securely ; the second brought with it the fulness
of the immortal oracles and songs, which, kindled at the
glowing hearth of this well-founded sanctuary of all true
religion, shone forth resplendent and threw back their bright
light upon the shrine ; the third diversified this splendour
chiefly by the distant twilight gleam, of artistic poetry and
prophecy ; the fourth brought the fitting close by the trans
figuration of all earthly existence in the pure clear radiance
that touched the skies. But with this ever w:der extension
a considerable change took place in the nature of the additions,
so far at least as their literary character is concerned. It was
no longer, as in the Ten Commandments, the simple brief
ewald i. z

354 REVELATION ;. ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
principles of all life, according to the true religion, that this
great increasing mass of writings presented ; all of them were
indeed penetrated with these principles in a thousand ways,
but yet much besides is taught in them ; much that merely
shows historically how all the world and all history, especially
that of the Israelitish nation, stood toward such foundations
of all true rehgion ; and much that, partly in its contents,
partly in its form and presentation, goes far beyond those
simple foundations. The original standard of the sanctity
here in question had therefore been extended more and more,
until all such writings were judged to meet its requirements
that were already approved by time as of intrinsic worth in
themselves, and might serve especially to ascertain the whole
nature and demands of all true religion with such living force
that the spirit of religion, deriving from them new vigour,
should react upon hearers and readers. Wherefore, so long as
Jerusalem and its temple seemed the surest Bock of the
community of this religion, it was .specially determined in
addition to regard with special favour such writings as made
reference to this sacred Bock, and to the community that more
nearly or remotely sought its refuge.
If, now, the possible limits of the standard were thus
extended, the question might arise at the close of each of the
wider circles, what books, in particular cases, were to be
permanently received into it. For as good as no contest at
all could take place over the most important of them, because
this whole matter was consummated in the great public life
of the community. What books are the best, not for a
single science investigated and studied as a favourite pursuit
by a few specialists, but what are best for a whole nation or
a great community, among such as are either destined for its
use from the first or still suitable for it, this is never
very doubtful in the full life of a nation or a community ;
or should a doubt exist in the outset about particular works
in the minds of many members of the community, it is settled
soon enough by experience or the severer conflict of different

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 355
opinions within the precincts of the community itself, and
specially urgent events may very well add their influence to
make the decision the more certain and prompt. The origin
ally true and powerful contents of a writing win by the clash
of opinion, and by every new and deeper experience of life,
new confirmation and force ; and should there be disparage
ment at first, disparagement all the more extended and serious
because of the evident intention of the writing to serve an
immediately useful end, afterwards the- universal respect for
it will rise the higher. It may truly be said that time itself,
not in so far as it consists of mere moments, but in so far as
it receives in its progress through the progress, of the human
mind richer and nobler contents, brings with it the best sifting
(critique) of everything perishable and transient ; and if,
nevertheless, many a true thought is- lost that sought immor
tality in a writing, since all writing belongs to that which is
material and may be destructible, yet, in the higher connection
of all that is true, the higher possibility always remains, that
the contents of such a lost writing may be supplied from the
rest that have been preserved. But since writings of the
contents indicated above were always placed before a whole
community, and came into collision more sharply with the
better feelings prevalent in it from old time for everything
true and sound in revelation and religion, a double sifting
-would in that case be actually accomplished and a decision
established, which on the great chief question could not go
far and certainly not long astray. But here again everything
ultimately turns upon the presence of the Holy Spirit
(according to § 80 ff.), whose wonder-working power never
fully died out, even in the most troubled times of the
community; and indeed, if a writing had issued from the
most palpable impulses of this Spirit, and was full of its
life, would it not the more readUy meet in this community
the kindred spirit, and be made use of by it ? It is just this
quahty in a writing that must be the commencement for
every kind of eternalization of it reaching beyond the letter.

356 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
But it is to be remembered that in all bodies of literature
the different books are not so co-ordinated that they fall
simply into two divisions, the best and the worst, and the
public judgment is thus easily formed in reference to every
particular book. And if it is remembered further, how in
reality the circles of the canon widened, it will be the more
readily understood that there could be a feeling of doubt for
a very long time about the admission of many particular
writings. For the progress of the formation of the canon was
not such that, upon any one of its stages some particular
authority came suddenly to the conclusion to increase the
already existing canon by this or that series of books ; rather
was it, that so long as the entire literature of the old nation,
along with the nation itself, was in living and active move
ment, that is, up to the times of Hadrian, there pressed
continually into the already existing circle of Holy Scriptures
new writings which the more general judgment held to be
suitable for it, forcing their way involuntarily, at first quite
occasionally, always as here and there a work was held to be
suitable for a place in the number of writings which, with
respect to this community and its adherents, might be regarded
as writings of a higher grade ; but what must be the nature
of such writings, in the judgment of the more devout, is
indicated more particularly above. We see this progress most
plainly, and as it is actually going on before the close of the
last of the five circles ; and according to all plain indications,
it answers exactly to what occurred before the close of the
two previous circles, although it is self-evident that this entire
movement, the more the circles widened with the ever-widening
development of the general literature itself, was increasingly
extended and increasingly difficult to control. But if the
movement became so difficult to deal with, and the number
of books admitted here and there multiplied, and were too
much mixed up with those till then held as of higher grade,
to come to some decisive judgment about them would at last
be urgently necessary. The community itself, for which and

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 357
in which all such books were to have a higher value, had the
right to come to such a decisive judgment, to counteract the
caprice of individuals as much as possible, to separate the best
of such books from the rest, but especially to single out those
that were now well known to be wholly necessary. But for
all this there would clearly be required an exact survey of
the whole situation, and a mature judgment upon all the
separate books ; still more, a correct insight into the grave
question itself, whether an actual extension of the earlier
circle were at a definite time necessary or not for the true
need of the community. For that such inevitable needs
might arise, so long as the inner impulse of the true revelation
and religion towards perfection continued in this community,
is evident and is set forth more particularly above.
Now, if the voice of prominent individual men in the com
munity does not readily command the spontaneous assent of
all, the decisive judgment in question comes best from a
representative body, since the members of a whole widely-
scattered community are too widely scattered or too little
prepared to give it. And accordingly in Jewish circles, if the
thought went back in later days to the origin and formation
of the canon, the details of which gradually became obscure
in the recoUection, it was always preferred to say, the great
synagogue, i.e. the greater body representative of all the
separate communities, fixed the canon of the Old Testament.
We know more definitively that from the days when Hadrian
wholly destroyed the ancient community, distinguished Chris
tian scholars in part, and in part synods, sought to fix
the canon as it appeared to them most just for Christians ;
and whether the suffrages of scholars or of synods had the
greater weight is somewhat doubtful. But as to whether the
decisions arrived at at that time and those arrived at after
wards in the heart of Christendom were adequate, and how it
stands with all such decisions, we can best perceive if we
consider the first question more particularly.
§ 110. After the war of Vespasian, and still more after

358 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
that of Hadrian, as soon as it felt itself completely severed
from the old community, Christianity, then in its youth, had
to decide whether it would recognise in general a Holy
Scripture, and what ; whether, if it recognised what had
hitherto been received in the community, it would leave it as
the scholars of the old community left it, or would enlarge
the circle ; and, in case of enlargement, how far it should be
carried. These three or four very different questions pre
sented themselves for determination at the same time, though
not with the same degree of uncertainty ; but a definite
decision must be secured about them all, and in some respects
this was difficult enough.
1. Christ had frequently taken occasion to discourse sharply
against the scribes, whose perversions disfigured and dis
honoured the very Scripture they sought to extol so highly.
He had often appealed to the Scripture as a witness and
proof, and He certainly understood by that word the Holy
Scripture of the ancient community, even if He never expressly
called it " holy," nor enumerated the separate books of which
it was composed. Since, now, Christianity proposed to introduce
something more and something better than the old community
till then possessed, it was not outside the range of possibility
that a new error would be committed, and Christians as such
would prefer to reject the Old Testament altogether from the
category of Holy Scripture; indeed, the gross misunder
standings about it, easily possible to gross eyes then as to-day,
and especially with respect to the Pentateuch itself, might
ultimately lead to this rejection. Moreover, since Christ had
neither established any new Holy Scripture Himself, nor
commanded it, and what Paul had said concerning " the letter
killing" was well known, the rejection of all Holy Scripture
might even be desired. But all the apostles and all the
most intelligent Christians knew very well how little Christ
had wished to set aside the Holy Scripture existing in the
ancient community, and felt -too clearly how, on the con
trary, the whole of Christianity conspicuously and urgently

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 359
required this Holy Scripture, how it never ceased to rest upon
it, and how little it could ever exist without it. Thus all
such doubts were forthwith dissipated, as they will ever be
dissipated. § 111. 2. But youthful Christianity ventured also about
the same time upon the mighty step of increasing the Holy
Scripture it inherited and highly prized by the addition of
those writings, not few in number, which had just sprung
from its own flesh and blood. This was done as soon as it
appeared that the new writings on the one hand contained
simply what was genuinely Christian, and on the other, as far
as moral elevation is concerned, were not inferior in dignity to
those already received from the old community. A mighty
step truly, possible only in an age stirred and emboldened by
the creative spirit, as hitherto the youth of Christianity had
been, and the very last step in the series of similar great
steps, which it had just taken, as the instrument for the
development to perfection of all true revelation and religion ;
but a forward movement quite involuntary, set in motion by
a further pressure of the Holy Spirit itself, and so a wholly
necessary direct advance to the last goal fore-appointed to this
development for that time. It cannot be said that this step
was introduced and accomplished by any special disturbance
and artificial movement, or, indeed, by such a resolution as
the synods afterwards took ; it came as it were of itself, and
was accomplished before it was noticed. But that is just the
mark of the higher necessity which as divine is alone true, and
on this account unchangeable and never again to be taken
back,— ^a step forward toward the ultimate and eternal con
summation of all human things. Nor can it be said that
some one of the many separate Christian communities had
precedence in venturing upon this great step ; we know of no
single community that first made the proposition to place the
best writings of the new Christian spirit upon an equality
with the old sacred writings, as if only in this way they could
have attained their proper position and respect ; and of a

360 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
model community just in those times after the destruction of
Jerusalem scarcely anything can be said. One thing only is
true, a New Testament could never have arisen so soon, and
by such common consent, if the Old Testament had not long
since fixed the idea and determined the nature of a Holy
Scripture for the community of all true religion. And a
second thing depends upon this, viz. that to all genuine
Christians it is, in everything essential, palpably only the
same spirit of this old sacred revelation and religion thafy
vivified anew by the new power and still mightier vigour of
Christ Himself, breathes in these writings, — the new spirit
quickening the old, and the old so quickened afresh kindling
the new yet again more vividly. Moreover, since the Old
Testament was read by most Christians in Greek, this facilitated
not a little the assimilation of the New and Old Scriptures.
But as soon as the Christian communities scattered in the
world communicated the one to the other an abstract of the
higher writings esteemed by them respectively, and considered
equal to the old sacred writings, many more or less significant
differences among them appeared conspicuously side by side
with a preponderating agreement. The quartette of the best
Gospels, with Luke's Acts of the Apostles as an appendix, the
Epistles of Paul, the three Epistles at an early period briefly
comprehended under the name of Catholic, in contradistinction
to the Pauline Epistles, directed to individual communities,
were to be found as good as coincidently in all communities ;
each of these three smaller collections might have had also a
special place of origin, as is probable ; but in point of fact the
basis of this new canon was thus fully and surely laid. In
many communities were found also the Apocalypse and the
Epistle to the Hebrews, as it was early called, in approved
use ; in others the basis of those three essential elements of
this canon (historical writings and two portions of Epistles)
was increased by the addition of some pieces which in value
and usefulness might in all that is essential stand equal to
them ; in others, fewer works found approval. Communities

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 361
then exchanged their views on the whole question, scholars
commented on difference of opinion, and finally synods sought
to settle the controversies that arose.
§ 112. 3. But in the meantime Jewish scholars had judged
a separation necessary between this Christian Bible, so wonder
fully growing in bulk, and their own ; consistently with this
feeling, and influenced by increasing abhorrence of the
Eomaico-Greek kingdom, they soon thought necessary also a
separation just as rigid between everything Hebrew and
Greek ; moreover, as a further result, they formed an estimate
of all those writings that had found their way into the
Hellenistic Canon already described. Thus, therefore, they
returned purely to the limits of the fourth circle of the
canon;1 the twofold vehement opposition to everything
Christian and everything Graeco-Bomaic at that time domi
nated with its whole first glow the minds of these Jewish
schools, and in a little time they carried out in the whole
sphere of their jurisdiction everything of this kind they
wished to carry out. To Christians in their turn no manifest
reason presented itself why they should follow this example,
especially after the blending of their own Christian writings
of the higher kind with those of the then current Greek
Bible had been so unanimously and so quickly accomplished.
To be sure, as soon as the now existing disproportion between
the extent of the Old Testament, which alone was valid among
the Jews, and that which passed current among Christians as
belonging to the Old Testament, appeared more plainly and
often glaringly enough conspicuous, there occurred a certain
wavering in Christian circles ; yet it proceeded at first only
from some scholars who in part had somewhat closely investi
gated the disproportion between the Jewish and Christian
canon, and in their learned controversies were the more deeply
sensible of it, but in part also had not wholly mistaken the
really less worth of single portions received into this wide
canon of the Old Testament. But did one or another of these
1 The Canon of Judas Maccabseus. See above, -p. 318 f.

362 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
advise that the example of the Jews should be followed, he
found no hearing ; and that not without reason, since it was
natural to hesitate to reject from the canon what the first
Christians had admitted without scruple. Thus these Greek
pieces, associated with the Septuagint, now become a Christian
book, were retained ; nevertheless they were not in aU lands
entirely equal in number, just as was the case with the Greek
books of the New Testament.
If, therefore, it is not ¦ in itself possible that all books of
any one department, and so also of this department, should
be divisible only into purely good and purely bad, or into
purely noble or purely base, absolutely necessary or fully
superfluous, and if there will always be found standing side
by side with the best, noblest, and most necessary some about
which the judgment may waver, a smaller community will be
tolerably weU able to succeed in drawing the sharpest limit
between those books which it ought to regard as sacred and
all others, as we saw just now that Jewish scribes, in the
time of Christianity's youth, managed to push back the canon
to the fourth circle mentioned above. Matters of legal
observance, by which in these later times the old community,
according to § 76, allowed itself to be more and more power
fully influenced, were also in this respect of superior force in
the community that, after the destruction of Jerusalem, still
remained faithful to the old doctrine ; and in the straits of
the life in which this community, hard pressed alike by
Christianity and heathenism, found itself, it was thought that
there could be safety against the intrusion of books injurious
to the faith only as a determinate number of such books as
might be regarded as sources of true revelation and religion,
clustering about the Pentateuch as the most sacred central
book, should be publicly recognised and aUowed j and as all
the rest, which, according to their character and bearing or
their title might raise a similar claim, should be held as
apocryphal or secret, i.e. not publicly recognised and allowed,
but rather as forbidden, or even open to censure, if, indeed,

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 363
they were not also all of them to be considered straight away
as completely impious or godless books.1 It was therefore
essentially outer constraint or proscription by which this
community, faithful to the old doctrine, sought for safety
against the inundating intrusion of the new Christian writings,
and writings otherwise repugnant to it ; and how much by
such means it succeeded in falling back upon the Maccabaean
Canon is well known ; just as well known, however, is it how
by this compulsory limitation it became itself in its whole
spiritual life more and more limited and impoverished.
Youthful Christianity also, as it was deluged from the second
and third centuries onward more and more powerfully by
writings which in character and bearing laid claim to higher
respect as apostolic, or as going back to the old sacred times,
thought it could do itself service by rigid prohibitions against
them, expressed by means of synods. But since the Christian
communities were already too widely diffused in the world,
and their spiritual freedom was already from the . beginning
too great to allow compulsion in spiritual things, neither
synodal decisions nor other means fully attained their aim.
As the New Testament prescribes absolutely nothing concern
ing the canon which affects the mere number of the writings,
during the long centuries of the Middle Ages there has never
been a complete outward uniformity in reference to it in
Christendom, nor has such uniformity ever been considered
absolutely indispensable. Some books have always stood as
if on the verge of the sacred circle, and have been held, here
as in the highest degree worthy of all acceptance, there as less
worthy and essential.
§ 113. Indeed, the wholly new zeal for everything
genuinely sacred, and the earnest scorn of everything profane
1 Jewish scholars from the second century after Christ, and similarly the
older Christian scholars, distinguished rightly three divisions of /S;(3x/« — (])
xxvavtxa, (2) xToxpucpx, (3) ura<rx, whilst the avnXiyofcivx are wavering, and
ultimately might be installed in one of the three divisions. Josephus against
Apion, 1, 8, does not know such divisions, but only the great opposition of the
h7x to all others.

364

REVELATION : ITS NATURE AND RECORD.

that obtruded itself into it, from whicli the great German
ecclesiastical movement of the sixteenth century proceeded,
attempted to fix the canon more firmly whilst it turned
itself decisively against the Greek books of the Old Testament
wanting in the Hebrew Bible, and separated them rigidly as
" Apocrypha," renewing an agitation which in the old Church
had scarcely ruffled even slightly the surface of its life. And
it is not to be denied that these books, if compared as a whole
with those retained in the Hebrew Bible, fall perceptibly
enough far below them in pure worth for the highest things
of revelation and religion. Nor is this to be wondered at,
when it is remembered that they arose in an age of the old
community, which just -in relation to these highest things,
notwithstanding the swiftly passing elevation of the Maccabees,
declined more and more deeply up to the advent of the Baptist
and of Christ. In such a time single pieces of writing might
indeed attain a high mark, as the Book of Daniel, the oldest
parts of the Book of Enoch, and a few others ; but the greater
part of the writings, although moving in the groove of the old
sacred literature, could not keep the high level of the old
prophets and best authors of the nation. Nay, as the declining
spirit of a whole long period easily draws everything after it,
so the morality in the religious life depicted or demanded in
these books does not stand at that lofty height to which we
are lifted by the older sacred books of the nation.1 And
perhaps there might be a disposition to agree with those who,
in the sixteenth century or still to-day, would remove these
books altogether from the Bible, if the result of our more
exact investigations in the present day had not long since
shown that the historical grounds upon which such exclusion
would rest are untenable. For how weak the principal reason
is, viz. that they are not found in the Hebrew Old Testament,

i The Book of Sirach is certainly one of the most excellent of these books ;
but its estimate of women, and its sharp summary counsel concerning divorce,
place it far below the height of the Hebrew Bible. See Ecclesiasticus xxv,
13-26.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 365
follows naturally from all that is said above (p. 349 ff:) ; the
contraction of the Old Testament to the fourth circle of the
canon already described, which Jewish scholars after the time
of Christ first arbitrarily effected, has no binding force upon
us. But just as weak is the other reason, viz. that in the
New Testament books merely those Hebrew books which were
retained by the decision of Jewish scholars are considered as
writings of a higher kind, or as sacred, as I have elsewhere
so manifoldly shown. In addition it is also to be remem
bered that these doubted books, when compared with those of
the Hebrew Bible, fall below them only as a whole, and that
conspicuously the Book of Esther forms a natural transition
to them. If, now, all such reasons as are urged against these
books that in point of language come between the Old and
New Testaments fail, everything returns to the question how,
on scientific principles, to decide in general concerning the
conception of the sanctity of the whole Bible and the degree
of it ; and this must be taken into further consideration below.
Moreover, if these writings, which, according to all their
characteristics, we designate best of all as intermediate writings,
are once estimated in modern times as the Apocrypha of the
Old Testament, such writings as are anywhere met with of
similar character, and in actual age and dress falling back
into the times of the Old Testament, must be relegated to a
lower third gradation. To distinguish three gradations with
respect to aU writings whicli can at all come into considera
tion, because they here or there had been raised to a higher
stage or laid claim to it, was entirely proper in those centuries
in which the question of fixing the canon was a burning and
necessary question, as above shown ; such writings were there
fore then called rather pseudepigrapha, because there was no
wish to characterize them directly as impious or godless. But
in this another mistake was made. For into this division
must now be thrown such books as are introduced as Holy
Scripture in the New Testament, as the Book of Enoch, which
also among the oldest Christians without doubt were freely

366 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
read as Holy Scripture of the higher kind, and have maintained
themselves as such in different communities of Christendom
far into the Middle Ages, or indeed until to-day, as the
fourth Book of Ezra in most editions of the Armenian and
Latin Bible, or the Book of Enoch and the Book of the
Jubilees in the ^Ethiopian Church. In their inner worth, as
well as in the respect once more commonly paid to them, and
partly also in age, such writings stand not very far away from
those intermediate writings, and for various reasons (for
example, the Book of Enoch, because it is too prolix and
contains much of a foreign nature) might in most Christian
communities gradually be more and more driven into the
background. But there is no sufficient ground on that
account for removing them all into the third gradation, and
thereby designating them as entirely unworthy. They are,
indeed, productions of the somewhat artificial literature
described more particularly above (§ 100 f.), which in the
later centuries increased with increasing luxuriance, and. sent,
forth its shoots long, indeed, after the close of the Christian
canon even up to the Middle Ages ; and that a strong growing
aversion to them prevailed in greater Christendom the more
wantonly they multiplied and the more widely they became
known and read, is readily explained. But in such questions
the Middle Ages could less and less hit upon a proper
decision, and it is already more particularly proved above that
the name of pseudepigrapha must be used very cautiously,
since, should it be applied without care, it would cover far
more than is included within the limits of the books here
classed together as such.
However, in any case, the books which would thus be
designated as apocryphal with respect to the Old Testament
would stand far removed from the Apocrypha of the New
Testament in ancient regard and worth, and the injustice
would be done of being obliged to distinguish with respect to
the Old Testament three gradations, but with respect to the
New Testament only two. That these books in our modern

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 367'
times are" designated ' so very commonly as apocryphal, cannot
prevent us, in science at least, from judging otherwise about
them ; rather is it apparent in this matter that to-day, in the
so-called Eeformed Church, there cleaves yet indeed many an
imperfection arising from its origin, and that Luther in the
choice of the new name he gave to these books was not happy.
In the meantime good service could easily be done if these
books, which are very useful in supplying somewhat to the
customary reader the historical connection between both
Testaments, were admitted for the national use in a somewhat
smaller type or publication as- intermediate books, omitting
the third and fourth Maccabees,, already wanting in the
Vulgate, but adding the most important portions of the Book
of Enoch and the whole fourth Book of Ezra. As inter
mediate books they might be rightly held in much respect.
7. The Ante-canonical and Post-canonical Position of the
Sacred Books.
§ 114. Whether a book that became canonical descended
from an earlier or later time, it would nevertheless be a great
mistake to suppose it was received into the canon forthwith
as soon as it was written. This would amount to the same
thing as will be discussed further below, viz. the erroneous
supposition that it was written of set purpose for the canon,
or with . a view to admission into it. Such mistaken pre
suppositions are at once dissipated when all that is relevant
to this subject is more closely investigated. Now that more
exact researches in the last centuries, and especially also at
length in our own time, have penetrated this whole wide
region more and more deeply, and we have discovered anew
the true state of things with greater certainty, we can express
sufficiently on this footing the sure results in the following
positions : —
1. All the books whicli were ultimately received into the
secure haven of the canon, and now lie in it as if certified for

368 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
eternity, came into existence as all those that have not
been received, and in their origin show absolutely nothing
recognisable by our eyes in which they had any advantage
over the others. The whole hterature of the people of Israel
was already in early times uncommonly various and abundant,
and amid the fluctuations and changes that were indicated
more particularly above, § 92 ff, maintained itself all along
through all the very diversified times of its life up to the era
which led to the final close of the canon itself. Traces
observable still in the canonical books themselves suggest this
certainty with respect to the older times ; with respect to
the later we possess also, apart from the canonical books,
testimonies which do not allow us to doubt of it ; and as we
follow out such traces properly, there arises before our eyes a
wide superstructure of most wonderful activity and labour in
the most different "departments of literature. With these ever
ascending waves of movement and the very different kinds of
mental work that found its outlet in the hterature, this
activity itself was broken up again into different circles ; and
as in the earliest times there were authors busily occupying
themselves principally with prophetic writings, others with
poetic and artistic works, others again with books of history
or with books of wisdom,1 so there were still, in the last
times of this entire wide literature, authors devoting their
energies especially to the literature of the Gospels, and others
to that of the Epistles ; and as everywhere, so here, literary
men, properly so called, followed when the great authors in
the different departments had exercised their creative gifts.
2. The books that had now become canonical in the four
circles described in § 107 f., and expanding at an ever-
increasing distance round the Ten Commandments as a fixed
centre, show themselves as little recognisable, according to all
the most exact researches, as the oldest in their department,
so that they must rather be considered generally as the most
1 Num. xxi. 27 speaks of poets v. ho wrote or sang small aphoristic or
proverbial couplets.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 369
recent but also the ripest and most perfect of their kind.
The number of writings belonging to the same department
was in the course of time too great, and the writings them
selves, for the common reader, were too widely scattered and too
difficult to get together not to induce men, expert in each depart
ment, to bestow labour and pains in connecting and combining
them more closely in appropriate fashion ; and we can stiU
plainly mark a special art displayed in blending, more or less
completely, the best productions of a department, the one with
the other ; whilst, on the other hand, some .satisfied themselves
with placing the best works merely in juxtaposition, because
they considered that the better course. All this was a labour
in the highest degree of diligence, of variety, and of well-nigh
inexhaustible extent, begun in Israel in tolerably early times,
repeating itself with every succeeding age, and, in particular
conjunctures of circumstances, that called 'forth its activity
with special vigour, prosecuted with exceptional zeal. Many
of the most important pieces of the older literature have been
preserved either entire or in longer or shorter fragments by
means of this vigorous twofold work of collecting and blend
ing documents and books ; without it they might have been
wholly lost. Our canonical books as a whole now consist
only of such larger works as have partly resulted from
manifold remodellings and interweaving of many older works,
partly arisen from collections of all kinds. The old custom
was to arrange together a series of similar writings under a
name that was great in literature ; whence the new custom
gradually grew up of reckoning all these similar writings as
belonging to the same name. In this way the two smaller
books of Solomon have probably been preserved along with
the larger Book of Proverbs ; with which among the Hellenists
the two other books of Wisdom were associated ; and in the
same canon were arranged under Jeremiah's name three
(properly four) other small prophetic writings. A few smaller
books stand as isolated as the Book of Esther in the Old
Testament and the Apocalypse in the New, so that they were
EWALD i. 2 a

370 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
ultimately in the augmentations of the canon added to those
regarded as on a par with them. But such as were books of
extracts might also before they were received into the canon
suffer many additions or go through other transformations ; as
in the Old Testament the Book of Proverbs and the twelve
books of the prophets show. Only a few have passed into
the canon just as they were originally composed; as in the
New Testament the Apocalypse, the Epistle to the Hebrews,
and the two writings of Luke ; in the Old Testament, Koheleth
and the Book of Esther.
3. On closer contemplation, a whole previous history, longer
or shorter, of most of the books of the canon is disclosed to
us, but this previous history gradually fell into oblivion the
longer the now canonical books remained alone by themselves,
and afterwards each one of them was infinitely more read
and used than before. Among the ancient nations little
exact inquiry was made into the history of the origin of the
ancient books, and what was once known readily slipped away
from memory in the course of centuries ; it is not surprising,
therefore, that with respect to the way in which many
canonical books first came into existence and took their final
form, certain new and distinct opinions, little in harmony
with that previous history, should have firmly estabhshed
themselves even before the close of the last circle of the
canon. Thus not only was Moses now regarded as the
author of the Pentateuch, David as the poet who wrote all
the psalms of the canonical psalter, but to the latest of those
just before called prophets were ascribed prophetic pieces that
either have no superscription at all or one without the name
of the author. If such universally prevalent opinions give
indications of their existence in the language of the New
Testament, this can have for us not the smallest signi
ficance from a purely historical point of view, since
nothing is necessarily taught thereby that is of moment
for the severer requirements of history, and since we know
that what Christ and His disciples desired to teach,

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 371
and for which they demanded faith, lies in quite another
province. § 115. Certain books having been placed by public acknow
ledgment u'pon a far higher stage than others, in the way
described above, § 105 ff, it was difficult, in the circumstances
affecting everything of the nature of books in antiquity, to
prevent the entire loss more and more of those put in the
background, unless some of them were guarded by specially
favourable conditions. And in this way have been preserved,
even outside the canon of the New Testament, a considerable
number of that moiety of all the books which may be called
Greek or even Christian, and belong in the widest sense
to this hterature, — a moiety which, as is clear from all
previously said, embraces all outside the Hebrew Bible. But
not a single book side by side with the books of the Hebrew
Old Testament has survived from the old nation, partly
because the greater number of those books go back to times
so ancient that very many originally contemporaneous with
them might already be lost when the third and fourth circles
of the canon, as explained above, were closed, partly on
account of the special rigour of the schools against all books
not received into the fourth circle, a rigour which was
ultimately superadded according to § 112.
The perishing of so many books, occasioned as it was, not
by this sharp separation alone, but conjointly with it, may be
properly regretted ; yet, on the other hand, it must be thank
fully acknowledged that the books once elevated to the higher
grade were afterwards the more securely guarded against all
further danger of perishing or even of mutilation and abridg
ment. - And this is in fact a great advantage gained by
making such books sacred. Even from the earliest centuries
of antiquity portions of literature have thereby been faithfully
preserved which otherwise would have been almost certainly
lost, or at best would have been saved in later epitomes and
remodellings. If we now possess pieces of writing of the
ancient nation of Israel which afford us manifest proof that

372 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
the literature of this nation is not indeed the oldest in the
earth, but yet proportionately one of the oldest and best
preserved of all, we owe it simply to their being made sacred.
But, to say nothing for brevity's sake of Chinese and Egyptian
literature, it is very similar with the Indian Veda and the
oldest portions of the Zend Avesta which, as the offspring of
a wholly different world, would never have been saved out of
their remote antiquity for later times and for our own days,
though in the case of the Avesta in a very mutilated form,
had not the special protection of an inviolable sanctity
surrounded them. Even the anxiety which appears to us
exaggerated with which the later generations often sought to
preserve such holiest treasures of their antiquity from all
alteration and disfigurement, and indeed from every touch of
profane hands, and wherein the Hebrews were on a par with
the ancient Hindoos and Zends, has had so far its advantage.
But what is of most importance for us is that this learned
solicitude extended principally to the preservation of the right
readings of such books, partly just on account of their
sanctity, partly also, and still more so far as it was the case,
because such books were publicly read in the assemblies of
the community. In proportion as everything depended with
respect to these books upon the most exact preservation of
their original sense, must we estimate the more highly the
solicitude which later scholars on their part so manifoldly and
persistently displayed, and whose best good consequences we
are still able always to make our own. The question for us
is simply how far this specially active sohcitude has, in parti
cular instances, benefited us, and how we have to judge of it
further. And since in connection with this whole subject of
discussion the answer to this question cannot be evaded, we
must at once distinguish carefully the two great halves of our
Bible above mentioned, viz. the Hebrew and the Greek. It
would be a great thing if, through the rare solicitude of
ancient scholars, we were enabled to assume that everywhere
in the Bible a wholly reliable text had been preserved ;

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 373
nowhere is this so much to be desired as in the books of the
law and other writings that are to be regarded as public
documents. But in point of fact the whole case stands in
detail thus : —
The Hebrew Bible has its Massora, the object of which is
to prevent its text being ever changed by the caprice of the
scribe or the reader. This is an extremely carefully planned
and well executed work of Jewish scholars, consisting partly
of special books, partly of mere marginal readings; longer or
shorter, to this Bible itself, and which, among other things
it aimed at, was principally to prevent that what had been
accepted as the right text should ever again be altered. The
work has shown its great value in preserving this Bible the
more completely in its purity and integrity all through the
darkness of the Middle Ages to our own times ; and if it is
not wholly unique in its kind, since the Syrians have dealt
similarly with their Bible, the Mussulmans with their Koran,
the Hindoos with their Vedas, it nevertheless surpasses in
extent and in thoroughness of execution everything of the
like nature. Since, however, it was composed with so much
labour and so much completeness at a time when the schools
of Biblical learning exercised their sway over the whole of the
still existing Jewish community, it is not surprising that the
text of the MassSra was followed in all subsequent manuscripts
of the Hebrew Bible, just as the rigid exclusion of all books
seeking admittance into the fourth circle of the canon was
repeated ; and the question arises, Can we to-day anywhere in
any corner of the earth find a copy of the Hebrew text free
as a whole from the influence of the Massora ? But this
whole work was entered upon only as the Biblical school with
its one-sided anxiety was formed and took simply one single
species of text as the right one for the scientific basis of the
letter of the Bible; it has therefore preserved only the
Biblical text once acknowledged by it to be infallibly correct,
and with all its merit derived from the fidelity with which it
has been preserved it cannot suffice for us, since we have

374 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
long known for a certainty that in other old manuscripts
readings altogether different and in part much more correct
were once found. Moreover, even the text of the Mass6ra,
prescribed as it was, did not maintain itself in the course of
centuries in all manuscripts with complete uniformity.
With the text of the other half of the Bible the case is
altogether different. Among Christians of the older centuries,
conformably with the freer Christian spirit, a similar school of
learned men was never formed who dealt with the Bible on
the basis of narrow and one-sided views; and it would have
been weU-nigh impossible, on account of the wide dispersion
of the communities in the most remote and different lands, to
carry out with respect to them any kind of restraint or impose
upon them a Massora. On the contrary, from the oldest
manuscripts of the Greek Bible, and pre-eminently of the New
Testament, which have been collected and examined in our
day with great zeal, rather do we recognise with certainty
that a large freedom prevailed among copyists, though the
best manuscripts were often repeatedly revised by learned
correctors and restored to conformity with other manuscripts.
In the more ancient manuscripts of the Greek Bible we note,
therefore, the presence of the same old freedom — often, it is
true, leading to errors — which unquestionably prevailed also
in the Hebrew manuscripts in the centuries before the
Massora. Not till the Middle Ages were the Greek manu
scripts of the Bible more and more assimilated, without
doubt because the dangers of the older but too unrestrained
freedom became increasingly perceptible and their avoidance
was desired, although even then a school so rigorous as that
of the Mass6ra was not in existence.
The exaggerated expectations, or, indeed, stereotyped
fancies, concerning the Bible as Holy Scripture must there
fore in this respect be abandoned. Neither in itself, according
to § 104, nor by all such learned manipulations, can the mere
letter of Holy Scripture be sufficiently guarded and as it were
itself made holy. The means are put into our hands,

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 375
especiaUy in the modern centuries, obtained by persevering
zeal of research, through which, even as by our own further
reflection we may approximate more and more closely to the
original text of the separate writings of the Bible ; with
respect to the New Testament and other parts of the Greek
half of the Bible we can collate old manuscripts, which of no
other book are so numerous ; with respect to the Old Testa
ment, for the times before the Mass6ra we can collate chiefly
the old translations ; and it is no small advantage that the
sanctity and wide use of the Bible have secured that we can
gather together to-day so many more manuscripts of it than
of any other book so old, and can with these collate trans
lations so ancient in the most different tongues. But that
this sanctity, notwithstanding all solicitude exercised often so
anxiously' on this account, never sufficed for the complete
protection of the mere letter of the Bible, is plain.
8. The Sanctity of the Bible is neither arbitrarily determined,
nor arbitrarily determinable.
§ 116. If we cannot therefore rest the sanctity of the
Bible, and retain the proper sense of the term, upon its letter,
as if that letter had been preserved for us entirely without
change, even if in the original text it was absolutely free from
errors, nor yet upon the uniformity of its extent as if it had
been everywhere the same which, according to § 1 1 2 f ., it has
not, — the question further arises, whether that sanctity is then
the product of the will of the individual writers of the Bible,
and so ultimately of the Bible itself ? That is to say, whether
it was of set purpose wdled, since every earnest volition pre
supposes in the special case a purpose ; we might, however,
also say arbitrarily willed, since the wUl without its own free
choice cannot act. But to state this question rightly, and to
have an accurate acquaintance with the Bible, is already to
give an answer in the negative. For everything is specially
applicable to this point that was remarked in § 9 9 concerning

376 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
the perfect ingenuousness and simplicity from which the Bible
everywhere discourses. But the proper answer is found in
the nature of all true religion itself ; so that it may be said,
only if the Bible had not arisen from the predominating true
religion in it, would it pretend to be sacred by its own
absolute will.
That the Bible grew out of writings and books that were
written by men, it says everywhere itself. For the names of
the authors of particular books are known in many instances
from the books themselves ; but where this does not occur in
the case of a small or large work, it is accounted for by the
old custom of authorship in this nation, discussed above in
§99; and yet even then, at least in the case of the four
Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, the name of the author
is supplied by ancient hands. Only in a few cases are we
otherwise unacquainted with the names of the authors, eitheT
on account of special circumstances which were caused by the
time, as when once a prophet, contrary to all former usage of
the old prophets, sent forth a mere fly-leaf into the world
(p. 313) ; or when a later collector and editor of earlier
writings added something of his own ; for the old simplicity
in the literary usage of this nation of Israel remained down to
the latest times so far unchanged that mere compilers and new
editors of old books did not regard it as necessary to append
their names, as the Greeks did not learn to do till after the
Alexandrian school of literary lore. That as a result of the
factitious authorship, described further in § 100, or because
the purely historical recollection became graduaUy obscured,
according to p. 370 f., some books were traced back to authors.
who in the more rigid historical sense had either not written
them at all themselves or not wholly, is of no moment here ;
for even this attests that some particular men were always
thought of as authors of all these books. And thus in the
end only the Ten Commandments themselves would be left as
regarded by the narrators, according to the accounts in the
Pentateuch, noted in § 106, as indeed written by the divine

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 377
finger. But that this representation is not to be understood
in any gross material sense, and with what justice it may
nevertheless always bear for us its good sense, is explained
above in § 106. And, indeed, were we to understand it in
an entirely gross material way, we should not be entitled to
transfer the representation to the whole Pentateuch, or indeed
to the whole Bible.
If we take now at once even the greatest writers of such
books as belong to this class, viz. the prophets and apostles,
they were no different men in their writing than they were
in their purest and (to express it so here) divinest life and
effort ; but just as they discoursed and worked publicly
in the community, so also they composed these writings,
although precisely with respect to this special occupation again
with a wholly special collectedness and concentration of mind
necessary for it, therefore in such a way that if the Holy
Spirit moved them on other occasions, according to § 82, He
would certainly not be wanting to them in such writing also.
But such lofty things as holiness and godliness, like all
similar perfections, are verily things that man is to strive
after with all his might in accordance with the eternal law of
all true religion, which he is never to suppose himself to have
in perfection, nor to boast of them as if he possessed them ;
and though every one of its members may be and is said to
be holy according to the most ancient sentiment of the true
community (§86 ff), whether he was so actually the total
impression of all his conduct and effort can show, but not till
after his death. Still all true religion, according to § 79. 1,
the more purely it kept itself upon its own lofty height, was
never from the beginning prodigal of the name " Man of
God ; " and if the author of the pastoral Epistles, at least in
such connections of discourse as are not to be misinterpreted,
caUs Timothy so,1 he nevertheless only seeks by it to make
1 1 Tim. vi. 11 ; 2 Tim. ivj 17. Paul himself does not love this" coloured
discourse ; the expression is, however, very striking as coming from this, so to
speak, later Paul.

378 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
conspicuous the lofty type of man which in his high position
especially such a man as Timothy was to be, and in the
retrospect of the author had also actually been. But if all
this is so, it must be transferred also even to the writings of
such men, and we must suppose that these could truly
become sacred so far as anything like a writing may become
in general sacred to man, but without itself intending to be
so originally. And this all appearance confirms, as well if
we take these writings as they are in themselves as if we
look closely to their history before they became sacred. •
For, contemplated from that side, no one of these writings
declares anywhere of itself that its aim is to find acceptance
as a sacred and divine writing. The prophets discoursed in
the name of Jahveh, and, impelled by the same spirit which
animated them in public discourse, they also work, whether in
small or large pieces of writing, for the public ; but nowhere
do they put upon their writings as writings a further special
divine value or^he weight of a special sanctity. A younger
prophet who newly edited for his contemporaries the noblest
portions of Isaiah with a shorter piece of his own production,
appears indeed once to designate the book, at the end of
which he gave this addition of his own, a book of Jahveh,1
therefore to be sure, it may be supposed, in this sense a sacred
book ; and he refers to it that the latest generations pf men
shall not fail to see the truth of the prophecy here pro
nounced ; but this book was not at all to him the old Book
of Isaiah which he simply edited afresh, and whose accom
plished prophecies he had desired only to continue somewhat ;
the vivid feeling which is expressed in these words is rather
that of the certainty of the divine judgment of the world at
the conclusion of things when all this, just as it is here
announced, it shall be possible to read off as from God's book
of account. This is therefore simply a very characteristic
image, for this later prophet, of the last judgment of the
world, which he could think of the more readily the greater
1 Isa. xxxiv. 16 f. „,

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 379
the judgment of the world had been which had just in reahty
been witnessed in the overthrow of the Chaldsean kingdom.
Accordingly the expression has here no relevancy. The
factitious authorship, described more particularly above in
§ 100, produced effect indeed to this extent, that among those
who accepted such a literary device with little scruple or
overlooked it, a special glory fell upon the writing, the book,
and the words themselves by which an ancient man of God
received a new transfiguration, as if it had been written in
old time, or, as with the Book of Enocji, in a primitive age
just as it had now been fulfilled. And it created or
favoured entirely new conceptions concerning books that
could then readily become more deeply established ; just
as it did not become gradually customary to think of
Moses as the author of the whole Pentateuch till after the
work of the Deuteronomist already mentioned. But we
cannot depend upon such later opinions although at length
they were coined into standing titles.1 And if the Apoca-
lyptist counts him blessed who reads his prophetic book
and, which is the chief thing, makes its contents a truly
individual possession, and if he threatens severely, after the
fashion of the Deuteronomist, whoever should add anything
to it or take anything away from it, by all that he simply
expresses himself concerning its serious contents as he was
obliged to express himself in his day without claiming for the
writing as a writing an exceptional position. Moreover,
Paul might in an Epistle once indeed exclaim that he thought
also that he had the spirit of God, and on this account had
not said anything in the Epistle that was unchristian ; but
that he assigned any higher importance otherwise to any
one of his Epistles so far as it was a writing, is against all
appearance. If we regard now on the other side what is described

1 Such as the "Pentateuch of Moses," the " Psalter of David. " It is of no
historical significance that such names, freely used for five hundred years, are
found in the New Testament.

380 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
in § 114, viz. how all these writings before they got into the
canon simply shared with all the rest the same fate in the
stream of the entire literature of Israel, and how especially
the New Testament writings, after they were received into
the canon, were for a long time very freely handled (according
to p. 374), everything is harmonized in the certain judgment
that they became sacred indeed at the right time, but without
professing to have been so originally. And if in the later of
them the earlier are considered and honoured as sacred, it
does not follow that the authors of these later writings
deliberately and artificially aimed, as it were, to compose and
send forth sacred writings or in any way to rival the old
sacred writings ; there is not the smallest indication of
such an intention. Besides, who would expect this of a
Paul, or of the authors of the Gospels, or of the apocalyptic
John ? But indeed not even the writers of the more
factitious kind of works, frequently mentioned previously,
so far as these works nevertheless found a place in the
canon of the New or Old Testament, had ever the design
by their writings to rival the old Sacred Scriptures or to
displace them.
Wherefore the result arrived at above stands good, that it
was only the deep and fervid feeling of the sacredness of all
true revelation and religion in the successive stages of their
progress, and the experience that just those writings enclosing
the Ten Commandments in ever wider circles were most fitted
to guard and promote that feeling, that brought about the
conviction of the sacredness of the Scriptures. So that even
here the universal truth is confirmed that everything divine
and holy cannot be enforced among men and by them, and
cannot be guarded by violent means, but exists and comes
only where it can exist and come in its own proper freedom
and in the fulness of its invisible power.
§ 1 1 7. As the sacredness of the Bible is not the product of
the arbitrary will of the authors of the books of which it is
composed, even so in its true signification it cannot be arbi-

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 381
trarily determined at a later period by the changing opinions
of the time or of schools, without such opinion sooner or
later operating very perniciously. Nevertheless, this happened
before the final closing of the canon. In the centuries which
elapsed between the last but one and the last making up
of the canon, the conceptions and fancies concerning Holy
Scripture, according to § 73, mounted higher and higher, even
to the most giddy heights. Starting from the mere idea of a
writing, it could be supposed that as all the old venerable
relics, which had vanished before the ark of the covenant, at
that time upon the earth, were regarded as in their true
essence laid up mysteriously in heaven, so not merely the Ten
Commandments, written according to the Pentateuch with the
divine finger, were hidden there, but also all Holy Scripture
bound up with the book of life of which poets and prophets
had discoursed,1 and expanded to the great reckoning book of
God and the broad wall-tablets upon which all the destinies
of humanity were already inscribed beforehand ; just as in the
Book of Enoch this conception of heavenly tablets is found
everywhere. Yet this representation must more and more
remain suitable only for the higher discourse. Starting, on
the other hand, from the contents of Holy Scripture, whether
of the Pentateuch chiefly as the sacred book of law as was
the case with Philo, or even of other books depending upon
the Pentateuch, the idea of sacredness might be exaggerated,
and be supposed to lie in the letter as such ; and since it
cannot be allowed to distinguish arbitrarily between this or
that letter, if it only stands in the text, acknowledged to be
genuine, it is only proper to think that everything to be read
in the Bible is equally the immediate word of God. And this
conception could then be best followed out further by saying
either that the Holy Spirit of God who impelled the prophets
did the same for every writer of the Bible in the penning of
every word, or that the whole Bible is only as it were one
embodiment and manifestation of the Word or Logos of God.
1 Ex. xxxii. 32 ; Isa. iv. 3 ; Ps. cxxxix. 16 ; cf. Ma], iii. 16.

382 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
Both conceptions are in effect the same ; but the first is the
more readily apprehended on account of the idea of the true
prophet familiar to all ; the other, proceeding from the mere
idea of the word of God, makes everything more simple,
universal, and uniform. According to the first, aU writers of
the Bible must necessarily have been prophets, which to be
sure in those days was a view more and more prevalent with
respect to the Old Testament, David himself being freely
spoken of as such. According to the other, this would not be
so necessary, as indeed it would occur to no one to designate
the New Testament writers prophets, with the exception of
the John of the Apocalypse. And since, indeed, the Old
Testament books are constantly thought of in the New
Testament as sacred even where they are not expressly so
designated, but the New Testament books do not anywhere so
speak of themselves, sacredness would rather be ascribed to
the former than the latter, if after the complete close of the
canon it had not been easy to transfer this idea to the whole
body of the New Testament writings.
But if the sacredness of the Bible is thus to be assigned to
letter and word, as if in relation to its highest aim everything
in it had equal value, so that in some way it consisted, as the
Alexandrian Philo would say, of as many oracles as sentences,
words, or letters, at once on three sides the gravest mischiefs
arise, and of these a detailed description must be given.
§ 118. 1. Whilst the highest aim of the Bible is unques
tionably to publish to men the wiU of God for their spiritual
life, very many of its sentences in their most obvious sense
fall below this mark. Few men, it is true, have gone so far
as to seek in every sentence an immediate divine command
for man ; but so much the more have they presupposed that
every sentence must contain some higher truth, even if this at
first glance were not very easy to find, and the solution of the
riddle then propounded must be sought only by great pains.
This led necessarily to figurative interpretation or allegory ;
and the whole business of exposition and application of the

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 383
contents of the Bible was resolved into the arts of allegory,
which it was sought to reduce to fixed principles in order that
the course of procedure might not be purely arbitrary; an
endeavour which might be speciously commended because
some passages of the Bible it was impossible to understand in
their strictly literal and obvious sense. But we have long
since been convinced with sufficient certainty how fully arbi
trary every figurative or secondary interpretation is, indeed,
strictly taken, how it allows only a wrong instead of the true
sense and original genuine meaning of the author. Wherefore
these symbolic interpreters of the Bible never agree among
themselves, since upon mere caprice no spontaneous harmonious
judgment of all who are capable of judging can be based.
And as a result of this whole method, it is regarded as possible
to find divine mysteries in every word, nay, in every letter of
the Bible, as indeed many have attempted to do.
But as soon as ever old writings already only partially intel
ligible are held sacred in a community, there slips in every
where almost involuntarily this effort and art of allegory, as we
know it to have been the case in like manner in the history
of the Indian and Persian religions. And inasmuch as they
found their point of departure in the Pentateuch, such
attempts and endeavours could tJhe more easily succeed the
more this most sacred book went back into an antiquity
which was encompassed by a sacred splendour, yet had other
wise for men of the later age already become very obscure.
Indeed, it is possible still distinctly to trace how innocent
such attempts are in their first origin, and how it was simply
an actual pressure and need of the spiritual life that led to
them. When the author of the Book of Daniel felt the
deepest pain of mind in the thought that the seventy
years of the wasting of the community foretold in Jeremiah's
book, then held sacred, could not after four hundred years
be at the end, and the coming of the Messiah could be so
long delayed; when he, praying in his spirit to God about
the solving of this very difficult problem, had found it at last

384 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
in the suggestion of a freer symbolic interpretation of the
number of years, a suggestion won as it were in conflict from
God, for the letter of Holy Scripture had verily become clear
to him in this new divine light, not by an already familiar
freak of fancy, nor by a previously established art of allegory,
and he himself was set free from his anguish of mind : we are
able in this case, as in the most vivid example, the better to
realize how indefatigably and conscientiously the anxious
heart suffered itself to be agitated under the increasingly
heavy yoke of a sacred letter, and the higher impulse not
blindly to submit to it, until there opened between the two the
possibility of a new view that might afford rest. Allegory,
therefore, which may often be extremely apt, and bring to
light ingenious thoughts, served to give exercise in the best
sense to a freer movement of the mind, and to satisfy a higher
need in the prevailing darkness of those times ; and this alone
explains also why it could obtain so much favour, and amidst.
hundreds of changes could yet itself in its deepest purport
remain so long the same. Moreover, it is also easily under
stood that it by no means sprang up and reached a high
degree of development in this or that place, as it were, merely
casually ; it shot forth in many places from seed everywhere
sown, and only from special causes did it flourish conspicu
ously in Alexandria, which had already been prepared for it
by kindred Greek pursuits.
If, now, Paul with his Hellenistic culture adorned by a few
such flowers his words to readers in heathen lands very
susceptible to arts of this kind, and subsequently the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews still more illustrates what he
seeks to teach in grand new creative trains of thought from
this province, it is only something quite usual in the literature
of those times. In fact, it is simply a special mode of
specially explaining and demonstrating some subject of diffi
culty in the realm of sacred things and sacred questions, — a
method at that time much loved and resorted to by many
persons which we should be obliged to look upon with anxiety

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 385
and aversion if it were employed to demonstrate anything in
itself erroneous ; but how httle this is the case, we know. If,
therefore, the New Testament were far fuller than it is of
such rather artificial passages and arguments, that would not
lead us also on our part to make further use of the arts of
allegory, any more than the instances given above (p. 370 f.)
of views then prevailing concerning the authorship of some of
the old sacred writings would induce us to discontinue more
exact historical investigations. All such things are changing
historical phenomena which have a significance for us of a
transient kind, but not one immediately determining our faith
and our religion ; and there being very many ways in which
something right in itself may be proved is no justification for
rejecting what is right in itself because it is pressed home
upon the momentary conviction of the world merely in this
'form or that. But the consideration truly important, and for
us in this case most immediately decisive, is, that according
to our New Testament books, yet quite distinctly and posi
tively, we may know that neither Christ Himself nor His
disciples who once stood in closest connection with Him
made use of such arts of allegory, as all the Gospels, with the
writings of John, of James, and of Jude, as well as the First
Epistle of Peter, show. The pure simplicity, plain directness,
and inwardly sure confidence of all truth mark also on this
side aU earthly steps of the Lord ; and as we clearly realize
how certainly Christ did not call to His aid this art, widely
intrusive though it was at that time and unusually loved, nay
more, how little He needed it for His highest aim, so certainly
can we also to-day completely dispense with it.
§ 119. 2. If all the separate words and sentences of Holy
Scripture, in every passage where they may be found, have
directly this great importance, even for all public life in the
community and in human society, then conclusions may be
legitimately drawn from them of the most significant character,
and affecting the life most profoundly, as precepts and legal
awards for the public conduct of nations ; and nothing can be
EWALD I. 2 B

386 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
more acceptable than to find in them such thoroughly decisive
references to things that happen to be in dispute to-day or
to-morrow in the community, or in national intercourse.
Does this or that place, for example, seem to have, especially
in matters of divine service, a superiority over every other,
or does a great party feel itself obliged to defend some one of
its favourite opinions against other opinions, nothing can be
more desired than to find in the words of the Bible perfectly
evident support and proofs. But in the wearisome obscure
controversy, zeal may then become so deeply stirred, so one
sided and blind, that the one or the other may think himself
able also to make the letter of Holy Scripture ultimately
favour his own supposed sacred insight, by fixing upon this or
that special reading, in this or that sentence or word of the
Bible, as the only correct one, whether he has good ground
for it or not, and by holding tenaciously to it, and sparing no
exertions to induce his whole community to accept it. Thus
the Samaritans sought to prove, from the Pentateuch, that
their sacred Mount Garizim is the only legitimate place for
all true divine worship ; the Jews, from the same book, showed
that the Samaritans are mistaken, and each accused the other
of tampering with the sacred word; the Egyptian Jews,
against vehement contradictions of the Jerusalem Jews,
attempted to prove, from a passage of Isaiah, that they had
a perfectly legitimate temple in an appointed place in Egypt j1
and still further, late in the middle age, Jewish Massora-
scholars approved an unsuitable reading in the Psalter, in
order thus to take away from Christians the ground of a
favourite Messianic interpretation.2
§ 120. 3. After the diffusion of Christianity, when mutual
accusations increased with increasing severity amidst the
divergent tendencies of those who yet, properly speaking,
acknowledged only the true religion, and therefore held a
Holy Scripture in high esteem ; when not merely Samaritans
and Judseans, Jews and Christians disputed about the Holy
1 Isa. xix. 2 Ps. xxii. 17; cf. Poets of Old Test, in he.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 387
Scriptures, but Christians themselves had not everywhere the
same Holy Scriptures'; when, nevertheless, in their wearisome
controversies, hard to be Understood by simple minds, all
appealed to a Holy Scripture, and each party charged the
other with serious alterations and corruptions of the sacred
text : then, indeed, is it explicable how the wholly new view
could come into vogue, that all Holy Scripture, up to that
time, is still not the true divine Scripture, and that something
far more reliable must yet be hoped for. Among a pepple
such as the Arabians at that time still were, in their great
ancient chief tribe, hemmed in round about on three sides by
powerful victorious kingdoms and loving still above every
thing their old freedom, hard pressed from the north and the
south by Christians with their long-continued attempts at
conversion and their very mischievous internal controversies,
and yet being themselves too simple, and at the same time too
shrewd, not to see the moral weakness and mistakes of these
zealous neighbours — among such a people a view of this kind
could easily and powerfully gain ground ; and Mohammed was
the peculiarly gifted man, at first pure as an angel, afterwards,
when he stood on the giddy height of his worldly power,
degenerating more and more profoundly, through whom such a
view found its fullest realization, and became a force that shook
with mighty energy the whole earthly universe to its centre,
yet still is itself to-day tottering enough. Holy Scripture must
come to the prophet in legible form, freshly and immediately
from heaven, and if inscribed plainly for men, must be inscribed
as it were by invisible hands, to be forthwith communicated
to men, with the greatest certainty, as something to be read
(Qor'an) ; only thus is it reliable as a divine work, and to be
held as the infallible prescript of God for all men ; moreover,
it is not then composed in languages unknown and hard to
be understood as the old Holy Scriptures, reported as divine,
were composed, but in living, clear, eloquent speech, so that no
living man can complain of its obscurity. Such is the entirely
arbitrary conception of what a Holy Scripture must be, and

388 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
this conception was the originator of a new Scripture ; and
the double charm that dwelt in it, as a Scripture of the
highest eloquence in itself, and also especially ravishing
through its heavenly mysteriousness, suggesting the real
depths of all piety, was the more fascinating to the world of
that period, since Mahommed proposed to reject neither the
old sacred writings of the true religion nor the religion itself,
but maintained only that through this more reliable Holy
Scripture the imperfections of the former were to be removed.
And, in fact, if it is once admitted that there must be Holy
Scripture or the will of God cannot certainly be made known
to man, and an arbitrary conception is formed in that case of
what character it must be, it will readily be supposed that
the Scripture which in itself as a composition to be read is
perfectly clear to every man and reliable, and therefore in
itself not to be contradicted, and comprehending nothing that
is too prolix and apparently too multifarious and lying too
remote, is the best. Moreover, the external restriction which
it is then thought necessary to employ, in order to preserve it
from every further addition and every various reading, such as
was the law of the realm in Islam soon after Mahommed's
death, is only a logical consequence.
But, in fact, the outcome is the contrary of all that Holy
Scripture originally is (as is clear from what was said above),
or indeed ought to be, if it is not to act perniciously upon the
pure essence and beneficent influences of all true revelation
and religion. What, as Scripture, can only be a means to a
higher aim, and not at all something essentially and at all
times wholly indispensable to it — this conception makes the
most essential and indispensable chief thing; and whilst
genuine Holy Scripture, according to § 116, can indeed
become holy, but without asserting itself as such, here is said
to be something in itself, yet only outwardly and materially
holy from the first. This Holy Scripture, therefore, just as it
is originally, steps, of set purpose for those who believe in it,
into the place of God Himself, and its divine charm clings to

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 389
the mere sounds of the language of it. Its contents, more
over, are then immediate and compulsory prescript for aU
men ; and all religion, as all good morals, all science, and all
civil law as well, must be tied to this rigid sacred letter; a
result the more obstructive, the more limited and uniform that
letter is. So mere fancy is content to possess in this writing for
a short time, indeed, the genuine Holy Scripture in the limited
circle in which it arose, and seems able to preserve it perhaps
for ever, so long as good fortune attends it in the world ; as
was the case for so long with Islam, owing to the hollowness
of the Byzantines of that day. But how terribly has at last
just this Holy Scripture, and faith in it, devastated the world !
Notwithstanding all its pretensions, the Qor'an is not without
internal contradictions, as soon was apparent when it was
collected together and much read ; and just as soon was it
perceived that its contents were far too meagre to direct in
detail the whole life. So it was soon necessary that another
class of men should seek to expound it and supplement it,
and thus the caprice from which it had originally sprung took
a further step ; and since, nevertheless, the sacredness of the
letter must be retained, even the allegories of it, by which
some profounder spirits sought to soothe their better con
science, were finally, for good reasons, rejected again, and the
Qor'an, by a narrowing and limitation the more severe of all
the better intellect, brought over the world the long misery
which still so visibly attends its steps.
If no one since Mohammed has succeeded, upon the basis
of arbitrary conception as to what a Holy Scripture should be,
in creating a new Scripture, which has found so much faith
as the Qor'an, and brought so much misery over deceived
humanity,1 stUl from those old errors concerning the very idea
of a Holy Scripture which led on the one side to Islamism,
there has resulted on the other side principally in our more recent
times, that misconception and contempt of all Holy Scripture
1 A Mormon Bible was possible merely in North America, and even there
will, it is to be hoped, soon vanish again.

390 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
which has already done amongst us almost as much mischief
as Islamism. Since no confusion of thought about the most
important things can ever, in the long run, be maintained, so
is it with that concerning the very idea of the sacredness of
Scripture ; the exaggeration of the idea of this sacredness, so
long as it will dominate the thought, either drifts to its last
conceivable stage, as we see it with abhorrence enough in
Mohammed, or veers round to its direct opposite — a disesteem
of all Holy Scripture which, from another side than the
Qor'an or any similar Scripture made perhaps in another
way factitiously sacred, destroys the true significance and best
uses of Holy Scripture that, rightly understood and employed,
should remain to us in its incomparable dignity for all ages.
But after all the preliminary observations made above, we can
now the more certainly perceive
III. 9. The Nature of the actual Sacredness of the Bible.
§ 121. Scripture, even if we perhaps esteem it as holy,
remains in its essence Scripture, and neither can be nor does
it pretend to be holy in itself, — that Scripture at least of which
we here speak, and which in so far as has been shown is the
direct contrary of the Qor'an. We designate indeed many
other things holy which are not in themselves either God or
divine ; as we speak of holy places and holy vessels. But
such things as these are consecrated by us, and can just as
well at our will be unconsecrated again and become common.
But we do not speak of Scripture as holy in the same sense as
we speak of these things ; for though every Scripture is in
itself likewise only a vessel, yet what it, if we will call it holy,
has received into itself and holds, that we cannot and dare
not, as in the case of other things, take away again at our
wUl or as it were strip off and despise, if it is to be esteemed
by us as holy ; rather, if it becomes and is already actually
holy to us, can it according to the expression be holy to us
only through that which is actually in itself holy and once

REVELATION IN THE -BIBLE. 391
for all deposited in it and not to be cast forth arbitrarily.
Now the holy for us is simply God and His will, His will
being to us inseparable from Him, and when revealed one
and the same with His word. If, therefore, we find this
word in any writing more perfect and at the same time more
original and fresh than in any other, it may be rightly regarded
as holy to us above all other writings ; that the word would
still be regarded by us as just as certainly holy even if we
heard it from the mouth of a living man and fully understood
it — because we apprehended something serviceable for our
salvation and so as well good in itself as inviolable rather
than holy, — cannot be said. But if this writing contained
something of this kind, of which we knew that it was long
ago regarded by the best men as something holy (and this
can occur historically with a Holy Scripture), it would fairly
be obliged to be regarded as to us all the more sacred. Now
no single writing and also no holy writing meets us in such a
way that we should be compelled to regard it as holy, as in a
human kingdom a law if we violate it can immediately and
perceptibly compel us even against our will by means of
punishment ; for indeed God Himself does not meet man in
such a way that man cannot for the moment reject and
despise Him apparently with impunity. If, however, we not
merely know that this writing was esteemed holy by
innumerable of our best and foremost men in accordance with
their own living experience and free conviction, but if we also
have learned to hold it as such ourselves through our own free
experience, then, to be sure, will it rightly appear to us so holy
that we shall regard it, not indeed as fully equal in sanctity
with God and His word, but next to them, as the most holy
thing that can ever be holy.
Now it is with Holy Scripture as with aU conceptions that
are true not so much in themselves as in relation to some
higher conception which they indicate, — we distinguish with
respect to them that which is essential from that which is less
essential yet contributive to completeness, and we are pleased

392 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
if we meet with the former, though we should be still better
pleased if we had the latter with it at the same time. For
example, if we heard of some man, that he was a good man
in rare wise, but ascertained about him only one isolated
authentic actually good deed, we should yet be obliged to
regard him as a really good man ; but we should be more
perfectly satisfied if we came to know for certain that his
whole life stood in the closest connection with this single
good deed of which we had heard, although no other good
act of his was so conspicuous, because we know very well
that in the life of a man each individual act stands in the
closest connection with every other ; and just so we know
well enough that the idea of the good in its strictest significa
tion belongs properly only to God, though under certain
conditions it is predicable also of man. We must therefore
now consider exactly just this essence of the actual sacred
ness of the Bible apart from the wider signification of the
term. Above everything,
§ 122. 1. It is certain that the deepest and purest essence
of all actual sacredness of the Scripture of the Old and
New Testament is resolvable into this, that it contains the
word of God in accordance with which we men should
live. He to whom God and His word has no significance,
still less a purely sacred significance, can desire to know
nothing of Holy Scripture ; of this we may subsequently
speak in the proper place. But what in the deepest and
most necessary sense is holy in Holy Scripture is imme
diately connected with the Holy Spirit as, according to
§ 80-81, it exercises its active influence in the community of
the true revelation and religion, creating its manifold works.
As the Holy Spirit moved with its most original and purest
power in the prophets of the Old Testament, as it struggles in
a thousand ways to manifest itself by word and deed to the
world, so at the right time its revelation passes over into
writing. Many of the greatest prophets sought gradually by
writing to immortalize the most imperishable of their words

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 393
and the most memorable of their deeds springing from the
same Spirit ; and what they, themselves did not so immortalize
was preserved in the community so far as it was worthy of
immortality without their aid, by other written documents
and the hving memory, and passed over sooner or .later into
writing likewise. Afterwards, when this power of the Holy
Spirit, so peculiarly old in Israel, had renewed itself in the
whole manifestation bf Christ (§ 8 3), and in such a way
that in one mortal life it could not be manifested more
powerfuUy and transcendently, alike in word and deed, then,
immediately after His heavenly glorification, it is His Holy
Spirit which, enkindled and made more strongly aglow
through the fire of the same Holy Spirit still living in the
already existing Holy Scripture, now expressed itself in the
new community by word and deed ; this community itself
feels its working and its gentle or all-penetrating essence
as its very life j1 the apostles, and in rivalry with them Paul
and others deeply influenced by it, suppose themselves, not
vainly, to be swayed by its impulse and pressure if possible
in a mightier degree, although always ready to submit
their judgment to'that of the whole community so far as this
community on special questions was actually further en
lightened by a yet purer illumination of the same Holy
Spirit ; the new prophets publish their words 2 no longer as
those of the Old Testament in the name of God, but in that
of this new Spirit raised to its full power and splendour, and
there soon circulate in the wide community words which are
regarded, if not as immediate words of Christ in His earthly
manifestation,3 yet as utterances " of the Spirit," viz. of just
this genuinely Christian spirit, with which, however, the full
life of youthful Christianity so overflowed that it passed already
in more refined streams into its general literature, and at last
in stiU more refined streams into the canon of Holy Scripture.
1 Cf. 1 Cor. vii. 40 with Phil. iii. 15, Acts v. 32, viii. 29, x. 19, xi. 12, xv. 28.
2 Rev. ii. 7 and often ; cf. xix. 10 ; Acts xiii. 2, xxi. 11.
3 As in 1 Thess. iv. 15 ; cf. v. 1, and 1 Cor. vii. 6, 10-12, and often.

394 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
For it is self-evident that the most loyal and pious members
of the old community in their very different times, and then
especially of the new community transfigured out of the old,
readily perceived all along in what writings the stream of the
Holy Spirit flowed most purely and richly, and what writings
were best fitted to call forth its earliest life and impulse with
the like original power ; but it is here of great significance
and wholly congruous that the first firmer beginnings of the
canon (§107 f.) fell in exactly those periods when (§ 82), as
it were, more palpably, and in the broader features with more
perceptible vividness, a certain potency of the Holy Spirit
presented itself to the view of the community ; and its final
close occurred when in the new community the same Spirit
had already in -its fuUest development been just most
powerfully active. Since now this power of the Holy
Spirit produced the most manifold effects, one of the last
effects, in periods of its stronger excitation, was ever a more
enlightened retrospect upon all the portions of the whole
allied and most fully corresponding literature, and a purer
and more ardent desire to separate and immortalize the best
. of it, together with a superadded boldness sparing no pains
and labour in the task, a creative boldness without which no
great work of enduring significance can be called into exist
ence. It was a higher inspiration which created these
writings themselves ; but another and still genuine inspiration
akin to it well understood how to estimate their eternal
significance for the community, and knew what on its part
was proper to be done, and was strong enough to accomplish
it. Moreover, considering what alone is the main quality
in such a literature, this higher spirit could not doubt by
what name this selection of writings should be designated.
The word of God being the sole element which was actually
sought, and found therein, no name was more suitable by
which to distinguish them from all others than Holy
Scriptures, of which name " the Scriptures," cr still shorter
". Scripture," are only abbreviations ; and these were the

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 395
commonly prevailing names. But when the attention is
directed rather to the Spirit of God, by whose vivifying breath
the mind is ever again inspired as it is eagerly intent and
absorbed in the reading of these books, they may be called
" God-inspirited," 1 although this clumsy designation was not
usual, but is employed only once in one of the last writings
of the New Testament as the special designation of the nature
and true distinction of these books. The abbreviation of this
name to "divine writings" is foreign to the Bible, though
preferred by Josephus and many others after him.
§ 123. 2. Now the rays of the Holy Spirit which beamed
forth from these writings did not by the writings themselves,
even after they were distinguished from all other writings and
regarded as holy, then first of all enlighten and warm the
hearts of their readers or hearers. Moses led the nation in
the primitive time with words, as they were at length
eternalized in literature in the Decalogue, and with innumer
able similar commands which we can now rather think of than
enumerate, before he cared to trouble himself with writing
down even a principal' part of them ; and of Christ's words.
and deeds nothing as yet was written down when the clear
radiance of their holy spirit flashed across the minds of the
Twelve and of so many others. But even the purely artistic
writings, whether of the simply direct kind, as the Book of
Job, or of the far more artificial kind, as the Book of Daniel
or the Book of Enoch, did not first uplift the hearts of men
after they were associated with other holy writings and
irradiated by their splendour. But if such writings had
already been for many thousands a means of enkindling the
1 ei'mviwrriis only once, 1 Tim. iii. 16. When spoken of men it is well
rendered "God-inspired," but of writings better "God-inspirited " (Gottbegeistet),
i. e. full of divine spirit and as it were vivified by it ; describing the condition
and nature of the writing, not a transaction by which it was first created.
The translation of the Vulgate — Scriptura divinitus inspirata— is borrowed from
Josephus, Against Apion, i. 7, who speaks of the Old Testament histories and
genealogical tables as learnt xxtx tJv i*!mum rm xvi tuv Buv. But such a
conception would lead us much too far, and involve in some cases that the Holy
Spirit corrected Himself.

396 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
more glowing or the milder rays of the Holy Spirit in the
mind, and if there already fell upon these writings, many of
them, the bright radiance of a venerable antiquity and of the
memory of the high sacred forms of remote days or of the
mysteries of all primitive time, then indeed must the splendour
of a sacred glory,1 which already surrounded them, rise higher
and higher, and their sanctity be doubly increased. So was it
completely in the time of Christ and the apostles with that
Bible which we now call the Old Testament. In far shorter
space of time could the selection of the new Christian writings
re-illumine at length with the same splendour those already
long canonized, now more and more firmly annexed, not as if
the power of the Holy Spirit that radiated from them could not
have been the same in an earlier day, — rather can we clearly
enough recognise how much this was the case in the earlier
day, — but only so far as fire grows by fire, and the splendour
of the one heightens that of the other.
§ 124. 3. And yet in this highest signification which,
according to a last clear judgment, supported by a good
passage of the New Testament, Holy Scripture can attain, it
is not regarded as a means which must compel man to the
recognition of God and his duty, as a penal law in the human
kingdom must compel him who is amenable to punishment to
render the required obedience. For it is as if just on the last
verge of the whole Christian Bible a declaration must be added
which teaches this with special clearness, although from all
indications it would be otherwise certain as is shown above.
The author of the three pastoral Epistles,2 having in Timothy
set forth how a man must act as a simple Christian and at
the same time a prominent leader of the Churches and a
pattern of all Christians, makes conspicuous towards the end
as specially significant that " from a child he knew the Holy
Scripture in its original sources," that is to say, the Old Testa-
1 Cf. Ex. xxxiv. 29-35.
2 2 Tim. iii. 15-17. foinvuitrras here [designates more particularly ypcupi, and
the assertion of the sentence begins with xx) ucpixi/u;.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 397
ment ; writings which are " able to make man wise unto
salvation," in which dwells the power to afford to the man
who is sufficiently conversant with them the appropriate
wisdom and prudence for the attainment of salvation, although,
to be sure, only through faith in Christ, without which even
the most precious contents of the Old Testament are not to
their fullest capacity vivifying and enlightening. Is it thus
said that all Holy Scripture is able to make man, and so
indeed a Timothy, wise unto salvation, not that it must make
him wise as a penal law and compel him through fear ; this is
explained by the sentence that follows, which enters into
everything relevant here, a sentence which may be called the
resplendent evening star of the long day of the growth and
formation of the Bible among men ; " For every God-inspirited
writing ; " there are many writings which deserve to be so
indicated if their inner worth is rightly estimated ; but take
which you will of them, it must be said " every one " " is also
useful for doctrine " in general, " for correcting " error in the
special case where it is necessary ; further, therefore, in con
sequence of this, "for rectifying oneself again," that after
marking the mistake one may be established again in the
better life through the divine promises of grace ; and therefore
finally " for discipline in righteousness," that one may be
trained by the divine righteousness to be, after the years of
childhood, a matured and vigorous " man of God," i.e.
" equipped for every good work." The inner worth and best
contents of Holy Scripture, together with its true profitable
ness in use, are thus both so perfectly placed on a par with
each other, that if it has this full content of the divine spirit
it must also be thus profitable, and that it has its worth and
high estimation and value among men only just so far as it
has this profitableness also ; so that both are really one and
the same, each imphes the other, if one is present the other
cannot be absent. Every one may thus test Scripture by
using it, and so experience in himself whether it is full of the
Spirit of God. He may do it with each of the writings

398 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
regarded in the world as God-inspirited, and do it as Timothy,
who through the Old Testament alone as Holy Scripture was
drawn to Christ.
That which is most important, however, for us here is that
the last writings of the New Testament nowhere indicate our
present sacred writings of the New Covenant expressly as holy,
nor lay stress upon their right to bear this or a similar designa
tion, still less do they say which of them individually is
worthy to be associated with the venerable writings of the Old
Covenant. The New Testament does not canonize itself;
unquestionably the Old Testament did not before, in the order
described and in the different circles, it formed the canon ; but
that we actually see under our eyes that such is not the case
in the last circle is for us to-day very instructive, since it con
tributes to enable us likewise to form the right conceptions
concerning everything that belongs to this subject. For early
enough, even at the beginning of the second century of the
Christian era, the need was felt in Christendom of selecting
out of the many new Christian writings on all sides such as
would satisfy the double want of that day ; the first and most
pressing being the great final settlement of the canon through
the addition of the New Scriptures to the Old, i.e. the addition
of such new Christian writings to the canon as were not higher
but equally authorized, and which best of all could show that
the new and perfect promised in the old canon now at last is
actually present. But even here this first need of receiving
the best writings as a rule for the further conduct of the true
human life and endeavour now once begun, could not otherwise
be satisfied than as such books only were esteemed suitable
out of which vividly and certainly the same Holy Spirit was
felt to shine forth which was already conspicuously present in
the Old Testament, strongly enough in many parts, and which
was after all the ultimate cause why all the Old Testament
books were made use of and read with faith. And so is it
with the whole Bible ; it was ultimately the presence and
power of the Holy Spirit alone which was sought in it, and

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 399
which if sought rightly, not idly, could be found, that gave it
its value ; and it is this which must oblige us still to regard it
as holy, as is to be shown further below.
10. Tlie further Significance of the Bible and its Sanctity.
§ 125. If there did not cleave to the Bible before every
thing else as essential to it this power of making us feel, as
no other writing does, with such originality and primitive
force and with ever new vividness, the presence and working
of the Holy Spirit as it once manifested itself through ¦ the
prophets and then through Christ and His disciples, and if it
did not ever again call this Spirit into life in ourselves also, so
far as in general a writing can do it, we should then have no
cause to reverence it above all others as to us a great holy
book. But, in point of fact, it contains far more than isolated
passages out of , which something of this Holy Spirit, as if
spontaneously, confronts us and would lay hold upon us, sup
posing we were willing to allow ourselves to be swayed wholly
and for ever by its sacred might alone. For this holy power
indeed, as such an actual power in human affairs and collective
history has from stage to stage only, as was shown § 80—85,
so developed itself as it must develop itself if it was destined
to influence in like manner every man without distinction, and
as it may still always in like manner influence and lead us
all. Only, then, from this history of its development among
men can it be perfectly clear to us how it must in reality
work if it is to lead us in entire conformity with its intent and
impulse. But its development has taken place only in one
nation, — a nation destined by this means, and after its first
transformation into a true independent nation, to become, so to
speak, the seat of its origin upon earth, in the sense in which
the whole second division of this volume has already shown ;
and this seat of origin, however, was not a special part of the
nation or a single institution in it intended for special develop
ment, it was the whole nation, or, as we may say at once,

400 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
according to the highest signification of the present subject,
the nation as a well-ordered community of God, in which
through all hindrances and obscurations that power grew at
last to this perfect power we know, and in such a way as
alone to be capable of influencing all men equally, and thereby
bringing about the fulfilment more and more perfectly of their
ultimate destiny, according to § 50. The history of this nation
is thus for us the preparatory school to enable us to compre
hend the more surely and perfectly what kind of a power it is
which alone can ultimately lead us aright as the holy power of
all human history, and so also of our own human-divine
development. And however otherwise the issue of this long
thousandfold, intricate, changeful history may be, at all events
its highest and for ever most significant result is that at last,
through the full earthly appearing of Christ Himself, it has
' become evident to all the world in what manner the perfect
power of the Holy Ghost must ever rule among men, arid how
instead of being annihilated by His death it but spread itself
from that moment with irresistible force into all the world, in
order to become for this whole earthly sphere the sacred power
alone pre-eminent and for ever unchangeable.
If, therefore, ultimately only that entire history can teach'
how this sacred power, become mighty and perfected among
men, is for ever to < lead them on, it is evident, indeed, that
we cannot sufficiently avail ourselves of sure means in order
to know this history exactly, especially in its last and highest
significance. And this was manifestly also the feeling and
the conviction which, in the different times in which the
different circles of the canon arose, more clearly or obscurely
guided the men in the community who chiefly helped to form
it. Another course might have been adopted. From the
writings that would serve this purpose the best passages
might have been extracted, those most suited and most
exceUent for the edification of the faithful, or out of which
the fire of the Holy Spirit appeared to shine forth most
powerfully and clearly; and there might have been many

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 401
then, as to-day, who would have preferred a Holy Scripture
so compiled. But as good fortune for the thing itself would
have it, such a view and such an aim did not prevail, and it
is a splendid result of the healthy contemplation of things
which always at last won its way in this community in
critical times that it was so. Only the full light of history
suffices to enable us rightly to recognise the origin and
development of such purely spiritual powers, and properly to
estimate their eternal significance and their fitting application
for aU future times. The hght of history shows how
necessarily they come, and- must further develop themselves
from stage to stage ; but it shows also from their last perfec
tion, attained in a determinate sphere, and according to all
circumstances attainable only in it, most clearly and for all
the future, how they must for ever continue to rule among
us, if we do not hinder their free course nor occasion that by
our own fault they do not promote the salvation which they
are destined yet further to advance to a much higher goal.
And so with the choice of the Pentateuch for the first great
fundamental book of the community, it was likewise a chief
aim by means of it, as the most appropriate instrument,
clearly to pronounce how a holy nation arose upon the earth
with those peculiar gifts and obligations and hopes whereby
alone it could arise and can hope to be able ever to continue
as a holy nation. If, now, to promote this further aim, which
we may designate historical, was not, indeed, the first and
sole but still an inevitable chief aim in the formation of the
canon, an aim which repeated itself with equal propriety in
the extension of the canon through aU its wider circles, it is
evident — '
1. That the number of the writings held with right to be
most suitable could, it is true, never in itself come into
question, for of those actually most suitable too many could
scarcely be admitted. When the first wider circle was closed
about the Deoalogue with the Pentateuch, this one work, itself
divisible nevertheless into many large parts, sufficed, since the
ewald I. 2 c

402 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
question at that time was simply, and above everything, for
aU the future to know clearly and certainly how, amid the
confusion of all the rest of the nations, a holy nation could
arise upon the earth, and on the one hand what duties, on
the other what rights and hopes, it had. But that sufficed
only for this once ; with every succeeding enlargement of the
canon there were both several and very different kinds of
books which it was held to be right to annex to that great
firm centre. And so, finally, was completed this whole wide
number of sacred writings, which afterwards, when with
Christians as well as with Jews the canon was fully closed,
were connected together in the form of a book in a single
large but much-divided manuscript, whose bulk, however, was
yet in itself so great, and whose primary application according
to their different contents was so manifold, that they could
afterwards, as it might seem desirable, be written out in single
portions and contemplated as a veritable library. But just
as properly did —
2. The wholly different feeling make itself influential, that
in number and extent the books of the canon must not be too
great. First of all, because only those already long since
universally esteemed as the best of their kind should be
selected and appointed for public use in the community. But
then,, again, also because all these books, without distinction,
were to serve more and more for the instruction and edification
of the whole of this large community ; and this second reason
is in itself of unusual importance. For it is an essential
peculiarity of all these books that they were not destined for
the use of a special part or smaller groups of men in the
community, — for leaders merely, or for scholars, or for priests,
— as was the case with the sacred books of other ancient
nations, of which something more is to be said further on.
As the Holy Spirit in this community was not destined for
single members nor limited to them, so neither were these
books, whose highest aim (§ 121-124) is to afford the
possibility of deriving from them its own divine power and

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 403
hope. But what is to have so universal a significance and
use in the nation that every one, without exception, is to be
able freely and readily to avail himself of it, this should not,
as a writing, have too wide an extent. Since, therefore, this
feeling, though opposed to the first, was jiust as weU authorized,
it is —
3. Not surprising that in those times, when the canon was
yet in course of formation from stage to stage, the question
could properly arise with respect to-, this- or the other book)
whether it necessarily belonged to the canon, whether it was
worthy of belonging to it or not. That no reasonable doubt
could be entertained with respect to the principal books, but
that some books should appear to- many less necessary or less
worthy, and stand, as it were, on the outer verge, the one
or other being almost accidentally accepted in this part of
Christendom and rejected ia that,, all this was said in § 109.
There was once conflict in the communities everywhere over
such details, and in many places it was vehement and per
sistent enough, and in the nature of the case this conflict
waxed hottest just as the canon inclined to. its ultimate and
final close. Some persons, starting from various kinds of
arbitrary conceptions, depicted § ,117—29-, concerning the
nature and peculiarities ©f a Holy Scripture, would remove or
put a ban upon books which did not harmonize with their
erroneous presuppositions ; others also, with one-sided tenacity,
would retain books which, according to the feeling pf most
individual communities and the judgment of experts, were
less worthy. But the closing of the canon could nowhere be
for very long actuaUy hindered on this account. The conclusion
of it came in Christendom less through compulsion, which,
even if attempted, can never in such purely spiritual things
permanently avail, than through that double feeling which
became dominant, and in its coincidence is decisive of the
whole question, viz. first, that as wholly other times had now
come since the days of the .apostles and their nearest friends,
it was matter of importance now for the first time to make

404 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
rightly prevalent in the whole world the truths then secured
by conflict, and the forces in their perfection which had then
in the smaller community been won; and, secondly, that
these writings now in hand perfectly suffice for a right estima
tion, in its unchangeable and deepest ground, of what is
relevant to this end, so far at least as it can be known and
estimated by a writing. This state of things continues to the
present day, and now that the controversy raised three
centuries and a half ago over the Apocrypha has shown itself
unimportant (§ 113), we can the more readily suffer those
older contentions to rest, at least the more we guard ourselves
against the various kinds of arbitrariness already mentioned
(§ 117—20) in relation to the idea and the nature of the
canon. § 126. For if we go more particularly into detail, and ask
how far the canon suffices for this wider aim of a Holy
Scripture, the question turns principally upon the foUowing
points : —
1. The supreme and pure words of God by which we are i
to Uve have not casually and abruptly become known as we
can see them revealed in the Bible ; they have ever, as may
be said in one word, been wrung only from the obscurities
and errors opposing them, and have dawned on the world
from dark clouds, or, indeed, devastating storms, like serene
and sunny days of fruitfulness. Indeed, the same thing
occurs with respect to all insight and truth on the one hand,
and all skill and art on the other ; they have all been wrung
by the entire human race from their direct opposites
historically, and fought out in conflict with thousandfold
ignorance and inaptitude, so that we can appreciate them in
detail the more, the more clearly we recognise their origin
and understand the many difficulties which obstructed their
coming into existence and use. But what is learnt with the
greatest difficulty is the perfect divinely-human life in its
totality and its permanent progressiveness as the true revela
tion and religion demand it of us, — with the greatest difficulty

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 405
by individual men, with how much more difficulty by an
entire nation, and now, indeed, by all mankind ! In the
coming forth and strengthening of this life, in its retrogres
sions and advancements, its stages and its last perfection,
lies the whole history of humanity, because strictly taken
it embraces everything which the individual man, an entire
nation, and all mankind in all incalculable separate endeavours
and toUs should strive after and attain. The Bible has
accordingly just this excellence, it gives us, as a whole and
entirely, the clear image of all the stages of errors and
perversities through which the genuine divinely-human life
as it should be must move itself onward to its ever purer
perfection ; and as youthful Christianity is ultimately nothing
but the consummation of this all-embracing historical progress
of individual men, and of an individual nation, until the
point is reached where what has been woh in this narrower
circle could pass over to the entire human race, so the Bible
presents to us just this progress in its purest perfection. The
great wide scene it brings before us most luminously and
-uninterruptedly is, indeed, only the history of this one nation,
which alone among all the nations of antiquity had the courage
to determine to be an actual nation of the true God ; but
since the true rehgion in whose spirit it arose very well knows
how an individual nation stands in the great inter-connection
of aU humanity, the history stretches out in the proper places
far beyond this one nation. It introduces us to the contem
plation of all humanity as it was before the moment when
one nation earnestly resolved to become the nation of the true
God ; and it lets the contemplative mind linger in those
remotest, spaces of all conceivable history, where we see not
merely the origin of this one nation, but also in the simplest
and clearest way how from all humanity the most divine but
also the most undivine existence could arise ; and if it does
all this in simple narrative briefly, as was best, it still shows
at the same time, in the conspicuous example of the Book of
Job, what the higher art was competent to do just on this

406 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
freer field of wide historical contemplation. From that moment
of the whole history onward, when the one nation that alone
can fill the wide historical scene here to be presented, enters
into the development of the great world-history, the narrative,
however, limits itself so little to this nation alone that we get
in the Bible rather a universal history of nations, at least so
far as this is closely connected with the history of the main
tenance and progress of all true religion as its highest subject.
It is in this view that we tolerate the admission into the
canon of the Book of Esther, and its sharing, in its incorpora
tion in the great whole, the special distinction and honour
which hes in the conception of the canon. For so long as the
canon had not yet reached what may be called (§ 112) its
true conclusion, but was yet in course of formation for the
special use and service of the old community of all true
religion, a little book eould very well find place in it which
brings before us a not unimportant change in the history of
the relation of the community to heathen nations, and at the
same time serves as a memorial of this relation in that, as a
festival-book, it explains a yearly festival then coming into
use. So far, however, as this book, in its conception of the
true religion and the life that should harmonize with it, does
not stand upon the elevation of the older historical books, it
belongs to those that form the outer verge of the canon, and
fits exactly into the intermediate books of whose nature and
worth we have already spoken (§ 112). These intermediate
books, as was shown, very properly take a place in the Bible,
because as historical memorials they illustrate for us in the
best and truest sense what movements occupied the old com
munity in the ever darkening centuries of its last ' great
changes. That every man, not merely the learned, may be
able to form a more perfect judgment concerning the entire
course of the great development of all true rehgion up to its
highest consummation, these books have properly their place
in the Bible ; and if in intrinsic value for true religion they
stand lower than the rest, in their attitude and ultimate aim

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 407
they are equal to the rest; whilst the writings of Philo and
Josephus, for example, are far removed as in special aim mere
learned elaborations. But it is not directly necessary, it is
true, that the Bible should give a complete and connected
history of these last centuries from the building of the second
temple to the time of Christ, should suitable books for this
purpose not be found ; yet the filling up of this gap as far as
possible is certainly to be desired.
The Bible is thus through and through of historical nature
and spirit. Standing conspicuous amid all the efforts of all
antiquity, the most profound as a work of mind, the loftiest
in elevation and sweep of thought, a product of noble pains,
compact in itself and finished, it bears upon its face, looked at
as a whole, the clearest impress of historicality ; it promotes
therefore all sound historical views of things, and proves itself
the mightiest lever in all our world-historical contemplation
and research. In this respect it is the direct opposite of the
Qor'an. Islamism, as the last and most powerful offshoot of
Gnostic errors that could strike firm root in youthful Chris
tianity upon its transition into the great heathen world,
proceeds from an arbitrary assumption as to what true rehgion
and Holy Scripture must be, and in its own arbitrarily
produced Holy Scripture it thinks it has the only proper type
of it. All actual connection between itself and all older
national histories it therefore severs, just as it does all con
nection between the earlier Holy Scripture and its own.
Owing to this original impulse, and in spite of many devia
tions in the attempt to establish in its midst juster and more
fundamental religious ideas, it can only move on in the
same lines without being able to overcome the unhistorical
character native to it. Strictly speaking, it knows only the
splendid side of its own history from Mohammed downwards,
and neither pf the remote spaces of all antiquity nor of the
deficiencies and mistakes of its own historical movement has
it a clear apprehension or a sufficiently deep desire of
knowledge. In the Bible, on the contrary, all the rich and

408 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
marvellously varied contents it embraces, even outside its
narrative parts, serve ultimately to fill out for us the more
completely and instructively the whole wide framework of the
historical picture portraying the life and movement and final
perfection of all true revelation and religion. And since, as
already shown, the Bible does not profess to be holy in itself,
but everything which it presents to us it presents only as
luminous pictures of the life and development of all true
religion, it is the more important therefore that it should give
pictures which strike us by their fulness and their graphic
power. § 127. 2. It is not indeed necessary that of all the
different historical periods and conjunctures there should be
the hke graphic and complete pictures illustrating the course
of events. For from a few brief outlines, if they are only
authentic and vivid, the whole picture may be drawn, as the
entire body of a living creature from a few bones ; and further,
in that whole period within which the canon was formed, the
possibility was not afforded of giving such complete historical
sketches of all the longer or shorter eras of the long history
the Bible presents to us ; indeed, just the most extended, but
also the remotest spaces of all human history, are of such a
kind that neither writing nor even mere dim reminiscences
offer means sufficient for drafting as good a picture as of other
times. Yet, nevertheless, it may be shown that for all the
great periods and phenomena of the time which the Bible must
embrace, it furnishes just such living and complete records as
suffice for its highest aim. For as to —
1. The remotest periods of human history which, accord
ing to the Pentateuch, are rightly designated the first two ages
of the world,1 it is not to be denied that the pictures of them
found in the Bible have been derived neither from con
temporary records nor purely historical reminiscences, however
many and important the traces of such reminiscences that
may be discovered in them. They give in their present form
1 Gen. i.-xi. 26.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 409
merely outlines, partly of higher conceptions concerning the
origin of all visible things, partly the most memorable frag
ments of primitive reminiscences, materials of both kinds
blended closely together and in diversified setting, older or
newer, but always in the highest degree charming. But we
have long since recognised that another possibility could not
have place here, and that there were portions of narrative of
the higher kind and colour which must not be confounded
with those of the ordinary parentage, and which yet may con
tain by implication the purest historical truths. Such are
some Biblical pieces of narrative and history ; and just this,
that so few of them are found in the Bible, and yet so
sufficient a number for all true revelation and religion, whose
literary treasures the Bible seeks to give, is one of its
exceUencies. What are all the histories of creation and
primitive times in heathen nations in comparison — histories
so similar in mere material, but, since no such breath of true
revelation and religion inspires them, so dissimilar in spirit !
Here, however, —
2. May be separated with fitness those periods of time
which are most appropriately designated periods of the primi
tive history, standing in closest connection with the special
nation Israel, viz. those of the three patriarchs and the periods
down to the time of Moses and the next generation after him.1
When the Pentateuch was sketched out in its original form,
or rather, with . the Book of Joshua, the Hexateuch, a con
siderable number of literary records existed, going back to
earlier times, although only a few that reached up to the
patriarchal era ; and these were accompanied with the most
graphic reminiscences of the principal features of that time
as they were preserved in the community. But the entire
hterature of the earliest centuries vanished (§ 104) before the
vigorous tide of a new and mightier literature that already
flowed in ; and the more the original fulness and living fresh
ness of the earliest reminscences was gradually lost, the more
1 From Gen. xi. 27 to the conclusion of the Book of Joshua.

410 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
was it sought in the living onward development of all the
loftier spiritual activities of the community, to transform their
eternal contents into new shapes of luminous splendour.
What occurred almost entirely with the patriarchal history
extended also in part to the Mosaic. And yet out of all these
so highly different periods, the more important they are indi
vidually, the more imperishable literary memorials, along with
the most ineffaceable reminiscences, have been preserved.
The number of the documents and fragments of oldest his
torical records that have been saved is not a matter of moment ;
but what have been so rescued stand out the more conspicuously
in the wide deep sea of those times, and none of them higher
than those originating from Moses himself and his time.
3. From thence onward the sources the Bible presents
to us of historical knowledge of the circumstances under
which the truths of the genuine revelation and religion step
forth into the light of day, are more and more copious and
extensive. Not, indeed, equaUy for all periods, but especially
for those in which religious conflict and victory had most
significance. How the eternal principles of true religion
should sway the entire life of a whole nation, even as of the
most isolated man, we can now see most vividly on all sides ;
and there is scarcely a conceivable circumstance in human
effort upon which some clearer ray of light is not thrown from
the luminous pictures of those times. We see the prophets
in the severest conflicts of human life and national destiny
maintaining eternal truths with the greater1 stedfastness and
the more prudence and eloquence the more keenly they
suffer from the errors of their time ; and we are profoundly
impressed as we mark the sharpness of noble rebuke, the
clearness of the vision of the future, the certainty of eternal
hope. We see human folly veil itself in the proud garb of
subtle wisdom, and spread out the nets into whose toils the
unwary may be misled ; and we hear the more distinctly the
voices of the higher wisdom reveal her wonderful secrets and
offer her sure counsels to guide the feet in the eternal ways

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 411
of human happiness. We catch the most manifold tones of
lofty joy and deep pain in human souls and the whole com
munity as they sing and worship before the true God ; and our
own spirits join in the strains as if they were part of our own
immediate experience. We behold in the Book of Job, in
Solomon's Song, and in a hundred other occasional artistic
pictures, the most remote and yet the most sublime truths,
as if they stood in living forms before our eyes ; and we feel
how we must keep them with the same vividness for ever
before our minds. Even the narrative introduces us into the
whole breadth and many-sided light of full life ; the more
readily do We mark when it seeks to lift us up exceptionally
into the heights of the spiritual life unattainable by the
common eye, and yet only too real, and see that they are just
such heights of historical experience no common narrative can
reach, just such depths no common narrative can reveal.
Thus we no longer meet everywhere with the few simple
outlines of all knowledge and all reminiscence which we found
in the first of the three strata of the historical contents of
the Bible; nor do we any longer meet with the remote
prototypes of human life and the lofty legislative height of
Moses as in the second stratum ; but only so much the more
have we before us full actual life revolving round the high
truths and engaged in the difficult tasks of all genuine revela
tion and religion, and feel that there is here enough of the
transcendent and eternally typical, nay, that we must first
appropriate to ourselves completely all that touches us most
intimately in the later portion before we can estimate surely
what lies further away in the earliest.
§ 128. 3. With this writing, as with every other, whether
sacred or not, everything turns ultimately upon the question
whether, so far as it is to serve as an historical witness, it is
authentic or not. This question with respect to the Bible we
must raise here, and we can answer it the more certainly and
briefly to-day at this point the more accurately now every
thing that belongs to it has been already investigated, and the

412 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
more opportune it is to put together in a summary the results
of those investigations.
Throughout long centuries the question about the historical
authenticity of the Bible was regarded as superfluous, or as
easy of solution. What was held to be holy must naturally,
it was thought, be authentic. But such a belief is without
reasonable foundation, and is the more groundless since it has
been shown in § 116 that the Bible does not claim for itself
to be holy; we should therefore in this case be referred
simply to the faith of the ancient Church, which was right
indeed in holding the Bible sacred, but yet felt itself on this
side too confident, and was thence too little active and expert
in investigating more thoroughly purely historical questions
with respect, that is, to the Old Testament. In our modern
days, when such purely historical researches have become both
more necessary and more difficult because of the dense clouds
of many wholly different eras that have intervened, prevailing
doubt could the more easily reject everything formerly believed,
and occasion a desolation of mind which operates to-day so
perniciously in many less enlightened circles; some would
place the. books of the Old Testament from the Pentateuch
downwards with their entire contents in very late times, and
would prove that Moses could not have written at all, or
indeed that he could not have ever lived as a real historical
person ; others in like manner would transfer the books of the
New Testament into the dark times of the second century
after Christ. It accords well with the sinister purpose that
fears the light, to prefer to becloud, disparage, and finally
reject everything great and elevated in history, because it is
either despised or not understood. Nevertheless, when' we
have submitted this whole province to the most exact re
searches, a new universal certainty arises which is just as far
removed from these hazy and dark innovations as from that
old security which was not at all secure against the gradual
entrance of grave errors,and whilst an incalculable number of old
prejudices once so perniciously prevalent has been irrevocably

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 413
destroyed, the historical trustworthiness of the Bible has come
forth with new certainty out of the fires of the keenest
investigation. Since, now, all this can be taken for granted,
we limit ourselves to the foUowing observations, of importance
at this point : —
1. It cannot be disputed that it would be an irremediable
loss if, concerning Moses and his time and concerning Christ,
the two poles upon which the whole history of the community
of the true religion turns, we possessed in the Bible sources of
information only late in origin, and half or wholly untrust
worthy. If we had no authentic guidance on the first of
these great subjects, we could not trace aright from the
beginning this whole history of aU development of true
rehgion in its community, whilst it is a first need to mark
aright the genuine commencement and fundamental impulse
of all the great movements in human history; and if our
knowledge of Christ came only from sources much too late,
the uncertain end would correspond to the uncertain begin
ning, and the shadows of both would so overspread the long
and wide intermediate time, that even of that we could know
nothing With sufficient certainty. But it is now shown
clearly enough how widely all those scholars erred who held
it to be the best task of their lives to make uncertain either
the true beginning or the grand close of this whole long
history, or perhaps we should say the endings of both parts of
it. For that we no longer possess such copious and numerous
reminiscences of every kind of Moses and his whole time as
from the nature of the case we could wish, is explained by
the great antiquity of the time and the course of the entire.
literature of the ancient nation indicated in § 104, 1. It is
sufficient, however, with respect to a remote period of begin
nings, if we know with perfect certainty the few firm warps
that cannot be broken which sustain the whole subsequent
fabric of the history that is woven by means of them ; and
that we can know with certainty who Moses was, what
/ constituted1 his life-work, and what were its immovable

414 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
foundations, is fully established. But with respect to Christ,
merely as much as this would not be sufficient, because with
Him the point in question is not the founding of the first
certain beginnings of a people of God in their legal condition,
or a new Decalogue of stone, but chiefly the proper spirit in
which all human things, even the things of law, are to find
the element of their life and power. Consequently the more
His teaching and work were purely spiritual, and therefore
transcendent and definitive, the more it is important that our
historical knowledge of His words and deeds should be exact
even to minutest detaU ; so that Christians would be entirely
in a state of uncertainty if they had not accurate information
of all that He taught and did. But we may now be convinced
that they are thus informed.
2. Now, according to § 93 ff.,the Bible is but the compact
deposit of a literature once in all its departments and in every
important era much greater and much more extensive, and-
this deposit was, according to 105 ff., determined by one
definite principle of selection, the tendency to conserve the
true revelation and religion ; but if this must be understood
to mean that all the oldest literature from each of the great
eras, and in each department, has been lost entirely, and only
some late fragments saved in the canon, that would be a sad
fate. But in point of fact the case stands quite otherwise.
It is true, indeed, that when we properly ascertain at what
period of time every portion of the Bible great or small has
its true place, we see that many portions are not so old as
was supposed according to opinions formerly prevalent, and
finding currency from mere uncertainty. The Book of
Ecclesiastes, for example, as well as Solomon's Song, were not
written by Solomon noa: in Solomon's time; the Book of
Daniel also was not written by Daniel, nor in Daniel's time ;
Moses did not write the Pentateuch in its entirety ; the
majority of the songs in the Psalter were not of David's
composition, and many later productions are inwoven with the
Book of Isaiah, or annexed to it. But yet the Song of

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 415
Solomon is much older than is commonly conceded in modern
days ; some portions of the Pentateuch, as we now have it,
are beyond dispute by Moses and from his time, and others,
and these both copious and numerous, are from earlier times ;
a fine number of songs of David, which, show us sufficiently
who David as a lyric poet actually was, are without doubt
scattered up and down in the Psalms and elsewhere in the
Old Testament. Conversely, some older pieces are assigned
by a mistake of later readers to a much later time than they
really belong to, as portions of the Book' of Zechariah
(ix.-xiv.) ; and in the midst of various principal portions of
the present Book of Isaiah much older pieces are occasionally
found. Similarly, indeed, the oldest evangelical records in
their original books have been lost, but they have been pre
served in the existing first three Gospels so completely and
authentically that we could well-nigh restore them as they
were originaUy. Furthermore, we do not now possess in the
Bible everything a Solomon, an Isaiah, or a Paul wrote ; but
yet in the existing Book of Proverbs the main part goes back
into very ancient times, and certainly portions of it to Solomon
himself; of Isaiah's own writings' a considerable part has been
saved, and most of them in their original arrangement by the
hand of the great prophet ; and of Paul's Epistles, so many
have unquestionably come into the canon, that by them we can
estimate certainly enough the peculiar greatness of this apostle.
If we now put together aU the cases thus cited by way of
example in which, according to our present knowledge, we can
restore the original relations of the writings, we see even here
that the Bible has in it far more of historical completeness
and trustworthiness than the common opinion to-day supposes,
or the perverse wUl likes to allow. And, indeed, the circum
stance mentioned in § 104, 1, that most of the great compre
hensive books of the Bible, the Pentateuch with the Book of
Joshua, the great Book of Kings, the Book of Chronicles, the
Book of Isaiah, the twelve prophetic books, and in a certain
sense also the Book of Jeremiah, the Psalter, the Book of

416 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
Proverbs, the Book of Job, the commonplace books of the first
three Gospels, are each properly speaking but the deposit of a
whole branch of literature originaUy very extensive and very
rich, — this circumstance can serve as an evidence how much
of purely historical life is everywhere hidden in the Bible, if
only we know how to discover and appreciate it as we should.
3. Some books of the more artificial kind in composition,
described in § 100, are associated in the Bible with the rest;
and it is not to be denied that if such writings constituted its
chief element, they would give to it a less purely historical
aspect, and indeed a smaller historical value. For however
superior such writings may be of their kind, they are yet only
as it were second-hand compositions ; whence it happens that
if they were not known and carefully distinguished according
to their nature, they would easily disturb the historical
consciousness of the readers. But in point of fact the chief
part of the Bible consists of writings of the simple style of
composition : of such are all the prophetic books of the Old
Testament and the New, with the single exception of the
Book of Daniel and some appendixes to the Book of
Jeremiah ; all the historical books of both Testaments, with
the exception of some additions in Ezra the first,1 and of the
second Book of Maccabees ; also all the poetic books, with
the exception of the Book of Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of
Solomon ; furthermore, all the Epistles of the New Testament,
with the exception of the Epistle to the Ephesians, the three
pastoral Epistles, and the Second Epistle of Peter. But where
a writing of a more artificial character is united with others of
the simpler kind, as Deuteronomy is united with the older
portions of the Pentateuch, it is only just to restore to the
latter their original essential character ; smaller portions of a
species of primeval oracle of the dead, such as the blessing of
Jacob, of Moses, and the like, are only the first essays of a
literary art more and more extensively cultivated. Counting
up all such pieces of a more artificial literature, it is clearly
1 Cf. History, iv. 163 ff. [Eng. trans, v. 126 ff.].

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 417
seen how little they affect the general character of the contents
of the Bible ; and if it is considered that the literary art
creating such writings is only a special art among many others,
caution will be exercised in applying freely the designation
pseudo-books, as remarked already. When, however, a book
of this more artificial character has such a vast influence upon
the history of its time as was manifestly the case with the
Book of Daniel, it may properly be called in this sense a book
of historical significance, and may reasonably be thought
worthy of a place in the canon.
4. Common justice demands that to such portions of the
Bible as have been assigned, by later collectors or readers
merely, to other names than those which according to their
real authorship belong to them, their original right should be
restored ; as already has been observed with respect to the
most important cases. It would indicate only that there was
no true understanding at all of the way in which the great
Book of Psalms originated, or the Book of Isaiah, if every
psalm that names David in its superscription were on that
account referred to him as historically its composer, or the
portion of the Book of Isaiah from xiii. 2 to xiv. 23 were
ascribed to Isaiah as the actual prophetic author on account of
the superscription, xiii. 1 ; or, in like manner, the long and
anonymous portion from xl. to lxvi. were ascribed to him
merely on account of the name the whole book received at a
later date. Historically what is significant for us in this
whole matter is that evidently the Psalms and the Book of
Isaiah were eagerly read in early times and circulated in
repeated new editions.
§ 129. If, now, we sum up what has been said in detail in
§ 126-128 together with what was maintained in § 125, we
see at once wherein lies the high significance of the Bible, viz.
that it gives us through writings, which whether in the
strictest or in a remoter sense must be held as genuinely
historical, a perfectly authentic picture of the origin and
development of all true revelation and religion in humanity.
ewald I. 2d

418 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
In this aspect of it, and so far as everything it contains may
instruct us historically in one way or another concerning its
main great subject, it can never be too copious aud com
prehensive. In fact, the Bible contains nothing which cannot
serve, in a nearer or remoter connection, although that might
not be its immediate aim, to> set before our eyes with a fuller
and more graphic completeness what is really its one sole
subject. If, therefore, two or more narratives, or other pre
sentations of the same thing,, occur in it, this is not a
superfluity ; it is only of higher service for the end in view.
For the same song, prophecy, or, narrative is either repeated in
several places without alteration of words, and then the
repetition establishes clearly the right tradition or reading ; or
it is repeated with deviations, and then the deviations them
selves, well understood and collated, may be usefully employed
for the more certain recognition of the original form of such
song, prophecy, or- narrative. ExceptionaUy useful is the
repetition of portions of purely historical matter ; and
specially noteworthy is it that it occurs just with the prin
cipal elements of the Biblical history. Indeed, it is precisely
•as if the last historians of the old nation at the verge of every
decisive epoch of the great national history, and in each main
department of historical reminiscence, had a clear anticipation
of M'hat would be needed. The Pentateuch and the great
Book of Kings were purposely compiled from the most varied
sources just as they have been preserved, the former wholly,
the latter in great part. That so much is repeated in the
Chronicles and older books of history, and in the first and
second of Maccabees, has its advantage. But at last the
compilers of the canon of the New Testament present the
most conspicuous example, knowing as they would not fewer
than four Gospels as forming the authorized group.
If, now, the Bible is sacred to us, according to § 121—4,
because true revelation and religion, whose most original and
inexhaustible interpreter it is, is sacred to us ; more remotely
it is sacred to us also because the wonderful entrance of aU

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 419
true revelation and religion into the world, and their whole
historical development to perfection, which it so exhaustively
and sufficiently teaches, must hawe for us> some measure of
sacredness. The greatest wonderr possible after the creation of
the universe and of man, viz. the? creation and progress of all
spiritual life in mankind, in- its highest effort and struggle
towards that consummation in which we ourselves must
find all further impulse and movement, we can here directly
and fuUy contemplate, and also- learn from it many a lesson
which may conduce to the elevation. and* sanctification of our
life. The New Testament we wall not sunder from the Old,
nor unthankfully overlook or mistake- anything significant for
the last great aim, here manifest to us, of this inner human
spiritual creation of God, — anything which meets us upon any
one of the stages- leading to the goal. here, at length attained,
and never more to be allowed te drop again out of sight.
And nevertheless, this sacredness, so recognised and
apprehended, we must not suffer- to fetteu and dazzle us to
such an extent that we shall hold as the highest and most
lasting that historical element which meets us here or there
in the whole literature, since indeed the best part of it
presented to us in the Bible always points beyond itself to a
yet loftier future and to the purely Eternal ;. still less, to
the extent that we shall estimate; anything of historical
significance mentioned in the Bible at a higher value than it
really has in the great connection of things the Bible itself
seeks to disclose. If, in a long changeful historical develop
ment, a firm goal of importance is once gained, and so far a
consummation realized, this brings also the great advantage of
enabling us the more correctly to judge of what preceded it ;
and we see how Christ and His disciples judge freely, in
accordance with the perfection now attained, such historical
regulations as the Sabbath and the like, made sacred prin
cipally by the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and in them
selves worthy of perpetual observance. But this precedent
is now for ever and for everything to remain valid, since we

420 revelation; its nature and RECORD.
saw above that the New Testament as literature claims for
itself no superiority over the Old. And this precedent we
can apply to single portions of the Bible itself, and, for
example, can assert as freely as we have ascertained legiti
mately, that most of the books that arose in the declining
centuries of the 'public life of the ancient nation do not stand
in intellectual and spiritual force so high as the earlier. Yet
it is ultimately only as a particular contribution that this
precedent belongs to the entire great history whose significance
indeed is so great, and whose living image it is so increasingly
important to have familiarly before us, that we can never
recognise and retain with too great exactitude and correctness
all its details.

11. Tlie Sacredness of the Bible in its Manifoldness
and Unity.
§ 130. Moreover, however widely and carefully we search
in all human literature, nowhere do we find a work of the
same extent containing so extraordinary a manifoldness in
materials and forms of discourse as the Bible. Considering
only its wealth and variety in matter and contents, it may be
truly said the Bible is a whole world of itself. And as in
the great world around us the most different things are seen
to exist side by side, and it is supposed they have some con
nection one with another, although it is not immediately
traceable, so in the little world of the Bible, compositions
large and small, of the most different character in matter and
contents, and in great abundance, are unexpectedly seen
standing closely together and even compacted and wrought
into one another, — particularly if we look with close and
minute observation. Just as varied are the forms of discourse
in which the different subjects live and move. We find the
simplest and the most artificial species of narrative, each
again in very different subordinate forms; information is
given in the baldest and the most fascinating manner ; we are

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 421
introduced to that which is most elevated in divine and
human affairs, and to that which is very base in human con
duct, this last, it is true, only by way of warning.1 In the
prevailing lofty earnestness of the narrative there mingles at
times most appropriately an outburst of noble scorn and keen
satire ; 2 and whilst commonly the remembrance and the name
of God occur so significantly and constantly in connection
with every incident that there is no difficulty in perceiving
the purpose for which the record is given, yet in the Book of
Esther these characteristics are wholly wanting, for its whole
colour and form are more after the style of the " Thousand
and One Nights " than that which is elsewhere usual in the
Bible. Prophetic discourse appears less varied in colour and
complexion; and yet the more carefully it is contemplated
the more is it seen to change and to assume all conceivable
hues, sometimes in the same prophet, still more in different
prophets and different periods ; there can hardly be a wider
contrast than between the short, sharp, incisive oracle of the
earliest times, and the full stream of discourse in Isaiah,3 and
between both and the style of the Book of Daniel and the
Apocalypse ; and what an interval there is between the high
•teaching of the prophet, coming down from above in sonorous
and resounding phrase, and the not less certain but so deeply
human and kindly familiar words of Christ and His apostles !
In the poetry of the Bible of all kinds and species this
manifoldness is also seen very conspicuously, and indeed with
reason, partly in the special books of poetry, and partly as
passages of poetry occur more or less in other books. More
over, in addition to all this must be mentioned the extremely
varied kinds of the more artificial prophecy and professional
authorship already spoken of, increasing more and more in
the later centuries, but in their beginnings appearing also in
the older literature. There are often, too, examples of a
1 Gen. ix. 18-24, xix. 30-38, xxv. 30-34, xxxviii. 9 ff.
s Num. xxii.-xxiv.
3 Ex. xvii. 16 ; and Isa. xxi. 11 f., 13 f., for example.

422 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
special kind of artistic discourse, but they are few and
brief. The possibility of so rare a fulness and manifoldness of
small and extensive writings in so narrow a space results, in
great ipart, from the peculiarity (p. 92 f.) of expression whicli
speech assumed more and more in the ancient nation of
Israel. Not in vain were they nurtured through so many
centuries by the ever watchful power of living revelation ; as
their opinions and convictions received thereby a deeper
impress, and their manners were the more determinately
shaped, so the expression of their thoughts also was cha
racterized more and more by the sharp brevity and pithy
conciseness peculiar to the speech of genuine revelation, and
this passed over from the prophets to the poets, and so to
the historians. With brief words, as if from above, forcible
and striking, to give prominence to what is most weighty; to
get the truth and depth of thought to shine in the bright
light of clear intuition, and with every movement of the
discourse to let its innermost certainty and confidence display
itself: sueh is the marked peculiarity of Biblical language.
Indeed, the whole Bible, from its first sentence onwards to
that remarkable conclusion which the writings of the Apostle
John form, who as a writer was a most genuine disciple of
Christ, consists rather ©f short luminous sayings than of diffuse
discourse and long wordy periods. To be sure, upon a nearer
view a difference in this respect is observable between the
different writers of the Bible ; Ezekiel does not write like
Jeremiah, in simple words, here and there strongly touched
with emotion ; and the Second Epistle of Peter has, in its
style, far more of artificially involved structure than the First.
But, as a whole, tlie language of the Bible is remarkably
distinguished by its -conciseness from that of the other ancient
nations. The more artificial kind of authorship, often men
tioned before, may trick out with adornments this incisive
simplicity, and lead in many later writers to the preference
for expressing the manifoldness of discourse more pointedly

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 423
and sharply than formerly by successions of rounded periods ;
but even this adornment does not change the chief feature of
the discourse. But what was not secured by this entire
peculiarity of style, coming from early times, was effected by
the repeated sifting of this whole literature, which took place
(§ 104) in the great decisive eras of the history of the nation ;
and in this winnowing the full and ripe grains, few though
they were, yet more compact, finer, and heavier, fell upon the
ground and remained as the substance of the new collection ;
these were the best books which the canon selected and set
apart, as above is further described.
§ 131. In this way, indeed, the possibility of so extra
ordinary a variety and diversity in the compositions crowded
together in the Bible is explained. Nevertheless, in the form
they had at length before their collection, they were not all
thrown together accidentally ; manifestly they were put
together to serve a single lofty purpose ; and this purpose is
equally apparent in all successive enlargements of the canon.
To carry out this highest aim, an ultimate unity must therefore
dominate over all diversity ; and the manifoldness spoken
of has its uses, as is shown in § 129 ¦; tbe unity standing above
it must never, with respect to the Bible, be overlooked, but
must rather be more and more carefully sought for and kept
in view. We may rightly suppose, no doubt, that the
regulators of the canon were convinced that they were about
to place here, in close connection, nothing absolutely incon
gruous, nothing that was irreconcilably self-contradictory ;
and certainly it would have to be proved, by the most
irrefutable arguments, that they admitted just what glaringly
contradicted the very highest aim they proposed in the
collection. It is certain, however, that this ultimate unity
of the whole contents and aim of the Bible is often very
erroneously sought, and has been even somewhat violently
forced, with respect to the Old Testament, especially before
the canon of the New Testament was settled. For the whole
art of allegorizing Biblical discourse, which once (§ 118) so

424 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AMD RECOUD.
widely prevailed, arose principally on this account, that
certain words and sentences of Holy Scripture were thought
to correspond too little in elevation and sacredness with
others, and so must contain some hidden sense which had to
be disclosed. Since, however, we all reject allegorizing,
notwithstanding that (p. 384) it insinuates itself, from such
times, into some portions of the writings of the New Testa
ment, there returns upon us the more urgently the question
what the unity really is which stands conspicuous above all
the diversity of the Bible.
A conception arbitrarily formed can help us neither in this
nor in any other question ; here, however, such a conception
is altogether unnecessary. For the ultimate unity of the
whole contents of Holy Scripture, from which the founders of
the canon might proceed, is given in the thing itself, so far at
least as the question is not concerning a Holy Scripture
conceived to one's pleasure, but just concerning this actually
known to us. According to the intention of the founders of
the canon, Holy Scripture is to be the right means of placing
before the eyes the contents and purpose of true revelation
and religion, so far as a writing can do it; and the great
manifoldness and multiplicity of the separate portions of
Scripture, if it has any meaning, is ultimately to serve the
same aim, according to the intention of the founders of the
canon; for how can it be thought that everything in the
Bible was meant, like the words of the Decalogue and similar
words, to be regarded immediately as mere prescription and
law ? Bather must they have intended that certain portions
were to be held as an immediate divine summons to our will,
but other portions were to impel us, indeed, ultimately to the
hearing and doing of the divine will concerning us, but only
by reasonable conclusions which we ourselves must draw from
what is heard or read. Such compositions as admit of the
drawing of no such inferences, but which by their presentation
of sin would incite us to sin should we entrust our soul's
health to them ; or such as offer no contribution to the better

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 425
understanding of the great, and as we may say, according to
§ 125-9, sacred history of the whole development of the
true religion, — only such would be foreign in this' case, and the
former, indeed, directly pernicious and to be condemned.
This aim of the canon is clear in its beginning as in its final
close ; and if there were any writing found in the Bible which
did not accord with what must be the real intention of a
canon, we should have a right to suppose there had been an
error in framing it. It might, indeed, be thought that the
authors of the canon had at least left one and another smaUer
writing, just in the place where they found it, merely because
they did not wish to break the connection of a set of writings ;
for example, the Book of Ecclesiastes and Solomon's Song,
merely because found in connection with the Book of Pro
verbs, as writings of Solomon, and Solomon, himself appeared
to them even then as an almost sacred king ; or, the marriage-
song of Ps. xiv. and the imprecatory song of Ps. cix., because
both stood in the Psalter. But of such smaller compositions,
every one of which fonns an essential whole, should there be
one not proceeding as a whole from the innermost life and
impulse of true revelation and religion, we should then with
right take exception, and we might doubt whether the Bible
does really correspond to the aim which, as a whole, in its
unity it seeks to have. Always should we have to call to
mind in this matter that, according to § 109, many a com
position may stand only upon the verge of the canon; but
whether it may stand there even, without occasioning mischief
in the sense above observed, would have to be considered.
If, then, we survey from this point the actual purport of
every writing, it appears —
1. That even such accounts in the Bible as stand in them
selves in no direct connection with the question of revelation
and religion, Uke the many accounts of history, the statements
concerning the once existing Books of Solomon as found in
the Book of Kings,1 — even those serve to complete our view
1 1 Kings v. 12 f.

426 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
of the great history within which revelation and religion
ripened to their final perfection. How important this whole
history is, and how precious to us every contribution to it
must be, is shown in § 125-9. More important is it —
2. That the Bible contains nothing that commends an
ungodly life. For the bad deeds it informs us of in the
course of its narratives are intended, by the very drift of
them, to serve as warnings, even where a special admonition
against such deeds is not added ; for this is self-evident from
everything the Bible elsewhere contains, and which, in its
true import, is calculated to instruct or admonish. Still less
does any whole work recommend what is ungodly ; he who
actually comprehends Solomon's Song or Ps. xiv. will not
suppose that they seek to excite the sensuous passion of love ;
he who reads the curses as they are found especially accumu
lated in Ps. cix., and more occasionally elsewhere in the Bible,
will feel that there is in them another kind of sentiment
than that which prevails in the superstitious curses of the
heathen their poets were so accustomed to sing. . . . More
over, the Bible contains also nothing merely suitable for
entertainment and diversion, nething that does not remind us
of the divine and the duties of life. Since now —
3. The manifest aim of the Bible is not to teach ns various
arts or useful knowledge pertaining to the lower life, but
definitely to show and remind us how we are to think and
act in harmony with true revelat'ion and religion, it is clear
that what it says of other things, -or what it incidentally
mentions, may serve incidentally for further instruction, but is
not to be confused -or mistaken as if it were its one great
chief subject. It may be instructive to us to know from the
Bible incidentally how in this or that period of its long
development the old nation of Israel contemplated the different
phenomena of heaven, the different countries of the world,
and the origin of the foreign nations, what arts and aptitudes
in this or that age flourished or were neglected in it ; but that
we are to accept its casual teachings on these subjects as

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 427
absolutely decisive it nowhere prescribes, and they are only
of special moment to us in so far as the spirit of all true
religion, as it prevailed in this nation, may have impressed
itself upon the form these conceptions assumed. But since
the Bible also —
4. In the historical sequence of its great constituent parts
demonstrates as clearly as possible that true revelation and
religion, the one great chief subject it seeks to teach, went
through very different stages in the course of their develop
ment to that final consummation by which alone we are
firmly to stand, it follows therefore that everything which the
Bible contains in its different books and its different ages of
time bearing on this subject of revelation and religion, we are
laid under obligation to compare and adjust with the ultimate
consummation itself, and to judge also of the pure dr permanent
value of it all by the rule that consummation affords. But
if there is no single book of the Bible written with a mere
desire to amuse, as thousands of works are in other literatures,
and if nothing, when properly understood, is conceived to
have proceeded from a spirit that could actually instil into
the reader an inclination or desire to base conduct, it may be
said with justice that none of them is alien to the spirit of
true revelation and religion. In like manner, if one com
position is uplifted by -this spirit more than another, and
uplifts the reader to it more conspicuously, we shall neverthe
less finally hold that all portions are essentially of the same
spirit, which is emphatically good, and are equal among
themselves in the matter here chiefly and ultimately decisive.
Even that which is less remarkable in its elevation may give
us a contribution to the better understanding of this one chief
subject by at least illumining one or other of its many sides,
and fulness and manifoldness of detail has its uses. Along
with this rare fulness and manifoldness, the diversity of the
stages of the development of true religion, often spoken of
above, furnishes indeed peculiar advantages, simUar as it is
to the diversity of the circles of life out of which individuals

428 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
arise. The Bible has, accordingly, something for everybody,
for the less cultured and the more highly cultured, for the
simplest and the wisest, for the warrior and for the quiet in
the land, for youth J and for grey hairs, nay, for those of such
different callings in life that we cannot enumerate all of them,
but can only say that in this respect it is the universal book,
and is of inexhaustible fulness and unfading freshness. But
since it presents to our view, as we have already said and set
forth at large, the highest perfection of all revelation and
religion, it is evident —
5. That all the apparently unlimited manifoldness, nay,
even diversity of its contents, of importance with respect to
that one great chief subject, may nevertheless be traced back
to unity. For the perfect, when it is come, throws back its
full rays upon all that is less perfect, so that in its light we
justly appraise even the least earlier fragment of the like
good spirit according to its eternal worth, and we can rejoice
in it without placing it too high or too low; and on this
account, too, the closest union of the New Testament with
the Old has its unavoidable necessity. If, therefore, the
Bible has for us otherwise, according to § 121-4, its well-
understood sanctity, it has it also as the result of our present
considerations, since all perfection of divine forces and
operations is sacred to us, and therefore this is ; but we make
good our reverence for Holy Scripture chiefly by holding fast
that which is most perfect in its teaching, and measuring all
tlie rest of the like spirit by it, without despising even the
least considerable portion of it.
§ 132. If, now, the question is directly asked, in conclusion,
how the Bible can have a unity including and comprehending
in itself all the manifoldness and diversity of its varied
contents, a unity which transcends the mere outward similarity
of a common origin of all its parts from one and the same
nation, and is capable of giving to us the feeling of actual
affinity in mind and heart, this is essentially the same question
1 As Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 429
as whether it is possible that all true revelation and religion
have really attained their evolution from the earliest times
to their highest perfection. This possibility we established
in the first part, § 8-50; and in the second, § 51-90, was
set forth how, in the Israelitish nation, it has actually been
realized from its commencement in primitive times onward.
Literature, according to § 92, but follows even in this highest
subject, as a whole and in the main, the general life and
aspiration of the people. If, therefore, we consider the
question of the ultimate unity of the Bible historically from
above, that is, from the first beginnings and the subsequent
development dependent upon them, we must speak here some
what in this fashion : — Since the forces of true revelation and
religion were, in this nation, from the commencement after
the founding of its community on this basis, set in motion too
perfectly and regularly not to attain, conformably tp that
divine series of consequences originally lying in them, and
through all the stages of human development, the ultimate
perfection possible to them in this nation, therefore its entire
literature so fashioned itself that every portion of it, the
empty chaff and whatever lay remote from its main purpose
being separated in the making of the canon, was touched and
inspired by these forces, so that we can clearly recognise of
what description they were, and how they there exercised
their sway, although some portions show this more particularly,
and at large than others. When the attention is directed,
therefore, to these purely spiritual forces themselves, and it is
perceived beforehand how historically they here shaped them
selves from the beginning so determinately, set themselves
in motion and sought to accomplish their development pro
visionally in this more limited part of all humanity ; then
may also be recognised how the separate portions of Scripture
stand related to these forces, what portions were held to be
partly the ripest, partly the most necessary, for a place in this
woven garland of sacred literature, and it will be seen how a
higher unity and similarity sustains them from the first, and

430 revelation; its nature and record.
how the one proportionately more than the other contributes
to set these forces vividly before our eyes as alone in the
last issue sovereign and paramount. The whole body of
Scripture, as collected and fixed by the canon, is thus but the
fruit of that whole long history, so far and in such sort as
writing has immortalized it ; and as there is only one continuous
history of all development of the true revelation and religion
from the beginning of humanity onward, and as in this history
there is only one instance of their direct and ripe development to
perfection, and that in this nation, where alone in all antiquity
perfection was attainable, therefore corresponding to this, and
as one of its finest and most enduring fruits, there can be but
one Bible, and, indeed, but this we are now considering
Other similarly imperishable and similarly perfected fruits
of the same greatest of' all spiritual movements and aspirations
of antiquity have their place beside it, — the entrance of the
Holy Spirit as a conscious power into humanity (§ 80-90),
Christ Himself as the glorious Lord of aU spiritual movement
and impulse in humanity, the Church as it was transformed
by Him from the old community. But whilst these fruits
for ever advance and increase in power, the Bible, as the
glorious treasury of all genuine remembrance of that develop
ment, and of those truths which, as the ground of all corre
sponding further development, must remain sacred, stands in
v
its own dignity and complete repose as already uplifted far
beyond all the storms of an age shaken by new errors, —
stands abiding unchangeably as it is, and proffering its
inexhaustible resources only to good and wise use, shunning,
as everything perfected does, no investigation and no critical
inquiry, not even the sharpest, suffering much through man's
want of understanding and bad passions, and yet ever making
itself felt again as henceforth and for ever indispensable.
If, however, we consider that question, not as we have just
done from the beginning of that whole spiritual movement of
which the Bible in its outer and inner unity is one of the
many fruits, but from the end of this movement, it wiU be

revelation in the bible. 431
seen at once that no one but Christ Himself is the unity
whose light shines back from the New Testament upon all the
earlier books, at least as soon as it is seen and apprehended
that, in the narrower circle of the New Testament itself,
Christ alone is the light that penetrates every part of it with
His radiance. If that whole special spiritual movement in
the midst of the old humanity aimed to make possible the
coming and working of Christ just as at last it happened, and
if He also is the sole true unity of all His first disciples as
they are known to us in the New Testament, it is evident that
neither in the wide and. very diversified expanse of the Old
Testament, nor in the nearer and narrower regions of the New,
indeed nowhere in the Bible, can there be anything important
in relation to the one great chief thing for which Christ
appeared, which we are not, obliged to consider in His light,
and to estimate it as it stands more nearly or remotely related
to Him. Moreover, it will ever be found that all the noblest
efforts of the old nation of the true revelation and religion as
the Old Testament has preserved them in writing for ever,
already in the moments of. their purest elevation and boldest
flight, bordered closely upon, that which we at last find
attained in its time through Christ, although they could not
have reached their goal had not Christ appeared. That we
are able from the point of view of this clear unity to put
together so compactly, and to vivify so freshly in our higher
thought and conception all that is most diverse and manifold
in the contents of the Bible, this it is that constitutes in this
case so great a charm, affords us one of the most fruitful
sources of instruction we could desire, and gives to us all the
more complete an idea, of the unity of the Bible. For that
which casts light upon all parts and yet enables us to see at
the, same time the gradations of this light in the separate
parts, appears to us resplendent with double radiance and
preciousness.

432 revelation; its nature and record.

12. Conclusion. Comparison with other Sacred Boohs.
§ 133. It is then essentially the same with the Bible as in
the second division of this volume we showed it to be with
the Israelitish nation, the Bible is a remnant, although of the
highest kind and unalterable in character. As that nation
was the original and remains the pattern nation of the true
revelation and religion, inasmuch as by its inquiry and discern
ment it traced out divine truths most profoundly, and with
consistency and fearlessness allowed these truths to work in
its midst in its enterprise and its suffering ; so the Bible has
its incomparable significance and its whole sacredness, because
it brings these truths before us in clear decisive utterances
and profoundly suggestive im'ages of every kind as a light for
our thought and understanding, and because it presents them
also as admonitory examples for our whole life and behaviour
in the earnestness of its great authentic history, if, indeed, we
are not ready to treat with disdain what should ever be
sacred to us. Just this complete harmony and exact corre
spondence between knowledge and deed is in this case every
thing. And to him who holds Christ Himself as sacred, the
Bible will occupy the second place.
We can recognise, however, the true dignity and inner
glory of the Bible in yet another way, if we compare it, as
Holy Scripture, with the sacred books of other nations and
communities, old and new. These are divided, if we consider
all of them, into two very different kinds which we must
carefully distinguish in the outset.
On the side stand such writings as can only be characterized
as late, degenerate after - growths of the Bible, and whicli
therefore cannot be at all compared with the Bible as works of
a like original and creative power. They are essentially the
product of the conceptions and efforts of men who sought- to
improve youthful Christianity and with it the Bible, which as
yet had scarcely reached its close, but who iU understood

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 433
either Christianity or the Bible itself, — men who may be
designated generally by the historical name of Gnostics. Two
courses were followed ; either they manufactured a special
Bible out of that already in existence, one that answered
better to their caprice, and about which they attempted to
throw the same sacred splendour; or they went further,
creating at once a wholly new Bible, and gathering a com
munity upon its basis. He who first cherished such a thought
found ready to hand very much help in the inclination to the
more artificial authorship described in § 100, which also
afforded a good opportunity to trick out anew the mysteries ,
of all religion that easily touch and1 move the heart. To such
a work of sacred Scripture songs for the new community were
then readily added, and similar writings corresponding to the
spirit of it, so that in this case also a tolerably manifold and
comprehensive Bible was possible. Of this kind, in the
midst of its community, has been preserved (after the holy
scripture of the Maniehasans had perished with the sect itself)
the Bible of the Sabseans or Mandseans, which only in our
days has become wholly accessible to us, but which at least
in its then condition Mohammed knew as extant long before
his time, and regarded as a third holy scripture of equal
dignity with the Bible of the Christians and the Bible of the
Jews. As soon as this Bible, which may be called with a
certain propriety that of the Johannean-Christians, is fully
known to us and trustworthily translated, it will be seen how
little it sustains a comparison with the old genuine entire
Bible. At the end, however, of this whole period of youthful
Christianity, when Christendom itself, especially in the
Eastern nations, was already guilty, alas ! of new and grave
aberrations enough, Mohammed was in so far more honest as
that he sought to give quite openly, on his own responsibility,
such selections for reading (Qor'ane) as should be immediately
acknowledged as brought to him from heaven, and, when
secured in literary form, as holy scripture. But how little also
this holy scripture, in its origin so utterly and manifestly
ewald I. 2 E

434 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
unhistorical, could suffice in any way for a true revelation and
religion, has already been considered at length in § 120. The
Qor'an, instead of giving, as it proposes, a final and necessary
work advancing beyond the three other earlier Bibles which it
acknowledges, is only a lamentable retrogression on the great
path of the development of all divinely-human things ; and it
would be liable to still more severe criticism had it not been
occasioned, as indeed was the case with Islamism throughout,
by the serious mistakes by which Christianity, just in the
wide regions of its first appearance, had allowed itself to be
carried away, so that Islamism itself may be regarded more
suitably as a righteous divine punishment of them.1
Turning away from these sad divergences from the great
spiritual movement which is the subject of discourse, there are
only (since the sacred books of the Sibyls and the Druids are
now lost) the Egyptian, Zoroastrian, and Indian Scriptures
which can be taken into account. These are all of them not
merely independent of the Bible, but also in their main
elements derived from a primitive age which alone might
make them sacred, supposing mere age could make anything
sacred which is of human origin. They are accordingly the
groundwork of religions of a primitive type, which nurtured
and trained in a culture of thousands of years the greatest
nations of antiquity, and which even yet in some parts
exercise an unbroken and powerful sway over the most
widely diffused and prolific of the peoples of Asia. Since,
however, we are not yet able to form an adequate judgment
of the Egyptian religion, and of the Zoroastrian only a small
selection of writings has been preserved, there are only the
two branches of the Indian religious books which we can
make use of in more exact comparison, viz. the Brahminical,
whose close affinity in their original elements with the
Zoroastrian has in our day become further manifest, and the
Buddhistic. Now it is certainly of great importance that the
1 And if the present wanton and unpardonable mistakes of Christendom are
not speedily removed, may not the advent of another Mohammed be near ?

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 435
most ancient and fundamental portion of the Brahminical
and Zoroastrian sacred scriptures consists in an abundance of
hymns to deities and sacrificial chants which have been saved
from a very early time of high spiritual elevation in that
nation, and which still show traces in themselves of that time
of humanity's youth by a simplicity so peculiar, a sincerity so
childlike, and a naivete" so touching that men of more recent
days, formed under a wholly different culture, think they can
regard them as sacred only by manifold allegorizing interpre
tations ; many other writings, partly for the elucidation of
these divine hymns and sacrificial songs, and also of sacrificial
usages, partly for the expression of the views and presages of
more ancient seers concerning the nature of religion and of
the gods, have subsequently been added, but nevertheless the
original groundwork of hymns has remained inviolate, and, in
so far as it consisted of most sacred materials, has kept its
high honour. It appears thus that the Brahminical and
Zoroastrian sacred writings are of purely priestly origin, as
indeed they also in later times were especially reserved for
the priestly caste alone, and were accessible, if at aU to
others, only to the ruling class in the nation. If, now, there
is found in the wide extent of this whole sacred scripture
much that carries with it an inexpressible charm, coming
down as it does from humanity's apparently , purest age of
innocence, and other things also which are worthy of the
highest regard as containing in themselves profound anticipa
tions of divine truths, it is yet easily evident how far it
stands below the Bible. Moreover, as under Brahminical
rule a genuine national community was never possible, and all
Indian life continued to be very one-sided, so also this sacred
scripture, notwithstanding its great extent, is of very limited
aim and contents ; and as it has not in the least proceeded
out of the whole great continuous history of the nation, so it
has never been of very great use to the whole nation, and,
indeed, since the vehement conflict against Buddhism
Brahminism has become only more and more one-sided. . . .

436 revelation; its nature and record.
On the other hand, the Buddhist sacred books may be compared
with the New Testament ; first, because Buddhism did not
desire to enter into an entirely hostile relation towards the
older Brahminical culture ; and secondly, because the basis of
the older books consists of reminiscences of Buddha's life,
words, and deeds, as the Gospels do of Christ's. But Buddhism
was so far from realizing a true consummation of the old Indian
revelation and religion, and was so little able to supply with
any fitness the want of it, that it fell away only into a series
of further limitations and deficiencies, both in its conceptions
of the relation between God and man and in jts regulation of
human society. It was unable to create a genuine community
(p. 178 f.) ; in its one-sided development only a community of
holy monks was formed ; and throughout it possessed only a
narrow and limited spirit, and had an unhistorical significance.
Since, however, it arose in a time learned, fond of controversy,
and given to | book-making, its literature, out of which subse
quently the attempt was repeatedly made to form a genuine
Buddhist canon, multiplied to such an enormous extent, that
it is difficult to collect all its sacred writings, and only in
camel-loads can they be carried away ; but what is this huge
bulk in spirit compared with the Bible ! A library for the
cloister is what it has ever remained.
The Chinese books of higher grade, by which everything is'
determined, are not, however, according to p. 244 f., to be called
sacred so much as classical, that is, generally pre-eminent, for
they are indeed inviolable, and as such seek to lay the basis'
of a salvation for the nation ; this salvation, however, they do
not know how to find where alone it is to be found unalterably
the same for every nation for ever, in a real and thence for
man sacred Deity.
IV, 13. Consequences. Growing Worth of the Bible.
§ 134. To us, however, as we saw, and as our Bible itself
teaches, the holy can only be God Himself and His pure word.

revelation in the bible. 437
We know that the Bible proposes to be for us, and can only
be to us a means to lead us to the knowledge of the true God
and His eternal word as both become clear to us in the whole
history of His to Him specially sacred nation and by means
of it, if we seek rightly to contemplate and firmly to grasp
this historical clearness as it is actually and wholly. Our
judgment therefore is that the Bible — to express it in the
shortest and most incisive way — may be sacred to us on many
sides and for many reasons, but at last, and with perfect
determinateness, it is so only because it is to us an authentic
means by which we recognise with certainty the true God in
His whole nature, and His word to us in its whole significance
and its entire sacredness.
Moreover, we cannot to-day fix the canon of the Bible
essentiaUy otherwise than it was already fixed at the end of
the period of Christianity's youth, and there is no necessity to
do so, if we think with correctness, according to § 1 0 5 ff., how
it arose and what aim it had from the beginning and subse
quently in its whole wider development. The truth is, the
canon as it was ultimately determined proceeded from the
great necessities and needs of the true revelation and religion,
as these transcendent blessings sought their own preservation
in humanity, as they must. We may know exactly every
thing upon which the canon depends, and by our present
investigations and experiences we can more particularly
determine some things which in the time of its final close
remained somewhat indeterminate. And besides this, we must
at last wholly abandon the immense number of misunder
standings and prejudices which in the course of time have
become established in relation to the sacredness and canon of
.the Bible.
But the more unavoidable is it here at the close to ask
•precisely how it stands with our later day in reference to the
worth of Holy Scripture as against all earlier times, and espe
cially those in which the sacredness just of this very Bible
celebrated its first great victory in the world and in connection

438 revelation; its nature and record.
with which its canon was finally fixed. Is its value the same
to-day ? Has it grown less ? Or has it become greater, so that
we can estimate it more highly to-day than they did in the
time when its canon was settled ? In order to give the
true answer to this question we must discuss, as carefully
as the high importance of the matter demands, the two
further questions which are bound up with it, so to speak, at
each end.
For, on the one side, this question at once presupposes
another, viz. does the worth of all revelation and religion, and
especially of that to which the Bible, with its whole peculiar
contents, seeks to guide us, stand to-day as high as it did in
the long series of centuries in which (§105 ff.) the canon by
degrees was constituted ? There are among us to-day people
who no longer wish to know anything of any revelation or
religion ; they therefore deny God Himself; yet what grave,
self-destructive folly this is, is shown above in § 13 ff, and
will be shown more determinately in a subsequent volume.
Others in most recent times are ashamed of absolutely denying
God's existence, as, twenty or thirty years ago, was becoming
customary in Germany, but they do not wish to know any
thing of this definite Deity as the Bible presents Him to us,
and still less of the revelation of this Deity and of a true
religion. But these are sufficiently refuted by the fact that
neither they nor their predecessors, as has long since been
shown, and as in the nature of the case cannot be otherwise,
have ever been able to set up and teach anything better, still
less to show by their own lives that there is anything better ;
and that all the details they adduce in opposition to the truth
of this revelation and the necessity of this religion rest on
more or less serious errors, is shown even in the present work.
Moreover, if the thing itself did not show it, the history of
humanity up to this time would prove sufficiently that in the
course of events it is never loyalty to the contents and claims
of this revelation and religion that is punished, but disloyalty
and ignorance of them. Yet why dwell further upon this

revelation in the bible. 439
subject here, when it is the aim of this whole work to show
it in detaU ?
On the other side it might be said, although it is not to
be denied that this revelation and religion are alone capable
of laying the foundation of a true salvation alike of every
individual man and of all nations of the earth, yet there are
to-day other means than the Bible, and altogether different
from it, whereby they may be accurately known. They might,
for instance, be ascertained from the doctrine of the Church
and the entire uninterrupted continuance of its ordinances and
organization, or from what, in one word, is called tradition ;
and so much the more could this be done in that the Church,
both of the Old and New Testaments, existed earlier than the
Bible, and only by its consent has the Bible itself been
elevated to its high position ; moreover, it could embrace very
properly much also which quite accidentally has not been
recorded in Holy Scripture. But how little this means would
suffice in the great chief subjects on which in this case
everything depends, is obvious, and need not here be discussed.
Precisely the questions and doubts which may arise as to
whether everything conformable to eternal divine truths exists
and is in use in the Church, and whether in all its efforts, in
thought and judgment as in action and in particular usages,
something may not have crept in or sought to creep in which
contradicts those truths, — precisely such questions can be
decided only by those testimonies which have been preserved
for aU time unalterable in the Bible, and to which the Church
has pledged itself to the determination to stand for ever,
by recognising these books as sacred to her once for all.
Furthermore, it is altogether wrong to maintain that the Bible
has been created only by the Church, and on this account, as
the creation of the Church, may be dealt with as the Church
pleases, expounded as it may choose, and wholly or partially
hidden or interdicted as it may think well. For the divine
truths which form the essential contents of the Bible stand
elevated far above everything which is called " Church," have

440 revelation; its nature and record.
been first of all active and further developed in humanity in
their own significance and power, nay, have themselves made
any community or Church even possible (§ 48—60) ; a canon of
Holy Scripture has been created by the Church only because
she felt it was best to secure possession of those truths by
written records, and so for all future time to preserve authentic
documents, and for such an aim just these special books that
had long been held in high and deserved estimation were the
most suitable. However high, therefore, the sacred community
or Church may be placed, and however certain it is that these
divine truths find in the community itself, which they and their
appropriate human instruments have founded, the mightiest
and most permanent of their spheres of work and culture,
yet it would mean the destruction of these most ample and
resplendent spheres themselves where the truth works, and
thereby the weakening of the best influence of the truth
among men, to allow that the Church might deal arbitrarily
with the Bible and supply its place of honour in her midst
by anything else, by a confession of faith or some other
verbal utterance, by another book or a multitude of other
books, by a Council or a Pope.
§ 135. As a means by which the true revelation and
religion may be known to-day there is only one thing that is
at all equal to the Bible, and to be placed on a level with it in
dignity and impressiveness. If all true religion has only been
made manifest to us that we may the more surely walk in it,
and if also the Bible ultimately seeks to serve no other end
than to present to us the bright mirror of this true religion,
and to incite us by the knowledge of it to walk in accordance
with it, as far as a book can do this ; it is possible then that
every man living may appropriate it to himseK as it is to be
known from the Bible, and so find in actual experience the
better life of the soul which it promises to him. What was
first mere letter and perishable writing becomes then for him
spirit and life, and if one short sentence out of the whole wide
volume can serve as a most wonderful and permanent impulse

revelation in the bible. '441
to induce him to persevere in that way of his better self which
he has here found, he will do this with yet further constancy
and enlightenment, if he has appropriated to himself the whole
import and spirit of the Bible in the full light and purest
energy of both. Thus the truth of the religion contained in
the Bible, and the divinity of its revelation, are attested to the
individual man, and he believes in the letter as such no longer,
and no longer is swayed by it ; what once moved the greatest
prophets and saints, what issues as truth from all the higher
history of the joint working of the divine and human spirit,
works now also in him ; and the Holy Spirit Himself, from
whom the eternal element that lives in the Bible has pro
ceeded, may also in this way take possession of him. In
point of fact, it is only in this manner that the Bible can
attest its divine truth to man ; it has attested it thus to
innumerable men in aU times ; and the influences which have
passed over from the Bible into the great history of all
humanity, come to the heart of the individual as the thousand
fold confirmation of this testimony. But this second means
of knowledge is absolutely necessary, for the whole question
is ultimately a question of the salvation of our own spirit, and
only by self-knowledge is this attested.
If therefore the Bible has on account of its unique contents
a value which nothing can replace, whereby it is the only
means of conveying to us with perfect certainty the know
ledge of that true religion in which every man should live, —
a means which receives complete confirmation by our own
living experience as the necessary counter means of knowledge
(the counter proof), — it follows further that its worth cannot be
diminished, but can only increase with the course of centuries
and millenniums. This is the case in the main, indeed, with
all real gains once actually won in human history, because
their employment in the course of all human development
advances in importance and is more and more widely extended.
The various possessions of permanent value which the old
Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, Greeks and Eomans attained,

442 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
and which we have received from them, we do not prize less
to-day than they were once prized, but rather since they
have secured a wider certification we prize them more. But
especially does this happen with -the Bible, so far as it can
happen with what is a means to a higher end. For the
purely spiritual life and endeavour of man, because it is man's
supreme aim, and leads to holiness of character, is also most
difficult, and is pre-eminently exposed to the power of the
most delusive errors and the most destructive fluctuations ;
and the more widely the truth has already revealed its signi
fication and purpose in this realm, where with the mind itself
only the mind's free resolve and self-determination can have
authority, the more freely do old errors, as well as the evil
intent of innumerable men, exert their influence here. So
there spread easily more and more widely prevailing and
powerful errors and corruptions ; and indeed, since in Christ
the highest divinely-human life, which can develop itself in
one man, first appeared, and with this appearing, the Bible, as
historical witness of that whole highest spiritual movement of
antiquity ending in Him, itself also came to an end, these
powerful errors and corruptions have repeatedly been diffused
with the greatest energy. But the Bible serves, even against
all these repeated and more and more powerful aberrations, as
a clear and ever adequate monitor of those eternal truths,
which, as they have created this whole New World in
opposition to the Old, so also are alone able to conduct it to
its true divine goal. The more widely the new errors gain
ground and the more perniciously they at length work, the
more freshly and mightily can shine forth again in ever new
splendour the eternal truths which alone possess saving
efficacy, and which are preserved in the Bible with unalter
able lineaments for the whole future of man ; and since this
Bible in well-nigh innumerable copies, in its original
languages and in almost all possible tongues of the world, is
in our day to be found in almost every cottage and every
corner, no tyrant can ever succeed in wresting it from the

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 443
hands or indeed the minds of men, as once a Chinese emperor
(Tsche-hwang-ti, B.C. 240) sought to annihilate all books out
of mere hatred of all free activity of thought, when he had by
force consolidated anew the old Chinese Empire. As the
Bible ever authenticates itself afresh as the very means of
knowledge and enlightenment it professes to be and alone can
be, its value just on this account rises higher and higher with
the course of time. 14. The Right Use of the Bible.
§ 136. But as every means of good has the influence it
ought to have only as it is properly used, so it happens with
the Bible, — the noblest means of good in literature antiquity
could bequeath to us. How single passages of the Bible
whose sense is clear in themselves may be taken out of their
connection and apphed with advantage for the elevation and
improvement of our spirit, we would not now discuss ; the
question is simply as to the right employment of the Bible as
a whole, although to be sure upon this to every conscientious
man the right use of even the smaUest parts of it should
depend, if there is a desire to proceed safely and neither
seriously to deceive ourselves or others. But on the threshold
of our subject there lies the question, whether it gives us
itself general laws and proper examples of its use. Every
sentence of the Bible that can be turned to account in this
direction, nay, every suggestion it offers as to its own proper
use, must at least be eminently worthy of our consideration.
As much as this nevertheless may at once be seen ; it
would be idle to seek in the older portions of the Bible a pre
scription how it is to be explained and applied. It must be
an ill sort of writing that has first to tell every man how it is
to be expounded and used. Some of the earliest as well as
the latest prophets allowed themselves to give hints and
admonitions to the effect that their writings were to be well
considered and not abused ; but that the reader could under-

444 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
stand the words and sentences of his work, every prophet
and other writer presupposes as in itself certain. If the
Deuteronomist sharply admonishes us not to add to or take
away from God's word, we saw above what that means ; x and
if towards the end of his work he declares how it is to be
read annually in public before the assembled nation, that is
connected with the more artificial aim and plan of his work
which has already been spoken of.2
When, however, after the close of the seventh century B.C.,
a canon of Holy Scripture was gradually established, and the
Pentateuch had won for itself its high regard in the com
munity, it is one of the latest psalmists who, in a long
discourse, very artificially arranged and connected together,3
yet flowing forth from the deepest thought of a heart at rest
in God and His word, and courageous in the midst of suffer
ing on account of its free confession, — a discourse which
celebrates the glory and consolation of Holy Scripture, and
especially its luminous clearness for the guidance of every
step of man, — breaks out into the prayer to God,
" Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold
Much of wonder out of Thy law ! "
and into the like utterance, —
" The way of Thy commands teach me,
That I may meditate upon Thy wonders ! " *
And it is evident from the connection that these divine
wonders are such as the poet found in the Pentateuch, the
whole of which it was not easy for him to understand ; for
what he calls the " teaching " of God is, according to the well-
known Hebrew expression (Thora), just the Pentateuch, that
true Bible in miniature. For it is a peculiarity of Scripture
when it is already old, that it contains much that to later
readers is very obscure and difficult to decipher, in which
i p. 249. * P. 326.
3 The aged poet was perhaps cast into prison and sweetened his involuntary
leisure by his task. 4 Ps. cxix. 18, 27.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 445
because of its connection with the contents of the rest of the
Scriptures they expect to find, not without reason, wonderful
divine secrets, which they would be glad by deeper meditation
to penetrate into, in order that they might follow more con
fidently the clear prescriptions of Holy Scripture relating to
the life and work of man ; — secrets which, quite in accordance
with the divine greatness and glory, it is difficult for them
to understand. It is indeed remarkable enough that here
already we find so clear an indication how difficult the full
comprehension and joyful application of the entire contents of
Holy Scripture can become even to the most pious intelligence.
After our poet's time, the days came soon enough, when, with
respect to such wonderful or divinely mysterious things of
Holy Scripture as there was no hope of understanding other
wise, or of harmonizing with the, rest of Scripture, the art of
allegory was applied ; pains were taken to read the riddle in
this way, and it was thought to be possible to advance more
and more with entire safety upon this path in expounding
and applying Holy Scripture. But that our poet approves
such art, or even knows it, he does not say ; and indeed there
lie as yet some centuries between him and the first serious
attempt to make use of allegory in interpreting Holy Scripture.
That long psalm is, however, the most copious and notable
witness within the Hebrew Old Testament, of the feeling and
spirit in which the pious contemplated Holy Scripture during
the earliest centuries of its common acceptance ; although we
know also from other sources by a short narrative what, care
and pains were taken to give a profitable exposition and
appUcation of it to the assembled community.1
§ 137. Meanwhile, the time now actually arrived when it
became more and more necessary not merely to explain Holy
Scripture in the public assembly of the community, but to
investigate also its great fundamental truths and wider
relations, to group together more fully the doctrines and
precepts to be drawn from it so as to exhibit them according
1 Nell. viii. 8, 12.

446 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
to their foundations, and thus to lead back to first principles
all exposition and application of the truth. Different schools
of Scripture exposition flourished ; some found their joy in
the refinements and subtlety of allegory ; others held them
selves with more reserve towards it ; but all were accustomed
with increasing frequency to prove all their opinions by
passages of Holy Scripture, or at least to sustain and adorn
them with such passages. The scribes became the spiritual
lords of the time ; * all this had completely developed itself in
this way already before the age of the appearing of Christ and
His disciples. The strongest indications of it are shown in
the New Testament; and the question arises whether the
New Testament undertakes, by means of passages and oracular
utterances, in this matter very important, to give us- pre
scriptions for the exposition of the Old Testament. How
little this is the case we may infer from the fact that all
passages of this kind in the New Testament of any significance
for the matter in hand occur only incidentally, and nowhere
seek to teach anything reaUy new, although some of their
suggestions are worthy of grave consideration. But as the
subject is of the greatest importance, we must go more into
detail and ponder well what is of special weight. We
see now —
1. That Christ holds the Holy Scripture of His days in all
the high honour it can demand, quotes readily its examples
and proofs for the truth and rectitude of what He teaches and
does, refers with aU impressiveness to its short sharp divine
oracles as decisive, nay, contemplates it as the treasury —
great and ample, but for the common mind somewhat obscure
and little precisely known — whose contents regarded as
sacred need only be examined in order to lead to the con
viction that He is the true Christ. Just as little does He
reject the Biblical scholarship and science which are every
where indispensable where Holy Scripture is accepted. But
the scribes who were then predominant He wholly rejects as
1 Ecclus. xxxviii. 24-xxxix. 11 ; 1 Mace. vii. 12 ; 2 Mace. vi. 18 ff.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 447
a matter of principle, and demands that the Christian scribe
shall know how to draw from that treasury, now supplemented
by the gospel, not merely old things, but also and especially
new;1 these are the truths and forces of the perfect true
revelation and religion which for every new age renew them
selves, as necessity requires, without losing their connection
with what has been long since given in the Old Testament.
For the more particular meaning of Christ's saying, in this
case, is seen partly from the connection of the discourse which
He closes with this intimation ; — He is discoursing, however,
there of the progress of the development of the perfect
kingdom of God as He had just established it in humanity; —
partly also from the spiritual freedom with which elsewhere
in every instance He deals with the contents of the Old
Testament without attenuating what is of eternal significance
and worth. Consider now more particularly —
2. The way in which the Old Testament is used in the
whole of the New, and we shall then see that a twofold use of
it is open to us. The Apostle Paul is the most important
author who stands as an example of the first method. He is
fond of proving everything he expressly touches upon in the
way of doctrine by means of passages of the Old Testament
definitely introduced and, should he think it expedient,
abundantly accumulated. He makes use also of these proofs
in the proper place very skUfully by comparison of two or
more Old Testament passages, or by setting them over against
each other, giving thus a double inference ; and he even
resorts to the aid of the art of allegory ; while the writer of
the Epistle to the Hebrews follows him, only with still greater
ingenuity, in all these three aptitudes of citation. All this
was the outcome of the apostle's special training in the
culture of the schools, to which as a Hellenist he was
accustomed in his early years, and which as a Christian
and apostle he thought he was necessitated to retain, since
it promised good service in learned contention with his
1 Matt. xiii. 52.

448 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
opponents ; the more so as, in his time, Christianity had gone
forth into the great heathen world, and there the Jewish
scribes delighted by such learned arts to prove everything.
The favourite disciple John stands as an example of the
second method, and pre-eminently Christ Himself. In all the
three directions before mentioned the greatest simplicity is
here shown, and especially is there no use whatever made of
the art of allegory. But the fact that these two methods of
proving a truth of Christianity stand peacefully side by side
in the New Testament, itself attests how little depends in
Christianity, as against the pure truths themselves, upon
such distinctions in the procedure of proof ; and how this
procedure might change with time and place as the purpose
and aim of the matter of discourse changed, if only what
was artificial did not deviate too far from simplicity and
directness in knowledge and speech. And in reality we see
how Paul himself, in Epistles1 less elaborately planned,
refrains from such more learned arts of proof; whilst inversely
James, Peter, and Jude, in their Epistles, do not indeed resort
to allegory, but nevertheless like to inweave Old Testament
proofs, because their writings were intended to be instructive.
A similar variation may be seen also in the first three Gospels,
since Mark nowhere has a special regard to the Old Testa
ment, and only the last editor of Matthew, conformably to the
special aim of his work, intentionally interpolates all the Old
Testament passages that appear to him competent to afford the
very best proof that Jesus is the Christ. The Epistle to the
Colossians occupies a very peculiar position, for notwithstand
ing the literary art that is conspicuous in the longest passages,
it cites no Old Testament texts ; whilst the Epistle to the
Ephesians, and the author of the three pastoral letters, attach
themselves wholly to Paul, the former even in love of allegory.
Accordingly in the whole of the New Testament nothing is
seen but how a sound Christian freedom in this matter rules
everywhere, and how little of intention there is to give us a
1 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon.

¦REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 449
one-sided prescription concerning the exposition and use of
the Old Testament, apart from the view, which prevails
throughout, of that higher unity that (§ 131 f.) stands over
everything in the Old Testament and in Christianity. . . .
Indeed, it could —
3. Not well be otherwise than that of the various prin
ciples of the whole contemplation and exposition of the Old
Testament at that time accepted and long since laid down in
the learned schools, many of which penetrated into the nation
far beyond the pale of the schools themselves, some at least
should be mentioned in the New Testament ; and they are at
once of great importance to us. But so far as they are
approved, or not altogether rejected, in the New Testament,
there is valuable truth in them ; and they give to us, besides,
a noteworthy evidence of the scientific conscientiousness and
care with which, in earher times, the inquiry was prosecuted
in the old community into all questions here relevant, and the
effort was made to trace back everything tp its firm basis-
" The Scripture cannot be broken," l as it might be were it a
common writing whose words might be true or not, firmly
accepted or rejected ; as holy it must be of solid worth and
contain truth, so that no sentence of it is to be made weak
and perishable as an untrue or unmeaning sentence ; this is
one of these principles, borrowed from language of legal
complexion as if the Old Testament were a book of legal
maxims. And if this is referred, as it may fairly be, to the
contents of the Bible, which have an immediate significance
for practical religion, the principle serves properly to show
that we are not to estimate too lightly such words as belong
to the Scriptures, even if they appear hard to be understood,
and might on that account rather be laid aside as unmeaning
or indeed empty. " Not above what is written," 2 or what
the Scripture says, is a kindred principle which admonishes
that we are not to hold ourselves as wiser than Scripture,
1 John x. 35, cf. vii. 23 ; Matt. v. 19, xvi. 19, xviii. 18.
8 1 Cor. iv. 6, cf. iii. 19 f.
EWALD I. 2 F

450 revelation; its NATURE AND RECORD.
even if it says something we do not like, and which, yielding
to human vanity, we might wish to discard. " Whatsoever
the law says, it says to those under the law ; " x that is, to
those who belong to the sacred community ; is also a very
similar principle, teaching that the members of this community
are not to consider the denunciations and words of earnest
displeasure the Scriptures contain as having no reference to
them ; or " everything which was written aforetime," i.e. long
since, in the sacred Scriptures, " was written for our instruc
tion ! " 2 And if Christ exclaimed to the Jews, " You think in
the Scripture to have eternal life," s He does not mean to
deny thereby that the Old Testament could contain such life,
although He does not mean to say it is contained only in it,
according to the exaggerated opinion of the scribes, and could
not also be obtained by another means ; but so far as such is
their opinion, they condemn themselves only the more severely
if they do not so search and apply the Scripture as they are
bound to do. So correct are these principles that Christ as
well as Paul repeats them, although the latter, in opposition
to perverse scribes and stiffnecked contenders for the letter,
says, " The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." 4
In the youth of Christianity this principle, that everything
the Old Testament contains was written for the instruction and
admonition, or for the hope and comfort of posterity, was soon
apphed with the greatest possible fervour and glow of feeling.
The consciousness awoke that now at length in the Christ who
had just appeared, in accordance with Old Testament promises,
there had been attained the consummation of the past, and,
in sure and certain hope in Him as its accomplisher, the
consummation also of the whole future of human destiny.
This consciousness worked so wonderfully, irradiating the
whole field of vision with its new splendour, that every detail
of the Old Testament became invested with new freshness
and life ; and after Old Testament hopes had been so mani-
1 Rom. iii. 19. 2 Rom. xv. 4 ; 1 Cor. x. 11, possibly a traditional saying.
s John v. 39. * 2 Cor. iii. 6, cf. 15.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 451
festly fulfilled in a matter of chief moment, it was not difficult
to find the Old Testament everywhere full of emblems and
types of Christ and His disciples. If the art of allegory sub
sequently came to be employed, it was easy to explain the most
remote and unrelated passages as referring to Christ and Chris
tians, and finding its fulfilment in them. When now Paul,
and soon after, and in a far greater degree, the Epistle to the
Hebrews, had breathed, as it were, the breath of a new Chris
tian life over the Old Testament, its historical sense would in
the end have been more and more explained away if there
had been much further advance made one-sidedly in this
direction. But it was not so, and there remained, as if
ingrained in the white marble of the New Testament books,
a few motley stripes of wholly distinct methods of thought
and speech, more as a memorial of the thorough flexibility
of the spirit of that last Biblical age, and in so far for our
instruction, than as furnishing to us authoritative precepts and
universal rules of procedure in the exposition of the Old
Testament. § 138. The Bible therefore gives us no prescription specially
to show us how it is to be interpreted and used. In short
historical accounts of the procedure in later times it admonishes
us, by the examples it brings forward, to the dUigent investi
gation and use of Holy Scripture ; J it gives to us occasionally,
from the same periods of time, some very useful suggestions
as to its use ; it lays down in one of its latest writings the
principle that every actually God-inspirited writing has also
its corresponding uses for the spiritual life ; but prescriptions
how we ought to interpret it, it does not give us. In fact, it
is unworthy of a writing that with the best right is to be called
holy to be obliged first to state how it is to- be interpreted
and used. Truth, and most of all divine truth, is its own
proof and its own expositor, and it would be to represent
itself as something ambiguous and obscure if it must first give
an exposition of itself. It indicates, indeed, in scattered
1 Deut. xxxi. 9-13 ; Dan. ix. ; 2 Tim. iii, 16 ; Neh. viii. 8 f.; Luke iv. 16-21.

452 REVELATION; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
passages of its later books, that certain portions of its entire
contents were at that time already regarded as somewhat
difficult to understand,1 for whose correct interpretation special
and even unusual pains are requisite ; but for all that, it
contains no prescription how we are to understand it. It is
therefore quite otherwise with these Scriptures than with, for
example, the Brahminical, the latest issues of which are books
intended to explain the older, but to be held as sacred as well.
Care must be taken here not to confound two things which
are specially to be distinguished : the mere application of the
contents of a passage in the Bible and its exposition in the
strictest sense of the word. The application of a passage
may be infinite ; nor can it be denied, indeed, that the sense
of a passage in its application to a new case may flash
up with new vividness. When Christianity in its youth
observed how many passages of the Old Testament shone
forth with a new living meaning if they were contemplated
in the light of the just glorified Christ and His history, as
well as of His Church, it turned with a wholly new fervour
and confidence to search for such passages; and the more
profoundly it felt the obligation laid upon it," since it was
misjudged in the world, to authenticate first of aU its right
to recognition in the circle of the sanctity of the old true
religion, the higher did its fervour rise in finding and estab
lishing how Christ and everything truly Christian already
shone forth in the Old Testament ; and in this effort help
was found in the old custom, already prevalent in the existing
community, of fondness for proving everything by Biblical
texts, as weU as in the certainty that Christ is the promised
One of the Old Testament. Thus a new resplendent light
seemed to be suffused over the entire Old Testament ; even
if the art of allegory had not then been known at all, this
enthusiasm in discovering what is Christian in tbe Old Testa
ment would have been the same, and in point of fact the art
of allegory came into use in this way in the apostolic period
1 2 Pet. iii. 16.

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 453
only by degrees ; the many passages of this kind, however,
which are now to be found in the New Testament appear in
it only as it were incidentally, for we know that the Christians
of those times dealt with the Old Testament throughout after
this fashion. But all these are mere applications of Old Testa
ment passages ; and although the tendency to vivify anew the
Old Testament in such wise did not readily return in equal
fervency, yet the same passages at different times were even
wholly differently applied ; and indeed in the New Testament
the same passage finds wholly distinct references.1 Quite
otherwise is it with what must be called exposition in the
stricter sense. This aims solely at the discovery and estab
lishment of the original meaning of the author; and in our
times, indeed, it has become indispensable first of all to lay
ourselves under the obligation to find this original meaning
accurately in every passage, that we may escape from the
many earlier misuses, and attain an irrefragably certain his
torical contemplation of things ; and since Christ Himself has
furnished the example of .this prudent reserve (p. 419 £), we
can the less doubt that in every case where it is necessary
our chief business is accurately to ascertain the original
meaning of the contents of the Bible. Not till this has been
done can we on this basis calmly consider how manifoldly the
words may be otherwise related and applied ; and only as the
Bible forbade us from accurately knowing this meaning as it
is, should we be justified in entertaining a low opinion of it,
and treating it as unworthy of its own proper respect.
§ 139. If, now, the exposition and right use of the Bible
itself have been assigned to us, we must first of all rightly
understand it, that thus we may find the sure basis for all
profitable use of it. Whatever has been in earlier times over
looked and neglected, or even has occurred through mistake,
cannot fetter us as soon as we have recovered the true meaning
which in the ease of every author of a greater or smaller
' As Gen. ii. 24 in 1 Cor. vi. 16 ; Eph. v. 31 f. ; cf. Matt. xix. 5 f. So Isa.
liii. 6 in Matt. ix. 36 ; 1 Pet. ii. 25.

454 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
portion of Scripture was indisputably connected with his
words. Most of the sentences of the Bible are of themselves
readily intelligible to any one who knows the original tongues
or compares reliable translations ; but this is not the place to
discuss the universal laws of all correct hermeneutics. Two
things, however, are here relevant.
First, that all those words, sentences, sections, and smaller
or larger books of the Bible whose meaning from any cause
whatever has been more and more, in the long course of interven
ing centuries and millenniums, pushed into the background, and
thence become more or less obscure, are in that case to be the
more carefully considered and the more accurately applied.
We can accomplish this the more confidently to-day, the more
certainly our whole science, after frequent attempts, immature
or indeed whoUy mistaken, has arrived at this point, viz. to
be able to proceed with sure footing everywhere, and nowhere
altogether to miss our way where words or parts of the Bible are
in question which have most vital significance in connection
with our present purpose. So long as we had not yet returned
to the position of seeking to understand all the great and
small parts of the Bible, each in the full sense of the original
author and of his time ; of looking into the face of every age
out of which any flower has been woven into the wonderful
garland of the Bible, and of marking the very soil where only
it could have grown up as it is, and at the same time of
distinguishing, where possible, each author in whose garden
it has grown from others in whose gardens other, although
similar flowers grew : so long everything remained imperfect
and constantly exposed to a thousand errors. The simple
reader could then at best but overlook such flowers as were
for him half - hidden, half - disfigured, and hasten on to
others that pleased him; moreover, he who among readers
and expositors would not hastily pass by such passages, but
linger over them intentionally, fell into the danger of mingling
continually a thousand arbitrary thoughts in the exposition of
them, of attempting every device of allegory, and of making

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 455
tltimately both his own labour and that of his readers altogether
fruitless. To-day we may, on the contrary, avoid all such
vain toil, if only we seek to direct our labour aright. This,
however, is, to be sure, the more necessary, since we are —
Secondly, under obligation not to pass over even the least
portion of the entire contents of the Bible that falls within
the circle of the complete discharge of our task, if our task be
to give a summary of the whole contents of the Bible, in order
to see clearly what it announces to us concerning God and
His will. Every tittle of the Bible is in that case important,
and in the end not merely every sentence, even the smallest,
but every word ; and not seldom the minute particulars in the
Bible, hitherto least of all correctly understood or wholly over
looked, and indeed concealed to the common eye, render us
the best service. In short, a new certain apprehension of the
entire wide contents of the Bible, such as our present know
ledge can give us, indispensable as it is for incalculably many
other aims in our day, especially belongs in its widest exten
sion to the science to which the present volume is introductory.
The Bible does not forbid us, nay, rather it summons us in
the most urgent way, by the highly manifold, nay, at first
sight apparently wholly diverse, contents of its separate parts,
to seek, just in relation to the highest aim for which it is to
be of service to us, the right connection of its contents and
the unity of all the truths it offers us. In point of fact, the
attempt to bring the entire body of divine truths, vast and
extensive as it is, and the corresponding human duties which
genuine revelation gradually discloses, into one comprehensive
summary, that is, into a firmly connected series, and therefore
into a new unity, is as old as true religion and its community ;
already the Ten Commandnents, that granite substratum of
the whole Bible, proceeded from such an endeavour ; Christ
Himself shows no aversion to the attempts made in His time
by learned scribes to establish in new form such a unity, to
caU the first commandment that which according to-its nature
is .to be placed foremost as most important, and to reduce to

456 revelation; its nature and record.
a few main duties and truths the immense manifoldness ol
Old Testament teaching ; all the books of instruction in tbe
Old Testament designed for handy use are full of such attempts ;
indeed, in his new exposition of the law the Deuteronomist
allows such an endeavour to influence him ; and if the New
Testament is somewhat free from such examples, this arises
from the fact that Christianity was then only in its first
beginnings, but even here there is an instructive commence
ment of this kind of summarizing. But considering the great
manifoldness of the contents of the Bible as well as the task
itself, if we would rightly summarize Biblical teaching, we
must take into view the following observations, always pre
supposing the right principles of exposition already mentioned,
and solicitude for the most certain verbal accuracy: —
1. If we look at the inner nature and development of all
true revelation, and if we know from our first section that
everything which is here of decisive importance goes back to
the original energy and original activity of revelation, then it
is evident that we should everywhere proceed specially from
such portions of the Bible which set forth before our view the
fundamental truths as they flow forth from this their purest
and mightiest spring. It is the voices of the prophets, and,
still higher, that of Christ Himself echoing in those of His
disciples, that we have to seek before everything else, and to
discover as accurately as possible. Whether these utterances
stand in special prophetic books or have been interpolated in
narrative pieces, in every case we must start specially from
them. Whether principally only the shortest utterances that
have become laws of life have survived as the results of once
higher prophetic activity, — as in the case of the Ten Com
mandments and other short legal compositions from the primi
tive times of the community under Moses, — or whether the
fundamental truths of all genuine religion pour forth in full,
clear, transparent stream, as in the case of the prophets of
the flourishing time of Old Testament literature, and also of
Christ; and whether the glow of discourse in them flames

x

\

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 457
only from above, as in the Old Testament, or veiled under
the most human condescension penetrates everything, as with
Christ and in the Epistles of His disciples ; throughout we
must start first of all from them. And even if only a little,
and that here and there, may be rescued from individual
prophets and apostles, still we must speciaUy everywhere
take heed to these remnants, and observe how the great stream
of aU development of true revelation has swelled to its copious
fulness by means of such influxes.
. But over and above these utterances of the most immediate
and mighty power of all revelation there stand in the Bible,
on the one side, a multifarious stream of songs for the most
part animated by the deepest feeling and the noblest sentiments
which the IKe and sufferings of the true, religion called forth
in its community in a thousand ways, but also giving expres
sion to new upspringing incitements of the energy of revelation
in the same true religion, and these partly in free spontaneous
overflowings of poetic excitation, partly at a later period in
artificial creations when the public activity of the prophets
gradually relaxed. Thus all these songs which are found in
the Psalter and elswhere, partly as lofty witnesses of the
sentiments actively present in the community of the true
religion, partly as further outworkings of genuine religion's
force and faculty of revelation once so strongly excited in
this community, may offer the most important contributions
to the knowledge of which we are here in quest.
On the other side, there Stand in the Bible the books of
instruction, partly those of the first kind, as almost the whole
of the Book of Proverbs and the Book of Sirach, partly those
which are creations of poetic art of manifold gradation and
dress, the Song of Songs, the Book of Job, many Psalms,
Proverbs xxx. 1 to xxxi. 9, the Book of Ecclesiastes, the
Wisdom of Solomon, and even such books as Tobit and Judith.
They show how true religion shaped itself on all sides, or
struggled to adjust itself with all the forces in the actual life
of the community, and contain in themselves in so far a wide

458 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
varied wealth. But many of the highest thoughts also of
this religion's power of revelation, long so inexhaustible, —
thoughts which were too elevated or too difficult to grasp, and
therefore could not at once appear in the ordinary discourse of
the people and in the common teaching, — sought a presentation
in the manifold departments of didactic poetry which could
be found only there in such vivid and luminous clearness.
And these three groups are surrounded by narrative pieces
as by their indispensable, broad, easy setting, so that only the
New Testament closes with a book of prophecy pointing into
all the Christian future. But these historical pieces, some
times very short, sometimes very copious, are also themselves
in their matter so necessary, that without them everything
else would be on the one side quite dark, on the other in
complete. Above all, they attest the great chief point, that
this whole progressively-arisen revelation of all true religion
has so little come into the world accidentally and arbitrarily,
that it is rather inseparably connected with the huge weight
of all history itself, and forms nothing less than the most
brilliant and best part of it, the most consoling too for all the
future. But they admonish us still of something else just as
important. If we did not know it, or rather if we men of
modern times should not already spontaneously know it from
the experience of all millenniums, these historical settings
admonish us of it, viz. that every prophet, nay, even Christ
Himself, discourses for his time under the power of the his
torical connection standing high over aU humanity ; that even
what is spoken for eternity is yet in its manifestation and
first setting historically conditioned ; and that therefore we
must rightly apprehend whatever is temporal in order to find
in it the more certainly that which is eternal. But the
highest suggestion offered by this historical setting of contents
of eternal value which alone we are in quest of, we can
understand only as we observe that among the narrative
pieces of the Old and New Testaments there are not a few
which by their contents as well as by their bearing lift us up

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 459
far above what otherwise passes as customary narrative in the
Bible itself, which relate to us in such human form purely
divine thoughts and divine incidents, and not by prophetic or
poetic but simple narrative words transplant us into heaven
itself. In such pieces the power of revelation in all true
religion prosecutes its task in point of fact only as it can
prosecute it in simple narrative ; but they admonish us of
this also, that all the ten thousand customary narratives do
not suffice to place just as clearly before the eyes the working
of the divine powers which yet are ever active in history ;
and that there is behind aU human history a divine history
also visible only in its effects. If, now, such narratives of the
higher kind were alone prevalent in the Bible, we should lose
in their presence aU actual visible history ; but appearing
only in moderate frequency, and always where the higher
contemplation and knowledge of all divinely-human history
urgently presses into notice, — that is, in the right place, — the
finest intermingling is formed, whilst we are ever admonished
to combine both kinds of narrative indeed in a higher sense,
but in other respects rightly to apprehend each kind only
according to its own nature, and to be satisfied with the sense
it will yield to iis. Thus then is it seen that the Bible,
placing as it does that which is most prosaic and common
place in narrative side by side with the most elevated and
inspired, is also in this respect a true book of the world.
All these many kinds of material we must closely combine,
and ascertain what truths result from them as a whole. Only
the most accurate and complete combination of these materials,
so different in themselves, can conduct us to authentic results.
And, moreover, we must be on our guard against overlooking
anything because it does not lie immediately at our feet ; as,
for instance, we are not to deduce from the Book of Job
isolated thoughts merely that find verbal expression, while
the great thoughts and truths, which alone in the final issue
it seeks to place clearly before our view, are unnoticed.
Nothin"- indeed is more hazardous than to draw wide and

460 REVELATION ; ITS NATURE AND RECORD.
perverse conclusions from words and sentences broken off
from their context, as we have already seen in the caSe of
the word and thought with respect to that which is " God-
inspirited" in the Scripture (p. 395). But nothing also is
more unfair and mischievous than to overlook or to wish
indeed wholly to obscure the indications of a truth, less
strongly conspicuous at first sight, as for example the traces
of the belief in immortality in the Old Testament. And
thus, here as everywhere, the true task is, neither to put
into the Bible nor twist out of it anything foreign to it,
but rather its own wealth, and its certainty also, fully to
exhaust. § 140. 2. In the meantime the truths belonging to the
circle of religious doctrine do not appear in the Bible, all of
them or always, upon the same stage of clearness and cer
tainty; and the Bible, unaffected and simple as it is, and as
its compilers without additions of their own happily left it,
is honest enough to leave this variation in condition just as
it really was to the men whom we may now contemplate as
' spokesmen and writers of divinely-human things. Starting
as we may fairly start from the idea of revelation and its
development, we can distinguish three stages of clearness and
certainty, namely, —
1. There are names and ideas which meet us in the Bible
as fossils from an earlier age in which they must have been
still living, fresh, impressive. These plainly should indicate
high truths in the circle of revelation. On a closer con
templation we can yet plainly enough perceive the different
times from which they descend ; but their original living
force has vanished as behind a veil. As examples illustrative
of this may be mentioned such names as " Cherub," " Seraph,"
which appear in certain passages of the Bible so closely con
nected with the divine, yet only as reminiscences from the
remote primitive age of the nation of Israel, — august forms
which confront us only as names divested of their original
essential life. Similarly the name " Jahveh, Lord of Hosts "

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 461
unexpectedly and obscurely comes before us from the older
centuries of the community; the name "Satan" occurs too,
first as it seems in the Book of Job, — from earlier books we do
not know him, and cannot properly say who he is. All this
must we recognise as it is, in its abruptness and even in the
relative darkness which for us arises from it. But in point
of fact this twofold, result thus appears, viz. the revelation and
religion which the Bible seeks to set before our eyes with
their earliest origins and beginnings, go back into the most
remote ages and regions of the earth, a matter which, taken
purely historicaUy, may yet be of great significance ; and,
further, very many portions of the entire literature of the
ancient nation are lost to us, as, moreover, we cannot doubt,
according to § 93 ff. And thus, all that belongs to such
subjects we may characterize as lying as it were at the back
of the Bible, and to be regarded by us rather as once actually
existent in greater livingness and primitive power.
2. In the sunny, centre, on the other hand, there lie in the
Bible everywhere the great truths concerning God Himself,
concerning the divine kingdom and the sacred community,
concerning the goodness and love of God as His highest
relations to the universe, and a hundred like them ; such
truths also as those concerning the Holy Spirit and the
Messiah or Christ, although penetrating only the comparatively
speaking later portions of the Bible, yet are everywhere clear
as sunlight, if only we know how rightly to understand them
in their true sense. Nevertheless, just as we see some im
portant names and ideas of the Bible withdraw themselves
behind these its sunny parts into an obscure realm, as if into
the first morning-glow of that whole day that dawns in it,
so it bids us look again —
3. Into other realms which lie darkly before its future, and
where it discourses of mysteries, into which one may indeed
gaze from a distance and by anticipation penetrate, but which
are not by any means to be placed on the same level as those
certainties already clear as sunshine. Here, to be sure, we

462 revelation; its nature and record.
must in the outset well distinguish such mysteries as bear
this name only in accordance with the artistic plan of certain
writings. If one of Job's three friends suggests to him that
there are mysteries of divine wisdom whjch neither he nor
any man can know, this is perfectly right in Job's case at the
moment when he says it ; but the mysteries here meant in
Job's affairs the readers of the book already know in part
from the introduction, and Job himself with all his con
temporaries learns at last at the close of his bravely-endured
trial. The mysteries to which the Apocalypse refers, with
the exception of the one great mystery, are similarly purely
artistic ; but even this great unique mystery to which it refers
frequently is at the end solved, so far as prophecy can solve
it. The mysteries to which the New Testament in all
earnestness alludes are rather new difficult questions of the
future, which did not arise till the completed earthly mani
festation of Christ, and into which indeed the inspired glance
of a Paul and of others like him might cast a first ray of light,
but which, penetrated though he was by the spirit of Christ,
could only float before him at that time as riddles which the
future had to solve. For with every great advance in the
human-divine destiny of all creation, and with every begin
ning thereby won of a new and better life, new enigmas at
once arise for all the further future ; and if since the origin of
the whole human creation there had been no advance so great
as that which Christ brought, so also there had never risen to
the view of a new future such deep and comprehensive new
problems of the whole divine government of the universe as
at that time. And yet there was also never a period more
competent to cast the first sure glance into such mysteries of
the whole infinite future as just then, when Christ's spirit still
touched most immediately His own disciples. Upon the
directly opposite side of all conceivable history it was, to be
sure, the things of the remotest past, or the origin of the
universe and of man, into which the power of revelation in
the old sages had directed its gaze, and which nevertheless at

REVELATION IN THE BIBLE. 463
this present time might properly appear as mysteries still to
the common mind. And if a thousand passages in the entire
Old Testament appeared as mysteries in the apostolic time
(p. 3841), this is for us to-day only so much the more an
impulse to seek their true solution.
For our duty is to put together these three stages, and to
bring everything they contain into a higher unity. In every
case we must set out towards our aim from the sunny centre ;
but we must, follow also those traces lying further back, so far
as it is at all possible, and consider as well what is the nature
of these many kinds of mysteries, and whether they have for
us to-day wholly the same significance. Only as we grasp
thus from the sure centre the two extremes upon which we
can look, shall we exhaust the great whole which in its extent
the Bible presents to us.
§ 141. 3. Finally, it should be self-evident that every
error prevalent in earlier times or to-day, affecting any subject
relevant to our inquiry, however powerful that error may have
been, cannot be allowed to disturb us. If the Jews, for
example, have rejected rigorously since the wars of extermina
tion under Titus and Hadrian all Hellenistic writings, and
consequently Christianity, how should that constrain us not
to see great historical truth ? But if, on the contrary, so
many Christian scholars in more modern times desire to
retain firmly only the New Testament, and as good as reject
the Old, that is in point of fact a much more mischievous
error still, and leads by direct consequence very soon only to
throwing away the New after the mistaken and despised Old
Testament ; a course of procedure which is a main source of
the unhappy confusion of all ideas and all endeavours in the
midst of which we now live. Thus, only in other fashion
than it happened among the Jews of those times, miscon
ception arises as to the necessary connection, as wonderful as
it is real, of the entire great history whose eternally beneficent
fruits are now in question ; nay, we are compelled to maintain
that this error that is so powerful among us to-day is not only

464 revelation; its nature and record.
far less pardonable, but is far more pernicious than that. The
truth is, the Old Testament contains a multitude of funda
mental truths in such certainty and completeness that they
cannot be more deeply grounded or better defended in the
New Testament, but are everywhere presupposed as standing
firm and inviolate since the old times. If it does not in other
things attain the highest perfection, it yet not merely contains
in itself the most active endeavours after it, but even touches
upon it closely enough at least in some of its loftier points
and elevations. And precisely because in it, or rather in the
great whole which stands behind it, the ultimate perfection at
which the entire movement, once so mightily active, aimed,
was so surely anticipated, so clearly recognised, and so sted-
fastly pursued, — precisely this is not only the element of
interest and instruction, but also the indispensable condition
without which the consummation itself could never have
come. There is no greater praise for the Old Testament than
this, that without it the New Testament with all the fruits it
brings home to us. had not been possible.
V. 15. Tlie Transition by means of the Bible to Revelation
and Religion.
§ 142. If, now, the Bible is used by us in such a way in
thousandfold application, it helps us as it alone aims to do
and can do, as the means, unique of its kind and fully indis
pensable to-day, whereby we reach the goal to which it seeks
to lead us, viz. the knowledge of the true revelation and
religion, and loving obedience to the word of God in every
thing. It is not the only means which serves the men of our
day to this end ; beside it stand two other means, each of
which may be powerful enough in itself. The one is the
rehgious community itself in which we live, and which
surrounds us from our earliest existence or from our entrance
into it, with all its immortal blessings and aU its admonitions
and demands ; essentially the same community in which for

revelation in the bible. 465
almost four thousand years the same revelation and religion
has found its home, enlightening and blessing innumerable
people of our race, and in which our life's best aim can also
be recognised and attained. This community reveres the
Bible as its sole, immutable, and sacred literary document, and
being itself the living seat of the piety the Bible demands, it
is a boon as great as if wholly different from the written word.
The other means is (§ 135) the exercise and experience of
this religion in the individual life, by which alone we
appropriate it to ourselves and live in it independently, and
which just on this account is also an indispensable means to
the knowledge of it. But over and above these two means,
the Bible is the sole invariably clear mirror of this revelation
and religion, which alone enables us now to see whether error
has slipped in or is slipping in to the great wide knowledge
and practice of the Church or to our own intuition and
practical Ufe, and whether these two other means are as pure
as they should be.
But, nevertheless, however high the Bible stands as the
means to this higher aim, altogether unique and irreplaceable,
and however carefully we must take pains to apply it as such
rightly and perfectly, yet we may never forget that it is only
a means for what is far above it, and should ever be held as
alone our highest aim. It is only a passage or gate by which we
arrive at the point whither alone we should come ; let us not
mistake the nature and value of the entrance, and regard it as
itself the realm to which our way should ever lead us; and let
us not think that we hear in this or that word of the Bible,
the word of God HimseK, without reflecting what the word of
God actually is which we have implicitly to follow ! More
over, let us not hesitate and stumble in the way at this or
that word of the Bible, so that what should elevate and save
us becomes our offence and snare. As we may not be offended
that it was only this single and apparently insignificant nation
of antiquity in whose human incidents this sublime gift
perfected itself which is to serve us for ever for our elevation
ewald I. 2 G

466 revelation; its nature and record.
and instruction, even so what is temporally imperfect in the
Bible should not hinder us from rightly recognising and fruit
fully appropriating the eternal truth in it, since we know that
all that is visible is imperfect, yet that which is eternal can
consummate itself in it; and thus let the Bible be sacred to us,
but in such a way that we never forget that there is yet a
higher sanctity whence whatever is immortal in it has been
derived, and to which alone it seeks itself to raise us. Or
does that fire shine forth from the letter without whose active
energy the best and the most enduring element in the Bible
could not have been — the Holy Spirit ; let us not forget that
this fire should result in something quite other than this, the
mere glimmering forth upon us in single and isolated rays !
But what the still higher sanctity just mentioned is, and
what its word demands of us, that must be more particularly
elucidated subsequently, together with the question whether
this word, as the Bible makes us acquainted with it, can be
held to-day as the sole rule of our spiritual hfe.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Aaron, spokesman or prophet of
Moses, 87 ; honour of house of, 268.
Abraham, as national leader, 184 ; as
example of obedience to God, 34 ;
where called " Prince of God," 268 ;
his character in the Pentateuch,
289 n.
Acts of the Apostles, discourses in,
322 ; added to canon, 360.
Adam and Seth, apocryphal book of,
327 n.
iEschylus, 21 4 n.
jEsculapius, 227 n.
Ahaz, his conflict with Isaiah, 239 n.
Allegory, why art of, applied to Scrip
ture, 382 ff., 424 ; employed by Paul,
384, but not in Epistles less elabo
rately planned, 448 ; never employed
by Christ or His immediate disciples,
385, 448 ; employed by early Chris
tians, 453.
Allodial estate, figurative reference to,
in Old Covenant, 284 n.
Ammon, oracle of, 169.
Amos, the prophet, 52, 72 ; first to
speak of wonders of skies, 231.
Angels, adoration of, vanishes before
solitary grandeur of Christ, 130.
Antiquity, why revelation perfected in,
154 ff. ; remotest periods of, 158,
213 ; succession in problems of, 159 ;
its earliest task, language, 159 f. ;
dispersion of nations in, 161.
Apocalypse, see Revelation, Book of.
Apocrypha, described, 280 n., 364 ff. ;
Old Testament, books of, when
originated, 327 ; preservation of,
337.
Arabians, the religion of, 205.
Aramaeans, the religion of, 205.
Aristophanes, favours high estimation
of prophet, 233 n.
Ark of covenant, reverence for, checked,
217 ; tables of stone deposited in,
341.

Asia, Eastern, shows highest type of
heathenism, 207, 212.
Assyrians, religion of, as influencing
Israel, 264.
Astrological science in antiquity, 230.
Atheism, its possibility in Israel, 242 ;
not characteristic of Chinese, 17,
180 f.
Authorship, how regarded in anti
quity, 344 ; questions as to, of books
of Scripture, 414 f.
Avesta, age of, 17 ; its preservation,
372.
Babel, sanctuary at, 174.
Balaam, narrative of, 93, 167 ; prophecy
of, 197, 201 ; heathen practices ofj
213, 214 n., 215.
Barbarism, its historical appearance,
163.
Barjesus, why threatened with blind
ness, 299 n.
Baruch, Book of, 97, 295.
Birds, watching flight of, in 'augury,
219.
Books, sacred, Egyptian and Asiatic,
17, 247, 434 ff.
Brahminism, its characteristics, 178 f. ,
226 n., 435 ; transformed by Bud
dhism, 207 ; its sacred books, of
priestly origin, 435.
Brahmins, a priestly race, 174.
Buddha, his rise and power, 178 ; his
life the basis of older Buddhist
literature, 436.
Buddhism, its deficiencies, 178 ;
accurate knowledge of, desirable,
179 n. ; its community-founding,
204 ; its transformation of Brah
minism, 207 ; its serpent-taming,
226 n. ; its books, a library for the
cloister, 436.
Canon of Scripture, its formation, 347,
352 ; its aim, 424 f. ; its kernel, the

468

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Decalogue, 353 ; the ruling principles
of its settlement, 354 If., 403 f. ;
prophetic books, etc., added, 348 ;
the canon of the Pentateuch, 345 f. ,
of Judas Maccabajus, 349 ; the
Hellenistic canon, 350, the Chris
tian, 350, 358 ff. ; the Jewish, after
the time of Christ, 361 ff. ; relation
of, to the great synagogue and to
synods and Christian' scholars, 357 ;
founded upon the necessities and
needs of revelation and religion, 437,
440.
Canticles, its anonymous character,
319, 321, 414 ; its value, 457.
Capacities, human, 10 f. ; the law of
their development, 11 ; their fruits,
12.
Carthage, ancient works of, destroyed
by Romans, 336.
Celts, the religion of, 205.
Cherub, original significance of, lost,
460.
Chinese, not atheists, 17, 180 f. ; their
emperor seeks destruction of all
literature, 443.
Christ, not simply a prophet, 45 ; the
consummation of revelation, 111,
116, 251 ; is conscious of His
Messiahship, 108 ; His idea of king-
hood, 108 f., of tbe Perfect, 109 ;
founds anew the kingdom of God,
110 ; possibilities realized by Him,
111 f. ; does not first seek truth, but
has it always, 115 ; His perfect
purity and repose, 117 ; His revela
tion not perfected till He is glorified,
119, 257 ; conditions of the perfecting
of His revelation, 120 f. ; His peace
ful glance into the future, 133 ; His
final victory over everything heathen,
251 ff. ; distinguishes hagiocracy
from previous era, 252 ; His death.
and resurrection break the yoke of
the law, 255, and open the com
munity of God to all nations, 256 ;
His life throws back light on all the
past, 289 ; His relation to the
national life, 305 ; His discourses in
the Gospels, 322 ; His references to
ancient Scripture, 358, 445 ; Him
self the true unity of Scripture, 431 ;
His teaching historically conditioned,
458 ; not averse to summaries of
truth, 455.
Christianity, its youthful energy,
179 n. ; the possibility of its falling
into Buddhist error, 179 n. ; the
essential question of, 254 ; per
petuates the commonwealth of Israel,
257 ; not a mixture of heathenism
and Judaism, 258 f. ; impresses its

own spirit on everything Greek, 259 ;
inherits all the rich possessions of
the past, 259 ; not to be wrested
from its historical connection, 261 ;
its conflict with heathenism, 298 f. ;
brings consummation of Israel's
literature, 315 f.
Chronicles, Book of, character of his
torical narrative in, 322.
Church, another name for community
of God, 147 ; not the source of Scrip
ture, 439 ; may not deal arbitrarily
with Scripture, 440 ; a means of
knowledge of truth, 464 f.
Cicero, 219 n.
Communities, Christian, commence
collection of Christian Scriptures,
360.
Community, religious, in what its
fellowship consists, 140 ff. ; its re
lation to national life, 156 ; feeling
of the need of, in antiquity, 157 f. ;
imperfect forms of (prophetic),
166-170; (prophetico-priestly), 170-
174; (Zoroastrian),176f. ; (Buddhist),
177-179 ; (Confucian), 179-182 ; per
fect form of, its pre-conditions
(true conception of God), 183 f. ;
(conflictwith false), 184 f. ; (God-sent
leader), 186 ; founding of Moses'
great work, 186 f. ; advantage of
the true, 190 ff. ; overleaps national
limits, 201 ; limits of, broken by
Christ, 256 ; consummation of, in
Christian Church, 258 f. ; its life-
impulse and characteristic, the Holy
Spirit, 272-76, 277 ; the power of
the fundamental thought of, 293 ff. ;
a means of attaining knowledge of
the truth, 464 f.
Confucianism, its ethical system, 180 ;
its defects, 181 f., 436 ; the liability
of civilised nations to, 180, 182 n.
Confucius, his age, 17 ; his writings
classical rather than sacred, 245.
Conscience, not the source of reve
lation, 9.
Creation, narrative of, 153, 263 n. ; its
excellence, 409.
Daniel, Book of, its pictures of
heathenism, 210 ; the period of its
origin, 315 n., 364, 414 ; refers to
wonders of the skies, 231 n. ; its
example of deliverance from yoke of
letter, 384 ; its place in canon, 417.
David, prophecy in time of, 51 ; called
' ' man of God, " 267 ; his lyric poetry,
310 ; not the author of the whole
Psalter, 414.
Deification of man, not known in
Israel, 267 if.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

469

Delphi, oracle of, 169.
Deterioration possible in case of all
activities of mind, 193.
Deuteronomy, Book of, its laws con
cerning prophets, 91 u. ; its in
fluence, 96 ; its spiritualization of
the old law, 104 ; its admonitions
against worship of the heavenly host,
231, and against the prophet who
works by miracle, 240 ; rebukes
offences against contents and spirit
of revelation, 249, 444 ; anticipates
second Moses, 249 ; speaks in the
spirit of Moses, 326, 344 f. ; its
origin, 344 ; its value and worth,
345.
Divination, gift of, as belonging to the
high priest, 269.
Divining cup, Egyptian usage of, 221 ;
Persian usage of, 221 n.
Dodona, oracle of, 169.
Dreams, revelation by, 227 f.
Ecclesiastes, Book of, its prologue
and epilogue, 319 f. ; the form of its
composition, 327 ; its addition to
the canon, 370; not written by
Solomon, 414 ; its value, 457.
Egyptian kingdom, 167 ; its military
power, 174 ; its different gods, 173 ;
its seductive charm, 185 ; the anti
thesis of a true national community,
185 f.
Egyptian religion characterized, 204,
207 ; its religion of the dead, 225 ;
its serpent-taming, 226 ; its sacred
books, 17, 247 n. ; how far Israel
under Moses was influenced by it,
262 f.
Elijah, 167 ; his prophetic power, 90,
95, 235; called a "man of God,"
267.
¦ Elisha, 167 ; his recourse to music,
229 ; called a "man of God," 267.
Enoch, Book of, 107, 315, 327, 364 ff.,
379.
Essenes, their origin, 178.
Esther, Book of, a transition to the
Apocrypha, 365 ; stands alone in the
Old Testament, 369 ; its addition to
the canon, 370 ; why accepted, 406 ;
its colour and form, 421.
European kingdoms, their danger of
sinking into a Chinese condition of
things, 182 n.
Experience, religious, the test of truth,
441 ; a means to knowledge of truth,
465.
Ezekiel. gives the doctrine of prophecy,
74, 94.
Ezra, Book of 416 ; fourth Book of,

Faith, in Moses, 232 ; in Christ, 232 ;
in Scripture, its possible tendency to
heathenism, 243 ; its origin, 244 ;
not compelled by Scripture, 396 f.
Eear of God, its importance, 30 ; its
nature, 31 ; associated with know
ledge, 33 ; its transfiguration into
love of God, 32, 35.
Franciscans, their origin, 178.
Freedom, of prophecy, 89 ; in public
affairs, 91.
Germans, their relation to Christianity,
198, 205 ; feudal age of, 284.
Gnosticism, strife of Christianity
against, 299 n. ; relation of, to
Islamism, 407 ; its treatment of
Scripture, 433.
God, elevated idea of, in Israel, 267 ;
an ancient designation of, 461.
Gospel of the Old Testament, 284.
Greek writings added to ancient Scrip
ture, 350.
Greeks, the religion of, 205 ; the
prophets of, 232.
Habioceact, significance of the time
of, 103, 105 f. ; explanation of
heathen tendency of, 252 ff.
Heathen, the, 201 ; reverence for Old
Testament among, 247n. ; Paul'sview
of, 260 ; Christ's relation to, 260.
Heathenism, defined, 200 f., 207 f. ; its
degenerate revelation, 193, 202 ; its
arrested development, 203 ; its
entrance, into Israel, 197 f., 214,
223 ; its distinction from true re
ligion, 202 f., 204 ; its better ele
ments, 203 f. ; its varieties, 205 f.,
212 ; its failure, 206, 208 ; Israel's
conflict with, 208 ff., 211 ; all types
of, dealt with in Scripture, 212 ; its
faith, superstition, 212 ; John's
opposition to, 260 ; rise of power
of Holy Spirit impossible in, 276 ;
Christianity's conflict with, 298.
Heavenly bodies, references to, in Bible,
183, 231.
Hebrews, Epistle to, follows Paul at
a wide interval, 128 ; anonymous
authorship of, 319 ; added to canon,
370.
Hegelian school, its injurious influence,
250 n.
Heights, or high places, 229.
Hellenism, not predominant in Chris
tianity, 259.
Hermes Trismegistos, age and character
of his writings, 247 n.
Herodotus, reference to oracles in, 168.
Heroes, age of, 164 ; characteristics of,
45 f.

470

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Hexateuch, its name and period, 409.
Hieroglyphics, Egyptian, 50 n.
High priest, oracle of, 102 n. ; never
deified in Israel, 269.
Hindoos, the religion of, 205, 207 ;
law-book of, 345 n.
Hippocrates, 228 n. , 244.
History, as interaction of human and
divine spirit, 273, 459 ; freely repre
sented by Greeks and Romans, 321 ;
fidelity of Biblical, 322 ; value of
Biblical, 458 f.
Holy Spirit, the life-impulse of the
community in Israel, 270 f. ; as not
purely divine but humanly divine,
271 f . ; as a purely divine power,
273, 277 ; as historical, 274, and
historically developed, 275 ; impos
sible in heathenism, 276 ; its power
enjoyed before consciously realized,
276 ; pre-eminently characteristic in
Israel, 277 ; realized in time bf peril,
278, 283 ; inalienable in the com
munity, 279 ; firmly established on
the return from exile, 279 ; concep
tion of, transfigured by Christ, 279 ;
New Testament full of its power,
280 ; witness to the reality of revela
tion, 281 f. ; its relation to Scripture,
355, 359, 393 ff, 398 f. ; its power
spreads in all nations, 400 ; its
ultimate end more than revelation
of truth, 466. See also Spirit of
God.
Homer, 131 ; his poetry, 205, 244.
Hosea, 235 ; does not picture the ideal
prophet, 53 ; warns against formality
and ritualism, 249 ; form of discourse
in, significant, 304.
Household gods, 220.
Hyrcanus I. revives the oracle of the
high priest, 102 n.
Ignatius, Epistles of, 329.
Imagination, must apprehend things
spiritual and divine, 240 ; value of,
for true revelation and religion, 241 ;
its power not repressed by spiritual
religion, 269.
Immortality, faith in, inspires artificial
literature of Old Testament, 325 ;
traces of belief in, in Old Testament,
460.
Incantations, 229.
India, its Buddhists, 178, 217 ; its
Brahmins, 174 ; its sacred books,
434 ; its cultured life, 177 ; dis
tinction of its ancient people, 178 ;
reverence for springs and rivers in,
216.
Introduction, what properly belongs to
the science of, 301.

Isaac, his expedient to induce the pro
phetic mood, 229.
Isaiah, the prophet, 53, 90, 93, 94 ;
occupied with subordinate service,
76 ; complains of formalism, 105,
249; his resistance of. evil counsel,
235 ; his relation to miracle, 239 ;
warns against mere repetition of
God's word, 249 ; the calm and
secure repose of his style, 94 n. ; the
second or younger, 378, 414.
Isis, priests of, 225 n., 233 ; dignity of
prophet of, 233 n.
Islamism, its mixed character, 10 ; its
idea of religion, 34 ; its doctrine of
the divine unity, 202 ; , its wide
diffusion, 208 ; its relation to Gnos
ticism, 407.
Israel, its early prophets, 50 ; its
peculiar glory in its prophets, 51 ;
its prosperity in the time of David,
60 ; kingly power in, struggles with
prophecy, 70 f. ; its transformation,
151 ; its early superstitions, 218 f. ;
the only possible seat of true revela
tion, 154, 292, 297 ; born again by
its new religion, 194 ; need of true
community of God satisfied in,
182 ff. ; its power of self-regulation,
191 ; entrance of heathenism into,
197 f., 214 ; its distinction from the
nations, 201 ; the conflict with
heathenism, the sum and glory of its
history, 209, 251, 261, 264 ff. ;
decline of prophetism in, 233, 236 ;
problems of faith early discussed in,
239 n. ; atheism in, 242 ; its perverse
faith, 243 ; its new kind of heathen
ism, 250 ; its place among the
nations, 261 f. ; its indebtedness to
heathen nations, 262 ff. ; its loyalty
to its high calling, 264 ; its inde
structible life, 265 f. ; objects to
lowering the divine to the level of
the human, 266 f. ; or giving divine
honours to the living or dead, 268 f. ;
designated a holy nation, 284 f. ;
God's covenant with, 285 ; its inspir
ing retrospect, 288 ; influence of its
regarding itself as holy, 290 ; advan
tage of its openness and freedom of
life, 290, 304 f. ; its obstinacy sub
dued and overcome, 291 f. ; its pro
mised _ blessings conditional, 293 ;
its limitations broken by selection of
remnant, 293 ; grand continuity of
its history, 294 ff, ; its last aim,
world-wide diffusion of truth, 296 ;
growth and influence of its literature,
308 ff. ; decline of originality in its
literature, 314 f. ; variety and excel
lence of its literature, 317 f., 368 ;

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

471

its artificial literature, 325 ; its entire
history shows to the world the power
of the Holy Spirit, 400 f.
Italians, the religion of the ancient,
205.
Jacob, the blessing of, 323.
James, Hebrew stamp of Epistle of, 316.
Jeremiah, the prophet, 53, 74 ; his
doctrine of prophecy, 94 ; desires
new covenant, 105 ; rejects the
dream-oracle, 228 ; regards observ
ance of signs of heaven as heathen
ism, 231 ; resists false prophets, 235 ;
seeks no proof from miracle, 240 ;
warns against perverse religion, 249 ;
laments Israel's stiff-neckedness, 291 ;
his style, 422.
Jewish' scholars, their division of the
Bible, 363 n. ; limit the canon, 361,
365, 463 ; approve unsuitable reading
against Christianity, 386 ; modern,
misstatements of, about Sadducees
and Pharisees, 250 n.
Jews, Egyptian, contend about temple
in Egypt, 386.
Job, an example of the reciprocal action
of revelation and religion, 39 ff.
Job, Book of, its character, 310 ; added
to the canon, 348 ; period when its
composition became possible, 92 ;
"fear" used by Eliphaz as brief ex
pression for religion, 34 ; artistically
depicts the higher antiquity, 213 ;
its author well versed in history,
214 n. ; its fine discrimination in
character, 228 n. ; reference to
wonders of skies in, 231 ; its anony
mous authorship, 319, 321 ; its wide
historical contemplation, 405 f. ; its
value, 459 ; its mysteries solved at
the close, 462.
John, the Apostle, his repose of mind,
133 ; his style, 128, 316, 422, 448 ;
aim of his Gospel, 132 ; his attitude
to Jew and Gentile, 260 f. ; freedom
of his Gospel, 322.
John the Baptist, his advent, 107.
Jonah, Book of, reveals some of the
experiences of prophets, 67.
Joseph, his life shows power of resist
ance to evil, 37.
Josephus, his distinction with respect
to the Bible, 363 n., 395 ; his view
of inspiration, 395 n.
Joshua, period of his leadership of
Israel, 100 ; significance of his name,
146 n.
Joshua, Book of, 409.
Jubilees, Book of, 325, 366.
Jude, Epistle of, parallel with 2 Peter,
128.

Judith, Book of, 107, 327 ; its value,
457.
Justin Martyr, 214 n.
Justinus, 228 n.
Kingdom of God, not consummated by
prophecy, 99 ; starting-point of the
Baptist's ministry, 107; established
by Christ, 110, 115, 121. See also
Community, religious.
Kingdom of Judah, its continuance
secured by Isaiah, 235.
Kingdom pf the ten tribes, early de
generacy of its prophets, 234 ;
peculiar style of its prophets, 237.
Kingship, Christ's idea of, 108f.
Knowledge, religious, the basis of true
piety, 32 f. ; grows by experience,
35.
Koheleth, see Ecclesiastes, Book of.
Koran (Qor'an), how it arose, 387 ;
effect of exaggerated reverence for,
389 ; its style, poetic, 50 n. ; its
superstitious use, 246 ; the preserva
tion of its text, 373 ; its unhistorical
character, 407 ; its retrogression on
the path of development, 434.
Lamentations, Book of, anonymous,
97.
Language, its origin, 161 f. ; Renan's
view of, inadequate, 161 u. ; its
insufficiency as basis of community,
162.
Literature, its uses, 245 ; invests
authors with its glory, 244 ; sacred,
strange use of, 246 ; its relation to
national life, 307 f. ; gradually
developed, 309 ; impersonation in,
321 ; artificial, speaks in name of
old prophets, 326 : returns to sim
plicity in Christianity, 328; artificial,
in New Testament, 328 ; artificial,
not to be characterized as fictitious
or counterfeit, 330, 417 ; its higher
service, 333 ; causes of destruction
of, 336.
Livingstone, 227, 233.
Logos, idea of, not borrowed from
Greek philosophy, 259.
Lord of Hosts, origin of designation,
obscure, 461.
Lot, the, practice of, late, 222.
Luke, though Gentile Christian cleaves
to Israel, 260.
Luke's Gospel, its style, 316 ; its
prologue, 320 ; found early almost
everywhere in the Church, 360 ;
added to canon, 370.
Maccabsean age, brings no permanent
gain to Israel, 315.

472

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Maccabees, Books of, reference to, 9,
98, 107, 315, 327 ; character of their
historical narrative, 322.
Maccabees, time of, prophetless, 98 f.
Magic, arts of, 228 f.
Man, his purpose and destiny, 211.
Man of God, a designation exception
ally used in Israel, 267 ; its signifi
cance in the pastoral Epistles, 377.
Manasseh, 96.
Mandaeans, their Scripture, 433.
Manichsean heresy rejected by early
Christianity, 179 n.
Mankind, without knowledge of God
inconceivable, 13 ; division of, into
nations and languages, 161 ; relapse
of, to barbarism, 163.
Mark's Gospel does not specially refer
to Old Testament, 448.
Mass6ra, the, its character and aim, 373.
Matthew's Gospel, Old Testament
passages in, inserted by last editor,
448.
Mediaeval Christianity, its division
into saintly and secular, 179 n.
Melampopides, hereditary prophets,
233 n.
Memphis, sanctuary at, 174.
Messiah, Christ's consciousness of His
office, 108 ; the perfect kingdom of,
110 ; power of expectation of, in
Israel, 293, 314.
Micah stands forth against false pro
phets, 93, 234 ; announces no doc
trine of prophecy, 94.
Miracles, their rationale, 238 ; may
hinder spiritual faith, 239 ; not
relied upon by Deuteronomist and
prophets, 240.
Mohammed, deterioration of his
character, 387 ; his arbitrary con
ception of what a Holy Scripture
must be, 387 f. ; his aim in the
Koran, 433 ; possibility of advent of
another, 434 n.
Moloch oracle, condemned in Deutero
nomy, 214 n.
Monogamy, favoured by spirit of true
religion, 153.
Mormon Bible, possible only in North
America, 389 n.
Mosaic revelation and community,
deficiencies of, 195, 253 f.; how far
influenced by Egyptian religion,
262 f.
Moses, not simply a prophet, 45, 50 f. ,
77, 83 f. ; unique among heroes of
the spirit, 46 f. ; reveals afresh a
known Deity, 77, 79 ; opens anew
intercommunion between man and
God, 78 ; founds a new community,
78, 82 f. ; starts from true conception

of God, 79 ; finds life in the know
ledge of the true God, 80 ; his sub
lime self-abnegation, 80 f. ; his _ pre
eminence among prophets(as national
leader), 84 f., (as seer), 85, (as chief
servant or friend of Jahveh), 86 ;
spokesman of God to Egyptians, 87 ;
favours free prophecy, 89 ; stands at
head of a line of prophets, 90 ;
fulfils pre-conditions of founding true
religious community, 183 ff. ; the
community, the sum and crown of
his work, 186 ; deficiencies of his
revelation, 195 f. ; his conflict with
Egyptian priests and magicians, 87,
207, 239 n., 263 ; his setting up a
brazen serpent, 227; intercedes for
Israel, 265 ; overtaken bymomentary
unbelief, 289 n. ; mode of action
changes with the times, 304 ; subse
quent revival of voice of, 324 ;
breaks the first copy of Decalogue,
342 ; his name attached to the
Pentateuch, 379.
Moses, grandson of, debases revelation,
169.
Music, inspiration of, in prophecy, 229.
Mystery, in revelation, 27 ; in religion,
36 ; different significance and uses
of the word, 461 ff.
Mythology, tradition in Israel different
from, 241;
Nahum, an example of after-working
of the earlier prophetic spirit, 313.
National life, its relation to revelation,
162, 201 ; always nourished on some
fundamental thought, 287 ; its rela
tion to literature, 307.
Nations, the, 200 f. ; dispersion of,
162 ; their struggles for territory,
163 f. ; absorbed by other questions
than revelation, 297.
Nazarites, their origin, 178.
Necromancy, condemned in Deutero
nomy, 214 n. ; connected with ven
triloquism, 225 n., 227.
New Testament, character of its
literature, 316 f. ; no historical
significance in its references to Old
Testament authorship, 370, 379 n. ;
does not canonize itself, 398 ; not to
be sundered from the Old, 419 ;
claims no superiority over the Old,
420 ; its citation and use of the Old,
447 ; principles implied in, affecting
our view of Scripture, 449 f. ; bears
traces of different modes of thought
and speech, 451 ; had not existed
without the Old, 464 ; its mysteries,
462.
Nineveh, sanctuary at, 174.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

473

Old Testament, revelation of, con
trasted with that of the New, 3, 32,
128, 138 ; its prophecy revived in the
New, 131, 316 ; regarded as full of
emblems and types, 450 f. ; illumined
afresh by the New, 452 f. ; sum
maries of truth in, 455 f. ; folly of
rejecting it, 463 ; its greatest praise,
464.
Oracle, word for, found in oldest
languages, 24 ; seats of, in antiquity,
162, 167 f. ; prophetic, as centre of
influence, 166 ; artificial means of
obtaining, 168 f. ; combined with
the sanctuary, 171 ; at Dodona,
Delphi, Ammon, 169 ; lays founda
tion of communities of men, 49 ; the
visible, 219 f. ; the audible, 217 f. ;
priestly not so esteemed as prophetic,
221 ; causes of decline of heathen,
235 ff. ; difference of heathen and
Hebrew, 237 ; difficulty of belief in,
how met, 238 ; of the dead, 225,
323 ; revival of high-priestly, 102 n.
Origen, 214 n.
Origins, Book of, characterized, 311 ;
referred to, 221 n. , 281. See History
of Israel, Eng. tr. i. 74-96.
Panini, the celebrity of, 244.
Pastoral Epistles, the, colourless, 128.
Patriarchs, revelation in age of, 213 f. ;
their free glance to starry heavens,
183 ; their reverence for place, 215 ;
voices of, revived, 323.
Paul, an example of the reciprocal
action of revelation and religion,
39 ; his individual or private revela
tion, 43 f. ; his style, 128 ; his
eschatological revelation, and doc
trine concerning, 134 f. ; his view of
Christianity, 254 f. ; shows the con
straint of the law is abolished, 255 ;
his resort to allegory, 384 ; his
familiar Epistles free from allegory,
448.
Paul, Epistles of, Hellenistic influence
in, 316 ; peculiar character of Colos-
sians, 448 ; Ephesians written for
Gentile Christians, 257, and artificial
in its style, 128 ; freedom from law
shown in Galatians, 2 Corinthians,
Romans, 255 ; no allegory in 1 and
2 Thessalonians, Philippians, and
Philemon, 448 ; Ephesians, 1 and 2
Timothy, and Titus written in his
name and spirit, 328, 448.
Penates, reverence for, in Israel, 220.
Pentateuch, its formation, 345 f. ;
becomes standard for canon, 347 ;
not written throughout by Moses,
414.

Persia, character of ancient nation,
176 f. : its religion, 205, 207, 216.
264.
Peter, his style, 128, 422.
Peter, Second Epistle of, written in
Peter's name and spirit, 228.
Pharisees represent heathen element in
Israel, 263.
Philo, flavours Hebrew wisdom with
Greek, 315.
Philostratus, 298 n.
Phoenicians, the religion of, 205, 214 ;
influence of, upon Israel, 263.
Piety, right attitude of mind, 152 ;
transfigures all life and pursuits,
153.
Plotinus, 298 n.
Poetry, its special faculty, 11 ; its wide
range and possible reproductiveness,
40 ; compared with prophecy, 90 ;
is earlier than revelation, 50.
Porphyry, 214n., 219 n., 228 n.
Priesthood, in Israel different from
heathen, 268 f.
Priests, elders or leaders of the com
munity, 149.
Prophecy, compared with poetry, 90 ;
effects of, upon Israel, 91 f. ; its
cultivation to highest perfection,
93, 311 ; doctrine of, late in origin,
94 ; works itself out, 94 f. ; causes
of its end, 96 f. ; resistance to cor
ruption of, 234 f. ; publication of,
as pamphlet literature, 312 f. ; not
anonymous, 319 ; artificial, 324 ;
true, its power of recovery, 236.
Prophet, the, ideal pictures of, 52 ; as
pupil, 53 ; as man of the spirit,
54 f. ; as messenger, 55 ; as servant
of God, 55 ; as outlooker or scout,
56 f. ; as seer, 57 ff. ; limits of his
prophecy, 60 f. ; his self-collectedness
in ecstasy, 63 f., 130, 232 : as spokes
man of God, 65 ff., 322 ; his Hebrew
and Greek names, 68 ; the under-
prophet, 69, 232 ; as popular orator,
71, 304 ; his life is to harmonize
with his word, 72 f. ; not violently
to attempt fulfilment of his own
prophecy, 73 f. ; as interpreter of the
true God, 75 ; as advocate, 290 ;
mediator and intercessor, 76 ; his
dress, 97 ; his energy and violence,
105 ; degeneracy of heathen, 232 ;
hereditary, 233 ; his resort to
miracle, 238.
Prophetesses, exceptional in Israel,
233.
Prophetism, causes of its decline in
Israel, 233.
Prophetless time, the, 98.
Prophets, schools of, 233.

474

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Proverbs, Book of, when collected,
348 ; receives additions before placed
in the canon, 370 ; value of, 457.
Qor'an, see Koran.
Rabbinical literature and teaching,
102, 103.
Rachel, her household god, 172 n.
Rebecca, her household god, 172 n.
Rechabites, their oiigin, 178.
Reformation, in sixteenth century,
179 n.
Religion, or the fear of God, the aim
of revelation, 29 f. ; distinct from
superstition, 31 ; transfigured into
love of God, 31 f. ; associated with
knowledge of God, 33 ff. ; not mere
sentiment, 36 f. ; tests and verifies
revelation, 37 f.
Reminiscence, of times of patriarchs
by Moses, 79 ; of times of Moses by
prophets, 99 ff. ; of prophetic period
by subsequent age, 101 f.
Remnant, in Israel, 266 ; doctrine of,
breaks national limitation, 293.
Renan, criticised, 159 n. ; reference to
errors of, 205 n.
Revelation, immediate and mediate
compared, 5-7 ; mediate contrasted
with poetry, 7, 40, 50, with science
and doctrine, 7, 8 ; its special faculty,
8, 9, 12 ; an accomplished fact, 24 ;
typical example of, 25 ; eager search
for, 26 ; its mysterious origin, but
practical nature, 27 ; involved in
existence of God and man's capacity
to know Him, 27 f. ; gradually per
fected, 28 f. ; of the individual, its
strength and weakness, 42 ff. ; of
the prophets, from a definite deity,
47 f., and shared and verified by-
others, 49, 51 ; not consummated by
prophecy, 105 f. ; not consummated
in Christ's earthly life, 118 f. ; con
ditions of its perfecting,. 120 f. ;
meaning of its perfecting (no pre
viously-revealed truth lost), 123 ff. ;
(direct presenceof God with men),
127 f. ; (revival and perfecting of
spirit of prophecy), 129 ff. ; special
marks of its consummation — (simple
divine certainty), 136 f. ; (agreement
with immediate revelation), 137 f. ;
(universal application), 139 ; its re
sults— (1) fellowship of (light), 142,
(truth), 143 f., (life), 145 ; (2) Priest
hood, 148 ; (3) Spiritualization of
humanity in itself and its laws,
science, and industry, 150 ff. ; in
heathenism and in Israel (compared),
154-192; (in conflict) 193; defi

ciencies 'of Mosaic, 195 f., 253 f. ;
its development in Israel, 199 ;
deterioration in, possible, 193 f. ;
energies of, overtopped by science
and art, 206 ; earliest means of ob
taining, 213 f . ; perverse means to
obtain, 211 ff. ; associated with
(sacred places), 215-217 ; (objects of
nature), 217-220 ; (images and works
of art), 220 f. ; (the lot), 222 ; (sacri
fices), 224 ; reality of, attested by
Holy Spirit, 281 f. ; intended for all
nations, 300 ; its priority to Scripture,
395 ; of what it consists, 301 f. ; its
relation to national life, 304 ; is to
be sought in its first sources, 456.
Revelation, Book of, its authorship,
131 ; the time of its composition,
133 ; shows purity and anti-heathen
character of Christian community,
258 n. ; its Hebrew impress, 316 ;
stands alone in the New Testament,
369 ; added without change to
canon, 370 ; its last verses, 379 ; its
mysteries artistic, 462.
Ridicule of prophecy, mark of its
security, 93.
Romans, their idea of religion, 33 ;
introduce foreign faiths, 206 ; destroy
literature of Carthage, 336 ; hostility
of, to Jewish and Christian Scrip
tures, 336 f.
Sab.ean heresy rejected by early
Christianity, 179 n.
Sabbath, free treatment of, by Christ,
419.
Sadducees, their atheistic tendency,
242.
Samaritans, separate from Jewish com
munity, 349 ; contend about Mount
Garizim, 386.
Samson and degeneracy of revelation,
47.
Sanchoniathon, work of, 205 n.
Sanctuary, as national centre, 170, 173.
Sanscrit, its name for serpent of abyss,
227 n.
Satan, first mention of, in Book of
Job, 461.
Schools, learned, their origin, 103 ;
their danger, 104 f.
Schools of prophets, not founded by
Moses, 89 ; their uses, 233.
Seience, its province, 8 ; possibly ex
haustible, 40 ; involves special faculty
in man, 1 1 ; astrological, in antiquity,
230.
Scripture, revelation prior to, 395 ;
perverse faith in, tends'to heathenism,
243, 250 ; origin of faith in, 244 ;
reverence for, how it arose, 246 ff. ;

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

47o

known and admired by heathen,
247 ; becomes superstitiously re
garded, 248, 381 ; prophetic warn
ings against misuse of, 249 ; proof
of excellence of, 249, 309, 405 ;
fidelity of its narrative, 289 n. ; not
the original revelation itself, 302 f. ;
not spoken of in earlier centuries,
306 ; its influence on the national
life, 306 ff. ; its gradual development,
309 f. ; its variety, 317, 420 f. ;
anonymous books of, 318 f. ; sim
plicity of, 319, 416 ; its conciseness
of expression, 422 ; preservation of
books of, 337 f., 371 f. ; the Ten
Commandments the first foundation
of, 341, 352 f. ; its direct relation to
national life, 306 ff, 352 ; its first
four circles, 353 ; union of New and
Old facilitated by LXX., 360 ; com
pilation of its books, 369 ; history
of some books of, forgotten, 370 ;
confessedly written by men, 376 ;
does not itself claim to be sacred,
378, 398 ; how it becomes sacred,
391 ; nature of its sanctity, 392,
437 ; misuse of, by Samaritans and
Jews, 386 ; contempt of, arises from
exaggerated view of its sacredness,
390 ; disputes about, among Chris
tians, 386 f. ; its relation to the
Holy Spirit, 393 ff., 398 f. ; its value
seen in its use, 397 ; not destined for
special orders of men but for all, 402,
408 ; its thorough historical character,
407 ff. ; its wide historical range,
405, 408 ff. ; its wealth of human
experience, 410 f. ; sceptical criticism
and treatment of, 412, 438 ; the
sufficiency of its historical element,
413 ff., 418, 458 f. ; its high signifi
cance, 417 ; questions as to author
ship of, 414 f. ; its unity in its
contents and aim, 423-428 ; its unity
often erroneously sought, 423 f. ; its
unity in Christ, 431 ; its high moral
elevation, 426 f. ; its inviolability,
430 ; itself the fruit of a long history,
430 ; its imperishable worth, 442 ;
does not prescribe how it is to be
used, 443, 451 ; different schools of
interpretation of, 446 ; difference
between exposition and application
of, 452 f. ; historical method of inter
pretation essential, 454 ¦; minute par
ticulars in words and sentences
important, 453 ; its great truths clear
as sunlight, 461 ; its mysteries,
various in significance, 462 ; early
errors respecting, not to mislead us,
463 ; is our way of entrance to truth,
not the whole realm itself, 465.

Seer, oldest name for prophet, 65 ;
parallel with prophet, 85.
Semitic nations, the religion of, 205 f. ,
214 ; writing known in, before Moses,
380 f.
Septuagint, renderings of, 10, 34, 218 f.,
220, 225 ff., 229, 263.
Seraph, original significance of, lost,
460.
Serpent-oracle, an oracle of the dead,
227.
Shamans, their prophecy, 225 n.
Shiloh and its ark, 216.
Sibyl, derivation of the word, 216 n.
Sibylline books, superstitious use of,
246.
Sibyl-oracle, its early practice, 216 ;
imitation of, in Jewish literature,
315.
Sirach, Book of, estimated, 364 n.
Sodom, tradition of, 263 n.
Solomon, prophecy in time of, 51 ;
books of, united with Proverbs, 369,
425.
Son of God, a designation reserved in
Israel for one unique personage,
267.
Song of Songs, see Canticles.
Speech, human, never without a word
for God, 17 ; compared with revela
tion, 135 ; its formation in antiquity,
160. See Language.
Spence Hardy, reference to, 225 n.
Spirit, definition of, 273 f. ; ideal im-
personalization of, 274, 279.
Spirit of God, contrasted with word of
God, 2 ; the sum of forces underlying
the universe, 19 ; how said to come
upon men, 46, 54; the free wide
action of, 88 f. ; with God Himself
essentially one, 273.
Spirit of man, its capacities, 10 ;
historic development of, 11 ; fruits
of, 12 ; its earliest activity, 13 ; law
of its exercise, 14, 15 ; its first know
ledge of God, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, and
desire to know His will, 17, 18, 25,
and to know Him, 22 ; accessible to
the Divine Spirit, 272.
Spirit, unholy, possibility of, in Israel,
273.
Spiritual life, more than truth needful
for, 171.
Stars, worship of, condemned, 231 ;
conspicuous to Eastern shepherd-
tribes, 183.
Strabo, reference to oracles in, 168.
Superstitious practices, classified in
Deuteronomy, 214 n. ; block up the
way to God, 223 ; resisted by
patriarchs, 214 n. ; with respect to
place (hills, caverns, springs, streams),

476

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

215 f. ; to observation of trees, 217 ;
of birds, 219 ; the divining cup,
220 f. ; -images, 220 ; the lot, 222;
serpent-taming, 226 ; dreams, 227 ;
sacred books, 246.
Susannah, Book of, 280 n.
Tatian, 214, 217, 228 n.
Temple, reverence for, checked, 217.
Ten Commandments, foundation of the
Old Testament, 341 ; granite sub
stratum of the whole Bible, 455
their incomparable excellence, 309
are their own authentication, 318
inscribed with finger of God, 342
second copy of, 342.
Text of Scripture, exactitude sought in,
372 ; original, how recoverable, 374 f.
See Massdra.
Thebes, sanctuary at, 174.
Theology, comparative, why needed, 1.
Timothy, drawn to Christ by Old
Testament, 397.
Tobit, Book of, 327 ; its value, 457.
Truth, of things, 19 ; definition of, 28 ;
always won from its opposite, 404 ;
is its own evidence, 451.
Unbelief in Israel, 240.
Under-prophets, 232.
Urim and Thummim, 220 n., 221.

Vambert, 225 n.
Veda, the, 17 ; its preservation, 372 :
guarding of its text, 373.
Vedic songs, 203.
Ventriloquism, practised by necro
mancers and others, 225 n., 227.
Voices, divine, 7, 103. See Oracle.
Vulgate, 395.
Wat, the, Christianity so called,
144 n.
Wisdom of Solomon. Book of, 9 n.,
107, 279 n., 280, 315, 369 ; its value,
457.
Women, sensuous arts abandoned to,
in Israel, 229 ; could not officiate as
priests, 230 ; exceptionally tolerated
as prophetesses in Israel, 233.
Word of God, its broader sense, 1, 2
its reality, 20 ; in the Bible, 3
moment of first experience of, 21
difficulties respecting, 3 ; its pecu
liarity as authoritative command, 23.
Writing, known and practised very
early, 331 ; its first service, 331 ; its
further use, 332.
Zoroaster, his celebrity, 176 ; un
settled questions concerning, 177 n.
Zoroastrianism, 204 ; its scanty litera
ture, 434.

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

Genesis.

i. 28-30, .
i.-xi. 26, .
ii. 5-25, .
ii. 18-23, .
ii. 24, . .
iii 
iii. 1, . .
iii. 20, . .
iv. 1. . .
iv. 6, . .
vi. 4f.,. ,
vii. 13, . ,
ix. 18-24, .
x. 5, . .
x. 32, .
xi. 27-end,
xv., . .
XV., . .
xv. 5, . ,
xvi. 13,
xvi. 14,
xix. 30-38,
xx. 7, . .
xx. 8, . .
xx. 11, . .
xxii. 1-18, .
xxii. 17, .
xxii. 1-19,
xxv. 22, .
xxv. 30-34,
xxvi. 24, .
xxvii. 3 ff.,
xxviii. 10-22,
xxviii. 16 f.,
xxxi. 10 f.,
xxxi. 19f.,
xxxv. 2-4,
xxxv. 5,
xxxvii. 6ff.,
xxxviii. 9ff.,
xli. 40, 44,
xlix. 1-27, .
xlix. 17,'- .
xlix. 22-26,

PAGE
. 262
. 25
. 408
. 25
. 160
. 453
. 25
. 226
. 263
. 263
. 25
. 25
. 23
. 421
. 201
. 201
. 409
213
. 227
. 183

. 23
. 421
. 50
. 32
. 34
. 34
. 183
. 225
50, 172

. 421
. 227
. 229
. 227
. 33
. 227
. 172
. 172
. 34
. 227
. 421
. 75
. 323
. 226
. 323

Exodus.
CHAP.
i. 8- xv. 21,
ii. 23-25, .
iii. 11-xv. 27,
iii. 15, : .
iii. 17 ff., .
iv. 2-9, . .
iv. 10, 17, .
iv. 10-20, .
iv. 16, . .
vi. 29-xv. 21,
vii. 1 f., .
vii. 3ff, .
vii. 8-12, .
xi. 3, : .
xiii. 19-22,
xiv. 30 f., .
xv. 1-18, .
xv. 11, . .
xv. 17, . .
xv. 18, . .
xvii. 1-7
xvii. 16,
xix.,xix.-xxi., .
xix. -xxv., .
xix. 3-6, .
xix. 4-6, .
xix. 9, . .
xx. 4, . .
xx. 6, . .
xx. 7, . .
xxii. 18,
xxiii. 20-33,
xxiv. , . .
xxviii. 15-30,
xxxii. 7-9 ff.,
xxxii. 9 ff. ,
xxxiii. 7-11,
xxxiii. 19, .
xxxiv. 6 f. ,
xxxiv. 29 f.,
xxxiv. 29-35,
xxxv. 11, .

PAGE 163186 8477 79
239 70 877536
70, 75, 8779
239110 186186295 33
286 146 239
237, 295, 421
284, 306
. 189
, 100
. 285
. 237
. 232
. 214
. 32
. 214
. 230
69, 209,
309, 324
. 306
. 221
. 265
. 291
. 82
. 237
. 237
. 33
82, 88,
396
. 85

Leviticus.
CHAP. PAGE
viii. 8,  221
x. 3  237
xviii.,  237
xviii. 24, . . . .201
xix., ..... 237
xix.. 31, . . 214, 226
xx. 6, 27, .... 227
xxvi. If.  214

Numbers.
xi. 24-29, :
xii. 3, . : .
xii. 6, . . .
xii. 6-8, ; . .
xii. 16, . . . ,
xiv. 18, • .
xvi. 28, • :
xvii. 1-10,
xx. 1-13, . .
xxi. 27, . .
xxii. -xxiv.,
xxii. 24,
xxii. 31,
xxii. 31-33,
xxii. 41,
xxiii. 3,
xxiii. 4,
xxiii. 9,
xxiii. 14-16,
xxiii. 23, .
xxiii. -28, .
xxiv. 1,

89, 277
. .110
. . .228
. . 62
. . 146
. . 237
. . 281
. . 217
. . . 239
. 368
48, 93, 421 213 2223
220219220201 220219
220
219 f.

197

Deuteronomy.

iv. 2, .
iv. 5,
iv. 7, :
iv. 19, .
v. 10, .
v. 29 f.,
vi. 5,
vii. 6, .
viii. 3, .
viii. 24,
ix. 6 13,

. 249
. 95
. 162
231, 285
. 32
. 249
. 32
. 284
. 282
. 287
. 291

478

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

Deuteronomy — contin'd.

CHAP.
x. 13, .
x. 16, .
xi. 1,
xi. 26-28,
xii. 7, .
xii. 31, .
xiii. 1, .
xiii. 1-5,
xiii. 2-6,
xiii. 2-7,
xiii. 5, .
xiv. 1, .
xiv. 2, .
xvii. 3, .
xvii. 11,
xviii. 9-22,
xviii. 10 f. ,
xviii. 15, .
xviii. 15-22,
xviii. 18, .
xxvi. 18, .
xxviii. 14, .
xxx. 11-20,
xxxi. 9-13,
xxxi. 17, .
xxxii. S f. , .
xxxiii. 1, .
xxxiii. 3, .
xxxiii. 11 f. ,
xxxiii. 28, .
xxxiv. 10-12,
xxxiv. 11, .

PAGE
. 32
. 291
. 32
. 105
. 287
. 214
. 249
. 91
. 228
. 240
, 30
. 267
. 284
. 231
. 249
. 91
214, 225
78, 107

. 249
. 284
. '249
. 105
. 451
. 291
. 285
. 267
. 287
. 286
. 197
. 249
. 78

Joshua.

i. 7, . .
xxiii. 6,

249249

Judges.

iii. 10,
iii. 15,

... 46
... 46
. . .295
100, 284, 288
... 46
. . .227
. . .218

v. 4f., .
vi. 34,
vii. 13, .
ix. 37,
xi. 29,  46
xiii. 25,
xiv. 6, .
xiv. 19,.
xv. 14, .
xvii. f . , .

xvu. -xxi., .

47464646
169291

1 Samuel.
ii. 1-10, ...
ii. 22-25, . . .
iii. 1, . . . .
iii. 7 
ix. f. 

. 295
. 291
. 156
. 6
235 f.
. 267

1 Samuel — continued.

ix. 9, . .

. . 65

x. 6, 10, .

. . 46

xv. 16, . .

. . 46

xvi. 14, . .

. . 273

xviii. 10, .

. . 46

xxviii. 3, 9,

227, 230

xxviii, 6, 15,

. . 220

xxviii. 7ff.,

. . 225

2 Samuel.

v. 23 f., . .

. 217 f.

vii. 27, . .

. . 22

xx. 18 f.,

. . 275

1 Kings.

iii. 5 ff., .

. . 228

v. 12 f., .

. . 425

ix. 22, . .

. . 229

xvii., . .

. . 236

xvii. 1, 20 f.,

. . 95

xix. 2-15, .

. . 66

xix. 18, . .

. . 266

xxii. 5-28,

. . 235

xxii. 21-23,

. . 54

xxii. 22 f.,.

. . 273

2 Kin

GS.

i., ...

. . 236

iii. 27, . .

. . 225

1V.-V111., .

. . 236

ix. 11, . .

. . 67

xvi. 3f., .

. . 214

xix. 7, . .

. . 273

xxi. 6, . .

. . 227

xxxiii. 24, .

. . 227

1 Chron

ICLES.

xii. 18, . .

. 46, 54

xxiii. 9,

. . 284

2 Chron

ICLES.

xxiv. 20, .

. . 46

xxxiii. 6, .

. . 214

Eze.

i..

Nehemiah.
viii. 8, 12, . 445, 451
xii. 24, 36, ... 267

iv. 6,
iv. 12-17,
iv. 12-21,
xiii. 23,
xv. 3, .
xv. 4, .
xv. 8, .
xxii. 4, .

Job.

3443
228 393634
43 34

Job — continued.

CHAP.xxvii. 3, . . .
xxxi. 26 f., . .
xxxiii. 15-17,
xxxiii. 23, . .
xxxviii. 1-xlii. 6,
xiii.,xiii. 2-6,
xiii. 4, 5, Psalms.
ii. 6, .
ii. 7, .
v. 8, .
xvi. 3, .
xviii. , .
xxii. 17,
xxv. 4, .
xxvii. 1,
xxvii. 11,
xxxii. , .
xxxii. 8,
xxxiv. 10,
xxxvi. 2,
xxxvi. 9,
xxxvi. 10,
xl. 6, .
xl. 7, .
xiv., xlvii., .
xlix. 8ff.,
1., . .
li. 13-15,
Iviii. 6, .
lxiii., .
lxvii., .
lxviii., .
Ixxiii., .
lxxiv. 9,
lxxvi. 8-12
lxxxv., .
Ixxxvi. 11
lxxxvii., xc. 1, .
cix.,cxix. 18,
cxix. 18-27,
cxix. 27-32,
cxix. 105, .
cxix. 142-160,

cxix. 142, 151, 160, . 143
cxxii.,  189
cxxiv.-cxxvi., . .189
cxxxv. 4, . . . . 284
cxxxix. 17, 23, . 64
cxliii. 11, . . . . 278
cl.,  278

Proverbs.

i. 20,
ii. 32,

PAGE
. 39
. 214228
. 75
35,43 . 39
. 23
. 22

112267144
287295

, 144
295
144278
. 144
, 287
, 281
142, 146
. 295
43f.
. 22
. 425
. 189
. 112
. 261
. 278
. 229
. 261
. 189
. 189'
. 291
. 156
. 32
. 97
. 144
. 189
. 267
. 425
. 22
. 444
. 144
. 142
. 144

304 36

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

479

Proverbs — continued.
CHAP. PAGE
viii. 1,  304
ix. 13  36
xvi. 27, .... 295
xv. 22  36
xvi. 10  220
xviii. 2  281
xx. 5,  274
xx. 19,  36
xx. 27,  295
xxv. 9  36
xxv. 14, .... 36
xxviii. 4, 5, 7, . . 243
xxix. 1  291
xxix. 18  156
xxx. 1-14, . . .242

Ecclesiastes.
ii. 18, 
iii. 14, 
x. 20, 

284 31
9f.

Isaiah.
i. 2, . . .
i. 3, . . .
i. 10-17, .
i. 10-20, .
i. 24-31, .
ii. 3, . .
ii. 5, . .
ii. 6, . .
iii. 3, . .
v. 1-7, . .
vi 
vii. 1-17, .
vii. 11, . .
vii. 19 f., .
viii. 1-4, ,
viii. 11,
viii. 1L-13,
viii. 19, .
ix. 4, . .
x. 24-xi. 14,
xi. 2, . .
xiv. 4-23, .
xviii. 4-6, .
xix., . .
xix. 1, . .
xix. 3, . .
xx. 7, . .
xxi. 6-10, .
xxi. 11,
xxi. 13,
xxii. 4, . .
xxii. 14,
xxviii. -xxxii.,
xxviii. 7 ff.,
xxviii. 7, 15,
xxix. , . .
xxix. 9 ff., .
xxix. 10, .

57,

. 162
. 138
. 249
. 105
. 261
. 156
. 142
93, 221
. 229
. 75
. 54
. 239
. 239
. 95
. 239
. 64
. 30
. 214
. 93
. 64
. 34
. 63
. 57
202, 386
. 285
. 273
. 218
. 57
167, 237
, 237 6
. 95
. 93
67
. 234
. 93
67
273

Isaiah — continued.

Jeremiah — continued.

CHAP.

PAGE

CHAP.

PAGE

xxix. 13, . . .

249

vii. 22 f., . . . . 249

xxix. 13, 18, . .

105

viii. 8f., .

243, 249

xxix. 19, . . .

68

ix. 23 f., .

243, 249

xxix. 21, . . .

304

ix. 24 f., .

. . .138

xxix. 23-29, . .

138

ix. 24-x. 16,

. 261

xxx. 1, . . . .

234

x. 1-10, .

. 231
xxx. 10, . . .
65
x. 10, . .
. 143
xxx. 19-22, . . 3f
,105
x. 12-16, .
. 138
xxx. 21, . , . 2t
,144
xiv. 1-xvii. 8,
. 235
xxx. 22-32, . .
261
xv. 15-21,
. 67
xxxiv. 16 f., . .
378
xvii. 9, . .
. 281
xxxviii. 7, . . .
239
xvii. 13,
. . 295
xxxviii. 21, . .
76
xviii. 18, .
. 156
xl.-lxvi., 293, 295 f
,313
xxiii. 9-24,
-. 67
xl. 12 ff., . . .
138
xxiii. 16, .
48, 281
xl. 60, . . . .
183
xxiii. 18, .
23 f.
xli. 5, . . . .
52
xxiii. 18-22,
. 75
xiii. 1-4, . . .
86
xxiii. 21, .
. 48
xliii. 1-4, . . .
56
xxiii. 25-32,
. 228
xliii. 27, . . .
75
xxiii. 25-40,
. 128
xliv. 26 ff., . .
56
xxiii. 29, .
. 70
xiv. 19, ...
304
xxiii. 30-40,
. 249
xlvii. 9, 12, . .
229
xxiii. 32, .
. 48
xlvii. 11, 15, . .
227
xxvii. 9, .
. 228
xlvii. 13, . . .
231
xxviii., . .
. 235
xlviii. 4, . . .
296
xxix. 26, .
. 67
xlviii. 16, . . .
296
xxxi. 31-34,
. 249
1. 4, 
53
xxxi. 33 f. ,
96, 106
1. 4-9, .... 2
2, 56
xxxi. 34, .
. 34
1.5 
22
xxxii., . .
. 150
1. 10, ....
52
xxxiii. 19-22,
. 150
Iii. 8 
57
xxxiv. 34 ff.,
. 53
liii. 6, . . . .
453
xxxv. 4,
. 267
liv. 13, . . 34, 53
, 106
xiii. 1-7, .
. 156
lvi. 10, ... .
57
xliv. , . .
. 235
lvii. 3, . . . .
230
lvii. 9 f., . . .
197
Lamentations.
lvii. 21, ...
95
lix. 10, . . . .
52
lix. 21, . . . .
279
Ezekiel.
lxi. 1 
296
i. —iii. , . . .
. 54
lxiii. 7-lxvi.,
76
ii. 2, .
lxiii. 11, . . .
279
iii. 12, 24,
. 54
lxvi. 7-9, . . ,
189
iii. 14, .
64, 67
lxvi. 9, . . . .
162
iii. 16-21,
iii. 17, .
. 94
Jeremiah.
vii. 26, .
. 156
i. 
54
i. 4-19  5
9, 67
. 54
i. 10, ....
167
. 279
ii. 11, ... .
162
xii. 21-xiv.
11
94, 249
ii. 13, 
295
xiii. 2 ff.,
. 48
ii. 18, 
197
. 76
ii. 31 
138
xiii. 17-23,
. 220
ii. 36, 
197
. 63
iii. 8, 
32
xviii. 31,
. 278
vi. 17, 
57
. 63
vii. f., 
217
xxi. 21, .
. 225
vii. -xliv. 
304
xxiv. 3,
. 63
vii. 2f. 
304 1
xxxii. 9 ff.,
. 291
480

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

Ezekiel — continued.
CHAP. PAGE
xxxiii. 1-9, ... 94
xxxiii. 27, . . . 57, 59
xxxvi. 17-28,. . 279
xliii. 5,  54

Daniel.

viii. 24,
ix., . .
x. 1, .
x. 4-10,
x. 8 ff., .
xii. 7, .
xii. 11, .

287451 6
130 66
287132

HOSEA.

iii. 4, .
iv., . .
iv. 1,- .
iv. 12, .
v. 4, .
v. 15, .
viii. 12,
ix. 7, .
xii. 10, .
xii. 13, .

. . 220
. 304
. . 34
220, 273
. . 273
. . 26
. . 343
. 54, 67
. . 51
. . 50

Micah — continued.

CHAP.
vi. 6-8, .
vii. 4, 7,
vii. 8, .
vii. 14, .

Nahum.

iii.' 4,

PAGE
. 249
. 57
295
. 197

229

Habakkuk.
i. —iii  76
ii. 1 ff,  57
ii. 6,  63

i. 13,

Haggai.

Joel.
i. 12, . : . . . 304
ii. 19-iv. 21, 64, 228, 277
ii. 28, . . ; . . 65
iii. 5,  266

Amos.

i. 2-ii. 16, .
iii. 3-8, '. .
iii. 7, . .
v. 25, . .
vi. 2, . .
vii. f., . .
vii. 1-9, .
vii. 12, . .
vii. 12-14, .
viii. 11 f., .
ix. 7, '. ".
ix. 8 ff, :

. . 56
. . 67
24, 36, 75
. . 249
. . 138
. . 304
. . 63
. . 65
. 85
26, 282
. . 138
. . 266

Obadiah.

Micah.

i 
ii.-iii., . .
ii. 11, . .
iii. 8, . .
iv. f., . .
iv. 1-4, , .
iv. 5„ . , , 144, 162
v. 11,  229
vi. 1, 9, , . . . .304

. 304
. 93
70, 93
70, 93
. 64
202

' Zechariah.
vii. f., . '. .
ix.-xiv.,' '. .
ix. 6, . . :
ix. 9-xi. 12, .
x. 2, . . . .
x. 4, . . . .
xi. 4 ff, '. .
xiii. 2, . . .
xiii. 2-6, .
xiii. 4, . . .
xiv. 16-19, .

Malachi.

iii. 1,
iii. 5,
iii. 17,
iv. 4,
iv. 5,

Matthew,

n., . . .
iii. 3, . .
v. 13-16, .
v. 19, . .
v. 21 ff., .
v. 21^40, .
v. 33.-37, .
v. 48, . .
vi. 7, . .
vi. 22 f., .
vi. 26-28, .
vi. 29, . .
vii. 21-23, .
ix. 28, . .
ix. 36, . .
x 

x. 16, . ,
x. 26, 31, .
x. 27, . .
x. 28, . .
xi. 9, . .
xii. 34-36, .

56

98
415
191 64
228191167
273 96
97
202

56
101
284101
101

. 231
. 125
. 133
. 449
124, 252
. 255
. 127
. 109
201, 250
. 138
. 138138
. 252
. 232
. 453
. 132
. 226
. 32
. 133
. 30
. 107
.•138

Matthew-
CHAP.
xii. 3.6 f., ,
xii. 39, . ,
xiii. , . ,
xiii. 3 ff, .
xiii., 13-17,
xiii. 52,
xiv. 5, ¦ •
xiv. 27, . .
xvi. 4, , ,
xvi. 17,
xvii. 7, , .
xviii. 6,
xviii. 17, ,.
xix. 5 f., ,
xix. 8, ¦ /
xx. 25-28, .
xx. 28, . .
xxi. 26,. ,
xxii. ,21, ,
xxii. 41-45,
xxiii. 2-36,
xxiii. 16-22,
xxiii, 28 f.,
xxiii. 37 f.,
xxiv., . .
xxiv. f.,
xxiv. 11, 24,
xxiv. 15, ,
xxiv. 36, ,
xxiv. 45-47,
xxv. , . .
xxv. .44 f., .
xxviii. 5, 1.0,

-continued. PAGE
¦ 118, 127
. 282
. 132
. 138
. 133
127, 447
. 107
. 32
. 282
, 281
. 32
, 232
201, 250
. 453
. 117
. 109
. 110
. 107
. 109
. 117
. 255
. 127
. 26
. 217
. 132
. 217
. 252
. 132
. 118
. 86
. 132
. 252
. 32

Mark.

i. 11,
ii. 25,
iv. 41,
v. 36;
vi. 15,
viii. 27-30,'
viii. 28,
ix. 7,
ix. 23 f.
ix. 42,
ix. 49 f.
x. 28,
xi. 1-10;
xi. 22-25,
xv. 2,

Luke,

iv. 16-21, .
v. 8-10,. .
xii. 13-15,
xii. 24-28,
xii. 42-44, ,
xii. 57, . ,
xiii. 1-5, ,

. . 102
. 138
. . 33
32, 232
. 107
. . 108
. . 107
, . 102
. . 232
. 232
, . 138
. 32
. 108
. 280
. 108

451 33
113 138 86
138
138

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

481

Luke — continued.
CHAP. PAGE
xiii. 32  109
xxiv. 13-32, ... 35

John,

i. 1-18, .
L 4 ft, .
i. 14, 17,
i. 14-18,
i. 17, .
i. 21-25,
i. 32, .
i. 51, .
ii. 18 f.,
iii. 1 ff.,
iii. 21, .
iii. 34, .
iv. 7 ff.,
iv. 19, .
iv. 21, .
iv. 23 f.,
iv. 24, .
iv. 28, .
v. 39, .
v. 45-47,
vi. 14, . .
vi. 30 ff., .
vi. 47-xxi. 15
vi. 66-70, .
vii. 16-18,
vii. 17, . .
vii. 22, . .
vii. 23, . .
vii. 40,". .
viii. 5 ff., .
viii. 9, . .
viii. 12, .
viii. 32, .
viii. 39-58,
ix. 17, . .
x. 8,
x. 35, . .
xi. 25, . .
xi. 51, . .
xii. 12-36, .
xii. 28-30, .
xii. 37, . .
xiv. 6, . .
xiv. 11 f., .
xiv. 12-14,
xvi. 23 f., .
xvii. 12, .
xviii. 33-37,
xviii. 37 f.,

Acts — continued.
CBAP.ii. 34,f.,.
ii. 38-40,
ii. 39, .
ii.

43,

124,

118143122120
118, 122
107 113 113
282 133122 113133
107217122 143 282 450 117 107282 232108282116117 449 107124 9
143, 145
143, 145126 107
252, 255449 146
269108103 282146
116, 282280 280 118108 114

iii. 12-26,
iv. 8-12,
v. 5, .
v. 11, .
v. 32, .
vii., . .
viii. 9-24,
viii. 39,
ix. 1-19,
ix. 2, .
ix. 4 ff.,
ix. 4-8,
x. 19, .
xi. 12, .
xiii. 2, .
xiii. 6-12,
xv. 28, .
xvi. 16,
xix. 9-23,
xix. 11-19,
xxi. 11,
xxii. 5 ff.,
xxii. 21,
xxvi. 12 ff.

Romans.

i. 19 f.,
i. 24-32,
ii. 17-24,
iii. 19, .
xii. 6, .
xv. 4, .

PAGE 256 121256 33
121 121 33 33
393 126
299393 43
144 103

393
393299393227144299 393 43
256 43

204260 250 450130 450

1 Corinthians.

Galatians.
chap. page
i. 15 f.  43
ij. 14,  201
iii. 19 f., . . . 76, 124
Ephesians.
i. 10,  Ill
ii. 12,  257
ii. 13, 17, ... . 256
v. 31 f., .... 453
Philippians.
ii. 12,  32
iii. 13,  136
iii. 15, ... . 43, 393
1 Thessalonians.
ii. 14-16  260
iv. 15  393
v. 1  393
1 Timothy.
iii. 16,  395
iv. 8,  153
v. 11  377
2 Timothy.
i. 7,  273
iii. 15-17, .... 396
iii. 16, . . 153, 451
iv. 17  377
Titus.
i. 2,  Ill
iii. 8,  153

Acts.

h.-v 
ii. 2-6, . . .
ii. 22-40, . .
EWALD I.

36
103256

i. 22, .
iii. 19, .
iv. 6,
vi. 16, .
vii. 40, .
x. 11, .
xii. . .
xiii. 12,
xiv., xiv. 27 f.,
xiv. 32,.

, ... 239
. . .449
. ... 449
. ... 453
, 136, 137, 393
. ... 450
. ... 130
, ... 62
. ... 130
. ... 70
. . 130, 137

Hebrews.
xi. 24-28, . . .

126

2 Corinthians.

iii. 6, 15,
iii. 7-15,
iii. 13-16,
vii. 15, .
xii. 1-10,

450124 126 32
134

1 Peter.
ii. 21-25  125
ii. 25,  453
iv. 3  260
iv. 11,  128
2 Peter.
iii. 16  452
1 John.
i. 5-7  143
i. 6, 8,  122
2 H

482

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.

1 Jop
CHAP.
ii. 8-10,
ii. 21,
iii. 19,

[N — CO

ntinued. PAGE
. . 143122
. . 122

iv. 1,

. . 273

iv. 6,
iv. 8,
iv. 16,
iv. 18,

,

122, 273
. . 143
. . 143
. . 32

v. 21,

. . 261

2 John. PAGE
1-4  122
3 John.
1-4,  122
Revelation.
i. 5  292
i. 6, . . . ' . . .287

Revelation — continued.
CHAP. PAGE
i. 17  66
ii. 7, . . . . 123, 393
ii. 17,  123
xiv. 13  123
xviii. 2,  273
xix. 10, . . 129, 130, 393
xxii. 9,  130
xxii. 17, ... . 123

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