REVELATION AND INSPIRATION

By Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield

Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology in the Theological Seminary of Princeton New Jersey, 1887-1921

OTHER ARTICLES ON INSPIRATION AND THE BIBLE

1. Apologetical Value of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. (Presb. Revelation, V, I, 1880, pp.57-84.

2. Syllabus of the Canon of the New Testament in the Second Century, 91 pp. Pittsburg , 1881.

3. The Canonicity of Second Peter, (Southern Presby. Revelation, V, XXXIII, 1882, pp. 45-75.)

4. Dr. Edwin A. Abbott, on the Genuineness of Second Peter, (Southern Presby. Revelation, V, XXXIV, 1883, pp. 300-445.)

5. The Descriptive Names Applied to the New Testament Books by the Earliest Christian Writers, (Bibliotheca Sacra, V, XLII, 1885, pp. 545-564.)

6. The Christian Canon, (The Philadelphian, V, I, 1887, pp. 300-304.)

7. Paul's Doctrine of the Old Testament, (Presb. Quarterly, V, III, 1889, pp. 389- 406.)

8. The Present Problem of Inspiration, (The Homiletic Revelation, V, XXI, 1891, pp. 410-416.)

Table of Contents

Prefatory Note

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE WARFIELD

CHAPTER I: THE BIBLICAL IDEA OF REVELATION

CHAPTER II: THE IDEA OF REVELATION AND THEORIES OF REVELATION

CHAPTER III: THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE

CHAPTER IV: THE BIBLICAL IDEA OF INSPIRATION

CHAPTER V: "SCRIPTURE," "THE SCRIPTURES," IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

CHAPTER VI: THE REAL PROBLEM OF INSPIRATION

CHAPTER VII: "GOD-INSPIRED SCRIPTURE"

CHAPTER VIII: "IT SAYS" "SCRIPTURE SAYS:" "GOD SAYS"

CHAPTER IX: "THE ORACLES OF GOD"

CHAPTER X: INSPIRATION AND CRITICISM

APPENDIX

I. THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE

II. THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

PREFATORY NOTE

REV. BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE WARFIELD, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology in the Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church at Princeton, New Jersey, provided in his will for the collection and publication of the numerous articles on theological subjects contained in encyclopaedias, reviews and other periodicals, and appointed a committee to edit and publish these papers. In pursuance of his instructions, this, the first volume containing his articles on Revelation and Inspiration, has been prepared under the editorial direction of this committee.

The contents of the succeeding volumes will be as follows: the articles on certain great Biblical doctrines, the critical articles on the Person of Christ, those on historical theology, on Perfectionism, articles on miscellaneous theological subjects, and the more important book reviews.

It is proposed to publish these volumes in as rapid succession as possible.

The generous permission to publish articles contained in this volume is gratefully acknowledged as follows: The Howard-Severance Co. for the articles taken from the International Standard Encyclopaedia, and D. Appleton & Co. for an article taken from the Universal Cyclopedia and Atlas.

The clerical preparation of this volume has been done by Miss Letitia N. Gosman, to whom the thanks of the committee are hereby expressed.

ETHELBERT D. WARFIELD

WILLIAM PARK ARMSTRONG

CASPAR WISTAR HODGE

Committee.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE WARFIELD

BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE WARFIELD was born at "Grasmere" near Lexington, Kentucky, November 5, 1851.

His father, William Warfield, descended in the paternal line from a body of south of England puritans who were expelled from Virginia by Governor Berkeley when they refused to accept his proclamation of Charles II as king. They were given a refuge by the Roman Catholic colony of Maryland and settled at Annapolis and South River. On the maternal line he was descended from Scotch-Irish families who first settled in the Cumberland Valley in Pennsylvania.

His mother, Mary Cabell Breckinridge, was the daughter of Rev. Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, D.D., LL.D., distinguished as a preacher, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, president of Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, founder and president of the Theological Seminary at Danville, Kentucky, editor of the Spirit of the Nineteenth Century and the Danville (Kentucky) Review, ardent advocate of the emancipation of the slaves and of the maintenance of the Union, temporary chairman of the Republican Convention of 1864 which renominated Abraham Lincoln, and author of a system of theology entitled "The Knowledge of God Objectively and Subjectively Considered." Her mother, Sophonisba Preston, daughter of General Francis Preston of Virginia, belonged to one of the most vital stocks of the great Ulster immigration which settled the up-country of Virginia. To all of these people the political, educational and religious problems of the new country were of tremendous significance and the subject of fervid discussion and at times heated controversy.

Benjamin Warfield attended private schools in Lexington; and received his preparation chiefly from Lewis Barbour, afterwards professor of mathematics in Central University, and James K. Patterson, afterwards president of the State College of Kentucky. He entered the sophomore class of the College of New Jersey at Princeton in the autumn of 1868 and graduated with the highest honors of his class in 1871, when only nineteen years of age. He won the Thompson prize for the highest rank in the junior year, and prizes for essay and debate in the American Whig Society, and was one of the editors of the Nassau Literary Magazine.

His early tastes were strongly scientific. He collected birds' eggs, butterflies and moths, and geological specimens; studied the fauna and flora of his neighborhood; read Darwin's newly published books with enthusiasm; and counted Audubon's works on American birds and mammals his chief treasure. He was so certain that he was to follow a scientific career that he strenuously objected to studying Greek. But youthful objections had little effect in a household where the shorter catechism was ordinarily completed in the sixth year, followed at once by the proofs from the Scriptures, and then by the larger catechism, with an appropriate amount of Scripture memorized in regular course each Sabbath afternoon.

His special interests in college were mathematics and physics, in which he obtained perfect marks. He intended to seek the fellowship in experimental science, but was dissuaded by his father on the plea that he did not need the stipend in order to pursue graduate studies and it would be better for him to spend some time in Europe without being bound to any particular course of study.

His departure was delayed by family illness and he did not sail until February, 1872. After spending some time in Edinburgh he went to Heidelberg, and writing from there in midsummer he announced his decision to enter the Christian ministry. He had early made a profession of faith and united with the Second Presbyterian Church in Lexington, but no serious purpose of studying theology had ever been expressed by him. The atmosphere of his home was one of vital piety, and his mother constantly spoke of her hope that her sons might become preachers of the Gospel, but with the inheritance of the intellectual gifts of his mother's family he combined the reticence with regard to personal matters which was characteristic of his father. His decision was, therefore, a surprise to his family and most intimate friends.

In September, 1873, he entered the Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church at Princeton, and was graduated in May, 1876. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Ebenezer (Kentucky) in 1875, was stated supply and received a call to the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church of Dayton, Ohio, in the summer of 1876. But he decided to go abroad for further study. On August 3rd he was married to Miss Annie Pearce Kinkead, and soon after sailed for Europe, studying the following winter at Leipsic.

In the course of the year he was offered an appointment in the Old Testament Department at the Western Theological Seminary, but his mind, despite his early reluctance to the study of Greek, had already turned to the New Testament field. Returning in the late summer, he was for a time assistant pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore. Accepting a call to become instructor in New Testament Language and Literature at the Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, he entered upon his duties in September, 1878. The following year he was appointed professor and was ordained. He had already attracted attention by the first of his scholarly publications and in 1880 the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by the College of New Jersey.

The nine years he spent at the Western Theological Seminary were busy years of teaching and study and productive scholarship. In them he won a reputation as a teacher and exegete rarely attained by so young a man. When upon the death of Dr. Archibald Alexander Hodge in the autumn of 1886 he was called to succeed him in the historic Chair of Theology at Princeton many of his friends questioned the wisdom of a change. But recalling that Dr. Charles Hodge had been first a New Testament student and always a prince of exegetes, he determined to accept the call.

The years spent at Allegheny, useful and fruitful as they were, were years of training and preparation for the more than thirty-three years (1887–February, 1921) spent in the professorship at Princeton. Always deeply attached to the place, loving with an enthusiastic devotion the University and the Seminary, which he counted in very truth his almae matres, he venerated as only a pure and unselfish spirit can the great men and the hallowed memories which have made Princeton one of the notable seats of theological scholarship. His reverence for those who had taught him was equalled by his admiration of his colleagues, and the love which he delighted to express for those who had taught him was constantly reproduced in his affection for his younger colleagues and the successive classes of students who thronged his classrooms.

It may be that a certain intellectual austerity, a loftiness and aloofness from the common weaknesses of the human reason, are inseparable from the system of thought which is associated with the names of Calvin and Augustine and Paul, but it is never really incarnated in a great thinker without its inevitable counterpoise of the tenderest human sympathies. In Benjamin Warfield such sympathies found expression in a love for men, and especially of children, in a heart open to every appeal, and a strong, if undemonstrative, support of such causes as home and foreign missions and especially of the work for the freedmen. Always a diligent student, he also read widely over an unusual range of general literature, including poetry, fiction and drama, and often drew illustrations from the most unexpected sources.

He appreciated in a very high degree the value of an organ for the discussion of the theological questions of his time. In 1889 he became one of the editors of the Presbyterian Review in succession to Dr. Francis L. Patton. When that review was discontinued he planned and for twelve years conducted the Presbyterian and Reformed Review, which in 1902 was taken over by the Faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary and renamed the Princeton Theological Review.

In these reviews was published a large part of the material gathered into this and succeeding volumes. Other portions are taken from various encyclopaedias and dictionaries, reviews, magazines and other publications to which he was a frequent contributor. He also published the following volumes: "Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament" (1886); "On the Revision of the Confession of Faith" (1890); "The Gospel of the Incarnation" (1893); "Two Studies in the History of Doctrine" (1893); "The Right of Systematic Theology" (1897); "The Significance of the Westminster Standards" (1898); "Acts and Pastoral Epistles" (1902); "The Power of God Unto Salvation" (1903); "The Lord of Glory" (1907); "Calvin as a Theologian and Calvinism Today" (1909); "Hymns and Religious Verses" (1910); "The Saviour of the World" (1914); "The Plan of Salvation" (1915); "Faith and Life" (1916); "Counterfeit Miracles" (1918).

He received from the College of New Jersey the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1880; that of Doctor of Laws in 1892; and that of Doctor of Laws from Davidson College in 1892; that of Doctor of Letters from Lafayette College in 1911; and that of Sacrae Theologiae Doctor from the University of Utrecht in 1913.

He was stricken with angina pectoris on December 24, 1920, and died on February 16, 1921, at Princeton.

E. D. W

I

THE BIBLICAL IDEA OF REVELATION

I. THE NATURE OF REVELATION

THE religion of the Bible is a frankly supernatural religion. By this is not meant merely that, according to it, all men, as creatures, live, move and have their being in God. It is meant that, according to it, God has intervened extraordinarily, in the course of the sinful world's development, for the salvation of men otherwise lost. In Eden the Lord God had been present with sinless man in such a sense as to form a distinct element in his social environment (Gen. 3:8). This intimate association was broken up by the Fall. But God did not therefore withdraw Himself from concernment with men. Rather, He began at once a series of interventions in human history by means of which man might be rescued from his sin and, despite it, brought to the end destined for him. These interventions involved the segregation of a people for Himself, by whom God should be known, and whose distinction should be that God should be "nigh unto them" as He was not to other nations (Deut. 4:7; Ps. 145:18). But this people was not permitted to imagine that it owed its segregation to anything in itself fitted to attract or determine the Divine preference; no consciousness was more poignant in Israel than that Jehovah had chosen it, not it Him, and that Jehovah's choice of it rested solely on His gracious will. Nor was this people permitted to imagine that it was for its own sake alone that it had been singled out to be the sole recipient of the knowledge of Jehovah; it was made clear from the beginning that God's mysteriously gracious dealing with it had as its ultimate end the blessing of the whole world (Gen. 12:2, 3; 17:4, 5, 6, 16; 18:18; 22:18; cf Rom. 4:13), the bringing together again of the divided families of the earth under the glorious reign of Jehovah, and the reversal of the curse under which the whole world lay for its sin (Gen. 12:3). Meanwhile, however, Jehovah was known only in Israel. To Israel God showed His word and made known His statutes and judgments, and after this fashion He dealt with no other nation; and therefore none other knew His judgments (Ps. 147:19 f.). Accordingly, when the hope of Israel (who was also the desire of all nations) came, His own lips unhesitatingly declared that the salvation He brought, though of universal application, was "from the Jews" (Jn. 4:22). And the nations to which this salvation had not been made known are declared by the chief agent in its proclamation to them to be, meanwhile, "far off," "having no hope" and "without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12), because they were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of the promise.

The religion of the Bible thus announces itself, not as the product of men's search after God, if haply they may feel after Him and find Him, but as the creation in men of the gracious God, forming a people for Himself, that they may show forth His praise. In other words, the religion of the Bible presents itself as distinctively a revealed religion. Or rather, to speak more exactly, it announces itself as the revealed religion, as the only revealed religion; and sets itself as such over against all other religions, which are represented as all products, in a sense in which it is not, of the art and device of man.

It is not, however, implied in this exclusive claim to revelation—which is made by the religion of the Bible in all the stages of its history—that the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that in them is, has left Himself without witness among the peoples of the world (Acts 14:17). It is asserted indeed, that in the process of His redemptive work, God suffered for a season all the nations to walk in their own ways; but it is added that to none of them has He failed to do good, and to give from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness. And not only is He represented as thus constantly showing Himself in His providence not far from any one of them, thus wooing them to seek Him if haply they might feel after Him and find Him (Acts 17:27), but as from the foundation of the world openly manifesting Himself to them in the works of His hands, in which His everlasting power and Divinity are clearly seen (Rom. 1:20). That men at large have not retained Him in their knowledge, or served Him as they ought, is not due therefore to failure on His part to keep open the way to knowledge of Him, but to the darkening of their senseless hearts by sin and to the vanity of their sin-deflected reasonings (Rom. 1:21 ff.), by means of which they have supplanted the truth of God by a lie and have come to worship and serve the creature rather than the ever-blessed Creator. It is, indeed, precisely because in their sin they have thus held down the truth in unrighteousness and have refused to have God in their knowledge (so it is intimated); and because, moreover, in their sin, the revelation God gives of Himself in His works of creation and providence no longer suffices for men's needs, that God has intervened supernaturally in the course of history to form a people for Himself, through whom at length all the world should be blessed.

It is quite obvious that there are brought before us in these several representations two species or stages of revelation, which should be discriminated to avoid confusion. There is the revelation which God continuously makes to all men: by it His power and Divinity are made known. And there is the revelation which He makes exclusively to His chosen people: through it His saving grace is made known. Both species or stages of revelation are insisted upon throughout the Scriptures. They are, for example, brought significantly together in such a declaration as we find in Ps. 19: "The heavens declare the glory of God … their line is gone out through all the earth" (vers. 1, 4); "The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul" (ver. 7). The Psalmist takes his beginning here from the praise of the glory of God, the Creator of all that is, which has been written upon the very heavens, that none may fail to see it. From this he rises, however, quickly to the more full-throated praise of the mercy of Jehovah, the covenant God, who has visited His people with saving instruction. Upon this higher revelation there is finally based a prayer for salvation from sin, which ends in a great threefold acclamation, instinct with adoring gratitude: "O Jehovah, my rock, and my redeemer" (ver. 14). "The heavens," comments Lord Bacon, "indeed tell of the glory of God, but not of His will according to which the poet prays to be pardoned and sanctified." In so commenting, Lord Bacon touches the exact point of distinction between the two species or stages of revelation. The one is adapted to man as man; the other to man as sinner; and since man, on becoming sinner, has not ceased to be man, but has only acquired new needs requiring additional provisions to bring him to the end of his existence, so the revelation directed to man as sinner does not supersede that given to man as man, but supplements it with these new provisions for his attainment, in his new condition of blindness, helplessness and guilt induced by sin, of the end of his being.

These two species or stages of revelation have been commonly distinguished from one another by the distinctive names of natural and supernatural revelation, or general and special revelation, or natural and soteriological revelation. Each of these modes of discriminating them has its particular fitness and describes a real difference between the two in nature, reach or purpose. The one is communicated through the media of natural phenomena, occurring in the course of Nature or of history; the other implies an intervention in the natural course of things and is not merely in source but in mode supernatural. The one is addressed generally to all intelligent creatures, and is therefore accessible to all men; the other is addressed to a special class of sinners, to whom God would make known His salvation. The one has in view to meet and supply the natural need of creatures for knowledge of their God; the other to rescue broken and deformed sinners from their sin and its consequences. But, though thus distinguished from one another, it is important that the two species or stages of revelation should not be set in opposition to one another, or the closeness of their mutual relations or the constancy of their interaction be obscured. They constitute together a unitary whole, and each is incomplete without the other. In its most general idea, revelation is rooted in creation and the relations with His intelligent creatures into which God has brought Himself by giving them being. Its object is to realize the end of man's creation, to be attained only through knowledge of God and perfect and unbroken communion with Him. On the entrance of sin into the world, destroying this communion with God and obscuring the knowledge of Him derived from Nature, another mode of revelation was necessitated, having also another content, adapted to the new relation to God and the new conditions of intellect, heart and will brought about by sin. It must not be supposed, however, that this new mode of revelation was an ex post facto expedient, introduced to meet an unforeseen contingency. The actual course of human development was in the nature of the case the expected and the intended course of human development, for which man was created; and revelation, therefore, in its double form was the Divine purpose for man from the beginning, and constitutes a unitary provision for the realization of the end of his creation in the actual circumstances in which he exists. We may distinguish in this unitary revelation the two elements by the coöperation of which the effect is produced; but we should bear in mind that only by their coöperation is the effect produced. Without special revelation, general revelation would be for sinful men incomplete and ineffective, and could issue, as in point of fact it has issued wherever it alone has been accessible, only in leaving them without excuse (Rom. 1:20). Without general revelation, special revelation would lack that basis in the fundamental knowledge of God as the mighty and wise, righteous and good, maker and ruler of all things, apart from which the further revelation of this great God's interventions in the world for the salvation of sinners could not be either intelligible, credible or operative.

Only in Eden has general revelation been adequate to the needs of man. Not being a sinner, man in Eden had no need of that grace of God itself by which sinners are restored to communion with Him, or of the special revelation of this grace of God to sinners to enable them to live with God. And not being a sinner, man in Eden, as he contemplated the works of God, saw God in the unclouded mirror of his mind with a clarity of vision, and lived with Him in the untroubled depths of his heart with a trustful intimacy of association, inconceivable to sinners. Nevertheless, the revelation of God in Eden was not merely "natural." Not only does the prohibition of the forbidden fruit involve a positive commandment (Gen. 2:16), but the whole history implies an immediacy of intercourse with God which cannot easily be set to the credit of the picturesque art of the narrative, or be fully accounted for by the vividness of the perception of God in His works proper to sinless creatures. The impression is strong that what is meant to be conveyed to us is that man dwelt with God in Eden, and enjoyed with Him immediate and not merely mediate communion. In that case, we may understand that if man had not fallen, he would have continued to enjoy immediate intercourse with God, and that the cessation of this immediate intercourse is due to sin. It is not then the supernaturalness of special revelation which is rooted in sin, but, if we may be allowed the expression, the specialness of supernatural revelation. Had man not fallen, heaven would have continued to lie about him through all his history, as it lay about his infancy; every man would have enjoyed direct vision of God and immediate speech with Him. Man having fallen, the cherubim and the flame of a sword, turning every way, keep the path: and God breaks His way in a round-about fashion into man's darkened heart to reveal there His redemptive love. By slow steps and gradual stages He at once works out His saving purpose and molds the world for its reception, choosing a people for Himself and training it through long and weary ages, until at last when the fulness of time has come, He bares His arm and sends out the proclamation of His great salvation to all the earth.

Certainly, from the gate of Eden onward, God's general revelation ceased to be, in the strict sense, supernatural. It is, of course, not meant that God deserted His world and left it to fester in its iniquity. His providence still ruled over all, leading steadily onward to the goal for which man had been created, and of the attainment of which in God's own good time and way the very continuance of men's existence, under God's providential government, was a pledge. And His Spirit still everywhere wrought upon the hearts of men, stirring up all their powers (though created in the image of God, marred and impaired by sin) to their best activities, and to such splendid effect in every department of human achievement as to command the admiration of all ages, and in the highest region of all, that of conduct, to call out from an apostle the encomium that though they had no law they did by nature (observe the word "nature") the things of the law. All this, however, remains within the limits of Nature, that is to say, within the sphere of operation of Divinely directed and assisted second causes. It illustrates merely the heights to which the powers of man may attain under the guidance of providence and the influences of what we have learned to call God's "common grace." Nowhere, throughout the whole ethnic domain, are the conceptions of God and His ways put within the reach of man, through God's revelation of Himself in the works of creation and providence, transcended; nowhere is the slightest knowledge betrayed of anything concerning God and His purposes, which could be known only by its being supernaturally told to men. Of the entire body of "saving truth," for example, which is the burden of what we call "special revelation," the whole heathen world remained in total ignorance. And even its hold on the general truths of religion, not being vitalized by supernatural enforcements, grew weak, and its knowledge of the very nature of God decayed, until it ran out to the dreadful issue which Paul sketches for us in that inspired philosophy of religion which he incorporates in the latter part of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.

Behind even the ethnic development, there lay, of course, the supernatural intercourse of man with God which had obtained before the entrance of sin into the world, and the supernatural revelations at the gate of Eden (Gen. 3:8), and at the second origin of the human race, the Flood (Gen. 8:21, 22; 9:1–17). How long the tradition of this primitive revelation lingered in nooks and corners of the heathen world, conditioning and vitalizing the natural revelation of God always accessible, we have no means of estimating. Neither is it easy to measure the effect of God's special revelation of Himself to His people upon men outside the bounds of, indeed, but coming into contact with, this chosen people, or sharing with them a common natural inheritance. Lot and Ishmael and Esau can scarcely have been wholly ignorant of the word of God which came to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; nor could the Egyptians from whose hands God wrested His people with a mighty arm fail to learn something of Jehovah, any more than the mixed multitudes who witnessed the ministry of Christ could fail to infer something from His gracious walk and mighty works. It is natural to infer that no nation which was intimately associated with Israel's life could remain entirely unaffected by Israel's revelation. But whatever impressions were thus conveyed reached apparently individuals only: the heathen which surrounded Israel, even those most closely affiliated with Israel, remained heathen; they had no revelation. In the sporadic instances when God visited an alien with a supernatural communication—such as the dreams sent to Abimelech (Gen. 20) and to Pharaoh (Gen. 40, 41) and to Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2:1 ff.) and to the soldier in the camp of Midian (Jgs. 7:13)—it was in the interests, not of the heathen world, but of the chosen people that they were sent; and these instances derive their significance wholly from this fact. There remain, no doubt, the mysterious figure of Melchizedek, perhaps also of Jethro, and the strange apparition of Balaam, who also, however, appear in the sacred narrative only in connection with the history of God's dealings with His people and in their interest. Their unexplained appearance cannot in any event avail to modify the general fact that the life of the heathen peoples lay outside the supernatural revelation of God. The heathen were suffered to walk in their own ways (Acts 14:16).

II. THE PROCESS OF REVELATION

Meanwhile, however, God had not forgotten them, but was preparing salvation for them also through the supernatural revelation of His grace that He was making to His people. According to the Biblical representation, in the midst of and working confluently with the revelation which He has always been giving of Himself on the plane of Nature, God was making also from the very fall of man a further revelation of Himself on the plane of grace. In contrast with His general, natural revelation, in which all men by virtue of their very nature as men share, this special, supernatural revelation was granted at first only to individuals, then progressively to a family, a tribe, a nation, a race, until, when the fulness of time was come, it was made the possession of the whole world. It may be difficult to obtain from Scripture a clear account of why God chose thus to give this revelation of His grace only progressively; or, to be more explicit, through the process of a historical development. Such is, however, the ordinary mode of the Divine working: it is so that God made the worlds, it is so that He creates the human race itself, the recipient of this revelation, it is so that He builds up His kingdom in the world and in the individual soul, which only gradually comes whether to the knowledge of God or to the fruition of His salvation. As to the fact, the Scriptures are explicit, tracing for us, or rather embodying in their own growth, the record of the steady advance of this gracious revelation through definite stages from its first faint beginnings to its glorious completion in Jesus Christ.

So express is its relation to the development of the kingdom of God itself, or rather to that great series of Divine operations which are directed to the building up of the kingdom of God in the world, that it is sometimes confounded with them, or thought of as simply their reflection in the contemplating mind of man. Thus it is not infrequently said that revelation, meaning this special redemptive revelation, has been communicated in deeds, not in words; and it is occasionally elaborately argued that the sole manner in which God has revealed Himself as the Saviour of sinners is just by performing those mighty acts by which sinners are saved. This is not, however, the Biblical representation. Revelation is, of course, often made through the instrumentality of deeds; and the series of His great redemptive acts by which He saves the world constitutes the preëminent revelation of the grace of God—so far as these redemptive acts are open to observation and are perceived in their significance. But revelation, after all, is the correlate of understanding and has as its proximate end just the production of knowledge, though not, of course, knowledge for its own sake, but for the sake of salvation. The series of the redemptive acts of God, accordingly, can properly be designated "revelation" only when and so far as they are contemplated as adapted and designed to produce knowledge of God and His purpose and methods of grace. No bare series of unexplained acts can be thought, however, adapted to produce knowledge, especially if these acts be, as in this case, of a highly transcendental character. Nor can this particular series of acts be thought to have as its main design the production of knowledge; its main design is rather to save man. No doubt the production of knowledge of the Divine grace is one of the means by which this main design of the redemptive acts of God is attained. But this only renders it the more necessary that the proximate result of producing knowledge should not fail; and it is doubtless for this reason that the series of redemptive acts of God has not been left to explain itself, but the explanatory word has been added to it. Revelation thus appears, however, not as the mere reflection of the redeeming acts of God in the minds of men, but as a factor in the redeeming work of God, a component part of the series of His redeeming acts, without which that series would be incomplete and so far inoperative for its main end. Thus the Scriptures represent it, not confounding revelation with the series of the redemptive acts of God, but placing it among the redemptive acts of God and giving it a function as a substantive element in the operations by which the merciful God saves sinful men. It is therefore not made even a mere constant accompaniment of the redemptive acts of God, giving their explanation that they may be understood. It occupies a far more independent place among them than this, and as frequently precedes them to prepare their way as it accompanies or follows them to interpret their meaning. It is, in one word, itself a redemptive act of God and by no means the least important in the series of His redemptive acts.

This might, indeed, have been inferred from its very nature, and from the nature of the salvation which was being wrought out by these redemptive acts of God. One of the most grievous of the effects of sin is the deformation of the image of God reflected in the human mind, and there can be no recovery from sin which does not bring with it the correction of this deformation and the reflection in the soul of man of the whole glory of the Lord God Almighty. Man is an intelligent being; his superiority over the brute is found, among other things, precisely in the direction of all his life by his intelligence; and his blessedness is rooted in the true knowledge of his God—for this is life eternal, that we should know the only true God and Him whom He has sent. Dealing with man as an intelligent being, God the Lord has saved him by means of a revelation, by which he has been brought into an ever more and more adequate knowledge of God, and been led ever more and more to do his part in working out his own salvation with fear and trembling as he perceived with ever more and more clearness how God is working it out for him through mighty deeds of grace.

This is not the place to trace, even in outline, from the material point of view, the development of God's redemptive revelation from its first beginnings, in the promise given to Abraham—or rather in what has been called the Protevangelium at the gate of Eden—to its completion in the advent and work of Christ and the teaching of His apostles; a steadily advancing development, which, as it lies spread out to view in the pages of Scripture, takes to those who look at it from the consummation backward, the appearance of the shadow cast athwart preceding ages by the great figure of Christ. Even from the formal point of view, however, there has been pointed out a progressive advance in the method of revelation, consonant with its advance in content, or rather with the advancing stages of the building up of the kingdom of God, to subserve which is the whole object of revelation. Three distinct steps in revelation have been discriminated from this point of view. They are distinguished precisely by the increasing independence of revelation of the deeds constituting the series of the redemptive acts of God, in which, nevertheless, all revelation is a substantial element. Discriminations like this must not be taken too absolutely; and in the present instance the chronological sequence cannot be pressed. But, with much interlacing, three generally successive stages of revelation may be recognized, producing periods at least characteristically of what we may somewhat conventionally call theophany. prophecy and inspiration. What may be somewhat indefinitely marked off as the Patriarchal age is characteristically "the period of Outward Manifestations, and Symbols, and Theophanies": during it "God spoke to men through their senses, in physical phenomena, as the burning bush, the cloudy pillar, or in sensuous forms, as men, angels, etc.… In the Prophetic age, on the contrary, the prevailing mode of revelation was by means of inward prophetic inspiration": God spoke to men characteristically by the movements of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. "Prevailingly, at any rate from Samuel downwards, the supernatural revelation was a revelation in the hearts of the foremost thinkers of the people, or, as we call it, prophetic inspiration, without the aid of external sensuous symbols of God" (A. B. Davidson, OT Prophecy, 1903, p. 148; cf. pp. 12–14, 145 ff.). This internal method of revelation reaches its culmination in the New Testament period, which is preëminently the age of the Spirit. What is especially characteristic of this age is revelation through the medium of the written word, what may be called apostolic as distinguished from prophetic inspiration. The revealing Spirit speaks through chosen men as His organs, but through these organs in such a fashion that the most intimate processes of their souls become the instruments by means of which He speaks His mind. Thus at all events there are brought clearly before us three well-marked modes of revelation, which we may perhaps designate respectively, not with perfect discrimination, it is true, but not misleadingly, (1) external manifestations, (2) internal suggestion, and (3) concursive operation.

III. MODES OF REVELATION

Theophany may be taken as the typical form of "external manifestation"; but by its side may be ranged all of those mighty works by which God makes Himself known, including express miracles, no doubt, but along with them every supernatural intervention in the affairs of men, by means of which a better understanding is communicated of what God is or what are His purposes of grace to a sinful race. Under "internal suggestion" may be subsumed all the characteristic phenomena of what is most properly spoken of as "prophecy": visions and dreams, which, according to a fundamental passage (Num. 12:6), constitute the typical forms of prophecy, and with them the whole "prophetic word," which shares its essential characteristic with visions and dreams, since it comes not by the will of man but from God. By "concursive operation" may be meant that form of revelation illustrated in an inspired psalm or epistle or history, in which no human activity—not even the control of the will—is superseded, but the Holy Spirit works in, with and through them all in such a manner as to communicate to the product qualities distinctly superhuman. There is no age in the history of the religion of the Bible, from that of Moses to that of Christ and His apostles, in which all these modes of revelation do not find place. One or another may seem particularly characteristic of this age or of that; but they all occur in every age. And they occur side by side, broadly speaking, on the same level. No discrimination is drawn between them in point of worthiness as modes of revelation, and much less in point of purity in the revelations communicated through them. The circumstance that God spoke to Moses, not by dream or vision but mouth to mouth, is, indeed, adverted to (Num. 12:8) as a proof of the peculiar favor shown to Moses and even of the superior dignity of Moses above other organs of revelation: God admitted him to an intimacy of intercourse which He did not accord to others. But though Moses was thus distinguished above all others in the dealings of God with him, no distinction is drawn between the revelations given through him and those given through other organs of revelation in point either of Divinity or of authority. And beyond this we have no Scriptural warrant to go on in contrasting one mode of revelation with another. Dreams may seem to us little fitted to serve as vehicles of Divine communications. But there is no suggestion in Scripture that revelations through dreams stand on a lower plane than any others; and we should not fail to remember that the essential characteristics of revelations through dreams are shared by all forms of revelation in which (whether we should call them visions or not) the images or ideas which fill, or pass in procession through, the consciousness are determined by some other power than the recipient's own will. It may seem natural to suppose that revelations rise in rank in proportion to the fulness of the engagement of the mental activity of the recipient in their reception. But we should bear in mind that the intellectual or spiritual quality of a revelation is not derived from the recipient but from its Divine Giver. The fundamental fact in all revelation is that it is from God. This is what gives unity to the whole process of revelation, given though it may be in divers portions and in divers manners and distributed though it may be through the ages in accordance with the mere will of God, or as it may have suited His developing purpose—this and its unitary end, which is ever the building up of the kingdom of God. In whatever diversity of forms, by means of whatever variety of modes, in whatever distinguishable stages it is given, it is ever the revelation of the One God, and it is ever the one consistently developing redemptive revelation of God.

On a prima facie view it may indeed seem likely that a difference in the quality of their supernaturalness would inevitably obtain between revelations given through such divergent modes. The completely supernatural character of revelations given in theophanies is obvious. He who will not allow that God speaks to man, to make known His gracious purposes toward him, has no other recourse here than to pronounce the stories legendary. The objectivity of the mode of communication which is adopted is intense, and it is thrown up to observation with the greatest emphasis. Into the natural life of man God intrudes in a purely supernatural manner, bearing a purely supernatural communication. In these communications we are given accordingly just a series of "naked messages of God." But not even in the Patriarchal age were all revelations given in theophanies or objective appearances. There were dreams, and visions, and revelations without explicit intimation in the narrative of how they were communicated. And when we pass on in the history, we do not, indeed, leave behind us theophanies and objective appearances. It is not only made the very characteristic of Moses, the greatest figure in the whole history of revelation except only that of Christ, that he knew God face to face (Deut. 34:10), and God spoke to him mouth to mouth, even manifestly, and not in dark speeches (Num. 12:8); but throughout the whole history of revelation down to the appearance of Jesus to Paul on the road to Damascus, God has shown Himself visibly to His servants whenever it has seemed good to Him to do so and has spoken with them in objective speech. Nevertheless, it is expressly made the characteristic of the Prophetic age that God makes Himself known to His Servants "in a vision," "in a dream" (Num. 12:6). And although, throughout its entire duration, God, in fulfilment of His promise (Deut. 18:18), put His words in the mouths of His prophets and gave them His commandments to speak, yet it would seem inherent in the very employment of men as instruments of revelation that the words of God given through them are spoken by human mouths; and the purity of their supernaturalness may seem so far obscured. And when it is not merely the mouths of men with which God thus serves Himself in the delivery of His messages, but their minds and hearts as well—the play of their religious feelings, or the processes of their logical reasoning, or the tenacity of their memories, as, say, in a psalm or in an epistle, or a history—the supernatural element in the communication may easily seem to retire still farther into the background. It can scarcely be a matter of surprise, therefore, that question has been raised as to the relation of the natural and the supernatural in such revelations, and, in many current manners of thinking and speaking of them, the completeness of their supernaturalness has been limited and curtailed in the interests of the natural instrumentalities employed. The plausibility of such reasoning renders it the more necessary that we should observe the unvarying emphasis which the Scriptures place upon the absolute supernaturalness of revelation in all its modes alike. In the view of the Scriptures, the completely supernatural character of revelation is in no way lessened by the circumstance that it has been given through the instrumentality of men. They affirm, indeed, with the greatest possible emphasis that the Divine word delivered through men is the pure word of God, diluted with no human admixture whatever.

We have already been led to note that even on the occasion when Moses is exalted above all other organs of revelation (Num. 12:6 ff.), in point of dignity and favor, no suggestion whatever is made of any inferiority, in either the directness or the purity of their supernaturalness, attaching to other organs of revelation. There might never afterward arise a prophet in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face (Deut. 34:10). But each of the whole series of prophets raised up by Jehovah that the people might always know His will was to be like Moses in speaking to the people only what Jehovah commanded them (Deut. 18:15, 18, 20). In this great promise, securing to Israel the succession of prophets, there is also included a declaration of precisely how Jehovah would communicate His messages not so much to them as through them. "I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee," we read (Deut. 18:18), "and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." The process of revelation through the prophets was a process by which Jehovah put His words in the mouths of the prophets, and the prophets spoke precisely these words and no others. So the prophets themselves ever asserted. "Then Jehovah put forth his hand, and touched my mouth," explains Jeremiah in his account of how he received his prophecies, "and Jehovah said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth" (Jer. 1:9; cf. 5:14; Isa. 51:16; 59:21; Num. 22:35; 23:5, 12, 16). Accordingly, the words "with which" they spoke were not their own but the Lord's: "And he said unto me," records Ezekiel, "Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them" (Ezk. 3:4). It is a process of nothing other than "dictation" which is thus described (2 S. 14:3, 19), though, of course, the question may remain open of the exact processes by which this dictation is accomplished. The fundamental passage which brings the central fact before us in the most vivid manner is, no doubt, the account of the commissioning of Moses and Aaron given in Ex. 4:10–17; 7:1–7. Here, in the most express words, Jehovah declares that He who made the mouth can be with it to teach it what to speak, and announces the precise function of a prophet to be that he is "a mouth of God," who speaks not his own but God's words. Accordingly, the Hebrew name for "prophet" (nābhīʾ), whatever may be its etymology, means throughout the Scriptures just "spokesman," though not "spokesman" in general, but spokesman by way of eminence, that is, God's spokesman; and the characteristic formula by which a prophetic declaration is announced is: "The word of Jehovah came to me," or the brief "saith Jehovah" (נאם יהוה, neʾum Yahweh). In no case does a prophet put his words forward as his own words. That he is a prophet at all is due not to choice on his own part, but to a call of God, obeyed often with reluctance; and he prophesies or forbears to prophesy, not according to his own will but as the Lord opens and shuts his mouth (Ezk. 3:26 f.) and creates for him the fruit of the lips (Isa. 57:19; cf. 6:7; 50:4). In contrast with the false prophets, he strenuously asserts that he does not speak out of his own heart ("heart" in Biblical language includes the whole inner man), but all that he proclaims is the pure word of Jehovah.

The fundamental passage does not quite leave the matter, however, with this general declaration. It describes the characteristic manner in which Jehovah communicates His messages to His prophets as through the medium of visions and dreams. Neither visions in the technical sense of that word, nor dreams, appear, however, to have been the customary mode of revelation to the prophets, the record of whose revelations has come down to us. But, on the other hand, there are numerous indications in the record that the universal mode of revelation to them was one which was in some sense a vision, and can be classed only in the category distinctively so called.

The whole nomenclature of prophecy presupposes, indeed, its vision-form. Prophecy is distinctively a word, and what is delivered by the prophets is proclaimed as the "word of Jehovah." That it should be announced by the formula, "Thus saith the Lord," is, therefore, only what we expect; and we are prepared for such a description of its process as: "The Lord Jehovah … wakeneth mine ear to hear." He "hath opened mine ear" (Isa. 50:4, 5). But this is not the way of speaking of their messages which is most usual in the prophets. Rather is the whole body of prophecy cursorily presented as a thing seen. Isaiah places at the head of his book: "The vision of Isaiah … which he saw" (cf. Isa. 29:10, 11; Ob. ver. 1); and then proceeds to set at the head of subordinate sections the remarkable words, "The word that Isaiah … saw" (2:1); "the burden [margin "oracle"]… which Isaiah … did see" (13:1). Similarly there stand at the head of other prophecies: "the words of Amos … which he saw" (Am. 1:1); "the word of Jehovah that came to Micah … which he saw" (Mic. 1:1); "the oracle which Habakkuk the prophet did see" (Hab. 1:1 margin); and elsewhere such language occurs as this: "the word that Jehovah hath showed me" (Jer. 38:21); "the prophets have seen … oracles" (Lam. 2:14); "the word of Jehovah came … and I looked, and, behold" (Ezk. 1:3, 4); "Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing" (Ezk. 13:3); "I … will look forth to see what he will speak with me, … Jehovah … said, Write the vision" (Hab. 2:1 f.). It is an inadequate explanation of such language to suppose it merely a relic of a time when vision was more predominantly the form of revelation. There is no proof that vision in the technical sense ever was more predominantly the form of revelation than in the days of the great writing prophets; and such language as we have quoted too obviously represents the living point of view of the prophets to admit of the supposition that it was merely conventional on their lips. The prophets, in a word, represent the Divine communications which they received as given to them in some sense in visions.

It is possible, no doubt, to exaggerate the significance of this. It is an exaggeration, for example, to insist that therefore all the Divine communications made to the prophets must have come to them in external appearances and objective speech, addressed to and received by means of the bodily eye and ear. This would be to break down the distinction between manifestation and revelation, and to assimilate the mode of prophetic revelation to that granted to Moses, though these are expressly distinguished (Num. 12:6–8). It is also an exaggeration to insist that therefore the prophetic state must be conceived as that of strict ecstasy, involving the complete abeyance of all mental life on the part of the prophet (amentia), and possibly also accompanying physical effects. It is quite clear from the records which the prophets themselves give us of their revelations that their intelligence was alert in all stages of their reception of them. The purpose of both these extreme views is the good one of doing full justice to the objectivity of the revelations vouchsafed to the prophets. If these revelations took place entirely externally to the prophet, who merely stood off and contemplated them, or if they were implanted in the prophets by a process so violent as not only to supersede their mental activity but, for the time being, to annihilate it, it would be quite clear that they came from a source other than the prophets' own minds. It is undoubtedly the fundamental contention of the prophets that the revelations given through them are not their own but wholly God's. The significant language we have just quoted from Ezk. 13:3: "Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing," is a typical utterance of their sense of the complete objectivity of their messages. What distinguishes the false prophets is precisely that they "prophesy out of their own heart" (Ezk. 13:2–17), or, to draw the antithesis sharply, that "they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Jehovah" (Jer. 23:16, 26; 14:14). But these extreme views fail to do justice, the one to the equally important fact that the word of God, given through the prophets, comes as the pure and unmixed word of God not merely to, but from, the prophets; and the other to the equally obvious fact that the intelligence of the prophets is alert throughout the whole process of the reception and delivery of the revelation made through them.

That which gives to prophecy as a mode of revelation its place in the category of visions, strictly so called, and dreams, is that it shares with them the distinguishing characteristic which determines the class. In them all alike the movements of the mind are determined by something extraneous to the subject's will, or rather, since we are speaking of supernaturally given dreams and visions, extraneous to the totality of the subject's own psychoses. A power not himself takes possession of his consciousness and determines it according to its will. That power, in the case of the prophets, was fully recognized and energetically asserted to be Jehovah Himself or, to be more specific, the Spirit of Jehovah (1S. 10:6, 10; Neh. 9:30; Zec. 7:12; Joel 2:28, 29). The prophets were therefore 'men of the Spirit' (Hos. 9:7). What constituted them prophets was that the Spirit was put upon them (Isa. 13:1) or poured out on them (Joel 2:28, 29), and they were consequently filled with the Spirit (Mic. 3:8), or, in another but equivalent locution, that "the hand" of the Lord, or "the power of the hand" of the Lord, was upon them (2 K. 3:15; Ezk. 1:3; 3:14, 22; 33:22; 37:1; 40:1), that is to say, they were under the divine control. This control is represented as complete and compelling, so that, under it, the prophet becomes not the "mover," but the "moved" in the formation of his message. The apostle Peter very purely reflects the prophetic consciousness in his well-known declaration: 'No prophecy of scripture comes of private interpretation; for prophecy was never brought by the will of man; but it was as borne by the Holy Spirit that men spoke from God' (2 Pet. 1:20, 21).

What this language of Peter emphasizes—and what is emphasized in the whole account which the prophets give of their own consciousness—is, to speak plainly, the passivity of the prophets with respect to the revelation given through them. This is the significance of the phrase: 'it was as borne by the Holy Spirit that men spoke from God.' To be "borne" (φέρειν, phérein) is not the same as to be led (ἄγειν, ágein), much less to be guided or directed (ὁδηγεῖν, hodēgeín): he that is "borne" contributes nothing to the movement induced, but is the object to be moved. The term "passivity" is, perhaps, however, liable to some misapprehension, and should not be overstrained. It is not intended to deny that the intelligence of the prophets was active in the reception of their message; it was by means of their active intelligence that their message was received: their intelligence was the instrument of revelation. It is intended to deny only that their intelligence was active in the production of their message: that it was creatively as distinguished from receptively active. For reception itself is a kind of activity. What the prophets are solicitous that their readers shall understand is that they are in no sense co-authors with God of their messages. Their messages are given them, given them entire, and given them precisely as they are given out by them. God speaks through them: they are not merely His messengers, but "His mouth." But at the same time their intelligence is active in the reception, retention and announcing of their messages, contributing nothing to them but presenting fit instruments for the communication of them—instruments capable of understanding, responding profoundly to and zealously proclaiming them.

There is, no doubt, a not unnatural hesitancy abroad in thinking of the prophets as exhibiting only such merely receptive activities. In the interests of their personalities, we are asked not to represent God as dealing mechanically with them, pouring His revelations into their souls to be simply received as in so many buckets, or violently wresting their minds from their own proper action that He may do His own thinking with them. Must we not rather suppose, we are asked, that all revelations must be "psychologically mediated," must be given "after the mode of moral mediation," and must be made first of all their recipients' "own spiritual possession"? And is not, in point of fact, the personality of each prophet clearly traceable in his message, and that to such an extent as to compel us to recognize him as in a true sense its real author? The plausibility of such questionings should not be permitted to obscure the fact that the mode of the communication of the prophetic messages which is suggested by them is directly contradicted by the prophets' own representations of their relations to the revealing Spirit. In the prophets' own view they were just instruments through whom God gave revelations which came from them, not as their own product, but as the pure word of Jehovah. Neither should the plausibility of such questionings blind us to their speciousness. They exploit subordinate considerations, which are not without their validity in their own place and under their own limiting conditions, as if they were the determining or even the sole considerations in the case, and in neglect of the really determining considerations. God is Himself the author of the instruments He employs for the communication of His messages to men and has framed them into precisely the instruments He desired for the exact communication of His message. There is just ground for the expectation that He will use all the instruments He employs according to their natures; intelligent beings therefore as intelligent beings, moral agents as moral agents. But there is no just ground for asserting that God is incapable of employing the intelligent beings He has Himself created and formed to His will, to proclaim His messages purely as He gives them to them; or of making truly the possession of rational minds conceptions which they have themselves had no part in creating. And there is no ground for imagining that God is unable to frame His own message in the language of the organs of His revelation without its thereby ceasing to be, because expressed in a fashion natural to these organs, therefore purely His message. One would suppose it to lie in the very nature of the case that if the Lord makes any revelation to men, He would do it in the language of men; or, to individualize more explicitly, in the language of the man He employs as the organ of His revelation; and that naturally means, not the language of his nation or circle merely, but his own particular language, inclusive of all that gives individuality to his self-expression. We may speak of this, if we will, as "the accommodation of the revealing God to the several prophetic individualities." But we should avoid thinking of it externally and therefore mechanically, as if the revealing Spirit artificially phrased the message which He gives through each prophet in the particular forms of speech proper to the individuality of each, so as to create the illusion that the message comes out of the heart of the prophet himself. Precisely what the prophets affirm is that their messages do not come out of their own hearts and do not represent the workings of their own spirits. Nor is there any illusion in the phenomenon we are contemplating; and it is a much more intimate, and, we may add, a much more interesting phenomenon than an external "accommodation" of speech to individual habitudes. It includes, on the one hand, the "accommodation" of the prophet, through his total preparation, to the speech in which the revelation to be given through him is to be clothed; and on the other involves little more than the consistent carrying into detail of the broad principle that God uses the instruments He employs in accordance with their natures.

No doubt, on adequate occasion, the very stones might cry out by the power of God, and dumb beasts speak, and mysterious voices sound forth from the void; and there have not been lacking instances in which men have been compelled by the same power to speak what they would not, and in languages whose very sounds were strange to their ears. But ordinarily when God the Lord would speak to men He avails Himself of the services of a human tongue with which to speak, and He employs this tongue according to its nature as a tongue and according to the particular nature of the tongue which He employs. It is vain to say that the message delivered through the instrumentality of this tongue is conditioned at least in its form by the tongue by which it is spoken, if not, indeed, limited, curtailed, in some degree determined even in its matter, by it. Not only was it God the Lord who made the tongue, and who made this particular tongue with all its peculiarities, not without regard to the message He would deliver through it; but His control of it is perfect and complete, and it is as absurd to say that He cannot speak His message by it purely without that message suffering change from the peculiarities of its tone and modes of enunciation, as it would be to say that no new truth can be announced in any language because the elements of speech by the combination of which the truth in question is announced are already in existence with their fixed range of connotation. The marks of the several individualities imprinted on the messages of the prophets, in other words, are only a part of the general fact that these messages are couched in human language, and in no way beyond that general fact affect their purity as direct communications from God.

A new set of problems is raised by the mode of revelation which we have called "concursive operation." This mode of revelation differs from prophecy, properly so called, precisely by the employment in it, as is not done in prophecy, of the total personality of the organ of revelation, as a factor. It has been common to speak of the mode of the Spirit's action in this form of revelation, therefore, as an assistance, a superintendence, a direction, a control, the meaning being that the effect aimed at—the discovery and enunciation of Divine truth—is attained through the action of the human powers—historical research, logical reasoning, ethical thought, religious aspiration—acting not by themselves, however, but under the prevailing assistance, superintendence, direction, control of the Divine Spirit. This manner of speaking has the advantage of setting this mode of revelation sharply in contrast with prophetic revelation, as involving merely a determining, and not, as in prophetic revelation, a supercessive action of the revealing Spirit. We are warned, however, against pressing this discrimination too far by the inclusion of the whole body of Scripture in such passages as 2 Pet. 1:20 f. in the category of prophecy, and the assignment of their origin not to a mere "leading" but to the "bearing" of the Holy Spirit. In any event such terms as assistance, superintendence, direction, control, inadequately express the nature of the Spirit's action in revelation by "concursive operation." The Spirit is not to be conceived as standing outside of the human powers employed for the effect in view, ready to supplement any inadequacies they may show and to supply any defects they may manifest, but as working confluently in, with and by them, elevating them, directing them, controlling them, energizing them, so that, as His instruments, they rise above themselves and under His inspiration do His work and reach His aim. The product, therefore, which is attained by their means is His product through them. It is this fact which gives to the process the right to be called actively, and to the product the right to be called passively, a revelation. Although the circumstance that what is done is done by and through the action of human powers keeps the product in form and quality in a true sense human, yet the confluent operation of the Holy Spirit throughout the whole process raises the result above what could by any possibility be achieved by mere human powers and constitutes it expressly a supernatural product. The human traits are traceable throughout its whole extent, but at bottom it is a Divine gift, and the language of Paul is the most proper mode of speech that could be applied to it: "Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth" (1 Cor. 2:13); "The things which I write unto you … are the commandment of the Lord" (1 Cor. 14:37).

It is supposed that all the forms of special or redemptive revelation which underlie and give its content to the religion of the Bible may without violence be subsumed under one or another of these three modes—external manifestation, internal suggestion, and concursive operation. All, that is, except the culminating revelation, not through, but in, Jesus Christ. As in His person, in which dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, He rises above all classification and is sui generis; so the revelation accumulated in Him stands outside all the divers portions and divers manners in which otherwise revelation has been given and sums up in itself all that has been or can be made known of God and of His redemption. He does not so much make a revelation of God as Himself is the revelation of God; He does not merely disclose God's purpose of redemption, He is unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. The theophanies are but faint shadows in comparison with His manifestation of God in the flesh. The prophets could prophesy only as the Spirit of Christ which was in them testified, revealing to them as to servants one or another of the secrets of the Lord Jehovah; from Him as His Son, Jehovah has no secrets, but whatsoever the Father knows that the Son knows also. Whatever truth men have been made partakers of by the Spirit of truth is His (for all things whatsoever the Father hath are His) and is taken by the Spirit of truth and declared to men that He may be glorified. Nevertheless, though all revelation is thus summed up in Him, we should not fail to note very carefully that it would also be all sealed up in Him—so little is revelation conveyed by fact alone, without the word—had it not been thus taken by the Spirit of truth and declared unto men. The entirety of the New Testament is but the explanatory word accompanying and giving its effect to the fact of Christ. And when this fact was in all its meaning made the possession of men, revelation was completed and in that sense ceased. Jesus Christ is no less the end of revelation than He is the end of the law.

IV. BIBLICAL TERMINOLOGY

There is not much additional to be learned concerning the nature and processes of revelation, from the terms currently employed in Scripture to express the idea. These terms are ordinarily the common words for disclosing, making known, making manifest, applied with more or less heightened significance to supernatural acts or effects in kind. In the English Bible (AV) the verb "reveal" occurs about fifty-one times, of which twenty-two are in the Old Testament and twenty-nine in the New Testament. In the Old Testament the word is always the rendering of a Hebrew term גָּלָה, gālāh, or its Aramaic equivalent גְּלָה, gelāh, the root meaning of which appears to be "nakedness." When applied to revelation, it seems to hint at the removal of obstacles to perception or the uncovering of objects to perception. In the New Testament the word "reveal" is always (with the single exception of Lk. 2:35) the rendering of a Greek term ἀποκαλύπτω, apokalúptō (but in 2 Thess. 1:7; 1 Pet. 4:13 the corresponding noun ἀποκάλυψις, apokálupsis), which has a very similar basal significance with its Hebrew parallel. As this Hebrew word formed no substantive in this sense, the noun "revelation" does not occur in the English Old Testament, the idea being expressed, however, by other Hebrew terms variously rendered. It occurs in the English New Testament, on the other hand, about a dozen times, and always as the rendering of the substantive corresponding to the verb rendered "reveal" (apokálupsis). On the face of the English Bible, the terms "reveal," "revelation" bear therefore uniformly the general sense of "disclose," "disclosure." The idea is found in the Bible, however, much more frequently than the terms "reveal," "revelation" in English versions. Indeed, the Hebrew and Greek terms exclusively so rendered occur more frequently in this Sense than in this rendering in the English Bible. And by their side there stand various other terms which express in one way or another the general conception.

In the New Testament the verb φανερόω, phaneróō, with the general sense of making manifest, manifesting, is the most common of these. It differs from apokalúptō as the more general and external term from the more special and inward. Other terms also are occasionally used: ἐπιφάνεια, epipháneia, "manifestation" (2 Thess. 2:8; 1 Tim. 6:14; 2 Tim. 1:10; 4:1; Tit. 2:13; cf. ἐπιφαίνω, epiphaínō, Tit. 2:11; 3:4); δεικνύω, deiknúō (Rev. 1:1; 17:1; 22:1, 6, 8; cf. Acts 9:16; 1 Tim. 4:15); ἐξηγέομαι, exēgéomai (Jn. 1:18), of which, however, only one perhaps—χρηματίζω, chrēmatízō (Mt. 2:12, 22; Lk. 2:26; Acts 10:22; Heb. 8:5; 11:7; 12:25); χρηματισμός, chrēmatismós (Rom. 11:4)—calls for particular notice as in a special way, according to its usage, expressing the idea of a Divine communication.

In the Old Testament, the common Hebrew verb for "seeing" (רָאָה rāʾāh) is used in its appropriate stems, with God as the subject, for "appearing," "showing": "the Lord appeared unto …"; "the word which the Lord showed me." And from this verb not only is an active substantive formed which supplied the more ancient designation of the official organ or revelation: רֹאֶה, rōʾ eh, "seer"; but also objective substantives, מַרְאָה, marʾ āh, and מַרְאֶה, marʾ eh which were used to designate the thing seen in a revelation—the "vision." By the side of these terms there were others in use, derived from a root which supplies to the Aramaic its common word for "seeing," but in Hebrew has a somewhat more pregnant meaning, חָוָה, ḥāzāh. Its active derivative, חֹוֶה, ḥōzeh, was a designation of a prophet which remained in occasional use, alternating with the more customary נָבִיא, nābhī, long after רֹאָה, rōʾ eh, had become practically obsolete; and its passive derivatives ḥāzōn, ḥizzāyōn, ḥāzūth, maḥăzeh provided the ordinary terms for the substance of the revelation or "vision." The distinction between the two sets of terms, derived respectively from rāʾ āh and ḥāzāh, while not to be unduly pressed, seems to lie in the direction that the former suggests external manifestations and the latter internal revelations. The rōʾ eh is he to whom Divine manifestations, the ḥōzeh he to whom Divine communications, have been vouchsafed; the marʾ eh is an appearance, the hāzōn and its companions a vision. It may be of interest to observe that marʾ āh is the term employed in Num. 12:6, while it is ḥāzōn which commonly occurs in the headings of the written prophecies to indicate their revelatory character. From this it may possibly be inferred that in the former passage it is the mode, in the latter the contents of the revelation that is emphasized. Perhaps a like distinction may be traced between the ḥāzōn of Dan. 8:15 and the marʾ eh of the next verse. The ordinary verb for "knowing," יָדַע, yādhaʿ, expressing in its causative stems the idea of making known, informing, is also very naturally employed, with God as its subject, in the sense of revealing, and that, in accordance with the natural sense of the word, with a tendency to pregnancy of implication, of revealing effectively, of not merely uncovering to observation, but making to know. Accordingly, it is paralleled not merely with גָּלָה, gālāh (Ps. 98:2: 'The Lord hath made known his salvation; his righteousness hath he displayed in the sight of the nation'), but also with such terms as לָמַד, lāmadh (Ps. 25:4: 'Make known to me thy ways, O Lord: teach me thy paths'). This verb yādhaʿ forms no substantive in the sense of "revelation" (cf. דַּעַת, daʿath, Num. 24:16; Ps. 19:3).

The most common vehicles of the idea of "revelation" in the Old Testament are, however, two expressions which are yet to be mentioned. These are the phrase, "word of Jehovah," and the term commonly but inadequately rendered in the English versions by "law." The former (debhar Yahweh, varied to debhar ʾĔlōhīm or debhar hā-ʾĔlōhīm; cf. neʾum Yahweh, massā, Yahweh) occurs scores of times and is at once the simplest and the most colorless designation of a Divine communication. By the latter (tōrāh), the proper meaning of which is "instruction," a strong implication of authoritativeness is conveyed; and, in this sense, it becomes what may be called the technical designation of a specifically Divine communication. The two are not infrequently brought together, as in Isa. 1:10: "Hear the word of Jehovah, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law [margin "teaching"] of our God, ye people of Gomorrah"; or Isa. 2:3; Mic. 4:2; "For out of Zion shall go forth the law [margin "instruction"], and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem." Both terms are used for any Divine communication of whatever extent; and both came to be employed to express the entire body of Divine revelation, conceived as a unitary whole. In this comprehensive usage, the emphasis of the one came to fall more on the graciousness, and of the other more on the authoritativeness of this body of Divine revelation; and both passed into the New Testament with these implications. "The word of God," or simply "the word," comes thus to mean in the New Testament just the gospel, "the word of the proclamation of redemption, that is, all that which God has to say to man, and causes to be said" looking to his salvation. It expresses, in a word, precisely what we technically speak of as God's redemptive revelation. "The law," on the other hand, means in this New Testament use, just the whole body of the authoritative instruction which God has given men. It expresses, in other words, what we commonly speak of as God's supernatural revelation. The two things, of course, are the same: God's authoritative revelation is His gracious revelation; God's redemptive revelation is His supernatural revelation. The two terms merely look at the one aggregate of revelation from two aspects, and each emphasizes its own aspect of this one aggregated revelation.

Now, this aggregated revelation lay before the men of the New Testament in a written form, and it was impossible to speak freely of it without consciousness of and at least occasional reference to its written form. Accordingly we hear of a Word of God that is written (Jn. 15:25; 1 Cor. 15:54), and the Divine Word is naturally contrasted with mere tradition, as if its written form were of its very idea (Mk. 7:10); indeed, the written body of revelation—with an emphasis on its written form—is designated expressly 'the prophetic word' (2 Pet. 1:19). More distinctly still, "the Law" comes to be thought of as a written, not exactly, code, but body of Divinely authoritative instructions. The phrase, "It is written in your law" (Jn. 10:34; 15:25; Rom. 3:19; 1 Cor. 14:21), acquires the precise sense of, "It is set forth in your authoritative Scriptures, all the content of which is 'law,' that is, Divine instruction." Thus "the Word of God," "the Law," came to mean just the written body of revelation, what we call, and what the New Testament writers called, in the same high sense which we give the term, "the Scriptures." These "Scriptures" are thus identified with the revelation of God, conceived as a well-defined corpus, and two conceptions rise before us which have had a determining part to play in the history of Christianity—the conception of an authoritative Canon of Scripture, and the conception of this Canon of Scripture as just the Word of God written. The former conception was thrown into prominence in opposition to the gnostic heresies in the earliest age of the church, and gave rise to a richly varied mode of speech concerning the Scriptures, emphasizing their authority in legal language, which goes back to and rests on the Biblical usage of "Law." The latter it was left to the Reformation to do justice to in its struggle against, on the one side, the Romish depression of the Scriptures in favor of the traditions of the church, and on the other side the Enthusiasts' supercession of them in the interests of the "inner Word." When Tertullian, on the one hand, speaks of the Scriptures as an "Instrument," a legal document, his terminology has an express warrant in the Scriptures' own usage of tōrāh, "law," to designate their entire content. And when John Gerhard argues that "between the Word of God and Sacred Scripture, taken in a material sense, there is no real difference," he is only declaring plainly what is definitely implied in the New Testament use of "the Word of God" with the written revelation in mind. What is important to recognize is that the Scriptures themselves represent the Scriptures as not merely containing here and there the record of revelations—"words of God," tōrōth—given by God, but as themselves, in all their extent, a revelation, an authoritative body of gracious instructions from God; or, since they alone, of all the revelations which God may have given, are extant—rather as the Revelation, the only "Word of God" accessible to men, in all their parts "law," that is, authoritative instruction from God.

LITERATURE.—Herman Witsius, "De Prophetis et Prophetia" in Miscell. Sacr., I, Leiden, 1736, 1–318; G. F. Oehler, Theology of the OT, ET, Edinburgh, 1874, I, part I (and the appropriate sections in other Bib. Theologies); H. Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek2, I, Kampen, 1906, 290–406 (and the appropriate sections in other dogmatic treatises); H. Voigt, Fundamentaldogmatik, Gotha, 1874, 173 ff; A. Kuyper, Encyclopaedia of Sacred Theology, ET, New York, 1898, div. III, ch. 11; A. E. Krauss, Die Lehre von der Offenbarung, Gotha, 1868; C. F. Fritzsche, De revelationis notione biblica, Leipzig, 1828; E. W. Hengstenberg, The Christology of the OT, ET2, Edinburgh, 1868, IV, Appendix 6, pp. 396–444; E. König, Der Offenbarungsbegriff des AT, Leipzig, 1882; A. B. Davidson, OT Prophecy, 1903; W. J. Beecher, The Prophets and the Promise, New York, 1905; James Orr, The Christian View of God and the World, 1893, as per Index, "Revelation," and Revelation and Inspiration, London and New York, 1910. Also: T. Christlieb, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, ET, New York, 1874; G. P. Fisher, The Nature and Method of Revelation, New York, 1890; C. M. Mead, Supernatural Revelation, 1889; J. Quirmbach, Die Lehre des h. Paulus von der natürlichen Gotteserkenntnis, etc., Freiburg, 1906.

II

THE IDEA OF REVELATION AND THEORIES OF REVELATION

REVELATION [from Latin revelátio, an unveiling, revealing, derivative of reveláre, unveil; re-, back + veláre, to veil, derivative of vélum, a veil]: in its active meaning, the act of God by which he communicates to man the truth concerning himself—his nature, works, will, or purposes; in the passive meaning, the knowledge resultant upon such activity of God. The term is commonly employed in two senses: a wider—general revelation; and a narrower—special revelation. In its wider sense it includes all modes in which God makes himself known to men; or, passively, all knowledge concerning God however attained, inasmuch as it is conceived that all such knowledge is, in one way or another, wrought by him. In its narrower sense it is confined to the communication of knowledge in a supernatural as distinguished from a natural mode; or, passively, to the knowledge of God which has been supernaturally made known to men. The reality of general revelation is disputed by none but the anti-theist and agnostic, of whom one denies the existence of a God to make himself known, and the other doubts the capacity of the human intellect, if there be a God, to read the vestiges he has left of himself in his handiwork. Most types of modern theology explicitly allow that all knowledge of God rests on revelation; that God can be known only because and so far as he reveals himself. In this the extremest "liberals," such as Biedermann, Lipsius, and Pfleiderer, agree with the extremest "conservatives." Revelation is everywhere represented as the implication of theism, and as necessary to the very being of religion: "The man who does not believe that God can speak to him will not speak to God" (A. M. Fairbairn). It is only with reference to the reality of special revelation that debate concerning revelation continues; and it is this that Christian apologetics needs to validate. Here, too, the controversy is ultimately with antitheistic presuppositions, with the postulates of an extreme deism or of an essential pantheism; but it is proximately with all those types of thought which seek to mediate between deistic or pantheizing conceptions and those of a truly Christian theism.

In the eighteenth century the debate was chiefly with deism in its one-sided emphasis upon the divine transcendence, and with the several compromising schemes which grew up in the course of the conflict, such as pure rationalism and dogmatistic rationalism. The deist denied the reality of all special revelation, on the grounds that it was not necessary for man and was either metaphysically impossible or morally unworthy of God. Convinced of the reality of special revelation, the rationalist still denied its necessity, while the dogmatist, admitting also its necessity, denied that it constituted the authoritative ground of the acceptance of truth. Kant's criticism struck a twofold blow at rationalism. On the negative side his treatment of the theistic proofs discredited the basis of natural (general) revelation, in which the rationalist placed his whole confidence. Thus the way was prepared for philosophical agnosticism and for that Christian agnosticism which is exemplified in the school of Ritschl. On the positive side he prepared the way for the idealistic philosophy, whose fundamentally pantheistic presuppositions introduced a radical change in the form of the controversy concerning the reality of a special revelation without in any way altering its essence. Instead of denying the supernatural with the deists, this new mode of thought formally denied the natural. All thought was conceived as the immanent work of God. This change of position antiquated the forms of statement and argument which had been wrought out against the deists; but the question at issue still remained the same—whether there is any special revelation of God possible, actual, extant, whether man has received any other knowledge of God than what is excogitable by the normal action of his own unaided faculties. Men's ontology of the human faculties and activities was changed; it was now affirmed that all that they excogitated was of God, and the natural was accordingly labeled supernatural. But a special supernatural interposition for a new gift of knowledge continued to be denied as strenuously as before. Thus it has come about that, in the nineteenth century, the controversy as to special revelation is no longer chiefly with the one-sided emphasis upon the transcendence of God of the deist, but with the equally one-sided emphasis upon the immanence of God of the pantheist, and with the various compromising schemes which have grown up in the course of the conflict, through efforts to mediate between pantheism and a truly Christian theism. It is no longer necessary to prove that God may and does speak in the souls of men; it is admitted on all hands that he reveals himself unceasingly through all the activities of creaturely minds. The task has come to be to distinguish between God's general and God's special revelations, to prove the possibility and actuality of the latter alongside of the former, and to vindicate for it a supernaturalness of a more immediate order than that which is freely attributed to all the thought of man concerning divine things.

In order to defend the idea of distinctively supernatural revelation against this insidious undermining, it has become necessary, in defining it in its highest and strictest sense, to emphasize the supernatural in the mode of knowledge and not merely in its source. When stress is laid upon the source only without taking into account the mode of knowledge, the way lies open to those who postulate immanent deity in all human thought to confound the categories of reason and revelation, and so practically to do away with the latter altogether. Even when the data on which our faculties work belong to a distinctively supernatural order, yet so long as the mode of acquisition of knowledge from them is conceived as purely human, the resultant knowledge remains natural knowledge; and, since intuition is a purely human mode of knowledge, so-called intuitions of divine truth would form no exception to this classification. Only such knowledge as is immediately communicated by God is in the highest and strictest sense, supernaturally revealed. The differentia of revelation in its narrowest and strictest sense, therefore, is not merely that the knowledge so designated has God for its source, nor merely that it becomes the property of men by a supernatural agency, but further that it does not emerge into human consciousness as an acquisition of the human faculties, pure and simple.

Such a conception may give us a narrower category than that usually called special revelation. In contending for its reality it is by no means denied that there are other revelations of God which may deserve the name of special or supernatural in a distinctive sense. It is only affirmed that among the other modes in which God has revealed himself there exists also this mode of revelation, viz., a direct and immediate communication of truth, not only from God but by God, to minds which occupy relatively to the attainment of this truth a passive or receptive attitude, so that the mode of its acquisition is as supernatural as its source. In the knowledge of God which is acquired by man in the normal use of his own faculties—naturally, therefore, as to mode—some deserves the name of special and supernatural above the rest, because the data upon which the human faculties work in acquiring it belong to a supernatural order. Such knowledge forms an intermediate class between that obtained by the faculties working upon natural data and that obtained in a supernatural mode as well as from a supernatural source. Again, in the knowledge of God, communicated by the objective activities of his Spirit upon the minds of special organs of revelation—supernaturally, thus, as to immediate origin as well as to ultimate source—some may emerge into consciousness along the lines of the ordinary action of the human faculties. Such knowledge would form a still higher intermediate class—between that obtained by the natural faculties working according to their native powers on supernatural data and that obtained in a purely supernatural mode, as well as from a supernatural source and by a supernatural agency. These modes of revelation are not to be overlooked. But neither is it to be overlooked that among the ways in which God has revealed himself is also this way—that he has spoken to man as Spirit to spirit, mouth to mouth, and has made himself and his gracious purposes known to him in an immediate and direct word of God, which is simply received and not in any sense attained by man. In these revelations we reach the culminating category of special revelation, in which its peculiar character is most clearly seen. And it is these direct revelations which modern thought finds most difficult to allow to be real, and which Christian apologists must especially vindicate.

THEORIES OF REVELATION

In the state of the case which has just been pointed out, it is a matter of course that recent theories of revelation should very frequently leave no or but little place for the highest form of revelation, that by the direct word of God. The lowest class of theories represent revelation as taking place only through the purely natural activities of the human mind, and deny the reality of any special action of the Divine Spirit directly on the mind in the communication of revealed truth. Those who share this general position may differ very greatly in their presuppositions. They may, from a fundamentally deistic standpoint, jealously guard the processes of human thought from all intrusion on the part of God; or they may, from a fundamentally pantheistic standpoint, look upon all human thought as only the unfolding of the divine thought. They may differ also very greatly as to the nature and source of the objective data on which the mind is supposed to work in obtaining its knowledge of God. But they are at one in conceiving that which from the divine side is spoken of as revelation, as on the human side, simply the natural development of the moral and religious consciousness. The extreme deistic theory allows the possibility of no knowledge of God except what is obtained by the human mind working upon the data supplied by creation to the exclusion of providential government. Modern speculative theists correct the deistic conception by postulating an immanent divine activity, both in external providence and in mental action. The data on which the mind works are supplied, according to them, not only by creation, but also by God's moral government; and the theory grades upward in proportion as something like a special providence is admitted in the peculiar function ascribed to Israel in developing the idea of God, and the significance of Jesus Christ as the embodiment of the perfect relation between God and man is recognized. (Biedermann, "Christl. Dogmatik," i., 264; Lipsius, "Dogmatik," 41; Pfleiderer, "Religionsphilosophie," iv., 46.) The school of Ritschl, though they speak of a "positive revelation" in Jesus Christ, make no real advance upon this. Denying not only all mystical connection of the soul with God, but also all rational knowledge of divine things, they confine the data of revelation to the historical manifestation of Christ, which makes an impression on the minds of men such as justifies us in speaking of him as revealing God to us. (Herrmann, "Der Begriff der Offenbarung," and "Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott"; Kaftan, "Das Wesen," etc.)

We are on higher ground, however, although still moving in essentially the same circle of conceptions as to the nature of revelation, when we rise to the theory which identifies revelation strictly with the series of redemptive acts (Koehler, "Stud. und Kritiken," 1852, p. 875). From this point of view, as truly as from that of the deist or speculative theist, revelation is confined to the purely external manifestation of God in a series of acts. It is differentiated from the conceptions of the deist and speculative theist only in the nature of the works of God, which are supposed to supply the data which are observed and worked into knowledge by the unaided activities of the human mind. In emphasizing here those acts of a special providence which constitute the redemptive activity of God, this theory for the first time lays the foundation for a distinction between general and special revelation; and it grades upward in proportion as the truly miraculous character of God's redemptive work is recognized, and acts of a truly miraculous nature are included in it. And it rises above itself in proportion as, along with the supernatural character of the series of objective acts with which it formally identifies revelation, it recognizes an immediate action of God's Spirit on the mind of man, preparing, fitting, and enabling him to apprehend and interpret aright the revelation made objectively in the redemptive acts. J. Chr. K. Hofmann in his earlier work, "Prophecy and Fulfillment," announces this theory in a lower form, but corrects it in his later "Schriftbeweis." Richard Rothe ("Zur Dogmatik," p. 54) is an outstanding example of one of its higher forms. To him revelation consists fundamentally in the "manifestation" of God in the series of redemptive acts, by which God enters into natural history by means of an unambiguously supernatural and peculiarly divine history, and which man is enabled to understand and rightly to interpret by virtue of an inward work of the Divine Spirit that Rothe calls "inspiration." But this internal action of the Spirit does not communicate new truth; it only enables the subject to combine the elements of knowledge naturally received into a new combination, from which springs an essentially new thought which he is clearly conscious that he did not produce. The theory propounded by Prof. A. B. Bruce in his well-known lectures on "The Chief End of Revelation" stands possibly one stage higher than Rothe's, to which it bears a very express relation. Dr. Bruce speaks with great circumspection. He represents revelation as consisting in the "self-manifestation of God in human history as the God of a gracious purpose—the manifestation being made not merely or chiefly by words, but very specially by deeds" (p. 155); while he looks upon "inspiration" as "not enabling the prophets to originate a new idea of God," but "rather as assisting them to read aright the divine name and nature." Dr. Bruce transcends the position of the class of theorists here under consideration in proportion as he magnifies the office of inner "inspiration," and, above all, in proportion to the extent of meaning which he attaches to the saving clause that revelation is not merely by word, but also by deed. The theory commended by the great name of Bishop B. F. Westcott ("The Gospel of Life") is quite similar to Dr. Bruce's.

By these transitional theories we are already carried well into a second class of theories, which recognize that revelation is fundamentally the work of the Spirit of God in direct communication with the human mind. At its lowest level this conception need not rise above the pantheistic postulate of the unfolding of the life and thought of God within the world. The Divine Spirit stirs men's hearts, and feelings and ideas spring up, which are no less revelations of God than movements of the human soul. A higher level is attained when the action of God is conceived as working in the heart of man an inward certainty of divine life—as, for example, by Schultz ("Old Testament Theology"); revelation being confined as much as possible to the inner life of man apparently to avoid the recognition of objective miracle. A still higher level is reached where the action of the Spirit is thought of—after the fashion of Rothe, for example—as a necesary aid granted to certain men to enable them to apprehend and interpret aright the objective manifestation of God. The theory rises in character in proportion as the necessity of this action of the Spirit, its relative importance, and the nature of the effect produced by it are magnified. So long, however, as it conceives of this work of the Spirit as secondary, and ordinarily if not invariably successive to the series of redemptive acts of God, which are thought to constitute the real core of the revelation, it falls short of the biblical idea. According to the biblical representations, the fundamental element in revelation is not the objective process of redemptive acts, but the revealing operations of the Spirit of God, which run through the whole series of modes of communication proper to Spirit, culminating in communications by the objective word. The characteristic element in the Bible idea of revelation in its highest sense is that the organs of revelation are not creatively concerned in the revelations made through them, but occupy a receptive attitude. The contents of their messages are not something thought out, inferred, hoped, or feared by them, but something conveyed to them, often forced upon them by the irresistible might of the revealing Spirit. No conception can do justice to the Bible idea of revelation which neglects these facts. Nor is justice done even to the rational idea of revelation when they are neglected. Here, too, we must interpret by the highest category in our reach. "Can man commune with man," it has been eloquently asked, "through the high gift of language, and is the Infinite mind not to express itself, or is it to do so but faintly or uncertainly, through dumb material symbols, never by blessed speech?" (W. Morrison, "Footprints of the Revealer," p. 52.)

THE DOCTRINE OF REVELATION

The doctrine of revelation which has been wrought out by Christian thinkers in their effort to do justice to all the biblical facts, includes the following features. God has never left himself without a witness. In the act of creation he has impressed himself on the work of his hands. In his work of providence he manifests himself as the righteous ruler of the world. Through this natural revelation men in the normal use of reason rise to a knowledge of God—a notitia Dei acquisita, based on the notitia Dei insita—which is trustworthy and valuable, but is insufficient for their necessities as sinners, and by its very insufficiency awakens a longing for a fuller knowledge of God and his purposes. To this purely natural revelation God has added a revelation of himself as the God of grace, in a connected series of redemptive acts, which constitute as a whole the mighty process of the new creation. To even the natural mind contemplating this series of supernatural acts which culminate in the coming of Christ, a higher knowledge of God should be conveyed than what is attainable from mere nature, though it would be limited to the capacity of the natural mind to apprehend divine things. In the process of the new creation God, however, works also inwardly by his regenerating grace, creating new hearts in men and illuminating their minds for apprehending divine things: thus, over against the new manifestation of himself in the series of redemptive acts, he creates a new subject to apprehend and profit by them. But neither by the presentation of supernatural facts to the mind nor by the breaking of the power of sin within, by which the eyes of the mind were holden that they should not see, is the human mind enabled to rise above itself, that it may know as God knows, unravel the manifestation of his gracious purposes from the in completed pattern which he is weaving into the fabric of history, or even interpret aright an unexplained series of marvelous facts involving mysteries which "angels desire to look into." It may be doubted whether even the supreme revelation of God in Jesus Christ could have been known as such in the absence of preparatory, accompanying and succeeding explanatory revelations in words: "the kingdom of God cometh not with observation." God has therefore, in his infinite mercy, added a revelation of himself, strictly so called, communicating by his Spirit directly to men knowledge concerning himself, his works, will, and purposes. The modes of communication may be various—by dreams or visions, in ecstasy or theophany, by inward guidance, or by the simple objective word; but in all cases the object and result are the direct supernatural communication of special knowledge.

Of this special revelation it is to be said: (1) It was not given all at once, but progressively, "by divers portions and in divers manners," in the form of a regular historical development. (2) Its progressive unfolding stands in a very express relation to the progress of God's redemptive work. If it is not to be conceived, on the one hand, however, as an isolated act, wholly out of relation to God's redemptive work, neither is it to be simply identified with the series of his redemptive acts. The phrase, "revelation is for redemption and not for instruction," presents a false antithesis. Revelation as such is certainly just "to make wise," though it is to make wise only "unto salvation." It is not an alternative name for the redemptive process, but a specific part of the redemptive process. Nor does it merely grow out of the redemptive acts as their accompanying or following explanation; it is rather itself one of the redemptive acts, and takes its place along with the other redemptive acts, co-operative with them to the one great end. (3) Its relation to miracles has often been very unnecessarily confused by one-sided statements. Miracles are not merely credentials of revelation, but vehicles of revelation as well; but they are primarily credentials; and some of them are so barely "signs" as to serve no other purpose. As works of God, however, they are inevitably revelatory of God. Because the nature of the acts performed necessarily reveals the character of the actor is no proof, nevertheless, that their primary purpose was self-revelation; but this fact gives them a place in revelation itself; and as revelation as a whole is a substantial part of the redemptive work of God, also in the redemptive work of God. (4) Its relation to predictive prophecy is in some respects different. As a rule, at all events, predictive prophecy is primarily a part of revelation, and becomes a credential of it only secondarily, on account of the nature of the particular revelation which it conveys. When a revelation is, in its very contents, such as could come only from God, it obviously becomes a credential of itself as a revelation, and carries with it an evidence of the divine character of the whole body of revelation with which it stands in organic connection. (5) Its relation to the Scriptures is already apparent from what has been said. As revelation does not exist solely for the increase of knowledge, but by increasing knowledge to build up the kingdom of God, so neither did it come into being for no other purpose than the production of the Scriptures. The Scriptures also are a means to the one end, and exist only as a part of God's redemptive work. But if, thus, the Scriptures can not be exalted as the sole end of revelation, neither can they be degraded into the mere human record of revelation. They are themselves a substantial part of God's revelation; one form which his revealing activity chose for itself; and that its final and complete form, adopted as such for the very purpose of making God's revealed will the permanent and universal possession of man. Among the manifold methods of God's revelation, revelation through "inspiration" thus takes its natural place; and the Scriptures, as the product of this "inspiration," become thus a work of God; not only a substantial part of revelation, but, along with the rest of revelation, a substantial part of his redemptive work. Along with the other acts of God which make up the connected series of his redemptive acts, the giving of the Scriptures ranks as an element of the building up of the kingdom of God. That within the limits of Scripture there appears the record of revelations in a narrower and stricter sense of the term, in nowise voids its claim to be itself revelation. Scripture records the sequence of God's great redeeming acts. But it is much more than merely "the record, the interpretation, and the literary reflection of God's grace in history." Scripture records the direct revelations which God gave to men in days past, so far as those revelations were intended for permanent and universal use. But it is much more than a record of past revelations. It is itself the final revelation of God, completing the whole disclosure of his unfathomable love to lost sinners, the whole proclamation of his purposes of grace, and the whole exhibition of his gracious provisions for their salvation.

III

THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE

THE subject of the Inspiration of the Bible is one which has been much confused in recent discussion. He who, seeking to learn the truth, should gather about him the latest treatises, bearing such titles as, "Inspiration, and other Lectures," "Inspiration and the Bible," "What is Inspiration?" "How did God inspire the Bible?" "The Oracles of God?"—would find himself led by them in every conceivable direction at once. No wonder if he should stand stock-still in the midst of his would-be guides, confounded by the Babel of voices. The old formula, quot homines tot sententiæ, seems no longer adequate. Wherever five "advanced thinkers" assemble, at least six theories as to inspiration are likely to be ventilated. They differ in every conceivable point, or in every conceivable point save one. They agree that inspiration is less pervasive and less determinative than has heretofore been thought, or than is still thought in less enlightened circles. They agree that there is less of the truth of God and more of the error of man in the Bible than Christians have been wont to believe. They agree accordingly that the teaching of the Bible may be, in this, that, or the other,—here, there, or elsewhere,—safely neglected or openly repudiated. So soon as we turn to the constructive side, however, and ask wherein the inspiration of the Bible consists; how far it guarantees the trustworthiness of the Bible's teaching; in what of its elements is the Bible a divinely safe-guarded guide to truth: the concurrence ends and hopeless dissension sets in. They agree only in their common destructive attitude towards some higher view of the inspiration of the Bible, of the presence of which each one seems supremely conscious.

It is upon this fact that we need first of all to fix our attention. It is not of the variegated hypotheses of his fellow-theorizers, but of some high doctrine of inspiration, the common object of attack of them all, that each new theorizer on the subject of inspiration is especially conscious, as standing over against him, with reference to which he is to orient himself, and against the claims of which he is to defend his new hypothesis. Thus they themselves introduce us to the fact that over against the numberless discordant theories of inspiration which vex our time, there stands a well-defined church-doctrine of inspiration. This church-doctrine of inspiration differs from the theories that would fain supplant it, in that it is not the invention nor the property of an individual, but the settled faith of the universal church of God; in that it is not the growth of yesterday, but the assured persuasion of the people of God from the first planting of the church until to-day; in that it is not a protean shape, varying its affirmations to fit every new change in the ever-shifting thought of men, but from the beginning has been the church's constant and abiding conviction as to the divinity of the Scriptures committed to her keeping. It is certainly a most impressive fact,—this well-defined, aboriginal, stable doctrine of the church as to the nature and trustworthiness of the Scriptures of God, which confronts with its gentle but steady persistence of affirmation all the theories of inspiration which the restless energy of unbelieving and half-believing speculation has been able to invent in this agitated nineteenth century of ours. Surely the seeker after the truth in the matter of the inspiration of the Bible may well take this church-doctrine as his starting-point.

What this church-doctrine is, it is scarcely necessary minutely to describe. It will suffice to remind ourselves that it looks upon the Bible as an oracular book,—as the Word of God in such a sense that whatever it says God says,—not a book, then, in which one may, by searching, find some word of God, but a book which may be frankly appealed to at any point with the assurance that whatever it may be found to say, that is the Word of God. We are all of us members in particular of the body of Christ which we call the church: and the life of the church, and the faith of the church, and the thought of the church are our natural heritage. We know how, as Christian men, we approach this Holy Book,—how unquestioningly we receive its statements of fact, bow before its enunciations of duty, tremble before its threatenings, and rest upon its promises. Or, if the subtle spirit of modern doubt has seeped somewhat into our hearts, our memory will easily recall those happier days when we stood a child at our Christian mother's knee, with lisping lips following the words which her slow finger traced upon this open page,—words which were her support in every trial and, as she fondly trusted, were to be our guide throughout life. Mother church was speaking to us in that maternal voice, commending to us her vital faith in the Word of God. How often since then has it been our own lot, in our turn, to speak to others all the words of this life! As we sit in the midst of our pupils in the Sabbath-school, or in the centre of our circle at home, or perchance at some bedside of sickness or of death; or as we meet our fellow-man amid the busy work of the world, hemmed in by temptation or weighed down with care, and would fain put beneath him some firm support and stay: in what spirit do we turn to this Bible then? with what confidence do we commend its every word to those whom we would make partakers of its comfort or of its strength? In such scenes as these is revealed the vital faith of the people of God in the surety and trustworthiness of the Word of God.

Nor do we need to do more than remind ourselves that this attitude of entire trust in every word of the Scriptures has been characteristic of the people of God from the very foundation of the church. Christendom has always reposed upon the belief that the utterances of this book are properly oracles of God. The whole body of Christian literature bears witness to this fact. We may trace its stream to its source, and everywhere it is vocal with a living faith in the divine trustworthiness of the Scriptures of God in every one of their affirmations. This is the murmur of the little rills of Christian speech which find their tenuous way through the parched heathen land of the early second century. And this is the mighty voice of the great river of Christian thought which sweeps through the ages, freighted with blessings for men. Dr. Sanday, in his recent Bampton Lectures on "Inspiration"—in which, unfortunately, he does not teach the church-doctrine—is driven to admit that not only may "testimonies to the general doctrine of inspiration" from the earliest Fathers, "be multiplied to almost any extent; but [that] there are some which go further and point to an inspiration which might be described as 'verbal' "; "nor does this idea," he adds, "come in tentatively and by degrees, but almost from the very first." He might have spared the adverb "almost." The earliest writers know no other doctrine. If Origen asserts that the Holy Spirit was co-worker with the Evangelists in the composition of the Gospel, and that, therefore, lapse of memory, error or falsehood was impossible to them,4 and if Irenæus, the pupil of Polycarp, claims for Christians a clear knowledge that "the Scriptures are perfect, seeing that they are spoken by God's Word and his Spirit"; no less does Polycarp, the pupil of John, consider the Scriptures the very voice of the Most High, and pronounce him the first-born of Satan, "whosoever perverts these oracles of the Lord."6 Nor do the later Fathers know a different doctrine. Augustine, for example, affirms that he defers to the canonical Scriptures alone among books with such reverence and honor that he most "firmly believes that no one of their authors has erred in anything, in writing." To precisely the same effect did the Reformers believe and teach. Luther adopts these words of Augustine's as his own, and declares that the whole of the Scriptures are to be ascribed to the Holy Ghost, and therefore cannot err.8 Calvin demands that whatever is propounded in Scripture, "without exception," shall be humbly received by us,—that the Scriptures as a whole shall be received by us with the same reverence which we give to God, "because they have emanated from him alone, and are mixed with nothing human." The saintly Rutherford, who speaks of the Scriptures as a more sure word than a direct oracle from heaven,10 and Baxter, who affirms that "all that the holy writers have recorded is true (and no falsehood in the Scriptures but what is from the errors of scribes and translators)," hand down this supreme trust in the Scripture word to our own day—to our own Charles Hodge and Henry B. Smith, the one of whom asserts that the Bible "gives us truth without error,"12 and the other, that "all the books of the Scripture are equally inspired;… all alike are infallible in what they teach;… their assertions must be free from error." Such testimonies are simply the formulation by the theologians of each age of the constant faith of Christians throughout all ages.

If we would estimate at its full meaning the depth of this trust in the Scripture word, we should observe Christian men at work upon the text of Scripture. There is but one view-point which will account for or justify the minute and loving pains which have been expended upon the text of Scripture, by the long line of commentators that has extended unbrokenly from the first Christian ages to our own. The allegorical interpretation which rioted in the early days of the church was the daughter of reverence for the biblical word; a spurious daughter you may think, but none the less undeniably a direct off-spring of the awe with which the sacred text was regarded as the utterances of God, and, as such, pregnant with inexhaustible significance. The patient and anxious care with which the Bible text is scrutinized today by scholars, of a different spirit no doubt from those old allegorizers, but of equal reverence for the text of Scripture, betrays the same fundamental viewpoint,—to which the Bible is the Word of God, every detail of the meaning of which is of inestimable preciousness. No doubt there have been men who have busied themselves with the interpretation of Scripture, who have not approached it in such a spirit or with such expectations. But it is not the Jowetts, with their supercilious doubts whether Paul meant very much by what he said, who represent the spirit of Christian exposition. This is represented rather by the Bengels, who count no labor wasted, in their efforts to distill from the very words of Holy Writ the honey which the Spirit has hidden in them for the comfort and the delight of the saints. It is represented rather by the Westcotts, who bear witness to their own experience of the "sense of rest and confidence which grows firmer with increasing knowledge," as their patient investigation has dug deeper and deeper for the treasures hid in the words and clauses and sentences of the Epistles of John,—to the sure conviction which forty years of study of the Epistle to the Hebrews has brought them that "we come nearer to the meaning of Scripture by the closest attention to the subtleties and minute variations of words and order." It was a just remark of one of the wisest men I ever knew, Dr. Wistar Hodge, that this is "a high testimony to verbal inspiration."15

Of course the church has not failed to bring this, her vital faith in the divine trustworthiness of the Scripture word, to formal expression in her solemn creeds. The simple faith of the Christian people is also the confessional doctrine of the Christian churches. The assumption of the divine authority of the scriptural teaching underlies all the credal statements of the church; all of which are formally based upon the Scriptures. And from the beginning, it finds more or less full expression in them. Already, in some of the formulas of faith which underlie the Apostles' Creed itself, we meet with the phrase "according to the Scriptures" as validating the items of belief; while in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, amid the meagre clauses outlining only what is essential to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, place is given to the declaration that He is to be found speaking in the prophets—"who spake by the prophets." It was in conscious dependence upon the immemorial teaching of the church that the Council of Trent defined it as of faith in the Church of Rome, that God is the author of Scripture,—a declaration which has been repeated in our own day by the Vatican Council, with such full explanations as are included in these rich words: "The church holds" the books of the Old and New Testaments, "to be sacred and canonical, not because, having been carefully composed by mere human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor merely because they contain revelation with no admixture of error; but because, having been written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author." Needless to say that a no less firm conviction of the absolute authority of Scripture underlies all the Protestant creeds. Before all else, Protestantism is, in its very essence, an appeal from all other authority to the divine authority of Holy Scripture. The Augsburg Confession, the first Protestant creed, is, therefore, commended to consideration, only on the ground that it is "drawn from the Holy Scriptures and the pure word of God." The later Lutheran creeds, and especially the Reformed creeds, grow progressively more explicit. It is our special felicity, that as Reformed Christians, and heirs of the richest and fullest formulation of Reformed thought, we possess in that precious heritage, the Westminster Confession, the most complete, the most admirable, the most perfect statement of the essential Christian doctrine of Holy Scripture which has ever been formed by man. Here the vital faith of the church is brought to full expression; the Scriptures are declared to be the word of God in such a sense that God is their author, and they, because immediately inspired by God, are of infallible truth and divine authority, and are to be believed to be true by the Christian man, in whatsoever is revealed in them, for the authority of God himself speaking therein.

Thus, in every way possible, the church has borne her testimony from the beginning, and still in our day, to her faith in the divine trustworthiness of her Scriptures, in all their affirmations of whatever kind. At no age has it been possible for men to express without rebuke the faintest doubt as to the absolute trustworthiness of their least declaration. Tertullian, writing at the opening of the third century, suggests, with evident hesitation and timidity, that Paul's language in the seventh chapter of First Corinthians may be intended to distinguish, in his remarks on marriage and divorce, between matters of divine commandment and of human arrangement. Dr. Sanday is obliged to comment on his language: "Any seeming depreciation of Scripture was as unpopular even then as it is now." The church has always believed her Scriptures to be the book of God, of which God was in such a sense the author that every one of its affirmations of whatever kind is to be esteemed as the utterance of God, of infallible truth and authority.

In the whole history of the church there have been but two movements of thought, tending to a lower conception of the inspiration and authority of Scripture, which have attained sufficient proportions to bring them into view in an historical sketch.

(1) The first of these may be called the Rationalistic view. Its characteristic feature is an effort to distinguish between inspired and uninspired elements within the Scriptures. With forerunners among the Humanists, this mode of thought was introduced by the Socinians, and taken up by the Syncretists in Germany, the Remonstrants in Holland, and the Jesuits in the Church of Rome. In the great life-and-death struggle of the eighteenth century it obtained great vogue among the defenders of supernatural religion, in their desperate efforts to save what was of even more importance,—just as a hard-pressed army may yield to the foe many an outpost which justly belongs to it, in the effort to save the citadel. In the nineteenth century it has retained a strong hold, especially upon apologetical writers, chiefly in the three forms which affirm respectively that only the mysteries of the faith are inspired, i. e. things undiscoverable by unaided reason,—that the Bible is inspired only in matters of faith and practice,—and that the Bible is inspired only in its thoughts or concepts, not in its words. But although this legacy from the rationalism of an evil time still makes its appearance in the pages of many theological writers, and has no doubt affected the faith of a considerable number of Christians, it has failed to supplant in either the creeds of the church or the hearts of the people the church-doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Bible, i. e. the doctrine that the Bible is inspired not in part but fully, in all its elements alike,—things discoverable by reason as well as mysteries, matters of history and science as well as of faith and practice, words as well as thoughts.

(2) The second of the lowered views of inspiration may be called the Mystical view. Its characteristic conception is that the Christian man has something within himself,—call it enlightened reason, spiritual insight, the Christian consciousness, the witness of the Spirit, or call it what you will,—to the test of which every "external revelation" is to be subjected, and according to the decision of which are the contents of the Bible to be valued. Very varied forms have been taken by this conception; and more or less expression has been given to it, in one form or another, in every age. In its extremer manifestations, it has formerly tended to sever itself from the main stream of Christian thought and even to form separated sects. But in our own century, through the great genius of Schleiermacher it has broken in upon the church like a flood, and washed into every corner of the Protestant world. As a consequence, we find men everywhere who desire to acknowledge as from God only such Scripture as "finds them,"—who cast the clear objective enunciation of God's will to the mercy of the currents of thought and feeling which sweep up and down in their own souls,—who "persist" sometimes, to use a sharp but sadly true phrase of Robert Alfred Vaughan's, "in their conceited rejection of the light without until they have turned into darkness their light within." We grieve over the inroads which this essentially naturalistic mode of thought has made in the Christian thinking of the day. But great and deplorable as they have been, they have not been so extensive as to supplant the church-doctrine of the absolute authority of the objective revelation of God in his Word, in either the creeds of the church, or the hearts of the people. Despite these attempts to introduce lowered conceptions, the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, which looks upon them as an oracular book, in all its parts and elements, alike, of God, trustworthy in all its affirmations of every kind, remains to-day, as it has always been, the vital faith of the people of God, and the formal teaching of the organized church.

The more we contemplate this church-doctrine, the more pressing becomes the question of what account we are to give of it,—its origin and persistence. How shall we account for the immediate adoption of so developed a doctrine of inspiration in the very infancy of the church, and for the tenacious hold which the church has kept upon it through so many ages? The account is simple enough, and capable of inclusion in a single sentence: this is the doctrine of inspiration which was held by the writers of the New Testament and by Jesus as reported in the Gospels. It is this simple fact that has commended it to the church of all ages as the true doctrine; and in it we may surely recognize an even more impressive fact than that of the existence of a stable, abiding church-doctrine standing over against the many theories of the day,—the fact, namely, that this church-doctrine of inspiration was the Bible doctrine before it was the church-doctrine, and is the church-doctrine only because it is the Bible doctrine. It is upon this fact that we should now fix our attention.

In the limited space at our disposal we need not attempt anything like a detailed proof that the church-doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Bible is the Bible's own doctrine of inspiration. And this especially for three very obvious reasons:

First, because it cannot be necessary to prove this to ourselves. We have the Bible in our hands, and we are accustomed to read it. It is enough for us to ask ourselves how the apostles and our Lord, as represented in its pages, conceived of what they called "the Scriptures," for the answer to come at once to our minds. As readers of the New Testament, we know that to the men of the New Testament "the Scriptures" were the Word of God which could not be broken, i. e. whose every word was trustworthy; and that a simple "It is written" was therefore to them the end of all strife. The proof of this is pervasive and level to the apprehension of every reader. It would be an insult to our intelligence were we to presume that we had not observed it, or could not apprehend its meaning.

Secondly, it is not necessary to prove that the New Testament regards "Scripture" as the mere Word of God, in the highest and most rigid sense, to modern biblical scholarship. Among untrammelled students of the Bible, it is practically a matter of common consent that the writers of the New Testament books looked upon what they called "Scripture" as divinely safeguarded in even its verbal expression, and as divinely trustworthy in all its parts, in all its elements, and in all its affirmations of whatever kind. This is, of course, the judgment of all those who have adopted this doctrine as their own, because they apprehend it to be the biblical doctrine. It is also the judgment of all those who can bring themselves to refuse a doctrine which they yet perceive to be a biblical doctrine. Whether we appeal, among men of this class, to such students of a more evangelical tendency, as Tholuck, Rothe, Farrar, Sanday, or to such extremer writers as Riehm, Reuss, Pfleiderer, Keunen, they will agree in telling us that the high doctrine of inspiration which we have called the church-doctrine was held by the writers of the New Testament. This is common ground between believing and unbelieving students of the Bible, and needs, therefore, no new demonstration in the forum of scholarship. Let us pause here, therefore, only long enough to allow Hermann Schultz, surely a fair example of the "advanced" school, to tell us what is the conclusion in this matter of the strictest and coldest exegetical science. "The Book of the Law," he tells us, "seemed already to the later poets of the Old Testament, the 'Word of God.' The post-canonical books of Israel regard the Law and the Prophets in this manner. And for the men of the New Testament, the Holy Scriptures of their people are already God's word in which God himself speaks." This view, which looked upon the scriptural books as verbally inspired, he adds, was the ruling one in the time of Christ, was shared by all the New Testament men, and by Christ himself, as a pious conception, and was expressly taught by the more scholastic writers among them. It is hardly necessary to prove what is so frankly confessed.

The third reason why it is not necessary to occupy our time with a formal proof that the Bible does teach this doctrine, arises from the circumstance that even those who seek to rid themselves of the pressure of this fact upon them, are observed to be unable to prosecute their argument without an implied admission of it as a fact. This is true, for example, of Dr. Sanday's endeavors to meet the appeal of the church to our Lord's authority in defence of the doctrine of plenary inspiration. He admits that the one support which has been sought by the church of all ages for its high doctrine has been the "extent to which it was recognized in the sayings of Christ himself." As over against this he begins by suggesting "that, whatever view our Lord himself entertained as to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the record of his words has certainly come down to us through the medium of persons who shared the current view on the subject." This surely amounts to a full admission that the writers of the New Testament at least, held and taught the obnoxious doctrine. He ends with the remark that "when deductions have been made … there still remains evidence enough that our Lord, while on earth did use the common language of his contemporaries in regard to the Old Testament." This surely amounts to a full admission that Christ as well as his reporters taught the obnoxious doctrine.

This will be found to be a typical case. Every attempt to escape from the authority of the New Testament enunciation of the doctrine of plenary inspiration, in the nature of the case begins by admitting that this is, in very fact, the New Testament doctrine. Shall we follow Dr. Sanday, and appeal from the apostles to Christ, and then call in the idea of kenosis, and affirm that in the days of his flesh, Christ did not speak out of the fulness and purity of his divine knowledge, but on becoming man had shrunk to man's capacity, and in such matters as this was limited in his conceptions by the knowledge and opinions current in his day and generation? In so saying, we admit, as has already been pointed out, not only that the apostles taught this high doctrine of inspiration, but also that Christ too, in whatever humiliation he did it, yet actually taught the same. Shall we then take refuge in the idea of accommodation, and explain that, in so speaking of the Scriptures, Christ and his apostles did not intend to teach the doctrine of inspiration implicated, but merely adopted, as a matter of convenience, the current language, as to Scripture, of the time? In so speaking, also, we admit that the actual language of Christ and his apostles expresses that high view of inspiration which was confessedly the current view of the day—whether as a matter of convenience or as a matter of truth, the Christian consciousness may be safely left to decide. Shall we then remind ourselves that Jesus himself committed nothing to writing, and appeal to the uncertainties which are accustomed to attend the record of teaching at second-hand? Thus, too, we allow that the words of Christ as transmitted to us do teach the obnoxious doctrine. Are we, then, to fall back upon the observation that the doctrine of plenary inspiration is not taught with equal plainness in every part of the Bible, but becomes clear only in the later Old Testament books, and is not explicitly enunciated except in the more scholastic of the New Testament books? In this, too, we admit that it is taught in the Scriptures; while the fact that it is taught not all at once, but with progressive clearness and fulness, is accordant with the nature of the Bible as a book written in the process of the ages and progressively developing the truth. Then, shall we affirm that our doctrine of inspiration is not to be derived solely from the teachings of the Bible, but from its teachings and phenomena in conjunction; and so call in what we deem the phenomena of the Bible to modify its teaching? Do we not see that the very suggestion of this process admits that the teaching of the Bible, when taken alone, i. e., in its purity and just as it is, gives us the unwelcome doctrine? Shall we, then, take counsel of desperation and assert that all appeal to the teaching of the Scriptures themselves in testimony to their own inspiration is an argument in a circle, appealing to their inspiration to validate their inspiration? Even this desperately illogical shift to be rid of the scriptural doctrine of inspiration, obviously involves the confession that this is the scriptural doctrine. No, the issue is not, What does the Bible teach? but, Is what the Bible teaches true? And it is amazing that any or all of such expedients can blind the eyes of any one to the stringency of this issue.

Even a detailed attempt to explain away the texts which teach the doctrine of the plenary inspiration and unvarying truth of Scripture, involves the admission that in their obvious meaning such texts teach the doctrine which it is sought to explain away. And think of explaining away the texts which inculcate the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures! The effort to do so is founded upon an inexplicably odd misapprehension—the misapprehension that the Bible witnesses to its plenary inspiration only in a text here and there: texts of exceptional clearness alone probably being in mind,—such as our Saviour's declaration that the Scriptures cannot be broken; or Paul's, that every scripture is inspired of God; or Peter's, that the men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Such texts, no doubt, do teach the doctrine of plenary inspiration, and are sadly in need of explaining away at the hands of those who will not believe this doctrine. As, indeed, we may learn from Dr. Sanday's treatment of one of them, that in which our Lord declares that the Scriptures cannot be broken. Dr. Sanday can only speak of this as "a passage of peculiar strangeness and difficulty"; "because," he tells us, "it seems to mean that the dicta of Scripture, even where we should naturally take them as figurative, must be true." Needless to say that the only "strangeness and difficulty" in the text arises from the unwillingness of the commentator to approach the Scriptures with the simple trust in their detailed divine trustworthiness and authority which characterized all our Lord's dealings with them.

But no grosser misconception could be conceived than that the Scriptures bear witness to their own plenary inspiration in these outstanding texts alone. These are but the culminating passages of a pervasive testimony to the divine character of Scripture, which fills the whole New Testament; and which includes not only such direct assertions of divinity and infallibility for Scripture as these, but, along with them, an endless variety of expressions of confidence in, and phenomena of use of, Scripture which are irresistible in their teaching when it is once fairly apprehended. The induction must be broad enough to embrace, and give their full weight to, a great variety of such facts as these: the lofty titles which are given to Scripture, and by which it is cited, such as "Scripture," "the Scriptures," even that almost awful title, "the Oracles of God"; the significant formulæ by which it is quoted, "It is written," "It is spoken," "It says," "God says"; such modes of adducing it as betray that to the writer "Scripture says" is equivalent to "God says," and even its narrative parts are conceived as direct utterances of God; the attribution to Scripture, as such, of divine qualities and acts, as in such phrases as "the Scriptures foresaw"; the ascription of the Scriptures, in whole or in their several parts as occasionally adduced, to the Holy Spirit as their author, while the human writers are treated as merely his media of expression; the reverence and trust shown, and the significance and authority ascribed, to the very words of Scripture; and the general attitude of entire subjection to every declaration of Scripture of whatever kind, which characterizes every line of the New Testament. The effort to explain away the Bible's witness to its plenary inspiration reminds one of a man standing safely in his laboratory and elaborately expounding—possibly by the aid of diagrams and mathematical formulæ—how every stone in an avalanche has a defined pathway and may easily be dodged by one of some presence of mind. We may fancy such an elaborate trifler's triumph as he would analyze the avalanche into its constituent stones, and demonstrate of stone after stone that its pathway is definite, limited, and may easily be avoided. But avalanches, unfortunately, do not come upon us, stone by stone, one at a time, courteously leaving us opportunity to withdraw from the pathway of each in turn: but all at once, in a roaring mass of destruction. Just so we may explain away a text or two which teach plenary inspiration, to our own closet satisfaction, dealing with them each without reference to its relation to the others: but these texts of ours, again, unfortunately do not come upon us in this artificial isolation; neither are they few in number. There are scores, hundreds, of them: and they come bursting upon us in one solid mass. Explain them away? We should have to explain away the whole New Testament. What a pity it is that we cannot see and feel the avalanche of texts beneath which we may lie hopelessly buried, as clearly as we may see and feel an avalanche of stones! Let us, however, but open our eyes to the variety and pervasiveness of the New Testament witness to its high estimate of Scripture, and we shall no longer wonder that modern scholarship finds itself compelled to allow that the Christian church has read her records correctly, and that the church-doctrine of inspiration is simply a transcript of the biblical doctrine; nor shall we any longer wonder that the church, receiving these Scriptures as her authoritative teacher of doctrine, adopted in the very beginnings of her life, the doctrine of plenary inspiration, and has held it with a tenacity that knows no wavering, until the present hour.

But, we may be reminded, the church has not held with such tenacity to all doctrines taught in the Bible. How are we to account, then, for the singular constancy of its confession of the Bible's doctrine of inspiration? The account to be given is again simple, and capable of being expressed in a single sentence. It is due to an instinctive feeling in the church, that the trustworthiness of the Scriptures lies at the foundation of trust in the Christian system of doctrine, and is therefore fundamental to the Christian hope and life. It is due to the church's instinct that the validity of her teaching of doctrine as the truth of God,—to the Christian's instinct that the validity of his hope in the several promises of the gospel,—rests on the trustworthiness of the Bible as a record of God's dealings and purposes with men.

Individuals may call in question the soundness of these instinctive judgments. And, indeed, there is a sense in which it would not be true to say that the truth of Christian teaching and the foundations of faith are suspended upon the doctrine of plenary inspiration, or upon any doctrine of inspiration whatever. They rest rather upon the previous fact of revelation: and it is important to keep ourselves reminded that the supernatural origin and contents of Christianity, not only may be vindicated apart from any question of the inspiration of the record, but, in point of fact, always are vindicated prior to any question of the inspiration of the record. We cannot raise the question whether God has given us an absolutely trustworthy record of the supernatural facts and teachings of Christianity, before we are assured that there are supernatural facts and teachings to be recorded. The fact that Christianity is a supernatural religion and the nature of Christianity as a supernatural religion, are matters of history; and are independent of any, and of every, theory of inspiration.

But this line of remark is of more importance to the Christian apologist than to the Christian believer, as such; and the instinct of the church that the validity of her teaching, and the instinct of the Christian that the validity of his hope, are bound up with the trustworthiness of the Bible, is a perfectly sound one. This for three reasons:

First, because the average Christian man is not and cannot be a fully furnished historical scholar. If faith in Christ is to be always and only the product of a thorough historical investigation into the origins of Christianity, there would certainly be few who could venture to preach Christ and him crucified with entire confidence; there would certainly be few who would be able to trust their all to him with entire security. The Christian scholar desires, and, thank God, is able to supply, a thoroughly trustworthy historical vindication of supernatural Christianity. But the Christian teacher desires, and, thank God, is able to lay his hands upon, a thoroughly trustworthy record of supernatural Christianity; and the Christian man requires, and, thank God, has, a thoroughly trustworthy Bible to which he can go directly and at once in every time of need. Though, then, in the abstract, we may say that the condition of the validity of the Christian teaching and of the Christian hope, is no more than the fact of the supernaturalism of Christianity, historically vindicated; practically we must say that the condition of the persistence of Christianity as a religion for the people, is the entire trustworthiness of the Scriptures as the record of the supernatural revelation which Christianity is.

Secondly, the merely historical vindication of the supernatural origin and contents of Christianity, while thorough and complete for Christianity as a whole, and for all the main facts and doctrines which enter into it, does not by itself supply a firm basis of trust for all the details of teaching and all the items of promise upon which the Christian man would fain lean. Christianity would be given to us; but it would be given to us, not in the exact form or in all the fulness with which God gave it to his needy children through his servants, the prophets, and through his Son and his apostles; but with the marks of human misapprehension, exaggeration, and minimizing upon it, and of whatever attrition may have been wrought upon it by its passage to us through the ages. That the church may have unsullied assurance in the details of its teaching,—that the Christian man may have unshaken confidence in the details of the promises to which he trusts,—they need, and they know that they need, a thoroughly trustworthy Word of God in which God himself speaks directly to them all the words of this life.

Thirdly, in the circumstances of the present case, we cannot fall back from trust in the Bible upon trust in the historical vindication of Christianity as a revelation from God, inasmuch as, since Christ and his apostles are historically shown to have taught the plenary inspiration of the Bible, the credit of the previous fact of revelation—even of the supreme revelation in Christ Jesus—is implicated in the truth of the doctrine of plenary inspiration. The historical vindication of Christianity as a revelation from God, vindicates as the truth of God all the contents of that revelation; and, among these contents, vindicates, as divinely true, the teaching of Christ and his apostles, that the Scriptures are the very Word of God, to be trusted as such in all the details of their teaching and promises. The instinct of the church is perfectly sound, therefore, when she clings to the trustworthiness of the Bible, as lying at the foundation of her teaching and her faith.

Much less can she be shaken from this instinctive conviction by the representations of individual thinkers who go yet a step further, and, refusing to pin their faith either to the Bible or to history, affirm that "the essence of Christianity" is securely intrenched in the subjective feelings of man, either as such, or as Christian man taught by the Holy Ghost; and therefore that there is by no means needed an infallible objective rule of faith in order to propagate or preserve Christian truth in the world. It is unnecessary to say that "the essence of Christianity" as conceived by these individuals, includes little that is characteristic of Christian doctrine, life, or hope, as distinct from what is taught by other religions or philosophies. And it is perhaps equally unnecessary to remind ourselves that such individuals, having gone so far, tend to take a further step still, and to discard the records which they thus judge to be unnecessary. Thus, there may be found even men still professing historical Christianity, who reason themselves into the conclusion that "in the nature of the case, no external authority can possibly be absolute in regard to spiritual truth"; just as men have been known to reason themselves into the conclusion that the external world has no objective reality and is naught but the projection of their own faculties. But as in the one case, so in the other, the common sense of men recoils from such subtleties; and it remains the profound persuasion of the Christian heart that without such an "external authority" as a thoroughly trustworthy Bible, the soul is left without sure ground for a proper knowledge of itself, its condition, and its need, or for a proper knowledge of God's provisions of mercy for it and his promises of grace to it,—without sure ground, in a word, for its faith and hope. Adolphe Monod gives voice to no more than the common Christian conviction, when he declares that, "If faith has not for its basis a testimony of God to which we must submit, as to an authority exterior to our personal judgment, and independent of it, then faith is no faith." "The more I study the Scriptures, the example of Christ, and of the apostles, and the history of my own heart," he adds, "the more I am convinced, that a testimony of God, placed without us and above us, exempt from all intermixture of sin and error which belong to a fallen race, and received with submission on the sole authority of God, is the true basis of faith."21

It is doubtless the profound and ineradicable conviction, so expressed, of the need of an infallible Bible, if men are to seek and find salvation in God's announced purpose of grace, and peace and comfort in his past dealings with his people, that has operated to keep the formulas of the churches and the hearts of the people of God, through so many ages, true to the Bible doctrine of plenary inspiration. In that doctrine men have found what their hearts have told them was the indispensable safeguard of a sure word of God to them,—a word of God to which they could resort with confidence in every time of need, to which they could appeal for guidance in every difficulty, for comfort in every sorrow, for instruction in every perplexity; on whose "Thus saith the Lord" they could safely rest all their aspirations and all their hopes. Such a Word of God, each one of us knows he needs,—not a Word of God that speaks to us only through the medium of our fellow-men, men of like passions and weaknesses with ourselves, so that we have to feel our way back to God's word through the church, through tradition, or through the apostles, standing between us and God; but a Word of God in which God speaks directly to each of our souls. Such a Word of God, Christ and his apostles offer us, when they give us the Scriptures, not as man's report to us of what God says, but as the very Word of God itself, spoken by God himself through human lips and pens. Of such a precious possession, given to her by such hands, the church will not lightly permit herself to be deprived. Thus the church's sense of her need of an absolutely infallible Bible, has co-operated with her reverence for the teaching of the Bible to keep her true, in all ages, to the Bible doctrine of plenary inspiration.

What, indeed, would the church be—what would we, as Christian men, be—without our inspired Bible? Many of us have, no doubt, read Jean Paul Richter's vision of a dead Christ, and have shuddered at his pictures of the woe of a world from which its Christ has been stolen away. It would be a theme worthy of some like genius to portray for us the vision of a dead Bible,—the vision of what this world of ours would be, had there been no living Word of God cast into its troubled waters with its voice of power, crying, "Peace! Be still!" What does this Christian world of ours not owe to this Bible! And to this Bible conceived, not as a part of the world's literature,—the literary product of the earliest years of the church; not as a book in which, by searching, we may find God and perchance somewhat of God's will: but as the very Word of God, instinct with divine life from the "In the beginning" of Genesis to the "Amen" of the Apocalypse,—breathed into by God, and breathing out God to every devout reader. It is because men have so thought of it that it has proved a leaven to leaven the whole lump of the world. We do not half realize what we owe to this book, thus trusted by men. We can never fully realize it. For we can never even in thought unravel from this complex web of modern civilization, all the threads from the Bible which have been woven into it, throughout the whole past, and now enter into its very fabric. And, thank God, much less can we ever untwine them in fact, and separate our modern life from all those Bible influences by which alone it is blessed, and sweetened, and made a life which men may live. Dr. Gardiner Spring published, years ago, a series of lectures in which he sought to take some account of the world's obligations to the Bible,—tracing in turn the services it has rendered to religion, to morals, to social institutions, to civil and religious liberty, to the freedom of slaves, to the emancipation of woman and the sweetening of domestic life, to public and private beneficence, to literary and scientific progress, and the like. And Adolphe Monod, in his own inimitable style, has done something to awaken us as individuals to what we owe to a fully trusted Bible, in the development of our character and religious life.23 In such matters, however, we can trust our imaginations better than our words, to remind us of the immensity of our debt.

Let it suffice to say that to a plenarily inspired Bible, humbly trusted as such, we actually, and as a matter of fact, owe all that has blessed our lives with hopes of an immortality of bliss, and with the present fruition of the love of God in Christ. This is not an exaggeration. We may say that without a Bible we might have had Christ and all that he stands for to our souls. Let us not say that this might not have been possible. But neither let us forget that, in point of fact, it is to the Bible that we owe it that we know Christ and are found in him. And may it not be fairly doubted whether you and I,—however it may have been with others,—would have had Christ had there been no Bible? We must not at any rate forget those nineteen Christian centuries which stretch between us and Christ, whose Christian light we would do much to blot out and sink in a dreadful darkness if we could blot out the Bible. Even with the Bible, and all that had come from the Bible to form Christian lives and inform a Christian literature, after a millennium and a half the darkness had grown so deep that a Reformation was necessary if Christian truth was to persist,—a Luther was necessary, raised up by God to rediscover the Bible and give it back to man. Suppose there had been no Bible for Luther to rediscover, and on the lines of which to refound the church,—and no Bible in the hearts of God's saints and in the pages of Christian literature, persisting through those darker ages to prepare a Luther to rediscover it? Though Christ had come into the world and had lived and died for us, might it not be to us,—you and me, I mean, who are not learned historians but simple men and women,—might it not be to us as though he had not been? Or, if some faint echo of a Son of God offering salvation to men could still be faintly heard even by such dull ears as ours, sounding down the ages, who would have ears to catch the fulness of the message of free grace which he brought into the world? who could assure our doubting souls that it was not all a pleasant dream? who could cleanse the message from the ever-gathering corruptions of the multiplying years? No: whatever might possibly have been had there been no Bible, it is actually to the Bible that you and I owe it that we have a Christ,—a Christ to love, to trust and to follow, a Christ without us the ground of our salvation, a Christ within us the hope of glory.

Our effort has been to bring clearly out what seem to be three very impressive facts regarding the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures,—the facts, namely, that this doctrine has always been, and is still, the church-doctrine of inspiration, as well the vital faith of the people of God as the formulated teaching of the official creeds; that it is undeniably the doctrine of inspiration held by Christ and his apostles, and commended to us as true by all the authority which we will allow to attach to their teaching; and that it is the foundation of our Christian thought and life, without which we could not, or could only with difficulty, maintain the confidence of our faith and the surety of our hope. On such grounds as these is not this doctrine commended to us as true?

But, it may be said, there are difficulties in the way. Of course there are. There are difficulties in the way of believing anything. There are difficulties in the way of believing that God is, or that Jesus Christ is God's Son who came into the world to save sinners. There are difficulties in the way of believing that we ourselves really exist, or that anything has real existence besides ourselves. When men give their undivided attention to these difficulties, they may become, and they have become, so perplexed in mind, that they have felt unable to believe that God is, or that they themselves exist, or that there is any external world without themselves. It would be a strange thing if it might not so fare with plenary inspiration also. Difficulties? Of course there are difficulties. It is nothing to the purpose to point out this fact. Dr. J. Oswald Dykes says with admirable truth: "If men must have a reconciliation for all conflicting truths before they will believe any; if they must see how the promises of God are to be fulfilled before they will obey his commands; if duty is to hang upon the satisfying of the understanding, instead of the submission of the will,—then the greater number of us will find the road of faith and the road of duty blocked at the outset." These wise words have their application also to our present subject. The question is not, whether the doctrine of plenary inspiration has difficulties to face. The question is, whether these difficulties are greater than the difficulty of believing that the whole church of God from the beginning has been deceived in her estimate of the Scriptures committed to her charge—are greater than the difficulty of believing that the whole college of the apostles, yes and Christ himself at their head, were themselves deceived as to the nature of those Scriptures which they gave the church as its precious possession, and have deceived with them twenty Christian centuries, and are likely to deceive twenty more before our boasted advancing light has corrected their error,—are greater than the difficulty of believing that we have no sure foundation for our faith and no certain warrant for our trust in Christ for salvation. We believe this doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures primarily because it is the doctrine which Christ and his apostles believed, and which they have taught us. It may sometimes seem difficult to take our stand frankly by the side of Christ and his apostles. It will always be found safe.

IV

THE BIBLICAL IDEA OF INSPIRATION

THE word "inspire" and its derivatives seem to have come into Middle English from the French, and have been employed from the first (early in the fourteenth century) in a considerable number of significations, physical and metaphorical, secular and religious. The derivatives have been multiplied and their applications extended during the procession of the years, until they have acquired a very wide and varied use. Underlying all their use, however, is the constant implication of an influence from without, producing in its object movements and effects beyond its native, or at least its ordinary powers. The noun "inspiration," although already in use in the fourteenth century, seems not to occur in any but a theological sense until late in the sixteenth century. The specifically theological sense of all these terms is governed, of course, by their usage in Latin theology; and this rests ultimately on their employment in the Latin Bible. In the Vulgate Latin Bible the verb inspiro (Gen. 2:7; Wisd. 15:11; Ecclus. 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21) and the noun inspiratio (2 Sam. 22:16; Job 32:8; Ps. 17:16; Acts 17:25) both occur four or five times in somewhat diverse applications. In the development of a theological nomenclature, however, they have acquired (along with other less frequent applications) a technical sense with reference to the Biblical writers or the Biblical books. The Biblical books are called inspired as the Divinely determined products of inspired men; the Biblical writers are called inspired as breathed into by the Holy Spirit, so that the product of their activities transcends human powers and becomes Divinely authoritative. Inspiration is, therefore, usually defined as a supernatural influence exerted on the sacred writers by the Spirit of God, by virtue of which their writings are given Divine trustworthiness.

Meanwhile, for English-speaking men, these terms have virtually ceased to be Biblical terms. They naturally passed from the Latin Vulgate into the English versions made from it (most fully into the Rheims-Douay: Job 32:8; Wisd. 15:11; Ecclus. 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21). But in the development of the English Bible they have found ever-decreasing place. In the English versions of the Apocrypha (both Authorized Version and Revised Version) "inspired" is retained in Wisd. 15:11; but in the canonical books the nominal form alone occurs in the Authorized Version and that only twice: Job 32:8, "But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding"; and 2 Tim. 3:16, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." The Revised Version removes the former of these instances, substituting "breath" for "inspiration"; and alters the latter so as to read: "Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness," with a marginal alternative in the form of, "Every scripture is inspired of God and profitable," etc. The word "inspiration" thus disappears from the English Bible, and the word "inspired" is left in it only once, and then, let it be added, by a distinct and even misleading mistranslation.

For the Greek word in this passage—θεόπνευστος, theópneustos—very distinctly does not mean "inspired of God." This phrase is rather the rendering of the Latin, divinitus inspirata, restored from the Wyclif ("Al Scripture of God ynspyrid is …") and Rhemish ("All Scripture inspired of God is …") versions of the Vulgate. The Greek word does not even mean, as the Authorized Version translates it, "given by inspiration of God," although that rendering (inherited from Tindale: "All Scripture given by inspiration of God is …" and its successors; cf. Geneva: "The whole Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is …") has at least to say for itself that it is a somewhat clumsy, perhaps, but not misleading, paraphrase of the Greek term in the theological language of the day. The Greek term has, however, nothing to say of inspiring or of inspiration: it speaks only of a "spiring" or "spiration." What it says of Scripture is, not that it is "breathed into by God" or is the product of the Divine "inbreathing" into its human authors, but that it is breathed out by God, "God-breathed," the product of the creative breath of God. In a word, what is declared by this fundamental passage is simply that the Scriptures are a Divine product, without any indication of how God has operated in producing them. No term could have been chosen, however, which would have more emphatically asserted the Divine production of Scripture than that which is here employed. The "breath of God" is in Scripture just the symbol of His almighty power, the bearer of His creative word. "By the word of Jehovah," we read in the significant parallel of Ps. 33:6, "were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." And it is particularly where the operations of God are energetic that this term (whether רוּחַ, ruh, or נְשָׁמָה, neshāmāh) is employed to designate them—God's breath is the irresistible outflow of His power. When Paul declares, then, that "every scripture," or "all scripture" is the product of the Divine breath, "is God-breathed," he asserts with as much energy as he could employ that Scripture is the product of a specifically Divine operation.

(1) 2 Tim. 3:16: In the passage in which Paul makes this energetic assertion of the Divine origin of Scripture he is engaged in explaining the greatness of the advantages which Timothy had enjoyed for learning the saving truth of God. He had had good teachers; and from his very infancy he had been, by his knowledge of the Scriptures, made wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. The expression, "sacred writings," here employed (ver. 15), is a technical one, not found elsewhere in the New Testament, it is true, but occurring currently in Philo and Josephus to designate that body of authoritative books which constituted the Jewish "Law." It appears here anarthrously because it is set in contrast with the oral teaching which Timothy had enjoyed, as something still better: he had not only had good instructors, but also always "an open Bible," as we should say, in his hand. To enhance yet further the great advantage of the possession of these Sacred Scriptures the apostle adds now a sentence throwing their nature strongly up to view. They are of Divine origin and therefore of the highest value for all holy purposes.

There is room for some difference of opinion as to the exact construction of this declaration. Shall we render "Every Scripture" or "All Scripture"? Shall we render "Every [or all] Scripture is God-breathed and [therefore] profitable," or "Every [or all] Scripture, being God-breathed, is as well profitable"? No doubt both questions are interesting, but for the main matter now engaging our attention they are both indifferent. Whether Paul, looking back at the Sacred Scriptures he had just mentioned, makes the assertion he is about to add, of them distributively, of all their parts, or collectively, of their entire mass, is of no moment: to say that every part of these Sacred Scriptures is God-breathed and to say that the whole of these Sacred Scriptures is God-breathed, is, for the main matter, all one. Nor is the difference great between saying that they are in all their parts, or in their whole extent, God-breathed and therefore profitable, and saying that they are in all their parts, or in their whole extent, because God-breathed as well profitable. In both cases these Sacred Scriptures are declared to owe their value to their Divine origin; and in both cases this their Divine origin is energetically asserted of their entire fabric. On the whole, the preferable construction would seem to be, "Every Scripture, seeing that it is God-breathed, is as well profitable." In that case, what the apostle asserts is that the Sacred Scriptures, in their every several passage—for it is just "passage of Scripture" which "Scripture" in this distributive use of it signifies—is the product of the creative breath of God, and, because of this its Divine origination, is of supreme value for all holy purposes.

It is to be observed that the apostle does not stop here to tell us either what particular books enter into the collection which he calls Sacred Scriptures, or by what precise operations God has produced them. Neither of these subjects entered into the matter he had at the moment in hand. It was the value of the Scriptures, and the source of that value in their Divine origin, which he required at the moment to assert; and these things he asserts, leaving to other occasions any further facts concerning them which it might be well to emphasize. It is also to be observed that the apostle does not tell us here everything for which the Scriptures are made valuable by their Divine origination. He speaks simply to the point immediately in hand, and reminds Timothy of the value which these Scriptures, by virtue of their Divine origin, have for the "man of God." Their spiritual power, as God-breathed, is all that he had occasion here to advert to. Whatever other qualities may accrue to them from their Divine origin, he leaves to other occasions to speak of.

(2) 2 Pet. 1:19–21: What Paul tells here about the Divine origin of the Scriptures is enforced and extended by a striking passage in 2 Pet. (1:19–21). Peter is assuring his readers that what had been made known to them of "the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" did not rest on "cunningly devised fables." He offers them the testimony of eyewitnesses of Christ's glory. And then he intimates that they have better testimony than even that of eyewitnesses. "We have," says he, "the prophetic word" (English versions, unhappily, "the word of prophecy"): and this, he says, is "more sure," and therefore should certainly be heeded. He refers, of course, to the Scriptures. Of what other "prophetic word" could he, over against the testimony of the eyewitnesses of Christ's "excellent glory" (Authorized Version) say that "we have" it, that is, it is in our hands? And he proceeds at once to speak of it plainly as "Scriptural prophecy." You do well, he says, to pay heed to the prophetic word, because we know this first, that "every prophecy of scripture …" It admits of more question, however, whether by this phrase he means the whole of Scripture, designated according to its character, as prophetic, that is, of Divine origin; or only that portion of Scripture which we discriminate as particularly prophetic, the immediate revelations contained in Scripture. The former is the more likely view, inasmuch as the entirety of Scripture is elsewhere conceived and spoken of as prophetic. In that case, what Peter has to say of this "every prophecy of scripture"—the exact equivalent, it will be observed, in this case of Paul's "every scripture" (2 Tim. 3:16)—applies to the whole of Scripture in all its parts. What he says of it is that it does not come "of private interpretation"; that is, it is not the result of human investigation into the nature of things, the product of its writers' own thinking. This is as much as to say it is of Divine gift. Accordingly, he proceeds at once to make this plain in a supporting clause which contains both the negative and the positive declaration: "For no prophecy ever came [margin "was brought"] by the will of man, but it was as borne by the Holy Spirit that men spoke from God." In this singularly precise and pregnant statement there are several things which require to be carefully observed. There is, first of all, the emphatic denial that prophecy—that is to say, on the hypothesis upon which we are working, Scripture—owes its origin to human initiative: "No prophecy ever was brought—'came' is the word used in the English version text, with 'was brought' in Revised Version margin—by the will of man." Then, there is the equally emphatic assertion that its source lies in God: it was spoken by men, indeed, but the men who spoke it "spake from God." And a remarkable clause is here inserted, and thrown forward in the sentence that stress may fall on it, which tells us how it could be that men, in speaking, should speak not from themselves, but from God: it was "as borne"—it is the same word which was rendered "was brought" above, and might possibly be rendered "brought" here—"by the Holy Spirit" that they spoke. Speaking thus under the determining influence of the Holy Spirit, the things they spoke were not from themselves, but from God.

Here is as direct an assertion of the Divine origin of Scripture as that of 2 Tim. 3:16. But there is more here than a simple assertion of the Divine origin of Scripture. We are advanced somewhat in our understanding of how God has produced the Scriptures. It was through the instrumentality of men who "spake from him." More specifically, it was through an operation of the Holy Ghost on these men which is described as "bearing" them. The term here used is a very specific one. It is not to be confounded with guiding, or directing, or controlling, or even leading in the full sense of that word. It goes beyond all such terms, in assigning the effect produced specifically to the active agent. What is "borne" is taken up by the "bearer," and conveyed by the "bearer's" power, not its own, to the "bearer's" goal, not its own. The men who spoke from God are here declared, therefore, to have been taken up by the Holy Spirit and brought by His power to the goal of His choosing. The things which they spoke under this operation of the Spirit were therefore His things, not theirs. And that is the reason which is assigned why "the prophetic word" is so sure. Though spoken through the instrumentality of men, it is, by virtue of the fact that these men spoke "as borne by the Holy Spirit," an immediately Divine word. It will be observed that the proximate stress is laid here, not on the spiritual value of Scripture (though that, too, is seen in the background), but on the Divine trustworthiness of Scripture. Because this is the way every prophecy of Scripture "has been brought," it affords a more sure basis of confidence than even the testimony of human eyewitnesses. Of course, if we do not understand by "the prophetic word" here the entirety of Scripture described, according to its character, as revelation, but only that element in Scripture which we call specifically prophecy, then it is directly only of that element in Scripture that these great declarations are made. In any event, however, they are made of the prophetic element in Scripture as written, which was the only form in which the readers of this Epistle possessed it, and which is the thing specifically intimated in the phrase "every prophecy of scripture." These great declarations are made, therefore, at least of large tracts of Scripture; and if the entirety of Scripture is intended by the phrase "the prophetic word," they are made of the whole of Scripture.

(3) Jn. 10:34 f.: How far the supreme trustworthiness of Scripture, thus asserted, extends may be conveyed to us by a passage in one of Our Lord's discourses recorded by John (Jn. 10:34–35). The Jews, offended by Jesus' "making himself God," were in the act to stone Him, when He defended Himself thus: "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came (and the scripture cannot be broken), say ye of him, whom the Father sanctified [margin "consecrated"] and sent unto the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" It may be thought that this defence is inadequate. It certainly is incomplete: Jesus made Himself God (Jn. 10:33) in a far higher sense than that in which "Ye are gods" was said of those "unto whom the word of God came": He had just declared in unmistakable terms, "I and the Father are one." But it was quite sufficient for the immediate end in view—to repel the technical charge of blasphemy based on His making Himself God: it is not blasphemy to call one God in any sense in which he may fitly receive that designation; and certainly if it is not blasphemy to call such men as those spoken of in the passage of Scripture adduced gods, because of their official functions, it cannot be blasphemy to call Him God whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world. The point for us to note, however, is merely that Jesus' defence takes the form of an appeal to Scripture; and it is important to observe how He makes this appeal. In the first place, He adduces the Scriptures as law: "Is it not written in your law?" He demands. The passage of Scripture which He adduces is not written in that portion of Scripture which was more specifically called "the Law," that is to say, the Pentateuch; nor in any portion of Scripture of formally legal contents. It is written in the Book of Psalms; and in a particular psalm which is as far as possible from presenting the external characteristics of legal enactment (Ps. 82:6). When Jesus adduces this passage, then, as written in the "law" of the Jews, He does it, not because it stands in this psalm, but because it is a part of Scripture at large. In other words, He here ascribes legal authority to the entirety of Scripture, in accordance with a conception common enough among the Jews (cf. Jn. 12:34), and finding expression in the New Testament occasionally, both on the lips of Jesus Himself, and in the writings of the apostles. Thus, on a later occasion (Jn. 15:25), Jesus declares that it is written in the "law" of the Jews, "They hated me without a cause," a clause found in Ps. 35:19. And Paul assigns passages both from the Psalms and from Isaiah to "the Law" (1 Cor. 14:21; Rom. 3:19), and can write such a sentence as this (Gal. 4:21 f.): "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written …" quoting from the narrative of Genesis. We have seen that the entirety of Scripture was conceived as "prophecy"; we now see that the entirety of Scripture was also conceived as "law": these three terms, the law, prophecy, Scripture, were indeed, materially, strict synonyms, as our present passage itself advises us, by varying the formula of adduction in contiguous verses from "law" to "scripture." And what is thus implied in the manner in which Scripture is adduced, is immediately afterward spoken out in the most explicit language, because it forms an essential element in Our Lord's defence. It might have been enough to say simply, "Is it not written in your law?" But Our Lord, determined to drive His appeal to Scripture home, sharpens the point to the utmost by adding with the highest emphasis: "and the scripture cannot be broken." This is the reason why it is worth while to appeal to what is "written in the law," because "the scripture cannot be broken." The word "broken" here is the common one for breaking the law, or the Sabbath, or the like (Jn. 5:18; 7:23; Mt. 5:19), and the meaning of the declaration is that it is impossible for the Scripture to be annulled, its authority to be withstood, or denied. The movement of thought is to the effect that, because it is impossible for the Scripture—the term is perfectly general and witnesses to the unitary character of Scripture (it is all, for the purpose in hand, of a piece)—to be withstood, therefore this particular Scripture which is cited must be taken as of irrefragable authority. What we have here is, therefore, the strongest possible assertion of the indefectible authority of Scripture; precisely what is true of Scripture is that it "cannot be broken." Now, what is the particular thing in Scripture, for the confirmation of which the indefectible authority of Scripture is thus invoked? It is one of its most casual clauses—more than that, the very form of its expression in one of its most casual clauses. This means, of course, that in the Saviour's view the indefectible authority of Scripture attaches to the very form of expression of its most casual clauses. It belongs to Scripture through and through, down to its most minute particulars, that it is of indefectible authority.

It is sometimes suggested, it is true, that Our Lord's argument here is an argumentum ad hominem, and that his words, therefore, express not His own view of the authority of Scripture, but that of His Jewish opponents. It will scarcely be denied that there is a vein of satire running through Our Lord's defence: that the Jews so readily allowed that corrupt judges might properly be called "gods," but could not endure that He whom the Father had consecrated and sent into the world should call Himself Son of God, was a somewhat pungent fact to throw up into such a high light. But the argument from Scripture is not ad hominem but e concessu; Scripture was common ground with Jesus and His opponents. If proof were needed for so obvious a fact, it would be supplied by the circumstance that this is not an isolated but a representative passage. The conception of Scripture thrown up into such clear view here supplies the ground of all Jesus' appeals to Scripture, and of all the appeals of the New Testament writers as well. Everywhere, to Him and to them alike, an appeal to Scripture is an appeal to an indefectible authority whose determination is final; both He and they make their appeal indifferently to every part of Scripture, to every element in Scripture, to its most incidental clauses as well as to its most fundamental principles, and to the very form of its expression. This attitude toward Scripture as an authoritative document is, indeed, already intimated by their constant designation of it by the name of Scripture, the Scriptures, that is "the Document," by way of eminence; and by their customary citation of it with the simple formula, "It is written." What is written in this document admits so little of questioning that its authoritativeness required no asserting, but might safely be taken for granted. Both modes of expression belong to the constantly illustrated habitudes of Our Lord's speech. The first words He is recorded as uttering after His manifestation to Israel were an appeal to the unquestionable authority of Scripture; to Satan's temptations He opposed no other weapon than the final "It is written"! (Mt. 4:4, 7, 10; Lk. 4:4, 8). And among the last words which He spoke to His disciples before He was received up was a rebuke to them for not understanding that all things "which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and psalms" concerning Him—that is (ver. 45) in the entire "Scriptures"—"must needs be" (very emphatic) "fulfilled" (Lk. 24:44). "Thus it is written," says He (ver. 46), as rendering all doubt absurd. For, as He had explained earlier upon the same day (Lk. 24:25 ff.), it argues only that one is "foolish and slow at heart" if he does not "believe in" (if his faith does not rest securely on, as on a firm foundation) "all" (without limit of subject-matter here) "that the prophets" (explained in ver. 27 as equivalent to "all the scriptures") "have spoken."

The necessity of the fulfilment of all that is written in Scripture, which is so strongly asserted in these last instructions to His disciples, is frequently adverted to by Our Lord. He repeatedly explains of occurrences occasionally happening that they have come to pass "that the scripture might be fulfilled" (Mk. 14:49; Jn. 13:18; 17:12; cf. 12:14; Mk. 9:12, 13). On the basis of Scriptural declarations, therefore, He announces with confidence that given events will certainly occur: "All ye shall be offended [literally "scandalized"] in me this night: for it is written …" (Mt. 26:31; Mk. 14:27; cf. Lk. 20:17). Although holding at His command ample means of escape, He bows before on-coming calamities, for, He asks, how otherwise "should the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" (Mt. 26:54). It is not merely the two disciples with whom He talked on the way to Emmaus (Lk. 24:25) whom He rebukes for not trusting themselves more perfectly to the teaching of Scripture. "Ye search the scriptures," He says to the Jews, in the classical passage (Jn. 5:39), "because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me; and ye will not come to me, that ye may have life!" These words surely were spoken more in sorrow than in scorn: there is no blame implied either for searching the Scriptures or for thinking that eternal life is to be found in Scripture; approval rather. What the Jews are blamed for is that they read with a veil lying upon their hearts which He would fain take away (2 Cor. 3:15 f.). "Ye search the scriptures"—that is right: and "even you" (emphatic) "think to have eternal life in them"—that is right, too. But "it is these very Scriptures" (very emphatic) "which are bearing witness" (continuous process) "of me; and" (here is the marvel!) "ye will not come to me and have life!"—that you may, that is, reach the very end you have so properly in view in searching the Scriptures. Their failure is due, not to the Scriptures but to themselves, who read the Scriptures to such little purpose.

Quite similarly Our Lord often finds occasion to express wonder at the little effect to which Scripture had been read, not because it had been looked into too curiously, but because it had not been looked into earnestly enough, with sufficiently simple and robust trust in its every declaration. "Have ye not read even this scripture?" He demands, as He adduces Ps. 118 to show that the rejection of the Messiah was already intimated in Scripture (Mk. 12:10; Mt. 21:42 varies the expression to the equivalent: "Did ye never read in the scriptures?"). And when the indignant Jews came to Him complaining of the Hosannas with which the children in the Temple were acclaiming Him, and demanding, "Hearest thou what these are saying?" He met them (Mt. 21:16) merely with, "Yea: did ye never read, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" The underlying thought of these passages is spoken out when He intimates that the source of all error in Divine things is just ignorance of the Scriptures: "Ye do err," He declares to His questioners, on an important occasion, "not knowing the scriptures" (Mt. 22:29); or, as it is put, perhaps more forcibly, in interrogative form, in its parallel in another Gospel: "Is it not for this cause that ye err, that ye know not the scriptures?" (Mk. 12:24). Clearly, he who rightly knows the Scriptures does not err. The confidence with which Jesus rested on Scripture, in its every declaration, is further illustrated in a passage like Mt. 19:4. Certain Pharisees had come to Him with a question on divorce and He met them thus: "Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?… What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." The point to be noted is the explicit reference of Gen. 2:24 to God as its author: "He who made them … said"; "what therefore God hath joined together." Yet this passage does not give us a saying of God's recorded in Scripture, but just the word of Scripture itself, and can be treated as a declaration of God's only on the hypothesis that all Scripture is a declaration of God's. The parallel in Mk. (10:5 ff.) just as truly, though not as explicitly, assigns the passage to God as its author, citing it as authoritative law and speaking of its enactment as an act of God's. And it is interesting to observe in passing that Paul, having occasion to quote the same passage (1 Cor. 6:16), also explicitly quotes it as a Divine word: "For, The twain, saith he, shall become one flesh"—the "he" here, in accordance with a usage to be noted later, meaning just "God."

Thus clear is it that Jesus' occasional adduction of Scripture as an authoritative document rests on an ascription of it to God as its author. His testimony is that whatever stands written in Scripture is a word of God. Nor can we evacuate this testimony of its force on the plea that it represents Jesus only in the days of His flesh, when He may be supposed to have reflected merely the opinions of His day and generation. The view of Scripture He announces was, no doubt, the view of His day and generation as well as His own view. But there is no reason to doubt that it was held by Him, not because it was the current view, but because, in His Divine-human knowledge, He knew it to be true; for, even in His humiliation, He is the faithful and true witness. And in any event we should bear in mind that this was the view of the resurrected as well as of the humiliated Christ. It was after He had suffered and had risen again in the power of His Divine life that He pronounced those foolish and slow of heart who do not believe all that stands written in all the Scriptures (Lk. 24:25); and that He laid down the simple "Thus it is written" as the sufficient ground of confident belief (Lk. 24:46). Nor can we explain away Jesus' testimony to the Divine trustworthiness of Scripture by interpreting it as not His own, but that of His followers, placed on His lips in their reports of His words. Not only is it too constant, minute, intimate and in part incidental, and therefore, as it were, hidden, to admit of this interpretation; but it so pervades all our channels of information concerning Jesus' teaching as to make it certain that it comes actually from Him. It belongs not only to the Jesus of our evangelical records but as well to the Jesus of the earlier sources which underlie our evangelical records, as anyone may assure himself by observing the instances in which Jesus adduces the Scriptures as Divinely authoritative that are recorded in more than one of the Gospels (e.g. "It is written," Mt. 4:4, 7, 10 [Lk. 4:4, 8, 10]; Mt. 11:10; [Lk. 7:27]; Mt. 21:13 [Lk. 19:46; Mk. 11:17]; Mt. 26:31 [Mk. 14:21]; "the scripture" or "the scriptures," Mt. 19:4 [Mk. 10:9]; Mt. 21:42 [Mk. 12:10; Lk. 20:17]; Mt. 22:29 [Mk. 12:24; Lk. 20:37]; Mt. 26:56 [Mk. 14:49; Lk. 24:44]). These passages alone would suffice to make clear to us the testimony of Jesus to Scripture as in all its parts and declarations Divinely authoritative.

The attempt to attribute the testimony of Jesus to His followers has in its favor only the undeniable fact that the testimony of the writers of the New Testament is to precisely the same effect as His. They, too, cursorily speak of Scripture by that pregnant name and adduce it with the simple "It is written," with the implication that whatever stands written in it is Divinely authoritative. As Jesus' official life begins with this "It is written" (Mt. 4:4), so the evangelical proclamation begins with an "Even as it is written" (Mk. 1:2); and as Jesus sought the justification of His work in a solemn "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead the third day" (Lk. 24:46 ff.), so the apostles solemnly justified the Gospel which they preached, detail after detail, by appeal to the Scriptures, "That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures" and "That he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3, 4; cf. Acts 8:35; 17:3; 26:22, and also Rom. 1:17; 3:4, 10; 4:17; 11:26; 14:11; 1 Cor. 1:19; 2:9; 3:19; 15:45; Gal. 3:10, 13; 4:22, 27). Wherever they carried the gospel it was as a gospel resting on Scripture that they proclaimed it (Acts 17:2; 18:24, 28); and they encouraged themselves to test its truth by the Scriptures (Acts 17:11). The holiness of life they inculcated, they based on Scriptural requirement (1 Pet. 1:16), and they commended the royal law of love which they taught by Scriptural sanction (Jas. 2:8). Every detail of duty was supported by them by an appeal to Scripture (Acts 23:5; Rom. 12:19). The circumstances of their lives and the events occasionally occurring about them are referred to Scripture for their significance (Rom. 2:26; 8:36; 9:33; 11:8; 15:9, 21; 2 Cor. 4:13). As Our Lord declared that whatever was written in Scripture must needs be fulfilled (Mt. 26:54; Lk. 22:37; 24:44), so His followers explained one of the most startling facts which had occurred in their experience by pointing out that "it was needful that the scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spake before by the mouth of David" (Acts 1:16). Here the ground of this constant appeal to Scripture, so that it is enough that a thing "is contained in scripture" (1 Pet. 2:6) for it to be of indefectible authority, is plainly enough declared: Scripture must needs be fulfilled, for what is contained in it is the declaration of the Holy Ghost through the human author. What Scripture says, God says; and accordingly we read such remarkable declarations as these: "For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up" (Rom. 9:17); "And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand unto Abraham, … In thee shall all the nations be blessed" (Gal. 3:8). These are not instances of simple personification of Scripture, which is itself a sufficiently remarkable usage (Mk. 15:28; Jn. 7:38, 42; 19:37; Rom. 4:3; 10:11; 11:2; Gal. 4:30; 1 Tim. 5:18: Jas. 2:23; 4:5 f.), vocal with the conviction expressed by James (4:5) that Scripture cannot speak in vain. They indicate a certain confusion in current speech between "Scripture" and "God," the outgrowth of a deep-seated conviction that the word of Scripture is the word of God. It was not "Scripture" that spoke to Pharaoh, or gave his great promise to Abraham, but God. But ["Scripture" and "God" lay so close together in the minds of the writers of the New Testament that they could naturally speak of "Scripture" doing what Scripture records God as doing.] It was, however, even more natural to them to speak casually of God saying what the Scriptures say; and accordingly we meet with forms of speech such as these: "Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit saith, To-day if ye shall hear His voice," etc. (Heb. 3:7, quoting Ps. 95:7); "Thou art God … who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage," etc. (Acts 4:25 Authorized Version, quoting Ps. 2:1); "He that raised him from the dead … hath spoken on this wise, I will give you … because he saith also in another [place] …" (Acts 13:34, quoting Isa. 55:3 and Ps. 16:10), and the like. The words put into God's mouth in each case are not words of God recorded in the Scriptures, but just Scripture words in themselves. When we take the two classes of passages together, in the one of which the Scriptures are spoken of as God, while in the other God is spoken of as if He were the Scriptures, we may perceive how close the identification of the two was in the minds of the writers of the New Testament.

This identification is strikingly observable in certain catenae of quotations, in which there are brought together a number of passages of Scripture closely connected with one another. The first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews supplies an example. We may begin with ver. 5: "For unto which of the angels said he"—the subject being necessarily "God"—"at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?"—the citation being from Ps. 2:7 and very appropriate in the mouth of God—"and again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?"—from 2 S. 7:14, again a declaration of God's own—"And when he again bringeth in the firstborn into the world he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him"—from Deut. 32:43, Septuagint, or Ps. 97:7, in neither of which is God the speaker—"And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire"—from Ps. 104:4, where again God is not the speaker but is spoken of in the third person—"but of the Son he saith. Thy throne, O God, etc."—from Ps. 45:6, 7 where again God is not the speaker, but is addressed—"And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning," etc.—from Ps. 102:25–27, where again God is not the speaker but is addressed—"But of which of the angels hath he said at any time, Sit thou on my right hand?" etc.—from Ps. 110:1, in which God is the speaker. Here we have passages in which God is the speaker and passages in which God is not the speaker, but is addressed or spoken of, indiscriminately assigned to God, because they all have it in common that they are words of Scripture, and as words of Scripture are words of God. Similarly in Rom. 15:9 ff. we have a series of citations the first of which is introduced by "as it is written," and the next two by "again he saith," and "again," and the last by "and again, Isaiah saith," the first being from Ps. 18:49; the second from Deut. 32:43; the third from Ps. 117:1; and the last from Isa. 11:10. Only the last (the only one here assigned to the human author) is a word of God in the text of the Old Testament.

This view of the Scriptures as a compact mass of words of God occasioned the formation of a designation for them by which this their character was explicitly expressed. This designation is "the sacred oracles," "the oracles of God." It occurs with extraordinary frequency in Philo, who very commonly refers to Scripture as "the sacred oracles" and cites its several passages as each an "oracle." Sharing, as they do, Philo's conception of the Scriptures as, in all their parts, a word of God, the New Testament writers naturally also speak of them under this designation. The classical passage is Rom. 3:2 (cf. Heb. 5:12; Acts 7:38). Here Paul begins an enumeration of the advantages which belonged to the chosen people above other nations; and, after declaring these advantages to have been great and numerous, he places first among them all their possession of the Scriptures: "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way: first of all, that they were intrusted with the oracles of God." That by "the oracles of God" here are meant just the Holy Scriptures in their entirety, conceived as a direct Divine revelation, and not any portions of them, or elements in them more especially thought of as revelatory, is perfectly clear from the wide contemporary use of this designation in this sense by Philo, and is put beyond question by the presence in the New Testament of habitudes of speech which rest on and grow out of the conception of Scripture embodied in this term. From the point of view of this designation, Scripture is thought of as the living voice of God speaking in all its parts directly to the reader; and, accordingly, it is cited by some such formula as "it is said," and this mode of citing Scripture duly occurs as an alternative to "it is written" (Lk. 4:12, replacing "it is written" in Mt.; Heb. 3:15; cf. Rom. 4:18). It is due also to this point of view that Scripture is cited, not as what God or the Holy Spirit "said," but what He "says," the present tense emphasizing the living voice of God speaking in Scriptures to the individual soul (Heb. 3:7; Acts 13:35; Heb. 1:7, 8, 10; Rom. 15:10). And especially there is due to it the peculiar usage by which Scripture is cited by the simple "saith," without expressed subject, the subject being too well understood, when Scripture is adduced, to require stating; for who could be the speaker of the words of Scripture but God only (Rom. 15:10; 1 Cor. 6:16; 2 Cor. 6:2; Gal. 3:16; Eph. 4:8; 5:14)? The analogies of this pregnant subjectless "saith" are very widespread. It was with it that the ancient Pythagoreans and Platonists and the mediaeval Aristotelians adduced each their master's teaching; it was with it that, in certain circles, the judgments of Hadrian's great jurist Salvius Julianus were cited; African stylists were even accustomed to refer by it to Sallust, their great model. There is a tendency, cropping out occasionally, in the old Testament, to omit the name of God as superfluous, when He, as the great logical subject always in mind, would be easily understood (cf. Job 20:23; 21:17; Ps. 114:2; Lam. 4:22). So, too, when the New Testament writers quoted Scripture there was no need to say whose word it was: that lay beyond question in every mind. This usage, accordingly, is a specially striking intimation of the vivid sense which the New Testament writers had of the Divine origin of the Scriptures, and means that in citing them they were acutely conscious that they were citing immediate words of God. How completely the Scriptures were to them just the word of God may be illustrated by a passage like Gal. 3:16: "He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." We have seen Our Lord hanging an argument on the very words of Scripture (Jn. 10:34); elsewhere His reasoning depends on the particular tense (Mt. 22:32) or word (Mt. 22:43) used in Scripture. Here Paul's argument rests similarly on a grammatical form. No doubt it is the grammatical form of the word which God is recorded as having spoken to Abraham that is in question. But Paul knows what grammatical form God employed in speaking to Abraham only as the Scriptures have transmitted it to him; and, as we have seen, in citing the words of God and the words of Scripture he was not accustomed to make any distinction between them. It is probably the Scriptural word as a Scriptural word, therefore, which he has here in mind: though, of course, it is possible that what he here witnesses to is rather the detailed trustworthiness of the Scriptural record than its direct divinity—if we can separate two things which apparently were not separated in Paul's mind. This much we can at least say without straining, that the designation of Scripture as "scripture" and its citation by the formula, "It is written," attest primarily its indefectible authority; the designation of it as "oracles" and the adduction of it by the formula, "It says," attest primarily its immediate divinity. Its authority rests on its divinity and its divinity expresses itself in its trustworthiness; and the New Testament writers in all their use of it treat it as what they declare it to be—a God-breathed document, which, because God-breathed, as through and through trustworthy in all its assertions, authoritative in all its declarations, and down to its last particular, the very word of God, His "oracles."

That the Scriptures are throughout a Divine book, created by the Divine energy and speaking in their every part with Divine authority directly to the heart of the readers, is the fundamental fact concerning them which is witnessed by Christ and the sacred writers to whom we owe the New Testament. But the strength and constancy with which they bear witness to this primary fact do not prevent their recognizing by the side of it that the Scriptures have come into being by the agency of men. It would be inexact to say that they recognize a human element in Scripture: they do not parcel Scripture out, assigning portions of it, or elements in it, respectively to God and man. In their view the whole of Scripture in all its parts and in all its elements, down to the least minutiae, in form of expression as well as in substance of teaching, is from God; but the whole of it has been given by God through the instrumentality of men. There is, therefore, in their view, not, indeed, a human element or ingredient in Scripture, and much less human divisions or sections of Scripture, but a human side or aspect to Scripture; and they do not fail to give full recognition to this human side or aspect. In one of the primary passages which has already been before us, their conception is given, if somewhat broad and very succinct, yet clear expression. No 'prophecy,' Peter tells us (2 Pet. 1:21), 'ever came by the will of man; but as borne by the Holy Ghost, men spake from God.' Here the whole initiative is assigned to God, and such complete control of the human agents that the product is truly God's work. The men who speak in this "prophecy of scripture" speak not of themselves or out of themselves, but from "God": they speak only as they are "borne by the Holy Ghost." But it is they, after all, who speak. Scripture is the product of man, but only of man speaking from God and under such a control of the Holy Spirit as that in their speaking they are "borne" by Him. The conception obviously is that the Scriptures have been given by the instrumentality of men; and this conception finds repeated incidental expression throughout the New Testament.

It is this conception, for example, which is expressed when Our Lord, quoting Ps. 110, declares of its words that "David himself said in the Holy Spirit" (Mk. 12:36). There is a certain emphasis here on the words being David's own words, which is due to the requirements of the argument Our Lord was conducting, but which none the less sincerely represents Our Lord's conception of their origin. They are David's own words which we find in Ps. 110, therefore; but they are David's own words, spoken not of his own motion merely, but "in the Holy Spirit," that is to say—we could not better paraphrase it—"as borne by the Holy Spirit." In other words, they are "God-breathed" words and therefore authoritative in a sense above what any words of David, not spoken in the Holy Spirit, could possibly be. Generalizing the matter, we may say that the words of Scripture are conceived by Our Lord and the New Testament writers as the words of their human authors when speaking "in the Holy Spirit," that is to say, by His initiative and under His controlling direction. The conception finds even more precise expression, perhaps, in such a statement as we find—it is Peter who is speaking and it is again a psalm which is cited—in Acts 1:16, "The Holy Spirit spake by the mouth of David." Here the Holy Spirit is adduced, of course, as the real author of what is said (and hence Peter's certainty that what is said will be fulfilled); but David's mouth is expressly designated as the instrument (it is the instrumental preposition that is used) by means of which the Holy Spirit speaks the Scripture in question. He does not speak save through David's mouth. Accordingly, in Acts 4:25, 'the Lord that made the heaven and earth,' acting by His Holy Spirit, is declared to have spoken another psalm 'through the mouth of … David,' His "servant"; and in Mt. 13:35 still another psalm is adduced as "spoken through the prophet" (cf. Mt. 2:5). In the very act of energetically asserting the Divine origin of Scripture the human instrumentality through which it is given is constantly recognized. The New Testament writers have, therefore, no difficulty in assigning Scripture to its human authors, or in discovering in Scripture traits due to its human authorship. They freely quote it by such simple formulae as these: "Moses saith" (Rom. 10:19); "Moses said" (Mt. 22:24; Mk. 7:10; Acts 3:22); "Moses writeth" (Rom. 10:5); "Moses wrote" (Mk. 12:19; Lk. 20:28); "Isaiah … saith" (Rom. 10:20); "Isaiah said" (Jn. 12:39); "Isaiah crieth" (Rom. 9:27); "Isaiah hath said before" (Rom. 9:29); "said Isaiah the prophet" (Jn. 1:23); "did Isaiah prophesy" (Mk. 7:6; Mt. 15:7); "David saith" (Lk. 20:42; Acts 2:25; Rom. 11:9); "David said" (Mk. 12:36). It is to be noted that when thus Scripture is adduced by the names of its human authors, it is a matter of complete indifference whether the words adduced are comments of these authors or direct words of God recorded by them. As the plainest words of the human authors are assigned to God as their real author, so the most express words of God, repeated by the Scriptural writers, are cited by the names of these human writers (Mt. 15:7; Mk. 7:6; Rom. 10:5, 19, 20; cf. Mk. 7:10 from the Decalogue). To say that "Moses" or "David says," is evidently thus only a way of saying that "Scripture says," which is the same as to say that "God says." Such modes of citing Scripture, accordingly, carry us little beyond merely connecting the name, or perhaps we may say the individuality, of the several writers with the portions of Scripture given through each. How it was given through them is left meanwhile, if not without suggestion, yet without specific explanation. We seem safe only in inferring this much: that the gift of Scripture through its human authors took place by a process much more intimate than can be expressed by the term "dictation," and that it took place in a process in which the control of the Holy Spirit was too complete and pervasive to permit the human qualities of the secondary authors in any way to condition the purity of the product as the word of God. The Scriptures, in other words, are conceived by the writers of the New Testament as through and through God's book, in every part expressive of His mind, given through men after a fashion which does no violence to their nature as men, and constitutes the book also men's book as well as God's, in every part expressive of the mind of its human authors.

If we attempt to get behind this broad statement and to obtain a more detailed conception of the activities by which God has given the Scriptures, we are thrown back upon somewhat general representations, supported by the analogy of the modes of God's working in other spheres of His operation. It is very desirable that we should free ourselves at the outset from influences arising from the current employment of the term "inspiration" to designate this process. This term is not a Biblical term and its etymological implications are not perfectly accordant with the Biblical conception of the modes of the Divine operation in giving the Scriptures. [The Biblical writers do not conceive of the Scriptures as a human product breathed into by the Divine Spirit, and thus heightened in its qualities or endowed with new qualities; but as a Divine product produced through the instrumentality of men. They do not conceive of these men, by whose instrumentality Scripture is produced, as working upon their own initiative, though energized by God to greater effort and higher achievement, but as moved by the Divine initiative and borne by the irresistible power of the Spirit of God along ways of His choosing to ends of His appointment.] The difference between the two conceptions may not appear great when the mind is fixed exclusively upon the nature of the resulting product. But they are differing conceptions, and look at the production of Scripture from distinct points of view—the human and the Divine; and the involved mental attitudes toward the origin of Scripture are very diverse. The term "inspiration" is too firmly fixed, in both theological and popular usage, as the technical designation of the action of God in giving the Scriptures, to be replaced; and we may be thankful that its native implications lie as close as they do to the Biblical conceptions. Meanwhile, however, it may be justly insisted that it shall receive its definition from the representations of Scripture, and not be permitted to impose upon our thought ideas of the origin of Scripture derived from an analysis of its own implications, etymological or historical. The Scriptural conception of the relation of the Divine Spirit to the human authors in the production of Scripture is better expressed by the figure of "bearing" than by the figure of "inbreathing"; and when our Biblical writers speak of the action of the Spirit of God in this relation as a breathing, they represent it as a "breathing out" of the Scriptures by the Spirit, and not a "breathing into" the Scriptures by Him.

So soon, however, as we seriously endeavor to form for ourselves a clear conception of the precise nature of the Divine action in this "breathing out" of the Scriptures—this "bearing" of the writers of the Scriptures to their appointed goal of the production of a book of Divine trustworthiness and indefectible authority—we become acutely aware of a more deeply lying and much wider problem, apart from which this one of inspiration, technically so called, cannot be profitably considered. This is the general problem of the origin of the Scriptures and the part of God in all that complex of processes by the interaction of which these books, which we call the sacred Scriptures, with all their peculiarities, and all their qualities of whatever sort, have been brought into being. For, of course, these books were not produced suddenly, by some miraculous act—handed down complete out of heaven, as the phrase goes; but, like all other products of time, are the ultimate effect of many processes coöperating through long periods. There is to be considered, for instance, the preparation of the material which forms the subject-matter of these books: in a sacred history, say, for example, to be narrated; or in a religious experience which may serve as a norm for record; or in a logical elaboration of the contents of revelation which may be placed at the service of God's people; or in the progressive revelation of Divine truth itself, supplying their culminating contents. And there is the preparation of the men to write these books to be considered, a preparation physical, intellectual, spiritual, which must have attended them throughout their whole lives, and, indeed, must have had its beginning in their remote ancestors, and the effect of which was to bring the right men to the right places at the right times, with the right endowments, impulses, acquirements, to write just the books which were designed for them. When "inspiration," technically so called, is superinduced on lines of preparation like these, it takes on quite a different aspect from that which it bears when it is thought of as an isolated action of the Divine Spirit operating out of all relation to historical processes. Representations are sometimes made as if, when God wished to produce sacred books which would incorporate His will—a series of letters like those of Paul, for example—He was reduced to the necessity of going down to earth and painfully scrutinizing the men He found there, seeking anxiously for the one who, on the whole, promised best for His purpose; and then violently forcing the material He wished expressed through him, against his natural bent, and with as little loss from his recalcitrant characteristics as possible. Of course, nothing of the sort took place. If God wished to give His people a series of letters like Paul's, He prepared a Paul to write them, and the Paul He brought to the task was a Paul who spontaneously would write just such letters.

If we bear this in mind, we shall know what estimate to place upon the common representation to the effect that the human characteristics of the writers must, and in point of fact do, condition and qualify the writings produced by them, the implication being that, therefore, we cannot get from man a pure word of God. As light that passes through the colored glass of a cathedral window, we are told, is light from heaven, but is stained by the tints of the glass through which it passes; so any word of God which is passed through the mind and soul of a man must come out discolored by the personality through which it is given, and just to that degree ceases to be the pure word of God. But what if this personality has itself been formed by God into precisely the personality it is, for the express purpose of communicating to the word given through it just the coloring which it gives it? What if the colors of the stained-glass window have been designed by the architect for the express purpose of giving to the light that floods the cathedral precisely the tone and quality it receives from them? What if the word of God that comes to His people is framed by God into the word of God it is, precisely by means of the qualities of the men formed by Him for the purpose, through which it is given? When we think of God the Lord giving by His Spirit a body of authoritative Scriptures to His people, we must remember that He is the God of providence and of grace as well as of revelation and inspiration, and that He holds all the lines of preparation as fully under His direction as He does the specific operation which we call technically, in the narrow sense, by the name of "inspiration." The production of the Scriptures is, in point of fact, a long process, in the course of which numerous and very varied Divine activities are involved, providential, gracious, miraculous, all of which must be taken into account in any attempt to explain the relation of God to the production of Scripture. When they are all taken into account we can no longer wonder that the resultant Scriptures are constantly spoken of as the pure word of God. We wonder, rather, that an additional operation of God—what we call specifically "inspiration," in its technical sense—was thought necessary. Consider, for example, how a piece of sacred history—say the Book of Chronicles, or the great historical work, Gospel and Acts, of Luke—is brought to the writing. There is first of all the preparation of the history to be written: God the Lord leads the sequence of occurrences through the development He has designed for them that they may convey their lessons to His people: a "teleological" or "aetiological" character is inherent in the very course of events. Then He prepares a man, by birth, training, experience, gifts of grace, and, if need be, of revelation, capable of appreciating this historical development and eager to search it out, thrilling in all his being with its lessons and bent upon making them clear and effective to others. When, then, by His providence, God sets this man to work on the writing of this history, will there not be spontaneously written by him the history which it was Divinely intended should be written? Or consider how a psalmist would be prepared to put into moving verse a piece of normative religious experience: how he would be born with just the right quality of religious sensibility, of parents through whom he should receive just the right hereditary bent, and from whom he should get precisely the right religious example and training, in circumstances of life in which his religious tendencies should be developed precisely on right lines; how he would be brought through just the right experiences to quicken in him the precise emotions he would be called upon to express, and finally would be placed in precisely the exigencies which would call out their expression. Or consider the providential preparation of a writer of a didactic epistle—by means of which he should be given the intellectual breadth and acuteness, and be trained in habitudes of reasoning, and placed in the situations which would call out precisely the argumentative presentation of Christian truth which was required of him. When we give due place in our thoughts to the universality of the providential government of God, to the minuteness and completeness of its sway, and to its invariable efficacy, we may be inclined to ask what is needed beyond this mere providential government to secure the production of sacred books which should be in every detail absolutely accordant with the Divine will.

The answer is, Nothing is needed beyond mere providence to secure such books—provided only that it does not lie in the Divine purpose that these books should possess qualities which rise above the powers of men to produce, even under the most complete Divine guidance. For providence is guidance; and guidance can bring one only so far as his own power can carry him. If heights are to be scaled above man's native power to achieve, then something more than guidance, however effective, is necessary. This is the reason for the superinduction, at the end of the long process of the production of Scripture, of the additional Divine operation which we call technically "inspiration." By it, the Spirit of God, flowing confluently in with the providentially and graciously determined work of men, spontaneously producing under the Divine directions the writings appointed to them, gives the product a Divine quality unattainable by human powers alone. Thus these books become not merely the word of godly men, but the immediate word of God Himself, speaking directly as such to the minds and hearts of every reader. The value of "inspiration" emerges, thus, as twofold. It gives to the books written under its "bearing" a quality which is truly superhuman; a trustworthiness, an authority, a searchingness, a profundity, a profitableness which is altogether Divine. And it speaks this Divine word immediately to each reader's heart and conscience; so that he does not require to make his way to God, painfully, perhaps even uncertainly, through the words of His servants, the human instruments in writing the Scriptures, but can listen directly to the Divine voice itself speaking immediately in the Scriptural word to him.

That the writers of the New Testament themselves conceive the Scriptures to have been produced thus by Divine operations extending through the increasing ages and involving a multitude of varied activities, can be made clear by simply attending to the occasional references they make to this or that step in the process. It lies, for example, on the face of their expositions, that they looked upon the Biblical history as teleological. Not only do they tell us that "whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the scriptures we might have hope" (Rom. 15:4; cf. Rom. 4:23, 24); they speak also of the course of the historical events themselves as guided for our benefit: "Now these things happened unto them by way of example"—in a typical fashion, in such a way that, as they occurred, a typical character, or predictive reference impressed itself upon them; that is to say, briefly, the history occurred as it did in order to bear a message to us—"and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come" (1 Cor. 10:11; cf. ver. 6). Accordingly, it has become a commonplace of Biblical exposition that "the history of redemption itself is a typically progressive one" (Küper), and is "in a manner impregnated with the prophetic element," so as to form a "part of a great plan which stretches from the fall of man to the first consummation of all things in glory; and, in so far as it reveals the mind of God toward man, carries a respect to the future not less than to the present" (P. Fairbairn). It lies equally on the face of the New Testament allusions to the subject that its writers understood that the preparation of men to become vehicles of God's message to man was not of yesterday, but had its beginnings in the very origin of their being. The call by which Paul, for example, was made an apostle of Jesus Christ was sudden and apparently without antecedents; but it is precisely this Paul who reckons this call as only one step in a long process, the beginnings of which antedated his own existence: "But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me" (Gal. 1:15, 16; cf. Jer. 1:5; Isa. 49:1, 5). The recognition by the writers of the New Testament of the experiences of God's grace, which had been vouchsafed to them as an integral element in their fitting to be the bearers of His gospel to others, finds such pervasive expression that the only difficulty is to select from the mass the most illustrative passages. Such a statement as Paul gives in the opening verses of 2 Cor. is thoroughly typical. There he represents that he has been afflicted and comforted to the end that he might "be able to comfort them that are in any affliction, through the comfort wherewith" he had himself been "comforted of God." For, he explains, "Whether we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or whether we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which worketh in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer" (2 Cor. 1:4–6). It is beyond question, therefore, that the New Testament writers, when they declare the Scriptures to be the product of the Divine breath, and explain this as meaning that the writers of these Scriptures wrote them only as borne by the Holy Spirit in such a fashion that they spoke, not out of themselves, but "from God," are thinking of this operation of the Spirit only as the final act of God in the production of the Scriptures, superinduced upon a long series of processes, providential, gracious, miraculous, by which the matter of Scripture had been prepared for writing, and the men for writing it, and the writing of it had been actually brought to pass. It is this final act in the production of Scripture which is technically called "inspiration"; and inspiration is thus brought before us as, in the minds of the writers of the New Testament, that particular operation of God in the production of Scripture which takes effect at the very point of the writing of Scripture—understanding the term "writing" here as inclusive of all the processes of the actual composition of Scripture, the investigation of documents, the collection of facts, the excogitation of conclusions, the adaptation of exhortations as means to ends and the like—with the effect of giving to the resultant Scripture a specifically supernatural character, and constituting it a Divine, as well as human, book. Obviously the mode of operation of this Divine activity moving to this result is conceived, in full accord with the analogy of the Divine operations in other spheres of its activity, in providence and in grace alike, as confluent with the human activities operative in the case; as, in a word, of the nature of what has come to be known as "immanent action."

It will not escape observation that thus "inspiration" is made a mode of "revelation." We are often exhorted, to be sure, to distinguish sharply between "inspiration" and "revelation"; and the exhortation is just when "revelation" is taken in one of its narrower senses, of, say, an external manifestation of God, or of an immediate communication from God in words. But "inspiration" does not differ from "revelation" in these narrowed senses as genus from genus, but as a species of one genus differs from another. That operation of God which we call "inspiration," that is to say, that operation of the Spirit of God by which He "bears" men in the process of composing Scripture, so that they write, not of themselves, but "from God," is one of the modes in which God makes known to men His being, His will, His operations, His purposes. It is as distinctly a mode of revelation as any mode of revelation can be, and therefore it performs the same office which all revelation performs, that is to say, in the express words of Paul, it makes men wise, and makes them wise unto salvation. All "special" or "supernatural" revelation (which is redemptive in its very idea, and occupies a place as a substantial element in God's redemptive processes) has precisely this for its end; and Scripture, as a mode of the redemptive revelation of God, finds its fundamental purpose just in this: if the "inspiration" by which Scripture is produced renders it trustworthy and authoritative, it renders it trustworthy and authoritative only that it may the better serve to make men wise unto salvation. Scripture is conceived, from the point of view of the writers of the New Testament, not merely as the record of revelations, but as itself a part of the redemptive revelation of God; not merely as the record of the redemptive acts by which God is saving the world, but as itself one of these redemptive acts, having its own part to play in the great work of establishing and building up the kingdom of God. What gives it a place among the redemptive acts of God is its Divine origination, taken in its widest sense, as inclusive of all the Divine operations, providential, gracious and expressly supernatural, by which it has been made just what it is—a body of writings able to make wise unto salvation, and profitable for making the man of God perfect. What gives it its place among the modes of revelation is, however, specifically the culminating one of these Divine operations, which we call "Inspiration"; that is to say, the action of the Spirit of God in so "bearing" its human authors in their work of producing Scripture, as that in these Scriptures they speak, not out of themselves, but "from God." It is this act by virtue of which the Scriptures may properly be called "God-breathed."

It has been customary among a certain school of writers to speak of the Scriptures, because thus "inspired," as a Divine-human book, and to appeal to the analogy of Our Lord's Divine-human personality to explain their peculiar qualities as such. The expression calls attention to an important fact, and the analogy holds good a certain distance. There are human and Divine sides to Scripture, and, as we cursorily examine it, we may perceive in it, alternately, traits which suggest now the one, now the other factor in its origin. But the analogy with Our Lord's Divine-human personality may easily be pressed beyond reason. There is no hypostatic union between the Divine and the human in Scripture; we cannot parallel the "inscripturation" "of the Holy Spirit and the incarnation of the Son of God. The Scriptures are merely the product of Divine and human forces working together to produce a product in the production of which the human forces work under the initiation and prevalent direction of the Divine: the person of Our Lord unites in itself Divine and human natures, each of which retains its distinctness while operating only in relation to the other. Between such diverse things there can exist only a remote analogy; and, in point of fact, the analogy in the present instance amounts to no more than that in both cases Divine and human factors are involved, though very differently. In the one they unite to constitute a Divine-human person, in the other they coöperate to perform a Divine-human work. Even so distant an analogy may enable us, however, to recognize that as, in the case of Our Lord's person, the human nature remains truly human while yet it can never fall into sin or error because it can never act out of relation with the Divine nature into conjunction with which it has been brought; so in the case of the production of Scripture by the conjoint action of human and Divine factors, the human factors have acted as human factors, and have left their mark on the product as such, and yet cannot have fallen into that error which we say it is human to fall into, because they have not acted apart from the Divine factors, by themselves, but only under their unerring guidance.

The New Testament testimony is to the Divine origin and qualities of "Scripture"; and "Scripture" to the writers of the New Testament was fundamentally, of course, the Old Testament. In the primary passage, in which we are told that "every" or "all Scripture" is "God-breathed," the direct reference is to the "sacred writings" which Timothy had had in knowledge since his infancy, and these were, of course, just the sacred books of the Jews (2 Tim. 3:16). What is explicit here is implicit in all the allusions to inspired Scriptures in the New Testament. Accordingly, it is frequently said that our entire testimony to the inspiration of Scripture concerns the Old Testament alone. In many ways, however, this is overstated. Our present concern is not with the extent of "Scripture" but with the nature of "Scripture"; and we cannot present here the considerations which justify extending to the New Testament the inspiration which the New Testament writers attribute to the Old Testament. It will not be out of place, however, to point out simply that the New Testament writers obviously themselves made this extension. They do not for an instant imagine themselves, as ministers of a new covenant, less in possession of the Spirit of God than the ministers of the old covenant: they freely recognize, indeed, that they have no sufficiency of themselves, but they know that God has made them sufficient (2 Cor. 3:5, 6). They prosecute their work of proclaiming the gospel, therefore, in full confidence that they speak "by the Holy Spirit" (1 Pet. 1:12), to whom they attribute both the matter and form of their teaching (1 Cor. 2:13). They, therefore, speak with the utmost assurance of their teaching (Gal. 1:7, 8); and they issue commands with the completest authority (1 Thess. 4:2, 14; 2 Thess. 3:6, 12), making it, indeed, the test of whether one has the Spirit that he should recognize what they demand as commandments of God (1 Cor. 14:37). It would be strange, indeed, if these high claims were made for their oral teaching and commandments exclusively. In point of fact, they are made explicitly also for their written injunctions. It was "the things" which Paul was "writing," the recognition of which as commands of the Lord, he makes the test of a Spirit-led man (1 Cor. 14:37). It is his "word by this epistle," obedience to which he makes the condition of Christian communion (2 Thess. 3:14). There seems involved in such an attitude toward their own teaching, oral and written, a claim on the part of the New Testament writers to something very much like the "inspiration" which they attribute to the writers of the Old Testament.

And all doubt is dispelled when we observe the New Testament writers placing the writings of one another in the same category of "Scripture" with the books of the Old Testament. The same Paul who, in 2 Tim. 3:16, declared that 'every' or 'all scripture is God-breathed' had already written in 1 Tim. 5:8: "For the scripture saith, Thou shall not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. And, The laborer is worthy of his hire." The first clause here is derived from Deuteronomy and the second from the Gospel of Luke, though both are cited as together constituting, or better, forming part of the "Scripture" which Paul adduces as so authoritative as by its mere citation to end all strife. Who shall say that, in the declaration of the later epistle that "all" or "every" Scripture is God-breathed, Paul did not have Luke, and, along with Luke, whatever other new books he classed with the old under the name of Scripture, in the back of his mind, along with those old books which Timothy had had in his hands from infancy? And the same Peter who declared that every "prophecy of scripture" was the product of men who spoke "from God," being 'borne' by the Holy Ghost (2 Pet. 1:21), in this same epistle (3:16), places Paul's Epistles in the category of Scripture along with whatever other books deserve that name. For Paul, says he, wrote these epistles, not out of his own wisdom, but "according to the wisdom given to him," and though there are some things in them hard to be understood, yet it is only "the ignorant and unstedfast" who wrest these difficult passages—as what else could be expected of men who wrest "also the other Scriptures" (obviously the Old Testament is meant)—"unto their own destruction"? Is it possible to say that Peter could not have had these epistles of Paul also lurking somewhere in the back of his mind, along with "the other scriptures," when he told his readers that every "prophecy of scripture" owes its origin to the prevailing operation of the Holy Ghost? What must be understood in estimating the testimony of the New Testament writers to the inspiration of Scripture is that "Scripture" stood in their minds as the title of a unitary body of books, throughout the gift of God through His Spirit to His people; but that this body of writings was at the same time understood to be a growing aggregate, so that what is said of it applies to the new books which were being added to it as the Spirit gave them, as fully as to the old books which had come down to them from their hoary past. It is a mere matter of detail to determine precisely what new books were thus included by them in the category "Scripture." They tell us some of them themselves. Those who received them from their hands tell us of others. And when we put the two bodies of testimony together we find that they constitute just our New Testament. It is no pressure of the witness of the writers of the New Testament to the inspiration of the Scripture, therefore, to look upon it as covering the entire body of "Scriptures," the new books which they were themselves adding to this aggregate, as well as the old books which they had received as Scripture from the fathers. Whatever can lay claim by just right to the appellation of "Scripture," as employed in its eminent sense by those writers, can by the same just right lay claim to the "inspiration" which they ascribe to this Scripture."

LITERATURE.—J. Gerhard, "Loci Theolog.," Locus I; F. Turretin, "Instit. Theol.," Locus II; B. de Moor, "Comm. in J. Marckii Comp.," cap. ii; C. Hodge, "Syst. Theol.," New York, 1871, I, 151–86; Henry B. Smith, "The Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures," New York, 1855, new ed., Cincinnati, 1891; A. Kuyper, "Encyclopedie der heilige Godgeleerdheid," 1888–89, II, 347 ff., ET; "Enc of Sacred Theol.," New York, 1898, 341–563; also "De Schrift het woord Gods," Tiel, 1870; H. Bavinck, "Gereformeerde Dogmatiek2," Kampen, 1906, I, 406–527; R. Haldane, "The Verbal Inspiration of the Scriptures Established," Edinburgh, 1830; J. T. Beck, "Einleitung in das System der christlichen Lehre," Stuttgart, 1838, 2d ed., 1870; A. G. Rudelbach, "Die Lehre von der Inspiration der heil. Schrift," Zeitschrift für die gesammte Lutherische Theologie und Kirche, 1840, 1, 1841, 1, 1842, 1; S. R. L. Gaussen, "Théopneustie ou inspiration plénière des saintes écritures2," Paris, 1842, ET by E. N. Kirk, New York, 1842; also "Theopneustia; the Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures," David Scott's tr., reëdited and revised by B. W. Carr, with a preface by C. H. Spurgeon, London, 1888; William Lee, "The Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures," Donellan Lecture, 1852, New York, 1857; James Bannerman, "Inspiration: the Infallible Truth and Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures," Edinburgh, 1865; F. L. Patton, "The Inspiration of the Scriptures," Philadelphia, 1869 (reviewing Lee and Bannerman); Charles Elliott, "A Treatise on the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures," Edinburgh, 1877; A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, "Inspiration," Presbyterian Review, April, 1881, also tract, Philadelphia, 1881; R. Watts, "The Rule of Faith and the Doctrine of Inspiration," Edinburgh, 1885; A. Cave, "The Inspiration of the OT Inductively Considered," London, 1888; B. Manly, "The Bible Doctrine of Inspiration," New York, 1888; W. Rohnert, "Die Inspiration der heiligen Schrift und ihre Bestreiter," Leipzig, 1889; A. W. Dieckhoff, "Die Inspiration und Irrthumlosigkeit der heiligen Schrift," Leipzig, 1891; J. Wichelhaus, "Die Lehre der heiligen Schrift," Stuttgart, 1892; J. Macgregor, "The Revelation and the Record," Edinburgh, 1893; J. Urquhart, "The Inspiration and Accuracy of the Holy Scriptures," London, 1895; C. Pesch, "De Inspiratione Sacrae Scripturae," Freiburg, 1906; James Orr, "Revelation and Inspiration," London, 1910.

V

"SCRIPTURE," "THE SCRIPTURES," IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

THE scope of this article does not permit the full discussion in it of the employment of Scripture, or of the estimate put upon Scripture, by either our Lord or the writers of the New Testament. It is strictly limited to what is necessary to exhibit the use of the terms 'Scripture,' 'The Scriptures,' in the New Testament and the more immediate implications of this use.

This use was an inheritance, not an invention. The idea of a 'canon' of 'Sacred Scriptures,' and, with the idea, the 'canon' itself were derived by Christianity from Judaism. The Jews possessed a body of writings, consisting of 'Law, Prophets and (other) Scriptures (K'thubhim),' though they were often called for brevity's sake merely 'the Law and the Prophets' or even simply 'the Law.' These 'Sacred Scriptures" (כִתְבֵי חַקֹּדֶשׁ),—or, as they were very frequently pregnantly called, this 'Scripture' (הכתיב), or these 'Books' (הספרים) or, even sometimes, in the singular, this 'Book' (הספר)—were looked upon as all drawing their origin from divine inspiration and as possessed in all their extent of divine authority. Whatever stood written in them was a word of God, and was therefore referred to indifferently as something which 'the Scripture says' (אמר קרא or אמר הכתיב or כתיב קרא) or 'the All-merciful says' (אמר רחמנא), or even simply 'He says' (כן הוא אומר or merely ואומר)—that God is the speaker being too fully understood to require explicit expression. Every precept or dogma was supposed to be grounded in Scriptural teaching, and possessed authority only as buttressed by a Scriptural passage, introduced commonly by one of the formulas, 'for it is said' (שנאמר), or 'as it is written' (דכתיב or כדכתיב), though of course a great variety of less frequently occurring similar formulas of adduction are found.

Greek-speaking Jews naturally tended merely to reproduce in their new language the designations and forms of adduction of the sacred books current among their compatriots. This process was no doubt facilitated by the existence among the Greeks themselves of a pregnant legislative use of γράφω, γραφή, γράμμα, in which they were already freighted with a certain implication of authority. But it is very easy to make too much of this (as e. g., Deissmann does), and the simple fact should not be obscured that the Greek-speaking Jews follow the usage of the Jews in general. It may no doubt very possibly be due in part to his Graecizing tendencies that the Scriptures are spoken of by Josephus apparently with predilection as the "Sacred Books" (ἱεραὶ βίβλοι or ἱερὰ βιβλία) or "Sacred Scriptures" (ἱερὰ γράμματα) or more fully still as the "Books of the Sacred Scriptures" (αἱ ἱερῶν γραφῶν βίβλοι); and quoted with the formula γέγραπται or more frequently ἀναγέγραπται—all of which are forms which would be familiar to Greek ears, with a general implication of authority. Perhaps, however, the influence of the Greek usage is more clearly traceable in certain passages of the LXX in which γραφή may seem to hover between the pregnant Greek sense of authoritative 'ordinance,' and the pregnant Hebrew sense of authoritative 'Scripture.' When, for example, we read in 1 Chron. 15:15, "And the sons of the Levites took upon themselves with staves the Ark of God, ὡς ἐνετείλατο Μωυσῆς ἐν λόγῳ θεοῦ κατὰ τὴν γραφήν," we scarcely know whether we are to translate the κατὰ τὴν γραφήν (which has no equivalent in the Hebrew) by "according to the precept," or by "according to the Scriptures." Something of the same hesitancy is felt with reference to the similar passages: 2 Chron. 30:5, "Because the multitude had not done it lately κατὰ τὴν γραφήν" (= כַּכָּתוּב); 2 Chron. 30:18, "But they ate the passover παρὰ τὴν γραφήν" (= בְּלֹא כַּכּתוּב); 2 Esdr. 6:18, "And they established the priests in their courses and the Levites in their divisions for the service of God in Jerusalem, κατὰ τὴν γραφὴν βίβλου Μωυσῆ" (= כִּכְתַב סֽפַר משֶׁה); 1 Chron. 28:19, "All these things David gave to Solomon ἐν γραφῇ χειρὸς κυρίου" (= בִּכְתָב מִיַּד יְהוָֹה): 2 Chron. 35:4, "Prepare yourselves … κατὰ τὴν γραφὴν Δαυὶδ … καὶ διὰ χειρὸς Σαλωμὼν" (= כִּכְתָכ דָוִיד וּבִמִכְתַּב שְׁלֹמֹה); 1 Esdr. 1:4, "κατὰ τὴν γραφὴν Δαυὶδ" κτλ; and especially the very instructive passage 2 Esdr. 7:22, "For which there is no γραφή." Similarly in 2 Esdr. 3:2, "κατὰ τὰ γεγραμμένα (= כַּכָּתוּב) in the law of Moses," τὰ γεγραμμένα might very well appeal to a Greek ear as simply "the prescriptions"; and there are a series of passages in which γέγραπται might very readily be taken in the Greek sense of "it is prescribed," such as Josh. 9:4, (8:31), 2 Kings 14:6, 23:21, 2 Chron. 23:18, 25:4, Neh. 10:34, (35), 35, (37), Tob. 1:6. Should this interpretation be put on these passages, there would be left in the LXX little unalloyed trace of the peculiar Jewish usage of pregnantly referring to Scripture as such by that term, and citing it with the authoritative 'It is written.' For clear instances of the former usage we should have to go to 4 Macc. 18:14, and of the latter to Dan. 9:13, and to the Greek additions to Job (42:17). Philo on the other hand is absolutely determined in his usage by his inherited Jewish habits of thought. With him the Sacred books are by predilection a body of divine Oracles and are designated ordinarily either ὁ λόγος with various adjectival enhancements—'prophetic,' 'divine,' 'sacred'—or, perhaps even more commonly, "the Oracles," or even "the Oracle," (οἱ χρησμοί, τὰ λόγια, ὁ χρησμός, τὸ λόγιον, or even possibly the anarthrous χρησμός, λόγιον); and are adduced (as is also most frequently the case in the Mishna, cf. Edersheim as cited) rather with the formula, "As it is said," than with the "As it is written" which would more naturally convey to Greek ears the sense of authoritative declarations. Of course Philo also speaks on occasion (for this too is a truly Jewish mode of speech) of these "Oracles" as "the Sacred Books" (ἱα ἱεραὶ βίβλοι. "De Vita Moysis," iii. 23, Mangey ii. 163; "Quod det. pot. insid." 44, Mangey i. 222), or as "the Sacred Scriptures" (αἱ ἱερώταται γραφαί, "De Abrah." i, Mangey ii. 2; ἱεραὶ γραφαί, "Quis rerum div. heres." 32, Mangey i. 495; τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα, "Legat. ad Caium," 29, Mangey ii. 574-); and adduces them with the pregnant γέγραπται. But the comparative infrequency of these designations in his pages is very noticeable.

What it is of importance especially to note is that there was nothing left for Christianity to invent in the way of designating the Sacred Books taken over from the Jewish Church pregnantly as "Scripture," and currently adducing their authority with the pregnant 'It is written.' The Christian writers merely continued in their entirety the established usages of the Synagogue in this matter, already prepared to their hands in Hebrew and Greek alike. There is probably not a single mode of alluding to or citing Scripture in all the New Testament which does not find its exact parallel among the Rabbis. The New Testament so far evinces itself a thoroughly Jewish book. The several terms made use of in it, to be sure, as it was natural they should be, are employed with some sensitiveness to their inherent implications as Greek words; and the Greek legislative use of some of them gave them no doubt peculiar fitness for the service asked of them, and lent them a special significance to Gentile readers. But the application made of them by the New Testament writers nevertheless has its roots set in the soil of Jewish thought, from which they derive a fuller and deeper meaning than their most pregnant classical usage could accord them. Among these terms those which more particularly claim our attention at the moment are the two substantives γραφή and γράμμα, with their various qualifications, and the cognate verbal forms employed in citing writings pregnantly designated by these substantives. There is nothing in the New Testament usage of these terms peculiar to itself; and throughout the New Testament any differences that may be observed in their employment by the several writers are indicative merely of varying habits of speech within the limits of one well-settled general usage.

To the New Testament writers as to other Jews, the Sacred Books of what was in their circle now called the Old Covenant (2 Cor. 3:14), described according to their contents as "the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms" (Lk. 24:44)—or more briefly as "the Law and the Prophets" (Matt. 7:12, Lk. 16:16, cf. Acts 28:23, Lk. 16:29–31) or merely as "the Law" (Jno. 10:34, 1 Cor. 14:21) or even "the Prophets," (Rom. 16:26),—were, when thought of according to their nature, a body of "Sacred Scriptures" (Rom. 1:2, 2 Tim. 3:16), or, with the omission of the unnecessary because well-understood adjective, by way of eminence, "the Scriptures," "the Scripture," "Scripture," (Matt. 22:29, Jno. 10:35, 1 Pet. 2:6). For employment in this designation, either of the substantives, γραφή or γράμμα, would apparently have been available; although of course with slightly differing suggestions arising from the differing implications of the forms and the respective general usages of the words. In Philo and Josephus the more usual of the two in this application is γράμμα, or, to speak more exactly, γράμματα,—for although γράμμα is sometimes in later Greek so employed in the singular it is in the plural that this term most properly denotes that congeries of alphabetical signs which constitutes a book (cf. Latin, literae). In the New Testament on the contrary, this form is rare. The complete phrase, ἱερὰ γράμματα, which is found also both in Josephus (e. g. "Antt." proem. 3; iii. 7, 6; x. 10, 4; xiii. 5, 8) and in Philo (e. g., "De Vita Moys." i. 2, "Legat. ad Caium," 29) occurs in 2 Tim. 3:15 as the current title of the Sacred Books, freighted with all its implications as such, or rather with those implications emphasized by its anarthrous employment, and particularly adverted to in the immediate context (verse 16). Elsewhere in the New Testament, however, γράμματα scarcely occurs as a designation of Scripture. In Jno. 5:47, "But if ye believe not his (Moses') writings, how shall ye believe my (Jesus') words?" to be sure we must needs hesitate before we refuse to give to it this its most pregnant sense, especially since there appears to be an implication present that it would be more reprehensible to refuse trust to these "writings" of Moses than to the "words" of Jesus Himself. But on the whole, the tendency of the most recent exegesis to see in "his writings" here little more than another way of saying "what he wrote," seems justified. The only other passage which can come into consideration is Jno. 7:15, "How knoweth this man γράμματα, not having learned?" in which some commentators still see a reference to "the ἱερὰ γράμματα (2 Tim. 3:15) from which the Jewish γραμματεῖς derived their title" (Th. Zahn, "Einleitung," ii. 99). Most readers, however, doubtless will agree that "letters" in general are more naturally meant (cf. Acts 26:24 and Meyer's judicious note). Practically, therefore, γράμμα is eliminated; and γραφή, γραφαί, in their varied uses, remain the sole terms employed in the New Testament in the sense of "Scripture," "Scriptures."

This term, in singular or plural, occurs in the New Testament some fifty times (Gospels twenty-three, Acts seven, Catholic Epistles six, Paul fourteen) and in every case bears the technical sense in which it refers to the Scriptures by way of eminence, the Scriptures of the Old Testament. This statement requires only such modification as is involved in noting that from 2 Pet. 3:16 (cf. 1 Tim. 5:18) it becomes apparent that the New Testament writers were perfectly aware that the term "Scripture" in its high sense was equally applicable to their own writings as to the books included in the Old Testament; or, to be more precise, that it included within itself along with the writings which constituted the Old Testament those also which they were producing, as sharing with the Old Testament books the high functions of the authoritative written word of God. No modification needs to be made for the benefit of the few passages in which words are adduced as Scriptural which are not easily identified in the Old Testament text. The only passages which come strictly under consideration here are Jno. 7:38 and Jas. 4:5, to which may be added as essentially of the same kind (although the term γραφή does not occur in connection with them), 1 Cor. 2:9, and Lk. 9:49. It is enough to remark as to these passages that, however difficult it may be to identify with certainty the passages referred to, there is no reason to doubt that Old Testament passages were in mind and were intended to be referred to in every case (see Mayor on Jas. 4:5, and cf. Lightfoot on I Cor. 2:9, Westcott on Jno. 7:38, Godet on Lk. 11:49). In twenty out of the fifty instances in which γραφή, γραφαί occur in the New Testament, it is the plural form which is employed: and in all these cases except two the article is present,—αἱ γραφαί the well-known Scriptures of the Jewish people, or rather of the writer and his readers alike. The two exceptions, moreover, are exceptions in appearance only, since in both cases adjectival definitions are present, raising γραφαί to the same height to which the article would have elevated it, and giving it the value of a proper name (γραφαὶ ἁγίαι, Rom. 1:2, here first in extant literature; γραφαὶ, προφητικαί, Rom. 16:26). The singular form occurs some thirty times, and likewise with the article in every instance except these four: John 19:37 'another Scripture'; 2 Tim. 3:16 'every Scripture,' or 'all Scripture'; 1 Pet. 2:6 'it is contained in Scripture'; 2 Pet. 1:20 'no prophecy of Scripture.' Here too the exceptions, obviously, are only apparent, the noun being definite in every case whether by the effect of its adjunct, or as the result of its use as a quasi-proper-name. The distribution of the singular and plural forms is perhaps worth noting. In Acts the singular (3) and plural (4) occur with almost equal frequency: the plural prevails in the Synoptic Gospels (Matt. plural only; Mk. plural 2 to 1; Lk. 3 to 1), while the singular prevails in the rest of the New Testament (Jno. 11 to 1; James 3 to 1; Peter 2 to 1, Paul 9 to 5). In the Gospels, the plural form occurs exclusively in Matthew, prevailingly in Mark and Luke, and rarely in John, of whom the singular is characteristic. The usage of the Gospels in detail is as follows: αἱ γραφαί, Matt. 21:42, 22:29, 26:54, 56, Mk. 12:24, 14:49, Lk. 24:27, 32, 45, Jno. 5:39; ἡ γραφή, Mk. 12:10, Lk. 4:21, Jno. 2:22, 7:38, 42, 10:35, 13:18, 17:12, 19:24, 28, 36, 20:9; anarthrous γραφή, Jno. 19:37 (but with ἑτέρα). No distinction is traceable between the usage of the Evangelists themselves and that of the Lord as reported by them. Matthew and Mark do not on their own account use the term at all, but only report it as used by our Lord: in Luke and John on the other hand it occurs not only in reports of our Lord's sayings (Lk. 4:21, Jno. 5:39, 7:38, 42, 10:35, 12:18, 17:12), and of the sayings of others (Lk. 24:32), but also in the narrative of the Evangelists (Lk. 24:27, 45, Jno. 2:22, 19:24, 28, 36, 37, 20:9). To our Lord is ascribed the use indifferently of the plural (Matt. 21:42, 22:29, 26:54, 56, Mk. 12:24, 14:49, Jno. 5:39) and the singular (Mk. 12:10, Lk. 4:21, Jno. 7:38, 42, 10:35, 13:18, 17:12), and that in all the forms of application in which the term occurs in the Gospels. So far as His usage of the term "Scripture" is concerned, our Lord is represented by the Evangelists, thus, as occupying precisely the same standpoint and employing precisely the same forms of designation, with precisely the same implications, which characterized the devout Jewish usage of His day. "Jesus," says B. Weiss, therefore, with substantial truth, "acknowledged the Scriptures of the Old Testament in their entire extent and their complete sacredness. 'The Scripture cannot be broken,' He says (Jno. 10:35) and forthwith grounds His argument upon its language."

That we may gather the precise significance of ἡ γραφή, αἱ γραφαί, as a designation of the Scriptures, it will be well to attend somewhat more closely to the origin of the term in Greek speech and to the implications it gathered to itself in its application to literary documents. Its history in its literary application does not seem to have been precisely the same as that of its congener, τὸ γράμμα, τὰ γράμματα. Γράμμα appears to have become current first in this reference as the appropriate appellation of an alphabetical sign, and to have grown gradually upward from this lowly employment to designate a document of less or greater extent, because such documents are ultimately made up of alphabetical signs. Although, therefore, the singular, τὸ γράμμα, came to be used of any written thing—from a simple alphabetical character up to complete works, or even unitary combinations of works, like the Scriptures,—it is apparently when applied to writings, most naturally employed of brief pieces like short inscriptions or proverbs, or to the shorter portions of documents such as the clauses of treaties, and the like; although it is also used of those longer formal sections of literary works which are more commonly designated technically "Books." It is rather the plural, τὰ γράμματα, which seems to suggest itself most readily not only for extended treatises, but indeed for complete documents of all kinds. When so employed, the plural form is accordingly not to be pressed. Such a phrase as "Moses' γράμματα" (Jno. 5:47) for example, need not imply that Moses wrote more than one "work"; it would rather mass whatever 'writings' of Moses are in mind into a single 'writing,' and would most naturally mean just, say, "the Pentateuch." Such a phrase as ἱερὰ γράμματα (2 Tim. 3:15), again, need not bring the Old Testament books before our contemplation in their plurality, as a "Divine library"; but more probably conceives them together in the mass, as constituting a single sacred document, thought of as a unitary whole. On the other hand, γραφή, in its literary application, seems to have sprung somewhat lightly across the intervening steps, to designate which γράμμα is most appropriately used, and to have been carried at once over from the 'writing' in the sense of the script to the 'writing' in the sense of the scripture or document. Although therefore it of course exhibits more applications parallel with those of γράμμα than of any other term, its true synonymy in its higher literary use is rather with such terms as ἡ βίβλος (τὸ βιβλίον) and ὁ λόγος, in common with which it most naturally designates a complete literary piece, whether "Treatise" or "Book." Each of these terms, of course, preserves in all its applications something of the flavor of the primitive conception which was bound up with it. When thought of from the material point of view, as, so to say, so much paper, or, to speak more respectfully, from the point of sight of its extent, a literary work was apt therefore to be spoken of as a βίβλος (βιβλίον). When thought of as a rational product, thought presented in words, it was apt to be spoken of as a λόγος. Intermediate between the two stood γραφή (γράμμα) which was apt to come to the lips when the work was thought of as, so to speak, so much 'writing.' As between the two terms, γραφή and γράμμα, Dr. Westcott (on Jno. 5:47) suggests that the latter 'marks rather the specific form,' the former 'the scope of the record'; and this seems so far just that to γράμμα there clings a strong flavor of the 'letters' of which the document is made up, while γραφή looks rather to the completeness of the 'scripture.' To both alike so much of the implication of specific form clings as to lend them naturally to national and legislative employment with the implication of the "certa scriptio." To put the general matter in a nutshell, βίβλος (βιβλίον) may perhaps be said to be the more exact word for the 'book'; γραφή (γράμμα) for the 'document' inscribed in the 'book'; λόγος for the 'treatise' which the 'document' records; while as between γραφή and γράμμα, γράμμα, preserving the stronger material flavor, gravitates somewhat towards βίβλος (βιβλίον) while γραφή looks somewhat upwards towards λόγος. When in the development of the publishers' trade, the "great-book-system" of making books gave way for the purposes of convenience to the "small-book-system," and long works came to be broken up into "Books," each of which constituted a 'volume,' these "Books" attached to themselves this whole series of designations and were called alike,—in each case with its own appropriate implications—βίβλοι, (βιβλία) γραφαί (γράμματα) and λόγοι: βίβλοι (βιβλία) because each book was written on a separate roll of papyrus and constituted one 'paper' or 'volume'; γραφαί (γράμματα) because each book was a separate document, a distinct 'scripture'; and λόγοι because each book was a distinct 'discourse' or rational work. Smaller sections than these "Books" were properly called περιοχάς, τόπους, χωρία, γράμματα (which last is the appropriate word for 'clauses') but very seldom if ever in the classics, γραφάς.

The current senses of these several terms are, of course, more or less reflected as they occur in the pages of the New Testament. In the case of some of them, the New Testament usage simply continues that of profane Greek; in the case of others, new implications enter in which, while not superseding, profoundly modify their fundamental significance; in yet other cases, there is a development of usage beyond what is traceable in profane Greek. The passages in which two or more of the terms in question are brought together are, naturally, especially instructive. When we read, for example, in Lk. 3:4 seq. ὡς γέγραπται ἐν βίβλῳ λόγων Ἡσαΐου τοῦ προφήτου, we perceive at once that what is quoted is a body of λόγοι which are found in written form (γραφή: cf. 1 Cor. 15:54, ὁ λόγος ὁ γεγραμμένος) in a βίβλος: the βίβλος is the volume which contains the γραφή, which conveys or, perhaps better, records the λόγοι. So again when we read in Lk. 4:17 seq. that there was delivered to our Lord the βιβλίον of Isaiah, on opening which he found the τόπον, where a given thing ἦν γεγραμμένον, and then closing the βιβλίον he remarked ἡ γραφὴ αὕτη is fulfilled in your ears, we perceive that the βιβλίον is the concrete volume—a thing to be handled, opened and closed (cf. Rev. 5:3, 4, 5, 10:8, 20:12), the manner of opening and closing being, of course, unrolling and rolling (Rev. 6:14, cf. Heb. 10:7, Birt, "Das antike Buchwesen," 116); and that the γραφή is the document written in this βιβλίον; while the various parts of this γραφή are formally τόποι, or when attention is directed to their essential quality as sharers in the authority of the whole, γραφαί (cf. Acts 1:16, "The γραφή which the Holy Spirit spake through the mouth of" the writer).

As might be inferred from these examples, βίβλος and βιβλίον retain in the New Testament their current significations in profane Greek. Their application to sacred rather than to secular books in no way modified their general sense. It brought, however, to them a richness of association which prepared the way for that pregnant employment of them—beginning not indeed in the New Testament but in even earlier Hellenistic writings—to designate in its simple absoluteness the sacred volume, from which ultimately our common term "The Bible" is supposed to have descended.19 Throughout the New Testament the βίβλος or βιβλίον when applied to literary entities is just the "volume," that is to say, the concrete object, the "book" in the handleable sense. When we read of the βίβλος of the words of Isaiah (Lk. 3:4), or of Moses (Mk. 12:26) or of the Psalms (Lk. 20:42, Acts 1:20) or of the Prophets, i. e., of the Twelve "Minor Prophets" (Acts 7:42), the meaning is simply that each of these writings or collections of writings formed a single volume. Similarly when we read of the βιβλίον of Isaiah (Lk. 4:17) or of the Law (Gal. 3:10), what is meant in each case is the volume formed by the document or documents named. The Gospel of John (Jno. 20:30, 21:25) and the Book of Revelation (Rev. 1:11, 22:7, 9, 10, 18, 19) are spoken of as each a βιβλίον again because each existed in separation as a concrete unity. Accordingly βίβλοι are things which may be burned (Acts 19:19); βιβλία, things which may be sprinkled (Heb. 9:19) or carried about (2 Tim. 4:13), and may be made of parchment (2 Tim. 4:13). The Book of Life presented itself to the imagination as a volume in which names may be inscribed (βίβλος, Phil. 4:3, Rev. 3:5, 20:15; βιβλίον, Rev. 13:8, 17:8, 20:12, 21:27); the Book of Destiny as a volume in which is set down what is to come to pass (βιβλίον, Heb. 10:7, Rev. 5:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10:8). There is no essential difference in fundamental implication when in Matt. 19:7, Mk. 10:4 βιβλίον is used for a "bill" of divorcement, or in Matt. 1:1, βίβλος, under the influence of the LXX, is employed of a genealogical register. In both instances it would be understood that the document in question occupied a separate piece of papyrus or parchment and was therefore an entire "paper."

There is a much more marked enhancement of sense apparent in the New Testament use of λόγος. In Acts 1:1, to be sure, it occurs in the simple classical sense of "Book"; Luke merely points to his Gospel as "the first Book" of an extended historical treatise of which Acts is "the second Book"; and there is no implication of deeper meaning. The ordinary usage of λόγος, however, in the New Testament, is to express, in accordance with its employment in the Old Testament of the Prophetic word, the, or a, revelation from God, with no, or a very indistinct, reference to a written form. The Divine Word was, however, in the hands of the New Testament writers in a written form and allusion to this could not always fail. In passages like Jno. 15:25, 1 Cor. 15:54, the λόγος that is cited is distinctly declared to be written: "that the λόγος may be fulfilled that is written in their Law"; "then shall come to pass the λόγος that is written"; and with these there may be connected such passages as Jno. 12:38, (cf. Lk. 4:6): "that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled," since, although it is not expressly stated, this λόγος too was in the hands of the New Testament writers in a written form. In this usage λόγος is a particular passage of Scripture viewed as a divine declaration. In Matt. 15:6 (if this reading be accepted), Mk. 7:13 (cf. Jno. 5:38, 10:35, Rom. 13:9, Gal. 5:14) in accordance with a familiar usage (cf. Ex. 34:28, οἱ δέκα λόγοι), the specific reference is to a divine commandment; but this commandment is thrown up in sharp contrast with "tradition" and is thought of distinctly as a written one. It is only in a passage like 2 Pet. 1:19 that λόγος comes to mean the entire Old Testament, after the fashion of Philo, with the emphasis upon its divine character: that by "the prophetic word" here is meant not the prophetic portion of Scripture but the Scriptures as a whole, conceived in accordance with their nature as "prophetic," that is to say as a body of revelation, is made plain by the subsequent context, where this prophecy is defined by the exegetical genitive as just that prophecy which is Scripture πᾶσα προφητεία γραφῆς). Thus λόγος, under the influence of the Old Testament usage of the "Word of Jehovah," comes to mean in the New Testament specifically a divine revelation, and is applied to the Old Testament to designate it, as written in the Books which constitute it, the revealed Word of God.

The λόγος, now, which was contained in the βίβλος (βιβλίον) (Lk. 3:4), and of course contained in it only in written form, was, naturally, conceived, as truly by the New Testament writers as by Greek writers in general, as a γραφή, (or in the plural γραφαί). There seems to be no reason inherent in the case, accordingly, why γραφή should not occur in the New Testament in its simple classical sense of a "Treatise" or (as λόγος does, Acts 1:1) of a "Book" or formal division of a treatise. It may very properly be considered therefore merely an accident that no instances are found in the New Testament of this general usage of the term without further implications. It so occurs in Josephus ("Antt." III. viii. 10; IV. viii. 44, of books of his own) and in Philo ("De Somniis," ad init., Ἡ μὲν οὖν πρὸ ταύτης γραφὴ περιεῖχε—i. e., the preceding Book of the Treatise in hand); and it is repeatedly used in the LXX to designate any piece of writing (cf. 2 Chron. 2:11, Neh. 7:64, Dan. 5:5, 1 Macc. 14:27, 48). In point of fact, however, γραφή (γραφαί) appears in the New Testament only in its application to the Sacred Scriptures, and only in its high technical significance of "Scripture" by way of eminence. It may be surmised that the long-established employment of the term as a designation of the Scriptures tended to withdraw it from common use on the lips of those to whom these Scriptures were a thing apart. It may even seem that a certain tendency is observable in the New Testament writers to distinguish between γραφή (γραφαί) and γράμμα (γράμματα) in favor of the former as the technical designation of the Scripture, while the latter is more freely employed for general uses. Certainly γράμματα occurs occasionally in the New Testament for non-sacred writings (Acts 28:21, Lk. 16:6, 7) and for sacred writings indeed but without stress on their sacredness (Jno. 5:47, cf. 7:15), while it is only rarely met with in the pregnant sense of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:15 only) and then only in an established phrase which may be supposed to have obtained a standing of its own. There seems also in γράμμα a naturally stronger implication of the material elements of the script, which may have formed the point of departure for a depreciatory employment of the term to designate the "mere letter" as distinguished from the "spirit" (cf. Rom. 2:27, 29, 7:6, 2 Cor. 3:6, 7). On the other hand the free employment by later Christian writers of γραφή, γραφαί of secular compositions, and of both γράμμα and γράμματα in the high technical sense of "Scripture," so far militates against the supposition that already in New Testament Greek the former were hardening into the exclusive technical designations of "Scripture." Meanwhile the simple fact remains that in the New Testament while γράμματα is used freely, and with a single exception exclusively, without implication of sacredness, γραφή and γραφαί are employed solely as technical designations of Sacred Scripture and take their color in all their occurrences from this higher plane of usage. Throughout the New Testament the γραφή which alone is in question is conceived as rather the word of the Holy Spirit than of its human authors through whom merely it is spoken (Acts 1:16), and is therefore ever adduced as of indefectible, because of Divine, authority.

It is somewhat remarkable that even on this high plane of its technical application, in which it designates nothing but the Sacred Scriptures, γραφή never occurs in the New Testament, in accordance with its most natural and, in the classics, its most frequent sense of "Treatise," as a term to describe the several books of which the Old Testament is composed. It is tempting, no doubt, to seek to give it this sense in some of the passages where, occurring in the singular, it yet does not appear to designate the Scriptures as a whole; and even Dr. Hort seems for a moment almost inclined to yield to the temptation. It is more tempting still to assume that behind the frequent use of the plural, αἱ γραφαί, to designate the Scriptures as a whole, there lies a previous current usage by which each Book which enters into the composition of these Scriptures was designated by the singular ἡ γραφή. In no single passage where the singular ἡ γραφή occurs, however, does it seem possible to give it a reference to the Book of Scripture to which the appeal is made. And the frequent employment in profane Greek of γραφαί in the plural for a single document discourages the assumption that it, like τὰ βιβλία, has reference, when used as a designation of Scripture, to its composite character as a "Divine Library." It is true that in one unique passage, 2 Pet. 3:16, αἱ γραφαί bears a plural signification. But the items of which this plural is formed, as the grammatical construction implies, are not "treatises" (Huther, Kühl) but "passages" (De Wette). Peter says that the unlearned and unstable, of course, wrested the hard sayings of Paul's letters, as they were accustomed to wrest τὰς λοιπὰς γραφάς, i. e., "the other Scriptural statements," due reverence for which should have protected them from such treatment, the implication being that no part of Scripture was safe in their hands. This is a sufficiently remarkable use of the plural, no other example of which occurs in the New Testament; it is, however, an entirely legitimate use of the plural and in its context a perfectly natural one, which, nevertheless, just because it is a special usage determined by its context, stands somewhat apart from the general technical use of αἱ γραφαί to designate the body of Scriptures and cannot guide us to its interpretation. In no other passage where αἱ γραφαί occurs is there the slightest hint that its plural form is determined by the conception of the Scriptures as a congeries of authoritative passages; this interpretation of the current plural form may indeed be set aside at once as outside of the possibilities of the case.

If we may not speak quite so decisively of the possibility of the plural form resting on a conception of "the Scriptures" as made up of a collection of Books, it may at least be said that there is nothing in the New Testament use of the term to remove the general unlikelihood of that construction of it. There are indeed two or three passages in which γραφαί might appear at first sight to designate a body of documents. Such are, for example, Rom. 16:26, where we read of γραφαὶ προφητικαί, and especially Matt. 26:56, where we read of αἱ γραφαὶ τῶν προφητῶν. In the case of Rom. 16:26, however, the very natural impression that here we have mention of the several books which constitute the second of the sections of the Jewish canon, known as "The Prophets," is almost certainly an error (cf. Vaughan in loc.). It is very unlikely that the "prophetic writings" with this mention of which this epistle closes are any other than the "Holy Scriptures" of the prophets with mention of which it opens (Rom. 1:2); and it is quite clear that these "Holy Scriptures" are much more inclusive than the writings of the second section of the Jewish canon,—that they embrace in fact the entirety of Scripture, thought of here as of prophetic, that is, revelatory, character (cf. Meyer, Weiss, Oltramare in loc.; Bleek on Heb. 1:1). Nor need the "Scriptures of the prophets" of Matt. 26:56 have any different meaning (cf. Swete on Mk. 14:49, Morrison in loc.). It is quite true that the term "The Prophets" is sometimes in Matthew (5:17, 7:12, 22:40) and in the other Gospels (Lk. 16:16, 29, 31, 24:44, Jno. 1:45) and in the rest of the New Testament (Acts 7:42, 13:15, 24:14, 28:23, Rom. 3:21) a technical term designating the second section of the Jewish canon; but it is equally true that it is sometimes used much more inclusively. For example in Matt. 2:23 the reference seems to be quite generally to the Old Testament considered as a prophetic book (cf. Meyer in loc.); and in Matt. 11:13, "all the prophets and even the law prophesied," the Pentateuch is expressly included within the prophetic word (cf. 2 Pet. 1:19). Passages like Lk. 1:70, 11:50 show that by these writers the whole Old Testament revelation was thought of as prophetic in character, while Lk. 18:31 is certainly entirely general (cf. Acts 3:24). The most instructive passages, however, are doubtless those which follow one another so closely in Lk. 24:25, 27, 44. It can hardly be doubted that the same body of books is intended in all three of these references, which merely progressively discriminate between the parts which make up the whole. The simple "prophets" thus becomes first "Moses and indeed all the prophets" (cf. Hahn in loc.)—further defined as the "whole Scripture"—and then "the Law of Moses, and the Prophets and the Psalms." The term "the Prophets" occurs thus in this brief context in three senses of varying inclusiveness, and apparently lends itself as readily to the widest as to the narrowest application. In these circumstances there seems no reason why in Matt. 26:56 "the Scriptures of the Prophets" should be narrowed beyond the inclusiveness of the suggestion of "the Scriptures" of the immediately preceding context (26:54) or of its own parallel in Mk. 14:49. In other words there is every reason to believe that in this passage the defining adjunct "of the Prophets" does not discriminate among the books which make up the Scriptures and single out certain of these as prophetic, but rather describes the entire body of Scripture as prophetic in origin and character, that is to say as a revelation from God. Γραφαί does not here, then, mean "books" "treatises," but αἱ γραφαί, as in verse 54 and in the parallel passage, Mk. 14:49, means the one Divine book. That Lk. 24:27, ἐν πάσαις ταῖς γραφαῖς, lends itself readily to the same interpretation requires no argument to show. If αἱ γραφαί is employed in a singular sense, then πᾶσαι αἱ γραφαί means just the whole of the document so designated, and is the exact equivalent of πᾶσα ἡ γραφή or πᾶσα γραφή (2 Tim. 3:16 taken as a proper noun). The truth seems to be, therefore, that as there is no example in the New Testament of the use of ἡ γραφή in the sense of one of the Books of Scripture, so there is no trace in its use of αἱ γραφαί of an underlying consciousness of the composition of the Scriptures out of a body of such Books. Whether the plural αἱ γραφαί, or the singular ἡ γραφή, is employed, therefore, the meaning is the same; in either case the application of the term to the Old Testament writings by the writers of the New Testament is the outgrowth of their conception of these Old Testament writings as a unitary whole, and designates this body of writings in its entirety as the one, well-known, authoritative documentation of the Divine revelation. This is the fundamental fact with respect to the use of these terms in the New Testament from which all the other facts of their usage flow.

In saying this, we are brought at once, however, face to face with what is probably the most remarkable fact about the usage of ἡ γραφή in the New Testament. This is its occasional employment to refer, not merely, as was to be expected from its form and previous history, to Scripture as a whole, nor even as, had it so occurred in the New Testament, would have been only a continuation of its profane usage, to the several treatises which make up that whole, but to individual passages of Scripture. This employment finds so little support in profane Greek, in which γράμμα rather than γραφή is the current form for the adduction of clauses or fragmentary portions of documents, that it has often been represented as a peculiarity of the New Testament and Patristic Greek. Thus, for example, we read in Stephens' "Thesaurus" (sub voc.): "In the New Testament and ecclesiastical books, ἡ γραφή and αἱ γραφαί are used of the sacred writings which are commonly called 'The Holy Scriptures.' But γραφή is sometimes in the New Testament employed peculiarly of a particular passage of Scripture." And Schaefer adds to this merely a reference to a passage in one of the orations of Valckenaer, where commenting on Acts 18:2–3, he remarks that, in the New Testament, "passages of the Old Testament such as are also designated περιοχάς, τόπους and χωρία are sometimes also called γραφάς." The usage does not seem, however, to be peculiar to the New Testament and the Church Fathers: it occurs also, though rarely, in the LXX and Philo, and may claim therefore to be at least Hellenistic.33 It is probably the outgrowth of the habit of looking upon the Scriptures as a unitary book of divine oracles, every part and passage of which is clothed with the authority which belongs to the whole, and which is of course manifested in all its parts. No doubt this extension of γραφή from a designation of Scripture as a whole to a designation of any given fragment of Scripture, however small, was mediated by the circumstance that in adducing the authority of 'Scripture' for any doctrine or practice, it was always inevitably not the whole of 'Scripture' but some special declaration of 'Scripture' which was especially in mind as bearing upon the particular point at the moment in hand. The transition was easy from saying "The Scripture says, namely in this or that passage," to saying of this and that passage specifically, "This Scripture says" and "Another Scripture says." When the entirety of Scripture is "Scripture" to us, each passage may readily be adduced as "Scripture" also, because "Scripture" is conceived as speaking in and through each passage. A step so inviting was sure to be taken sooner or later. Whenever therefore γραφή occurs of a particular passage of Scripture, so far from throwing in doubt its usage of Scripture as a whole, conceived as a unitary Divine authority, it rather presupposes this usage and is an outgrowth of it. It cannot surprise us therefore that ἡ γραφή occurs in the New Testament side by side in the two senses, and designates indifferently either Scripture as a whole, or a particular passage of Scripture, that is, is used indifferently "collectively" as it has not very exactly been called, and "particularly."

It has often, no doubt, been called in question whether both these senses do occur side by side in the New Testament. Possibly a desire to erect some well-marked and uniform distinction between the usage of the plural αἱ γραφαί and the singular ἡ γραφή, has not been wholly without its influence here. At all events the suggestion has every now and then been made that the singular ἡ γραφή bears in the New Testament the uniform sense of 'a passage of Scripture,' while it is the plural, αἱ γραφαί, alone which designates the Scriptures in their entirety. The famous Rationalist divine, Johannes Schulthess, for example, having occasion to comment briefly on the words πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος, 2 Tim. 3:16, among other assertions of equal insecurity, makes this one: "γραφή in the singular never means in the New Testament βίβλος, much less the entirety of τῶν ἱερῶν γραμμάτων, but some particular passage." Hitherto it has been thought enough to meet such assertions with a mere expression of dissent. Christiaan Sepp, for example, meets this one with equal brevity and point by the simple observation: "Passages like Jno. 10:35 prove the contrary." But a new face has been put upon the matter by the powerful advocacy of the proposition "that the singular γραφή in the New Testament always means a particular passage of Scripture," by the late Bishop Lightfoot in a comment on Gal. 3:22 which has on this account become famous. We must believe, however, that it is the weight of Dr. Lightfoot's justly great authority rather than the inherent reasonableness of the doctrine which has given this opinion the great vogue which it appears to enjoy at present among English-speaking scholars. It was at once confuted, it is true, by Dr. C. J. Vaughan in a note on Rom. 4:3; and in his own note on this passage Dr. Lightfoot seemed almost (not quite) persuaded to admit a doubt as to the usage of John, while reiterating, with respect to Paul at least, that in the matter of the use of γραφή in the singular of a single passage of Scripture "practice is absolute and uniform." Dr. Westcott took his stand by Dr. Lightfoot's side (see on Jno. 2:22, 10:35) and labored to show that John's usage conforms to the canon asserted; and Dr. Hort, though with some apparent hesitation with respect to John and Paul—the only portions of the New Testament, it will be noticed, of which Drs. Westcott and Lightfoot express assurance—inclined on the whole to give his assent to their general judgment (on 1 Peter 2:6). With more hesitancy, Dr. Swete remarks merely that γραφή "is a portion of Scripture," at least "almost always when the singular is used" (on Mk. 12:10). General agreement in the view in question is expressed also, for example, by Page (Acts 1:16), Knowling (Acts 8:32), Plummer (Lk. 4:21), A. Stewart (Hastings' BD. I 286). It is difficult to believe, however, that the reasons assigned for this view are sufficient to bear the weight of the judgment founded on them. They suffice, certainly, to show—what is in itself sufficiently remarkable,—that ἡ γραφή is repeatedly employed in the New Testament of a particular passage of Scripture. But the attempt to carry this usage through all the instances in which the singular appears involves a violence of exegetical procedure which breaks down of itself. Out of the thirty instances in which the singular, ἡ γραφή occurs, about a score prove utterly intractable to the proposed interpretation,—these nineteen to wit: Jno. 2:22, 7:38, 42, 10:35, 17:12, 19:28, 20:9, Acts 8:32, Rom. 4:3, 9:17, 10:11, 11:2, Gal. 3:8, 22, 4:30, 1 Tim. 5:18, Jas. 4:5, 1 Pet. 2:6, 2 Pet. 1:20. In point of fact, therefore, in some two-thirds of the instances where γραφή is employed in the singular, its reference is to the Scripture as a whole, to that unitary written authority to which final appeal was made. In some of these passages it is no less than impossible to take it otherwise. In Jno. 2:22, for example, there is absolutely no definite passage suggested, and Westcott seeks one to which to assign the reference only under the pressure of theory. The same is true of Jno. 20:9, where the reference is quite as broad as in Lk. 24:45. In Jno. 10:35 the argument depends upon the wide reference to Scripture as a whole, which forms its major premise. In Gal. 3:22 there is absolutely nothing to suggest a reference to a special text rather than to the general tenor of Scripture, and Lightfoot supplies a special text only conjecturally and with hesitation. The personification of Scripture in such passages as Jas. 4:5, Gal. 3:8 carries with it the same implication. And the anarthrous use of γραφή in 1 Pet. 2:6, 2 Pet. 1:20, cf. 2 Tim. 3:16, is explicable only on the presupposition that ἡ γραφή had become so much the proper designation of Scripture that the term had acquired the value of a proper name, and was therefore treated as definite without, as with, the article. If anything were needed to render this supposition certain, it would be supplied by the straits to which expositors are brought who seek to get along without it. Dr. Hort, for example, after declining to understand γραφή in 1 Pet. 2:6 of Scripture in general, because he does not find "a distinct and recognized use of this sort," finally suggests that we should render "simply, 'in writing,' " so that "περιέχει ἐν γραφῇ shall be held equivalent to 'it stands written.' " But he is compelled to add: "That the quotation was authoritative, though not expressed, was doubtless implied, in accordance with the familiar Jewish use of the words 'said,' 'written,' "—apparently not realizing that, if the quotation is authoritative then, "It stands written" is the equivalent of the authoritative employment of this phrase in the adduction of what is specifically Scripture, and therefore means here distinctly not, "It stands written—somewhere," but "It stands written in the (technically so-called) Scripture." This seems, therefore, to be only a roundabout way of saying that γραφή here means and definitely refers to the authoritative Scripture, and not any 'writing' indifferently. The same is inevitably true of 2 Pet. 1:20. It is impossible that by "every prophecy of Scripture" the writer can have meant "every prophecy which has been reduced to writing." He undoubtedly intended the prophecies written in the Old Testament alone (cf., Bigg, Kübel, Keil in loc.); and this is but another way of saying that anarthrous γραφή is to him a technical designation of the Old Testament, or, in other words, that he uses it with precisely the implications with which we employ the term, "Scripture." In the presence of such passages as these there seems to be no reason why we should fail to recognize that the employment of γραφή in the New Testament so far follows its profane usage, in which it is applied to entire documents and carries with it a general implication of completeness, that it in its most common reference designates the Old Testament to which it is applied in its completeness as a unitary whole.

It has seemed worth while to enter somewhat fully upon this matter, not only on account of its intrinsic interest and the importance given it in recent expositions, but also because the issue throws into a high light what is after all the fundamental fact about the New Testament use of ἡ γραφή, αἱ γραφαί. This is the implication which they bear not only of the uniqueness of the body of religious writings which they designate, entitling them to be spoken of as together, in a supereminent sense, "the Scriptures," or rather "the Scripture," or even "Scripture"; but also, along with this, of their irreducible unity,—as constituting in their entirety a single divinely authoritative "writing." Francke is quite within the limits of clear fact, when he remarks, "The contemplation of the entire body of Scripture as a unitary word, in all its parts equally resting upon a single authority, and therefore possessing the same authority everywhere, forms the most essential presupposition of the designation of the collection of the written word as the γραφή." It only needs to be added that the same is true of its designation as αἱ γραφαί. What requires emphasis, in a word, is that the two designations ἡ γραφή and αἱ γραφαί are, so far as our evidence goes, strictly parallel; and neither is to be derived from the other. That the application of αἱ γραφί to the Scriptures does not rest on a previous application of ἡ γραφή to each of the Books of Scripture, we have already had occasion to show. It is equally important to observe that the application to Scripture of ἡ γραφή is not a subsequent development resting on a previous usage by which Scripture was known as αἱ γραφαί. The contrary assumption is often tacitly made and it is sometimes quite plainly expressed, as, for example, in the concluding words of Dr. Lightfoot's note on Gal. 3:22, where he tells us that "the transition from the 'Scriptures' to the 'Scripture' is analogous to the transition from τὰ βιβλία to the 'Bible.' " Precisely what is meant by the last clause of this statement is perhaps not perfectly clear. It is obvious, of course, that the designation of the Scripture as τὰ βιβλία antedates the misunderstanding of this term as a feminine singular, whence arose the Latin "Biblia" and our "Bible" treated as a singular—if this be really the history of the origin of these latter terms; but Dr. Lightfoot can hardly have meant that the use of ἡ γραφή as a designation of the Scripture arose similiarly through a misunderstanding of αἱ γραφαί as a singular. It would seem that he can only have meant that the progress was in both cases from a view of the sacred books which was fully conscious of their plurality to a conception of them which has swallowed up their plurality in a unitary whole. There is no proof, however, that such a movement of thought took place in either case. The fact seems to be that αἱ γραφαί was used from its earliest application to Scripture in a singular sense, in accordance with a current usage of the term in profane Greek. And we lack evidence that the Scriptures were known as τὰ βιβλία before they were known as ἡ βίβλος. These two modes of speaking of Scripture appear to have been rather parallel than consecutive usages. And it is probable that the same is true of the designations αἱ γραφαί and ἡ γραφή as well. It is true enough that we meet with αἱ γραφαί, though somewhat rarely and perhaps ordinarily in the phrase [αἱ] ἱεραὶ γραφαί, in Philo and Josephus, whereas ἡ γραφή of Scripture in general is said to occur first in the New Testament. But it is not probable that we are witnesses of the birth of a new usage in either case; and the evidence is too meagre to justify a pronouncement on the relative ages of the two forms. And in proportion as we recognize the singular sense of αἱ γραφαί and the rooting of both usages in a precedent Jewish mode of citing Scripture as the unitary Law of God, does all the probability of the proposed development pass away. In any event when the New Testament was in process of writing it was much too late in the day to speak of the formation of a sense of the unitary uniqueness of the Old Testament or of the rise of a usage in designating the Old Testament in which that sense would first come to its manifestation. Both that sense and modes of expressing it were an inheritance of the New Testament writers from a remote past, and find manifestation in the whole body of Jewish literature, not merely in the usage of the Rabbis, but in the pages of Philo as well. The truth seems to be that whether αἱ γραφαί is used or ἡ γραφή or anarthrous γραφή the implication is the same. In each case alike the Old Testament is thought of as a single document, set over against all other documents by reason of its unique authority based upon its Divine origin, on the ground of which it is constituted in every part and declaration the final arbiter of belief and practice. We need not, then, seek to discover subtle reasons for the distribution of these forms through the New Testament, asking why truly anarthrous γραφή is employed only by Peter (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16); why John and Paul prevailingly use the singular, Matthew uniformly and Mark and Luke prevailingly the plural; and why our Lord is reported as employing the two numbers indifferently. These things are at most matters of literary habit; at least, matters of chance and occasion, like our own indifferent use of 'The Scriptures,' 'The Scripture,' 'Scripture.'

One of the outgrowths of the conception of the Old Testament as a unitary Divine document, of indefectible authority in all its parts and declarations, was the habit of adducing it for the ordinary purposes of instruction or debate by such simple formulas as 'It is said,' 'It is written,' with the pregnant implication that what is thus adduced as 'said' or 'written' is 'said' or 'written' by an authority recognized as Divine and final. Both of these usages are richly illustrated in a variety of forms and with all high implications, not only in the New Testament at large, but also in the Gospels, and not only in the comments by the Evangelists but also in reported sayings of our Lord. We are concerned here particularly only with the formula "It is written," in which the consciousness of the written form, the documentary character, of the authority appealed to is most distinctly expressed. In its most common form, this formula is the simple γέγραπται, used either absolutely, or, with none of its authoritative implications thereby evacuated, with more or less precise definition of the place where the cited words can be found written. By its side there occurs in John the resolved formula γεγραμμένον ἐστίν; and in the latter part of Luke there is a tendency to adduce Scripture by means of a participial construction. These modes of citation have analogies in profane Greek, especially in legislative usage.46 But, as Cremer points out, their use with reference to the Divine Scriptures, as it involves the adduction of an authority which rises immeasurably above all legislative authority, so is freighted with a significance to which the profane usage affords no key. In the Gospels,—if we may take the Gospels as an example of the whole—of the two forms, γέγραπται alone occurs in Matthew (2:5, 4:6 in the narrative; 4:4, 4:7, 10, 11:10, 21:13, 26:24, 31 in the report of our Lord's words) and in Mark (1:2 in the narrative; 7:6, 9:12, 13, 11:17, 14:21, 27 in the report of our Lord's words), and predominantly in (Luke 2:23, 3:4, 4:10 in the narrative; 4:4, 8, 7:27, 10:20, 19:46, 24:46 in the report of our Lord's words), but only once in John (8:17 in the report of our Lord's words). In the latter part of Luke the citation of Scripture is accomplished by the aid of the participle γεγραμμένον ([cf. 4:17] 18:31, 20:17, 21:22, 22:37, 24:44), while in John the place of the formula γέγραπται (8:17 only) is taken by the resolved form γεγραμμένον ἐστίν (2:17, 6:31, 10:34, 12:14, cf. 16, in the narrative; 6:45, [8:17], cf. 15:25, in the report of our Lord's words). The significance of these formulas is perhaps most manifest when they are used absolutely, where they stand alone in bare authoritativeness, without indication of any kind whence the citation adduced is derived, the bald adduction being indication enough that it is the Divine authority of Scripture to which appeal is made. Instances of this usage are found in the Gospels for γέγραπται in Matt. 4:4, 6, 7, 10, 11:10, 21:13, 26:24, 31, in Mk. 7:6, 9:12, 13, 11:17, 14:21, 27, in Lk. 4:4, 8, 10, 7:27, 19:46, 20:17, 22:37; for γεγραμμένον ἐστίν in Jno. 2:17, 6:31, 12:14, [16]. In only a single passage each in Matthew and Mark is there added an indication of the source of the citation (Matt. 2:5, "it is written through the prophet"; Mk. 1:2, "it is written in Isaiah the prophet"). In Luke such defining adjuncts are more frequent (2:23, in the law of the Lord; 3:4, in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet; 10:26, in the law; 18:31, through the prophet; 24:44, in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms, i. e., in Scripture, verse 45). In John also such definitions are not relatively rare (6:45, in the prophets; 8:17, in your law; 10:34, in your law; 15:25, in the law). These fuller passages while they identify the document from which the citation is drawn, in no wise suggest that the necessity for such identification was felt; by their relative infrequency they rather emphasize how unnecessary such specification was except as an additional solemn invocation of the recognized source of all religious authority. The bare "It is written" was the decisive adduction of the indefectible authority of the Scriptures of God, clothed as such, in all their parts and in all their declarations, with His authority. We could scarcely imagine a usage which would more illuminatingly exhibit the estimate put upon Scripture as the expressed mind of God or the rooted sense of its unity and its equal authoritativeness in all its parts.

We should not pass lightly over this high implication of the employment of absolute γέγραπται to adduce the Scriptural word, and especially the suggestions of its relative frequency. No better index could be afforded of the sense of the unitary authority of the document so cited which dominated the minds of the writers of the New Testament and of our Lord as reported by them. The consciousness of the human authors, through whom the Scriptures were committed to writing, retires into the background; thought is absorbed in the contemplation of the divine authority which lies behind them and expresses itself through them. Even when explanatory adjuncts are added indicating where the words to which appeal is made are to be found written, they are so framed as not to lessen this implication. Commonly there is given only a bare reference to the written source of the words in mind; and when the human authors are named, it is not so much as the responsible authors of the words adduced as the intermediaries through whom the Divine authority expresses itself. In the parallel usage by which the Scriptures are appealed to by "It is said" and similar formulas the implication in question is perhaps even more clear. In Matthew, for example, Scripture is often cited as "what was spoken through (διά)" the prophets (2:23) or the prophet (13:35, 21:4), or more specifically through this or that prophet—([Isaiah 3:3], 4:14, 8:17, 12:17, cf. Jno. 12:38), or Jeremiah (2:17, 27:9) or Daniel (24:15). In a few passages of this kind the implication is explicitly filled out, and we read that the Scripture is spoken "by the Lord" (ὑπὸ κυρίου) through (διά) the prophet (1:22, 2:15, cf., 22:31, "Have ye not read what was spoken by God to you," that is, in their Scriptures; Acts 1:16, "The Scriptures which the Holy Ghost spoke before through the words of David"; 25:25, "The Holy Ghost spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers"). A similar use of εἰρημένον or εἴρηται occurs in the writings of Luke, whether absolutely (Lk. 4:12, [Rom. 4:18]) or with indication of the place where it is said (Lk. 2:24, Acts 13:40); and here too we find occasionally a suggestion that the human speaker is only the intermediary of the true speaker, God (Acts 2:16, διά the prophet Joel). It is possibly, however, not in the Gospels that the general usage illustrated by these passages finds its fullest or most emphatic expression; but rather in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the Scriptures are looked upon almost exclusively from the point of sight of this usage. Its height perhaps is attained in the designation of Scripture as τὰ λόγια (Rom. 3:2, cf. Acts 7:38, Heb. 5:12, 1 Pet. 4:11) and the current citation of it by the subjectless φησίν (1 Cor. 6:16) or λέγει (Rom. 15:10, 2 Cor. 6:2, Gal. 3:16, Eph. 4:8, 5:14), the authoritative subject being taken for granted. In the Gospels, however, we have sufficient illustration of the same general method of dealing with Scripture, side by side with their treatment of it as documentary authority, to evince that their writers and Jesus as reported by them, shared the same fundamental viewpoint.

ON THE TERMS "BIBLE," "HOLY BIBLE."

The purpose of the following note is simply to bring together what seems to be currently known of the origin of the terms "Bible," "Holy Bible." No attempt has been made to go behind the universally accessible sources of information upon which the general public depends, in order to gather additional material. The object in view is merely to make plain how incomplete the accessible knowledge of the history of these terms is. It is remarkable that terms daily on the lips of the entire Western world should have been left until to-day without adequate historical explanation. The fact is, however, beyond doubt. In a short letter printed in The Expository Times a few years ago Eb. Nestle remarks that "nobody as yet knows how the word 'Bible' found its way into the European languages" and represents even Theodor Zahn as declining the task of working out the story.53 The account which is ordinarily given is that βιβλία was current in Greek in the sense of "the Bible"; that this was taken over into Latin as a feminine singular, "Biblia"; and that this form in turn passed thence into the several Western languages. There is no step of this presumed process, however, which is beyond dispute, and a great obscurity rests upon the whole subject.

Th. Zahn enters a strong denial with respect to the basis of the development which is assumed. "For τὰ βιβλία as a designation of the Old Testament," he says, "no usage can be adduced." More broadly still: "The mediaeval and modern employment of τὰ βιβλία in the sense of αἱ γραφαί, ἡ γραφή, that is 'Bible,' is altogether alien to the ancient church." The current representation on the faith of Suicer that τὰ βιβλία occurs first in the sense of 'Bible' in Chrysostom, he continues, is "only a widely-spread error"; the passages Suicer quotes do not support the representation.

To justify this last assertion Zahn examines the three passages which Suicer quotes from Chrysostom in support of his statement that "Scriptura Sacra is called βιβλία simpliciter," and concludes that no one of them employs the term in that sense. In one of them—Hom. 10 in Genes. (Montfaucon, iv. 81) not βιβλία simpliciter, but θεῖα βιβλία is used. In another—Hom. 2 on certain passages of Genesis (Montfaucon, iv. 652)—Chrysostom declares that the Jews have no doubt τὰ βιβλία, but we Christians alone τῶν βιβλίων θησαυρός,—they τὰ γράμματα, we, however, both τὰ γράμματα and τὰ νοήματα—not the Bible but the Pentateuch being in mind and the very point of the statement requiring us to take the "Books" as merely so much paper, as the "letters" as only so much ink. It is on the third passage, however, that Suicer lays most stress, remarking of it, here "βιβλία is used absolutely and means Sacra Biblia." It is found in "Hom. ix. in Epist. ad Coloss." (Montfaucon xi.391) and runs as follows: "Delay not, I beseech thee: thou hast the oracles (λόγια) of God.… Hear, I beseech you, all ye who are careful for this life, and procure βιβλία φάρμακα τῆς ψυχῆς.… If you will have nothing else, get, then, the New [Testament: τὴν καινήν used absolutely as frequently in Chrysostom], the Apostle, the Acts, the Gospels, constant teachers, … This is the cause of all our evils,—ignorance of τὰς γραφάς." Zahn remarks: "It is evident that the anarthrous βιβλία here is not a name of the Bible, but designates the category 'Books,' to which, among others, the New Testament belongs; books too can be means of grace and constant teachers."

The average reader will no doubt feel that in his examination of these passages Zahn presses his thesis a little too far.

The contrast in the second passage between the Books and the Treasure hidden in them, between the Letter and the Sense, of course, throws the emphasis on the mere Books and the mere Letter. But this, so far from excluding, presupposes rather, the technical usage of these terms, τὰ βιβλία, τὰ γράμματα, to mean "Bible," "Scripture." The terms are used here certainly with primary reference to the Old Testament. But this is not to the exclusion of the New. In the third passage—in which the rich series of designations of Scripture brought together should be observed: "the Oracles of God," "the New [Testament]," "the Scriptures,"—it is clear enough, no doubt, that βιβλία is primarily a common noun. But it does not seem clear that it does not contain in itself a suggestion of its use as a proper noun. Beyond question Chrysostom means by these βιβλία just the Bible; just the "Oracles of God" of which he had spoken immediately before, inclusive of the New Testament of which he immediately afterwards speaks, and constituting "the Scriptures" of which he speaks somewhat further on. He speaks of these Bible books as remedial, and of course he speaks generally without an article. The case is like the anarthrous ἱερὰ γράμματα of 2 Tim. 3:16, or the anarthrous 'Bible' when we congratulate ourselves that we live "in a land of an open Bible"; in both of which instances the term is technical enough. When Chrysostom exhorted his hearers to get for themselves βιβλία which will be medicaments for their souls, they caught under the common noun βιβλία the implication of the technical τὰ βιβλία. These passages of Chrysostom, after all would seem then to bear witness to the currency of the term τὰ βιβλία as the synonym of αἱ γραφαί, ἡ γραφή.

But why should we confine ourselves to the passages cited by Suicer? Sophocles defines τὰ βιβλία, if not, like Suicer, as the sacred Books of the Christians, yet, similiarly, as "the Sacred Books of the Hebrews," quoting for his definition the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus, 1 Macc. 12:9 (τὰ ἅγια), Josephus, "Contr. Apion.," i. 8; and Clem. Alex. [Migne] i. 668 B, Origen, [Migne] i. 1276, C. The three Jewish citations we may leave for the moment to one side: in any case they do not present us with an absolute τὰ βιβλία, meaning "the Scriptures." Clement and Origen take us back two hundred years before Chrysostom.

In the passage cited from Clement—it is "Paedagog." iii. xii. med.—Clement is speaking of the goodness of the Instructor in setting forth his salutary commandments in the great variety of the Scriptures. He had adduced our Lord's great summary of the Law (Matt. 22:37–40) and His injunction to the rich young man "to keep the commandments"; and taking a new beginning from this injunction, he enlarges on the Decalogue. "These things," he remarks, "are to be observed,"—and not these only, but along with them, "whatsoever else we see prescribed for us as we read τὰ βιβλία." For example there is Isaiah 1:10, 17, 18, and the declaration of Scripture that "good works are an acceptable prayer to the Lord"—whatever the passage may be which Clement may have had in mind when he wrote this. It is scarcely disputable that by τὰ βιβλία here, used absolutely, there is meant just "the Sacred Books," that is to say, "the Bible." The immediately preceding reference is to the Decalogue, and the immediately contiguous ones are to the Old Testament. But it seems hardly possible to contend that τὰ βιβλία therefore means here either the Decalogue, or the Pentateuch, or the Old Testament, distinctively. It is altogether more probable that it is equally comprehensive with the αἱ γραφαί of the closely preceding context. We cannot accord with Sophocles' opinion, then, that τὰ βιβλία here means "the Sacred Books of the Hebrews": it seems to us to mean "the Sacred Books of the Christians."

The passage cited by Sophocles from Origen is "Contra Celsum" v. 60 (Ed. Koetschau, 1899, ii. p. 63: 22. 23). In it the Hebrew Scriptures are clearly referred to by τὰ βιβλία. It declares that Jews and Christians alike "confess that τὰ βιβλία were written by the Divine Spirit." But it does not follow that τὰ βιβλία means with Origen the Old Testament as distinguished from the New, though Koetschau seems inclined to hold this to be the fact. "The Books of the Holy Scriptures," he writes (Prolegom. i. p. xxxii.), "are with Origen generally designated θεῖα βιβλία, γραφή (γραφαί) or γράμματα; those of the Old Testament, βιβλία, παλαιὰ γραφή or παλαιὰ γράμματα." This would seem to say that the absolute τὰ βιβλία with Origen is the synonym not of ἡ γραφή but of ἡ παλαιὰ γραφή, not of τὰ γράμματα but of τὰ παλαιὰ γράμματα. There seems to be nothing in the Contra "Celsum," to be sure, which will decisively refute this opinion. There we read of "the sacred βιβλία of the Jews" or "of the Hebrews" (Koetschau, i. 304, 26; 305, 6): of "the βιβλία which the prophets wrote in Hebrew" (ii. 208, 22; cf., i. 291, 12), or simply of "the βιβλία of the Jews" (ii. 93, 18); but nowhere else than in v. 60 (so far as Koetschau's confessedly incomplete index indicates) do we meet with absolute τὰ βιβλία in the sense of "The Scriptures." But what shall we make of a passage like the following from the 'Fourteenth Homily on Jeremiah' (§ 12: Ed. Klostermann, 1901, p. 117, line 4)? " 'For thy sins, then, will I give thy treasures for a spoil.' And he gave the treasures of the Jews to us, for they were the first to believe τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ, and only after them did we believe, God having taken the λόγια away from them and given them to us. And we say that 'the kingdom shall be taken away from them by God and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof' has been said by the Saviour and shall be fulfilled. Not that ἡ γραφή has been taken away from them, but now, though they have the Law and the Prophets they do not understand the meaning that is in them. For they have τὰ βιβλία. But how was the kingdom of God taken from them? The meaning τῶν γραφῶν was taken from them," etc. It is worth while to pause and note the rich synonymy of "the Scriptures" here. And, noting it, we may well ask whether, if τὰ βιβλία, because it is used here with the eye on the Hebrew Scriptures, is to be taken as meaning distinctively the Hebrew Scriptures, this same is not true also of τὰ λόγια and ἡ γραφή and αἱ γραφαί. There is a subtle propriety in the adjustment of these three terms to the exact place in which each appears in the argument. Λόγια emphasizes the divine origin of the Scriptures; βιβλία looks upon them from the point of view of their external form; γραφή, of their significant contents. The terms could not be interchanged without some loss of exactness of speech: βιβλία accordingly stands where it does because it expresses the externalia of the Scriptures, sets them before us as "nothing but books"—so much paper. But in their general connotation the three terms are coextensive, and there is no reason for narrowing τὰ βιβλία to "the Old Testament" because it refers to the Old Testament here, which will not apply as well to τὰ λόγια and to ἡ γραφή, αἱ γραφαί. There is preserved for us in the "Philocalia" (Ch. v., ed. Robinson, 1893, pp. 43–48) a remarkable fragment of the Fifth Book of Origen's 'Commentary on John' (ed. Preuschen, 1903, pp. 100–105), in which Origen, speaking to the text, "Of the making of many books there is no end," rings the changes on βιβλίον and βιβλία and leaves a strong impression on the reader's mind that to him τὰ βιβλία would be exactly synonymous with τὰ θεῖα βιβλία. "But since," says he (Preuschen, p. 103, 12), "the proofs of this must be drawn from τῆς θείας γραφῆς, it will be most satisfactorily established if I am able to show that it is not in one Book only that it is written among us concerning Christ—taking τὰ βιβλία in its common sense. For we find it written in the Pentateuch," etc. Origen here, by telling us that τὰ βιβλία has a common sense, tells us also that it has a special sense, and that in this special sense it includes alike the New Testament in which we should expect to find Christ spoken of, and the Pentateuch where also He is spoken of; in a word it is the exact synonym of ἡ θεία γραφή.

If we do not quite learn from Clement and Origen, therefore,—as Sophocles would have us learn—that, because it is used of the Sacred Books of the Hebrews, τὰ βιβλία means distinctively the "Sacred Books of the Hebrews," we do learn what Zahn would not have us learn, that it is used absolutely in the sense of "the Sacred Scriptures." We must now take note of the fact, however, that Zahn's primary object was to deny not that τὰ βιβλία, absolutely used, could mean "the Sacred Books," but precisely that it could mean the Sacred Books of the Hebrews—the Old Testament. His primary statement is that no usage can be adduced of τὰ βιβλία as a designation distinctively of the Old Testament. He is discussing the reading of a clause in II Clemens Rom. 14. This clause couples together (in the Constantinople MS. followed by Lightfoot) τὰ βιβλία καὶ οἱ ἀπόστολοι, which, as Lightfoot remarks, is a rough designation of the Old and New Testaments. On the testimony of the Syriac version Zahn reads τὰ βιβλία τῶν προφητῶν καὶ οἱ ἀπόστολοι, and to strengthen his position argues that absolute τὰ βιβλία for "the Old Testament" is unexampled. We have already seen enough to prove to us that absolute τὰ βιβλία was quite readily used to designate the Old Testament—because the Old Testament was part of the Scriptures, that is of τὰ βιβλία in their pregnant sense. But whether τὰ βιβλία was used distinctively of the Old Testament—when the Old Testament was set over against the New—is another question.

This question need not wait long, however, for an answer. It cannot be doubted, and it is not doubted, that the Jews called their sacred writings, by way of eminence, "the Books." As Zahn very exactly declares the Hebrew הספדים (Mishna Megilla i. 8) certainly underlies the usage of αἱ γραφαί, ἡ γραφή in the general sense of "the Bible." The antiquity of this phrase may be estimated from its occurrence in Daniel 9:2: "I Daniel understood by 'the Books'…": "that is," says Driver, commenting on the passage, "the sacred books, the Scriptures" (cf. ספר in Ps. 40:8, Is. 29:18). The Greek rendering of this passage gives us to be sure αἱ βίβλοι rather than τὰ βιβλία. But already in 1 Macc. 12:9 we have the full phrase of which τὰ βιβλία is the natural abbreviation—τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια, while Josephus gives us the parallel τὰ ἱερὰ βιβλία: and from these phrases τὰ βιβλία could not fail to be extracted, just as γραφαί, was extracted from αἱ ἅγιαι γραφαί, αἱ ἱεραὶ γραφαί, and the like. We meet with no surprise therefore the appearance of τὰ βιβλία in II Clems. xiv, as a distinctive designation of the Old Testament. It only advertises to us, what we knew beforehand, that the Old Testament was "the Books" before both Old and New Testaments were subsumed under that title, and that usage, in a community made up partly of Jews, for a time conserved, without prejudice to the equal authority of the New Testament Books, some lingering reminiscence of the older habit of speech. How easily the Old Testament might continue to be called τὰ βιβλία after the term had come to include New Books as well, may be illustrated by a tendency which is observable in the earlier English usage of the word "Bible" (persisting even yet dialectically) to employ it of the Old Testament distinctively—as in the phrase "The Bible and the Testament,"—not, of course, with any implication of inferiority for the New Testament books. How long such a tendency to think of the Old Testament especially when the term τὰ βιβλία was heard continued to manifest itself in the early church, it would require a delicate investigation to determine. It is enough for the moment to note that II Clems. xiv witnesses to the presence of such a tendency in the first age, while such phrases as meet us in Melito of Sardis—τὰ παλαιὰ βιβλία, τὰ τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης βιβλία—warn us that the new conditions of the New Covenant with its New Books were already requiring a distinction, among the τὰ βιβλία by way of eminence, between the New and the Old Books which made up the whole. Τὰ βιβλία in a word to Jew and Christian alike meant just "the Holy Books," "the Books" by way of eminence, by the side of which could stand no others; and though ear and lip needed a space to adjust themselves to the increased content of the phrase when Christianity came bringing with it its contribution to the unitary collection, yet the adjustment was quickly made and if the memory of the earlier usage persisted for a while, τὰ βιβλία in Christian circles meant from the beginning in principle the whole body of Sacred Books and rapidly came to mean in practice nothing less.

We cannot agree with Zahn, then, that the usage of τὰ βιβλία in the early church provides no basis upon which the development of our term "Bible" could have taken place. But when we come to take the next step in the development of that term, we are constrained to assent to Nestle's declaration that nobody knows how the term "Bible" found its way into the European languages. The Latins did not take over the Greek word βιβλία, or its cognate βίβλοι, to designate the Biblical books. They had in their own Liber a term which had already acquired a pregnant sense "in religion and public law"—as expressing "a religious book, Scripture, a statute book, codex"; and which therefore readily lent itself to employment as the representative of the pregnant Greek terms which it translates, though it scarcely seems to have attained so absolute a use. Accordingly we find in use in the early church side by side with such Greek phrases as τὰ βιβλία τῆς παλαιᾶς, τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης, the Latin phrases, Libri veteris, novi testamenti, (fœderis): and over against the Greek βιβλία κανονικά, the Latin libri regulares, or as Rufinus puts it, libri inter canonem conclusi. Jerome gave currency to the very appropriate term Bibliotheca as the designation of the corpus of the Sacred Books; and this term became later the technical term perhaps most frequently employed, so that Martianaeus in his "Prolegomena in divinam bibliothecam Hieron." i. §1, speaking de nomine Bibliothecae Divinæ, can very fairly say, "among the ancients, the sacred volume which we, at the present time, call Biblia, obtained the name of Bibliotheca Divina." There is no trace of such a word as "Biblia" in Patristic Latin, and no such word is entered in the Latin Lexicons,—not even in the great Latin "Thesaurus" now publishing by the German Universities. We shall have to come to Du Cange's "Gloss. Med. et Inf. Latinitatis" to discover it. And when we discover it we are told very little about it except of its existence in the Latin of the early middle ages, and shortly afterwards in the vernaculars of the West.

There seems to be no serious inherent difficulty in conceiving the passage of a Greek neuter plural into Latin as a feminine singular. The thing appears not to be unexampled, and so might have happened to βιβλία. What we lack is clear evidence that βιβλία did pass into "Biblia," and exact information of the stages and processes by which the feat was accomplished. And the difficulty of the problem is vastly increased by the circumstances that the time when the transference is supposed to have taken place was not a time when there was rich intercourse between the East and the West, in which borrowing of terms would have been easy and natural; and that there was no obvious need upon the part of the West for such a term, which would render its borrowing of it natural. Yet the term is supposed to have been taken over with such completeness and heartiness as to have become the parent of the common nomenclature of the Scriptures in all the Western languages. The difficulties raised by these considerations are so great that one finds himself questioning whether the origin of the term "Biblia" in Mediaeval Latin and of its descendants in the Western languages can be accounted for after the fashion suggested, and whether some other conjectural explanation of their origin might not wisely be sought for—as, for example, a contraction of the commonly current term "bibliotheca."68 Some color might be lent to such a conjecture by the fact that "Biblia" and its descendants seem to have been from the first in use not merely in an ecclesiastical but also in a common sense—as designations, that is, not merely of the Scriptures but of any large book. Appeal might be made also to the ease with which the two terms 'Biblia' and 'Bibliotheca' took one the other's place down at least to the fifteenth century.70 What we need, however, is not conjectures but a series of ascertained facts, and these are at the moment at our disposal in very insufficient measure.

Du Cange can tell us only that the word "Biblia" occurs in the "Imitatio Christi" I i. 3, and in the "Diarium Belli Hussitici," adding a quotation from a Chronicle, at the year 1228, to the effect that "Stephen, archibishop of Canterbury … made postils super totam Bibliam." To this Diefenbach in the "Glossarium," which he published (1857) as a supplement to Du Cange, merely adds an intimation that certain fifteenth century glossaries contain "Biblia" in the sense of a "large book," as also "Biblie" and "Bibel" (German). Becker in his "Catalogi Bibliothecarum Antiqui" is able to cite earlier examples of "Biblia" from old catalogues of libraries. The earliest—from the ninth century—comes from the catalogue of an unknown French library; next in age are two twelfth century examples—one from Monte Cassiro and the other from Stederburg in Brunswick. The English Latin catalogues in which he finds it begin with one of the books at Durham, dating from 1266,73 and by that time the word was already in use in English, and of course in French,75 since the English usage rests on the French. How early it appears in the modern European languages we lack data to inform us. The German examples which Diefenbach quotes are from the fifteenth century and those which Heyne gives from the sixteenth, while Grimm cites none earlier than the seventeenth. But if the Low-German "Fibel" is really a derivative of "Bibel," the common use of "Bibel" must have antedated the fifteenth century.77 Littré gives no French example earlier than Joinville, who wrote at the beginning of the fourteenth century (1309). Its French usage must go well back of this, however, for as we have seen it had come from French into Middle English by that date. The name in ordinary use throughout the Middle Ages for what we call the "Bible" was "Bibliotheca," and we accordingly find that in Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "bibliothéce" alone occurs in this sense. From the fourteenth century on, however, "Bible" takes the place of "Bibliothéce." Chaucer uses it freely in both the ecclesiastical and common senses. Purvey uses it as a word well-known in common currency, referring naturally to "the Bible late translated," and to that "simple creature" (as he called himself) "who hath translated the Bible out of the Latin into the English." The rapidity with which the term entered into general usage may be divined from the examples given by Richardson and Murray.

These lexicographers record no example, however, of the occurrence of the compound term, "The Holy Bible." It seems that this combination was somewhat late in establishing itself as the stated designation of the sacred book in English. It first finds a place on the title-page of an English Bible in the so-called "Bishops' Bible," the earliest issue of which dates from 1568: "The. holie. Bible. | conteynyng the olde | Testament and the newe." | It, of course, continues on the title-pages of the numerous subsequent issues of this edition,81 but it does not otherwise occur on the title-page of English Bibles until the appearance of the Douai Old Testament of 1610: "The | Holie Bible |.…" The Rheims translators, in the preface of their New Testament, published in 1582, had indeed spoken of "the holy Bible" as "long since translated by us into English, and the Old Testament lying by us for lacke of goode meanes to publish the whole in such sort as a worke of so great charge and importance requireth"; from which we may learn that, though the volume of 1610 contains only the Old Testament, the term "The Holie Bible" upon its title is not to be confined to the Old Testament, as sometimes the phrase was confined in its Old English use. The adoption of the term "The Holy Bible" for the title-page of King James' version of 1611: "The | Holy Bible, | conteyning the Old Testament, | and the New |," finally fixed it as the technical designation of the book in English.

It is natural to assume that the current title of the Vulgate Latin Bible with which we are familiar—"Biblia Sacra"—lay behind this English development; but it would be a mistake to suppose that this was by any means the constant designation of the Latin Bible in the earlier centuries of its printing. A hasty glance over the lists of editions recorded in Masch's Le Long (iii.) indeed leaves the impression that it was only after the publication of the "authorized" Roman edition of 1590, "Biblia Sacra Vulgatae Editionis," that this designation finally established itself as regular; though it was, of course, frequently employed before that. The original edition of John Fust and Peter Schoeffer indeed is described by Le Long (p. 98) as "Biblia Sacra Latina juxta Vulgatam editionem II vol. in folio." And the title of the great Complutensian Polyglot (1514–1517) is given as "Biblia Sacra." But these are not the actual titles of these books, and it is not until near the opening of the second quarter of the sixteenth century that "Biblia Sacra" begins to appear on the title-pages of the Latin Bibles which were pouring from the press. Osiander's edition (Norimbergae, 1522) has it: "Biblia sacra utriusque Testamenti," (p. 309), and of course transmitted it to its reprints (1523, 1527, 1529, 1530, 1543, 1559, 1564); Knoblauch's contemporary edition, on the other hand, (Argentorati, 1522) has rather: "Biblia sacrae scripturae Veteris omnia" (p. 314).85 Among Catholic editions, one printed at Cologne in 1527: "Biblia sacra utriusque Testamenti" (p. 178), seems to be the earliest recorded by Le Long, which has this designation. It seems to have been, however, a Paris edition of the next year (1528): "Biblia sacra: integrum utriusque testamenti corpus completens," (repeated in 1534, 1543, 1548, 1549, 1550, 1551, 1552, 1560) which set the fashion of it. Somewhat equivalent forms appear by its side, such as: "Biblia Bibliorum opus sacrosanctum" (Lugduni, 1532), "Biblie sacre Textus" (Lugduni, 1531), and especially "Biblia Sacrosancta" (Lugduni, 1532, 1535, 1536, 1544, 1546, 1556, 1562: Basiliae 1547, 1551, 1557, 1562, 1569, 1578). But none of these became fixed as the technical designation of the volume, as Biblia Sacra tended to become from the opening of the second quarter of the sixteenth century, and ended by fairly becoming before that century closed.

The Romance languages seem to have followed this growing Latin custom in the designation of their Bibles, although examples of the simple nomenclature persist (e. g., La Bible qui est toute la sainte escriture, Geneva, 1562, 1622, 1638, 1657, etc.). Among the Teutonic races, other than the English, however, it has been slower in taking root. German Bibles still call themselves "Biblia, das ist: die gantze Heilige Schrift," or in more modern form, "Die Bibel, oder die ganze Heilige Schrift," and Dutch Bibles similiarly, "Biblia, dat is de gantsche H. Schrifture," or more modernly, "Bijbel, dat is de gansche Heilige Schrift." Doubtless "die heilige Bibel" or "de heilige Bybel"—though not unexampled,—would seem somewhat harsh and unusual to Teutonic ears. Strange to say they would take more kindly apparently to such a phrase as "Das heilige Bibelbuch."

Our common phrase, "The Holy Bible," thus reveals itself as probably a sixteenth century usage, which has not yet been made the common property of the Christian world. In its substantive, it rests on an as yet insufficiently explained mediaeval usage, not yet traced further back than the ninth century. This usage in turn is commonly assigned for its origin to a borrowing from the Greek churches of their customary use of τὰ βιβλία to designate the Scriptures. Behind this lies a Jewish manner of speech. This appears to be all that can as yet be affirmed of the origin of our common term: "The Holy Bible."

VI

THE REAL PROBLEM OF INSPIRATION

A GREAT deal is being said of late of "the present problem of inspiration," with a general implication that the Christian doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures has been brought into straits by modern investigation, and needs now to adapt itself to certain assured but damaging results of the scientific study of the Bible. Thus, because of an assumed "present distress," Canon Cheyne, in a paper read at the English Church Congress of 1888, commended a most revolutionary book of Mr. R. F. Horton's, called "Inspiration and the Bible," which explains away inspiration properly so called altogether, as the best book he could think of on the subject. And Mr. Charles Gore defends the concessive method of treating the subject of inspiration adopted in "Lux Mundi," by the plea that the purpose of the writers of that volume "was 'to succour a distressed faith,' by endeavoring to bring the Christian creed into its right relation to the modern growth of knowledge, scientific, historical, critical."3 On our side of the water, Dr. Washington Gladden has published a volume which begins by presenting certain "new" views of the structure of the books of the Bible as established facts, and proceeds to the conclusion that: "Evidently neither the theory of verbal inspiration nor the theory of plenary inspiration can be made to fit the facts which a careful study of the writings themselves brings before us. These writings are not inspired in the sense which we have commonly given to that word." Accordingly he recommends that under the pressure of these new views we admit not only that the Bible is not "infallible," but that its laws are "inadequate" and "morally defective," and its untrustworthiness as a religious teacher is so great that it gives us in places "blurred and distorted ideas about God and His truth." And Prof. Joseph H. Thayer has published a lecture which represents as necessitated by the facts as now known, such a change of attitude towards the Bible as will reject the whole Reformed doctrine of the Scriptures in favor of a more "Catholic" view which will look upon some of the history recorded in the Bible as only "fairly trustworthy," and will expect no intelligent reader to consider the exegesis of the New Testament writers satisfactory.5 A radical change in our conception of the Scriptures as the inspired Word of God is thus pressed upon us as now necessary by a considerable number of writers, representing quite a variety of schools of Christian thought.

Nevertheless the situation is not one which can be fairly described as putting the old doctrine of inspiration in jeopardy. The exact state of the case is rather this: that a special school of Old Testament criticism, which has, for some years, been gaining somewhat widespread acceptance of its results, has begun to proclaim that these results having been accepted, a "changed view of the Bible" follows which implies a reconstructed doctrine of inspiration, and, indeed, also a whole new theology. That this changed view of the Bible involves losses is frankly admitted. The nature of these losses is stated by Dr. Sanday in a very interesting little book with an evident effort to avoid as far as possible "making sad the heart of the righteous whom the Lord hath not made sad," as consisting chiefly in making "the intellectual side of the connection between Christian belief and Christian practice a matter of greater difficulty than it has hitherto seemed to be," in rendering it "less easy to find proof texts for this or that," and in making the use of the Bible so much less simple and less definite in its details that "less educated Christians will perhaps pay more deference to the opinion of the more educated, and to the advancing consciousness of the Church at large." If this means all that it seems to mean, its proclamation of an indefinite Gospel eked out by an appeal to the Church and a scholastic hierarchy, involves a much greater loss than Dr. Sanday appears to think—a loss not merely of the Protestant doctrine of the perspicuity of the Scriptures, but with it of all that that doctrine is meant to express and safeguard—the loss of the Bible itself to the plain Christian man for all practical uses, and the delivery of his conscience over to the tender mercies of his human instructors, whether ecclesiastical or scholastic. Dr. Briggs is more blunt and more explicit in his description of the changes which he thinks have been wrought. "I will tell you what criticism has destroyed," he says in an article published a couple of years ago. "It has destroyed many false theories about the Bible; it has destroyed the doctrine of verbal inspiration; it has destroyed the theory of inerrancy; it has destroyed the false doctrine that makes the inspiration depend upon its attachment to a holy man." And he goes on to remark further "that Biblical criticism is at the bottom" of the "reconstruction that is going on throughout the Church"—"the demand for revision of creeds and change in methods of worship and Christian work." It is clear enough, then, that a problem has been raised with reference to inspiration by this type of criticism. But this is not equivalent to saying that the established doctrine of inspiration has been put in jeopardy. For there is criticism and criticism. And though it may not be unnatural for these scholars themselves to confound the claims of criticism with the validity of their own critical methods and the soundness of their own critical conclusions, the Christian world can scarcely be expected to acquiesce in the identification. It has all along been pointing out that they were traveling on the wrong road; and now when their conclusions clash with well-established facts, we simply note that the wrong road has not unnaturally led them to the wrong goal. In a word, it is not the established doctrine of inspiration that is brought into distress by the conflict, but the school of Old Testament criticism which is at present fashionable. It is now admitted that the inevitable issue of this type of criticism comes into collision with the established fact of the plenary inspiration of the Bible and the well-grounded Reformed doctrine of Holy Scripture based on this fact. The cry is therefore, and somewhat impatiently, raised that this fact and this doctrine must "get out of the way," and permit criticism to rush on to its bitter goal. But facts are somewhat stubborn things, and are sometimes found to prove rather the test of theories which seek to make them their sport.

Nevertheless, though the strain of the present problem should thus be thrown upon the shoulders to which it belongs, it is important to keep ourselves reminded that the doctrine of inspiration which has become established in the Church, is open to all legitimate criticism, and is to continue to be held only as, and so far as, it is ever anew critically tested and approved. And in view of the large bodies of real knowledge concerning the Bible which the labors of a generation of diligent critical study have accumulated, and of the difficulty which is always experienced in the assimilation of new knowledge and its correlation with previously ascertained truth, it is becoming to take this occasion to remind ourselves of the foundations on which this doctrine rests, with a view to inquiring whether it is really endangered by any assured results of recent Biblical study. For such an investigation we must start, of course, from a clear conception of what the Church doctrine of inspiration is, and of the basis on which it is held to be the truth of God. Only thus can we be in a position to judge how it can be affected on critical grounds, and whether modern Biblical criticism has reached any assured results which must or may "destroy" it.

The Church, then, has held from the beginning that the Bible is the Word of God in such a sense that its words, though written by men and bearing indelibly impressed upon them the marks of their human origin, were written, nevertheless, under such an influence of the Holy Ghost as to be also the words of God, the adequate expression of His mind and will. It has always recognized that this conception of co-authorship implies that the Spirit's superintendence extends to the choice of the words by the human authors (verbal inspiration), and preserves its product from everything inconsistent with a divine authorship—thus securing, among other things, that entire truthfulness which is everywhere presupposed in and asserted for Scripture by the Biblical writers (inerrancy). Whatever minor variations may now and again have entered into the mode of statement, this has always been the core of the Church doctrine of inspiration. And along with many other modes of commending and defending it, the primary ground on which it has been held by the Church as the true doctrine is that it is the doctrine of the Biblical writers themselves, and has therefore the whole mass of evidence for it which goes to show that the Biblical writers are trustworthy as doctrinal guides. It is the testimony of the Bible itself to its own origin and character as the Oracles of the Most High, that has led the Church to her acceptance of it as such, and to her dependence on it not only for her doctrine of Scripture, but for the whole body of her doctrinal teaching, which is looked upon by her as divine because drawn from this divinely given fountain of truth.

Now if this doctrine is to be assailed on critical grounds, it is very clear that, first of all, criticism must be required to proceed against the evidence on which it is based. This evidence, it is obvious, is twofold. First, there is the exegetical evidence that the doctrine held and taught by the Church is the doctrine held and taught by the Biblical writers themselves. And secondly, there is the whole mass of evidence—internal and external, objective and subjective, historical and philosophical, human and divine—which goes to show that the Biblical writers are trustworthy as doctrinal guides. If they are trustworthy teachers of doctrine and if they held and taught this doctrine, then this doctrine is true, and is to be accepted and acted upon as true by us all. In that case, any objections brought against the doctrine from other spheres of inquiry are inoperative; it being a settled logical principle that so long as the proper evidence by which a proposition is established remains unrefuted, all so-called objections brought against it pass out of the category of objections to its truth into the category of difficulties to be adjusted to it. If criticism is to assail this doctrine, therefore, it must proceed against and fairly overcome one or the other element of its proper proof. It must either show that this doctrine is not the doctrine of the Biblical writers, or else it must show that the Biblical writers are not trustworthy as doctrinal guides. If a fair criticism evinces that this is not the doctrine of the Biblical writers, then of course it has "destroyed" the doctrine which is confessedly based on that supposition. Failing in this, however, it can "destroy" the doctrine, strictly speaking, only by undermining its foundation in our confidence in the trustworthiness of Scripture as a witness to doctrine. The possibility of this latter alternative must, no doubt, be firmly faced in our investigation of the phenomena of the Bible; but the weight of the evidence, be it small or great, for the general trust worthiness of the Bible as a source of doctrine, throws itself, in the form of a presumption, against the reality of any phenomena alleged to be discovered which make against its testimony. No doubt this presumption may be overcome by clear demonstration. But clear demonstration is requisite. For, certainly, if it is critically established that what is sometimes called, not without a touch of scorn, "the traditional doctrine," is just the Bible's own doctrine of inspiration, the real conflict is no longer with "the traditional theory of inspiration," but with the credibility of the Bible. The really decisive question among Christian scholars (among whom alone, it would seem, could a question of inspiration be profitably discussed), is thus seen to be, "What does an exact and scientific exegesis determine to be the Biblical doctrine of inspiration?"

THE BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION CLEAR

The reply to this question is, however, scarcely open to doubt. The stricter and the more scientific the examination is made, the more certain does it become that the authors of the New Testament held a doctrine of inspiration quite as high as the Church doctrine. This may be said, indeed, to be generally admitted by untrammeled critics, whether of positive or of negative tendencies. Thus, for instance—to confine our examples to a few of those who are not able personally to accept the doctrine of the New Testament writers—Archdeacon Farrar is able to admit that Paul "shared, doubtless, in the views of the later Jewish schools—the Tanaim and Amoraim—on the nature of inspiration. These views … made the words of Scripture coextensive and identical with the words of God." So also Otto Pfleiderer allows that Paul "fully shared the assumption of his opponents, the irrefragable authority of the letter as the immediately revealed Word of God."11 Similarly, Tholuck recognizes that the application of the Old Testament made by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "rests on the strictest view of inspiration, since passages where God is not the speaker are cited as words of God or of the Holy Ghost (1:6, 7, 8, 4:4, 7, 7:21, 3:7, 10:15)." This fact is worked out also with convincing clearness by the writer of an odd and sufficiently free Scotch book published a few years ago,13 who formulates his conclusion in the words: "There is no doubt that the author of Hebrews, in common with the other New Testament writers, regards the whole Old Testament as having been dictated by the Holy Ghost, or, as we should say, plenarily, and, as it were, mechanically inspired." And more recently still Prof. Stapfer, of Paris, though himself denying the reality not only of an infallibility for the Bible, but also of any inspiration for it at all, declaring that "the doctrine of an Inspiration distinct from Revelation and legitimating it, is an error"—yet cannot deny that Paul held a different doctrine—a doctrine which made the Old Testament to him the divine Word and the term, "It is written," equivalent to "God says."15

A detailed statement of the evidence is scarcely needed to support a position allowed by such general consent. But it will not be improper to adjoin a brief outline of the grounds on which the general consent rests. In the circumstances, however, we may venture to dispense with an argument drawn up from our own point of view, and content ourselves with an extract from the brief statement of the grounds of his decision given by another of those critical scholars who do not believe the doctrine of plenary inspiration, but yet find themselves constrained to allow that it is the doctrine of the New Testament writers. Richard Rothe seeks, wrongly, to separate Christ's doctrine of the Old Testament from that of the apostles; our Lord obviously spoke of the Scriptures of His people out of the same fundamental conception of their nature and divinity as His apostles. But he more satisfactorily outlines the doctrine of the apostles as follows:

"We find in the New Testament authors the same theoretical view of the Old Testament and the same practice as to its use, as among the Jews of the time in general, although at the same time in the handling of the same conceptions and principles on both sides, the whole difference between the new Christian spirit and that of contemporary Judaism appears in sharp distinctness. Our authors look upon the words of the Old Testament as immediate words of God, and adduce them expressly as such, even those of them which are not at all related as direct sayings of God. They see nothing at all in the sacred volume which is simply the word of its human author and not at the same time the very Word of God Himself. In all that stands 'written' God Himself speaks to them, and so entirely are they habituated to think only of this that they receive the sacred Word written itself, as such, as God's Word, and hear God speaking in it immediately, without any thought of the human persons who appear in it as speaking and acting. The historical conception of their Bible is altogether foreign to them. Therefore they cite the abstract ἡ γραφή or αἱ γραφαὶ or γραφαὶ ἁγίαι (Rom. 1:2), or again τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα (2 Tim. 3:15), without naming any special author, as self-evidently God's Word, e.g., John 7:38, 10:35, 19:36, 37, 20:9; Acts 1:16; James 2:8; Rom. 9:17; Gal. 3:8, 22, 4:30; 1 Pet. 2:6; 2 Pet. 1:20, etc.; and introduce Old Testament citations with the formulas, now that God (Matt. 1:22, 2:15; Acts 4:25, 13:34; Rom. 1:2), now that the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:16, 28:25; Heb. 3:7, 9:8, 10:15; cf. also Acts 4:25; 1 Pet. 1:11; 2 Pet. 1:20) so speaks or has spoken. The Epistle to the Hebrews unhesitatingly adduces with a ὁ θεὸς λέγει and the like, even passages in which God is spoken of expressly in the third person (1:6, 7, 8 seq., 4:4, 7, 7:21, 10:30), and even (1:10) cites a passage in which in the Old Testament text God Himself (according to the view of the author it is, however, the Son of God) is addressed, as a word spoken by God. In 2 Tim. 3:16 the ἱερὰ γράμματα (verse 15) are expressly called θεόπνευστα, however the sentence may be construed or expounded; and however little a special theory of the inspiration of the Bible can be drawn from an expression of such breadth of meaning, nevertheless this datum avails to prove that the author shared in general the view of his Jewish contemporaries as to the peculiar character of the Old Testament books, and it is of especial importance inasmuch as it attributes the inspiration, without the least ambiguity, directly to the writings themselves, and not merely to their authors, the prophets. No doubt, in the teaching of the apostles the conception of prophetic inspiration to which it causally attributes the Old Testament, has not yet the sharp exactness of our ecclesiastical dogmatic conception; but it stands, nevertheless, in a very express analogy with it.… Moreover, it must be allowed that the apostolical writers, although they nowhere say it expressly, refer the prophetic inspiration also to the actus scribendi of the Biblical authors. The whole style and method of their treatment of the Old Testament text manifestly presupposes in them this view of this matter, which was at the time the usual one in the Jewish schools. With Paul particularly this is wholly incontrovertibly the case. For only on that view could he, in such passages as Rom. 4:23, 24, 15:4; 1 Cor. 9:10, 10:11—in which he distinguishes between the occurrence of the Old Testament facts and the recording of them—maintain of the latter that it was done with express teleological reference to the needs of the New Testament believers, at least so far as the selection of the matter to be described is concerned; and only on that view could he argue on the details of the letter of the Old Testament Scriptures, as he does in Gal. 3:15, 16. We can, moreover, trace the continuance of this view in the oldest post-apostolical Church.… So far as the Old Testament is concerned, our ecclesiastical-dogmatic doctrine of inspiration can, therefore, in very fact, appeal to the authority, not indeed of the Redeemer Himself—for He stands in an entirely neutral attitude towards it—but no doubt of the apostles."

A keen controversialist like Rothe does not fail, of course—as the reader has no doubt observed—to accompany his exposition of the apostolic doctrine with many turns of expression designed to lessen its authority in the eyes of the reader, and to prepare the way for his own refusal to be bound by it; but neither does he fail to make it clear that this doctrine, although it is unacceptable to him, is the apostles' doctrine. The apostles' doctrine, let it be observed that we say. For even so bald a statement as Rothe's will suffice to uncover the fallacy of the assertion, which is so often made, that the doctrine of verbal inspiration is based on a few isolated statements of Scripture to the neglect, if not to the outrage, of its phenomena—a form of remark into which even so sober a writer as Dr. W. G. Blaikie has lately permitted himself to fall. Nothing, obviously, could be more opposite to the fact. The doctrine of verbal inspiration is based on the broad foundation of the carefully ascertained doctrine of the Scripture writers on the subject. It is a product of Biblical Theology. And if men will really ask, not, "What do the creeds teach? What do the theologians say? What is the authority of the Church? but, What does the Bible itself teach us?" and "fencing off from the Scriptures all the speculations, all the dogmatic elaborations, all the doctrinal adaptations that have been made in the history of doctrine in the Church," "limit themselves strictly to the theology of the Bible itself"—according to the excellent programme outlined by Dr. Briggs—it is to the doctrine of verbal inspiration, as we have seen, that they must come. It is not Biblical criticism that has "destroyed" verbal inspiration, but Dr. Briggs' scholastic theories that have drawn him away in this matter from the pure deliverances of Biblical Theology.20

Much more, of course, does such a statement as even Rothe's uncover the even deeper error of the assertion latterly becoming much too common, that, the doctrine of verbal inspiration, as a recent writer puts it, "is based wholly upon an a priori assumption of what inspiration must be, and not upon the Bible as it actually exists." It is based wholly upon an exegetical fact. It is based on the exegetical fact that our Lord and His apostles held this doctrine of Scripture, and everywhere deal with the Scriptures of the Old Testament in accordance with it, as the very Word of God, even in their narrative parts. This is a commonplace of exegetical science, the common possession of the critical schools of the left and of the right, a prominent and unmistakable deliverance of Biblical Theology. And on the establishment of it as such, the real issue is brought out plainly and stringently. If criticism has made such discoveries as to necessitate the abandonment of the doctrine of plenary inspiration, it is not enough to say that we are compelled to abandon only a "particular theory of inspiration," though that is true enough. We must go on to say that that "particular theory of inspiration" is the theory of the apostles and of the Lord, and that in abandoning it we are abandoning them as our doctrinal teachers and guides, as our "exegetes," in the deep and rich sense of that word which Dr. Vincent vindicates for it. This real issue is to be kept clearly before us, and faced courageously. Nothing is gained by closing our eyes to the seriousness of the problem which we are confronting. Stated plainly it is just this: Are the New Testament writers trustworthy guides in doctrine? Or are we at liberty to reject their authority, and frame contrary doctrines for ourselves? If the latter pathway be taken, certainly the doctrine of plenary inspiration is not the only doctrine that is "destroyed," and the labor of revising our creeds may as well be saved and the shorter process adopted of simply throwing them away. No wonder we are told that the same advance in knowledge which requires a changed view of the Bible necessitates also a whole new theology. If the New Testament writers are not trustworthy as teachers of doctrine and we have to go elsewhere for the source and norm of truth as to God and duty and immortality, it will not be strange if a very different system of doctrine from that delivered by the Scriptures and docilely received from them by the Church, results.

And now, having uncovered the precise issue which is involved in the real problem of inspiration, let us look at it at various angles and thus emphasize in turn two or three of the more important results that spring from it.

I

MODIFICATIONS OF THE BIBLICAL DOCTRINE UNDERMINE THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES

First, we emphasize the fact that, this being the real state of the case, we cannot modify the doctrine of plenary inspiration in any of its essential elements without undermining our confidence in the authority of the apostles as teachers of doctrine.

Logically, this is an immediate corollary of the proposition already made good. Historically, it is attested by the driftage of every school of thought which has sought to find a ground of faith in any lower than the Church's doctrine of a plenarily inspired Bible. The authority which cannot assure of a hard fact is soon not trusted for a hard doctrine. Sooner or later, in greater or less degree, the authority of the Bible in doctrine and life is replaced by or subordinated to that of reason, or of the feelings, or of the "Christian consciousness"—the "conscious experience by the individual of the Christian faith"—or of that corporate Christian consciousness which so easily hardens into simple ecclesiastical domination. What we are to accept as the truth of God is a comparatively easy question, if we can open our Bibles with the confident belief that what we read there is commended to us by a fully credible "Thus saith the Lord." But in proportion as we allow this or that element in it not to be safeguarded to us by this divine guarantee, do we begin to doubt the trustworthiness of more and more of the message delivered, and to seek other grounds of confidence than the simple "It is written" which sufficed for the needs of our Lord and His apostles. We have seen Dr. Sanday pointing to "the advancing consciousness of the Church at large," along with the consensus of scholars, as the ground of acceptance of doctrines as true, which will be more and more turned to when men can no longer approach the Bible so simply as heretofore. This is the natural direction in which to look, for men trained to lay that great stress on institutional Christianity which leads Mr. Gore to describe the present situation as one in which "it is becoming more and more difficult to believe in the Bible without believing in the Church." Accordingly Dr. Sterrett also harmonizes his Hegelianism and Churchliness in finding the ground of Christian certitude in the "communal Christian consciousness," which is defined as the Church, as "objective, authoritative reason for every Christian," to which he must subordinate his individual reason.24 Men of more individualistic training fall back rather on personal reason or the individual "Christian consciousness"; but all alike retire the Bible as a source of doctrine behind some other safeguard of truth.

It may not be without interest or value to subject the various pathways which men tread in seeking to justify a lower view of Scripture than that held and taught by the New Testament writers, to a somewhat close scrutiny, with a view to observing how necessarily they logically involve a gradual undermining of the trustworthiness of those writers as teachers of doctrine. From the purely formal point of view proper to our present purpose, four types of procedure may be recognized.

CHRIST VERSUS THE APOSTLES

1. There is first, that, of which Richard Rothe is an example, which proceeds by attempting to establish a distinction between the teaching of Christ and the teaching of His apostles, and refusing the latter in favor of the former.

As we have already remarked, this distinction cannot be made good. Rothe's attempt to establish it proceeds on the twofold ground, on the one hand, of an asserted absence from our Lord's dealings with the Scriptures of those extreme facts of usage of it as the Word of God, and of those extreme statements concerning its divine character, on the ground of which in the apostles' dealing with it we must recognize their high doctrine of Scripture; and on the other hand, of an asserted presence in Christ's remarks concerning Scripture of hints that He did not share the conception of Scripture belonging to contemporary Judaism, which conception we know to have been the same high doctrine that was held by the apostles. He infers, therefore, that the apostles, in this matter, represent only the current Jewish thought in which they were bred, while Christ's divine originality breaks away from this and commends to us a new and more liberal way.

But in order to make out the first member of the twofold ground on which he bases this conclusion, Rothe has to proceed by explaining away, by means of artificial exegetical expedients, a number of facts of usage and deliverances as to Scripture, in which our Lord's dealings with Scripture culminate, and which are altogether similar in character and force to those on the basis of which he infers the apostles' high doctrine. These are such passages as the quotation in Matt. 19:4, 5, of Adam's words as God's Word, which Lechler appeals to as decisive just as Rothe appeals to similar passages in the epistles—but which Rothe sets aside in a footnote simply with the remark that it is not decisive here; the assertion in John 10:35, that the "Scripture cannot be broken," which he sets aside as probably not a statement of Christ's own opinion but an argumentum ad hominem, and as in any case not available here, since it does not explicitly assert that the authority it ascribes to Scripture is due "to its origination by inspiration"—but which, as Dr. Robert Watts has shown anew, is conclusive for our Saviour's view of the entire infallibility of the whole Old Testament; the assertion in Matt. 5:18 (and in Luke 16:17) that not "one jot or one tittle (ἰῶτα ἓν ἣ μία κεραία) shall pass away from the law till all be fulfilled," which he sets aside with the remark that it is not the law-codex, but the law itself, that is here spoken of, forgetful of the fact that it is the law itself as written that the Lord has in mind, in which form alone, moreover, do "yodhs and horns" belong to it; the assertion in Matt. 22:43, that it was "in the Spirit" that David called the Messiah, "Lord," in the one hundredth and tenth Psalm, which he sets aside with the remark that this does prove that Jesus looked upon David as a prophet, but not necessarily that he considered the one hundred and tenth Psalm inspired, as indeed he does not say γράφει but καλεῖ—forgetful again that it is to the written David alone that Christ makes His appeal and on the very language written in the Psalm that He founds His argument.

No less, in order to make out the second member of the ground on which he bases his conclusion, does Rothe need to press passages which have as their whole intent and effect to rebuke the scribes for failure to understand and properly to use Scripture, into indications of rejection on Christ's part of the authority of the Scriptures to which both He and the scribes appealed. Lest it should be thought incredible that such a conclusion should be drawn from such premises, we transcribe Rothe's whole statement.

"On the other hand, we conclude with great probability that the Redeemer did not share the conception of His Israelitish contemporaries as to the inspiration of their Bible, as stated above, from the fact that He repeatedly expresses his dissatisfaction with the manner usual among them of looking upon and using the sacred books. He tells the scribes to their face that they do not understand the Scriptures (Matt. 22:29; Mark 12:24), and that it is delusion for them to think to possess eternal life in them, therefore in a book (John 5:39), even as He also (in the same place) seems to speak disapprovingly of their searching of the Scriptures, because it proceeds from such a perverted point of view."

Thus Jesus' appeal to the Scriptures as testifying to Him, and His rebuke to the Jews for not following them while professing to honor them, are made to do duty as a proof that He did not ascribe plenary authority to them.

Furthermore, Rothe's whole treatment of the matter omits altogether to make account of the great decisive consideration of the general tone and manner of Christ's allusions and appeal to the Scriptures, which only culminate in such passages as he has attempted to explain away, and which not only are inconsistent with any other than the same high view of their authority, trustworthiness and inspiration, as that which Rothe infers from similar phenomena to have been the conception of the apostles, but also are necessarily founded on it as its natural expression. The distinction attempted to be drawn between Christ's doctrine of Holy Scripture and that of His apostles is certainly inconsistent with the facts.

But we are more concerned at present to point out that the attempt to draw this distinction must result in undermining utterly all confidence in the New Testament writers as teachers of doctrine. So far as the apostles are concerned, indeed, it would be more correct to say that it is the outgrowth and manifestation of an already present distrust of them as teachers of doctrine. Its very principle is appeal from apostolic teaching to that of Christ, on the ground that the former is not authoritative. How far this rejection of apostolic authority goes is evidenced by the mode of treatment vouchsafed to it. Immediately on drawing out the apostles' doctrine of inspiration, Rothe asks, "But now what dogmatic value has this fact?" And on the ground that "by their fruits ye shall know them," he proceeds to declare that the apostles' doctrine of Scripture led them into such a general use and mode of interpretation of Scripture as Rothe deems wholly unendurable. It is not, then, merely the teaching of the apostles as to what the Scriptures are, but their teaching as to what those Scriptures teach, in which Rothe finds them untrustworthy. It would be impossible but that the canker should eat still more deeply.

Nor is it possible to prevent it from spreading to the undermining of the trustworthiness of even the Lord's teaching itself, for the magnifying of which the distinction purports to be drawn. The artificial manner in which the testimony of the Lord to the authority of the Scriptures is explained away in the attempt to establish the distinction, might be pleaded indeed as an indication that trust in it was not very deeply rooted. And there are other indications that had the Lord been explained to be of the apostles' mind as to Scripture, a way would have been found to free us from the duty of following His teaching. For even His exegesis is declared not to be authoritative, seeing that "exegesis is essentially a scientific function, and conditioned on the existence of scientific means, which in relation to the Old Testament were completely at the command of Jesus as little as of His contemporaries"; and the principle of partial limitation at least to the outlook of His day which is involved in such a statement is fully accepted by Rothe. All this may, however, be thought more or less personal to Rothe's own mental attitude, whereas the ultimate undermining of our Lord's authority as teacher of doctrine, as well as that of His apostles, is logically essential to the position assumed.

This may be made plain at once by the very obvious remark that we have no Christ except the one whom the apostles have given to us. Jesus Himself left no treatises on doctrine. He left no written dialogues. We are dependent on the apostles for our whole knowledge of Him, and of what He taught. The portraiture of Jesus which has glorified the world's literature as well as blessed all ages and races with the revelation of a Godman come down from heaven to save the world, is limned by his followers' pencils alone. The record of that teaching which fell from His lips as living water, which if a man drink of he shall never thirst again, is a record by his followers' pens alone. They have painted for us, of course, the Jesus that they knew, and as they knew Him. They have recorded for us the teachings that they heard, and as they heard them. Whatever untrustworthiness attaches to them as deliverers of doctrine, must in some measure shake also our confidence in their report of what their Master was and taught.

But the logic cuts even deeper. For not only have we no Christ but Him whom we receive at the apostles' hands, but this Christ is committed to the trustworthiness of the apostles as teachers. His credit is involved in their credit. He represents His words on earth as but the foundation of one great temple of doctrine, the edifice of which was to be built up by Him through their mouths, as they spoke moved by His Spirit; and thus He makes Himself an accomplice before the fact in all they taught. In proportion as they are discredited as doctrinal guides, in that proportion He is discredited with them. By the promise of the Spirit, He has forever bound His trustworthiness with indissoluble bands to the trustworthiness of His accredited agents in founding His Church, and especially by that great promise recorded for us in John 16:12–15: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you." Says Dr. C. W. Hodge:

"It is impossible to conceive how the authority of the Master could be conveyed to the teaching of the disciples more emphatically than is here done by Christ. He identifies His teaching and the teaching of the Spirit as parts of one whole; His teaching is carrying out My teaching, it is calling to remembrance what I have told you; it is completing what I have begun. And to make the unity emphatic, He explains why He had reserved so much of His own teaching, and committed the work of revelation to the Spirit. He, in His incarnation and life, comprised all saving truth. He was the revealer of God and the truth and the life. But while some things He had taught while yet with them, He had many things to say which must be postponed because they could not yet bear them.… If Christ has referred us to the apostles as teachers of the truths which He would have us know, certainly this primary truth of the authority of the Scriptures themselves can be no exception. All questions as to the extent of this inspiration, as to its exclusive authority, as to whether it extends to words as well as doctrines, as to whether it is infallible or inerrant, or not, are simply questions to be referred to the Word itself."

In such circumstances the attempt to discriminate against the teaching of the apostles in favor of that of Christ, is to contradict the express teaching of Christ Himself, and thus to undermine our confidence in it. We cannot both believe Him and not believe Him. The cry, "Back to Christ!" away from all the imaginations of men's hearts and the cobweb theories which they have spun, must be ever the cry of every Christian heart. But the cry, "Back to Christ!" away from the teachings of His apostles, whose teachings He Himself represents as His own, only delivered by His Spirit through their mouths, is an invitation to desert Christ Himself. It is an invitation to draw back from the Christ of the Bible to some Christ of our own fancy, from the only real to some imaginary Christ. It is to undermine the credit of the whole historical revelation in and through the Christ of God, and to cast us for the ascertainment and authentication of truth on the native powers of our own minds.

ACCOMMODATION OR IGNORANCE?

2. Another method is that of those who seek to preserve themselves from the necessity of accepting the doctrine of inspiration held by the writers of the New Testament, by representing it as merely a matter of accommodation to the prejudices of the Jews, naturally if not necessarily adopted by the first preachers of the Gospel in their efforts to commend to their contemporaries their new teaching as to the way of life.

This position is quite baldly stated by a recent Scotch writer, to whose book, written with a frank boldness, a force and a logical acumen which are far above the common, too little heed has been paid as an indication of the drift of the times. Says Mr. James Stuart:

"The apostles had not merely to reveal the Gospel scheme of salvation to their own and all subsequent ages, but they had to present it in such a form, and support it by such arguments, as should commend it to their more immediate hearers and readers. Notwithstanding its essentially universal character, the Gospel, as it appears in the New Testament, is couched in a particular form, suited to the special circumstances of a particular age and nation. Before the Gospel could reach the hearts of those to whom it was first addressed, prejudices had to be overcome, prepossessions had to be counted on and dealt with. The apostles, in fact, had just to take the men of their time as they found them, adapting their teaching accordingly. Not only so, but there is evidence that the apostles were themselves, to a very great extent, men of their own time, sharing many of the common opinions and even the common prejudices, so that, in arguing ex concessis, they were arguing upon grounds that would appear to themselves just and tenable. Now one of the things universally conceded in apostolic times was the inspiration and authority of the Old Testament; another was the legitimacy of certain modes of interpreting and applying the Old Testament. The later Jews, as is well known, cherished a superstitious reverence and attached an overwhelming importance to the letter of the Old Testament, which they regarded as the 'Word of God' in the fullest and most absolute sense that can possibly be put upon such an expression. The doctors taught and the people believed that the sacred writings were not only inspired, but inspired to the utmost possible or conceivable extent. In the composition of Scripture, the human author was nowhere, and the inspiring Spirit everywhere; not the thoughts alone, but the very words of Scripture were the Word of God, which He communicated by the mouth of the human author, who merely discharged the duty of spokesman and amanuensis, so that what the Scripture contains is the Word of God in as complete and full a sense as if it had been dictated by the lips of God to the human authors, and recorded with something approaching to perfect accuracy.… Such being the prevalent view of the inspiration and authority of the Old Testament writings, what could be more natural than that the apostles should make use of these writings to enforce and commend their own ideas? And if the Old Testament were to be used for such a purpose at all, evidently it must be used according to the accepted methods; for to have followed any other—assuming the possibility of such a thing—would have defeated the object aimed at, which was to accommodate the Gospel to established prejudices."

Now, here too, the first remark which needs to be made is that the assertion of "accommodation" on the part of the New Testament writers cannot be made good. To prove "accommodation," two things need to be shown: first, that the apostles did not share these views, and, secondly, that they nevertheless accommodated their teaching to them. "Accommodation" properly so called cannot take place when the views in question are the proper views of the persons themselves. But even in the above extract Mr. Stuart is led to allow that the apostles shared the current Jewish view of the Scriptures, and at a later point he demonstrates this in an argument of singular lucidity, although in its course he exaggerates the character of their views in his effort to fix a stigma of mechanicalness on them. With what propriety, then, can he speak of "accommodation" in the case? The fact is that the theory of "accommodation" is presented by Mr. Stuart only to enable him the more easily to refuse to be bound by the apostolic teaching in this matter, and as such it has served him as a stepping stone by which he has attained to an even more drastic principle, on which he practically acts: that whenever the apostles can be shown to agree with their contemporaries, their teaching may be neglected. In such cases, he conceives of the New Testament writers "being inspired and guided by current opinion,"34 and reasons thus:

"Now it is unquestionable that the New Testament writers in so regarding the Old Testament were not enunciating a new theory of inspiration or interpretation, they were simply adopting and following out the current theory.… In matters of this kind … the New Testament writers were completely dominated by the spirit of the age, so that their testimony on the question of Scripture inspiration possesses no independent value." "If these popular notions were infallibly correct before they were taken up and embodied in the New Testament writings, they are infallibly correct still; if they were incorrect before they were taken up and embodied in the New Testament writings, they are incorrect still."

This is certainly most remarkable argumentation, and the principle asserted is probably one of the most singular to which thinking men ever committed themselves, viz., that a body of religious teachers, claiming authority for themselves as such, are trustworthy only when they teach novelties. It is the apotheosis of the old Athenian and new modern spirit, which has leisure and heart "for nothing else but either to tell or hear some new thing." Nevertheless, it is a principle far from uncommon among those who are seeking justification for themselves in refusing the leadership of the New Testament writers in the matter of the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures. And, of late, it is, of course, taking upon itself in certain quarters a new form, the form imposed by the new view of the origin of Christian thought in Hellenic sources, which has been given such vogue by Dr. Harnack and rendered popular in English-speaking lands by the writings of the late Dr. Hatch. For example, we find it expressed in this form in the recent valuable studies on the First Epistle of Clement of Rome, by Lic. Wrede. Clement's views of the Old Testament Scriptures are recognized as of the highest order; he looks upon them as a marvelous and infallible book whose very letters are sacred, as a veritable oracle, the most precious possession of the Church. These high views were shared by the whole Church of his day, and, indeed, of the previous age: "The view which Clement has of the Old Testament, and the use which he makes of it, show in themselves no essential peculiarities in comparison with the most nearly related Christian writings, especially the Pauline epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle of Barnabas." And yet, according to Wrede, this view rests on "the Hellenistic conception of inspiration, according to which the individual writers were passive instruments of God."38 Whether, however, the contemporary influence is thought to be Jewish or Greek, it is obvious that the appeal to it in such matters has, as its only intention, to free us from the duty of following the apostles and can have as its only effect to undermine their authority. We may no doubt suppose at the beginning that we seek only to separate the kernel from the husk; but a principle which makes husk of all that can be shown to have anything in common with what was believed by any body of contemporaries, Hebrew or Greek, is so very drastic that it will leave nothing which we can surely trust. On this principle the Golden Rule itself is not authoritative, because something like it may be found in Jewish tradition and among the heathen sages. It certainly will not serve to make novelty the test of authority.

From the ethical point of view, however, this theory is preferable to that of "accommodation," and it is probable that part, at least, of the impulse which led Mr. Stuart to substitute it for the theory of "accommodation," with which he began, arose from a more or less clear perception of the moral implications of the theory of "accommodation." Under the impulse of that theory he had been led to speak of the procedure of the apostles in such language as this: "The sole principle that regulates all their appeals to the Old Testament, is that of obtaining, at whatever cost, support for their own favorite ideas." Is it any wonder that the reaction took place and an attempt was made to shift the burden from the veracity to the knowledge of the New Testament writers? In Mr. Stuart's case we see very clearly, then, the effect of a doctrine of "accommodation" on the credit of the New Testament writers. His whole book is written in order to assign reason why he will not yield authority to these writers in their doctrine of a sacrificial atonement. This was due to their Jewish type of thought. But when the doctrine of accommodation is tried as a ground for the rejection of their authority, it is found to cut too deeply even for Mr. Stuart. He wishes to be rid of the authority of the New Testament writers, not to impeach their veracity; and so he discards it in favor of the less plausible, indeed, but also less deeply cutting canon, that the apostles are not to be followed when they agree with contemporary thought, because in these elements they are obviously speaking out of their own consciousness, as the products of their day, and not as proclaimers of the new revelation in Christ. Their inspiration, in a word, "was not plenary or universal—extending, that is, to all matters whatever which they speak about—but partial or special, being limited to securing the accurate communication of that plan of salvation which they had so profoundly experienced, and which they were commissioned to proclaim." In all else "the New Testament writers are simply on a level with their contemporaries." It may not be uninstructive to note that under such a formula Mr. Stuart not only rejects the teachings of these writers as to the nature and extent of inspiration, but also their teaching as to the sacrificial nature of the very plan of salvation which they were specially commissioned to proclaim. But what it is our business at present to point out is that the doctrine of accommodation is so obviously a blow at not only the trustworthiness, but the very veracity of the New Testament authors, that Mr. Stuart, even after asserting it, is led to permit it to fall into neglect.

And must it not be so? It may be easy indeed to confuse it with that progressive method of teaching which every wise teacher uses, and which our Lord also employed (John 16:12 seq.); it may be easy to represent it as nothing more than that harmless wisdom which the apostle proclaimed as the principle of his life, as he went about the world becoming all things to all men. But how different it is from either! It is one thing to adapt the teaching of truth to the stage of receptivity of the learner; it is another thing to adopt the errors of the time as the very matter to be taught. It is one thing to refrain from unnecessarily arousing the prejudices of the learner, that more ready entrance may be found for the truth; it is another thing to adopt those prejudices as our own, and to inculcate them as the very truths of God. It was one thing for Paul to become "all things to all men" that he might gain them to the truth; it was another for Peter to dissemble at Antioch, and so confirm men in their error. The accommodation attributed to the New Testament writers is a method by which they did and do not undeceive but deceive; not a method by which they teach the truth more winningly and to more; but a method by which they may be held to have taught along with the truth also error. The very object of attributing it to them is to enable us to separate their teaching into two parts—the true and the false; and to justify us in refusing a part while accepting a part at their hands. At the best it must so undermine the trustworthiness of the apostles as deliverers of doctrine as to subject their whole teaching to our judgment for the separation of the true from the false; at the worst, it must destroy their trustworthiness by destroying our confidence in their veracity. Mr. Stuart chose the better path; but he did so, as all who follow him must, by deserting the principle of accommodation, which leads itself along the worse road. With it as a starting point we must impeach the New Testament writers as lacking either knowledge or veracity.

TEACHING VERSUS OPINION

3. A third type of procedure, in defense of refusal to be bound by the doctrine of the New Testament writers as to inspiration, proceeds by drawing a distinction between the belief and the teaching of these writers; and affirming that, although it is true that they did believe and hold a high doctrine of inspiration, yet they do not explicitly teach it, and that we are bound, not by their opinions, but only by their explicit teaching.

This appears to be the conception which underlies the treatment of the matter by Archdeacon (then Canon) Farrar, in his "Life and Work of St. Paul." Speaking of Paul's attitude towards Scripture, Dr. Farrar says:

"He shared, doubtless, in the views of the later Jewish schools—the Tanaim and Amoraim—on the nature of inspiration. These views, which we find also in Philo, made the words of Scripture co-extensive and identical with the words of God, and in the clumsy and feeble hands of the more fanatical Talmudists often attached to the dead letter an importance which stifled or destroyed the living sense. But as this extreme and mechanical literalism—this claim to absolute infallibility even in accidental details and passing allusions—this superstitious adoration of the letters and vocables of Scripture, as though they were the articulate vocables and immediate autograph of God—finds no encouragement in any part of Scripture, and very distinct discouragement in more than one of the utterances of Christ, so there is not a single passage in which any approach to it is dogmatically stated in the writings of St. Paul."

This passage lacks somewhat more in point of clearness than it does in point of rhetorical fire. But three things seem to be sufficiently plain: (1) That Dr. Farrar thinks that Paul shared the views of the Tanaim, the Amoraim and Philo as to the nature of inspiration. (2) That he admits that these views claimed for Scripture "absolute infallibility even in accidental details and passing allusions." (3) That nevertheless he does not feel bound to accept this doctrine at Paul's hands, because, though Paul held it, he is thought not to have "dogmatically stated" it.

Now, the distinction which is here drawn seems, in general, a reasonable one. No one is likely to assert infallibility for the apostles in aught else than in their official teaching. And whatever they may be shown to have held apart from their official teaching, may readily be looked upon with only that respect which we certainly must accord to the opinions of men of such exceptional intellectual and spiritual insight. But it is more difficult to follow Dr. Farrar when it is asked whether this distinction can be established in the present matter. It does not seem to be true that there are no didactic statements as to inspiration in Paul's letters, or in the rest of the New Testament, such as implicate and carry into the sphere of matters taught, the whole doctrine that underlies their treatment of Scripture. The assertion in the term "theopneustic" in such a passage as 2 Tim. 3:16, for example, cannot be voided by any construction of the passage; and the doctrine taught in the assertion must be understood to be the doctrine which that term connoted to Paul who uses it, not some other doctrine read into it by us.

It is further necessary to inquire what sources we have in a case like that of Paul, to inform us as to what his opinions were, apart from and outside of his teachings. It might conceivably have happened that some of his contemporaries should have recorded for us some account of opinions held by him to which he has given no expression in his epistles; or some account of actions performed by him involving the manifestation of judgment—somewhat similar, say, to Paul's own account of Peter's conduct in Antioch (Gal. 2:11 seq.). A presumption may be held to lie also that he shared the ordinary opinions of his day in certain matters lying outside the scope of his teachings, as, for example, with reference to the form of the earth, or its relation to the sun; and it is not inconceivable that the form of his language, when incidentally adverting to such matters, might occasionally play into the hands of such a presumption. But it is neither on the ground of such a presumption, nor on the ground of such external testimony, that Dr. Farrar ascribes to him views as to inspiration similar to those of his Jewish contemporaries. It is distinctly on the ground of what he finds on a study of the body of official teaching which Paul has left to us. Dr. Farrar discovers that these views as to the nature of Scripture so underlie, are so assumed in, are so implied by, are so interwoven with Paul's official teaching that he is unwillingly driven to perceive that they were Paul's opinions. With what color of reason then can they be separated from his teaching?

There is raised here, moreover, a very important and far-reaching question, which few will be able to decide in Dr. Farrar's sense. What is taught in the New Testament? And what is the mode of its teaching? If we are to fall in with Dr. Farrar and say that nothing is taught except what is "dogmatically stated" in formal didactic form, the occasional character of the New Testament epistles would become a source of grave loss to us, instead of, as it otherwise is, a source of immense gain; the parabolic clothing of much of Christ's teaching would become a device to withhold from us all instruction on the matters of which the parables treat; and all that is most fundamental in religious truth, which, as a rule, is rather assumed everywhere in Scripture as a basis for particular applications than formally stated, would be removed out of the sphere of Biblical doctrine. Such a rule, in a word, would operate to turn the whole of Biblical teaching on its head, and to reduce it from a body of principles inculcated by means of examples into a mere congeries of instances hung in the air. The whole advance in the attitude of Dogmatics towards the Scriptures which has been made by modern scholarship is, moreover, endangered by this position. It was the fault of the older dogmatists to depend too much on isolated proof-texts for the framing and defense of doctrine. Dr. Farrar would have us return to this method. The alternative, commended justly to us by the whole body of modern scholarship, is, as Schleiermacher puts it, to seek "a form of Scripture proof on a larger scale than can be got from single texts," to build our systematic theology, in a word, on the basis, not of the occasional dogmatic statements of Scripture alone, taken separately and, as it were, in shreds, but on the basis of the theologies of the Scripture—to reproduce first the theological thought of each writer or group of writers and then to combine these several theologies (each according to its due historical place) into the one consistent system, consentaneous parts of which they are found to be. In rejecting this method, Dr. Farrar discredits the whole science of Biblical Theology. From its standpoint it is incredible that one should attribute less importance and authoritativeness to the fundamental conceptions that underlie, color and give form to all of Paul's teaching than to the chance didactic statements he may have been led to make by this or that circumstance at the call of which his letters happened to be written. This certainly would be tithing mint and anise and cummin and omitting the weightier matters of the law.

That this mode of presenting the matter must lead, no less than the others which have already come under review, to undermining the authority of the New Testament writers as deliverers of doctrine, must already be obvious. It begins by discrediting them as leaders in doctrinal thought and substituting for this a sporadic authority in explicit dogmatic statements. In Dr. Farrar's own hands it proceeds by quite undermining our confidence in the apostles as teachers, through an accusation lodged against them, not only of holding wrong views in doctrine, but even of cherishing as fundamental conceptions theological fancies which are in their very essence superstitious and idolatrous, and in their inevitable outcome ruinous to faith and honor. For Dr. Farrar does not mince matters when he expresses his opinion of that doctrine of inspiration—in its nature and its proper effects—which Philo held and the Jewish Rabbis and in which Paul, according to his expressed conviction, shared. "To say that every word and sentence and letter of Scripture is divine and supernatural, is a mechanical and useless shibboleth, nay, more, a human idol, and (constructively, at least) a dreadful blasphemy." It is a superstitious—he tells us that he had almost said fetish-worshiping—dogma, and "not only unintelligible, but profoundly dangerous." It "has in many ages filled the world with misery and ruin," and "has done more than any other dogma to corrupt the whole of exegesis with dishonest casuistry, and to shake to its centre the religious faith of thousands, alike of the most ignorant and of the most cultivated, in many centuries, and most of all in our own." Yet these are the views which Dr. Farrar is forced to allow that Paul shared! For Philo "held the most rigid views of inspiration"; than him indeed "Aqiba himself used no stronger language on the subject"45—Aqiba, "the greatest of the Tanaites"; and it was the views of the Tanaim, Amoraim and Philo, which Dr. Farrar tells us the apostle shared. How after this Dr. Farrar continues to look upon even the "dogmatic statements" of Paul as authoritative, it is hard to see. By construction he was a fetish worshiper and placed Scripture upon an idol's pedestal. The doctrines which he held and which underlie his teaching were unintelligible, useless, idolatrous, blasphemous and profoundly dangerous, and actually have shaken to its centre the religious faith of thousands. On such a tree what other than evil fruits could grow?

No doubt something of this may be attributed to the exaggeration characteristic of Dr. Farrar's language and thought. Obviously Paul's view of inspiration was not altogether identical with that of contemporary Judaism; it differed from it somewhat in the same way that his use of Scripture differed from that of the Rabbis of his day. But it is one with Philo's and Aqiba's on the point which with Dr. Farrar is decisive: alike with them he looked upon Scripture as "absolutely infallible, even in accidental details and passing allusions," as the very Word of God, His "Oracles," to use his own high phrase, and therefore Dr. Farrar treats the two views as essentially one. But the situation is only modified, not relieved, by the recognition of this fact.

In any event the pathway on which we enter when we begin to distinguish between the didactic statements and the fundamental conceptions of a body of incidental teaching, with a view to accepting the former and rejecting the latter, cannot but lead to a general undermining of the authority of the whole. Only if we could believe in a quite mechanical and magical process of inspiration (from believing in which Dr. Farrar is no doubt very far) by which the subject's "dogmatical statements" were kept entirely separate from and unaffected by his fundamental conceptions, could such an attitude be logically possible. In that case we should have to view these "dogmatical statements" as not Paul's at all, standing, as they do ex hypothesi, wholly disconnected with his own fundamental thought, but as spoken through him by an overmastering spiritual influence; as a phenomenon, in a word, similar to the oracles of heathen shrines, and without analogy in Scripture except perhaps in such cases as that of Balaam. In proportion as we draw back from so magical a conception of the mode of inspiration, in that proportion our refusal of authority to the fundamental conceptions of the New Testament writers must invade also their "dogmatical statements." We must logically, in a word, ascribe like authority to the whole body of their teaching, in its foundation and superstructure alike, or we must withhold it in equal measure from all; or, if we withhold it from one and not the other, the discrimination would most naturally be made against the superstructure rather than against the foundation.

FACTS VERSUS DOCTRINE

4. Finally, an effort may be made to justify our holding a lower doctrine of inspiration than that held by the writers of the New Testament, by appealing to the so-called phenomena of the Scriptures and opposing these to the doctrine of the Scriptures, with the expectation, apparently, of justifying a modification of the doctrine taught by the Scriptures by the facts embedded in the Scriptures.

The essential principle of this method of procedure is shared by very many who could scarcely be said to belong to the class who are here more specifically in mind, inasmuch as they do not begin by explicitly recognizing the doctrine of inspiration held by the New Testament writers to be that high doctrine which the Church and the best scientific exegesis agree in understanding them to teach. Every attempt to determine or modify the Biblical doctrine of inspiration by an appeal to the actual characteristics of the Bible must indeed proceed on an identical principle. It finds, perhaps, as plausible a form of assertion possible to it in the declaration of Dr. Marvin R. Vincent that "our only safe principle is that inspiration is consistent with the phenomena of Scripture"—to which one of skeptical turn might respond that whether the inspiration claimed by Scripture is consistent with the phenomena of Scripture after all requires some proof, while one of a more believing frame might respond that it is a safer principle that the phenomena of Scripture are consistent with its inspiration. Its crudest expression may be seen in such a book as Mr. Horton's "Inspiration and the Bible," which we have already had occasion to mention. Mr. Horton chooses to retain the term, "inspiration," as representing "the common sense of Christians of all ages and in all places" as to the nature of their Scriptures, but asserts that this term is to be understood to mean just what the Bible is—that is to say, whatever any given writer chooses to think the Bible to be. When Paul affirms in 2 Tim. 3:16 that every Scripture is "inspired by God," therefore, we are not to enter into a philological and exegetical investigation to discover what Paul meant to affirm by the use of this word, but simply to say that Paul must have meant to affirm the Bible to be what we find it to be. Surely no way could be invented which would more easily enable us to substitute our thought for the apostles' thought, and to proclaim our crudities under the sanction of their great names. Operating by it, Mr. Horton is enabled to assert that the Bible is "inspired," and yet to teach that God's hand has entered it only in a providential way, by His dealings through long ages with a people who gradually wrought out a history, conceived hopes, and brought all through natural means to an expression in a faulty and often self-contradictory record, which we call inspired only "because by reading it and studying it we can find our way to God, we can find what is His will for us and how we can carry out that will." The most naïve expression of the principle in question may be found in such a statement as the following, from the pen of Dr. W. G. Blaikie: "In our mode of dealing with this question the main difference between us is, that you lay your stress on certain general considerations, and on certain specific statements of Scripture. We, on the other hand, while accepting the specific statements, lay great stress also on the structure of Scripture as we find it, on certain phenomena which lie on the surface, and on the inextricable difficulties which are involved in carrying out your view in detail." This statement justly called out the rebuke of Dr. Robert Watts, that "while the principle of your theory is a mere inference from apparent discrepancies not as yet explained, the principle of the theory you oppose is the formally expressed utterances of prophets and apostles, and of Christ Himself."

Under whatever safeguards, indeed, it may be attempted, and with whatever caution it may be prosecuted, the effort to modify the teaching of Scripture as to its own inspiration by an appeal to the observed characteristics of Scripture, is an attempt not to obtain a clearer knowledge of what the Scriptures teach, but to correct that teaching. And to correct the teaching of Scripture is to proclaim Scripture untrustworthy as a witness to doctrine. The procedure in question is precisely similar to saying that the Bible's doctrine of creation is to be derived not alone from the teachings of the Bible as to creation, but from the facts obtained through a scientific study of creation; that the Bible's doctrine as to man is to be found not in the Bible's deliverances on the subject, but "while accepting these, we lay great stress also on the structure of man as we find him, and on the inextricable difficulties which are involved in carrying out the Bible's teaching in detail"; that the Bible's doctrine of justification is to be obtained by retaining the term as commended by the common sense of the Christian world and understanding by it just what we find justification to be in actual life. It is precisely similar to saying that Mr. Darwin's doctrine of natural selection is to be determined not solely by what Mr. Darwin says concerning it, but equally by what we, in our own independent study of nature, find to be true as to natural selection. A historian of thought who proceeded on such a principle would scarcely receive the commendation of students of history, however much his writings might serve certain party ends. Who does not see that underlying this whole method of procedure—in its best and in its worst estate alike—there is apparent an unwillingness to commit ourselves without reserve to the teaching of the Bible, either because that teaching is distrusted or already disbelieved; and that it is a grave logical error to suppose that the teaching of the Bible as to inspiration can be corrected in this way any otherwise than by showing it not to be in accordance with the facts? The proposed method, therefore, does not conduct us to a somewhat modified doctrine of inspiration, but to a disproof of inspiration; by correcting the doctrine delivered by the Biblical writers, it discredits those writers as teachers of doctrine.

Let it not be said that in speaking thus we are refusing the inductive method of establishing doctrine. We follow the inductive method. When we approach the Scriptures to ascertain their doctrine of inspiration, we proceed by collecting the whole body of relevant facts. Every claim they make to inspiration is a relevant fact; every statement they make concerning inspiration is a relevant fact; every allusion they make to the subject is a relevant fact; every fact indicative of the attitude they hold towards Scripture is a relevant fact. But the characteristics of their own writings are not facts relevant to the determination of their doctrine. Nor let it be said that we are desirous of determining the true, as distinguished from the Scriptural, doctrine of inspiration otherwise than inductively. We are averse, however, to supposing that in such an inquiry the relevant "phenomena" of Scripture are not first of all and before all the claims of Scripture and second only to them its use of previous Scripture. And we are averse to excluding these primary "phenomena" and building our doctrine solely or mainly upon the characteristics and structure of Scripture, especially as determined by some special school of modern research by critical methods certainly not infallible and to the best of our own judgment not even reasonable. And we are certainly averse to supposing that this induction, if it reaches results not absolutely consentaneous with the teachings of Scripture itself, has done anything other than discredit those teachings, or that in discrediting them, it has escaped discrediting the doctrinal authority of Scripture.

Nor again is it to be thought that we refuse to use the actual characteristics of Scripture as an aid in, and a check upon, our exegesis of Scripture, as we seek to discover its doctrine of inspiration. We do not simply admit, on the contrary, we affirm that in every sphere the observed fact may throw a broad and most helpful light upon the written text. It is so in the narrative of creation in the first chapter of Genesis; which is only beginning to be adequately understood as science is making her first steps in reading the records of God's creative hand in the structure of the world itself. It is preëminently so in the written prophecies, the dark sayings of which are not seldom first illuminated by the light cast back upon them by their fulfillment. As Scripture interprets Scripture, and fulfillment interprets prediction, so may fact interpret assertion. And this is as true as regards the Scriptural assertion of the fact of inspiration as elsewhere. No careful student of the Bible doctrine of inspiration will neglect anxiously to try his conclusions as to the teachings of Scripture by the observed characteristics and "structure" of Scripture, and in trying he may and no doubt will find occasion to modify his conclusions as at first apprehended. But it is one thing to correct our exegetical processes and so modify our exegetical conclusions in the new light obtained by a study of the facts, and quite another to modify, by the facts of the structure of Scripture, the Scriptural teaching itself, as exegetically ascertained; and it is to this latter that we should be led by making the facts of structure and the facts embedded in Scripture co-factors of the same rank in the so-called inductive ascertainment of the doctrine of inspiration. Direct exegesis after all has its rights: we may seek aid from every quarter in our efforts to perform its processes with precision and obtain its results with purity; but we cannot allow its results to be "modified" by extraneous considerations. Let us by all means be careful in determining the doctrine of Scripture, but let us also be fully honest in determining it; and if we count it a crime to permit our ascertainment of the facts recorded in Scripture to be unduly swayed by our conception of the doctrine taught in Scripture, let us count it equally a crime to permit our ascertainment of its doctrine to be unduly swayed or colored by our conception of the nature of the facts of its structure or of the facts embedded in its record. We cannot, therefore, appeal from the doctrine of Scripture as exegetically established to the facts of the structure of Scripture or the facts embedded in Scripture, in the hope of modifying the doctrine. If the teaching and the facts of Scripture are in harmony the appeal is useless. If they are in disharmony, we cannot follow both—we must choose one and reject the other. And the attempt to make the facts of Scripture co-factors of equal rank with the teaching of Scripture in ascertaining the true doctrine of inspiration, is really an attempt to modify the doctrine taught by Scripture by an appeal to the facts, while concealing from ourselves the fact that we have modified it, and in modifying corrected it, and, of course, in correcting it, discredited Scripture as a teacher of doctrine.

Probably these four types of procedure will include most of the methods by which men are to-day seeking to free themselves from the necessity of following the Scriptural doctrine of inspiration, while yet looking to Scripture as the source of doctrine. Is it not plain that on every one of them the outcome must be to discredit Scripture as a doctrinal guide? The human mind is very subtle, but with all its subtlety it will hardly be able to find a way to refuse to follow Scripture in one of the doctrines it teaches without undermining its authority as a teacher of doctrine.

II

IMMENSE WEIGHT OF EVIDENCE FOR THE BIBLICAL DOCTRINE

It is only to turn another face of the proposition with which we are dealing towards us, to emphasize next the important fact, that, the state of the case being such as we have found it, the evidence for the truth of the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of Scripture is just the whole body of evidence which goes to show that the apostles are trustworthy teachers of doctrine.

Language is sometimes made use of which would seem to imply that the amount or weight of the evidence offered for the truth of the doctrine that the Scriptures are the Word of God in such a sense that their words deliver the truth of God without error, is small. It is on the contrary just the whole body of evidence which goes to prove the writers of the New Testament to be trustworthy as deliverers of doctrine. It is just the same evidence in amount and weight which is adduced in favor of any other Biblical doctrine. It is the same weight and amount of evidence precisely which is adducible for the truth of the doctrines of the Incarnation, of the Trinity, of the Divinity of Christ, of Justification by Faith, of Regeneration by the Holy Spirit, of the Resurrection of the Body, of Life Everlasting. It is, of course, not absurdly intended that every Biblical doctrine is taught in the Scriptures with equal clearness, with equal explicitness, with equal frequency. Some doctrines are stated with an explicit precision that leaves little to systematic theology in its efforts to define the truth on all sides, except to repeat the words which the Biblical writers have used to teach it—as for example the doctrine of Justification by Faith. Others are not formulated in Scripture at all, but are taught only in their elements, which the systematician must collect and combine and so arrive finally at the doctrine—as for example the doctrine of the Trinity. Some are adverted to so frequently as to form the whole warp and woof of Scripture—as for example the doctrine of redemption in the blood of Christ. Others are barely alluded to here and there, in connections where the stress is really on other matters—as for example the doctrine of the fall of the angels. But however explicitly or incidentally, however frequently or rarely, however emphatically or allusively, they may be taught, when exegesis has once done its work and shown that they are taught by the Biblical writers, all these doctrines stand as supported by the same weight and amount of evidence—the evidence of the trustworthiness of the Biblical writers as teachers of doctrine. We cannot say that we will believe these writers when they assert a doctrine a hundred times and we will not believe them if they assert it only ten times or only once; that we will believe them in the doctrines they make the main subjects of discourse, but not in those which they advert to incidentally; that we will believe them in those that they teach as conclusions of formal arguments, but not in those which they use as premises wherewith to reach those conclusions; that we will believe them in those they explicitly formulate and dogmatically teach, but not in those which they teach only in their separate parts and elements. The question is not how they teach a doctrine, but do they teach it; and when that question is once settled affirmatively, the weight of evidence that commends this doctrine to us as true is the same in every case; and that is the whole body of evidence which goes to show that the Biblical writers are trustworthy as teachers of doctrine. The Biblical doctrine of inspiration, therefore, has in its favor just this whole weight and amount of evidence. It follows on the one hand that it cannot rationally be rejected save on the ground of evidence which will outweigh the whole body of evidence which goes to authenticate the Biblical writers as trustworthy witnesses to and teachers of doctrine. And it follows, on the other hand, that if the Biblical doctrine of inspiration is rejected, our freedom from its trammels is bought logically at the somewhat serious cost of discrediting the evidence which goes to show that the Biblical writers are trustworthy as teachers of doctrine. In this sense, the fortunes of distinctive Christianity are bound up with those of the Biblical doctrine of inspiration.

Let it not be said that thus we found the whole Christian system upon the doctrine of plenary inspiration. We found the whole Christian system on the doctrine of plenary inspiration as little as we found it upon the doctrine of angelic existences. Were there no such thing as inspiration, Christianity would be true, and all its essential doctrines would be credibly witnessed to us in the generally trustworthy reports of the teaching of our Lord and of His authoritative agents in founding the Church, preserved in the writings of the apostles and their first followers, and in the historical witness of the living Church. Inspiration is not the most fundamental of Christian doctrines, nor even the first thing we prove about the Scriptures. It is the last and crowning fact as to the Scriptures. These we first prove authentic, historically credible, generally trustworthy, before we prove them inspired. And the proof of their authenticity, credibility, general trustworthiness would give us a firm basis for Christianity prior to any knowledge on our part of their inspiration, and apart indeed from the existence of inspiration. The present writer, in order to prevent all misunderstanding, desires to repeat here what he has said on every proper occasion—that he is far from contending that without inspiration there could be no Christianity. "Without any inspiration," he added, when making this affirmation on his induction into the work of teaching the Bible—"without any inspiration we could have had Christianity; yea, and men could still have heard the truth and through it been awakened, and justified, and sanctified, and glorified. The verities of our faith would remain historically proven to us—so bountiful has God been in His fostering care—even had we no Bible; and through those verities, salvation." We are in entire harmony in this matter with what we conceive to be the very true statement recently made by Dr. George P. Fisher, that "if the authors of the Bible were credible reporters of revelations of God, whether in the form of historical transactions of which they were witnesses, or of divine mysteries that were unveiled to their minds, their testimony would be entitled to belief, even if they were shut up to their unaided faculties in communicating what they had thus received." We are in entire sympathy in this matter, therefore, with the protest which Dr. Marcus Dods raised in his famous address at the meeting of the Alliance of the Reformed Churches at London, against representing that "the infallibility of the Bible is the ground of the whole Christian faith."55 We judge with him that it is very important indeed that such a misapprehension, if it is anywhere current, should be corrected. What we are at present arguing is something entirely different from such an overstrained view of the importance of inspiration to the very existence of Christian faith, and something which has no connection with it. We do not think that the doctrine of plenary inspiration is the ground of Christian faith, but if it was held and taught by the New Testament writers, we think it an element in the Christian faith; a very important and valuable element; an element that appeals to our acceptance on precisely the same ground as every other element of the faith, viz., on the ground of our recognition of the writers of the New Testament as trustworthy witnesses to doctrine; an element of the Christian faith, therefore, which cannot be rejected without logically undermining our trust in all the other elements of distinctive Christianity by undermining the evidence on which this trust rests. We must indeed prove the authenticity, credibility and general trustworthiness of the New Testament writings before we prove their inspiration; and even were they not inspired this proof would remain valid and we should give them accordant trust. But just because this proof is valid, we must trust these writings in their witness to their inspiration, if they give such witness; and if we refuse to trust them here, we have in principle refused them trust everywhere. In such circumstances their inspiration is bound up inseparably with their trustworthiness, and therefore with all else that we receive on trust from them.

On the other hand, we need to remind ourselves that to say that the amount and weight of the evidence of the truth of the Biblical doctrine of inspiration is measured by the amount and weight of the evidence for the general credibility and trustworthiness of the New Testament writers as witnesses to doctrine, is an understatement rather than an overstatement of the matter. For if we trust them at all we will trust them in the account they give of the person and in the report they give of the teaching of Christ; whereupon, as they report Him as teaching the same doctrine of Scripture that they teach, we are brought face to face with divine testimony to this doctrine of inspiration. The argument, then, takes the form given it by Bishop Wordsworth: "The New Testament canonizes the Old; the INCARNATE WORD sets His seal on the WRITTEN WORD. The Incarnate Word is God; therefore, the inspiration of the Old Testament is authenticated by God Himself." And, again, the general trustworthiness of the writers of the New Testament gives us the right and imposes on us the duty of accepting their witness to the relation the Holy Ghost bears to their teaching, as, for example, when Paul tells us that the things which they uttered they uttered "not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit; joining Spirit-given things with Spirit-given things" (1 Cor. 2:13), and Peter asserts that the Gospel was preached by them "in the Holy Spirit" (1 Peter 1:12); and this relation asserted to exist between the Holy Ghost and their teaching, whether oral or written (1 Cor. 14:37; 2 Thess. 2:15, 3:6–14), gives the sanction of the Holy Ghost to their doctrine of Holy Scripture, whatever that is found to be. So that, even though we begin on the lowest ground, we may find ourselves compelled to say, as Bishop Wilberforce found himself compelled to say: "In brief, my belief is this: The whole Bible comes to us as 'the Word of God' under the sanction of God, the Holy Ghost." The weight of the testimony to the Biblical doctrine of inspiration, in a word, is no less than the weight to be attached to the testimony of God—God the Son and God the Spirit.

But our present purpose is not to draw out the full value of the testimony, but simply to emphasize the fact that on the emergence of the exegetical fact that the Scriptures of the New Testament teach this doctrine, the amount and weight of evidence for its truth must be allowed to be the whole amount and weight of the evidence that the writers of the New Testament are trustworthy as teachers of doctrine. It is not on some shadowy and doubtful evidence that the doctrine is based—not on an a priori conception of what inspiration ought to be, not on a "tradition" of doctrine in the Church, though all the a priori considerations and the whole tradition of doctrine in the Church are also thrown in the scale for and not in that against this doctrine; but first on the confidence which we have in the writers of the New Testament as doctrinal guides, and ultimately on whatever evidence of whatever kind and force exists to justify that confidence. In this sense, we repeat, the cause of distinctive Christianity is bound up with the cause of the Biblical doctrine of inspiration. We accept Christianity in all its distinctive doctrines on no other ground than the credibility and trustworthiness of the Bible as a guide to truth; and on this same ground we must equally accept its doctrine of inspiration. "If we may not accept its account of itself," asks Dr. Purves, pointedly, "why should we care to ascertain its account of other things?"

III

IMMENSE PRESUMPTION AGAINST ALLEGED FACTS CONTRADICTORY OF THE BIBLICAL DOCTRINE

We are again making no new affirmation but only looking from a slightly different angle upon the same proposition with which we have been dealing from the first, when we emphasize next the fact, that the state of the case being as we have found it, we approach the study of the so-called "phenomena" of the Scriptures with a very strong presumption that these Scriptures contain no errors, and that any "phenomena" apparently inconsistent with their inerrancy are so in appearance only: a presumption the measure of which is just the whole amount and weight of evidence that the New Testament writers are trustworthy as teachers of doctrine.

It seems to be often tacitly assumed that the Biblical doctrine of inspiration cannot be confidently ascertained until all the facts concerning the contents and structure and characteristics of Scripture are fully determined and allowed for. This is obviously fallacious. What Paul, for example, believed as to the nature of Scripture is obviously an easily separable question from what the nature of Scripture really is. On the other hand, the assumption that we cannot confidently accept the Biblical doctrine of inspiration as true until criticism and exegesis have said their last word upon the structure, the text, and the characteristics of Scripture, even to the most minute fact, is more plausible. But it is far from obviously true. Something depends upon our estimate of the force of the mass of evidence which goes to show the trustworthiness of the apostles as teachers of truth, and of the clearness with which they announce their teaching as to inspiration. It is conceivable, for example, that the force of the evidence of their trustworthiness may be so great that we should be fully justified in yielding implicit confidence to their teaching, even though many and serious difficulties should stand in the way of accepting it. This, indeed, is exactly what we do in our ordinary use of Scripture as a source of doctrine. Who doubts that the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incarnation present difficulties to rational construction? Who doubts that the doctrines of native demerit and total depravity, inability and eternal punishment raise objections in the natural heart? We accept these doctrines and others which ought to be much harder to credit, such as the Biblical teaching that God so loved sinful man as to give His only-begotten Son to die for him, not because their acceptance is not attended with difficulties, but because our confidence in the New Testament as a doctrinal guide is so grounded in unassailable and compelling evidence, that we believe its teachings despite the difficulties which they raise. We do not and we cannot wait until all these difficulties are fully explained before we yield to the teaching of the New Testament the fullest confidence of our minds and hearts. How then can it be true that we are to wait until all difficulties are removed before we can accept with confidence the Biblical doctrine of inspiration? In relation to this doctrine alone, are we to assume the position that we will not yield faith in response to due and compelling evidence of the trustworthiness of the teacher, until all difficulties are explained to our satisfaction?—that we must fully understand and comprehend before we will believe? Or is the point this—that we can suppose ourselves possibly mistaken in everything else except our determination of the characteristics and structure of Scripture and the facts stated therein? Surely if we do not need to wait until we understand how God can be both one and three, how Christ can be both human and divine, how man can be both unable and responsible, how an act can be both free and certain, how man can be both a sinner and righteous in God's sight, before we accept, on the authority of the teaching of Scripture, the doctrines of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, of man's state as a sinner, of God's eternal predestination of the acts of free agents, and of acceptance on the ground of Christ's righteousness, because of the weight of the evidence which goes to prove that Scripture trustworthy as a teacher of divine truth; we may on the same compelling evidence accept, in full confidence, the teaching of the same Scripture as to the nature of its own inspiration, prior to a full understanding of how all the phenomena of Scripture are to be adjusted to it.

No doubt it is perfectly true and is to be kept in mind that the claim of a writing to be infallible may be mistaken or false. Such a claimaim has been put forth in behalf of and by other writings besides the Bible, and has been found utterly inconsistent with the observed characteristics of those writings. An a priori possibility may be asserted to exist in the case of the Bible, that a comparison of its phenomena with its doctrine may bring out a glaring inconsistency. The test of the truth of the claims of the Bible to be inspired of God through comparison with its contents, characteristics and phenomena, the Bible cannot expect to escape; and the lovers of the Bible will be the last to deny the validity of it. By all means let the doctrine of the Bible be tested by the facts and let the test be made all the more, not the less, stringent and penetrating because of the great issues that hang upon it. If the facts are inconsistent with the doctrine, let us all know it, and know it so clearly that the matter is put beyond doubt. But let us not conceal from ourselves the greatness of the issues involved in the test, lest we approach the test in too light a spirit, and make shipwreck of faith in the trustworthiness of the apostles as teachers of doctrine, with the easy indifference of a man who corrects the incidental errors of a piece of gossip. Nor is this appeal to the seriousness of the issues involved in any sense an appeal to deal deceitfully with the facts concerning or stated in the Bible, through fear of disturbing our confidence in a comfortable doctrine of its infallibility. It is simply an appeal to common sense. If you are told that a malicious lie has been uttered by some unknown person you may easily yield the report a languid provisional assent; such things are not impossible, unfortunately in this sinful world not unexampled. But if it is told you of your loved and trusted friend, you will probably demand the most stringent proof at the point of your walking stick. So far as this, Robert Browning has missed neither nature nor right reason, when he makes his Ferishtah point out how much more evidence we require in proof of a fact which brings us loss than what is sufficient to command

"The easy acquiescence of mankind

In matters nowise worth dispute."

If it is right to test most carefully the claim of every settled and accepted faith by every fact asserted in rebuttal of it, it must be equally right, nay incumbent, to scrutinize most closely the evidence for an asserted fact, which, if genuine, wounds in its vitals some important interest. If it would be a crime to refuse to consider most carefully and candidly any phenomena of Scripture asserted to be inconsistent with its inerrancy, it would be equally a crime to accept the asserted reality of phenomena of Scripture, which, if real, strike at the trustworthiness of the apostolic witness to doctrine, on any evidence of less than demonstrative weight.

But we approach the consideration of these phenomena alleged to be inconsistent with the Biblical doctrine of inspiration not only thus with what may be called, though in a high sense, a sentimental presumption against their reality. The presumption is an eminently rational one, and is capable of somewhat exact estimation. We do not adopt the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of Scripture on sentimental grounds, nor even, as we have already had occasion to remark, on a priori or general grounds of whatever kind. We adopt it specifically because it is taught us as truth by Christ and His apostles, in the Scriptural record of their teaching, and the evidence for its truth is, therefore, as we have also already pointed out, precisely that evidence, in weight and amount, which vindicates for us the trustworthiness of Christ and His apostles as teachers of doctrine. Of course, this evidence is not in the strict logical sense "demonstrative;" it is "probable" evidence. It therefore leaves open the metaphysical possibility of its being mistaken. But it may be contended that it is about as great in amount and weight as "probable" evidence can be made, and that the strength of conviction which it is adapted to produce may be and should be practically equal to that produced by demonstration itself. But whatever weight it has, and whatever strength of conviction it is adapted to produce, it is with this weight of evidence behind us and with this strength of conviction as to the unreality of any alleged phenomena contradictory of the Biblical doctrine of inspiration, that we approach the study of the characteristics, the structure, and the detailed statements of the Bible. Their study is not to be neglected; we have not attained through "probable" evidence apodeictic certainty of the Bible's infallibility. But neither is the reality of the alleged phenomena inconsistent with the Bible's doctrine, to be allowed without sufficient evidence. Their reality cannot be logically or rationally recognized unless the evidence for it be greater in amount and weight than the whole mass of evidence for the trustworthiness of the Biblical writers as teachers of doctrine.

It is not to be thought that this amounts to a recommendation of strained exegesis in order to rid the Bible of phenomena adverse to the truth of the Biblical doctrine of inspiration. It amounts to a recommendation of great care in the exegetical determination of these alleged phenomena; it amounts to a recommendation to allow that our exegesis determining these phenomena is not infallible. But it is far from recommending either strained or artificial exegesis of any kind. We are not bound to harmonize the alleged phenomena with the Bible doctrine; and if we cannot harmonize them save by strained or artificial exegesis they would be better left unharmonized. We are not bound, however, on the other hand, to believe that they are unharmonizable, because we cannot harmonize them save by strained exegesis. Our individual fertility in exegetical expedients, our individual insight into exegetical truth, our individual capacity of understanding are not the measure of truth. If we cannot harmonize without straining, let us leave unharmonized. It is not necessary for us to see the harmony that it should exist or even be recognized by us as existing. But it is necessary for us to believe the harmony to be possible and real, provided that we are not prepared to say that we clearly see that on any conceivable hypothesis (conceivable to us or conceivable to any other intelligent beings) the harmony is impossible—if the trustworthiness of the Biblical writers who teach us the doctrine of plenary inspiration is really safeguarded to us on evidence which we cannot disbelieve. In that case every unharmonized passage remains a case of difficult harmony and does not pass into the category of objections to plenary inspiration. It can pass into the category of objections only if we are prepared to affirm that we clearly see that it is, on any conceivable hypothesis of its meaning, clearly inconsistent with the Biblical doctrine of inspiration. In that case we would no doubt need to give up the Biblical doctrine of inspiration; but with it we must also give up our confidence in the Biblical writers as teachers of doctrine. And if we cannot reasonably give up this latter, neither can we reasonably allow that the phenomena apparently inconsistent with the former are real, or really inconsistent with it. And this is but to say that we approach the study of these phenomena with a presumption against their being such as will disprove the Biblical doctrine of inspiration—or, we may add (for this is but the same thing in different words), correct or modify the Biblical doctrine of inspiration—which is measured precisely by the amount and weight of the evidence which goes to show that the Bible is a trustworthy guide to doctrine.

The importance of emphasizing these, as it would seem, very obvious principles, does not arise out of need for a very great presumption in order to overcome the difficulties arising from the "phenomena" of Scripture, as over against its doctrine of inspiration. Such difficulties are not specially numerous or intractable. Dr. Charles Hodge justly characterizes those that have been adduced by disbelievers in the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, as "for the most part trivial," "only apparent," and marvelously few "of any real importance." They bear, he adds, about the same relation to the whole that a speck of sandstone detected here and there in the marble of the Parthenon would bear to that building. They do not for the most part require explaining away, but only to be fairly understood in order to void them. They constitute no real strain upon faith, but when approached in a candid spirit one is left continually marveling at the excessive fewness of those which do not, like ghosts, melt away from vision as soon as faced. Moreover, as every student of the history of exegesis and criticism knows, they are a progressively vanishing quantity. Those which seemed most obvious and intractable a generation or two ago, remain to-day as only too readily forgotten warnings against the ineradicable and inordinate dogmatism of the opponents of the inerrancy of the Bible, who over-ride continually every canon of historical and critical caution in their eager violence against the doctrine that they assail. What scorn they expressed of "apologists" who doubted whether Luke was certainly in error in assigning a "pro-consul" to Cyprus, whether he was in error in making Lysanias a contemporary tetrarch with the Herodian rulers, and the like. How easily that scorn is forgotten as the progress of discovery has one by one vindicated the assertions of the Biblical historians. The matter has come to such a pass, indeed, in the progress of discovery, that there is a sense in which it may be said that the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible can now be based, with considerable confidence, on its observed "phenomena." What marvelous accuracy is characteristic of its historians! Dr. Fisher, in a paper already referred to, invites his readers to read Archibald Forbes' article in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1892, on "Napoleon the Third at Sedan," that they may gain some idea of how the truth of history as to the salient facts may be preserved amid "hopeless and bewildering discrepancies in regard to details," in the reports of the most trustworthy eye-witnesses. The article is instructive in this regard. And it is instructive in another regard also. What a contrast exists between this mass of "hopeless and bewildering discrepancies in regard to details," among the accounts of a single important transaction, written by careful and watchful eye-witnesses, who were on the ground for the precise purpose of gathering the facts for report, and who were seeking to give an exact and honest account of the events which they witnessed, and the marvelous accuracy of the Biblical writers! If these "hopeless and bewildering discrepancies" are consistent with the honesty and truthfulness and general trustworthiness of the uninspired writers, may it not be argued that the so much greater accuracy attained by the Biblical writers when describing not one event but the history of ages—and a history filled with pitfalls for the unwary—has something more than honesty and truthfulness behind it, and warrants the attribution to them of something more than general trustworthiness? And, if in the midst of this marvel of general accuracy there remain here and there a few difficulties as yet not fully explained in harmony with it, or if in the course of the historical vindication of it in general a rare difficulty (as in the case of some of the statements of Daniel) seems to increase in sharpness, are we to throw ourselves with desperate persistency into these "last ditches" and strive by our increased insistence upon the impregnability of them to conceal from men that the main army has been beaten from the field? Is it not more reasonable to suppose that these difficulties, too, will receive their explanation with advancing knowledge? And is it not the height of the unreasonable to treat them like the Sibylline books as of ever-increasing importance in proportion to their decreasing number? The importance of keeping in mind that there is a presumption against the reality of these "inconsistent phenomena," and that the presumption is of a weight measurable only by the weight of evidence which vindicates the general trustworthiness of the Bible as a teacher of doctrine, does not arise from the need of so great a presumption in order to overcome the weight of the alleged opposing facts. Those facts are not specially numerous, important or intractable, and they are, in the progress of research, a vanishing quantity.

The importance of keeping in mind the principle in question arises rather from the importance of preserving a correct logical method. There are two ways of approaching the study of the inspiration of the Bible. 1One proceeds by obtaining first the doctrine of inspiration taught by the Bible as applicable to itself, and then testing this doctrine by the facts as to the Bible as ascertained by Biblical criticism and exegesis. This is good logical procedure; and in the presence of a vast mass of evidence for the general trustworthiness of the Biblical writings as witnesses of doctrine, and for the appointment of their writers as teachers of divine truth to men, and for the presence of the Holy Spirit with and in them aiding them in their teaching (in whatever degree and with whatever effect)—it would seem to be the only logical and proper mode of approaching the question. 2The other method proceeds by seeking the doctrine of inspiration in the first instance through a comprehensive induction from the facts as to the structure and contents of the Bible, as ascertained by critical and exegetical processes, treating all these facts as co-factors of the same rank for the induction. If in this process the facts of structure and the facts embedded in the record of Scripture—which are called, one-sidedly indeed but commonly, by the class of writers who adopt this procedure, "the phenomena" of Scripture—alone are considered, it would be difficult to arrive at a precise doctrine of inspiration, at the best: though, as we have already pointed out, a degree and kind of accuracy might be vindicated for the Scriptures which might lead us to suspect and to formulate as the best account of it, some divine assistance to the writers' memory, mental processes and expression. If the Biblical facts and teaching are taken as co-factors in the induction, the procedure (as we have already pointed out) is liable to the danger of modifying the teaching by the facts without clear recognition of what is being done; the result of which would be the loss from observation of one main fact of errancy, viz., the inaccuracy of the teaching of the Scriptures as to their own inspiration. This would vitiate the whole result: and this vitiation of the result can be avoided only by ascertaining separately the teaching of Scripture as to its own inspiration, and by accounting the results of this ascertainment one of the facts of the induction. Then we are in a position to judge by the comparison of this fact with the other facts, whether this fact of teaching is in accord or in disaccord with those facts of performance. If it is in disaccord, then of course this disaccord is the main factor in the case: the writers are convicted of false teaching. If it is in accord, then, if the teaching is not proved by the accord, it is at least left credible, and may be believed with whatever confidence may be justified by the evidence which goes to show that these writers are trustworthy as deliverers of doctrine. And if nice and difficult questions arise in the comparison of the fact of teaching with the facts of performance, it is inevitable that the relative weight of the evidence for the trustworthiness of the two sets of facts should be the deciding factor in determining the truth. This is as much as to say that the asserted facts as to performance must give way before the fact as to teaching, unless the evidence on which they are based as facts outweighs the evidence on which the teaching may be accredited as true. But this correction of the second method of procedure, by which alone it can be made logical in form or valid in result, amounts to nothing less than setting it aside altogether and reverting to the first method, according to which the teaching of Scripture is first to be determined, and then this teaching to be tested by the facts of performance.

The importance of proceeding according to the true logical method may be illustrated by the observation that the conclusions actually arrived at by students of the subject seem practically to depend on the logical method adopted. In fact, the difference here seems mainly a difference in point of view. If we start from the Scripture doctrine of inspiration, we approach the phenomena with the question whether they will negative this doctrine, and we find none able to stand against it, commended to us as true, as it is, by the vast mass of evidence available to prove the trustworthiness of the Scriptural writers as teachers of doctrine. But if we start simply with a collection of the phenomena, classifying and reasoning from them, whether alone or in conjunction with the Scriptural statements, it may easily happen with us, as it happened with certain of old, that meeting with some things hard to be understood, we may be ignorant and unstable enough to wrest them to our own intellectual destruction, and so approach the Biblical doctrine of inspiration set upon explaining it away. The value of having the Scripture doctrine as a clue in our hands, is thus fairly illustrated by the ineradicable inability of the whole negative school to distinguish between difficulties and proved errors. If then we ask what we are to do with the numerous phenomena of Scripture inconsistent with verbal inspiration, which, so it is alleged, "criticism" has brought to light, we must reply: Challenge them in the name of the New Testament doctrine, and ask for their credentials. They have no credentials that can stand before that challenge. No single error has as yet been demonstrated to occur in the Scriptures as given by God to His Church. And every critical student knows, as already pointed out, that the progress of investigation has been a continuous process of removing difficulties, until scarcely a shred of the old list of "Biblical Errors" remains to hide the nakedness of this moribund contention. To say that we do not wish to make claims "for which we have only this to urge, that they cannot be absolutely disproved," is not to the point; what is to the point is to say, that we cannot set aside the presumption arising from the general trustworthiness of Scripture, that its doctrine of inspiration is true, by any array of contradictory facts, each one of which is fairly disputable. We must have indisputable errors—which are not forthcoming.

The real problem brought before the Churches by the present debate ought now to be sufficiently plain. In its deepest essence it is whether we can still trust the Bible as a guide in doctrine, as a teacher of truth. It is not simply whether we can explain away the Biblical doctrine of inspiration so as to allow us to take a different view from what has been common of the structure and characteristics of the Bible. Nor, on the other hand, is it simply whether we may easily explain the facts, established as facts, embedded in Scripture, consistently with the teaching of Scripture as to the nature, extent and effects of inspiration. It is specifically whether the results proclaimed by a special school of Biblical criticism—which are of such a character, as is now admitted by all, as to necessitate, if adopted, a new view of the Bible and of its inspiration—rest on a basis of evidence strong enough to meet and overcome the weight of evidence, whatever that may be in kind and amount, which goes to show that the Biblical writers are trustworthy as teachers of doctrine. If we answer this question in the affirmative, then no doubt we shall have not only a new view of the Bible and of its inspiration but also a whole new theology, because we must seek a new basis for doctrine. But if we answer it in the negative, we may possess our souls in patience and be assured that the Scriptures are as trustworthy witnesses to truth when they declare a doctrine of Inspiration as when they declare a doctrine of Incarnation or of Redemption, even though in the one case as in the other difficulties may remain, the full explanation of which is not yet clear to us. The real question, in a word, is not a new question but the perennial old question, whether the basis of our doctrine is to be what the Bible teaches, or what men teach. And this is a question which is to be settled on the old method, viz., on our estimate of the weight and value of the evidence which places the Bible in our hands as a teacher of doctrine.

VII

"GOD-INSPIRED SCRIPTURE"

THE phrase, "Given by inspiration of God," or "Inspired of God," occurs, as is well-known, but once in the New Testament—in the classical passage, to wit, 2 Tim. 3:16, which is rendered in the Authorized Version, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," and by the Revised Version, "Every Scripture inspired of God is, etc." The Greek word represented by it, and standing in this passage as an epithet or predicate of "Scripture"—θεόπνευστος—though occurring here only in the New Testament and found nowhere earlier in all Greek literature, has nevertheless not hitherto seemed of doubtful interpretation. Its form, its subsequent usage, the implications of parallel terms and of the analogy of faith, have combined with the suggestions of the context to assign to it a meaning which has been constantly attributed to it from the first records of Christian interpretation until yesterday.

This unvarying understanding of the word is thus reported by the leading lexicographers: Schleusner "New Test. Lexicon." Glasgow reprint of fourth Leipzig edition, 1824:

"θεόπνευστος, ου, ὁ, ἡ, afflatu divino actus, divino quodam spiritu afflatus, et partim de hominibus usurpatur, quorum sensus et sermones ad vim divinam referendi sunt, v. c. poëtis, faticidis, prophetis, auguribus, qui etiam θεοδίδακτοι vocantur, partim de ipsis rebus, notionibus, sermonibus, et scriptis, a Deo suggestis, et divino instructu natis, ex θεὸς et πνέω spiro, quod, ut Latinum afflo, de diis speciatim usurpatur, quorum vi homines interdum ita agi existimabantur, ut notiones rerum, antea ignotarum, insolito quodam modo conciperent atque mente vehementius concitata in sermones sublimiores et elegantiores erumperent. Conf. Cic. pro Archia c. 14; Virgil. Aen. iii, 358, vi, 50. In N. T. semel legitur 2 Tim. 3:16, πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος omnis Scriptura divinitus inspirata, seu, quæ est originis divinæ. coll. 2 Pet 1:21. Syrus.… scriptura, quæ per spiritum scripta est. Conjunxit nempe actionem scribendi cum actione inspirandi. Apud Plutarchum T. ix. p. 583. ed. Reiske. θεόπνευστοι ὄνειροι sunt somnia a diis immissa."

Robinson "Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament," new ed., New York, 1872:

"θεόπνευστος, ου, ὁ, ἡ, adj. (θεός, πνέω), God-inspired, inbreathed of God, 2 Tim. 3:16 πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος.—Plut. de Placit. Philosoph. 5. 2, τοὺς ὀνείρους τοὺς θεοπνεύστους. Phocylid. 121 τῆς δὲ θεοπνεύστου σοφίης λόγος ἐστὶν ἄριστος. Comp. Jos. c. Ap. 1. 7 [αἱ γραφαὶ] τῶν προφητῶν κατὰ τὴν ἐπίπνοιαν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ μαθόντων. Cic. pro Arch. 8, 'poetam … quasi divino quodam spiritu inflari.' "

Thayer-Grimm "Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament," New York, 1887:

"θεόπνευστος,—ον, (θεός and πνέω), inspired by God: γραφή, i. e. the contents of Scripture, 2 Tim. 3:16 [see πᾶς I. 1 c.]; σοφίη, [pseudo-] Phocyl. 121; ὄνειροι, Plut. de plac. phil. 5:2, 3 p. 904f.; [Orac. Sibyll. 5, 406 (cf. 308); Nonn. paraphr. ev. Ioan. 1, 99]. (ἔμπνευστος also is used passively, but ἄπνευστος, εὔπνευστος, πυρίπνευστος, [δυσδιάπνευστος], actively [and δυσανάπνευστος appar. either act. or pass.; cf. W. 96 (92) note].)"

Cremer "Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek" ed. 2, E. T., Edinburgh, 1878:

"θεόπνευστος, prompted by God, divinely inspired. 2 Tim. 3:16, πᾶσα γραφὴ θ. In profane Greek it occurs only in Plut. de placit. philos. v. 2, ὄνειροι θεόπνευστοι (κατʼ ἀνάγκην γίνονται), opposed to φυσικοί. The formation of the word cannot be traced to the use of πνέω, but only of ἐμπνέω. Cf. Xen. Hell. vii. 4, 32, τὴν ἀρετὴν θεὸς μὲν ἐμπνεύσας; Plat. Conv. 179 B, μένος ἐμπνεῦσαι ἐνίοις τῶν ἡρώων τὸν θεόν; Hom. Il. xx. 110; Od. xix. 138. The simple verb is never used of divine action. How much the word corresponds with the Scriptural view is evident from 2 Pet. 1:21."

And the commentators generally will be found to speak no otherwise.

The completeness of this lexical consent has recently, however, been broken, and that by no less an authority than Prof. Hermann Cremer himself, the second edition of whose great "Biblico-theological Lexicon" we have just adduced as in entire agreement with the current view. The date of issue of this edition, in its original German form, was 1872. The third edition was delayed until 1883. In the interval Dr. Cremer was called upon to write the article on "Inspiration" in the second edition of Herzog's "Realencyklopædie" (Vol. vi, sub voc., pp. 746 seq.), which saw the light in 1880. In preparing this article he was led to take an entirely new view of the meaning of θεόπνευστος, according to which it defines Scripture, in 2 Tim. 3:16, not according to its origin, but according to its effect—not as "inspired of God," but as "inspiring its readers." The statement of his new view was transferred to the third edition of his "Lexicon" (1883; E. T. as "Supplement," 1886) very much in the form in which it appears in Herzog; and it has retained its place in the "Lexicon," with practically no alteration, ever since. As its expression in Herzog was the earliest, and therefore is historically the most important, and as the article in the "Lexicon" is easily accessible in both German and English, and moreover does not essentially differ from what is said in Herzog, we shall quote here Dr. Cremer's statement of the case in preference from Herzog. He says:

"In theological usage, Inspiration denotes especially the influence of the Holy Spirit in the origination of the sacred Scriptures, by means of which they become the expression to us of the will of God, or the Word of God. The term comes from the Vulgate, which renders 2 Tim. 3:16 πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος, by omnis Scriptura divinitus inspirata. Whether the meaning of the Greek term is conveyed by this is at least questionable. It clearly belongs only to Hellenistic and Christian Greek. The notion that it was used also in classical Greek of poets and seers (Huther in his Commentary) and to express what Cicero says in his pro Archia, p. 8, nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit, is certainly wrong. For θεόπνευστος does not occur at all in classical Greek or in profane Greek as a whole. In the unique passage, Plutarch, de placit. phil., 5, 2 (Mor. 904, 2): τοὺς ὀνείρους τοὺς θεοπνεύστους κατʼ ἀνάγκην γίνεσθαι· τοὺς δὲ φυσικοὺς ἀνειδωλοποιουμὲνης ψυχῆς τὸ συμφέρον αὐτῇ κτλ., it is very probably to be ascribed to the copyist, and stands, as Wyttenbach conjectures, in the place of θεοπέμπτους. Besides this it occurs in Pseudo-Phocylides, v. 121: τῆς δὲ θεοπνεύστου σοφίης λόγος ἐστὶν ἄριστος—unless the whole line is, with Bernays, to be deleted as disturbing to the sense—as well as in the fifth book of the "Sibyllines," v. 308: Κύμη δʼ ἡ μωρὰ σὺν νάμασι τοῖς θεοπνεύστοις, and v. 406, Ἀλλὰ μὲγαν γενετῆρα θεὸν πάντων θεοπνεύστων Ἐν θυσίαις ἐγέραιρον καὶ ἁγίας ἑκατόμβας. The Pseudo-Phocylides was, however, a Hellenist, and the author of the fifth book of the "Sibyllines" was, most probably, an Egyptian Jew living in the time of Hadrian. On Christian ground we find it in 2 Tim. 3:16, which is possibly the earliest written employment of it to which we can point. Wetstein, on this passage, adduces the sentence from the Vita Sabae 16 (in Cotelerii Monum.): ἔφθασε τᾗ τοῦ Χυ χάριτι ἡ πάντων θεοπνεύστων, πάντων χριστοφόρων αὐτοῦ συνοδία μέχρι ό ὀνομάτων, as well as the designation of Marcus Eremita as ὁ θεόπνευστος ἀνήρ. That the term has a passive meaning = 'gifted with God's Spirit,' 'divinely spirited,' (not 'inspired' as Ewald rightly distinguishes) may be taken as indubitable from 'Sibyll.', v. 406 and the two passages last adduced. Nevertheless γραφὴ θεόπνευστος does not seem easily capable of meaning 'inspired by God's Spirit' in the sense of the Vulgate; when connected with such conceptions as γραφὴ here, νᾶμα, 'fountain,' 'Sibyll.' v. 308, it would rather signify 'breathing a divine spirit,' in keeping with that ready transition of the passive into the active sense which we see in ἄπνευστος, εὔπνευστος, 'ill or well-breathed' = 'breathing ill or well.' Compare Nonnus, paraphr. ev Jo., i, 102: οὗ ποδὸς ἄκρου ἀνδρομέην παλάμην οὐκ ἄξιος εἰμὶ πελάσσας, λῦσαι μοῦνον ἱμάντα θεοπνεύστοιο πεδίλου, with v. 129: βαπτίζειν ἀπύροισι καὶ ἀπνεύστοισι λοέτροις. In harmony with this, it might be understood also in Phocyl. 121; the explanation, 'Wisdom gifted with the Divine Spirit,' at all events has in its favor the fact that θεόπνευστος is given the same sense as when it is connected with ἀνήρ, ἄνθρωπος. Certainly a transition to the sense, 'breathed by God' = 'inspired by God' seems difficult to account for, and it would fit, without forcing, only Phocyl. 121, while in 2 Tim. 3:16, on the assumption of this sense, there would be required a not altogether easy metonyme. The sense 'breathing God's Spirit' is moreover in keeping with the context, especially with the ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν κτλ. and the τὰ δυνάμενά σε σοφίσαι, v. 15, as well as with the language employed elsewhere, e. g., in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where what the Scripture says is, as is well known, spoken of as the saying, the word of the Holy Ghost. Cf. also Acts 28:25. Origen also, in Hom. 21 in Jerem., seems so to understand it: sacra volumina Spiritus plenitudinem spirant. Let it be added that the expression 'breathed by God, inspired by God,' though an outgrowth of the Biblical idea, certainly, so far as it is referred to the prophecy which does not arise out of the human will (2 Pet. 1:21), yet can scarcely be applied to the whole of the rest of the sacred Scriptures—unless we are to find in 2 Tim. 3:16 the expression of a conception of sacred Scripture similar to the Philonian. There is no doubt, however, that the Peshito understood it simply = 'inspired by God'—yet not differently than as in Matt. 22:43 we find: Δαυὶδ ἐν πνεύματι λαλεῖ. It translates אֶתְכְּתֵב כּלֻ כְּתָב גֵּיר כּבְרוּחָא, 'for every Scripture which is written ἐν πνεύματι'—certainly keeping prominently in the foreground the inspiration of the writer. Similarly the Æthiopic renders: 'And every Scripture is in the (by the) Spirit of the Lord and profits'; while the Arabic (deriving from the original text) reads: 'And every Scripture which is divinely of spiratio, divinam sapiens auram.' The rendering of the Peshito and the explanations of the Greek exegetes would certainly lend great weight to the divinitus inspirata, were not they explicable from the dominant idea of the time—for which, it was thought, a suitable term was found in 2 Tim. 3:16, nowhere else used indeed and coined for the purpose—but which was itself more or less taken over from the Alexandrian Judaism, that is to say, from heathenism."

Here, we will perceive, is a carefully reasoned attempt to reverse the previous lexical consensus as to the meaning of this important word. We have not observed many traces of the influence of this new determination of its import. The present writer, after going over the ground under Prof. Cremer's guidance, too hastily adopted his conclusion in a paper on "Paul's Doctrine of the Old Testament" published in The Presbyterian Quarterly for July, 1899; and an adverse criticism of Dr. Cremer's reasoning, from the pen of Prof. Dr. L. Schulze, of Rostock, appeared in the Theologisches Literaturblatt for May 22, 1896 (xvii, 21, pp. 253, 254), in the course of a review of the eighth edition of the "Lexicon." But there has not met our eye as yet any really thorough reëxamination of the whole matter, such as a restatement of it like Dr. Cremer's might have been expected to provoke. The case surely warrants and indeed demands it. Dr. Cremer's statement is more than a statement—it is an argument; and his conclusion is revolutionary, not indeed as to doctrine—for that rests on a broader basis than a single text or an isolated word—but as to the meaning borne by an outstanding New Testament term. It would seem that there is, then, no apology needed for undertaking a somewhat minute examination of the facts in the case under the guidance of Dr. Cremer's very full and well-reasoned statement.

It may conduce, in the end, to clearness of presentation if we begin somewhat in medias res by raising the question of the width of the usage of the word. Is it broadly a Greek word, or distinctively a Hellenistic word, or even a purely Christian word?

So far as appears from the usage as ascertained, it would seem to be post-Christian. Whether we should also call it Christian, coined possibly by Paul and used only in Christian circles, depends, in the present state of our knowledge, on the determination of two rather nice questions. One of these concerns the genuineness of the reading θεοπνεύστους in the tract on "The Opinions of Philosophers" (v. 2, 3), which has come down to us among the works of Plutarch, as well as in its dependent document, the "History of Philosophy" (106), transmitted among the works of Galen. The other concerns the character, whether Jewish or Jewish-Christian, of certain portions of the fifth book of the "Sibylline Oracles" and of the "Poem of Admonition," once attributed to Phocylides but now long recognized to be the work of a late Alexandrian Jew,—in both of which the word occurs. Dr. Cremer considers the reading to be false in the Plutarchian tract, and thinks the fifth book of the "Sybillines" and the Pseudo-Phocylidian poem Jewish in origin. He therefore pronounces the word a Hellenistic one. These decisions, however, can scarcely be looked upon as certain; and they will bear scrutiny, especially as they are accompanied with some incidental errors of statement.

It would certainly require considerable boldness to decide with confidence upon the authorship of any given portion of the fifth book of the "Sibyllines." Friedlieb (whom Dr. Cremer follows) and Badt ascribe the whole book to a Jewish, but Alexandre, Reuss and Dechent to a Christian author; while others parcel it out variously between the two classes of sources—the most assigning the sections containing the word in question, however, to a Jewish author (Bleck, Lücke, Gfrörrer; Ewald, Hilgenfeld; Schürer). Schürer practically gives up in despair the problem of distributing the book to its several authors, and contents himself with saying that Jewish pieces preponderate and run in date from the first Christian century to Hadrian. In these circumstances surely a certain amount of doubt may fairly be thought to rest on the Jewish or Christian origin of our word in the Sibylline text. On the other hand, there seems to be pretty good positive reason for supposing the Pseudo-Phocylidian poem to be in its entirety a Christian production. Its Jewish origin was still strenuously maintained by Bernays, but its relation to the "Teaching of the Apostles" has caused the subject to be reopened, and we think has brought it to at least a probable settlement in favor of Scaliger's opinion that it is the work "ἀνωνύμου Christiani." In the face of this probability the brilliant and attractive, but not always entirely convincing conjectures by which Bernays removed some of the Christian traits from the text may now be neglected: and among them that by which he discarded the line containing our word. So far then as its occurrence in the fifth book of the "Sibyllines" and in Pseudo-Phocylides is concerned, no compelling reason appears why the word may not be considered a distinctively Christian one: though it must at the same time be recognized that the sections in the fifth "Sibyl" in which it occurs are more probably Jewish than Christian.

With reference to the Plutarchian passage something more needs to be said. "In the unique passage, Plutarch de plac. phil. 5, 2 (904 F.): τῶν ὀνείρων τοὺς μὲν θεοπνεύστους κατʼ ἀνάγκην γίνεσθαι· τοὺς δὲ φυσικούς ἀνειδωλοποιουμένης ψυχῆς τὸ συμφέρον αὑτῇ κτλ." says Dr. Cremer, "it is with the greatest probability to be ascribed to the transcriber, in whose mind θεόπνευστος lay in the sense of the Vulgate rendering, divinitus inspirata, and it stands, as Wyttenbach conjectures, for θεοπέμπτους." The remark concerning Wyttenbach is erroneous—only one of a series of odd misstatements which have dogged the textual notes on this passage. Wyttenbach prints θεοπνεύστους in his text and accompanies it with this textual note: "θεοπέμπτους reposuit editor Lips. ut ex Gal. et Mosc. At in neutro haec reperio. Sane non est quare compilatori elegantias obtrudamus." θεοπέμπτους is therefore not Wyttenbach's conjecture: Wyttenbach does not even accept it, and this has of late been made a reproach to him: he ascribes it to "the Leipzig editor," that is to Christian Daniel Beck, whose edition of this tract was published at Leipzig, in 1787. But Wyttenbach even more gravely misquotes Beck than he has himself been misquoted by Dr. Cremer. For Beck, who prints in his text: τῶν ὀνείρων τοὺς μὲν θεοπνεύστους, annotates as follows: "Olim: τοὺς ὀνείρους τοὺς θεοπνεύστους—Reddidi textis elegantiorem lectionem, quae in M. et G. est. θεοπνεύστους sapere Christianum librarium videtur pro θεοπέμπτους." That is to say, Wyttenbach has transferred Beck's note on τῶν ὀνείρων τοὺς μὲν to θεοπέμπτους. It is this clause and not θεοπέμπτους that Beck professes to have got out of the Moscow MS. and Galen: θεοπέμπτους he presents merely as a pure conjecture founded on the one consideration that θεοπνεύστους has a flavor of Christian scribe about it; and he does not venture to put θεοπέμπτους into the text. The odd thing is that Hutten follows Wyttenbach in his misrepresentation of Beck, writing in his note: "Beck. dedit θεοπέμπτους ut elegantiorem lectionem e Mosq. et Gal. sumptam. In neutro se hoc reperisse W. notat, addens, non esse quare compilatori elegantias obtrudamus. Corse. Gal. notat τῶν ὀνείρων τοὺς μὲν θεοπνεύστους." Corsini does indeed so report, his note running: "Paullo aliter" (i. e., from the ordinary text which he reprints from Stephens) "Galenus, τῶν ὀνείρων τοὺς μὲν θεοπνεύστους, somniorum ea quidem quae divinitus inspirata sint, etc." But this is exactly what Beck says, and nothing other, except that he adds that this form is also found in the Moscow MS. We must conclude that Hutten in looking at Beck's note was preoccupied with Wyttenbach's misreport of it. The upshot of the whole matter is that the reading θεοπέμπτους was merely a conjecture of Beck's, founded solely on his notion that θεοπνεύστους was a purely Christian term, and possessing no diplomatic basis whatsoever. Accordingly it has not found its way into the printed text of Plutarch: all editions, with one exception, down to and including those of Dübner-Döhner (Didot's "Bibliotheca") of 1856 and Bernardakis (Teubner's series) of 1893 read θεοπνεύστους.

A new face has been put on the matter, however, by the publication in 1879 of Diels' "Doxographi Græci," in which the whole class of ancient literature to which Plutarch's "De plac. philos." belongs is subjected to a searching study, with a view to tracing the mutual relations of the several pieces and the sources from which they are constructed. With this excursion into "higher criticism," into which there enters a highly speculative element, that, despite the scientific thoroughness and admirable acuteness which give the whole an unusually attractive aspect, leaves some doubts in the mind of the sober reader,16 we have now happily little to do. Suffice it to say that Diels looks upon the Plutarchian tract as an epitome of a hypothetical Aëtios, made about 150 A.D. and already used by Athenagoras (c. 177 A.D.): and on the Galenic tract as in its later portion an excerpt from the Plutarchian tract, made about A.D. 500.18 In the course of his work, he has framed and printed a careful recension of the text of both tracts, and in both of them he reads at the place of interest to us, θεοπέμπτους. Here for the first (and as yet only21) time θεοπέμπτους makes its appearance in the text of what we may, in deference to Diels' findings and after the example of Gerke, call, at least, the "[Pseudo?-] Plutarch."23 The key to the situation, with Diels, lies in the reading of the Pseudo-Galen: for as an excerpt from the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch the Pseudo-Galen becomes a valuable witness to its text, and is treated in this case indeed as a determinative witness, inasmuch as the whole MS. transmission of [Pseudo?-] Plutarch, so far as known, reads here θεοπνεύστους. Editing θεοπέμπτους in Pseudo-Galen, Diels edits it also, on that sole documentary ground, in [Pseudo?-] Plutarch. That we may form some estimate of the likelihood of the new reading, we must, therefore, form some estimate of its likelihood in the text of the Pseudo-Galen, as well as of the principles on which the text of the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch is to be framed.

The editions of Pseudo-Galen—including that of Kühn—have have hitherto read θεοπνέυστους at our place, and from this we may possibly infer, that this is the reading of the common run of the MSS. Diels constructs his text for this portion of the treatise from two kindred MSS. only, and records the readings of no others: as no variation is given upon our word, we may infer that these two MSS. at least agree in reading θεοπέμπτους. The former of them (Codex Laurentianus lxxiv, 3), of the twelfth or early thirteenth century, is described as transcribed "with incredible corruptness"; the latter (Codex Laurentianus lviii, 2), of the fifteenth century, as written more carefully: both represent a common very corrupt archetype. This archetype is reconstructed from the consent of the two, and where they differ the preference is given to the former. The text thus framed is confessedly corrupt:27 but though it must therefore be cautiously used, Diels considers it nevertheless a treasure house of the best readings for the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch. Especially in the latter part of the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch, where the help of Eusebius and the other eclogæ fails, he thinks the case would often be desperate if we did not have the Pseudo-Galen. Three examples of the preservation of the right reading by it alone he gives us, one of them being our present passage, in which he follows, therefore, the reading of the Pseudo-Galen against the entire MS. transmission.

Diels considers the whole MS. transmission of the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch to take us back to an archetype of about A.D. 1000, and selects from it three codices as nearest to the archetype, viz., A = Codex Mosquensis 339 (nunc 352) of saec. xi. or xii. (the same as the Mosq. quoted by Beck), collated by Matthaei and in places reëxamined for Diels by Voelkelius; B = Codex Marcianus 521 [xcii, 7], of saec. xiv, very closely related to A, collated by Diels himself; and C = Codex Parisinus 1672 of saec. xiii. ex. vel. xiv. in which is a copy of a corpus of Plutarch put together by Planudes or a contemporary. Through these three codices he reaches the original apograph which stands at the root of all the extant MSS., and from it, by the aid of the excerpts from the tract—in our passage the Pseudo-Galen's only—he attains his text.

His note on our reading runs thus: "θεοπέμπτους G cf. Arist. de divinat. 2 p. 463b 13: θεοπνεύστους (A) B C, cf. Prol. p. 15." The parenthesis in which A is enclosed means that A is here cited from the silence of Matthaei's collation. The reference to the Prolegomena is to the passage already alluded to, in which the Galenic reading θεοπέμπτους is cited as one of three chosen instances of excellent readings preserved by Galen alone. The note there runs thus: "alteri loco christiani librarii pius fraus nocuit. V. 2, 3, Ἡρόφιλος τῶν ὀνείρων τοὺς μὲν θεοπνεύστους κατʼ ἀνάγκην γίνεθαι. fuit scilicet θεοπέμπτους, quod sero intellectum est a Wyttenbachio in indice Plutarcheo. si Galenum inspexisset, ipsum illud θεοπέμπτους inventurus erat. simili fraude versus 121 Phocylideis a Byzantinis insertus est, ubi vox illa sacra [2 Tim. 3:16] I. Bernaysio interpolationis originem manifesto aperuit." That is to say, the reading of the Pseudo-Galen is preferred to that of the MSS., because the reading θεοπνεύστους explains itself as a pious fraud of a Christian scribe, giving a place in the text of Plutarch to "this sacred word"—another example of which procedure is to be found in Pseudo-Phoc. 121, extruded by Bernays from the text on this very ground. On this remark, as on a hinge, turns, it would seem, the decision of the whole question. The problem of the reading, indeed, may be set forth at this point in the form of this alternative:—Which is most likely,—that θεοπνεύστους in the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch originated in the pious fraud of a Christian scribe?—or that θεοπέμπτους in the text of Pseudo-Galen edited by Diels originated in the error of a careless scribe?

When we posit the problem in this definite form we cannot feel at all certain that Diels' solution is the right one. There is an à priori unlikelihood in its way: deliberate corruption of texts is relatively rare and not to be assumed without good reason. The parallel from the Pseudo-Phocylides fails, now that it seems probable that the whole poem is of Christian origin. There seems no motive for such a pious fraud as is charged: what gain could be had from intruding θεοπνεύστους into the Plutarchian text? and what special sanctity attached to this word? And if a sacrosanct character be attributed to the word, could it not be equally plausibly argued that it was therefore offensive to the Christian consciousness in this heathen connection, and was accordingly replaced by the less sacred θεοπέμπτους, a word of heathen associations and indeed with a secondary sense not far from "extraordinary." Or if it be now said that it is not intended to charge conscious fraud, it is pertinent to ask what special associations Christians had with the word θεόπνευστος in connection with dreams which would cause it to obtrude itself unconsciously in such a connection. One is almost equally at a loss to account for the intrusion of the word in the place of the simpler θεόπεμπτος, whether the intrusion be looked upon as deliberate or unconscious. On the other hand, the substitution of θεόπεμπτος for θεόπνευστος in the text of Pseudo-Galen seems quite readily accountable, and that whether it be attributed to the original excerpter or to some later copyist of the tract. The term was associated with dreams in the minds of all acquainted with the literature of the subject. Diels himself refers us to a passage in Aristotle where the collocation occurs, and familiar passages from Philo33 and the "Clementina" will suggest themselves to others. "God-sent dreams" must have almost had the rank of a "terminus technicus." Moreover the scribe had just written the word in the immediate context, and that not without close contiguity with the word ὀνείρους, and may be readily supposed to have had it still lingering in his memory when he came to write the succeeding section. In fine, the intrusion into the text of θεοπνεύστους, a rare word and one suggested to a dull or inattentive scribe by nothing, seems far less easy to account for than the intrusion of θεοπέμπτους, a common word, an ordinary term in this connection, and a term suggested to the scribe by the immediate context. On transcriptional grounds certainly the former appears far more likely to be original—"proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua."

The decisive consideration against θεοπνεύστους in the mind of Diels—as it had been before him in the mind of Beck—seems to have been, indeed, nothing but the assumption that θεόπνευστος, as a distinctively Christian word, must argue a Christian hand, wherever it is found. That, however, in our present study is precisely the matter under investigation; and we must specially guard against permitting to intrude decisively into our premises what we propose to arrive at only by way of conclusion. Whether the word be genuine in the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch or not, is just one of the most important factors in deciding whether it be a peculiarly Christian word or not. An instructive parallel may be found in the treatment accorded by some great authorities to the cognate word θεόπνοος when it turned up in an inscription which seems obviously heathen. This inscription, inscribed (about the third century) on the face of a man-headed sphinx at Memphis, sings the praises of the sphinx's beauty—among the items mentioned being that ἐφύπερ[θ]ε πρόσωπον ἔχει τὸ θ[ε]ό[πν]ουν, while, below, the body is that of the lion, king of beasts. Boeckh comments on this: "Vs. 4, 5, recte legit Letronnius, qui θεόπνοον monet Christianum quidam sonare." But why should Letronnius infer Christianity from the word θεόπνοον, or Boeckh think it worth while to record the fact? Fortunately the heathen use of θεόπνοος is beyond question. It provides an excellent illustration, therefore, of the rashness of pronouncing words of this kind to be of Christian origin; and suggests the hesitancy with which we should extrude such a word from the text of [Pseudo?-] Plutarch on the sole ground that it "tastes of a Christian scribe." Surely if a heathen could invent and use the one word, he might equally well invent and use the other. And certainly it is a great mistake to look upon compounds with θέος of this kind as in any sense exclusively Christian. The long list of heathen terms of this character given by Dr. Cremer, indeed, is itself enough to indicate the heathen facility for their coinage. Many such words, we may well believe, were found by Christians ready made to their hand, and had only to be adapted to their richer usage. What is more distinctively Christian is the parallel list of words compounded with πνεῦμα or even χριστός40 which were placed by their side, such as [πνευματικός], πνευματοκίνητος, πνευματοφόρος, πνευματέμφορος; χριστόγραφος, χριστοδίδακτος, χριστοκίνητος, χριστόληπτος, χριστοφόρος.

As the reasons which have been determining with Diels in framing his text do not appear to us able to bear the weight laid on them, we naturally cannot adopt his text with any confidence. We doubt whether θεοπέμπτους was the original reading in the Pseudo-Galen; we doubt whether, if that were the case, we should on that ground edit it in the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch. Our feeling is decided that the intrusion of θεοπέμπτους into a text which originally read θεοπνεύστους would be far more easily accounted for than the reverse. One should be slow, of course, in rejecting a reading commended by such a scholarly tact as Diels'. But we may take courage from the fact that Bernardakis, with Diels' text before him, continues to read θεοπνεύστους even though recognizing θεοπέμπτους as the reading of Galen. We think we must be permitted to hold the matter still at least sub judice and to profess our inability in the circumstances to look upon the word as a purely Christian term. It would be interesting to know what phraseology was used by Herophilus himself (born c. B.C. 300) in the passage which the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch excerpts. But this excerpt seems to be the only source of information we have in the matter,42 and it would perhaps be overbold to suppose that the compiler had preserved the very words of the great physician. Were such a presumption deemed plausible we should be forced to carry back the first known use of the word θεόπνευστος to the third century before Christ, but not to a provenance other than that Alexandria where its earliest use is otherwise traceable. Perhaps if we cannot call it a purely Christian term nor yet, with Dr. Cremer, an exclusively Hellenistic one, we may venture to think of it, provisionally at least, as belonging to Alexandrian Greek. Whether we should also say to late Alexandrian usage will possibly depend on the degree of likelihood we ascribe to its representing in the text of the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch an actual usage of Herophilus.

Our interest in determining the reading in the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch culminates, of course, in its bearing on the meaning of θεόπνευστος. Prof. Schulze's remark that no copyist would have substituted θεόπνευστος here for θεόπεμπτος if linguistic usage had attached an active sense to the former, is no doubt quite just. This is admitted, indeed, by Dr. Cremer, who considers that the scribe to whom the substitution is thought to be due "had θεόπνευστος in his mind in the sense of the Vulgate rendering, divinitus inspirata"; and only seeks to break the force of this admission by urging that the constant exegetical tradition which assigned this meaning to θεόπνευστος, rests on a misunderstanding of the word and reads into it a sense derived from Alexandrian-Jewish conceptions of inspiration. This appeal from a fixed later to an assumed original sense of the word possesses force, no doubt, only in case that traces of such an assumed original sense can be adduced; and meanwhile the presence of θεόπνευστος as a synonym of θεόπεμπτος, even in the vocabulary of somewhat late scribes, must rank as one item in the evidence by which its meaning is to be ascertained. The whole face of the matter is changed, however, if θεόπνευστος be allowed to be probably or even possibly genuine in the [Pseudo?-] Plutarch. In that case it could scarcely be thought to reflect the later Christian conception of inspiration, imposed on Paul's term by thinkers affected by Philo's doctrine of Scripture, but would stand as an independent bit of evidence as to the original meaning of the term. The clerical substitution of θεόπεμπτος for it under the influence of literary associations would indeed, in this case too, only witness to a synonymy in the mind of the later scribes, who may well be supposed Christians and sharers in the common conception that Christians read into θεόπνευστος. But the implications of the passage itself would be valid testimony to the original import of the term here used. And it would seem quite clear that the implications of the passage itself assign to it a passive sense, and that a sense not very remote from θεόπεμπτος. "Herophilus says," we read, "that theopneustic dreams" ("dreams divinely inspired," Holland; "the dreams that are caused by divine instinct," Goodwin), "come by necessity; but natural ones" ("natural dreams," Holland; "dreams which have their origin from a natural cause," Goodwin), "from the soul's imagery of what is fitting to it and its consequences," etc. The contrast here between dreams that are θεόπνευστοι and those that are φυσικοί, the former of which are imposed on the soul while the latter are its own production, would seem certainly to imply that θεόπνευστος here imports something nearly akin to "God-given," though naturally with implications of its own as to the mode of the giving. It might be possible to read it as designating dreams that are breathed into by God, filled with His inspiration and thus made the vehicles of His message, if we otherwise knew that such is the implication of the term. But nothing so subtle as this is suggested by the language as it stands, which appears to convey merely the simple notion that theopneustic dreams differ from all natural ones, whether the latter belong to the higher or lower elements of our nature, in that they come from God and are therefore not necessarily agreeable to the soul's own image-making faculties or the product of its immanent desires, but take form and bear a meaning imposed on them from without.

There are few other instances of the occurrence of the word which have much chance of lying entirely outside the sphere of influence of its use in 2 Tim. 3:16. In the first rank of these will certainly be placed the two instances in the fifth book of the "Sibyllines." The former of these occurs in a description of the city of Cyme, which is called the "foolish one," and described as cast down by wicked hands, "along with her theopneustic streams (νάμασι θεοπνεύστοις)" no longer to shout her boasts into the air but henceforth to remain "dead amid the Cymean streams." The description skillfully brings together all that we know of Cyme—adverts to her former greatness ("the largest and noblest of all the Æolian cities," Strabo tells us,46 and with Lesbos, "the metropolis" of all the rest), her reputation for folly (also adverted to and quaintly explained by Strabo), her present decadence, and her situation by running waters (a trait indicated also by her coins which show that there was a stream near by called Xanthus). It has been customary to understand by "the theopneustic streams" mentioned, some streams or fountains in the neighborhood known for the presumptively oracular powers of their waters. But there does not seem to have been preserved any notice of the existence of such oracular waters belonging to Cyme, and it makes against this assumption that the Cymeans, like the rest of the Ionians and Æolians, were accustomed to resort for their oracles to the somewhat distant Branchidæ, in the south.48 It appears much more likely, then, that the streams adverted to are natural streams and stand here only as part of the rather full and very exact description of the town—the reference being primarily to the Xanthus and to it as an element merely in the excellence of the situation. In that case "theopneustic," here too, would seem to mean something akin to "God-given," or perhaps more broadly still "divine," in the sense of specially excellent and desirable.

The second Sibylline passage is a portion of a lament over the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, wherein (we are told) gold, "deceiver of the world and souls," was not worshiped, but men "adored in sacrifices, with pure and noble hecatombs, the great Father-God of all theopneustic things." Here Alexandre translates, "Qui cælestis vitam pater omnibus afflat"; and Terry, "The God and mighty maker of all breathing things." And they seem supported in their general conception by the fact that we appear to have before us here only a slightly varied form of a formula met with elsewhere in the Sibyllines. Thus, as Rzach points out, we have at iii, 278 a condemnation of those who "neither fear nor desire to honor the deathless Father-God of all men,"52 and at iii, 604, essentially the same phrase is repeated. We seem, in a word, to meet here only with the Sibylline equivalent of the Homeric "πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε." Accordingly θεοπνεύστων would seem to stand here in the stead of ἀνθρώπων in the parallel passages, and merely to designate men, doubtless with a reminiscence of Gen. 2:7—or perhaps, more widely, creatures, with a reminiscence of such a passage as Ps. 104:30. In either event it is the creative power of God that is prominently in the mind of the writer as he writes down the word θεοπνεύστων, which is to him obviously the proper term for "creatures" in correlation with the γενέτης θεός.

By the side of these Sibylline passages it is perhaps natural to place the line from the Pseudo-Phocylides, which marks the culmination of his praise of "speech" as the greatest gift of God—a weapon, he says, sharper than steel and more to be desired than the swiftness of birds, or the speed of horses, or the strength of lions, or the horns of bulls or the stings of bees—"for best [of all] is the speech of theopneustic wisdom," so that the wise man is better than the strong one, and it is wisdom that rules alike in the field, the city and the sea. It is certainly simplest to understand "theopneustic wisdom" here shortly as "God-given wisdom." Undoubtedly it is itself the inspirer of the speech that manifests it, and we might manage to interpret the θεοπνεύστου as so designating it—"God-inspiring, God-breathing wisdom." But this can scarcely be considered natural; and it equally undoubtedly lies more closely at hand to interpret it as designating the source of the wisdom itself as lying in God. Wisdom is conceived as theopneustic, in a word, because wisdom itself is thought of as coming from God, as being the product of the divine activity—here designated, as so frequently in the Old Testament, as operating as a breathing.

A passage that has come to light since Dr. Cremer's investigation for this word-study was made, is of not dissimilar implication. It is found in the recently published "Testament of Abraham," a piece which in its original form, its editor, Prof. James, assigns to a second-century Egyptian Jewish-Christian, though it has suffered much mediævalization in the ninth or tenth century. It runs as follows: "And Michael the archangel came immediately with a multitude of angels, and they took his precious soul (τὴν τιμίαν αὐτοῦ ψυχήν) in their hands in a God-woven cloth (σινδόνι θεοϋφαντῶ); and they prepared (ἐκήδευσαν) the body of righteous Abraham unto the third day of his death with theopneustic ointments and herbs (μυρίσμασι θεοπνεύστοις καὶ ἀρώμασιν), and they buried him in the land of promise." Here θεόπνευστος can hardly mean "God-breathing," and "God-imbued" is not much better; and though we might be tempted to make it mean "divinely sweet" (a kind of derivative sense of "God-redolent ointment"; for πνέω means also "to smell," "to breathe of a thing"), it is doubtless better to take it simply, as the parallel with θεοϋφαντῷ suggests, as importing something not far from "God-given." The cloth in which the soul was carried up to God and the unguents with which the body was prepared for burial were alike from God—were "God-provided"; the words to designate this being chosen in each case with nice reference to their specific application, but covering to their writer little more specific meaning than the simple adjective "divine" would have done.

It is surely in this same category also that we are to place the verse of Nonnus which Dr. Cremer adduces as showing distinctly that the word θεόπνευστος "is not to be taken as equivalent to inspiratus, inspired by God, but as rather meaning filled with God's spirit and therefore radiating it." Nonnus is paraphrasing John 1:27 and makes the Baptist say: "And he that cometh after me stands to-day in your midst, the tip of whose foot I am not worthy to approach with human hand though only to loose the thongs of the theopneustic sandal." Here surely the meaning is not directly that our Lord's sandal "radiated divinity," though certainly that may be one of the implications of the epithet, but more simply that it partook of the divinity of the divine Person whose property it was and in contact with whom it had been. All about Christ was divine. We should not go far wrong, therefore, if we interpreted θεόπνευστος here simply as "divine." What is "divine" is no doubt "redolent of Divinity," but it is so called not because of what it does, but because of what it is, and Nonnus' mind when he called the sandal theopneustic was occupied rather with the divine influence that made the sandal what it was, viz., something more than a mere sandal, because it had touched those divine feet, than with any influence which the sandal was now calculated to exert. The later line which Dr. Cremer asks us to compare is not well calculated to modify this decision. In it John 1:33 is being paraphrased and the Baptist is contrasting his mission with that of Christ who was to baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit (ἐν πυρὶ βαπτίζων καὶ πνεύματι). He, John, was sent, on the contrary, he says, to baptize the body of already regenerate men, and to do it in lavers that are destitute of both fire and the spirit—fireless and spiritless (ἀπύροισι καὶ ἀπνεύστοισι λοετροῖς). It may indeed be possible to interpret, "unburning and unspiritualizing"; but this does not seem the exact shade of thought the words are meant to express; though in any case the bearing of the phrase on the meaning of θεόπνευστος in the former line is of the slightest.

Of the passages cited by Dr. Cremer there remain only the two he derives from Wetstein, in which θεόπνευστος appears as an epithet of certain men. To these should be added an inscription found at Bostra, in which a certain ecclesiastic is designated an ἀρχιερεὺς θεόπνευστος. Dr. Cremer himself thinks it clear that in such passages we have a passive sense, but interprets it as divinely spirited, "endued with the divine spirit," rather than as "divinely inspired,"—in accordance with a distinction drawn by Ewald. Certainly it is difficult to understand the word in this connection as expressing simple origination by God; it was something more than the mere fact that God made them that was intended to be affirmed by calling Marcus and Antipater theopneustic men. Nor does it seem very natural to suppose that the intention was to designate them as precisely what we ordinarily mean by God-inspired men. It lies very near to suppose, therefore, that what it was intended to say about them, is that they were God-pervaded men, men in whom God dwelt in an especial manner; and this supposition may be thought to be supported by the parallel, in the passage from the "Vita Sabæ," with χριστοφόρος. Of whom this "caravan of all theopneustics, of all his christophers," was composed, we have no means of determining, as Cotelerius' "Monumenta," from which Wetstein quoted the passage, is not accessible to us as we write. But the general sense of the word does not seem to be doubtful. Ignatius, ("ad Ephes." ix.) tells us that all Christians constitute such a caravan, of "God-bearers and shrine-bearers, Christ-bearers, holy-thing-bearers, completely clothed in the commandments of Christ"; and Zahn rightly comments that thus the Christians appear as the real "ἐνιθεοι or ἐνθουσιάζοντες, since they carry Christ and God in themselves." Particularly distinguished Christians might therefore very properly be conceived in a supereminent sense as filled with God and bearers of Christ; and this might very appropriately be expressed by the double attribution of θεόπνευστος and χριστοφόρος. Only it would seem to be necessary to understand that thus a secondary and derived sense would be attributed to θεόπνευστος, about which there should still cling a flavor of the idea of origination. The θεόπνευστος ἀνήρ is God-filled by the act of God Himself, that is to say, he is a God-endowed man, one made what he is by God's own efficiency. No doubt in usage the sense might suffer still more attrition and come to suggest little more than "divine"—which is the epithet given to Marcus of Scetis by Nicephorus Callistus, ("H. E.," xi, 35)—ὁ θεῖος Μάρκος—that is to say "Saint Mark," of which ὁ θεόπνευστος Μάρκος is doubtless a very good synonym. The conception conveyed by θεόπνευστος in this usage is thus something very distinct from that expressed by the Vulgate rendering, a Deo inspiratus, when taken strictly; that would seem to require, as Ewald suggests, some such form as θεέμπνευστος; the theopneustic man is not the man "breathed into by God." But it is equally distinct from that expressed by the phrase, "pervaded by God," used as an expression of the character of the man so described, without implication of the origin of this characteristic. What it would seem specifically to indicate is that he has been framed by God into something other than what he would have been without the divine action. The Christian as such is as much God-made as the man as such; and the distinguished Christian as such as much as the Christian at large; and the use of θεόπνευστος to describe the one or the other would appear to rest ultimately on this conception. He is, in what he has become, the product of the divine energy—of the divine breath.

We cannot think it speaking too strongly, therefore, to say that there is discoverable in none of these passages the slightest trace of an active sense of θεόπνευστος, by which it should express the idea, for example, of "breathing the divine spirit," or even such a quasi-active idea as that of "redolent of God." Everywhere the word appears as purely passive and expresses production by God. And if we proceed from these passages to those much more numerous ones, in which it is, as in 2 Tim. 3:16, an epithet or predicate of Scripture, and where therefore its signification may have been affected by the way in which Christian antiquity understood that passage, the impression of the passive sense of the word grows, of course, ever stronger. Though these passages may not be placed in the first rank of material for the determination of the meaning of 2 Tim. 3:16, by which they may have themselves been affected; it is manifestly improper to exclude them from consideration altogether. Even as part bearers of the exegetical tradition they are worthy of adduction: and it is scarcely conceivable that the term should have been entirely voided of its current sense, had it a different current sense, by the influence of a single employment of it by Paul—especially if we are to believe that its natural meaning as used by him differed from that assigned it by subsequent writers. The patristic use of the term in connection with Scripture has therefore its own weight, as evidence to the natural employment of the term by Greek-speaking Christian writers.

This use of it does not seem toccur in the very earliest patristic literature: but from the time of Clement of Alexandria the term θεόπνευστος appears as one of the most common technical designations of Scripture. The following scattered instances, gathered at random, will serve to illustrate this use of it sufficiently for our purpose. Clement of Alexandria: "Strom.," vii. 16, § 101 (Klotz, iii. 286; Potter, 894), "Accordingly those fall from their eminence who follow not God whither He leads; and He leads us in the inspired Scriptures (κατὰ τὰς θεοπνεύστονς γραφάς)"; "Strom.," vii. 16, § 103 (Klotz, iii. 287; Potter, 896), "But they crave glory, as many as willfully sophisticate the things wedded to inspired words (τοῖς θεοπνεύστοις λόγοις) handed down by the blessed apostles and teachers, by diverse arguments, opposing human teaching to the divine tradition for the sake of establishing the heresy"; "Protrept." 9, § 87 (Klotz., i. 73, 74; Potter 71), "This teaching the apostle knows as truly divine (θείαν): 'Thou, O Timothy,' he says, 'from a child hast known the holy letters which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith that is in Jesus Christ'; for truly holy are those letters that sanctify and deify; and the writings or volumes that consist of these holy letters or syllables, the same apostle consequently calls 'inspired by God, seeing that they are profitable for doctrine,' etc." Origen: "De Principiis," iv, 8 (cf. also title to Book iv), "Having thus spoken briefly on the subject of the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures (περὶ τοῦ θεοπνεύστου τῆς θείας γραφῆς)"; Migne, (11, 1276), "The Jews and Christians agree as to the inspiration of the Holy Scripture (θείῳ γεγράφθαι πνευματι), but differ as to its interpretation"; (12, 1084), "Therefore the inspired books (θεόπνευστα βιβλία) are twenty-two"; (14, 1309), "The inspired Scripture"; (13, 664–5), "For we must seek the nourishment of the whole inspired Scripture (πάσης τῆς θεοπνεύστου γραφῆς); "Hom. xx. in Joshuam," 2 (Robinson's "Origen's Philocalia," p. 63), "Let us not then be stupefied by listening to Scriptures which we do not understand, but let it be to us according to our faith by which we believe that 'every Scripture, seeing that it is inspired (θεόπνευστος), is profitable': for you must needs admit one of two things regarding these Scriptures, either that they are not inspired (θεόπνευστοι) because they are not profitable, as the unbeliever takes it, or, as a believer, you must admit that since they are inspired (θεόπνευστοι) they are profitable"; "Selecta in Psalmos," Ps. 1:3 (Migne XII, ii. 1080; De la Rue, 527), "Being about to begin the interpretation of the Psalms, we prefix a very excellent tradition handed down by the Hebrew to us generally concerning the whole divine Scripture (καθολικῶς περὶ πάσης θείας γραφῆς); for he affirmed that the whole inspired Scripture (τὴν ὅλην θεόπνευστον γραφήν).… But if 'the words of the Lord are pure words, fined silver, tried as the earth, purified seven times' (Ps. 2:7) and the Holy Spirit has with all care dictated them accurately through the ministers of the word (μετὰ πάσης ἀκριβείας ἐξητας μένως τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα ὑποβέβληκεν αὐτὰ διὰ τῶν ὑπηρετῶν τοῦ λόγου), let the proportion never escape us, according to which the wisdom of God is first with respect to the whole theopneustic Scripture unto the last letter (καθʼ ἣν ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἔφθασε γραφὴν ἡ σοφία τοῦ θεοῦ θεόπνεύστον μέχρι τοῦ τυχόντος γράμματος); and haply it was on this account that the Saviour said, 'One iota or one letter shall not pass from the law till all be fulfilled': and it is just so that the divine art in the creation of the world, not only appeared in the heaven and sun and moon and stars, interpenetrating their whole bodies, but also on earth did the same in paltry matter, so that not even the bodies of the least animals are disdained by the artificer.… So we understand concerning all the things written by the inspiration (ἐξ ἐπιπνοίας) of the Holy Spirit.…" Athanasius (Migne, 27, 214): πᾶσα γραφὴ ἡμῶν τῶν χριστιανῶν θεόπνευστός ἐστιν; (Migne, 25, 152): θεόπνευστος κάλεῖται; (Bened. Par., 1777, i. 767): "Saying also myself, 'Since many have taken in hand to set forth to themselves the so-called apocrypha and to sing them with τῇ θεοπνεύστῳ γραφῇ.…' " Cyrillus Hier., "Catechet.," iv. 33: "This is taught us by αἱ θεόπνευστοι γραφαί of both the Old and New Covenant." Basil, "On the Spirit," xxi (ad fin.): "How can he who calls Scripture 'God-inspired' because it was written through the inspiration of the Spirit (ὁ θεόπνευστον τὴν γραφὴν ὀνομάζων, διὰ τῆς ἐπιπνοίας τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος συγγραφεῖσαν), use the language of one who insults and belittles Him?" "Letters," xvii. 3: "All bread is nutritious, but it may be injurious to the sick; just so, all Scripture is God-inspired (πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος) and profitable"; (Migne, xxx. 81): "The words of God-inspired Scripture (οἱ τῆς θεοπνεύστου γραφῆς λόγοι) shall stand on the tribune of Christ"; (Migne, 31, 744): "For every word or deed must be believed by the witness of the θεοπνεύστου γραφῆς, for the assurance of the good and the shame of the wicked"; (Migne, 31, 1080): "Apart from the witness of the θεοπνεύστων γραφῶν it is not possible, etc."; (Migne, 31, 1500): "From what sort of Scripture are we to dispute at this time? Πάντα ὁμότιμα, καὶ πάντα πνευματικά· πάντα θεόπνευστα, καὶ πάντα ὠφέλιμα"; (Migne, 31, 1536): "On the interpretation and remarking of the names and terms τῆς θεοπνεύστου γραφῆς"; (Migne, 32, 228): μεγίστη δὲ ὁδὸς πρὸς τῆν τοῦ καθήκοντος εὕρεσιν καὶ ἡ μελέτη τῶν θεοπνεύστων γραφῶν. Gregory Naz. (Migne, 35, 504): περὶ τοῦ θεοπνεύστου τῶν ἁγίων γραφῶν; (Migne, 36, 472, cf. 37, 589), περὶ τῶν γησίων βιβλίων τῆς θεοπνεύστου γραφῆς; (Migne, 36, 1589), τοῖς θεοπνεύστοις γραφαῖς. Gregory Nyssen, "Against Eunom.," vii. 1: "What we understand of the matter is as follows: Ἡ θεόπνευστος γραφή, as the divine apostle calls it, is the Scripture of the Holy Spirit and its intention is the profit of men"; (Migne, 44, 68), μόνης τῆς θεοπνεύστου διαθήκης. Cyrillus Alex. (Migne, 68, 225), πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως ἡ θεόπνευστος γραφὴ τῆς διὰ χριστοῦ σωτηρίας προαναφωνεῖ τοὺς τύπους. Neilos Abbas (Migne, 79, 141, cf. 529): γραφὴ ἡ θεόπνευστος οὐδὲν λέγει ἀκαίρως κτλ. Theodoret of Cyrrhus ("H. E.", i. 6; Migne, iii. 920). John of Damascus (Migne, 85, 1041), etc.

If, then, we are to make an induction from the use of the word, we shall find it bearing a uniformly passive significance, rooted in the idea of the creative breath of God. All that is, is God-breathed ("Sibyll." v. 406); and accordingly the rivers that water the Cymean plain are God-breathed ("Sibyll." v. 308), the spices God provides for the dead body of His friend ("Testament of Abraham," A. xx), and above all the wisdom He implants in the heart of man (Ps.-Phocyl. 121), the dreams He sends with a message from Him (Ps.-Plut., v. 2, 3) and the Scriptures He gives His people (2 Tim. 3:16). By an extension of meaning by no means extreme, those whom He has greatly honored as His followers, whom He has created into His saints, are called God-breathed men ("Vita Sabæ" 16. Inscription in Kaibel); and even the sandals that have touched the feet of the Son of God are called God-breathed sandals (Nonnus), i. e., sandals that have been made by this divine contact something other than what they were: in both these cases, the word approaching more or less the broader meaning of "divine." Nowhere is there a trace of such an active significance as "God-breathing"; and though in the application of the word to individual men and to our Lord's sandals there may be an approach to the sense of "God-imbued," this sense is attained by a pathway of development from the simple idea of God-given, God-determined, and the like.

It is carefully to be observed, of course, that, although Dr. Cremer wishes to reach an active signification for the word in 2 Tim. 3:16, he does not venture to assign an active sense to it immediately and directly, but approaches this goal through the medium of another signification. It is fully recognized by him that the word is originally passive in its meaning; it is merely contended that this original passive sense is not "God-inspired," but rather "God-filled"—a sense which, it is pleaded, will readily pass into the active sense of "God-breathing," after the analogy of such words as ἄπνευστος, εὔπνευστος, which from "ill- or well-breathed" came to mean "breathing ill or well." What is filled with God will certainly be redolent of God, and what is redolent of God will certainly breathe out God. His reasons for preferring the sense of "gifted or filled with God's Spirit, divinely spirited," to "God-inspired" for the original passive connotation of the word are drawn especially from what he thinks the unsuitableness of the latter idea to some of the connections in which the word is found. It is thought that, as an epithet of an individual man, as an epithet of Scripture or a fountain, and (in the later editions of the "Lexicon" at least) especially, as an epithet of a sandal, "God-inspired" is incongruous, and something like "filled with God's Spirit and therefore radiating it" is suggested. There is obviously some confusion here arising from the very natural contemplation of the Vulgate translation "a Deo inspiratus" as the alternative rendering to what is proposed. There is, we may well admit, nothing in the word θεόπνευστος to warrant the in- of the Vulgate rendering: this word speaks not of an "inspiration" by God, but of a "spiration" by God. The alternatives brought before us by Dr. Cremer's presentation are not to be confined, therefore, to the two, "Divinely spirited" and "Divinely inspired," but must be made to include the three, "Divinely spirited," "Divinely inspired," and "Divinely spired." The failure of Dr. Cremer to note this introduces, as we say, some confusion into his statement. We need only thus incidentally refer to it at this point, however. It is of more immediate importance to observe that what we are naturally led to by Dr. Cremer's remarks, is to an investigation of the natural meaning of the word θεόπνευστος under the laws of word-formation. In these remarks he is leaning rather heavily on the discussion of Ewald to which he refers us, and it will conduce to a better understanding of the matter if we will follow his directions and turn to our Ewald.

Ewald, like Dr. Cremer, is dissatisfied with the current explanation of θεόπνευστος and seeks to obtain for it an active sense, but is as little inclined as Dr. Cremer to assign an active sense directly to it. He rather criticises Winer, for using language when speaking of θεόπνευστος which would seem to imply that such compounds could really be active—as if "it were to be taken as a passive, although such words as εὔπνευστος, ἄπνευστος are used actively." He cannot admit that any compound of a word like -πνευστος can be really active in primary meaning, and explains that εὔπνευστος means not so much "breathing good," i. e., propelling something good by the breath, as "endowed with good breath," and expresses, therefore, just like ἄπνευστος, "breathless," i. e., "dead," a subjective condition, and is therefore to be compared with a half-passive verb, as indeed the word-form suggests. Just so, θεόπνευστος, he says, is not so much our "God-breathing" as our "full of God's Spirit," "permeated and animated by God's Spirit." Thus, he supposes θεόπνευστος to mean "blown through by God" (Gottdurchwehet, "God-pervaded"), rather than "blown into by God" (Gotteingewehet, "God-inspired") as the Vulgate (inspiratus) and Luther (eingegeben) render it—an idea which, as he rightly says, would have required something like θεέμπνευστος (or we may say θεείσπνευστος) to express it.

At first he seems to have thought that by this explanation he had removed all implication as to the origination of Scripture from the epithet: it expresses, he said, what Scripture is—viz., pervaded by God, full of His Spirit—without the least hint as to how it got to be so. He afterwards came to see this was going too far, and contented himself with saying that though certainly implicating a doctrine of the origin of the Scriptures, the term throws the emphasis on its quality. He now, therefore, expressed himself thus: "It is certainly undeniable that the new expression θεόπνευστος, 2 Tim. 3:16, is intended to say very much what Philo meant, but did not yet know how to express sharply by means of such a compressed and strong term. For θεόπνευστος (like εὔπνευστος, accurately, 'well-breathed') must mean 'God-breathed' or 'God-animated' (Gottbeathmet, or Gottbegeistert), and, in accordance with the genius of the compressed, clear Greek compounds, this includes in itself the implication that the words are spoken by the Spirit of God, or by those who are inspired by God,"—a thing which, he adds, is repeatedly asserted in Scripture to have been the case, as, for example, in 2 Pet. 1:21. On another occasion, he substantially repeats this, objecting to the translations inspiratus, eingegeben, as introducing an idea not lying in the word and liable to mislead, affirming a general but not perfect accord of the idea involved in it with Philo's conception of Scripture, and insisting on the incomplete parallelism between the term and our dogmatic idea of "inspiration." "This term," he says, "no doubt expresses only what is everywhere presupposed by Philo as to Scripture and repeatedly said by him in other words; still his usage is not yet so far developed; and it is accordant with this that in the New Testament, also, it is only in one of the latest books that the word is thus used. This author was possibly the first who so applied it." Again, θεόπνευστος "means, purely passively, God-spirited (Gottbegeistet), or full of God's Spirit, not at all, when taken strictly, what we call discriminatingly God-inspired (Gottbegeistert) or filled with God's inspiration (Begeisterung), but in itself only, in a quite general sense, God-breathed, God-inspired (Gottbeathmet, Gottbegeistert), or filled with the divine spirit. In itself, therefore, it permits the most divers applications and we must appeal purely to the context in each instance in order to obtain its exact meaning."

Here we have in full what Dr. Cremer says so much more briefly in his articles. In order to orient ourselves with reference to it, we shall need to consider in turn the two points that are emphasized. These are, first, the passive form and sense of the word; and, secondly, the particular passive sense attributed to it, to wit: Gottbegeistet rather than Gottbegeistert, "endowed with God's Spirit," rather than "inspired by God."

On the former point there would seem to be little room for difference of opinion. We still read in Schmiedel's Winer: "Verbals in -τος correspond sometimes to Latin participles in -tus, sometimes to adjectives in -bills"; and then in a note (despite Ewald's long-ago protest), after the adduction of authorities, "θεόπνευστος, inspiratus (2 Tim. 3:16; passive like ἔμπνευστος, while εὔπνευστος, ἄπνευστος are active)." To these Thayer-Grimm adds also πυρίπνευστος and δυσδιάπνευστος as used actively and δυσανάπνευστος as used apparently either actively or passively. Ewald, however, has already taught us to look beneath the "active" usage of εὔπνευστος and ἄπνευστος for the "half-passive" background, and it may equally be found in the other cases; in each instance it is a state or condition at least, that is described by the word, and it is often only a matter of point of view whether we catch the passive conception or not. For example, we shall look upon δυσδιάπνευστος as active or passive according as we think of the object it describes as a "slowly evaporating" or a "slowly evaporated" object—that is, as an object that only slowly evaporates, or as an object that can be only with difficulty evaporated. We may prefer the former expression; the Greeks preferred the latter: that is all. We fully accord with Prof. Schulze, therefore, when he says that all words compounded with -πνευστος have the passive sense as their original implication, and the active sense, when it occurs, is always a derived one. On this showing it cannot be contended, of course, that θεόπνευστος may not have, like some of its relatives, developed an active or quasi-active meaning, but a passive sense is certainly implied as its original one, and a certain presumption is thus raised for the originality of the passive sense which is found to attach to it in its most ordinary usage.

This conclusion finds confirmation in a consideration which has its bearing on the second point also—the consideration that compounds of verbals in -τος with θεός normally express an effect produced by God's activity. This is briefly adverted to by Prof. Schulze, who urges that "the closely related θεοδίδακτος, and many, or rather most, of the compounds of θεο- in the Fathers, bear the passive sense," adducing in illustration: θεόβλαστος, θεοβούλητος, θεογένητος, θεόγραπτος, θεόδμητος, θεόδοτος, θεοδώρητος, θεόθρεπτος, θεοκίνητος, θεόκλητος, θεοποίητος, θεοφόρητος, θεόχρηστος, θεόχριστος. The statement may be much broadened and made to cover the whole body of such compounds occurring in Greek literature. Let any one run his eye down the list of compounds of θεός with verbals in -τος as they occur on the pages of any Greek Lexicon, and he will be quickly convinced that the notion normally expressed is that of a result produced by God. The sixth edition of Liddell and Scott happens to be the one lying at hand as we write; and in it we find entered (if we have counted aright), some eighty-six compounds of this type, of which, at least, seventy-five bear quite simply the sense of a result produced by God. We adjoin the list: θεήλατος, θεοβάστακτος, θεόβλυστος, θεοβούλητος, θεοβράβευτος, θεογένητος, θεόγνωστος, θεόγραπτος, θεοδέκτος, θεοδίδακτος, θεόδμητος, θεοδόμητος, θεόδοτος, θεοδώρητος, θεόθετος, θεοκατάρατος, θεοκατασκεύαστος, θεοκέλευστος, θεοκίνητος, θεόκλητος, θεόκμητος, θεόκραντος, θεόκριτος, θεόκτητος, θεόκτιστος, θεόκτιτος, θεοκυβέρνητος, θεοκύρωτος, θεόλεκτος, θεόληπτος, θεομακάριστος, θεομίσητος, θεόμυστος, θεόπαιστος, θεοπαράδοτος, θεοπάρακτος, θεόπεμπτος, θεοπέρατος, θεόπληκτος, θεόπλουτος, θεοποίητος, θεοπόνητος, θεοπρόσδεκτος, θεόπτυστος, θεόργητος, θεόρρητος, θέορτος, θεόσδοτος, θεόστρεπτος, θεοστήρικτος, θεοστύγητος, θεοσύλλεκτος, θεοσύμφυτος, θεοσύνακτος, θεόσυτος, θεοσφράγιστος, θεόσωστος, θεοτέρατος, θεότευκτος, θεοτίμητος, θεότρεπτος, θεοτύπωτος, θεοϋπόστατος, θεοΰφαντος, θεόφαντος, θεόφθεγκτος, θεοφίλητος, θεόφοιτος, θεοφόρητος, θεοφρούρητος, θεοφύλακτος, θεοχόλωτος, θεόχρηστος, θεόχριστος. The eleven instances that remain, as in some sort exceptions to the general rule, include cases of different kinds. In some of them the verbal is derived from a deponent verb and is therefore passive only in form, but naturally bears an active sense: such are θεοδήλητος (God-injuring), θεομίμητος (God-imitating), θεόσεπτος (feared as God). Others may possibly be really passives, although we prefer an active form in English to express the idea involved: such are, perhaps, θεόκλυτος ("God-heard," where we should rather say, "calling on the gods"), θεοκόλλητος ("God-joined," where we should rather say, "united with God"), θεόπρετος ("God-distinguished," where we should rather say, "meet for a god"). There remain only these five: θεαίτητος ("obtained from God"), θεόθυτος ("offered to the gods"), θεορράστος and the more usual θεόρροτος ("flowing from the gods"), and θεοχώρητος ("containing God"). In these the relation of θεός to the verbal idea is clearly not that of producing cause to the expressed result, but some other: perhaps what we need to recognize is that the verbal here involves a relation which we ordinarily express by a preposition, and that the sense would be suggested by some such phrases as "God-asked-of," "God-offered-to," "God-flowed-from," "God-made-room-for." In any event, these few exceptional cases cannot avail to set aside the normal sense of this compound, as exhibited in the immense majority of the cases of its occurrence. If analogy is to count for anything, its whole weight is thrown thus in favor of the interpretation which sees in θεόπνευστος, quite simply, the sense of "God-breathed," i. e., produced by God's creative breath.

If we ask, then, what account is to be given of Ewald's and, after him, Prof. Cremer's wish, to take it in the specific sense of "God-spirited," that is, "imbued with the Spirit of God," we may easily feel ourselves somewhat puzzled to return a satisfactory answer. We should doubtless not go far wrong in saying, as already suggested, that their action is proximately due to their not having brought all the alternatives fairly before them. They seem to have worked, as we have said, on the hypothesis that the only choice lay between the Vulgate rendering, "God-inspired," and their own "God-imbued." Ewald, as we have seen, argues (and as we think rightly) that "God-inspired" is scarcely consonant with the word-form, but would have required something like θεέμπνευστος. Similarly we may observe Dr. Cremer in the second edition of his "Lexicon" (when he was arguing for the current conception) saying that "the formation of the word cannot be traced to the use of πνέω, but only of ἐμπνέω," and supporting this by the remark that "the simple verb is never used of divine action"; and throughout his later article, operating on the presumption that the rendering "inspired" solely will come into comparison with his own newly proposed one. All this seems to be due, not merely to the traditional rendering of the word itself, but also to the conception of the nature of the divine action commonly expressed by the term, "inspiration," and indeed to the doctrine of Holy Scripture, dominant in the minds of these scholars. If we will shake ourselves loose from these obscuring prepossessions and consider the term without preoccupation of mind, it would seem that the simple rendering "God-breathed" would commend itself powerfully to us: certainly not, with the Vulgate and Luther, "God-inbreathed," since the preposition "in" is wholly lacking in the term and is not demanded for the sense in any of its applications; but equally certainly not "God-imbued" or "God-infused" in the sense of imbued or infused with (rather than by) God, since, according to all analogy, as well as according to the simplest construction of the compound, the relation of "God" to the act expressed is that of "agent." On any other supposition than that this third and assuredly the most natural alternative, "God-breathed," was not before their minds, the whole treatment of Ewald and Dr. Cremer will remain somewhat inexplicable.

Why otherwise, for example, should the latter have remarked, that the "word must be traced to the use of ἐμπνέω and not to the simple verb πνέω?" Dr. Cremer, it is true, adds, as we have said, that the simple verb is never used of divine action. In any case, however, this statement is overdrawn. Not only is πνέω applied in a physical sense to God in such passages of the LXX. as Ps. 147:7 (18) (πνεύσει τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ) and Isa. 40:24, and of Symmachus and Theodotion as Isa. 40:7; and not only in the earliest Fathers is it used of the greatest gifts of Christ the Divine Lord, in such passages as Ign., "Eph." 17:—"For this cause the Lord received ointment on His head, that He might breathe incorruption upon His Church (ἵνα πνέῃ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἀφθαρσίαν)"; but in what may be rightly called the normative passage, Gen. 2:7, it is practically justified, in its application to God, by the LXX. use of πνοή in the objective clause, and actually employed for the verb itself by both Symmachus and Theodotion. And if we will penetrate beneath the mere matter of the usage of a word to the conception itself, nothing could be more misleading than such a remark as Dr. Cremer's. For surely there was no conception more deeply rooted in the Hebrew mind, at least, than that of the creative "breath of God"; and this conception was assuredly not wholly unknown even in ethnic circles. To a Hebrew, at all events, the "breath of God" would seem self-evidently creative; and no locution would more readily suggest itself to him as expressive of the Divine act of "making" than just that by which it would be affirmed that He breathed things into existence. The "breath of the Almighty"—πνοὴ παντοκράτορος—was traditionally in his mouth as the fit designation of the creative act (Job 32:8, 33:4); and not only was he accustomed to think of man owing his existence to the breathing of the breath of God into his nostrils (Gen. 2:7, especially Symm. Theod.) and of his life as therefore the "breath of God" (πνεῦμα θεῖον, LXX., Job 27:8), which God needs but to draw back to Himself that all flesh should perish (Job 34:14): but he conceived also that it was by the breath of God's mouth (πνεύματι τοῦ στώματος, Ps. 33:6), that all the hosts of the heavens were made, and by the sending forth of His breath, (πνεῦμα, Ps. 104:30) that the multiplicity of animal life was created. By His breath even (πνοή, Job 37:10), he had been told, the ice is formed; and by His breath (πνεῦμα, Isa. 11:5, cf. Job 4:9) all the wicked are consumed. It is indeed the whole conception of the Spirit of God as the executive of the Godhead that is involved here: the conception that it is the Spirit of God that is the active agent in the production of all that is. To the Hebrew consciousness, creation itself would thus naturally appear as, not indeed an "inspiration," and much less an "infusion of the Divine essence," but certainly a "spiration"; and all that exists would appeal to it as, therefore, in the proper sense theopneustic, i. e., simply, "breathed by God," produced by the creative breath of the Almighty, the πνοὴ παντοκράτορος.

This would not, it needs to be remembered, necessarily imply an "immediate creation," as we call it. When Elihu declares that it is the breath of the Almighty that has given him life or understanding (Job 32:8, 33:4), he need not be read as excluding the second causes by which he was brought into existence; nor need the Psalmist (104:30) be understood to teach an "immediate creation" of the whole existing animal mass. But each certainly means to say that it is God who has made all these things, and that by His breath: He breathed them into being—they are all θεόπνευστοι. So far from the word presenting a difficulty therefore from the point of view of its conception, it is just, after the nature of Greek compounds, the appropriate crystallization into one concise term of a conception that was a ruling idea in every Jewish mind. Particularly, then, if we are to suppose (with both Ewald and Cremer) that the word is a coinage of Paul's, or even of Hellenistic origin, nothing could be more natural than that it should have enshrined in it the Hebraic conviction that God produces all that He would bring into being by a mere breath. From this point of view, therefore, there seems no occasion to seek beyond the bare form of the word itself for a sense to attribute to it. If we cannot naturally give it the meaning of "God-inspired," we certainly do not need to go so far afield as to attribute to it the sense of "filled with God": the natural sense which belongs to it by virtue of its formation, and which is commended to us by the analogy of like compounds, is also most consonant with the thought-forms of the circles in which it perhaps arose and certainly was almost exclusively used. What the word naturally means from this point of view also, is "God-spirated," "God-breathed," "produced by the creative breath of the Almighty."

Thus it appears that such a conception as "God-breathed" lies well within the general circle of ideas of the Hellenistic writers, who certainly most prevailingly use the word. An application of this conception to Scripture, such as is made in 2 Tim. 3:16, was no less consonant with the ideas concerning the origin and nature of Scripture which prevailed in the circles out of which that epistle proceeded. This may indeed be fairly held to be generally conceded.

The main object of Ewald's earlier treatment of this passage, to be sure, was to void the word θεόπνευστος of all implication as to the origination of Scripture. By assigning to it the sense of "God-pervaded," "full of God's Spirit," he supposed he had made it a description of what Scripture is, without the least suggestion of how it came to be such; and he did not hesitate accordingly, to affirm that it had nothing whatever to say as to the origin of Scripture. But he afterwards, as we have already pointed out, saw the error of this position, and so far corrected it as to explain that, of course, the term θεόπνευστος includes in itself the implication that the words so designated are spoken by the Spirit of God or by men inspired by God—in accordance with what is repeatedly said elsewhere in Scripture, as, for example, in 2 Pet. 1:21—yet still to insist that it throws its chief emphasis rather on the nature than the origin of these words. And he never thought of denying that in the circles in which the word was used in application to Scripture, the idea of the origination of Scripture by the act of God was current and indeed dominant. Philo's complete identification of Scripture with the spoken word of God was indeed the subject under treatment by him, when he penned the note from which we have last quoted; and he did not fail explicitly to allow that the conceptions of the writer of the passage in II Timothy were very closely related to those of Philo. "It is certainly undeniable," he writes, "that the new term θεόπνευστος, 2 Tim. 3:16, is intended to express very much what Philo meant, and did not yet know how to say sharply by means of so compressed and direct a term"; and again, in another place, "this term, no doubt, embodies only what is everywhere presupposed by Philo as to the Scriptures, and is repeatedly expressed by him in other words; yet his usage is not yet so far developed; and it is in accordance with this that in the New Testament, too, it is only one of the latest writings which uses the term in this way."

It would seem, to be sure, that it is precisely this affinity with Philo's conception of Scripture which Dr. Cremer wishes to exclude in his treatment of the term. "Let it be added," he writes, near the close of the extract from his Herzog article which we have given above, "that the expression 'breathed by God, inspired by God,' though an outgrowth of the Biblical idea, certainly, so far as it is referred to the prophecy which does not arise out of the human will (2 Pet. 1:20), yet can scarcely be applied to the whole of the rest of Scripture—unless we are to find in 2 Tim. 3:16 the expression of a conception of sacred Scripture similar to the Philonian." And a little later he urges against the testimony of the exegetical tradition to the meaning of the word, that it was affected by the conceptions of Alexandrian Judaism—that is, he suggests, practically of heathenism. There obviously lies beneath this mode of representation an attempt to represent the idea of the nature and origin of Scripture exhibited in the New Testament, as standing in some fundamental disaccord with that of the Philonian tracts; and the assimilation of the conception expressed in 2 Tim. 3:16 to the latter as therefore its separation from the former. Something like this is affirmed also by Holtzmann when he writes: "It is accordingly clear that the author shares the Jewish conception of the purely supernatural origin of the Scriptures in its straitest acceptation, according to which, therefore, the theopneusty is ascribed immediately to the Scriptures themselves, and not merely, as in 2 Pet. 1:21, to their writers; and so far as the thing itself is concerned there is nothing incorrect implied in the translation, tota Scriptura." The notion that the Biblical and the Philonian ideas of Scripture somewhat markedly differ is apparently common to the two writers: only Holtzmann identifies the idea expressed in 2 Tim. 3:16 with the Philonian, and therefore pronounces it to be a mark of late origin for that epistle; while Cremer wishes to detach it from the Philonian, that he may not be forced to recognize the Philonian conception as possessing New Testament authorization.

No such fundamental difference between the Philonian and New Testament conceptions as is here erected, however, can possibly be made out; though whatever minor differences may be traceable between the general New Testament conception and treatment of Scripture and that of Philo, it remains a plain matter of fact that no other general view of Scripture than the so-called Philonian is discernible in the New Testament, all of whose writers—as is true of Jesus Himself also, according to His reported words,—consistently look upon the written words of Scripture as the express utterances of God, owing their origin to His direct spiration and their character to this their divine origin. It is peculiarly absurd to contrast 2 Pet. 1:21 with 2 Tim. 3:16 (as Holtzmann does explicitly and the others implicitly), on the ground of a difference of conception as to "inspiration," shown in the ascription of inspiration in the former passage to the writers, in the latter immediately to the words of Scripture. It is, on the face of it, the "word of prophecy" to which Peter ascribes divine surety; it is written prophecy which he declares to be of no "private interpretation"; and if he proceeds to exhibit how God produced this sure written word of prophecy—viz., through men of God carried onward, apart from their own will, by the determining power of the Holy Ghost—surely this exposition of the mode of the divine action in producing the Scriptures can only by the utmost confusion of ideas be pleaded as a denial of the fact that the Scriptures were produced by the Divine action. To Peter as truly as to Paul, and to the Paul of the earlier epistles as truly as to the Paul of II Timothy, or as to Philo himself, the Scriptures are the product of the Divine Spirit, and would be most appropriately described by the epithet of "God-breathed," i. e., produced by the breath, the inspiration, of God.

The entire distinction which it is sought to erect between the New Testament and the Philonic conceptions of Scripture, as if to the New Testament writers the Scriptures were less the oracles of God than to Philo, and owed their origin less directly to God's action, and might therefore be treated as less divine in character or operation, hangs in the mere air. There may be fairly recognized certain differences between the New Testament and the Philonic conceptions of Scripture; but they certainly do not move in this fundamental region. The epithet "God-breathed," "produced by the creative breath of the Almighty," commends itself, therefore, as one which would lie near at hand and would readily express the fundamental view as to the origination of Scripture current among the whole body of New Testament writers, as well as among the whole mass of their Jewish contemporaries, amid whom they were bred. The distinction between the inspiration of the writers and that of the record, is a subtlety of later times of which they were guiltless: as is also the distinction between the origination of Scripture by the action of the Holy Ghost and the infusing of the Holy Spirit into Scriptures originating by human activity. To the writers of this age of simpler faith, the Scriptures are penetrated by God because they were given by God: and the question of their effects, or even of their nature, was not consciously separated from the question of their origin. The one sufficient and decisive fact concerning them to these writers, inclusive of all else and determinative of all else that was true of them as the Word of God, was that they were "God-given," or, more precisely, the product of God's creative "breath."

In these circumstances it can hardly be needful to pause to point out in detail how completely this conception accords with the whole New Testament doctrine of Scripture, and with the entire body of phraseology currently used in it to express its divine origination. We need only recall the declarations that the Holy Spirit is the author of Scripture (Heb. 3:7, 10:15), "in whom" it is, therefore, that its human authors speak (Matt. 22:43; Mark 12:36), because it is He that speaks what they speak "through them" (Acts 1:16, 4:25), they being but the media of the prophetic word (Matt. 1:22, 2:15, 3:3, 4:14, 8:17, 12:17, 13:35, 21:4, 24:15, 27:9, Luke 18:31, Acts 2:16, 27:25, Rom. 1:2, Luke 1:76, Acts 1:16, 3:18, 21). The whole underlying conception of such modes of expression is in principle set forth in the command of Jesus to His disciples that, in their times of need, they should depend wholly on the Divine Spirit speaking in them (Matt. 10:20; Mark 13:11; cf. Luke 1:41, 67, 12:12; Acts 4:8): and perhaps even more decidedly still in Peter's description of the prophets of Scripture as "borne by the Holy Ghost," as πνευματόφοροι, whose words are, therefore, of no "private interpretation," and of the highest surety (2 Pet. 1:21). In all such expressions the main affirmation is that Scripture, as the product of the activity of the Spirit, is just the "breath of God"; and the highest possible emphasis is laid on their origination by the divine agency of the Spirit. The primary characteristic of Scripture in the minds of the New Testament writers is thus revealed as, in a word, its Divine origin.

That this was the sole dominating conception attached from the beginning to the term θεόπνευστος as an epithet of Scripture, is further witnessed by the unbroken exegetical tradition of its meaning in the sole passage of the New Testament in which it occurs. Dr. Cremer admits that such is the exegetical tradition, though he seeks to break the weight of this fact by pleading that the unanimity of the patristic interpretation of the passage is due rather to preconceived opinions on the part of the Fathers as to the nature of Scripture, derived from Alexandrian Judaism, than to the natural effect on their minds of the passage itself. Here we are pointed to the universal consent of Jewish and Christian students of the Word as to the divine origin of the Scriptures they held in common—a fact impressive enough of itself—as a reason for discrediting the testimony of the latter as to the meaning of a fundamental passage bearing on the doctrine of Holy Scripture. One is tempted to ask whether it can be really proved that the theology of Alexandrian Judaism exercised so universal and absolute a dominion over the thinking of the Church, that it is likely to be due to its influence alone that the Christian doctrine of inspiration took shape, in despite (as we are told) of the natural implications of the Christian documents themselves. And one is very likely to insist that, whatever may be its origin, this conception of the divine origination of Scripture was certainly shared by the New Testament writers themselves, and may very well therefore have found expression in 2 Tim. 3:16—which would therefore need no adjustment to current ideas to make it teach it. At all events, it is admitted that this view of the teaching of 2 Tim. 3:16 is supported by the unbroken exegetical tradition; and this fact certainly requires to be taken into consideration in determining the meaning of the word.

It is quite true that Dr. Cremer in one sentence does not seem to keep in mind the unbrokenness of the exegetical tradition. We read: "Origen also, in 'Hom. 21 in Jerem.', seems so [i. e., as Dr. Cremer does] to understand it [that is, θεόπνευστος]:—sacra volumina Spiritus plenitudinem spirant." The unwary reader may infer from this that these words of Origen are explanatory of 2 Tim. 3:16, and that they therefore break the exegetical tradition and show that Origen assigned to that passage the meaning that "the Holy Scriptures breathe out the plenitude of the Spirit." Such is, however, not the case. Origen is not here commenting on 2 Tim. 3:16, but only freely expressing his own notion as to the nature of Scripture. His words here do not, therefore, break the constancy of the exegetical tradition, but at the worst only the universality of that Philonian conception of Scripture, to the universality of which among the Fathers, Dr. Cremer attributes the unbrokenness of the exegetical tradition. What results from their adduction is, then, not a weakening of the patristic testimony to the meaning of θεόπνευστος in 2 Tim. 3:16, but (at the worst) a possible hint that Dr. Cremer's explanation of the unanimity of that testimony may not, after all, be applicable. When commenting on 2 Tim. 3:16, Origen uniformly takes the word θεόπνευστος as indicatory of the origin of Scripture; though when himself speaking of what Scripture is, he may sometimes speak as Dr. Cremer would have him speak. It looks as if his interpretation of 2 Tim. 3:16 were expository of its meaning to him rather than impository of his views on it. Let us, by way of illustration, place a fuller citation of Origen's words, in the passage adduced by Dr. Cremer, side by side with a passage directly dealing with 2 Tim. 3:16, and note the result.

Secundum istiusmodi expositiones decet sacras litteras credere nec unum quidem apicem habere vacuum sapientia Dei. Qui enim mihi homini præcipit dicens: Non apparebis ante conspectum meum vacuus, multo plus hoc ipse agit, ne aliquid vacuum loquatur. Ex plenitudine ejus accipientes prophetæ, ea, quæ erant de plenitudine sumpta, cecinerunt: et idcirco sacra volumina spiritus plenitudinem spirant, nihilque est sive in prophetia, sive in lege, sive in evangelio, sive in apostolo, quod non a plenitudine divinæ majestatis descendat. Quamobrem spirant in scripturis sanctis hodieque plenitudinis verba. Spirant autem his, qui habent et oculos ad videnda cœlestia et aures ad audienda divina, et nares ad ea, quæ sunt plenitudinis, sentienda (Origen, "in Jeremiam Homilia," xxi, 2. Wirceburg ed., 1785, ix, 733).

Here Origen is writing quite freely: and his theme is the divine fullness of Scripture. There is nothing in Scripture which is vain or empty and all its fullness is derived from Him from whom it is dipped by the prophets. Contrast his manner, now, when he is expounding 2 Tim. 3:16.

"Let us not be stupefied by hearing Scriptures which we do not understand; but let it be to us according to our faith, by which also we believe that every Scripture because it is theopneustic (πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος οὖσα) is profitable. For you must needs admit one of two things regarding these Scriptures: either that they are not theopneustic since they are not profitable, as the unbeliever takes it; or, as a believer, you must admit that since they are theopneustic, they are profitable. It is to be admitted, of course, that the profit is often received by us unconsciously, just as often we are assigned certain food for the benefit of the eyes, and only after two or three days does the digestion of the food that was to benefit the eyes give us assurance by trial that the eyes are benefited.… So, then, believe also concerning the divine Scriptures, that thy soul is profited, even if thy understanding does not perceive the fruit of the profit that comes from the letters, from the mere bare reading" [Origen, "Hom. XX in Josuam" 2, in J. A. Robinson's Origen's "Philocalia," p. 63).

It is obvious that here Origen does not understand 2 Tim. 3:16, to teach that Scripture is inspired only because it is profitable, and that we are to determine its profitableness first and its inspiration therefrom; what he draws from the passage is that Scripture is profitable because it is inspired, and that though we may not see in any particular case how, or even that, it is profitable, we must still believe it to be profitable because it is inspired, i. e., obviously because it is given of God for that end.

It seemed to be necessary to adduce at some length these passages from Origen, inasmuch as the partial adduction of one of them, alone, by Dr. Cremer might prove misleading to the unwary reader. But there appears to be no need of multiplying passages from the other early expositors of 2 Tim. 3:16, seeing that it is freely confessed that the exegetical tradition runs all in one groove. We may differ as to the weight we allow to this fact; but surely as a piece of testimony corroborative of the meaning of the word derived from other considerations, it is worth noting that it has from the beginning been understood only in one way—even by those, such as Origen and we may add Clement, who may not themselves be absolutely consistent in preserving the point of view taught them in this passage.

The final test of the sense assigned to any word is, of course, derived from its fitness to the context in which it is found. And Dr. Cremer does not fail to urge with reference to θεόπνευστος in 2 Tim. 3:16, that the meaning he assigns to it corresponds well with the context, especially with the succeeding clauses; as well as, he adds, with the language elsewhere in the New Testaments, as, for example, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where what Scripture says is spoken of as the utterance, the saying of the Holy Ghost, with which he would further compare even Acts 28:25.

That the words of Scripture are conceived, not only in Hebrews but throughout the New Testament, as the utterances of the Holy Ghost is obvious enough and not to be denied. But it is equally obvious that the ground of this conception is everywhere the ascription of these words to the Holy Ghost as their responsible author: littera scripta manet and remains what it was when written, viz., the words of the writer. The fact that all Scripture is conceived as a body of Oracles and approached with awe as the utterances of God certainly does not in the least suggest that these utterances may not be described as God-given words or throw a preference for an interpretation of θεόπνευστος which would transmute it into an assertion that they are rather God-giving words.

And the same may be said of the contextual argument. Naturally, if θεόπνευστος means "God-giving," it would as an epithet or predicate of Scripture serve very well to lay a foundation for declaring this "God-giving Scripture" also profitable, etc. But an equal foundation for this declaration is laid by the description of it as "God-given." The passage just quoted from Origen will alone teach us this. All that can be said on this score for the new interpretation, therefore, is that it also could be made accordant with the context; and as much, and much more, can be said for the old. We leave the matter in this form, since obviously a detailed interpretation of the whole passage cannot be entered into here, but must be reserved for a later occasion. It may well suffice to say now that obviously no advantage can be claimed for the new interpretation from this point of view. The question is, after all, not what can the word be made to mean, but what does it mean; and the witness of its usage elsewhere, its form and mode of composition, and the sense given it by its readers from the first, supply here the primary evidence. Only if the sense thus commended to us were unsuitable to the context would we be justified in seeking further for a new interpretation—thus demanded by the context. This can by no means be claimed in the present instance, and nothing can be demanded of us beyond showing that the more natural current sense of the word is accordant with the context.

The result of our investigation would seem thus, certainly, to discredit the new interpretation of θεόπνευστος offered by Ewald and Cremer. From all points of approach alike we appear to be conducted to the conclusion that it is primarily expressive of the origination of Scripture, not of its nature and much less of its effects. What is θεόπνευστος is "God-breathed," produced by the creative breath of the Almighty. And Scripture is called θεόπνευστος in order to designate it as "God-breathed," the product of Divine spiration, the creation of that Spirit who is in all spheres of the Divine activity the executive of the Godhead. The traditional translation of the word by the Latin inspiratus a Deo is no doubt also discredited, if we are to take it at the foot of the letter. It does not express a breathing into the Scriptures by God. But the ordinary conception attached to it, whether among the Fathers or the Dogmaticians, is in general vindicated. What it affirms is that the Scriptures owe their origin to an activity of God the Holy Ghost and are in the highest and truest sense His creation. It is on this foundation of Divine origin that all the high attributes of Scripture are built.

VIII

"IT SAYS:" "SCRIPTURE SAYS:" "GOD SAYS"

IT would be difficult to invent methods of showing profound reverence for the text of Scripture as the very Word of God, which will not be found to be characteristic of the writers of the New Testament in dealing with the Old. Among the rich variety of the indications of their estimate of the written words of the Old Testament as direct utterances of Jehovah, there are in particular two classes of passages, each of which, when taken separately, throws into the clearest light their habitual appeal to the Old Testament text as to God Himself speaking, while, together, they make an irresistible impression of the absolute identification by their writers of the Scriptures in their hands with the living voice of God. In one of these classes of passages the Scriptures are spoken of as if they were God; in the other, God is spoken of as if He were the Scriptures: in the two together, God and the Scriptures are brought into such conjunction as to show that in point of directness of authority no distinction was made between them.

Examples of the first class of passages are such as these: Gal. 3:8, "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all the nations be blessed" (Gen. 12:1–3); Rom. 9:17, "The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up" (Ex. 9:16). It was not, however, the Scripture (which did not exist at the time) that, foreseeing God's purposes of grace in the future, spoke these precious words to Abraham, but God Himself in His own person: it was not the not yet existent Scripture that made this announcement to Pharaoh, but God Himself through the mouth of His prophet Moses. These acts could be attributed to "Scripture" only as the result of such a habitual identification, in the mind of the writer, of the text of Scripture with God as speaking, that it became natural to use the term "Scripture says," when what was really intended was "God, as recorded in Scripture, said."

Examples of the other class of passages are such as these: Matt. 19:4, 5, "And he answered and said, Have ye not read that he which made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the twain shall become one flesh?" (Gen. 2:24); Heb. 3:7, "Wherefore, even as the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye shall hear his voice," etc. (Ps. 95:7); Acts 4:24, 25, "Thou art God, who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things" (Ps. 2:1); Acts 13:34, 35, "He that raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, … hath spoken in this wise, I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David" (Isa. 55:3); "because he saith also in another [Psalm], Thou wilt not give thy holy one to see corruption" (Ps. 16:10); Heb. 1:6, "And when he again bringeth in the first born into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him" (Deut. 32:43); "and of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels wings, and his ministers a flame of fire" (Ps. 104:4); "but of the Son, He saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever," etc., (Ps. 45:7) and, "Thou, Lord, in the beginning," etc. (Ps. 102:26). It is not God, however, in whose mouth these sayings are placed in the text of the Old Testament: they are the words of others, recorded in the text of Scripture as spoken to or of God. They could be attributed to God only through such habitual identification, in the minds of the writers, of the text of Scripture with the utterances of God that it had become natural to use the term "God says" when what was really intended was "Scripture, the Word of God, says."

The two sets of passages, together, thus show an absolute identification, in the minds of these writers, of "Scripture" with the speaking God.

In the same line with these passages are commonly ranged certain others, in which Scripture seems to be adduced with a subjectless λέγει or φησί, the authoritative subject—whether the divinely given Word or God Himself—being taken for granted. Among these have been counted such passages, for example, as the following: Rom. 9:15, "For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion" (Ex. 33:19); Rom. 15:10, "And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people" (Deut. 32:43); and again, "Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and let all the people praise him" (Ps. 107:1); Gal. 3:16, "He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed (Gen. 13:15), which is Christ"; Eph. 4:8, "Wherefore he saith, When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men" (Ps. 68:18); Eph. 5:14, "Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ shall shine upon thee" (Isa. 60:1); 1 Cor. 6:16, "For the twain, saith he, shall become one flesh" (Gen. 2:24); 1 Cor. 15:27, "But when he saith, All things are put in subjection" (Ps. 8:7); 2 Cor. 6:2, "For he saith, At an acceptable time, I hearkened unto thee, and in a day of salvation did I succor thee" (Isa. 49:8); Heb. 8:5, "For see, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount" (Ex. 25:40); James 4:6, "Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble" (Prov. 3:34).

There is room for difference of opinion, of course, whether all these passages are cases in point. And there has certainly always existed some difference of opinion among commentators as to the proper subauditum in such instances as are allowed. The state of the case would seem to be fairly indicated by Alexander Buttmann, when he says:

"The predicates λέγει or φησίν are often found in the New Testament in quotations, ὁ θεός or even merely ἡ γραφή being always to be supplied as subject; as 1 Cor. 6:16, 2 Cor. 6:2, Gal. 3:16, Eph. 4:8, 5:14, Heb. 8:5, 4:3 (εἴρηκεν). These subjects are also expressed, as in Gal. 4:30, 1 Tim. 5:18, or to be supplied from the preceding context, as in Heb. 1:5 seq."

Of the alternatives thus offered, Jelf apparently prefers the one:

"In the New Testament we must supply προφητής, ἡ γραφή, πνεῦμα, etc., before φησί, λέγει, μαρτυρεῖ."

Winer and Blass take the other:

"The formulas of citation—λέγει, 2 Cor. 6:2, Gal. 3:16, Eph. 4:8 al., φησί, 1 Cor. 6:16, Heb. 8:5; εἴρηκε, Heb. 4:4 (cf. the Rabbinical ואומר); μαρτυρεῖ, Heb. 7:17 (εἶπε, 1 Cor. 15:27)—are probably in no instance impersonal in the minds of the New Testament writers. The subject (ὁ θεός) is usually contained in the context, either directly or indirectly; in 1 Cor. 6:16 and Matt. 19:5, φησί, there is an apostolic ellipsis (of ὁ θεός); in Heb. 7:17, the best authorities have μαρτυρεῖται."

"In the formulas of citation such as λέγει, 2 Cor. 6:2, Gal. 3:16, etc.; φησίν, 1 Cor. 6:16, Heb. 8:5; εἴρηκε, Heb. 4:4—ὁ θεός is to be understood ('He says'); in 2 Cor. 10:10, φησίν (א DE, etc. [?], 'one says'), appears to be a wrong reading for φασίν (B), unless perhaps a τις has dropped out (but cp. Clem. Hom., xi. 9 ad init.)."

The commentators commonly range themselves with Winer and Blass. Thus, on Rom. 9:15, Sanday and Head-lam comment: "λέγει without a nominative for θεὸς λέγει is a common idiom in quotations," referring to Rom. 15:10 as a parallel case. On Gal. 3:16, Meyer says: "sc. Θεός, which is derived from the historical reference of the previous ἐῤῥέθησαν, so well known to the reader"; and Alford: "viz., He who gave the promises—God"; and Sieffert: "οὐ λέγει sc. θεός which flows out of the historical relation (known to the reader) of the preceding ἐῤῥέθησαν (cf. Eph. 4:8, 5:14)." On Eph. 4:8, Meyer's comment runs: "Who says it (comp. 5:14) is obvious of itself, namely, God, whose word the Scripture is. See on 1 Cor. 6:16; Gal. 3:16; the supplying ἡ γραφή or τὸ πνεῦμα must have been suggested by the context (Rom. 15:10). The manner of citation with the simple λέγει, obviously meant of God, has as its necessary presupposition, in the mind of the writer and readers, the Theopneustia of the Old Testament." Haupt, similarly: "The introduction of a citation with the simple λέγει, with which, of course, 'God' is to be supplied as subject, not 'the Scripture,' is found in Paul again 5:14, 2 Cor. 6:2, Rom. 15:10; similarly φησί, 1 Cor. 6:16 (εἶπεν with the addition ὁ θεός, 2 Cor. 6:16)." A similar comment is given by Ellicott, who adds at Eph. 5:14: "scil. ὁ θεός, according to the usual form of St. Paul's quotations; see notes on chap. 4:8 and on Gal. 3:16": though on 1 Cor. 6:16 he speaks with less decision: "It may be doubted what nominative is to be supplied to this practically impersonal verb, whether ἡ γραφή (comp. John 7:38, Rom. 4:3, 9:17, al.) or ὁ θεός (comp. Matt. 19:5, 2 Cor. 6:2, where this nominative is distinctly suggested by the context): the latter is perhaps the more natural: comp. Winer, Gr., § 58, 9, and notes on Eph. 4:8." On 1 Cor. 6:16, Edwards comments: "sc. ὁ θεός, as in Rom. 9:15. Cf. Matt. 19:4, 5, where ὁ ποίησας supplies a nom. to εἶπεν. Similarly in Philo and Barnabas φησί introduces citations from Scripture." On 2 Cor. 6:2, Waite says: "A statement of God Himself is adduced"; and De Wette: "sc. θεός, who Himself speaks." On Heb. 8:5, Bleek comments: "That there is to be understood as the subject of φησί, not, as Böhme thinks, ἡ γραφή, but ὁ θεός, can least of all be doubtful here, where actual words of God are adduced"; and Weiss: "This statement is now established (γάρ) by appeal to Ex. 25:40, which passage is characterized only by the interpolated φησίν (cf. Acts 25:22) as a divine oracle.… The subject of φησίν is, of course, God, neither ὁ χρηματισμός (Lün.) nor ἡ γραφή (Bhm.)." On James 4:6, Mayor comments: "The subject understood is probably God, as above, 1:12, ἐπηγγείλατο, and Eph. 4:8, 5:14, where the same phrase occurs; others take it as ἡ γραφή. Cf. above, 5:5."

Most of these passages have, on the other hand, been explained by some commentators on the supposition that it is ἡ γραφή that is to be supplied, as has sufficiently appeared indeed from the controversial remarks in the notes quoted above. This circumstance may be taken as precluding the necessity of adducing examples here. Suffice it to say that those so filling in the subauditum are entirely at one with the commentators already quoted in looking upon the citations as treated by the New Testament writers as of divine authority, it being, in their apprehension, all one in this regard whether the subauditum is conceived as ἡ γραφή or as ὁ θεός.

In the meantime, however, there has occasionally showed itself a tendency to treat these subjectless verbs more or less as true impersonals. Thus we read in Delitzsch's note on Heb. 8:5: "For 'see,' saith He, i. e., ὁ θεός, or taking φησί impersonally (that is, without a definite subject), 'it is said' (i. e., in Scripture), (Bernhardy, 'Synt.,' 419)." So Kern on James 4:6 comments: "λέγει here impersonaliter, instead of the foregoing λέγει ἡ γραφή"; and accordingly Beyschlag, in his recent commentary says: "to λέγει, ἡ γραφή is to be supplied, or it is to be taken with Kern impersonally." Similarly Godet on 1 Cor. 6:16 says: "The subject of the verb φησίν, says he, may be either Adam or Moses, or Scripture, or God Himself, or finally, as is shown by Heinrici, the verb may be a simple formula of quotation like our 'It is said.' This form is frequently found in Philo." Some such usage as is here supposed may seem actually to occur in the common text of Wisdom 15:12 and 2 Cor. 10:10. But in both passages the true reading is probably φασίν; in neither instance is it clear that, if φησίν be read, it has no subject implied in the context; if φησίν be read and taken as equivalent to φασίν it still is not purely indefinite; and in any case the instances are not parallel, inasmuch as in neither of these passages is it Scripture, or indeed any document, that is adduced.

The fact that a few very able commentators have taken this unlikely line of exposition would call for nothing more than this incidental remark, were not our attention attracted somewhat violently to it by the dogmatic tone and extremity of contention of a recent commentator who has adopted this opinion. We refer to Dr. T. K. Abbott's comment on Eph. 4:8, in his contribution to "The International Critical Commentary." It runs to a considerable length, but as on this very account it opens out somewhat more fully than usual this rather unwonted view of the construction, we shall venture to quote it in extenso. Dr. Abbott says:

"Διὸ λέγει. 'Wherefore it saith' = 'it is said.' If any substantive is to be supplied, it is ἡ γραφή; but the verb may well be taken impersonally, just as in colloquial English one may often hear: 'it says' or the like. Many expositors supply, however, ὁ Θεός. Meyer even says, 'Who says it is obvious of itself, namely, God, whose word the Scripture is. Similarly Alford12 and Ellicott. If it were St. Paul's habit to introduce quotations from the Old Testament, by whomsoever spoken in the original text, with the formula ὁ Θεός λέγει, then this supplement here might be defended. But it is not. In quoting he sometimes says λέγει, frequently ἡ γραφὴ λέγει, at other times Δαβίδ λέγει, Ἡσαΐας λέγει. There is not a single instance in which ὁ Θεός is either expressed or implied as the subject, except where in the original context God is the speaker, as in Rom. 9:15. Even when that is the case he does not hesitate to use a different subject, as in Rom. 10:19, 20: 'Moses saith,' 'Isaiah is very bold, and saith'; Rom. 9:17, 'The Scripture saith to Pharaoh.'

"This being the case, we are certainly not justified in forcing upon the apostle here and in chap. 5:14 a form of expression consistent only with the extreme view of verbal inspiration. When Meyer (followed by Alford and Ellicott) says that ἡ γραφή must not be supplied unless it is given by the context, the reply is obvious, namely, that, as above stated, ἡ γραφή λέγει does, in fact, often occur, and therefore the apostle might have used it here, whereas ὁ θεὸς λέγει does not occur (except in cases unlike this), and we have reason to believe could not be used by St. Paul here. It is some additional confirmation of this that both here and in chap. 5:14 (if that is a Biblical quotation) he does not hesitate to make important alterations. This is the view taken by Braune, Macpherson, Moule; the latter, however, adding that for St. Paul 'the word of the Scripture and the word of its Author are convertible terms.'

"It is objected that although φησί is used impersonally, λέγει is not. The present passage and chap. 5:14 are enough to prove the usage for St. Paul, and there are other passages in his Epistles where this sense is at least applicable; cf. Rom. 15:10, where λέγει is parallel to γέγραπται in ver. 9; Gal. 3:16, where it corresponds to ἐῤῥήθησαν. But, in fact, the impersonal use of φησί in Greek authors is quite different, namely = φασί, 'they say' (so 2 Cor. 10:10). Classical authors had no opportunity of using λέγει as it is used here, as they did not possess any collection of writings which could be referred to as ἡ γραφή, or by any like word. They could say: ὁ νόμος λέγει and τὸ λεγόμενον."

It is not, it will be observed, the fact that Dr. Abbott decides against the subauditum, ὁ θεός, in these passages, which calls for remark. As he himself points out, many others have been before him in this. It is the extremity of his opinion that first of all attracts attention. For it is to be noticed that, though he sometimes speaks as if he understood an implied ἡ γραφή, or some like term, as the subject of λέγει, that is not his real contention. What he proposes is to take the verb wholly indefinitely—as equivalent to "it is said," as if the source of the quotation were unimportant and its authority insignificant. This interpretation of his proposal is placed beyond doubt by his remarks on chap. 5:14. There we read:

"Διὸ λὲγει. 'Wherefore it is said.' It is generally held that this formula introduces a quotation from canonical Scripture.… The difficulties disappear when we recognize that λὲγει need not be taken to mean ὁ θεὸς λὲγει—an assertion which has been shown in 4:8 to be untenable. It means, 'it says,' or 'it is said,' and the quotation may probably be from some liturgical formula or hymn—a supposition with which its rhythmical character agrees very well.… Theodoret mentions this opinion.… Stier adopts a similar view, but endeavors to save the supposed limitation of the use of λὲγει by saying that in the Church the Spirit speaks. As there are in the Church prophets and prophetic speakers and poets, so there are liturgical expressions and hymns which are holy words. Comparing vv. 18, 19, Col. 3:16, it may be said that the apostle is here giving us an example of this self-admonition by new spiritual songs."

So extreme an opinion, as we have already hinted, naturally finds, however, little support in the commentators, even in those quoted to buttress it,—of course, in its fundamental point. Braune says: "We must naturally supply ἡ γραφή, the Scripture, with λὲγει, 'saith,' (James 4:6, Rom. 15:10, Gal. 3:16, 1 Cor. 6:16: φησίν), and not ὁ θεός (Meyer, Schenkel), or ὁ λέγων (Bleek: the writer)": to which Dr. M. T. Riddle, his translator, however, adds: "The fact that Paul frequently supplies ἡ γραφή (Rom. 4:3, 9:17, 10:11, Gal. 4:30, 1 Tim. 5:18) is against Braune's view; for in some of these passages there is a reason for its insertion (see "Romans," p. 314), and as the Scriptures are God's Word (Meyer), the natural aim and obvious subject is ὁ θεός. So Alford, Ellicott and most." Moule's comment runs: "Wherefore he saith] Or it, i.e., the Scripture, saith. St. Paul's usage in quotation leaves the subject of the verb undetermined here and in similar cases (see, e.g., chap. 5:14). For him the word of the Scripture and the word of its author are convertible terms." Macpherson alone, of those appealed to by Dr. Abbott, supports, in a somewhat carelessly written note, the indefinite interpretation put forward by Dr. Abbott,—being misled apparently by remarks of Lightfoot's and Westcott's. His comment runs:

"A very simple quotation formula is here employed, the single word λέγει. It is also similarly used (chap. 5:14; 2 Cor. 6:2; Gal. 3:16; Rom. 15:10). This word is frequently employed in the fuller formula, The Scripture saith, λέγει ἡ γραφή (Rom. 4:3, 10:11, 11:2; Jas. 2:23, etc.); or the name of the writer of the particular scripture, Esaias, David, the Holy Spirit, the law (Rom. 15:12; Acts 13:35; Heb. 3:7; 1 Cor. 14:34, etc.). Of λέγει, φησί, εἴρηκε, and similar words thus used, Winer ("Grammar," p. 656, 1882) says that probably in no instance are they impersonal in the minds of the New Testament writers, but that the subject, ὁ θεός, is somewhere in the context, and is to be supplied. On the contrary, Lightfoot, in his note on Gal. 3:16, remarks that λέγει, like the Attic φησί, seems to be used impersonally, the nominative being lost sight of. In our passage we have no nominative in the context which we can supply, and it seems better to render the phrase impersonally, It is said. The same word is used very frequently in the Epistle to the Hebrews, but always with God or Christ understood from the immediate context. Westcott very correctly remarks (p. 457) that the use of the formula in Eph. 4:8, 5:14, seems to be of a different kind."

Outside of these commentators quoted by himself, however, Prof. Abbott's extreme view has (as has, indeed, already incidentally appeared) the powerful support of Light-foot and Heinrici. The former expresses his opinion not only in his note on Gal. 3:16, to which Macpherson refers, but more fully and argumentatively in his note on 1 Cor. 6:16 printed in his posthumous "Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul." In the former of these places he says:

"οὐ λέγει seems to be used impersonally, like the Attic φησί in quoting legal documents, the nominative being lost sight of. If so, we need not inquire whether ὁ θεός or ἡ γραφή is to be understood. Comp. λέγει, Rom. 15:10, Eph. 4:8, 5:14; and φησίν, 1 Cor. 6:16, 2 Cor. 10:10 (v. l)."

In the latter, speaking more at large "as to the authority assigned to the passage" quoted by St. Paul, he says:

"What are we to understand by φησίν Is ὁ θεός to be supplied or ἡ γραφή? To this question it is safest to reply that we cannot decide. The fact is that, like λέγει, φησίν when introducing a quotation seems to be used impersonally. This usage is common in Biblical Greek (λέγει, Rom. 15:10, Gal. 3:16, Eph. 4:8, 5:14; φησίν, Heb. 8:5, 2 Cor. 10:10 (v. l.), more common in classical Greek. Alford, after Meyer, objects to rendering φησίν impersonally here, as contrary to St. Paul's usage. But the only other occurrence of the phrase in St. Paul is 2 Cor. 10:10, where he is not introducing Scripture, but the objections of human critics and of more than one critic. If then φησίν be read there at all, it must be impersonal. The apostle's analogous use of λέγει points to the same conclusion. In Eph. 5:14 it introduces a quotation which is certainly not in Scripture, and apparently belonged to an early Christian hymn. We gather therefore that St. Paul's usage does not suggest any restriction here to ὁ θεός or ἡ γραφή. But we cannot doubt from the context that the quotation is meant to be authoritative."

In his own commentary on I Corinthians (1880), Heinrici writes as follows:

"To φησί, just as to λέγει (2 Cor. 6:2, Gal. 3:16) nothing at all is to be supplied, but like inquit it stands, sometimes as the introduction to an objection (2 Cor. 10:10, where Holsten refers to Bentley on Horat., Serm., i, 4, 78), sometimes as a general formula of citation. It is especially often used in the latter sense by Philo, in the quotation of Scripture passages, and by Arrian-Epictetus, who supplies many most interesting parallels to the Pauline forms of speech. Schweighäuser, in his Index, under φησί, remarks of it: nec enim semper in proferenda objectione locum habet illa formula, verum etiam in citando exemplo ad id quod agitur pertinente. J. G. Müller (Philo the Jew's Book on the Creation, Berlin, 1841, p. 44) says that φησί, after the example of Plato (?), became gradually among the Hellenistic Jews the standing formula of citation."

In his edition of Meyer's "Commentary on I Corinthians" (eighth edition, 1896), this note reappears in this form:

"φησίν). Who? According to the usual view, God, whose words the sayings of the Scripture are, even when they, like Gen. 2:24 through Adam, are spoken through another. Winer, 7 § 58, 9, 486: Buttmann, 117. But the impersonal sense 'es heisst,' 'inquit,' lies nearer the Pauline usage; he coincides in this with Arrian-Epictetus and Philo, with whom φησί sometimes introduces an objection, sometimes is the customary formula of citation. Cf. 2 Cor. 10:10, 6:2, 1 Cor. 15:27, Eph. 4:8; Winer, as above; Müller, in Philo, De op. mund., 44; Heinrici, i. 181. In accordance with this, are the other supplements of subject—ἡ γραφή or τὸ πνεῦμα (Rückert)—to be estimated."

Even in the extremity of his contention, therefore, Dr. Abbott, it seems, is not without support—on the philological side, at least—in previous commentators of the highest rank.

He himself does not seem, however, quite clear in his own mind: and his confusion of both considerations and commentators which make for the fundamentally diverse positions that there is to be supplied with λέγει some such subject as ἡ γραφή, and that there is nothing at all to be supplied but the word is to be taken with entire indefiniteness, is indicatory of the main thing that calls for remark in Dr. Abbott's note. For, why should this confusion take place? It is quite evident that in interpreting the phrase the fundamental distinction lies between the view which supposes that a subject to λέγει is so implied as to be suggested either by the context or by the mind of the reader from the nature of the case, and that which takes λέγει as a case of true impersonal usage, of entirely indefinite subject. It is a minor difference among the advocates of the first of these views, which separates them into two parties—those which would supply as subject ὁ θεός, and those which would supply ἡ γραφή. That one of these subdivisions of the first class of views should be violently torn from its true comradeship and confused with the second view, betrays a preoccupation on Dr. Abbott's part, when dealing with this passage, with considerations not of purely exegetical origin. He is for the moment less concerned with ascertaining the meaning of the apostle than with refuting a special interpretation of his words: and therefore everything which stands opposed in any measure to the obnoxious interpretation appears to him to be "on his side." Put somewhat brusquely, this is as much as to say that Dr. Abbott is in this note dominated by dogmatic prejudice.

There do not lack other indications of this fact. The most obtrusive of them is naturally the language—scarcely to be called perfectly calm—with which the second paragraph of the note opens: "We are certainly not justified in forcing upon the apostle here and in chap. 5:14 a form of expression consistent only with the extreme view of verbal inspiration." Certainly not. But because we chance not to like "the extreme view of verbal inspiration," are we justified in forbidding the apostle to use a form of expression consistent only with it, and forcing upon him some other form of expression which we may consider consistent with a view of inspiration which we like better? Would it not be better to permit the apostle to choose his own form of expression and confine ourselves, as expositors, to ascertaining from his form of expression what view of inspiration lay in his mind, rather than seek to force his hand into consistency with our preconceived ideas? The whole structure of the note evinces, however, that it was not written in this purely expository spirit. Thus only can be explained a certain exaggerated dogmatism in its language, as if doubt were to be silenced by decision of manner if not by decisiveness of evidence. So also probably is to be explained a certain narrowness in the appeal to usage—that rock on which much factitious exegesis splits. Only, it is intimated, in case "it were St. Paul's habit to introduce quotations from the Old Testament, by whomsoever spoken in the original text, with the formula ὁ θεὸς λέγει," "could this supplement here be defended." One asks in astonishment whether St. Paul really could make known his estimate of Scripture as the very voice of God which might naturally be quoted with the formula "God says," and so render the occurrence of that formula occasionally in his writings no matter of surprise, only by a habitual use of this exact formula in quoting Scripture. And one notes without surprise that the narrowness of Dr. Abbott's rule for the adduction of usage supplies no bar to his practice when he is arguing "on the other side." At the opening of the very next paragraph we read, "It is objected that although φησί is used impersonally, λέγει is not": and to this the answer is returned, "The present passage and chap. 5:14 are sufficient to prove the usage for St. Paul"; with the supplement, "And there are other passages in his epistles where this sense is at least applicable"; and further, "But in fact, the impersonal use of φησί in Greek authors is quite different." One fancies Dr. Abbott must have had a grim controversial smile upon his features when he wrote that last clause, which pleads that the meaning assigned to λέγει here is absolutely unexampled in Greek literature, not only for λέγει but even for φησί, as a reason for accepting it for λέγει here! But apart from this remarkable instance of skill in marshaling adverse facts—a skill not unexampled elsewhere in the course of this note, as any one who will take the trouble to examine the proof-texts adduced in it will quickly learn—might not the advocates of the supplement, ὁ θεός, say equally that "the present passage and chap. 5:14 are sufficient to prove the usage for St. Paul, and there are other passages in his epistles where this sense is at least applicable." And might they not support this statement with better proof-texts than those adduced by Dr. Abbott, or indeed with the same with better right; as well as with a more applicable supplementary remark than the one with which he really subverts his whole reasoning—such as this, for example, that elsewhere, in the New Testament, as for instance in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the usage contended for undoubtedly occurs, and a satisfactory basis is laid for it in the whole attitude of the entire body of New Testament writers, inclusive of Paul, toward the Old Testament? Certainly, reasoning so one-sided and dominated by preconceived opinions so blinding is thoroughly inconclusive. The note is, indeed, an eminent example of that form of argumentation which, to invert a phrase of Omar Khayyam's, "goes out at the same door at which it came in": and even though its contention should prove sound, can itself add nothing to the grounds on which we embrace it. At best it may serve as the starting-point of a fresh investigation into the proper interpretation of the phrase with which it deals.

For such a fresh investigation we should need to give our attention particularly to two questions. The first would inquire into the light thrown by Paul's method of introducing quotations from the Old Testament, upon his estimate of the text of the Old Testament,—with a view to determining whether it need cause surprise to find him adducing it with such a formula as "God says." Subsidiary to this it might be inquired whether it is accurate to say that "there is not a single instance in which ὁ θεός is either expressed or implied as the subject, except where in the original context God is the speaker," and further, if Paul's usage elsewhere can be accurately so described, whether that fact will warrant us in denying such an instance to exist in Eph. 4:8. The second question would inquire into the general usage of the subjectless λέγει or φησί in and out of the New Testament, with a view to discovering what light may be thrown by it upon the interpretation of the passages in question. It might be incidentally asked in this connection whether it is a complete account to give of φησί in profane Greek to say that the "impersonal use of φησί in Greek authors is quite different from that of the New Testament, inasmuch as with them φησί = φασί, 'they say.' "

It is really somewhat discouraging at this late date to find it treated as still an open question, how Paul esteemed the written words of the Old Testament. And it brings us, as the French say, something akin to stupefaction, when Dr. Abbott goes further and uses language concerning Paul's attitude toward the Old Testament text which implies that Paul habitually distinguished, in point of authority, between those passages "where in the original context God is the speaker" and the rest of the volume, so that "we have reason to believe" that the formula ὁ θεὸς λέγει "could not be used by Paul" in introducing Scriptural language not recorded as spoken by God in the original context. He even suggests, indeed, that Paul shows an underlying doubt as to the Divine source of even the words attributed to God in the Old Testament text—"not hesitating to use a different subject" when quoting them, "as in Rom. 10:19, 20, 'Moses saith,' 'Isaiah is very bold and saith'; Rom. 9:17, 'The Scripture saith to Pharaoh' "—and deals with the text of other portions with a freedom which exhibits his little respect for them—"not hesitating to make important alterations" in them. It would seem to require a dogmatic prejudice of the very first order to blind one to a fact so obvious as that with Paul "Scripture," as such, is conceived everywhere as the authoritative declaration of the truth and will of God—of which fact, indeed, no better evidence can be needed than the very texts quoted by Dr. Abbott in a contrary sense.

For, when Paul, in Rom. 9:15, supports his abhorrent rejection of the supposition that there may be unrighteousness with God, with the divine declaration taken from Ex. 33:19, introduced with the formula, "For he"—that is, as Dr. Abbott recognizes, God—"saith to Moses," and then immediately, in Rom. 9:17, supports the teaching of this declaration with the further word of God taken from Ex. 9:16, introduced with the formula, "For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh"—the one thing which is thrown into a relief above all others is that, with Paul, "God saith" and "Scripture saith" are synonymous terms, so synonymous in his habitual thought that he could not only range the two together in consecutive clauses, but use the second in a manner in which, taken literally, it is meaningless and can convey an appropriate sense only when translated back into its equivalent of "God saith." The present tense in both formulas, moreover, advises us that, despite the fact that in both instances they are words spoken by God which are cited, it is rather as part of that Scripture which to Paul's thinking is the ever-present and ever-speaking word of God that they are adduced. It is not as words which God once spoke (εἶπεν, LXX.) to Moses that the former passage is here adduced, but as living words still speaking to us—it is not as words Moses was once commanded to speak to Pharaoh that the second is here adduced, but as words recorded in the ever-living Scripture for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world have come. They are thus not assigned to Scripture in order to lower their authority: but rather as a mark of their abiding authority. And similarly when in that catena of quotations in Rom. 10:16–21, we read at ver. 19, "first Moses saith," and then at ver. 20, "and Isaiah is very bold and saith," both adducing words of God—the implication is not that Paul looks upon them as something less than the words of God and so cites them by the names of these human authors; but that it is all one to him to say, "God says," and "Moses says," or "Isaiah says": and therefore in this catena of quotations—in which are included four, not two, quotations—all the citations are treated as alike authoritative, though some are in the original context words of God and others (ver. 16) words of the prophet—and though some are adduced by the name of the prophet and some without assignment to any definitely named human source. The same implication, again, underlies the fact that in the catena of quotations on Rom. 15:9 seq., the first is introduced by καθὼς γέγραπται, the next two by καὶ πάλιν λέγει and καὶ πάλιν, and the last by καὶ πάλιν Ἡσαΐας λέγει—the first being from Ps. 78:50, the second from Deut. 32:43, the third from Ps. 117:1, and only the last from Isaiah—Isa. 11:10: clearly it is all one to the mind of Paul how Scripture is adduced—it is the fact that it is Scripture that is important. So also it is no more true that in Gal. 3:16, the λέγει "corresponds to ἐῤῥήθησαν" of the immediately preceding context, than that it stands in line with the "and the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand unto Abraham" of 3:8—a thing which the Scripture as such certainly did not do; and with the "for it is written" of 3:10 and 3:13, and the unheralded quotations of the Scriptures as unquestioned authority of 3:11 and 3:12; and with the general appeal in 3:22 to the teaching of Scripture as a whole as the sole testimony needed: the effect of the whole being to evince in the clearest manner that to Paul the whole text of Scripture, inclusive of Gen. 12:3, Deut. 27:26, Hab. 2:4, Lev. 18:5, and Gen. 22:18, was as such the living word of the living God profitable to all ages alike for divine instruction.

We need not go, indeed, beyond the first sentence of this Epistle to the Romans from which all but one of Dr. Abbott's citations are drawn, to learn Paul's conception of Scripture as the crystallized voice of God. There he declares himself to have been "separated unto the gospel of God which he promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures" (Rom. 1:2). Dr. George T. Purves, in a singularly well-considered and impressive paper on "St. Paul and Inspiration," printed in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review for January, 1893, justly draws out the meaning of this compressed statement thus:

"Not only did Moses and the prophets speak from God, but the sacred Scriptures themselves were in some way composed under divine control. He not only affirms with Peter that 'moved by the Holy Ghost, men spake from God,' but that 'the Scriptures themselves are inspired by God.' Paul plainly recognizes the human authorship of the books, and quotes Moses and David and Isaiah as speaking therein. But not only through them, but in these books of theirs did God also speak. Many readers notice the first part of Paul's statement, but not the second. God spake 'through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures.' "

This emphasis on the written Scriptures as themselves the product of a divine activity, making them as such the divine voice to us, is characteristic of the whole treatment of Scripture by Paul (1 Cor. 10:11, Rom. 15:4, 4:23, 1 Cor. 9:10, 4:6): and it is thoroughly accordant with the point of view so exhibited, that he explicitly declares, not of the writers of Scripture, but of the sacred writings themselves, that they are theopneustic—breathed out, or breathed into by God (2 Tim. 3:16). For he applies this epithet not to "every prophet," but to "every Scripture"—that is, says Dr. Purves, to "the whole collection to which he had just referred as the 'sacred writings,' and all their parts": these writings are theopneustic. "By their inspiration, he evidently meant," continues Dr. Purves justly, "that, as writings, they were so composed under God's particular direction that both in substance and in form they were the special utterances of His mind and will."

It could be nothing more than an accident if Paul, under the dominance of such a conception of Scripture, has nowhere happened to adduce from it a passage, taken out of a context in which God is not expressly made in the Old Testament narrative itself the speaker, with the formula, ὁ θεὸς λέγει, expressed or implied. If no instance of such an adduction occurs, it is worth while to note that fact, to be sure, as one of the curious accidents of literary usage; but as there is no reason to doubt that such a formula would be entirely natural on the lips of Paul, so there is no propriety in calling it impossible in Paul, or even in erecting a distinction between him and other New Testament writers on the ground that they do and he does not quote Scripture by such a formula. As a matter of fact, the distinction suggested between passages in Scripture "where in the original context God is the speaker" and passages where He is not the speaker—as if the one could be cited with a "God says," and the other not,—is foreign to Paul's conception and usage, as has abundantly appeared already: so that whatever passages of the former kind occur—"as in Rom. 9:15," says Dr. Abbott—are really passages in which Scripture is quoted with a "God says." It cannot be held to be certain, moreover, that passages do not occur in which the "God says" introduces words not ascribed to God in the original context—so long, at least, as it is not obvious that "God" is not the subauditum in passages like Acts 13:35, Rom. 15:10, Gal. 3:16. It is no doubt, however, also worth observing that it is equally matter of fact, that it is rather to the Epistle to the Hebrews than to those that bear the name of Paul that we shall need to go to find a body of explicit instances of the usage in question. This is, as we have said, an interesting fact of literary usage, but it is not to be pressed into an indication of a divergent point of view toward "Scripture" between the Epistle to the Hebrews and the epistles that bear Paul's name.

Even Dr. Westcott seems, to be sure, so to press it. In the interesting dissertation "On the Use of the Old Testament in the Epistle," which he has appended to his "Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews," he sets out in some detail the facts that bear on the mode in which that epistle cites the Old Testament:

"The quotations," he tells us, "are without exception made anonymously. There is no mention anywhere of the name of the writer (4:7 is no exception to the rule). God is presented as the speaker through the person of the prophet, except in the one place where He is directly addressed (2:6).… In two places the words are attributed to Christ.… In two other places the Holy Spirit specially is named as the speaker.… But it is worthy of notice that in each of these two cases the words are also quoted as the words of God (4:7, 8:8). This assignment of the written word to God, as the Inspirer of the message, is most remarkable when the words spoken by the prophet in his own person are treated as divine words-as words spoken by Moses: 1:6 (Deut. 32:43); 4:4, comp. vv. 5, 7, 8 (Gen. 2:2); 10:30 (Deut. 32:36); and by Isaiah: 2:13 (Isa. 8:17 f), comp. also 13:5 (Deut. 31:6). Generally it must be observed that no difference is made between the word spoken and the word written. For us and for all ages the record is the voice of God. The record is the voice of God, and as a necessary consequence the record is itself living.… The constant use of the present tense in quotations emphasizes this truth: 2:11, 3:7, 12:5. Comp. 12:6."

Every careful student will recognize this at once as a very clear and very true statement of the attitude of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews toward the Old Testament. But we cannot help thinking that Dr. Westcott overshoots the mark when he throws it into strong contrast with the attitude of the rest of the New Testament writers to the Old Testament. When he says, for example: "There is nothing really parallel to this general mode of quotation in the other books of the New Testament"—meaning apparently to suggest, as the subsequent context indicates, that the author of this Epistle exhibits an identification in his mind of the written text of the Scriptures with the voice of God which is foreign to the other writers of the New Testament—he would seem to have attached far too great significance to what is, after all, so far as it is real, nothing more than one of those surface differences of individual usage which are always observable among writers who share the same fundamental view-point, or even in different treatises from the same hand. Entirely at one in looking upon the Scriptures as nothing less than τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ (Rom. 3:2, Heb. 5:12)—in all their parts and phrases the utterance of God—the epistles that bear the name of Paul and this epistle yet chance to differ in the prevalent mode in which these "oracles" are adduced: the one in its formulas of citation emphasizing the sole fact that they are "oracles" it is quoting, the others, that these "oracles" lie before them in written form. Let the fact of this difference, of course, be noted: but let it not be overstrained and, as if it were the sole relevant fact in the field of view, made to bear the whole weight of a theory of the relations of the two in their attitude toward Scripture.

Impossible as such a procedure should be in any case, it becomes doubly so when we note the extremely narrow and insecure basis for the conclusion drawn, which is offered by the differences in usage adduced between Hebrews and the rest of the New Testament—which means for us primarily the epistles that bear the name of Paul. Says Dr. Westcott in immediate sequence to what we have quoted from him:

"There is nothing really parallel to this general mode of quotation in the other books of the New Testament. Where the word λέγει occurs elsewhere, it is for the most part combined either with the name of the prophet or with 'Scripture': e.g., Rom. 10:16, Ἡσαΐας λέγει; 10:19, Μωυσῆς λέγει; 11:9, Δαυεὶδ λέγει; 4:3, ἡ γραφὴ λέγει; 9:17, λέγει ἡ γραφή, etc. Where God is the subject, as is rarely the case, the reference is to words directly spoken by God: 2 Cor. 6:2, λέγει γὰρ (ὁ θεός); Rom. 9:15, τῷ Μωυσεῖ λέγει; 9:25, ἐν τῷ Ὡσηὲ λέγει. Comp. Rom. 15:9–12 (γέγραπται … λέγει.… Ἡσαΐας λέγει). The two passages in the Epistle to the Ephesians (4:8, 5:14, διὸ λέγει) appear to be different in kind."

The last remark is apparently intended to exclude Eph. 4:8 and 5:14 from consideration. The immediately preceding one seems intended to suggest that the subject to be supplied to λέγει in Rom. 15:10, which carries with it also Rom. 15:11, is ἡ γραφή; if we rather supply with Sanday-Headlam θεός, this citation would afford an instance to the contrary. Other cases similar to this, e. g., Acts 13:35. and (with the parallel φησί) 1 Cor. 6:16, are simply passed by in silence. If such cases were considered, perhaps the induction would be different.

It is possible, on the other hand, that the usage of the Epistle to the Hebrews also is conceived by Dr. Westcott a shade too narrowly. It scarcely seems sufficient to say of 2:6, for example, that this passage is not an exception to the more general usage of the Epistle inasmuch as it is "the one place where God is directly addressed"—and is therefore not ascribed to Him, but to "some one somewhere." According to Dr. Westcott's own exposition, we have in 1:10 also words addressed to God and yet cited as spoken by God, and in a number of passages words spoken of God nevertheless cited as spoken by Him; and, in a word, the fundamental principle of the mode of quotation used by this Epistle is that the words of Scripture as such are the living words of God and are cited as such indifferently—whether in the original context spoken by Him or by another of Him, to Him, or apart from Him. In any event, therefore, the citation in the present passage by the formula "someone hath somewhere borne witness" is an exception to the general usage of the Epistle, and evidences that the author of it, though conceiving Scripture as such as a body of divine oracles, did not really lose sight of the fact that these oracles were delivered through men, and might therefore be cited on occasion as the deliverances of these men. In other words, here is a mode of citation of the order affirmed to be characteristic of the letters bearing the name of Paul. It is at least not beyond the limits of possibility that another such instance occurs in 4:7: "saying in David." No doubt, "in David," may be taken here, as Dr. Westcott takes it, as meaning "in the person of David," i. e., through his prophetic utterances; but it seems, on the whole, much more natural to take it as parallel to ἐν τῇ βίβλῳ Μωυσέως (Mark 12:26), ἐν τῷ Ὡσηέ (Rom. 9:25), and as meaning "in the book of David"—exhibiting the consciousness of the author that he is quoting not merely "God," but God in the written Scripture—written by the hand of men. This is the more worth insisting on that it is really not absolutely certain that the subject of the λέγων here is immediately "God" at all. There is no subject expressed either for it or the ὁρίζει on which it depends; and when we go back in the context for an express subject it eludes us, and we shall not find it until we arrive at the "even as the Holy Ghost saith" of 3:7. From that point on, we have a series of quotations, introduced, quite in the manner of Philo, with formulæ which puzzle us as to their reference—whether to God, who is the general subject of the whole context, or to Scripture, conceived as the voice of God (e. g., 3:15, ἐν τῷ λέγεσθαι,—by whom? God? or "the Scripture" already quoted? 4:4, εἴρηκεν—who? God? or Scripture? 4:5, καὶ ἐν τούτῳ πάλιν). Something of the same kind meets us in the eighth chapter, where quite in the manner of Philo, we begin at ver. 5: "Even as Moses was oracularly warned when about to make the tabernacle, for 'see,' φησίν, etc." and proceed at ver. 8, with a subjectless λέγει, to close with ver. 13 with an equally subjectless ἐν τῷ λέγειν. It certainly is not obvious that the subject to be supplied to these three verbs is "God" rather than "oracular Scripture."

One can but feel that with a due regard to these two classes of neglected facts, a somewhat broader comparison of the usage of the Epistle to the Hebrews and that of those letters that bear the name of Paul would not leave an impression of such sharp and indubitable divergence in point of view as Dr. Westcott's statement is apt to suggest. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the verb λέγω is used to introduce citations, (1) with expressed subject: 2:6, "But someone somewhere hath borne witness, saying.…"; 3:7, "Even as the Holy Ghost saith.…"; 6:14, "God.… sware by himself, saying.…": (2) with subject to be supplied from the preceding context: 1:6, "And when he (God) again bringeth in the firstborn into the world, he saith.…"; 1:7, "And of the angels he (God) saith.…"; 2:12, "He (Christ) is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying.…"; 5:6, "As he (God) saith also in another place.…": (3) with subject to be supplied from the general knowledge of the reader: 10:5, "Wherefore when he (Christ) cometh into the world, he saith.…"; 10:8, "Saying (Christ) above.…"; 12:26, "But now hath he (God) promised, saying.…": (4) without obvious subject: 3:15, "While it is said, To day, etc." (by whom? God? or the Scripture quoted, 3:7 seq.?); 4:7, "He [or it?] again defineth a certain time, saying in David.…"; 8:8, "For finding fault with them, he [or it?] saith.…" (cf. 8:13, "in that he [or it?] saith.…"). On the other hand, in the epistles that bear the name of Paul we may distinguish some four cases of the adduction of Scripture by the formula λέγει. (1) Sometimes, quoting Scripture as a divine whole, the formula runs ἡ γραφὴ λέγει or λέγει ἡ γραφή: Rom. 4:3, 9:17 (λέγει ἡ γραφή τῷ Φαραῳ̈́), 11:2 (ἡ γραφὴ ἐν Ἡλεία), Gal. 4:30, 1 Tim. 5:18. (2) Sometimes it is adduced by the name of the author: Δαυεὶδ λέγει, Rom. 4:6, 11:9; Ἡσαίας λέγει, Rom. 10:16, 20, 15:12. (3) Sometimes it is quoted by its contents: ὁ νόμος λέγει, Rom. 3:19, 7:7, 1 Cor. 9:8, 10, 14:34; the righteousness that is of faith λέγει, Rom. 10:6 (cf. ver. 10); ὁ χρηματισμός λέγει, Rom. 11:4. (4) Sometimes it is adduced by the verb λέγει without expressed subject. (A) In some of these cases the subject is plainly indicated in the preceding context: Rom. 9:25 = "God," from ver. 22; 10:10 = "the righteousness of faith," (?) from ver. 6; 10:21 = "Isaiah," from ver. 20. (B) In others it is less clearly indicated and is not altogether obvious: [Acts 13:34 = "God," from εἴρηκεν?]; Rom. 9:15 = "God," from ver. 14?; Rom. 15:10 = "Scripture," from γέγραπται?; 2 Cor. 6:2 = "God," from preceding context; Gal. 3:16 = "God," from the promises?; Eph. 4:8 and 5:12. It should be added that parallel to the use of the subjectless φησί in Heb. 8:5 we have the similar use of it in 1 Cor. 6:16.

When we glance over these two lists of phenomena we shall certainly recognize a difference between them: but the difference is not suggestive of such an extreme distinction as Dr. Westcott appears to indicate. The fact is that for its proper estimation we must rise to a higher viewpoint and look upon the two lists in the light of a much larger fact. For we cannot safely study this difference of usage as an isolated phenomenon: and we shall get the key to its interpretation into our hands only when we correlate it with a more general view of the estimate of Scripture and mode of adducing Scripture prevalent at the time and in the circles which are represented by these epistles. Dr. Westcott already points the way to this wider outlook, when at the end of his discussion he adds these words:

"The method of citation on which we have dwelt is peculiar to the Epistle [to the Hebrews] among the writings of the New Testament; but it is interesting to notice that there is in the Epistle of Clement a partial correspondence with it. Clement generally quotes the LXX. anonymously. He attributes the prophetic words to God (15, 21, 46), to Christ (16, 22), to the Holy Word (13, 56), to the Holy Spirit (13, 16). But he also, though rarely, refers to the writers (26, Job; 52, David), and to Books (57, Proverbs, 'the all virtuous Wisdom'), and not unfrequently uses the familiar form γέγραπται (14, 39, etc.). The quotations in the Epistle of Barnabas are also commonly anonymous, but Barnabas mentions several names of the sacred writers, and gives passages from the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms with the formula, 'the Prophet saith' (vi. 8; 2; 4, 6)."

And, he should have added, Barnabas also repeatedly adduces what he held to be the Word of God with the formulas γέγραπται, (iv. 3, 14, v. 2, xi. 1, xiv. 6, xv. 1, xvi. 6) and λέγει ἡ γραφή (iv. 7, 11, v. 4, vi. 12, xiii. 2, xv. 5): and indeed passes from the one mode of citation to the other without the least jar, as, for example, in chap. 5.: "For it is written concerning him, some things indeed with respect to Israel, and some with respect to us. For it saith this (Isa. 53:5, 7).…. And the Scripture saith (Prov. 1:17).… And still also this (Gen. 1:26).…. For God saith (Zech. 13:7).… For the prophesier saith (Ps. 22:21, etc.).…. And again it saith (Isa. 50:6)." Though adverting thus to these facts, however, Dr. Westcott quite misses their significance. What they mean is shortly this: that the two modes of citing Scripture thought to distinguish Hebrews and the letters that bear the name of Paul, do not imply well-marked distinctive modes of conceiving Scripture; but coëxist readily within the limits of one brief letter, like the letter of Clement or that of Barnabas. No wonder, when laid side by side, we found the usages of the two to present no sharply marked division line, but to crumble into one another along the edges. And when we look beyond Clement and Barnabas and take a general glance over the literature of the time, it is easily seen that we are looking in the two cases only at two fragments of one fact, and are seeing in each only one of the everywhere current methods of citing Scripture as the very Word of God. It seems inconceivable that one could rise from reading, say, twenty pages of Philo, for example, without being fully convinced of this.

Philo's fundamental conception of Scripture is that it is a book of oracles; each passage of it is a χρησμός or λόγιον, and the whole is therefore οἱ χρησμοί or τὰ λόγια: he currently quotes it, accordingly, as "the living voice" of God, and whole treatises of his may be read without meeting with a single citation introduced by γέγραπται or with the Scriptures once called ἡ γραφή. Nevertheless, when occasion serves, he adduces Scripture readily enough as ἡ γραφή, and cites it with γέγραπται, and calls it τὰ γράμματα. We have no more reason for assuming that such modes of citing Scripture would have been foreign to the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (whose mode of citing Scripture is markedly Philonic) than we have for assuming that the author of the tract de Mutatione Nominum, in which they do not occur, but where Scripture is almost exclusively οἱ χρησμοί, or the author of the tracts de Somniis, where again they do not occur, but where Scripture is almost exclusively ὁ ἱερὸς (or ὁ θεῖος) λόγος (i. 14, 22, 33, 35, 37, 39, 42, ii. 4, 9, 37, etc.; i. 33, ii. 37)—which designations are rare again in de Mutatione Nominum (ὁ θ. λ., 20; ὁ ἱ. λ., 38)—held a different conception of Scripture from the author of the tract de Legatione ad Caium (§ 29) or the tract de Abrahamo (§ 1), in which the Scriptures are spoken of as τὰ γράμματα or αἱ γραφαί. There is no reason, in a word, why, if the Epistle to the Hebrews had contained even a single other verse, it might not have presented the "exotic," ἡ γραφή or γέγραπται. Because Philo or the author of this Epistle was especially accustomed to look on Scripture as a body of oracles and to cite it accordingly, is no reason why he should forget that it is a body of written oracles and be incapable on occasion of citing it from that point of view. Similarly because Paul ordinarily cites Scripture as written is no reason why he should not be firmly convinced that what is written in it is oracles, or should not occasionally cite it from that point of view. In a word, the two modes of citing Scripture brought into contrast by Bishop Westcott are not two mutually exclusive ways of citing Scripture, but two mutually complementary methods. The use of the one by any writer does not argue that the other is foreign to him; if we have enough written material from his hand, we are sure rather to find in him traces of the other usage also. This is the meaning of the presence in the Epistle to the Hebrews of suggestive instances of an approach to the citation of Scripture as a document: and of the presence in the epistles bearing the name of Paul of instances of modes of citation which hint of his conception of Scripture as an oracular book. Where and when the sense of the oracular character of the source of the quotation is predominatingly in mind it tends to be quoted with the simple φησί or λέγει, with the implication that it is God that says it: this is most richly exhibited in Philo, and, within the limits of the New Testament, most prevailingly in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Where and when, on the other hand, the consciousness that it is from a written source that the authoritative words are drawn is predominant in the mind, it tends to be quoted with the simple γέγραπται or the more formal ἡ γραφὴ λέγει: this is the mode in which it is most commonly cited in the epistles that bear the name of Paul. Both modes of citation rest on the common consciousness of the Divine authority of the matter cited, and have no tendency to exclude one another: they appear side by side in the same writer, and must be held to predominate variously in different writers only according to their prevailing habits of speaking of Scripture, and at different times in the same writer according as the circumstances under which he was writing threw the emphasis in his mind temporarily upon the Scriptures as written oracles or as written oracles.

From this point of view we may estimate Dr. Westcott's remark: "Nor can it be maintained that the difference of usage is to be explained by the difference of readers, as being [In Hebrews] Jews, for in the Gospels γέγραπται is the common formula (nine times in St. Matthew)." This remark, like his whole treatment of the subject, seems conceived in a spirit which is too hard and narrow, too drily statistical. No one, doubtless, would contend that the difference of readers directly produced the difference of usage, as if the Scriptures must be quoted to Jews as "oracles of God," and to Gentiles as "written documents." But it is far from obvious that the difference of readers may not, after all, have had very much to do with the prevalence of the one mode of citation in the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the other in the epistles that bear the name of Paul. The Jews were certainly accustomed to the current citation of the Scriptures as the living voice of God in oracular deliverances—as the usage of Philo sufficiently indicates: and it may be that this was subtly felt the most impressive method of adducing the words of the Holy Book when addressing Jews. On the other hand, the heathen were accustomed to authoritative documents, cited currently, with an implication of their authority, by the formula γέγραπται: and it may well be that this subtly suggested itself as the most telling way of adducing Scripture as authoritative law to the Gentiles. We need not ride such a notion too hard: but it at least seems far from inconceivable that the selfsame writer, addressing, on the one hand, a body of devout Jews, and, on the other, a body of law-loving Romans, might find himself using almost unconsciously modes of adducing Scripture suggestive, in the one case, of loving awe in its presence and, in the other, of its binding authority over the conscience. Be this as it may, however, it is quite clear that the fact that Paul ordinarily adduces Scripture with "the forms (καθὼς) γέγραπται (sixteen times in the Epistle to the Romans), ἡ γραφὴ λέγει, and the like, which never occur in the Epistle to the Hebrews," implies no far-reaching difference of conception on his part from that exhibited by that Epistle, as to the fundamental character of the Scriptures as an oracular book—which, on the contrary, is just what he calls them (Rom. 3:2)—and certainly raises no presumption against his occasionally quoting them as an oracular book with the formula so characteristic of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ὁ θεὸς λέγει, or its equivalents. And the fact that "Paul not unfrequently quotes the words of God as 'Scripture' simply (e. g., Rom. 9:17)" so far from raising a presumption that he would not quote "Scripture" as "words of God," actually demonstrates the contrary, as it only in another way indicates the identification on his part of the written word with the voice of the speaking God.

If we approach the study of such texts as Eph. 4:8, 5:14, therefore, from the point of view of the Pauline conception of Scripture, there is no reason why they should not be understood as adducing Scripture with a high "God says." To say that "we have reason to believe" that such a formula "could not be used by Paul," is as wide of the mark as could well be. To say that it is a formula more in accordance with the point of view of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is to confound mere occasional differences in usage with fundamental differences in conception. To Paul, too, the Scriptures are a book of oracles, and though he cites them ordinarily as written oracles there is no reason why he should not occasionally cite them merely as oracles. And in any case, whether we take the subauditum in such passages as "God," or "Scripture," or prefer to render simply by "it," from Paul's point of view the meaning is all one: in any case, Scripture is to him the authoritative dictum of God and what it says is adduced as the authoritative word that ends all strife.

In seeking to estimate the likelihoods as to the meaning of such a locution as the διὸ λέγει of Eph. 4:8, 5:14, we should not lose from sight, on the other hand, the fact that the Greek language was not partial to true "impersonals," that is, absolutely indefinite uses of its verbs. Says Jelf:

"Of impersonal verbs (in English, verbs with the indefinite it) the Greek language has but few."

Says Kühner:

"Impersonal verbs, by which we understand a verb agreeing with the indefinite pronoun it, are not known to the Greek language: for expressions like δεῖ, χρή … λέγεται, etc.… the Greek always conceived as personal, in that the infinitive or subjoined sentence was considered the subject of these verbs."

No doubt, the subject often suffers ellipsis—especially when it may be counted upon readily to suggest itself, either out of the predicate itself, or out of the context, or out of the knowledge of the reader: and no doubt this implied subject is sometimes the indefinite τις. But it remains true that as yet there has turned up no single instance in all Greek literature of λέγει in the purely indefinite sense of "someone says," equivalent to "it is said" in the meaning of general rumor, or of a common proverb, or a current saying; and though there have been pointed out instances of something like this in the case of the kindred word φησί, it still remains somewhat doubtful precisely how they are to be interpreted. The forms commonly used to express this idea are either the expressed τις, or the third person plural, as λέγουσι, φασί, ὀνομάζουσιν, or the third person singular passive, as λέγεται, or the second person singular optative or indicative of the historical tenses, as φαίης ἄν, = dicas, or the like.

We find it, indeed, occasionally asserted that φησί is used sometimes or frequently as a pure impersonal, in the sense of "it is said." The passage from Bernhardy, to be sure, to which reference has been made in support of this assertion, by more than one of the commentators adduced above, has its primary interest not in this point, but in the different one of the use of the singular φησί for the plural—like the Latin inquit, and the English "says" in that vulgar colloquial locution in which it is made to do duty not only in the form "he says," but also in such forms as "I says" and "you says," and even "they says" and "we says." What Bernhardy remarks is:

"The rhetorical employment of the singular for the plural rests on the Greek peculiarity (K. 3, 5; 6, 13c.) of clearly conceiving and representing the multitude by means of the individual. A ready instance of this is supplied by the formula φησί, like the Latin inquit an expression for all persons and numbers for designating an indefinite speaker (den beliebigen Redner)—'heisst es'; and by the more classic εἰπέ μοι in appeal to the multitude in Attic life, Arist. (as Pac., 385, εἰπέ μοι τί πάσχετʼ ὦνδρες; coll. Eccl., 741), Plat. (clearly in a turn like εἰπέ μοι, ὦ Σώκρατές τε καὶ ὑμεῖς οἱ ἄλλοι), Demosth., Phil. 1, p. 45; Chers., p. 108; Timocr., p. 718."

The usage of φησί here more particularly adverted to—for all numbers and persons—seems a not uncommon one. Instances may possibly be found in the "Discourses" of Epictetus i. 29, 34 (Schenkl, p. 95). "Even athletes are dissatisfied with slight young men: 'He cannot lift me,' φησί," where φησί might perhaps be rendered by our vernacular, "says they," referring to "the athletes." Again, iv. 9, 15 (Schenkl, p. 383): "But learn from what the trainers of boys do. The boy has fallen: 'Rise,' φησί, 'wrestle again, till you become strong!' " where we may possibly have another 'says they,' viz., the trainers. Possibly again ii. 10, 20 (Schenkl, p. 133), "But consider, if you refer everything to a small coin, not even he who loses his nose is in your opinion damaged. 'Yes,' φησί, 'for he is mutilated in his body,' " where possibly φησί is "says you," referring to the collocutor, addressed in the preceding context in the second person—though, no doubt, another explanation is here possible. Indeed, in no one of the instances cited is it impossible to conceive a singular subject derived from the contextual plural as specially in mind. If φησί were genuine in Wisdom 15:12, 2 Cor. 10:10, these might well supply other instances—the "says they" in each case continuing the contextual or implicated plural. But in none of these instances, it is to be observed, would the subject be conceived as in the strict sense "indefinite." It is a perfectly definite subject that is present to the mind of the writer, given either in the immediate context or in the thorough understanding that exists between the writer and reader. There is in them nothing whatever of the vagueness that attaches to the French "on dit," or the German "man sagt," or the English "it is said." The Greeks had other locutions for expressing this idea, and if it was ever expressed by the simple φησί, only the slightest traces of it remain in their extant literature.

In the seventh edition of the Greek Lexicon of Liddell & Scott, nevertheless, this usage is expressly assigned to φησί. We read:

"φασί parenthetically, they say, it is said, Il. 5, 638, Od. 6, 42 and Att.; but in prose also φησί, like French on dit, Dem. 650, 13, Plut. ii 112 C., etc. (so Lat. inquit, ait, Gronov, Liv. 34, 3, Bent. Hor. 1 Sat. 4, 79;—especially in urging an objection or counter-argument, 5. Interpp. Pers. Sat. 1, 40);—so also ἔφη, c. acc. et inf., Xen. An. i, 6, 6."

It is far from obvious, however, that the passages here adduced will justify precisely the usage which they are cited to illustrate. In the passage from Demosthenes—ἔστω, φησὶν, ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ ἡ αὐτὴ τιμωρία, etc.—it seems to be quite clear, as the previous sentence suggests and the editors recognize, that the subject of the φησί is ἕκαστος τῶν γεγραφότων, and is far from a purely indefinite τις. The passage from Plutarch ("Consolatio ad Apollonium," xxi) is more specious. It runs: ἀλλʼ οὐ γὰρ ἤλπιζον, φησί, ταῦτα πείσεσθαι, οὐδὲ προσεδόκων; and is translated in the Latin version, "At, inquiunt, præter spem mihi hic casus et expectationem evenit"; and in Holland's old English version, "But haply you will say, I never thought that this would have befallen unto me, neither did I so much as doubt any such thing." A glance at the context, however, is enough to show that there is no purely indefinite φησί here, though it may be that we have here another instance of its usage without regard to number and person. In any case, the subject is the quite definitely conceived interlocutor of the passage. That the ἔφη adduced at the end of the note as in some degree of the same sort is not an indefinite ἔφη, but has the Clearchus of the immediately preceding context as its subject, is too obvious for remark. Clearchus was present by the request of Cyrus at the trial of Orontes, and when he came out he reported to his friends the manner in which the trial was conducted: "He said (ἔφη) that Cyrus began to speak as follows." It is not by such instances as these that the occurrence of a purely indefinite φησί can be established.

The subjectless φησί, to be sure, does occur very thickly scattered over the face of Greek literature, introducing or emphasizing quotations, or adducing objections, or the like: but the "it" that is to be supplied to it is, ordinarily at least, a quite definite one with its own definite reference perfectly clear. A characteristic instance, often referred to, is that in Demosth., "Leptin," § 56: καὶ γάρ τοι μόνῳ τῶν πάντων αὐτῷ τοῦτʼ ἐν τῇ στήλῃ γέγραπται, ἐπειδὴ Κόνων, φησίν, ἠλευθέρωσε τοὺς Ἀθηναίων συμμάχους.—Ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο τὸ γράμμα.…." Here F. A. Wolf comments: "Absolute ibi interjectum est φησίν, aut, si mavis, subaudi ὁ γράψας"; and Schaefer adds: "Subaudi ἡ στήλη." It does not appear why we should not render simply "it says": but this "it" is so far from an " 'indefinite' it" that it has its clear reference to the inscription just mentioned. Perhaps even more instructive is a passage in the third Philippic42 of Demosthenes, which runs as follows:

"That such is our present state, you yourselves are witnesses, and need not any testimony from me. That our state in former times was quite opposite to this, I shall now convince you, not by any arguments of mine, but by a decree of your ancestors (γράμματα τῶν προγόνων), which they inscribed upon a brazen column (στήλην) erected in the citadel.… What, then, says the decree (τί οὖν λέγει τὰ γράμματα)? 'Let Arithmius,' it says (φησίν), 'of Zelia, the son of Pythonax, be accounted infamous and an enemy to the Athenians and their allies, both he and all his race.'… The sentence imported somewhat more, for, in the laws importing capital cases, it is enacted (γέγραπται) that 'when the legal punishment of a man's crime cannot be inflicted he may be put to death', and it was accounted meritorious to kill him. 'Let not the infamous man,' saith the law, 'be permitted to live' (καὶ ἄτιμος, φησί, τεθνάτω), intimating that he is free from guilt who executes this sentence (τοῦτο δὴ λέγει, καθαρὸν τὸν τούτων τινὰ ἀποκτείναντα εἶναι)."

In both cases it is doubtless enough to render φησί, "it says," its function being in each case to call pointed attention to the words quoted: but the "it" is by no means "indefinite" in the sense that its reference was not very definitely conceived. On the second instance of its occurrence Wolf comments: "s. ὁ φονικὸς νόμος," while Schaefer says:44

"Pleonastice positum cum γέγραπται praecesserit. Verumtamen h. I. sensum paulo magis juvat quam ubi post εἶπον, εἶπε, continuo sequitur ἔφην, ἔφη. Ad φησί subaudi ὁ νομοθέτης."

These instances will supply us with typical examples of the "absolute" φησί; and, in this sense, "subjectless φησί" is of very common occurrence indeed in Greek literature.

But really "subjectless φησί," i. e., φησί without any implied subject in context or common knowledge, which therefore we must take quite indefinitely, is very rare indeed, if not non-existent. Perhaps one of the most likely instances of such a usage is offered us by a passage in Plutarch's "Consolatio ad Apollonium," 34. Holland's old version of it runs thus:46

"And verily in regard of him who is now in a blessed estate, it has not been naturall for him to remaine in this life longer than the terme prefixed and limited unto him; but after he had honestly performed the course of his time, it was needfull and requisit for him to take the way for to returne unto his destinie that called for him to come unto her."

From this we may at least learn that φησίν here presented some difficulty, as Holland passes it by unrendered. The common Latin version restores it, reading the last clause thus: "Sed ita postulabit natura ut hoc expleto fatale quod aiunt iter conficeret, revocante eum jam ad se natura"; the Greek running thus: "ἀλλʼ εὐτάκτως τοῦτον ἐκπλήσαντι πρὸς τὴν εἱμαρμένην ἐπανάγειν πορείαν, καλούσης αὐτῆς, φησίν, ἤδη πρὸς ἑαιτήν." The theory of the Latin version obviously is that φησίν here is to be taken indefinitely, that is as an index hand pointing to a current designation of death as an entering upon the "fated journey"—ἡ εἱμαρμένη πορεία. This is explained to us by Wyttenbach's note:

"φησίν] non debebat offendere viros doctos. Est ut ait poeta ille unde hoc sumptum est. Videt hoc et Reiskius. Correxi versionem. De Tragici dicto in Animadversibus dicetur."

Accordingly, in the Animadversions, he addresses himself first to showing that the expression here signalized was a current poetical saying—appealing to Plato,49 Julian, Philo; and then adds:

"Cæterum φησίν ita elliptice usitatum est: v. c. Plutarcho, p. 135 B., 817 D., Dion. Chrys., p. 493 D., 532 A., 562 B. Notavit et Uptonus ad Epict. in Indice. In annotatoribus ad Lambertum Bosium de Ellipsibus unus Schoettgenius, idque ex uno Paulo Apostolo hunc usum annotavit, p. 74. Et. Latine ita dicitur inquit, quod monuerunt J. F. Gronovius et A. Drakenborch. ad Livium xxiv. 3, J. A. Ernestus in Clav. Cic. voce Inquit."

It does not seem, however, that Wyttenbach would have us read the φησί here quite indefinitely, as adducing for example a current saying: judging from his own paraphrase this might appear to him as a certain exaggeration of its implication. Its office would seem rather to be to call attention to the words, to which it is adjoined, as quoted, and thus, in the good understanding implied to exist between the writer and his readers, to point definitely to its source: so that it might be a proper note to it to say, "subaudi ὁ τραγικός, vel ὁ ποιητής"—and this might be done with a considerable emphasis on the ὁ; nay, the actual name of the poet, well known to both writer and reader, though now lost to us, might equally well be the subauditum, and such, indeed, may be the implication of the subauditum suggested by Wyttenbach: ut ait poeta ille unde hoc scriptum est. Surely, an instance like this is far from a clear case of the absolutely indefinite or even generally undefining use of φησί.

Among the references with which Wyttenbach supports his note, the most promising sends us to Epictetus, whose "Discourses" abound in the most varied use of φησί, and offer us at the same time one of our most valuable sources of knowledge of the Greek in common use near the times of the apostles. We meet with many instances here which it has been customary to explain as cases of φησί in a wholly indefinite reference. But the matter is somewhat complicated by the facts that we are not reading here Epictetus' "Discourses" pure and simple, but Arrian's report of them; and that Arrian may exercise his undoubted right to slip in a φησί of his own whenever he specially wishes to keep his readers' attention fixed upon the fact that they are his master's words he is setting down, or perhaps even merely out of the abiding sense, on his own part, that he is reporting Epictetus and not writing out of his own mind. When such a φησί occurs at the beginning of a section it gives no trouble: every reader recognizes it at once as Arrian's. But when it occurs unexpectedly in the midst of a vivacious discussion, the reader who is not carrying with him the sense of Arrian's personality, standing behind the Epictetus he is attending to, is very apt to be stumbled by it, and to resort to some explanation of it on the theory that it is Epictetus' own and is to find its interpretation in the context. An attempt has been made by Schenkl in the index to his edition of Epictetus to distinguish between the instances in which φησί occurs "inter Epicteti verba ab Arriano servata," and those in which it occurs "inter Arriani verba." It will be found that most of the instances where it has been thought markedly indefinite in its reference are classed by him in the second group and are thus made very definite indeed—the standing subauditum being "Epictetus." Opinions will, no doubt, differ as to the proper classification of a number of these: and in any case many instances remain which cannot naturally be so explained—occurring as they do in the midst of vividly conceived dramatic passages. In this very vividness of dramatic action, however, is doubtless to be found the explanation of these instances. So far are the verbs here from being impersonal, that the speakers in these little dialogues stood out before Epictetus' mind's eye as actual persons; and it is therefore that he so freely refers to them with his vivid φησί.

The following are some of the most striking examples of his usage of the word. "But now we admit that virtue produces one thing, and we declare that approaching near to it is another thing, namely progress or improvement. Such a person, φησίν, is already able to read Chrysippus by himself. Indeed, sir, you are making great progress" (i. 4, 9). Here Schenkl suggests that the φησίν is Arrian's, and this would seem to be a good suggestion, as it illuminates the passage in more ways than one. If not, the subauditum would seem to be the collocutor of the paragraph: a "some one," no doubt, but rather the "some one" most prominent in the mind of writer and reader in this discussion. "But a man may say, Whence shall I get bread to eat, when I have nothing (καὶ πόθεν φάγω, φησί, μηδὲν ἔχων;)?" (i. 9, 8). Here again the φησί seems best explained as Arrian's (Schenkl): if not, the subauditum is again the collocutor prominent through the context, and only, in that sense, indefinite. "Who made these things and devised them? 'No one,' you say (φνσίν). O amazing shamelessness and stupidity" (i. 16, 8). The reference is to the collocutor. "They are thieves and robbers you may say (κλέπται, φησίν, εἰσι.…)" (i. 18, 3). Either Arrian's (Schenkl), or with the collocutor as the subauditum. "How can you conquer the opinion of another man? By applying terror to it, he replies (φησίν), I will conquer it" (i. 29, 12). Subaudi the collocutor. "For why, a man says (φησί), do I not know the beautiful and the ugly?" (ii. 11, ?). Either Arrian's (Schenkl), or subaudi the collocutor. "How, he replies (φησίν), am I not good?" (ii. 13, 17). Either Arrian's (Schenkl), or subaudi the collocutor. So also similarly in ii. 22, 4; iii. 2, 5; iii. 5, 1, etc. Cf. also ii. 23, 16; iii. 3, 12; ix. 15; xx. 12; xxvi. 19. Similarly, in the "Fragments" we have this: "They are amusing fellows, said he (ἔφη = Epictetus), who are proud of the things which are not in our power. A man says, I (ἐγώ, φησί) am better than you, for I possess much land and you are wasting with hunger. Another says (ἄλλος λέγει).…." ("Frag.," xviii. [Schw., 16]). Here the φησί is brought in as the initial member of a series and in contrast with ἄλλος λέγει: it would seem to be Epictetus' own, therefore, and to mean "says one," as distinguished from another; and thus it appears to be the most likely instance of the "indefinite φησί" in the whole mass. But even it seems an essentially different locution from the really indefinite "it is said," "on dit," "man sagt."

A glance over the whole usage of φησί in Arrian-Epictetus leaves on the mind a keen sense of the lively way in which the word must have been interjected into Greek conversation, but does not greatly alter the impression of its essential implication which we derive from the general use of the word. Take a single instance of its current use in the "Discourses" in its relation to kindred words:

"So also Diogenes somewhere says (που λέγει) that there exists but one means of obtaining freedom—to die contentedly, and he writes (γράφει) to the king of the Persians, 'You cannot enslave the city of the Athenians, any more,' says he (φησίν), 'than fishes.' 'How? Can I not catch them?' 'If you catch them,' says he (φησίν), 'they will immediately leave you and be gone, just like fishes: for whatever one of them you catch dies, and if these men die when they are caught, what good will your preparations do you?' " (iv. 1, 30).

The lively effect given by such unexpected interpositions of φησίν is lost in our decorous translation of the New Testament examples: but it exists in them too. Thus: "But she, being urged on by her mother, 'Give me,' says she, 'here upon a charger, the head of John the Baptist' " (Matt. 14:8); "But he, 'Master, speak,' says he" (Luke 7:40); "But Peter to them, 'Repent,' says he, 'and be baptized each one of you' " (Acts 2:38); " 'Let those among you,' says he, 'that are able, go down with me' " (Acts 25:5); " 'To-morrow,' says he, 'thou shalt hear him' " (Acts 25:22); "But Paul, 'I am not mad,' says he, 'most noble Festus' " (Acts 26:25). The main function of φησί then would appear to be to keep the consciousness of the speaker reported clearly before the mind of the reader. It is therefore often used to mark the transition from indirect to direct quotation: and it lent itself readily, therefore, to mark the adduction both of objections and of literary citations. But, one would imagine, it did not very readily lend itself to vague and indefinite references.

If we desire to find cases of "subjectless λέγει" in any way similar to those of φησί, we must apparently turn our back on profane Greek altogether. We have fortunately in Philo, however, an author, the circumstances of whose writing made literary quotation as frequent with him as oral is in the lively pages of Epictetus' "Discourses." And in Philo's treatises λέγει takes its place by the side of its more common kinsman φησί, and is used in much the same way, though naturally somewhat less frequently. In harmony with his fundamental viewpoint—which looked on the Scriptures as a body of oracular sayings—Philo adduces Scripture commonly with verbs of "saying"—φησί, λέγεται, λέγει, εἶπεν (γέγραπται falling into the background). Passages so adduced are often woven into the fabric of his discussion of the contents of Scripture; and where the words adduced are words of a speaker in the Biblical narrative, the subject of the φησί or λέγει which introduces them naturally is often this speaker—whether God or some other person. Equally often, however, the subject given immediately or indirectly in the context is something outside of the narrative that is dealt with: in this case it is sometimes Moses, or "the prophet," or "the lawgiver"—at other times, "the Holy Word," or "the sacred Word," or "the Oracle," or "the Oracles" (ὁ θεῖος λόγος, ὁ ἱερὸς λόγος, ὁ χρησμός, τὸ λόγιον, οἱ χρησμοί, τὰ λόγια)—at other times still it is "God," under various designations. Often, however, the verb—φησί or λέγει—stands not only without expressed subject, but equally without indicated subject. The rendering of these cases has given students of Philo some trouble, arising out of the apparent confusion, when the subject is expressed, of the reference of the verb,—now to a speaker in the text of Scripture and now to the author of the particular Scripture, to God as the author of all Scripture, or to Scripture itself conceived as a living Word. This apparent confusion is due solely to Philo's fundamental conception of Scripture as an oracular book, which leads him to deal with its text as itself the Word of God: he has himself fully explained the matter, and we should be able to steer clear of serious difficulties with his explanation in our hands.

Nevertheless, a somewhat mechanical mode of dealing with his citations has produced, on more than one occasion, certain odd results. Prof. Ryle says:

"The commonest forms of quotation employed by Philo are φησί, εἶπεν, λέγει, λέγεται, γέγραπται γὰρ. Whether the subject of φησί be Moses or Scripture personified cannot in many cases be determined."

In no case is the subject strictly indeterminate, however, and the failure to determine it aright may introduce confusion. Thus, for example, in "De Confus. Ling.," § 26 (Mangey, i. 424), Philo mentions the Book of Judges, and cites it with the subjectless φησί. Prof. Ryle comments thus:

"He does not mention any opinion as to authorship, and introduces his quotation with his usual formula φησίν. We are hardly justified in assuming that Philo intended Moses as the subject of φησίν, and regarded him as the author of Judges (so Dr. Pick, Journal of Biblical Literature, 1884). Moses is doubtless often spoken of by Philo as if he were the personification of the Inspired Word; but we cannot safely extend this idea beyond the range of the Pentateuch. All that we can say is that φησίν, used in this quotation from Judges, refers either to the unknown writer of this book or to the personification of Holy Scripture."

Or else, we may add, to God, the real author, in Philo's conception, of every word of Scripture. Prof. Ryle, however, has not caught precisely Dr. Pick's meaning: Dr. Pick does not commit himself to the extravagant view that wherever subjectless φησί occurs in Philo the subauditum "Moses" is implied: he only says, in direct words, that here—in this special passage—"Moses is introduced as speaking." It would seem obvious that he had a text before him which read "Moses says," and not simply "says," at this place. This text was doubtless nothing other than Yonge's English translation, which reads Moses here, as often elsewhere with as little warrant: " 'For,' says Moses, 'Gideon swore, etc.' " The incident illustrates the evil of mechanically supplying a supplement to these subjectless verbs—which cannot indeed be understood except on the basis of Philo's primary principle, that it is all one to say "Moses says," "the Scripture says," or "God says." The simple fact here is that Philo quotes Judges, as he does the rest of Scripture, with the subjectless "says," and with the same implication, viz., that Judges is to him a part of the Word of God.

As has been already hinted, by all means the commonest verb used by Philo thus,—without expressed or obviously indicated subject,—to introduce a Scripture passage, is φησί. Perhaps, however, the one instance to which we have incidentally adverted will suffice to illustrate the usage—other instances of which may be seen on nearly every page of Philo's treatises. It is of more interest for us to note that λέγει seems also to be used in the same subjectless way—examples of which may be seen, for instance, in the following places, "Legg. Allegor.," i, 15; ii, 4; iii, 8; "Quod Det. Pot. Insid.," 48; "De Posterit. Caini," 9; 22; 52; "De Gigant.," 11; 12; "De Confus. Ling.," 32; "De Migrat. Abrah.," 11; "Fragment, ex Joh. Monast." (ii, 668). In "Legg. Allegor.," i, 15, for instance, we have a string of quotations without obvious subject, introduced, the first by the subjectless φησίν, the next by the equally subjectless ἐπιφέρει πάλιν, and the third (from Exod. 20:23) by λέγει δὲ καὶ ἐν ἑτέροις. In "Legg. Allegor.," ii, 4, we have Gen. 2:19 introduced by λέγει γὰρ without any obvious subject. Yonge translates this too by "For Moses says": but to obtain warrant for this we should have to go back two pages and a half (of Richter's text), quite to the beginning of the treatise, where we find an apostrophe to the "prophet." In "De Posterit. Caini," 22, λέγει ἐπὶ μὲν Ἀβραὰμ οὕτως (Gen. 11:29), though Yonge supplies "Moses" again, that would seem to be demonstrably absurd, as the passage proceeds to place "Moses," in parallelism with Abraham, in the object. Similarly the passages adduced from "De Gigant.," 11 and 12 (Num. 14:44 and Deut. 34:6) are about Moses, and it would scarcely do to fill out the ellipsis of subject with his name. Examples need not, however, be multiplied.

It would seem quite clear that both the subjectless φησί frequently, and the subjectless λέγει less often, occur in Philo after a fashion quite similar to the instances adduced from the New Testament. And it would seem to be equally clear that the lack of a subject in their case is not indicative of indefiniteness, but rather of definiteness in their reference. Philo does not adduce passages of Scripture with the bare φησί or λέγει, because he knows or cares very little whence they come or with what authority; but because he and his readers alike both know so well the source whence they are derived, and yield so unquestionably to its authority, that it is unnecessary to pause to indicate either. The use of the bare φησί or λέγει in citations from Scripture is in his case, obviously, the outgrowth and the culminating sign of his absolute confidence in Scripture as the living voice of God, fully recognized as such both by himself and his readers. In the same sense in which to the dying Sir Walter Scott there was but one "Book," to him and his readers there was but one authoritative divine Word, and all that was necessary in adducing it was to indicate the fact of adduction. The φησί or λέγει serves thus primarily the function of "quotation marks" in modern usage: but under such circumstances and with such implications that bare quotation marks carry with them the assurance that the words adduced are divine words.

It would seem to be very easy, in these circumstances, to give ourselves more uneasiness than is at all necessary as to the precise subauditum which we are to assume with these verbs. It may serve very well to render them simply, "It says," with the implication that Philo is using the codex of Scripture as the living voice of God speaking to him and his readers. The case, in a word, would seem to be very similar to that of the common New Testament formula of quotation γέγραπται—meaning not that what is adduced is somewhere written, but that it is the authoritative law that is being adduced. Just so, "It says," in such a case would mean not that somebody or something says what is adduced, but that the Word of God says it. As the one usage is the natural outgrowth of the conception of the Scriptures as a written authoritative law, the other is the equally natural outgrowth of the conception of Scripture as the living voice of God. How very natural a development this usage is, may be illustrated by the fact that something very similar to it may be met with in colloquial English. In the same circles where we may hear God spoken of as simply "He," as if it were dangerous to name His name too freely, we may also occasionally hear the Bible quoted with a simple "It says," or even with an elision of the "it," as "'Tsays": and yet the "it," though treated thus cavalierly, is in reality a very emphatic "It" indeed—the phrase being the product of awe in the presence of "the Book," and importing that there is but one "It" that could be thought of in the case. Somewhat similarly, in the case of Philo, the Scriptures are cited with the bare φησί, λέγει, because, in his mind and in the circles which he addressed, there stood out so far above all other voices this one Voice of God embodied in His Scriptures, that none other would be thought of in the case. The phrase is the outgrowth of reverence for the Word and of unquestioning submission to it: and the fundamental fact is that no special subject is expressed simply because none was needed and it would be all one whether we understood as subject, Moses, the prophet and lawgiver—the holy or sacred Word or the oracle—or finally, God Himself. In any case, and with any subauditum, the real subject conceived as speaking is GOD.

If now, in the light of the facts we have thus brought to our recollection, we turn back to the New Testament passages in which the Old Testament is cited with a simple φησί or λέγει, it may not be impossible for us to perceive their real character and meaning. There would seem to be absolutely no warrant in Greek usage for taking λέγει, and but very little, if any, for taking φησί really indefinitely: and even if there were, it would be inconceivable that the New Testament writers, from their high conception of "Scripture," should have adduced Scripture with a simple "it is said"—somewhere, by some one—without implication of reverence toward the quoted words or recognition of the authority inherent in them. It is rather in the usage of Philo that we find the true analogue of these examples. Like Philo, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews looks upon Scripture as an oracular book, and all that it says, God says to him: and accordingly, like Philo, he adduces its words with a simple "it says," with the full implication that this "it says" is a "God says" also. Whenever the same locution occurs elsewhere in the New Testament, it bears naturally the same implication. There is no reason why we should recognize the Philonic φησί in Heb. 8:5, and deny it in 1 Cor. 6:16: or why we should recognize the Philonic λέγει in Heb. 8:8 and deny it in Acts 13:35, Rom. 9:15, 15:10, 2 Cor. 6:2, Gal. 3:16, or in Eph. 4:8, 5:14. Only in case it were very clear that Paul did not share the high conception of Scripture as the living voice of God which underlies this usage in Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews, could we hesitate to understand this phrase in him as we understand it in them. But we have seen that such is not the case: and his use in adducing Scripture of the subjectless φησί and λέγει quite in their manner is, rightly viewed, only another indication, among many, that his conception of Scripture was fundamentally the same with theirs, and it cannot be explained away on the assumption that it was fundamentally different.

It does not indeed follow that on every occasion when a Scripture passage is introduced by a φησί or a λέγει it is to be explained as an instance of this subjectless usage—even though a subject for it is given or plainly implied in the immediate context. That is not possible even in Philo, where the introductory formula often finds its appropriate subject expressed in the preceding context. But it does follow that we need not and ought not resort to unnatural expedients to find a subject for such a φησί or λέγει in the context, or that acquiescing, whenever that seems more natural, in its subjectlessness, we should seek to explain away its high implications. Men may differ as to the number of clear instances of such a usage, that may be counted in the New Testament. But most will doubtless agree that some may be counted: and will doubtless place among them Eph. 4:8 and 5:14. Some will contend, no doubt, that in the latter of these texts, the passage adduced is not derived from the Old Testament at all. That, however, is "another story," on which we cannot enter now, but on which we must be content to differ. We pause only to say that we reckon among the reasons why we should think the citation here is derived from the Old Testament, just its adduction by διὸ λέγει—which would seem to advise us that Paul intended to quote the oracular Word.

There may be room for difference of opinion again as to the precise subauditum which it will be most natural to assume with these subjectless verbs: whether ὁ θεός or ἡ γραφή. In our view it makes no real difference in their implication: for, in our view, the very essence of the case is, that, under the force of their conception of the Scriptures as an oracular book, it was all one to the New Testament writers whether they said "God says" or "Scripture says." This is made very clear, as their real standpoint, by their double identification of Scripture with God and God with Scripture, to which we adverted at the beginning of this paper, and by which Paul, for example, could say alike "the Scripture saith to Pharaoh" (Rom. 9:17) and "God.… saith, Thou wilt not give thy Holy One to see corruption" (Acts 13:34). We may well be content in the New Testament as in Philo to translate the phrase wherever it occurs, "It says"—with the implication that this "It says" is the same as "Scripture says," and that this "Scripture says" is the same as "God says." It is this implication that is really the fundamental fact in the case.

IX

"THE ORACLES OF GOD"

THE purpose of this paper is to bring together somewhat more fully than can be easily found in one place elsewhere, the material for forming a judgment as to the sense borne by the term [τὰ] λόγια, as it appears in the pages of the New Testament. This term occurs only four times in the New Testament. The passages, as translated by the English revisers of 1881, are as follows: "Moses … who received living oracles to give unto us" (Acts 7:38); "They [the Jews] were intrusted with the oracles of God" (Rom. 3:2); "When by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God" (Heb. 5:12); "If any man speaketh let him speak as it were oracles of God" (1 Peter 4:11). The general sense of the term is obvious on the face of things: and the commentators certainly do not go wholly wrong in explaining it. But the minor differences that emerge in their explanations are numerous, and seem frequently to evince an insufficient examination of the usage of the word: and the references by which they support their several views are not always accessible to readers who would fain test them, so that the varying explanations stand, in the eyes of many, as only so many obiter dicta between which choice must be made, if choice is made at all, purely arbitrarily. It has seemed, therefore, as if it would not be without its value if the usage of the word were exhibited in sufficient fullness to serve as some sort of a touchstone of the explanations that have been offered of it. We are sure, at any rate, that students of the New Testament remote from libraries will not be sorry to have at hand a tolerably full account of the usage of the word: and we are not without hope that a comprehensive view of it may help to correct some long-standing errors concerning its exact meaning, and may, indeed, point not obscurely to its true connotation—which is not without interesting implications. Upheld by this hope we shall essay to pass in rapid review the usage of the term in Classic, Hellenistic and Patristic Greek, and then to ask what, in the light of this usage, the word is likely to have meant to the writers of the New Testament.

I. It may be just as well at the outset to disabuse our minds of any presumption that a diminutive sense is inherent in the term λόγιον, as a result of its very form. Whether we explain it with Meyer-Weiss3 as the neuter of λόγιος and point to λογίδιον as the proper diminutive of this stem; or look upon it with Sanday-Headlam5 as originally the diminutive of λόγος, whose place as such was subsequently, viz., when it acquired the special sense of "oracle," taken by the strengthened diminutive λογίδιον—it remains true that no trace of a diminutive sense attaches to it as we meet it on the pages of Greek literature.

We are pointed, to be sure, to a scholium on the "Frogs" of Aristophanes (line 942) as indicating the contrary. The passage is the well-known one in which Euripides is made to respond to Æschylus' inquiry as to what things he manufactured. "Not winged horses," is the reply (as Wheelwright translates it), "By Jupiter, nor goat-stags, such as thou, Like paintings on the Median tapestry, But as from thee I first received the art, Swelling with boastful pomp and heavy words, I paréd it straight and took away its substance, With little words, and walking dialogues, And white beet mingled, straining from the books A juice of pleasant sayings,—then I fed him With monodies, mixing Ctesiphon." It is upon the word here translated "with little words," but really meaning "verselets" (Blaydes: versiculis)—ἐπυλλίοις—that the scholium occurs. It runs: Ἀντὶ τοῦ λογίοις μικροῖς· ὡς δὲ βρέφος βρεφύλλιον, καὶ εἶδος εἰδύλλιον· οὕτω καὶ ἔπος ἐπύλλιον. That is to say, ἐπύλλιον is a diminutive of the same class as βρεφύλλιον and εἰδύλλιον, and means λόγιον μικρόν. Since the idea of smallness is explicit in the adjective attached to λόγιον here, surely it is not necessary to discover it also in the noun, especially when what the scholiast is obviously striving to say is not that ἐπυλλίοις means "little wordlets," but "little verses." The presence of μικροῖς here, rather is conclusive evidence that λογίοις by itself did not convey a diminutive meaning to the scholiast. If we are to give λόγιον an unexampled sense here, we might be tempted to take it, therefore, as intended to express the idea "verses" rather than the tautological one of "little words" or even "little maxims" or "little sayings." And it might fairly be pleaded in favor of so doing that λόγιον in its current sense of "oracle" not only lies close to one of the ordinary meanings of ἔπος ("Od.," 12, 266; Herod., 1, 13, and often in the Tragedians), but also, because oracles were commonly couched in verse, might easily come to suggest in popular speech the idea of "verse," so that a λόγιον μικρόν would easily obtrude itself as the exact synonym of ἐπύλλιον, in Euripides' sense, i. e., in the sense of short broken verses. There is no reason apparent on the other hand why we should find a diminutive implication in the word as here used, and in any case, if this is intended, it is a sense unillustrated by a single instance of usage.

And the unquestionable learning of Eustathius seems to assure us that to Greek ears λόγιον did not suggest a diminutive sense at all. He is commenting on line 339 of the Second Book of the "Iliad," which runs,

πῆ δὴ συνθεσίαι τε καὶ ὅρκια βήσεται ἡμῖν,

and he tells us that ὅρκιον in Homer is not a diminutive, but is a formation similar to λόγιον, which means "an oracle": Οὐχ ὑποκοριστικὸν δὲ παρʼ Ὁμήρῳ οὐδὲ … τὸ ἴχνιον. Ὣσπερ δὲ τὰ ὅρκια παρωνόμασται ἐκ τοῦ ὅρκον, οὕτω καὶ ἐκ τοῦ λόγου τὰ λόγια ἤγουν οἱ χρησμοί. There is no direct statement here, to be sure, that λόγιον is not a diminutive; that statement is made—with entire accuracy—only of ὅρκιον and ἴχνιον: nor is the derivation suggested for λόγιον, as if it came directly from λόγος, perhaps scientifically accurate. But there is every indication of clearness of perception in the statement: and it could scarcely be given the form it has, had λόγιον stood in Eustathius' mind as the diminutive of λόγος. It obviously represented to him not a diminutive synonym of λόγος, but an equal synonym of χρησμός. What λόγιον stood for, in his mind, is very clearly exhibited, further, in a comment which he makes on the 416th line of the First Book of the "Odyssey," where Telemachus declares that he does not "care for divinations such as my mother seeks, summoning a diviner to the hall":

οὔτε θεοπροπίης ἐμπάζομαι, ἥν τινα μήτηρ

ἐς μέγαρον καλέσασα θεοπρόπον ἐξερέηται.

Eustathius wishes us to note that θεοπρόπος means the μάντις, θεοπροπία his art, and θεοπρόπιον the message he delivers, which Eustathius calls the χρησμῴδημα, and informs us is denominated by the Attics also λόγιον. He says: Ἰστέον δὲ ὅτι θεοπρόπος μὲν ἄλλως, ὁ μάντις. θεοπροπία δὲ, ἡ τέχνη αὐτοῦ. θεοπρόπιον δὲ, τὸ χρησμῴδημα, ὃ καὶ λόγιον ἔλεγον οἱ Ἀττικοί. To Eustathius, thus λόγιον was simply the exact synonym of the highest words in use to express a divine communication to men—θεοπρόπιον, χρησμῴδημα, χρησμός. Similarly Hesychius' definition runs: Λόγια: θέσφατα, μαυτεύματα, (προ)φητεύματα, φῆμαι, χρησμοί. In a word, λόγιον differs from λόγος not as expressing something smaller than it, but as expressing something more sacred.

The Greek synonymy of the notion "oracle" is at once extraordinarily full and very obscure. It is easy to draw up a long list of terms—μαντεῖα, μαντεύματα, πρόφαντα, θεοπρόπια, ἐπιθεσπισμοί θέσφατα, θεσπίσματα, λόγια, and the like; but exceedingly difficult, we do not say to lay down hard and fast lines between them, but even to establish any shades of difference among them which are consistently reflected in usage. M. Bouché-Leclercq, after commenting on the poverty of the Latin nomenclature, continues as to the Greek:

"The Greek terminology is richer and allows analysis of the different senses, but it is even more confused than abundant. The Greeks, possessors of a flexible tongue, capable of rendering all the shades of thought, often squandered their treasures, broadening the meaning of words at pleasure, multiplying synonyms without distinguishing between them, and thus disdaining the precision to which they could attain without effort. We shall seek in vain for terms especially appropriated to divination by oracles. From the verb χρῆσθαι, which signifies in Homer 'to reveal' in a general way, come the derivatives χρησμός and χρηστήριον. The latter, which dates from Hesiod and the Homerides, designates the place where prophecies are dispensed and, later, the responses themselves, or the instrument by which they are obtained. Χρησμός, which comes into current usage from the time of Solon, is applied without ambiguity to inspired and versified prophecies, but belongs equally to the responses of the oracles and those of free prophets. The word μαντεῖον in the singular designates ordinarily the place of consultation; but in the plural it is applied to the prophecies themselves of whatever origin. In the last sense it has a crowd of synonyms of indeterminate and changeable shades of meaning. The grammarians themselves have been obliged to renounce imposing rules on the capricious usage and seeking recognition for their artificial distinctions. We learn once more the impossibility of erecting precise definitions for terms which lack precision."

Among the distinctions which have been proposed but which usage will not sustain is the discrimination erected by the scholiast on Euripides, "Phœniss.," 907, which would reserve θέσφατα, θεσπίσματα, χρησμοί for oracles directly from the gods, and assign μαντεῦαι and μαντεύματα to the responses of the diviners. The grain of truth in this is that in μάντις, μαντεύεσθαι, μαντεία, etymologically, what is most prominent is the idea of a special unwonted capacity, attention being directed by these words to the strong spiritual elevation which begets new powers in us. While, on the other hand, in θεσπίζειν the reference is directly to the divine inspiration, which, because it is normally delivered in song, is referred to by such forms as θεσπιῳδός, θεσπιῴδειν. Χρησμός, on the other hand, seems an expression which in itself has little direct reference either to the source whence or the form in which the oracle comes, but describes the oracle from the point of view of what it is in itself—viz., a "communication"—going back, as it does, to χρῆν, the original sense of which seems to be "to bestow," "to communicate." Λόγιον doubtless may be classed with χρησμός in this respect—it is par excellence the "utterance," the "saying." It would seem to be distinguished from χρησμός by having even less reference than it to the source whence—something as "a declaration" is distinguished from "a message." If we suppose a herald coming with the cry, "A communication from the Lord," and then, after delivering the message, adding: "This is His utterance," it might fairly be contended that in strict precision the former should be χρησμός and the latter λόγιον, in so far as the former term may keep faintly before the mind the source of the message as a thing given, while the latter may direct the attention to its content as the very thing received, doubtless with a further connotation of its fitness to its high origin. Such subtlety of distinction, however, is not sure to stamp itself on current use, so that by such etymological considerations we are not much advanced in determining the ordinary connotation of the words in usage.

A much more famous discrimination, and one which much more nearly concerns us at present, has been erected on what seems to be a misapprehension of a construction in Thucydides. In a passage which has received the compliment of imitation by a number of his successors, the historian is describing the agitation caused by the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, one symptom of which was the passion for oracles which was developed. "All Hellas," he says, "was excited by the coming conflict between the two cities. Many were the prophecies circulated, and many the oracles chanted by diviners (καὶ πολλὰ μὲν λόγια ἐλέγοντο, πολλὰ δὲ χρησμολόγοι ᾖδον), not only in the cities about to engage in the struggle, but throughout Hellas." And again, as the Lacedæmonians approached the city, one of the marks he, at a later point, notes of the increasing excitement is that "soothsayers (χρησμολόγοι) were repeating oracles (ᾖδον χρησμούς) of the most different kinds, which all found in some one or other enthusiastic listeners." On a casual glance the distinction appears to lie on the surface of the former passage that λόγια are oracles in prose and χρησμοί oracles in verse: and so the scholiast on the passage, followed by Suidas22 defines. But it is immediately obvious on the most cursory glance into Greek literature that the distinction thus suggested will not hold. The χρησμοί are, to be sure, commonly spoken of as sung; and the group of words χρησμῳδός, χρησμῳδέω, χρησμῳδία, χρησμῴδημα, χρησμῴδης, χρησμῳδικός, witnesses to the intimate connection of the two ideas. But this arises out of the nature of the case, rather than out of any special sense attached to the word χρησμός: and accordingly, by the side of this group of words, we have others which, on the one hand, compound χρησμός with terms not implicative of singing (χρησμηγορέω, χρησμαγόρης—χρησμοδοτέω, χρησμοδότης, χρησμοδότημα—χρησμολογέω, χρησμολόγος, χρησμολογία, χρησμολόγιον, χρησμολογική, χρησμολέσχης—χρησμοποιός), and, on the other hand, compound other words for oracles with words denoting singing (θεσπιῳδέω, θεσπιῴδημα, θεσπιῳδός). The fact is that, as J. H. Heinr. Schmidt points out in an interesting discussion, the natural expression of elevated feeling was originally in song: so that the singer comes before the poet and the poet before the speaker. It was thus as natural for the ancients to say vati-cinium as it is for moderns to say Weis-sagung or sooth-saying: but as the custom of written literature gradually transformed the consciousness of men, their thought became more logical and less pictorial until even the Pythia ceased at last to speak in verse. Meanwhile, old custom dominated the oracles. They were chanted: they were couched in verse: and the terms which had been framed to describe them continued to bear this implication. Even when called λόγια, they prove to be ordinarily in verse; and these also are said to be sung, as we read, for example, in Dio Cassius (431, 66 and 273, 64): λόγια παντοῖα ᾔδετο. What appears to be a somewhat constant equivalence in usage of the two terms χρησμός and λόγιον, spread broadly over the face of Greek literature, seems in any event to negative the proposed distinction. Nor does the passage in Thucydides when more closely examined afford any real ground for it. After all, λόγια and χρησμοί are not contrasted in this passage: the word χρησμοί does not even occur in it. The stress of the distinction falls, indeed, not on the nouns, but on the verbs, the point of the remark being that oracles were scattered among the people by every possible method. If we add that the second πολλά is probably not to be resolved into πολλοὺς χρησμούς, the χρησμούς being derived from the χρησμῳλόγοι, but is to have λόγια supplied with it from the preceding clause, the assumed distinction between λόγια and χρησμοί goes up at once in smoke. Λόγια alone are spoken of: and these λόγια are said to be both spoken and sung.

So easy and frequent is the interchange between the two terms that it seems difficult to allow even the more wary attempts of modern commentators to discriminate between them. These ordinarily turn on the idea that λόγια is the more general and χρησμός the more specific word, and go back to the careful study of the Baron de Locella, in his comment on a passage in (the later) Xenophon's "Ephesiaca." Locella's note does indeed practically cover the ground. He begins by noting the interchange of the two words in the text before him. Then he offers the definition that oraculorum responsa are generically λόγια, whether in prose or verse, adducing the λόγια παλαιά of Eurip., "Heracl.," 406, and the λόγιον πυθόχρηστον of Plutarch, "Thes.," i. 55, as instances of λόγια undoubtedly couched in verse; while versified oracles, originally in hexameters and later in iambic trimeters are, specifically, χρησμοί—whence χρησμῳδέω is vaticinor, χρησμῳδία vaticinium, and χρησμῳδός vates. As thus the difference between the two words is that of genus and species, they may be used promiscuously for the same oracle. It is worth the trouble, he then remarks, to inspect how often λόγιον and χρησμός are interchanged in the "Knights" of Aristophanes between verses 109 and 1224, from which the error of the scholiast on Thucydides, 2:8, is clear and of Suidas following him, in making λόγιον specifically an oracle in prose, and χρησμός one in verse. He then quotes Eustathius on the "Iliad," ii. ver. 233, and on the "Odyssey," i. ver. 1426; adduces the gloss, λόγιον, ὁ χρησμός; and asks his readers to note what Stephens adduces from Camerarius against this distinction. The continued designation by Greek writers of the prose Pythian oracles as χρησμοί adverted to, Plutarch's testimony being dwelt on: and relevant scholia on Aristophanes' "Av"., 960, and "Nub.," 144, are referred to. It is not strange that Locella's finding, based on so exhaustive a survey of the relevant facts, should have dominated later commentators, who differ from it ordinarily more by way of slight modification than of any real revision—suggesting that λόγια, being the more general word, is somewhat less sacred; or somewhat less precise;31 or somewhat less ancient. The common difficulty with all these efforts to distinguish the two words is that there is no usage to sustain them. When the two words occur together it is not in contrast but in apparently complete equivalence, and when λόγιον appears apart from χρησμός it is in a sense which seems in no way to be distinguishable from it. The only qualification to which this statement seems liable, arises from a faintly-felt suspicion that, in accordance with their etymological implications already suggested, χρησμός has a tendency to appear when the mind of the speaker is more upon the source of the "oracle" and λόγιον when his mind is more upon its substance.

Even in such a rare passage as Eurip., "Heracl.," 406, where the two words occur in quasi-contrast, we find no further ground for an intelligible distinction between them:

"Yet all my preparations well are laid:

Athens is all in arms, the victims ready

Stand for the gods for whom they must be slain.

By seers the city is filled with sacrifice

For the foes' rout and saving of the state.

All prophecy-chanters have I caused to meet,

Into old public oracles have searched,

And secret, for salvation of this land.

And mid their manifest diversities,

In one thing glares the sense of all the same—

They bid me to Demeter's daughter slay,

A maiden of a high-born father sprung."

And ordinarily they display an interchangeability which seems almost studied, it is so complete and, as it were, iterant. Certainly, at all events, it is good advice to follow, to go to Aristophanes' "Knights" to learn their usage. In that biting play Demos—the Athenian people—is pictured as "a Sibyllianizing old man" with whom Cleon curries favor by plying him with oracles,

ᾄδει δὲ χρησμούς· ὁ δὲ γέρων σιβυλλιᾷ.

Nicias steals τοὺς χρησμούς from Cleon, and brings τὸν ἱερὸν χρησμόν to Demosthenes, who immediately on reading it exclaims, ὦ λόγια! "DEM.: Ὦ λόγια. Give me quick the cup! NIC.: Behold, what says the χρησμός? DEM.: Pour on! NIC.: Is it so stated in the λογίοις? DEM.: O Bacis!" To cap the climax, the scholiast remarks on ὦ λόγια: "(μαντεύματα): he wonders when he reads τὸν χρησμόν." Only a little later, Demosthenes is counseling the Sausage Vender not to "slight what the gods by τοῖς λογίοισι have given" him and receives the answer: "What then says ὁ χρησμός?" and after the contents of it are explained the declaration, "I am flattered by τὰ λόγια." As the dénouement approaches, Cleon and the Sausage Vender plead that their oracles may at least be heard (lines 960–961: οἱ χρησμοί). They are brought, and this absurd scene is the result: "CLEON: Behold, look here—and yet I've not got all. S. V.: Ah, me! I burst—'and yet I've not got all!' DEM.: What are these? CLEON: Oracles (λόγια). DEM.: All! CLEON: Do you wonder? By Jupiter, I've still a chestful left. S. V.: And I an upper with two dwelling rooms. DEM.: Come, let us see whose oracles (οἱ χρησμοί) are these? CLEON: Mine are of Bacis. DEM.: Whose are thine? S. V.: Of Glamis, his elder brother." And when they are read they are all alike in heroic measure.

It is not in Aristophanes alone, however, that this equivalence meets us: the easy interchange of the two words is, we may say, constant throughout Greek literature. Thus, for example, in the "Corinthiaca" of Pausanias (ii. 20, 10) an oracle is introduced as τὸ λόγιον, and commented on as ὁ χρησμός. In Diodorus Siculus, ii. 14,39 Semiramis is said to have gone to Ammon χρησομένη τῷ θεῷ περὶ τῆς ἰδίας τελευτῆς, and, the narrative continues, λέγεται αὐτῇ γενέσθαι λόγιον. Similarly in Plutarch's "De Defectu Orac," v. we have the three terms τὸ χρηστηρίον, τὸ λόγιον and τὰ μαντεῖα ταῦτα equated: in "De Mul. Virt.," viii. the λόγια are explained by what was ἐχρήσθη: in "Quæstiones Romanæ," xxi. λόγια, came by way of a χρησμῳδεῖν. In the "Ephesiaca" of the later Xenophon metrical μαντεύματα are received, the recipients of which are in doubt what τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ λόγια can mean, until, on consideration, they discover a likely interpretation for the χρησμόν that seems to meet the wish of the God who ἐμαντεύσατο.

How little anything can be derived from the separate use of λόγιον to throw doubt on its equivalence with χρησμός as thus exhibited, may be observed from the following instances of its usage, gathered together somewhat at random:

Herodotus, i. 64: "He purified the island of Delos, according to the injunctions of an oracle (ἐκ τῶν λογίων)"; i. 120: "We have found even oracles sometimes fulfilled in unimportant ways (τῶν λογίων ἔνια)"; iv. 178: "Here in this lake is an island called Phla, which it is said the Lacedæmonians were to have colonized according to an oracle (τὴν νῆσον Λακεδαιμονίοισί φασι λόγιον εἶναι κτίσαι)"; vii. 60: "Where an oracle has said that we are to overcome our enemies (καὶ λόγιόν ἐστι τῶν ἐχθρῶν κατύπερθε)"; viii. 62: "which the prophecies declare we are to colonize (τὰ λόγια λέγει)." Aristophanes, "Vesp.," 799: ὅρα τὸ χρῆμα, τὰ λόγιʼ ὡς περαίνεται; "Knights," 1050, ταυτὶ τελεῖσθαι τὰ λόγιʼ ἤδη μοι δοκεῖ. Polybius, viii. 30, 6: "For the eastern quarter of Tarentum is full of monuments, because those who die there are to this day all buried within the walls, in obedience to an ancient oracle (κατά τι λόγιον ἀρχαῖον)." Diodorus Siculus ap. Geog. Sync., p. 194 D ("Corpus Scriptorum Historiæ Byzantinæ," i. 366), "Fabius says an oracle came to Æneas (Αἰνείᾳ γενέσθαι λόγιον), that a quadruped should direct him to the founding of a city." Ælian, "Var. Hist.," ii. 41: "Moreover Mycerinus the Egyptian, when there was brought to him the prophecy from Budo (τὸ ἐκ Βούτης μαντεῖον), predicting a short life, and he wished to escape the oracle (τὸ λόγιον) …" Arrian, "Expedit. Alex.," ii. 3, 14 (Ellendt., i. 151): ὡς τοῦ λογίον τοῦ ἐπὶ τῇ λύσει τοῦ δεσμοῦ ξυμβεβηκότος, vii. 16, 7 (Ellendt., ii. 419), "But when Alexander had crossed the river Tigris with his army, pushing on to Babylon, the wise men of the Chaldeans (Χαλδαίων οἱ λόγιοι) met him and separating him from his companions asked him to check the march to Babylon. For they had an oracle from their God Belus (λόγιον ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ Βήλου) that entrance into Babylon at that time would not be for his good. But he answered them with a verse (ἔπος) of the poet Euripides, which runs thus: 'The best μάντις is he whose conclusion is good.' " Plutarch, "Non posse suaviter vivi," etc., 24 (1103 F.): "What of that? (quoth Zeuxippus). Shall the present discourse be left imperfect and unfinished because of it? and feare we to alledge the oracle of the gods (τὸ λόγιον πρὸς Ἐπίκουρον λέγοντες) when we dispute against the Epicureans? No (quoth I againe) in any wise, for according to the sentence of Empedocles, 'A good tale twice a man may tell, and heare it told as oft full well';" "Life of Theseus," § 26 (p. 12 C, Didot, p. 14), "He applied to himself a certain oracle of Apollo's (λόγιόν τι πυθόχρηστον)" § 27 (p. 12 E, Didot, p. 14): "At length Theseus, having sacrificed to Fear, according to the oracle (κατά τι λόγιον)"; "Life of Fabius," § 4 (Didot, p. 210), Ἐκινήθησαν δὲ τότε πολλαὶ καὶ τῶν ἀποῤῥήτων καὶ χρησίμων αὐτοῖς βίβλων, ἃς Σιβυλλείους καλοῦσι· καὶ λέγεται συνδραμεῖν ἔνια τῶν ἀποκειμένων ἐν αὐταῖς λογίων πρὸς τὰς τύχας καὶ τὰς πράξεις ἐκείνας. Pausanias, "Attica" [I. 44, 9] (taken unverified from Wetstein): θύσαντος Αἰακοῦ κατὰ δή τι λόγιον τῷ Πανελληνίῳ Διΐ. Polyænus, p. 37 (Wetstein) [I, 18]: ὁ θεὸς ἔχρησε—οἱ πολέμιοι τὸ λόγιον εἰδότες—τοῦ λογίου πεπληρωμένου; p. 347 [IV, 3, 27], ἧν δὲ λόγιον Ἀπόλλωνος. Aristeas, p. 119 (Wetstein): εὐχαριστῶ μὲν, ἄνδρες, ὑμῖν, τῷ δὲ ἀποστείλαντι μᾶλλον· μέγιστον δὲ τῷ θεῷ, οὕτινός ἐστι τὰ λόγια ταῦτα.

A survey of this somewhat miscellaneous collection of passages will certainly only strengthen the impression we derived from those in which λόγιον and χρησμός occur together—that in λόγιον we have a term expressive, in common usage at least, of the simple notion of a divine revelation, an oracle, and that independently of any accompanying implication of length or brevity, poetical or prose form, directness or indirectness of delivery. This is the meaning of λόγιον in the mass of profane Greek literature. As we have already suggested, the matter of the derivation of the word is of no great importance to our inquiry: but we may be permitted to add that the usage seems distinctly favorable to the view that it is to be regarded rather as, in origin, the neuter of λόγιος used substantively, than the diminutive of λόγος. No implication of brevity seems to attach to the word in usage; and its exclusive application to "oracles" may perhaps be most easily explained on the supposition that it connotes fundamentally "a wise saying", and implies at all times something above the ordinary run of "words."

II. It was with this fixed significance, therefore, that the word presented itself to the Jews of the later centuries before Christ, when the changed conditions were forcing them to give a clothing in Greek speech to their conceptions, derived from the revelation of the old covenant; and thus to prepare the way for the language of the new covenant. The oldest monument of Hellenistic Greek—the Septuagint Version of the Sacred Books, made probably in the century that stretched between 250 and 150 B.C.—is, however, peculiarly ill-adapted to witness to the Hellenistic usage of this word. As lay in the nature of the case, and, as we shall see later, was the actual fact, to these Jewish writers there were no "oracles" except what stood written in these sacred books themselves, and all that stood written in them were "oracles of God." In a translation of the books themselves, naturally this, the most significant Hellenistic application of the word "oracles," could find little place. And though the term might be employed within the sacred books to translate such a phrase as, say, "the word of God," in one form or another not infrequently met with in their pages, the way even here was clogged by the fact that the Hebrew words used in these phrases only imperfectly corresponded to the Greek word λόγιον, and were not very naturally represented by it. Though the ordinary Hebrew verb for "saying"—אָמַר—to which etymologically certain high implications might be thought to be natural, had substantival derivatives, yet these were fairly effectually set aside by a term of lower origin—דָּבָו48—which absorbed very much the whole field of the conception "word." The derivatives of אָמַר—אֹמֶר, אִמְרָה, אֶמְרָה, מַאֲמָר—in accordance with their etymological impress of loftiness or authority, are relegated to poetic speech (except מַֽאֲמָר, which occurs only in Esther 1:15, 2:20, 9:32, and has the sense of commandment) and are used comparatively seldom. Nevertheless, it was to one of these that the Septuagint translators fitted the word λόγιον. To דָּבָו they naturally consecrated the general terms λόγιος, ῥῆμα, πρᾶγηα: while they adjusted λόγιον as well as might be to אִמְרָה, and left to one side meanwhile its classical synonyms—except μαντεία and its cognates, which they assigned, chiefly, of course, in a bad sense, to the Hebrew קסם in the sense of "divination."

אִמְרָה is, to be sure, in no sense an exact synonym of λόγιον. It is simply a poetical word of high implications, prevailingly, though not exclusively, used of the "utterances" of God, and apparently felt by the Septuagint translators to bear in its bosom a special hint of the authoritativeness or awesomeness of the "word" it designates. It is used only some thirty-six times in the entire Old Testament (of which no less than nineteen are in Ps. 119.), and designates the solemn words of men (Gen. 4:23, cf. Isa. 29:4 bis., 28:23, 32:9; Ps. 17:6; Deut. 32:2) as well as, more prevailingly, those of God. In adjusting λόγιον to it the instances of its application to human words are, of course, passed by and translated either by λόγιος (Gen. 4:23; Isa. 29:4 bis.; Isa. 28:23, 32:9), or ῥῆμα (Deut. 32:2; Ps. 17:6). In a few other instances, although the term is applied to "words of God," it is translated by Greek words other than λόγιον (2 Sam. 22:31, LXX. ῥῆμα, and its close parallel, Prov. 30:5, LXX. λόγοι, though in the other parallels, Ps. 12:7, 17:31, the LXX. has λόγια; Ps. 119. [41], 154, where the LXX. has λόγος; in Ps. 138:2, the LXX. reads τὸ ἅγιόν σου, on which Bæthgen remarks, in loc., that "ἅγιον seems to be a corruption for λόγιον," which is read here by Aquila and the Quinta). In the remaining instances of its occurrences, however—and that is in the large majority of its occurrences—the word is uniformly rendered by λόγιον (Deut. 33:9; Ps. 12:7 bis., 18:31, 105:19, 119:11, 38 [41], 50, 58, 67, 76, 82, 103, 116, 123, 133, 140, 148, 158, 162, 170, 172, 147:15; Isa. 5:24). If there is a fringe of usage of אִמְרָה thus standing outside of the use made of λόγιον, there is, on the other side, a corresponding stretching of the use made of λόγιον beyond the range of אִמְרָה—to cover a few passages judged by the translators of similar import. Thus it translates אֹמֶר in Num. 24:4, 16; Ps. 18:15 [19:15], 106. [107]:11, and דָּבָר in Ps. 118 [119]:25, 65, 107, 169, [147:8]; Isa. 28:13; and it represents in a few passages λόγον, a variation from the Hebrew, viz., Ps. 118. [119.]; Isa. 30:11, 27 bis. In twenty-five instances of its thirty-nine occurrences, however, it is the rendering of אִמְרָה. It is also used twice in the Greek apocrypha (Wis. 16:11; Sir. 36:19 [16]), in quite the same sense. In all the forty-one instances of its usage, it is needless to say, it is employed in its native and only current sense, of "oracle," a sacred utterance of the Divine Being, the only apparent exception to this uniformity of usage (Ps. 18:15 [19:15]) being really no exception, but, in truth, significant of the attitude of the translators to the text they were translating—as we shall see presently.

What led the LXX. translators to fix upon אִמְרָה as the nearest Hebrew equivalent to λόγιον, we have scanty material for judging. Certainly, in Psalm 119, where the word most frequently occurs, it is difficult to erect a distinction between its implications and those of דּבָר with which it seems to be freely interchanged, but which the LXX. Translators keep reasonably distinct from it by rendering it prevailingly by λόγος, while equally prevailingly reserving λόγιον for אִמְרָה. Perhaps the reader may faintly feel even in this Psalm, that אִמְרָה was to the writer the more sacred and solemn word, and was used, in his rhetorical variation of his terms, especially whenever the sense of the awesomeness of God's words or the unity of the whole revelation of God more prominently occupied his mind; and this impression is slightly increased, perhaps, in the case of the interchange of λόγιον and λόγος in the Greek translation. When we look beyond this Psalm we certainly feel that something more requires to be said of אִמְרָה than merely that it is poetic. It is very seldom applied to human words and then only to the most solemn forms of human speech—Gen. 24:23 (LXX., λόγοι); Deut. 32:2 (LXX., ῥῆμα); Ps. 27. (LXX., ῥῆμα); cf. Isa. 29:4 bis (LXX., λόγοι) where the speaker is Jerusalem whose speech is compared to the murmuring of familiar spirits or of the dead, and Isa. 28:23, 32:9, where the prophet's word is in question. It appears to suggest itself naturally when God's word is to receive its highest praises (2 Sam. 22:31; Ps. 12:7, 18:31; Prov. 30:5; Ps. 138:2), or when the word of Jehovah is conceived as power or adduced in a peculiarly solemn way (Ps. 147:18; Isa. 5:24). Perhaps the most significant passage is that in Psalm 105:19, where the writer would appear to contrast man's word with God's word, using for the former דָּבָר (LXX., λόγος) and for the latter אִמְרָה (LXX., λόγιον): Joseph was tried by the word of the Lord until his own words came to pass. Whatever implications of superior solemnity attached to the Hebrew word אִמְרָה, however, were not only preserved, but emphasized by the employment of the Greek term λόγιον to translate it—a term which was inapplicable, in the nature of the case, to human words, and designated whatever it was applied to as the utterance of God. We may see its lofty implications in the application given to it outside the usage of אִמְרָה—in Num. 24:4, for example, where the very solemn description of Balaam's deliverances—"oracle of the hearer of the words of God" (אִמְרֵי־אֵל)—is rendered most naturally φησὶν ἀκούων λόγια ἰσχυροῦ. Here, one would say, we have the very essence of the word, as developed in its classical usage, applied to Biblical conceptions: and it is essentially this conception of the "unspeakable oracles of God" (Sir., 36:19, [16]) that is conveyed by the word in every instance of its occurrence.

An exception has been sometimes found, to be sure, in Ps. 18:15 (19:14), inasmuch as in this passage we have the words of the Psalmist designated as τὰ λόγια: "And the words (τὰ λόγια) of my mouth and the meditation of my heart shall be continually before thee for approval, O Lord, my help and my redeemer." In this passage, however—and in Isa. 32:9 as rendered by Aquila, which is similar—we would seem to have not so much an exception to the usage of τὰ λόγια as otherwise known, as an extension of it. The translators have by no means used it here of the words of a human speaker, but of words deemed by them to be the words of God, and called τὰ λόγια just because considered the "tried words of God." This has always been perceived by the more careful expositors. Thus Philippi writes:

"Psalm 19:14 supplies only an apparent exception, since τὰ λόγια τοῦ στόματός μου there, as spoken through the Holy Spirit, may be regarded as at the same time, λόγια θεοῦ."

And Morrison:

"In Psalm 18:15 (14) the term thus occurs: 'let the words of my mouth (τὰ λόγια τοῦ στόματός μου = אִמְרֵי־פִי, from אֵמֶר), and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.' But even here the term may be fitly regarded as having its otherwise invariable reference. The Septuagint translator looked upon the sacred writer as giving utterance in his Psalm—the words of his mouth—to diviner thoughts than his own, to the thoughts of God Himself. He regarded him as 'moved' in what he said, 'by the Holy Ghost.' "

In a word, we have here an early instance of what proves to be the standing application of τὰ λόγια on Hellenistic lips—its application to the Scripture word as such, as the special word of God that had come to them. The only ground of surprise that can emerge with reference to its use here, therefore, is that in this instance it occurs within the limits of the Scriptures themselves: and this is only significant of the customary employment of the term in this application—for, we may well argue, it was only in sequence to such a customary employment of it that this usage could intrude itself thus, unobserved as it were, into the Biblical text itself.

It is scarcely necessary to do more than incidentally advert to the occasional occurrence of λόγιον = λογεῖον in the Septuagint narrative, as the rendering of the Hebrew חשֶׁן, that is, to designate the breastplate of the high priest, which he wore when he consulted Jehovah. Bleek writes, to be sure, as follows:66

"How fully the notion of an utterance of God attended the word according to the usage of the Alexandrians too is shown by the circumstance that the LXX. employed it for the oracular breastplate of the High Priest (חשֶׁן), Ex. 28:15, 22 seq., 29:5, 39:8 seq.; Lev. 8:8; Sir. 45:12, for which λογεῖον, although found in Codd. Vat. and Alex., is apparently a later reading; λόγιον, to which the Latin translation rationale goes back, has also Josephus, "Ant.," iii. 7, 5, for it: ἐσσήνης (חשן) μὲν καλεῖται, σημαίνει δὲ τοῦτο κατὰ τὴν Ἑλλήνων γλῶτταν λόγιον; c. 8, 9: ὅθεν Ἕλληνες … τὸν ἐσσήνην λόγιον καλοῦσιν; iii. 3, 8. And similarly apparently Philo, as may be inferred from his expositions, in that he brings it into connection with λόγος, reason, although with him too the reading varies between the two forms: see "Legg. Allegor.," iii. 40, p. 83, A. B.; § 43, p. 84, C. "Vit. Mos.," iii. 11, p. 670 C.; § 12, p. 672 B.; § 13, p. 673 A. "De Monarch.," ii. 5, p. 824 A."

It is much more probable, however, that we have here an itacistic confusion by the copyists, than an application by the Septuagint translators of λόγιον to a new meaning. This confusion may have had its influence on the readers of the LXX., and may have affected in some degree their usage of the word: but it can have no significance for the study of the use of the word by the LXX. itself.

III. Among the readers of the Septuagint it is naturally to Philo that we will turn with the highest expectations of light on the Hellenistic usage of the word: and we have already seen Bleek pointing out the influence upon him of the LXX. use of λόγιον = λογεῖον. Whatever minor influence of this kind the usage of the Septuagint may have had on him, however, Philo's own general employment of the word carries on distinctly that of the profane authors. In him, too, the two words χρησμός and λόγιον appear as exact synonyms, interchanging repeatedly with each other, to express what is in the highest sense the word of God, an oracle from heaven. The only real distinction between his usage of these words and that of profane authors arises from the fact that to Philo nothing is an oracle from heaven, a direct word of God, except what he found within the sacred books of Israel. And the only confusing element in his usage springs from the fact that the whole contents of the Jewish sacred books are to him "oracles," the word of God; so that he has no nomenclature by which the oracles recorded in the Scriptures may be distinguished from the oracles which the Scriptures as such are. He has no higher words than λόγιον and χρησμός by which to designate the words of God which are recorded in the course of the Biblical narrative: he can use no lower words than these to designate the several passages of Scripture he adduces, each one of which is to him a direct word of God. Both of these uses of the words may be illustrated from his writings almost without limit. A few instances will suffice.

In the following, the "oracle" is a "word of God" recorded in the Scriptures:

"For he inquires whether the man is still coming hither, and the sacred oracle answers (ἀποκρίνεται τὸ λόγιον), 'He is hidden among the stuff' (1 Sam. 10:22)" ("De Migrat. Abrah.," § 36, pp. 418 E). "For after the wise man heard the oracle which being divinely given said (θεσπισθέντος λογίου τοιούτου) 'Thy reward is exceeding great' (Gen. 15:1), he inquired, saying.… And yet who would not have been amazed at the dignity and greatness of him who delivered this oracle (τοῦ χρησμῷ δούντος)?" ("Quis rer. div. her.," § 1, pp. 481 D). "And he (God) mentions the ministrations and services by which Abraham displayed his love to his master in the last sentence of the divine oracle given to his son (ἀκροτελεύτιον λογίου τοῦ χρησθέντος αὐτοῦ τῷ υἱεῖ) ("Quis rer. div. her.," § 2, pp. 482 E). "To him (Abraham), then, being conscious of such a disposition, an oracular command suddenly comes (θεσπίζεται λόγιον), which was never expected (Gen. 22:1) … and without mentioning the oracular command (τὸ λόγιον) to anyone …" ("De Abrah.," § 32, P., p. 373 E). "[Moses] had appointed his brother high-priest in accordance with the will of God that had been declared unto him (κατὰ τὰ χρησθέντα λόγια") ("De Vita Moysis," iii. 21, P., p. 569 D). "Moses … being perplexed … besought God to decide the question and to announce his decision to him by an oracular command (χρησμῷ). And God listened to his entreaty and gave him an oracle (λόγιον θεσπίζει).… We must proceed to relate the oracular commands (λόγια χρησθέντα). He says … (Num. 9:10)" ("De Vita Moysis," iii. 30, P., p. 687 D). "And Balaam replied, All that I have hitherto uttered have been oracles and words of God (λόγια καὶ χρησμοί), but what I am going to say are merely the suggestions of my own mind.… Why do you give counsel suggesting things contrary to the oracles of God (τοῖς χρησμοῖς) unless indeed that your counsels are more powerful than his decrees (λογίων)?" ("De Vita Moysis," i. 53, P., p. 647 D). "Was it not on this account that when Cain fancied he had offered up a blameless sacrifice an oracle (λόγιον) came to him?… And the oracle is as follows (τὸ δὲ λόγιόν ἐστι τοιόνδε) (Gen. 4:7)" ("De Agricult.," § 29, M. i. 319). "And a proof of this may be found in the oracular answer given by God (τὸ θεσπισθὲν λόγιον) to the person who asked what name he had: 'I am that I am' " ("De Somniis," i. § 40, M. 1, 655). "But when he became improved and was about to have his name changed, he then became a man born of God (ἄνθρωπος θεοῦ) according to the oracle that was delivered to him (κατὰ τὸ χρησθὲν αὐτῷ λόγιον), 'I am thy God' " ("De Gigant.," § 14, M. 1, 271). "For which reason, a sacred injunction to the following purport (διὸ καὶ λόγιον ἐχρήσθη τῷ σοφῷ τοιόνδε) 'Go thou up to the Lord, thou and Aaron,' etc. (Gen. 24:1.). And the meaning of this injunction is as follows: 'Go thou up, O soul' " ("De Migrat. Abrah.," § 31, M. 1, 462). "For which account an oracle of the all-merciful God has been given (λόγιον τοῦ ἵλεω θεοῦ μεστὸν ἡμερότητος) full of gentleness, which shadows forth good hopes to those who love instruction in these times, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee' (Jos. 1:5)" ("De Confus. Ling.," § 32, M. i. 430). "Do you not recollect the case of the soothsayer Balaam? He is represented as hearing the oracles of God (λόγια θεοῦ) and as having received knowledge from the Most High, but what advantage did he reap from such hearing, and what good accrued to him from such knowledge?" ("De Mutat. Nominum," § 37). "There are then a countless number of things well worthy of being displayed and demonstrated; and among them one which was mentioned a little while ago; for the oracle (τὸ λόγιον) calls the person who was really his grandfather, the father of the practiser of virtue, and to him who was really his father it has not given any such title; for it says, 'I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy Father' (Gen. 28:13), and in reality he was his grandfather, and, again, 'the God of Isaac,' not adding this time, 'thy Father' ('De Somniis,' i. § 27)." "And there is something closely resembling this in the passage of Scripture (lit. the oracle: τὸ χρησθὲν λόγιον) concerning the High Priest (Lev. 16:17)" ("De Somniis," ii. § 34).

On the other hand, in the following instances, the reference is distinctly to Scripture as such:

"And the following oracle given with respect to Enoch (τὸ χρησθὲν ἐπὶ Ἐνὼχ λόγιον) proves this: 'Enoch pleased God and he was not found' (Gen. 5:24)" ("De Mutat. Nom.," § 4).

It is a portion of the narrative Scriptures which is thus adduced.

"But let us stick to the subject before us and follow the Scripture (ἀκολουθήσαντες τῷ λογίῳ) and say that there is such a thing as wisdom existing, and that he who loves wisdom is wise" (do).

Here τὸ λόγιον is either Scripture in general, or, perhaps more probably, the passage previously under discussion and still in mind (Gen. 5:24).

"Μαρτυρεῖ δέ μοι λόγιον τὸ χρησθὲν ἐπὶ τοῦ Ἀβραάμ τόδε, 'He came into the place of which the Lord God had told him; and having looked up with his eyes, he saw the place afar off (Gen. 22:9)' " ("De Somniis," i. 11).

This narrative passage of Scripture is here cited as λόγιον τὸ χρησθέν.

"This is a boast of a great and magnanimous soul, to rise above all creation, and to overleap its boundaries and to cling to the great uncreated God above, according to his sacred commands (κατὰ τὰς ἵερας ὑψηγήσεις) in which we are expressly enjoined 'to cleave unto him' (Deut. 30:20). Therefore he in requital bestows himself as their inheritance upon those who do cleave unto him and who serve him without intermission; and the sacred Scripture (λόγιον) bears its testimony in behalf of these, when it says, 'The Lord himself is his inheritance' (Deut. 10:9)" ("De Congressu erud. grat.," § 24, p. 443).

Here the anarthrous λόγιον is probably to be understood of "a passage of Scripture"—viz., that about to be cited.

"Moreover she (Consideration) confirmed this opinion of hers by the sacred scriptures (χρησμοῖς), one of which ran in this form (ἐνὶ μὲν τοιῷδε—without verb) (Deut. 4:4).… She also confirmed her statement by another passage in Scripture of the following purport (ἑτέρῳ τοιῷδε χρησμῷ) (Deut. 30:15)… and in another passage we read (καὶ ἐν ἑτέροις) (Deut. 30:20). And again this is what the Lord himself hath said … (Lev. 10:3)… as it is also said in the Psalms (Ps. 113:25)… but Cain, that shameless man, that parricide, is nowhere spoken of in the Law (οὐδαμοῦ τῆς νομοθεσίας) as dying: but there is an oracle delivered respecting him in such words as these (ἀλλὰ καὶ λόγιον ἔστιν ἐπʼ αὐτῷ χρησθὲν τοιοῦτον): 'The Lord God put a mark upon Cain' (Gen. 4:15)" ("De Profug.," §11, M. i. 555).

Here it is questionable whether "the Law" (ἡ νομοθεσία) is not broad enough to include all the passages mentioned—from Genesis, Leviticus and the Psalms—as it is elsewhere made to include Joshua ("De Migrat. Abrah.," § 32, M. i, 464. See Ryle: p. xix). At all events, whatever is in this νομοθεσία is a χρησθὲν λόγιον: the passage more particularly adduced being a narrative one.

"After the person who loves virtue seeks a goat by reason of his sins, but does not find one; for already as the sacred Scripture tells us (ὡς δηλοῖ τὸ λόγιον), 'It hath been burnt' (Lev. 10:16)… Accordingly the Scripture says (φησὶν οὖν ὁ χρησμός) that Moses 'sought and sought again,' a reason for repentance for his sins in mortal life … on which account it is said in the Scripture (διὸ λέγεται) (Lev. 16:20)" ("De Profug.," § 28, M. i. 569).

Here τὸ λόγιον seems to mean not so much a passage in Scripture as "Scripture" in the abstract: Lev. 10:16 not being previously quoted in this context. The same may be said of the reference of ὁ χρησμός in the next clause and of the simple λέγεται lower down—the interest of the passage turning on the entire equivalence of the three modes of adducing Scripture.

"This then is the beginning and preface of the prophecies of Moses under the influence of inspiration (τῆς κατʼ ἐνθουσιασμὸν προφητείας Μωϋσέως). After this he prophesied (θεσπίζει)… about food … being full of inspiration (ἐπιθειάσας).… Some thinking, perhaps, that what was said to them was not an oracle (οὐ χρησμούς).… But the father established the oracle by his prophet (τὸ λόγιον τοῦ προφήτου).… He gave a second instance of his prophetical inspiration in the oracle (λόγιον, anarthrous) which he delivered about, the seventh day" ("De Vit. Moysis," iii. 35 and 36).

"And the holy oracle that has been given (τὸ χρησθὲν λόγιον = 'the delivered oracle'; Ryle, 'the utterance of the oracle') will bear witness, which expressly says that he cried out loudly and betrayed clearly by his cries what he had suffered from the concrete evil, that is from the body" ("Quod det. pot. insid.," § 14, M. I., 200).

Here the narrative in Gen. 4, somewhat broadly taken, including vers. 8 and 10, is called τὸ χρησθὲν λόγιον.

"There is also something like this in the sacred scriptures where the account of the creation of the universe is given and it is expressed more distinctly (τὸ παραπλήσιον καὶ ἐν τοῖς περὶ τῆς τοῦ παντὸς γενέσεως χρησθεῖσι λογίοις περιέχεται σημειωδέστερον). For it is said to the wicked man, 'O thou man, that hast sinned; cease to sin' (Gen. 4:7)" ("De Sobriet.," §10, M. 1, 400).

Here there is a formal citation of a portion of Scripture, viz., the portion "concerning the creation of the universe," which means, probably, the Book of Genesis (see Ryle's "Philo and Holy Scripture," p. xx); and this is cited as made up of "declared oracles," ἐν τοῖς χρησθεῖσι λογίοις. The Book of Genesis is thus to Philo a body of χρησθέντα λόγια.

"And this is the meaning of the oracle recorded in Deuteronomy (παρʼ ὃ καὶ λόγιον ἔστι τοιοῦτον ἀναγεγραμμένον ἐν Δευτερονομίῳ), 'Behold I have put before thy face life and death, good and evil' " ("Quod Deus Immut.," § 10, M. i. 280).

Here the "oracle" is a "written" thing; and it is written in a well-known book of oracles, viz., in "Deuteronomy," the second book of the Law. This book, and of course the others like it, consists of written oracles.

"And the words of scripture show this, in which (δηλοῖ δὲ τὸ λόγιον ἐν ᾧ) it is distinctly stated that 'they both of them went together, and came to the plain which God had mentioned to them (Gen. 22:3)" ("De Migrat. Abrah." § 30, M. i. 462).

"And for this reason the following scripture has been given to men (διὸ λόγιον ἐχρήσθη τοιόνδε), 'Return to the land of thy father and to thy family, and I will be with thee' (Gen. 31:3)" ("De Migrat. Abrah.," § 6, M. i. 440).

Here, though the words are spoken in the person of God, the generalized use of them seems to point to their Scriptural expression as the main point.

Moses chose to deliver each of the ten commandments (ἕκαστον θεσπίζειν τῶν δέκα λογίων) in such a form as if they were addressed not to many persons but to one" ("De Decem Oracul.," περὶ τῶν Δέκα Λογίων, §10).

"And the sacred scripture (λόγιον, anarthrous) bears its testimony in behalf of this assertion, when it says: 'The Lord himself is his inheritance' (Deut. 10:9)" ("De Congr. Erud. Grat.," § 24, M. i. 538).

"For there is a passage in the word of God (λόγιον γὰρ ἔστιν) that … (Lev. 26:3)" ("De praem. et poen.," § 17, M. ii. 424).

Both classes of passages thus exist in Philo's text in the greatest abundance—no more those which speak of words of God recorded in Scripture as λόγια than those which speak of the words of Scripture as such as equally λόγια. Nor are we left to accord the two classes of passages for ourselves. Philo himself, in what we may call an even overstrained attempt at systematization, elaborately explains how he distinguishes the several kinds of matter which confront him in Scripture. The fullest statement is probably that in the "De Vita Moysis," III, 23 (Mangey, ii, 163). Here he somewhat artificially separates three classes of "oracles," all having equal right to the name. It is worth while to transcribe enough of the passage to set its essential contents clearly before us. He is naturally in this place speaking directly of Moses—as indeed commonly in his tracts, which are confined, generally speaking, to an exposition of the Pentateuch: but his words will apply also to the rest of the "sacred books," which he uniformly treats as the oracles of God alike with the Pentateuch. He writes:

"Having shown that Moses was a most excellent king and lawgiver and high priest, I come in the last place to show that he was also the most illustrious of the prophets (προφητῶν). I am not unaware, then, that all the things that are written in the sacred books are oracles delivered by him (ὡς πάντα εἰσὶ χρησμοὶ ὅσα ἐν ταῖς ἱεραῖς βίβλοις ἀναγέγραπται χρησθέντες διʼ αὐτοῦ): and I will set forth what more particularly concerns him, when I have first mentioned this one point, namely, that of the sacred oracles (τῶν λογίων) some are represented as delivered in the person of God by His interpreter, the divine prophet (ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ θεοῦ διʼ ἑρμηνέως τοῦ θείου προφήτου), while others are put in the form of question and answer (ἐκ πεύσεως καὶ ἀποκρίσεως ἐθεσπίσθη), and others are delivered by Moses in his own character, as a divinely prompted lawgiver possessed by divine inspiration (ἐκ προσώπου Μωϋσέως ἐπιθειάσαντος καὶ ἐξ αὐτοῦ κατασχεθέντος).

"Therefore all the earliest [Gr. πρῶτα = the first of the three classes enumerated] oracles are manifestations of the whole of the divine virtues and especially of that merciful and boundless character by means of which He trains all men to virtue, and especially the race which is devoted to His service, to which He lays open the road leading to happiness. The second class have a sort of mixture and communication (μίξιν καὶ κοινωνίαν) in them, the prophet asking information on the subjects as to which he is in difficulty and God answering him and instructing him. The third sort are attributed to the lawgiver, God having given him a share in His prescient power by means of which he is enabled to foretell the future.

"Therefore we must for the present pass by the first; for they are too great to be adequately praised by any man, as indeed they could scarcely be panegyrized worthily by the heaven itself and the nature of the universe; and they are also uttered by the mouth, as it were, of an interpreter (καὶ ἄλλως λέγεται ὡσανεὶ διʼ ἑρμηνέως). But (δὲ) interpretation and prophecy differ from one another. And concerning the second kind I will at once endeavor to explain the truth, connecting with them the third species also, in which the inspired character (ἐνθουσιῶδες) of the speaker is shown, according to which he is most especially and appropriately looked upon as a prophet."

A somewhat different distribution of material—now from the point of view, not of mode of oracular delivery, but of nature of contents—is given at the opening of the tract "De præm. et poen." (§ 1, init.):

"We find then that in the sacred oracles delivered by the prophet Moses (τῶν διὰ τοῦ προφήτου Μωϋσέως λογίων) there are three separate characters: for a portion of them relates to the creation of the world, a portion is historical, and the third portion is legislative."

Accordingly in the tract "De Legat. ad Caium," §31 (Mangey, ii. 577), we are told of the high esteem the Jews put on their laws:

"For looking upon their laws as oracles directly given to them by God Himself (θεόχρηστα γὰρ λόγια τοὺς νόμους ἔιναι ὑπολαμβάνοντες) and having been instructed in this doctrine from their earliest infancy, they bear in their souls the images of the commandments contained in these laws as sacred."

By the side of this passage should be placed doubtless another from the "De Vita Contemplativa," §3, since it appears that we may still look on this tract as Philo's:

"And in every house there is a sacred shrine … Studying in that place the laws and sacred oracles of God enunciated by the holy prophets (νόμους καὶ λόγια δεσπισθέντα διὰ προφητῶν) and hymns and psalms and all kinds of other things by reason of which knowledge and piety are increased and brought to perfection."

It is not strange that out of such a view of Scripture Philo should adduce every part of it alike as a λόγιον. Sometimes, to be sure, his discrimination of its contents into classes shows itself in the formulæ of citation; and we should guard ourselves from being misled by this. Thus, for example, he occasionally quotes a λόγιον "from the mouth (or 'person') of God"—which does not mean that Scriptures other than these portions thus directly ascribed to God as speaking, are less oracular than these, but only that these are oracles of his first class—those that "are represented as delivered from the person of God (ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ θεοῦ) by his interpreter, the divine prophet." A single instance or two will suffice for examples:

"And the sacred oracle which is delivered as" [dele "as"] "from the mouth" [or "person"] "of the ruler of the universe (λόγιον ἐκ προσώπου θεσπισθὲν τοῦ τῶν ὅλων ἡγεμόνος) speaks of the proper name of God as never having been revealed to anyone when God is represented as saying, 'For I have not shown them my name' (Gen. 6:3)" ("De Mutat. Nom.," §2). "And the oracles" (οἱ χρησμοί which is a standing term for 'the Scriptures' in Philo) "bear testimony, in which it is said to Abraham ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ θεοῦ (Gen. 17:1)" (ditto, §5). "And he (Jeremiah the prophet) like a man very much under the influence of inspiration (ἅτε τὰ πολλὰ ἐνθονσιῶν) uttered an oracle in the character of God (χρησμόν τινα ἐξεῖπεν ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ θεοῦ) speaking in this manner to most peaceful virtue: 'Hast thou not called me as thy house' etc. (Jer. 3:4)" ("De Cherub.," § 14, M. i. 148).

The other oracles, delivered not ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ θεοῦ but in dialogue or in the person of the prophet, are, however, no less oracular or authoritative. To Philo all that is in Scripture is oracular, every passage is a λόγιον, of whatever character or length; and the whole, as constituted of these oracles, is τὰ λόγια, or perhaps even τὸ λόγιον—the mass of logia or one continuous logion.

It is not said, be it observed, that Philo's sole mode of designating Scripture, or even his most customary mode, is as τὰ λόγια. As has already been stated, he used χρησμός equally freely with λόγιον for passages of Scripture, and οἱ χρησμοί apparently even more frequently than τὰ λόγια for the body of Scripture. Instances of the use of the two terms interchangeably in the same passage have already been incidentally given. A very few passages will suffice to illustrate his constant use of χρησμός and οἱ χρησμοί separately.

In the following instances he adduces passages of Scripture, each as a χρησμός:

"On this account also the oracle (ὁ χρησμός) which bears testimony against the pretended simplicity of Cain says, 'You do not think as you say' (Gen. 4:15)" ("Quod det. potiori insid.," § 45, M. i. 223). "And of the supreme authority of the living God, the sacred scripture is a true witness (ὁ χρησμὸς ἀληθὴς μάρτυς) which speaks thus (Lev. 25:23)" ("De Cherub.," § 31, M. i. 158). "For a man will come forth, says the word of God (φησὶν ὁ χρησμός) leading a host and warring furiously, etc. (Num. 24:7)" ("De Praem. et Poen.," § 16, M. ii. 423). "And the sacred scripture bears witness to this fact (μαρτυρεῖ δὲ ὁ περὶ τούτων χρησμός): for it says (Num. 23:19)" ("De Migrat. Abrah.," § 20, M. i. 454). "For though there was a sacred scripture (χρησμοῦ γὰρ ὄντος) that 'There should be no harlot among the daughters of the seer, Israel' (Deut. 23:17)" ("De Migrat. Abrah.," § 39, M. i. 472). "And witness is borne to this assertion by the scripture (μάρτυς δὲ καὶ χρησμός) in which it is said: 'I will cause to live,' etc. (Deut. 32:39)" ("De Somniis," ii. 44, M. i. 698). "The oracle (ὁ χρησμός) given to the all-wise Moses, in which these words are contained" ("Quod det. pot. insid.," § 34, M. i. 215). "Which also the oracle (ὁ χρησμός) said to Cain" (do., § 21). "And I know that this illustrious oracle was formerly delivered from the mouth of the prophet (στόματι δʼ οἶδά ποτε προφητικῷ θεσπισθέντα διάπυρον τοιόνδε χρησμόν), 'Thy fruit,' etc., (Hos. 14:9)" ("De Mutat. Nom.," § 24, M. ii. 599). In this last case it is to be noticed that the "oracle" is taken from Hosea: the corresponding passage in "De Plant. Noe.," § 33, M. 1, 350, should be compared: "And with this assertion, this oracle delivered by one of the prophets is consistent, etc. (Hos. 14:9) (τούτῳ καὶ παρά τινι τῶν προφητῶν χρησθὲν συνᾴδει τόδε)."

Two other passages may be adduced for their inherent interest. The first from "De Profug.," §32 (M. i. 573), where we read:

"There are passages written in the sacred scriptures (οἱ ἀναγραφέντες χρησμοί) which give proof of these things. What they are we must now consider. Now in the very beginning of the history of the law there is a passage to the following effect (Gen. 2:6) (αἴδεταί τις ἐν ἀρχῇ τῆς νομοθεσίας μετὰ τὴν κοσμοποιΐαν εὐθὺς τοιόσδε)."

Here there is a precise designation where, among "the written χρησμοί," a certain one (τις) of them may be found, viz., in the beginning of "The Legislation" immediately after "The Creation" (cf. Ryle, p. xxi, note 1). The other is from the first book of the "De Somniis," § 27 (M. i. 646):

"These things are not my myth, but an oracle (χρησμός) written on the sacred tables (ἐν ταῖς ἱεραῖς ἀναγεγραμμένος στήλαις), For it says (Gen. 46:1)."

This passage in Genesis is thus an oracle "written in the sacred tablets"—and thus this phrase emerges as one of Philo's names for the Scriptures. Elsewhere we read somewhat more precisely:

"Now these are those men who have lived irreproachably and admirably, whose virtues are durably and permanently recorded as on pillars in the sacred scriptures (ὦν τὰς ἀρετὰς ἐν ταῖς ἱερωτάταις ἐστηλιτεῦσθαι γραφαῖς συμβέβηκεν)" ("De Abrah.," § 1, M. ii. 2). "There is also in another place the following sentence (γράμμα) deeply engraven (ἐστηλιτευμένον), (Deut. 32:8)" ("De Congr. Erud. Grat.," § 12, M. i. 527).

The "Scriptures" thus bear to Philo a monumental character: they are a body of oracles written, and more—a body of oracles permanently engraved to be a lasting testimony forever.

The designations for Scripture in Philo are, indeed, somewhat various—such as ἱεραὶ γραφαί ("Quis rerum div. heres," § 32 M. i. 495); ἱεραὶ βίβλοι ("Quod det. pot. insid.," § 44, M. i. 222); τοῖς ἱεροῖς γράμμασιν ("Legat. ad Caium.," § 29, M. ii. 574). But probably none are used so frequently as, on the one hand, λόγος, with various adjectival enhancements—such as ὁ προφητικὸς λόγος ("De Plantat. Noe," § 28, M. i. 437), ὁ θεῖος λόγος ("Legg. Alleg.," iii, § 3, M. i. 89; "De Mutat. Nom.," § 20; "De Somniis," i. 33, ii. 37), and ὃ ἱερὸς λόγος ("De Ebriet.," § 36, M. i. 379; "De Mut. Nominum," § 38; "De Somniis," i. 14, 22, 33, 35, 37, 39, 42; ii. 4, 9, 37, etc.); and especially, on the other hand, οἱ χρησμοί, occurring at times with extraordinary frequency. Some passages illustrative of this last usage are the following:

"For the sacred Scriptures (οἱ χρησμοί) say that he entered into the darkness" ("De Mutat. Nom.," § 2). "But the sacred oracles (οἱ χρησμοί) are witnesses of that in which Abraham is addressed (the words being put in the mouth of God), (ἐν οἷς λέγεται τῷ Ἀβραὰμ ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ θεοῦ) (Gen. 17:1)" (do. § 5). "And these are not my words only but those of the most holy scriptures (χρησμῶν τῶν ἱερωτάτων,—anarthrous to bring out the quality in contrast to ἐμὸς μῦθος), in which certain persons are introduced as saying …" (do. § 28). Of Isaiah 48:22 it is said in do. § 31: λόγος γὰρ ὄντως καὶ χρησμός ἐστι θεῖος. "Accordingly the holy scriptures (οἱ χρησμοί) tell us that …" (do. § 36). "Therefore the sacred scriptures (οἱ χρησμοί) represent Leah as hated" (do. § 44) "For she is represented by the sacred oracles (διὰ τῶν χρησμῶν) as having left off all womanly ways (Gen. 18:12)" ("De Ebrietat.," § 14, M. i. 365). "On which account the holy scripture (οἱ χρησμοί) very beautifully represent it as 'a little city and yet not a little one' " ("De Abrah.," § 31, M. ii. 25). "Therefore the sacred scriptures (οἱ χρησμοί) say (Gen. 24:1)" ("De Sobriet.," § 4, M. i. 395). "According as the sacred scriptures (οἱ χρησμοί) testify, in which it is said (Ex. 8:1)" ("De Confus. Ling.," § 20, M. i. 419). "On which account it is said in the sacred scriptures (ἐν χρησμοῖς) (Deut. 7:7)" ("De Migrat. Abrah.," § 11, M. i. 445). "God having drawn up and confirmed the proposition, as the Scriptures (οἱ χρησμοί) show, in which it is expressly stated that (Deut. 30:4)" ("De Confus. Ling.," § 38, M. i. 435).

When we combine these passages with those in which λόγιον occurs it will probably not seem too much to say that the dominant method of conceiving the Bible in Philo's mind was as a book of oracles. Whether he uses the word λόγιον or χρησμός, it is, of course, all one to him. Indeed, that nothing should be lacking he occasionally uses also other synonyms. For example, here is an instance of the Homeric word θεοπρόπιον cropping out: "For there is extant an oracle delivered to the wise man in which it is said (Lev. 26:12), (καὶ γάρ ἐστι χρησθὲν τῷ σοφῷ θεοπρόπιον ἐν ᾧ λέγεται)" ("De Somniis," i, § 23). And this oracular conception of Scripture is doubtless the reason why it is so frequently quoted in Philo by the subjectless φησί, λέγει, λέγεται (instead of, say, γέγραπται). There are in general, speaking broadly, three ways in which one fully accepting the divine origin and direct divine authority of Scripture may habitually look upon it. He may think of it as a library of volumes and then each volume is likely to be spoken of by him as a γραφή and the whole, because the collection of volumes, as αἱ γραφαί, or, when the idea of its unity is prominently in mind, as itself ἡ γραφή. On the other hand, the sense of its composite character may be somewhat lost out of habitual thought, swallowed up in the idea of its divine unity, and then its several sentences or passages are apt to be thought and spoken of as each a γράμμα, and the whole, because made up of these sentences or passages, as τὰ γράμματα. Or, finally, the sense of the direct divine utterance of the whole to the soul, and of its immediate divine authority, may overshadow all else and the several sentences or passages of the book be each conceived as an unmediated divine word coming directly to the soul—and then each passage is likely to be called a λόγιον or χρησμός, and the whole volume, because the sum of these passages, τὰ λόγια or οἱ χρησμοί—or occasionally, when its unity is prominently in mind, one great τὸ λόγιον or ὁ χρησμός. Each of these three ways of looking at the Scriptures of the Old Testament finds expression in Philo, in Josephus and in the New Testament. But it is the last that is most characteristic of the thought of Philo, and the first possibly of the writers of the New Testament:75 while perhaps we may suspect that the intermediate one was most congenial to the thought of Josephus, who, as a man of affairs and letters rather than of religion, would naturally envisage the writings of the Old Testament rather as documents than as oracles.

From this survey we may be able to apprehend with some accuracy Philo's place in the development of the usage of the word λόγιον. He has received it directly from profane Greek as one of a series of synonyms—λόγιον, χρησμός, θεοπρόπιον, etc.—denoting a direct word from God, an "oracle." He has in no way modified its meaning except in so far as a heightening of its connotation was inseparable from the transference of it from the frivolous and ambiguous oracles of heathendom to the revelations of the God of Israel, a heightening which was, no doubt, aided by the constant use of the word in the Septuagint—Philo's Bible—to translate the Hebrew אִמְרָה with all its high suggestions. But in this transference he has nevertheless given it a wholly new significance, in so far as he has applied it to a fixed written revelation and thus impressed on it entirely new implications. In his hands, λόγιον becomes, by this means, a synonym of γράμμα, and imports "a passage of Scripture"—conceived, of course, as a direct oracle from God. And the plural becomes a synonym of τὰ γράμματα, αἱ γραφαί, οἱ βίβλοι, ὁ λόγος—or whatever other terms are used to express the idea of "the Holy Scriptures"—and imports what we call "the Bible," of course with the implication that this Bible is but a congeries of "oracles," or direct utterances of God, or even in its whole extent one great "oracle" or utterance of God—that it is, in a word, the pure and absolute "Word of God." But when we say that λόγιον is in Philo's hands the equivalent of "a passage of Scripture," we must guard against supposing that there is any implication of brevity attaching to it: its implication is that of direct divine utterance, not of brevity; and "the passage" in mind and designated by λόγιον may be of any length, conceived for the time and the purpose in hand as a unitary deliverance from God, up to the whole body of Scripture itself. Similarly τὰ λόγια in Philo has not yet hardened into a simple synonym of "Scripture," but designates any body of the "oracles" of which the whole Scripture is composed—now the "ten commandments," now the Book of Genesis, now the Pentateuch, now the Jewish Law in general.

There is little trace in Philo of the application made in the LXX. of λόγιον to the high priestly breastplate, by which it came to mean, not only the oracular deliverance, but the place or instrument of divination—though, quoting the LXX. as freely as he does, Philo could not help occasionally incorporating such a passage in his writings. We read, for example, in the "Legg. Allegor.," iii, § 40 (M. i. 111):

"At all events the Holy Scripture (ὁ ἱερὸς λόγος), being well aware how great is the power of the impetuosity of each passion, anger and appetite, puts a bridle in the mouth of each, having appointed reason (τὸν λόγον) as their charioteer and pilot. And first of all it speaks thus of anger, in the hope of pacifying and curing it, 'And you shall put manifestation and truth' [the Urim and Thummim] 'in the oracle of judgment (ἐπὶ τὸ λόγιον τῶν κρίσεων) and it shall be on the breast of Aaron, when he comes into the Holy Place before the Lord' (Ex. 28:30). Nor by the oracle (λόγιον) is here meant the organs of speech which exist in us.… For Moses here speaks not of a random, spurious oracle (λόγιον) but of the oracle of judgment, which is equivalent to saying a well-judged and carefully examined oracle."

Thus Philo gradually transmutes the λόγιον = λογεῖον of his text into the λόγιον = χρησμός of his exposition: and it is a little remarkable how little influence this LXX. usage has on his own use of the word. With him λόγιον is distinctively a passage of Scripture, and the congeries of these passages make τὰ λόγια.

That this usage is not, however, a peculium of Philo's merely, is evidenced by a striking passage from Josephus, in which it appears in full development. For example, we read:

"The Jews, by demolishing the tower of Antonia, had made their temple square, though they had it written in their sacred oracles (ἀναγεγραμμένον ἐν τοῖς λογίοις) that their city and sanctuary should be taken when their temple should become square. But what most stirred them up was an ambiguous oracle (χρησμός) that was found also in their sacred writings (ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς εὑρημένος γράμμασιν) that about that time one from their country should become ruler of the world. The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves, and many wise men were thereby deceived in their judgment. Now this oracle (τὸ λόγιον) certainly denoted the rule of Vespasian" ("De Bello Jud.," vi. 5, 4).

In this short passage we have most of the characteristics of the Philonean usage repeated: here is the interchangeable usage of λόγιον and χρησμός, on the one hand, and of τὰ λόγια and τὰ γράμματα, on the other: the sacred writings of the Jews are made up of "oracles," so that each portion of them is a λόγιον and the whole τὰ λόγια.

IV. That this employment of τὰ λόγια as a synonym of αἱ γραφαί was carried over from the Jewish writers to the early Fathers, Dr. Lightfoot has sufficiently shown in a brief but effective passage in his brilliant papers in reply to the author of "Supernatural Religion." It is not necessary to go over the ground afresh which Dr. Lightfoot has covered. But, for the sake of a general completeness in the presentation of the history of the word, it may be proper to set down here some of the instances of its usage in this sense among the earlier Fathers. Clement of Rome, after having quoted examples from the Scriptures at length, sums up the lesson thus: "The humility, therefore, and the submissiveness of so many great men, who have thus obtained a good report, hath through obedience made better not only us, but also the generations which were before us, even them that received his oracles in fear and truth" (c. 19); again (c. 53), "For ye know, and know well the sacred Scriptures (τὰς ἱερὰς γραφάς), dearly beloved, and ye have searched into the oracles of God (τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ)"; and still again (c. 62), "And we have put you in mind of these things the more gladly, since we knew well that we were writing to men who are faithful and highly accounted and have diligently searched into the oracles of the teaching of God (τὰ λόγια τῆς παιδείας τοῦ θεοῦ)." The same phenomenon obviously meets us here as in Philo: and Harnack and Lightfoot81 both naturally comment to this effect on the middle instance—the former calling especially attention to the equation drawn between the two phrases for Scripture, and the latter to the fact, as shown by the Scriptures immediately adduced, that the mind of the writer in so designating Scripture was not on "any divine precept or prediction, but the example of Moses." Equally strikingly, we read in II Clem., xiii, "For the Gentiles when they hear from our mouth the oracles of God, marvel at them for their beauty and greatness.… For when they hear from us that God saith, 'It is no thank unto you, if ye love them that love you, but this is thank unto you, if you love your enemies and them that hate you [Luke 6:32]'—when they hear these things, I say, they marvel at their exceeding goodness." "The point to be observed," says Lightfoot, "is that the expression here refers to an evangelical record." Similarly Polycarp, c. vii, writes: "For every one 'who will not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is antichrist' (1 John 4:2, 3); and whosoever shall not confess the testimony of the cross is of the devil; and whosoever shall pervert the oracles of the Lord (τὰ λόγια τοῦ κυρίου) to his own lusts and say there is neither resurrection nor judgment, that man is the firstborn of Satan." On this passage Zahn, followed by Lightfoot, very appropriately adduces the parallel in the Preface to Irenæus' great work, "Against Heresies," where he complains of the Gnostics "falsifying the oracles of the Lord (τὰ λόγια Κυρίου), becoming bad exegetes of what is well said": while later ("Hær.," i. 8, 1) the same writer speaks of the Gnostics' art in adapting the dominical oracles (τὰ κυριακὰ λόγια) to their opinions, a phrase he equates with "the oracles of God," and uses in a context which shows that he has the whole complex of Scripture in mind. In precisely similar wise, Clement of Alexandria is found calling the Scriptures the "oracles of truth" ("Coh. ad Gent.," p. 84 ed. Potter), the "oracles of God" ("Quis Div. Sal.," 3) and the "inspired oracles" ("Strom.," i. 392); and Origen, "the oracles," "the oracles of God" "De Prin.," vi. 11; in Matt., x. § 6): and Basil, the "sacred oracles," "the oracles of the Spirit" ("Hom.," xi. 5; xii. 1). The Pseudo-Ignatius ("ad Smyr.," iii) writes: "For the oracles (τὰ λόγια) say: 'This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven,' etc. [Acts 1:11]"—where the term certainly is just the equivalent of ἡ γραφή. And Photius tells us ("Bibl.," 228) that the Scriptures recognized by Ephraem, Patriarch of Antioch (circa 525–545 A.D.), consisted of the Old Testament, the Dominical Oracles (τὰ κυριακὰ λόγια) and the Preaching of the Apostles"—where the adjective κυριακά is obviously intended to limit the broad τὰ λόγια, so that the phrase means just "the Gospels."

Dr. Lightfoot's object in bringing together such passages, it will be remembered, was to fix the sense of λόγια in the description which Eusebius gives of the work of Papias and in his quotations from Papias' remarks about the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Papias' book, we are told by Eusebius ("H. E.," iii, 39), was entitled Λογίων κυριακῶν ἐξηγήσεις—that is, obviously, from the usage of the words, it was a commentary on the Gospels, or less likely, on the New Testament: and he is quoted as explaining that Matthew wrote τὰ λόγια in the Hebrew language and that Mark made no attempt to frame a σύνταξιν τῶν κυριακῶν λογίων, or, as is explained in the previous clause, of τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἤ λεχθέντα ἢ πραχθέντα—that is, as would seem again to be obvious, each wrote his section of the "Scriptures" in the manner described. The temptation to adjust these Papian phrases to current theories of the origin of the Gospels has proved too strong, however, to be withstood even by the demonstration of the more natural meaning of the words provided by Dr. Lightfoot's trenchant treatment: and we still hear of Papias' treatise on the "Discourses of the Lord," and of the "Book of Discourses" which Papias ascribes to Matthew and which may well be identified (we are told) with the "Collection of Sayings of Jesus," which criticism has unearthed as lying behind our present Gospels. Indeed, as time has run on, there seems in some quarters even a growing disposition to neglect altogether the hard facts of usage marshaled by Dr. Lightfoot, and to give such rein to speculation as to the meaning of the term λόγια as employed by Papias, that the last end of the matter would appear to threaten to be worse than the first. We are led to use this language by a recent construction of Alfred Resch's, published in the "Theologische Studien" dedicated to Bernhard Weiss on his seventieth birthday. Let us, however, permit Resch to speak for himself. He is remarking on the identification of the assumed fundamental gospel (Urevangelium) with the work of Matthew mentioned by Papias. He says:

"Thus the name—λόγια—and the author—Matthew—seemed to be found for this Quellenschrift. In the way of this assumption there stood only the circumstance that the name 'λόγια' did not seem to fit the Quellenschrift as it had been drawn out by study of the Gospels, made wholly independently of the notice of Papias—since it yielded a treatise of mixed narrative and discourses. This circumstance led some to characterize the Quellenschrift, in correspondence with the name λόγια, as a mere collection of discourses; while others found in it a reason for sharply opposing the identification of the Logia of Matthew and the fundamental gospel (Urevangelium), or even for discrediting the whole notice of Papias as worthless and of no use to scholars. No one, however, thought of looking behind the λόγια for the hidden Hebrew name, although it was certainly obvious that a treatise written in Hebrew could not fail to have a Hebrew title. And I must myself confess that only in 1895, while the third volume of my 'Aussercanonischen Paralleltexte' was passing through the press, did it occur to me to ask after the Hebrew name of the λόγια. But with the question the answer was self-evidently at once given: דְּבָרִים, therefore דִּבְרֵי יֵשׁוּעַ. To this answer attached itself at once, however, the reminiscence of titles ascribed in the Old Testament to a whole series of Quellenschriften: דִּבְרֵי שׁמוּאֵל, המֶּלֶךְ. דּבְרֵי דָוִיד, דִּבְרֵי נָחָן הַנָּבִיא, (הָרֹאֶה) דִּבְרֵי נָּד הַחֹוֶה (cf. 1 Chron. 29:29); סֵפֶר דִּברֵי שְׁלֹמֹה (1 Kings 11:41); דִּבְרֵי מְנַשֶּׁה, דִּבְרֵי מַלְכֵי ישְׂרָאֵל (2 Chron. 33:18). As, then, there in the Old Testament, it is just historical Quellenschriften of biographical contents that bear the name of דְּבָריִם, so this New Testament Quellenschrift, the title דִּבְרֵי ישֵׁוּעַ. It contained therefore the history of Him of whom the prophets had prophesied, Who was greater than Solomon, David's Son and David's Lord and the King of Israel. And as the LXX. had translated the title דּבְרֵי, certainly unskillfully enough by λόγοι, so Papias or his sponsor (Gewährsmann) by λόγια. The sense, however, of the Hebrew דְּבָרִים is, as Luther very correctly renders it—'Histories.' Cf. Heft iii. 812. By this discovery of the original title, the New Testament Quellenschrift which from an unknown had already become a known thing, has now become from an unnamed a named thing. The desiderated x has been completely found."

Criticism like this certainly scorns all facts. The Hebrew word דבר, meaning a "word," passed by a very readily understood process into the sense of "thing." In defining the term as used in the titles which Resch adduces, Dr. Driver says: "words: hence affairs, things—in so far as they are done, 'acts'; in so far as they are narrated, 'history.' " The word דבר thus readily lent itself, in combinations like those adduced by Resch, to a double meaning: and it is apparently found in both these senses. In instances like דִּבְרֵי קֹהֶלֶת (Eccl. 1:1, cf. Prov. 30:1, 31:5; Jer. 1:1; Am. 1:1; Neh. 1:1) it doubtless means "words of Koheleth," and the like. In the instances adduced by Resch, it is doubtless used in the secondary sense of "history." The Greek word λόγος, by which דבר was ordinarily translated in the LXX., while naturally not running through a development of meaning exactly parallel to that of דבר, yet oddly enough presented a fair Greek equivalent for both of these senses of דִּבְרֵי־, used in titles: and why Resch should speak of λόγοι as unskillfully used in the titles he adduces, does not appear on the surface of things. Certainly, from Herodotus down, οἱ λόγοι bore the specific meaning of just "Histories," as afterwards it bore the sense of "prose writings": and the early Greek historians were called accordingly οἱ λογογράφοι. The LXX. translators, in a word, could scarcely have found a happier Greek rendering for the titles of the Quellenschriften enumerated in 1 Chron. 29:29, 30, etc. Who, however, could estimate the unskillfulness of translating דברי in such titles by λόγια—a word which had no such usage and indeed did not readily lend itself to an application to human "words?" Papias (or his sponsor) must have been (as Eusebius calls him) a man of mean capacity indeed, so to have garbled Matthew's Hebrew. It should be noted, further, that Papias does not declare, as Resch seems to think, that Matthew wrote τὰ λόγια τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, or even τὰ κυριακὰ λόγια—it is Papias' own book whose title contains this phrase; and it will be hard to suppose that Papias (or his sponsor) was a man of such mean capacity as to fancy the simple τὰ λόγια a fair equivalent for the Hebrew דברי ישוע in the sense of "The History of Jesus." If he did so, one does not wonder that he has had to wait two thousand years for a reader to catch his meaning. Such speculations, in truth, serve no other good purpose than to exhibit how far a-sea one must drift who, leaving the moorings of actual usage, seeks an unnatural meaning for these phrases. Their obvious meaning is that Papias wrote an "Exposition of the Gospels," and that he speaks of Matthew's and Mark's books as themselves sections of those "Scriptures" which he was expounding. Under the guidance of the usage of the word, this would seem the only tenable opinion.

It is not intended, of course, to imply that there is no trace among the Fathers of any other sense attaching to the words τὸ λόγιον, τὰ λόγια, than "the Scriptures" as a whole. Other applications of the words were found standing side by side with this in Philo, and they are found also among the Fathers. Τὸ λόγιον, used of a specific text of Scripture, for example, is not uncommon in the Fathers. It is found, for instance, in Justin Martyr, "Apol.," i. 32: "And Jesse was his forefather κατὰ τὸ λόγιον"—to wit, Isa. 11:1, just quoted. It is found in Clement of Alexandria ("Strom.," 2. Migne, i. 949a), where Isa. 7:9 is quoted and it is added: "It was this λόγιον that Heraclitus of Ephesus paraphrased when he said.…" It is found repeatedly in Eusebius' "Ecclesiastical History," in which the Papian passages are preserved, as, e. g., ix. 7, ad fin., "So that, according to that divine (θεῖον) λόγιον," viz., Matt. 24:24; 10:1, 4, "the λόγιον thus enjoining us," viz., Ps. 97(98):1; 10:4, 7, "concerning which a certain other divine λόγιον thus proclaims," viz., Ps. 86(87):3. Τὰ λόγια is also used in the Fathers, as in Philo, for any body of these Scriptural λόγια, however small or large (i. e., for any given section of Scripture)—as, e. g., for the Ten Commandments. It is so used, for instance, in the "Apostolical Constitutions," ii. 26: "Keep the fear of God before your eyes, always remembering τῶν δέκα τοῦ θεοῦ λογίων"; and also in Eusebius (H. E., ii. 18, 5). So, again, we have seen it, modified by qualifying adjectives, used for the Gospels—and indeed it seems to be employed without qualifications in this sense in Pseudo-Justin's "Epistola ad Zeram et Serenum" (Otto, i. 70b). It is further sometimes used apparently not of the Scripture text as such, but of certain oracular utterances recorded in it—as, for example, when Justin says to Trypho (c. 18): "For since you have read, O Trypho, as you yourself admitted, the doctrines taught by our Saviour, I do not think that I have done foolishly in adding some short utterances of his (βραχέα τοῦ ἐκείνου λόγια) to the prophetic statements"—to wit, words of Jesus recorded in Matt 21, 23 and Luke 11, here put on a level with the oracles of the prophets, but apparently envisaged as spoken. All these are usages that have met us before.

But there are lower usages also discoverable in the later Patristic writers at least. There is an appearance now and then indeed as if the word was, in popular speech, losing something of its high implication of "solemn oracular utterances of God," and coming to be applied as well to the words of mere men—possibly in sequence to its application to the words of prophets and apostles as such and the gradual wearing down, in the careless popular consciousness, of the distinction between their words as prophets and apostles and their words as men; possibly, on the other hand, in sequence to the freer use of the word in profane speech and the wearing away of its high import with the loss of reverence for the thing designated. Thus we read as early as in the "Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena," edited by Prof. James for the "Cambridge Texts and Studies," and assigned by him to the middle of the third century (c. 28, p. 78), the following dialogue, in the course of a conversation between Polyxena and Andrew, "the apostle of the Lord": "Andrew saith: 'Draw not near me, child, but tell me who thou art and whence.' Then saith Polyxena: 'I am a great friend of these here (ξένη τῶν ἐνταῦθα), but I see thy gracious countenance and thy logia are as the logia of Paul and I presume thee, too, to belong to his God.' " If we may assume this to mark a transition stage in the usage, we may look upon a curious passage in John of Damascus as marking almost the completion of the sinking of the word to an equivalence to ῥήματα. It occurs in his "Disput. Christiani et Saraceni" (Migne, i. 1588, iii. 1344). The Saracenic disputant is represented as eager to obtain an acknowledgment that the Word of God, that is Christ, is a mere creature, and as plying the Christian with a juggle on the word λόγια. He asks whether the λόγια of God are create or increate. If the reply is "create," the rejoinder is to be: "Then they are not gods, and you have confessed that Christ, who is the Word (λόγος) of God is not God." If, on the other hand, the reply is "increate," the rejoinder apparently is to be that the λόγια of God nevertheless are not properly gods, and so again Christ the λόγος is not God. Accordingly John instructs the Christian disputant to refuse to say either that they are create or that they are increate, but declining the dilemma, to reply merely: "I confess one only Λόγος of God that is increate, but my whole Scripture (γραφή) I do not call λόγια, but ῥήματα θεοῦ." On the Saracen retorting that David certainly says τὰ λόγια (not ῥήματα) of the Lord are pure λόγια, the Christian is to reply that the prophet speaks here τροπολογικῶς, and not κυριολογικῶς, that is to say, not by way of a direct declaration, but by way of an indirect characterization. It is a remarkable logomachy that we are thus treated to: and it seems to imply that in John's day λόγια had sunk to a mere synonym of ῥήματα. That men had then ceased to speak of the whole γραφή as τὰ θεῖα λόγια we know not to have been the case: but apparently this language was now made use of with no more pregnancy of meaning than if they had said τὰ θεῖα ῥήματα. This process seems to have continued, and in the following passage from a work of the opening of the eleventh century—the "Life of Nilus the Younger," published in the 120th volume of Migne's "Pat. Græc." (p. 97 D),—we have an instance of the extreme extension of the application of the word: "Then saith the Father to him: 'It is not fitting that thou, a man of wisdom and high-learning, should think or speak τὰ τῶν κοινῶν ἀνθρώπων λόγια.' " And accordingly we cannot be surprised to find that in modern Greek the word is employed quite freely of human speech. Jannaris tells us that it is used in the sense of "maxim," and that in colloquial usage τὰ λόγια may mean "promise"—in both of which employments there may remain a trace of its original higher import. While Kontopoulos gives as the English equivalents of λόγιον, the following list: "A saying, a word; a maxim; a motto, an oracle; τὰ θεῖα λόγια, the divine oracles, the sacred Scriptures."

Thus not only all the usages of the word found, say, in Philo, are continued in the Fathers, but there is an obvious development to be traced. But this development itself is founded on and is a witness to the characteristic usage of the word among the Fathers—that, to wit, in which it is applied to the inspired words of prophets and apostles. And by far the most frequent use of the word in the Patristic writings seems to be that in which it designates just the Holy Scriptures. Their prevailing usage is very well illustrated by that of Eusebius. We have already quoted a number of passages from his "Ecclesiastical History" in which he seems to adduce special passages of Scripture, each as a λόγιον. More common is it for him to refer to the whole Scriptures as τὰ λόγια, or rather (for this is his favorite formula) τὰ θεῖα λόγια—and that whether he means the Old Testament (which in the "Præp. Evang.," ii. 6 [Migne, iii. 140 A], he calls τὰ Ἐβραίων λόγια), or the New Testament, or refers to the prophetic or the narrative portions. Instances may be found in "H. E.," v., 17, 5, where we are told that Miltiades left monuments of his study of the θεῖα λόγια; vi. 23, 2, where the zeal of Origen's friend Ambrose for the study of the θεῖα λόγια is mentioned as enabling Origen to write his commentaries on the θεῖαι γραφαί; xi. 9, 8, where a sentence from Ex. 15:1 is quoted as from the θεῖα λόγια; x. 4, 28, where Ps. 57(58):7 is quoted from the θεῖα λόγια; "Palestinian Martyrs," xi. 2, where the devotion of the Palestinian martyrs to the θεῖα λόγια is adverted to. Even the singular—τὸ λόγιον—seems occasionally used by Eusebius (as by Philo) as a designation of the whole Scripture fabric. We may suspect this to be the case in "H. E.," x. 4, 43, when we read of "the costly cedar of Lebanon of which τὸ θεῖον λόγιον has not been unmindful, saying, 'The forests of the Lord shall rejoice and the cedars of Lebanon which he planted' (Ps. 105[104]:16)." And we cannot doubt it at "H. E.," ii. 10, 1, where we read concerning Herod Agrippa, that "as ἡ τῶν πράξεων γραφή relates, he proceeded to Cæsarea and.… τὸ λόγιον relates 'that the angel of the Lord smote him' "—in which account it is worth while to observe the coincidence of Josephus' narrative with τὴν θεῖαν γραφήν. Here, of course, τὸ λόγιον is primarily the Book of Acts—but as the subsequent context shows, it represents that book only as part of the sacred Scriptures, so that τὸ λόγιον emerges as a complete synonym of ἡ θεῖα γραφή. Whatever other usage may from time to time emerge in the pages of the Fathers, the Patristic usage of the term, κατʼ ἐξοχήν, is as a designation of the "Scriptures" conceived as the Word of God.

In the light of these broad facts of usage, certain lines may very reasonably be laid down within which our interpretation of [τὰ] λόγια in the New Testament instances of its occurrence should move. It would seem quite certain, for example, that no lower sense can be attached to it in these instances, than that which it bears uniformly in its classical and Hellenistic usage: it means, not "words" barely, simple "utterances," but distinctively "oracular utterances," divinely authoritative communications, before which men stand in awe and to which they bow in humility: and this high meaning is not merely implicit, but is explicit in the term. It would seem clear again that there are no implications of brevity in the term: it means not short, pithy, pregnant sayings, but high, authoritative, sacred utterances; and it may be applied equally well to long as to short utterances—even though they extend to pages and books and treatises. It would seem to be clear once more that there are no implications in the term of what may be called the literary nature of the utterances to which it is applied: it characterizes the utterances to which it is applied as emanations from God, but whether they be prophetic or narrative or legal, parenetic or promissory in character, is entirely indifferent: its whole function is exhausted in declaring them to be God's own utterances. And still further, it would seem to be clear that it is equally indifferent to the term whether the utterances so designated be oral or written communications: whether oral or written it declares them to be God's own Word, and it had become customary to designate the written Word of God by this term as one that was felt fitly to describe the Scriptures as an oracular book—either a body of oracles, or one continuous oracular deliverance from God's own lips.

This last usage is so strikingly characteristic of the Hellenistic adaptation of the term that a certain presumption lies in favor of so understanding it in Hellenistic writings, when the Scriptural revelation is in question: though this presumption is, of course, liable to correction by the obvious implications of the passages as wholes. In such a passage as Rom. 3:2 this presumption rises very high indeed, and it would seem as if the word here must be read as a designation of the "Scriptures" as such, unless very compelling reasons to the contrary may be adduced from the context. That the mind of the writer may seem to some to be particularly dwelling upon this or that element in the contents of the Scriptures cannot be taken as such a compelling reason to the contrary: for nothing is more common than for a writer to be thinking more particularly of one portion of what he is formally adducing as a whole. The paraphrase of Wetstein appears in this aspect, therefore, very judicious: "They have the Sacred Books, in which are contained the oracles and especially the prophecies of the advent of the Messiah and the calling of the Gentiles; and by these their minds should be prepared": though, so far as this paraphrase may seem to separate between the Sacred Books and the Oracles they contain, it is unfortunate. The very point of this use of the word is that it identifies the Sacred Books with the Oracles; and in this aspect of it Dr. David Brown's comment is more satisfactory: "That remarkable expression, denoting 'Divine Communications' in general, is transferred to the sacred Scriptures to express their oracular, divinely authoritative character." The case is not quite so simple in Heb. 5:12: but here, too, the well-balanced comment of Dr. Westcott appears to us to carry conviction with it: "The phrase might refer to the new revelation given by Christ to His apostles (comp. c. i. 2); but it seems more natural to refer it to the collective writings of the Old Testament which the Hebrew Christians failed to understand." In Acts 7:38 the absence of the article introduces no real complication: it merely emphasizes the qualitative aspect of the matter; what Moses received was emphatically oracles—which is further enhanced by calling them "lively," i. e., they were not merely dead, but living, effective, operative oracles. The speaker's eye is obviously on Moses as the recipient of these oracles, and on the oracles as given by God to Moses, as is recorded in the Pentateuch: but the oracles his eye is on are those recorded in the Pentateuch, and that came to Moses, not for himself, but for the Church of all ages—"to give to us." Here we may hesitate to say, indeed, that λόγια means just the "Scriptures"; but what it means stands in a very express relation to the Scriptures, and possibly was not very sharply distinguished from the Scriptures by the speaker. With the analogies in Philo clearly in our mind, we should scarcely go far wrong if we conceived of λόγια here as meaning to the speaker those portions of Scripture in which Moses recorded the revelations vouchsafed to him by God—conceived as themselves these revelations recorded. In 1 Peter 4:11 the interpretation is complicated by the question that arises concerning the charisma that is intended, as well as by the casting of the phrase into the form of a comparison: "let him speak as it were oracles of God." It is not clear that the Divine Scriptures as such are meant here; but the term, in any case, retains all its force as a designation of sacred, solemn divine utterances: the speaker is to speak as becomes one whose words are not his own, but the very words of God—oracles proclaimed through his mouth. Whether it is the exercise of the prophetic gift in the strict sense that is adverted to, so that Peter's exhortation is that the prophet should comport himself in his prophesying as becomes one made the vehicle of the awful words of revelation; or only the gift of teaching that is in question, so that Peter's exhortation is that he who proclaims the word of God, even in this lower sense, shall bear himself as befits one to whom are committed the Divine oracles for explanation and enforcement—must be left here without investigation. In either case the term is obviously used in its highest sense and implies that the λόγια of God are His own words, His awesome utterances.

What has thus been said in reference to these New Testament passages is intended to go no further in their explanation than to throw the light of the usage of the word upon their interpretation. Into their detailed exegesis we cannot now enter. We cannot pass by the general subject, however, without emphasizing the bearing these passages have on the New Testament doctrine of Holy Scripture. It will probably seem reasonable to most to interpret Rom. 3:2 as certainly, Heb. 5:12 as probably, and Acts 7:38 as very likely making reference to the written Scriptures; and as bearing witness to the conception of them on the part of the New Testament writers as "the oracles of God." That is to say, we have unobtrusive and convincing evidence here that the Old Testament Scriptures, as such, were esteemed by the writers of the New Testament as an oracular book, which in itself not merely contains, but is the "utterance," the very Word of God; and is to be appealed to as such and as such deferred to, because nothing other than the crystallized speech of God. We merely advert to this fact here without stopping to develop its implications or to show how consonant this designation of the Scriptures as the "Oracles of God" is with the conception of the Holy Scriptures entertained by the New Testament writers as otherwise made known to us. We have lately had occasion to point out in this Review some of the other ways in which this conception expresses itself in the New Testament writings. He who cares to look for it will find it in many ways written largely and clearly and indelibly on the pages of the New Testament. We content ourselves at this time, however, with merely pointing out that the designation of the Scriptures as τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ fairly shouts to us out of the pages of the New Testament, that to its writers the Scriptures of the Old Testament were the very Word of God in the highest and strictest sense that term can bear—the express utterance, in all their parts and each and every of their words, of the Most High—the "oracles of God." Let him that thinks them something other and less than this, reckon, then, with the apostles and prophets of the New Covenant—to whose trustworthiness as witnesses to doctrinal truth he owes all he knows about the New Covenant itself, and therefore all he hopes for through this New Covenant.

X

INSPIRATION AND CRITICISM

Fathers and Brothers:

It is without doubt a very wise provision by which, in institutions such as this, an inaugural address is made a part of the ceremony of induction into the professorship. Only by the adoption of some such method could it be possible for you, as the guardians of this institution, responsible for the principles here inculcated, to give to each newly-called teacher an opportunity to publicly declare the sense in which he accepts your faith and signs your standards. Eminently desirable at all times, this seems particularly so now, when a certain looseness of belief (inevitable parent of looseness of practice) seems to have invaded portions of the Church of Christ,—not leaving even its ministry unaffected;—when there may be some reason to fear that "enlightened clerical gentlemen may sometimes fail to look upon subscription to creeds as our covenanting forefathers looked upon the act of putting their names to theological documents, and as mercantile gentlemen still look upon endorsement of bills." And how much more forcibly can all this be pled when he who appears before you at your call, is young, untried and unknown. I wish, therefore, to declare that I sign these standards not as a necessary form which must be submitted to, but gladly and willingly as the expression of a personal and cherished conviction; and, further, that the system taught in these symbols is the system which will be drawn out of the Scriptures in the prosecution of the teaching to which you have called me,—not, indeed, because commencing with that system the Scriptures can be made to teach it, but because commencing with the Scriptures I cannot make them teach anything else.

This much of personal statement I have felt it due both to you and myself to make at the outset; but having done with it, I feel free to turn from all personal concerns.

In casting about for a subject on which I might address you, I have thought I could not do better than to take up one of our precious old doctrines, much attacked of late, and ask the simple question: What seems the result of the attack? The doctrine I have chosen, is that of "Verbal Inspiration." But for obvious reasons I have been forced to narrow the discussion to a consideration of the inspiration of the New Testament only; and that solely as assaulted in the name of criticism. I wish to ask your attention, then, to a brief attempt to supply an answer to the question:

IS THE CHURCH DOCTRINE OF THE PLENARY INSPIRATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT ENDANGERED BY THE ASSURED RESULTS OF MODERN BIBLICAL CRITICISM?

At the very outset, that our inquiry may not be a mere beating of the air, we must briefly, indeed, but clearly, state what we mean by the Church Doctrine. For, unhappily, there are almost as many theories of inspiration held by individuals as there are possible stages imaginable between the slightest and the greatest influence God could exercise on man. It is with the traditional doctrine of the Reformed Churches, however, that we are concerned; and that we understand to be simply this:—Inspiration is that extraordinary, supernatural influence (or, passively, the result of it,) exerted by the Holy Ghost on the writers of our Sacred Books, by which their words were rendered also the words of God, and, therefore, perfectly infallible. In this definition, it is to be noted: 1st. That this influence is a supernatural one—something different from the inspiration of the poet or man of genius. Luke's accuracy is not left by it with only the safeguards which "the diligent and accurate Suetonius" had. 2d. That it is an extraordinary influence—something different from the ordinary action of the Spirit in the conversion and sanctifying guidance of believers. Paul had some more prevalent safeguard against false-teaching than Luther or even the saintly Rutherford. 3d. That it is such an influence as makes the words written under its guidance, the words of God; by which is meant to be affirmed an absolute infallibility (as alone fitted to divine words), admitting no degrees whatever—extending to the very word, and to all the words. So that every part of Holy Writ is thus held alike infallibly true in all its statements, of whatever kind.

Fencing around and explaining this definition, it is to be remarked further:

1st. That it purposely declares nothing as to the mode of inspiration. The Reformed Churches admit that this is inscrutable. They content themselves with defining carefully and holding fast the effects of the divine influence, leaving the mode of divine action by which it is brought about draped in mystery.

2d. It is purposely so framed as to distinguish it from revelation;—seeing that it has to do with the communication of truth not its acquirement.

3d. It is by no means to be imagined that it is meant to proclaim a mechanical theory of inspiration. The Reformed Churches have never held such a theory: though dishonest, careless, ignorant or over-eager controverters of its doctrine have often brought the charge. Even those special theologians in whose teeth such an accusation has been oftenest thrown (e. g., Gaussen) are explicit in teaching that the human element is never absent.4 The Reformed Churches hold, indeed, that every word of the Scriptures, without exception, is the word of God; but, alongside of that, they hold equally explicitly that every word is the word of man. And, therefore, though strong and uncompromising in resisting the attribution to the Scriptures of any failure in absolute truth and infallibility, they are before all others in seeking, and finding, and gazing on in loving rapture, the marks of the fervid impetuosity of a Paul—the tender saintliness of a John—the practical genius of a James, in the writings which through them the Holy Ghost has given for our guidance. Though strong and uncompromising in resisting all effort to separate the human and divine, they distance all competitors in giving honor alike to both by proclaiming in one breath that all is divine and all is human. As Gaussen so well expresses it, "We all hold that every verse, without exception, is from men, and every verse, without exception, is from God"; "every word of the Bible is as really from man as it is from God."

4th. Nor is this a mysterious doctrine—except, indeed, in the sense in which everything supernatural is mysterious. We are not dealing in puzzles, but in the plainest facts of spiritual experience. How close, indeed, is the analogy here with all that we know of the Spirit's action in other spheres! Just as the first act of loving faith by which the regenerated soul flows out of itself to its Saviour, is at once the consciously-chosen act of that soul and the direct work of the Holy Ghost; so, every word indited under the analogous influence of inspiration was at one and the same time the consciously self-chosen word of the writer and the divinely-inspired word of the Spirit. I cannot help thinking that it is through failure to note and assimilate this fact, that the doctrine of verbal inspiration is so summarily set aside and so unthinkingly inveighed against by divines otherwise cautious and reverent. Once grasp this idea, and how impossible is it to separate in any measure the human and divine. It is all human—every word, and all divine. The human characteristics are to be noted and exhibited; the divine perfection and infallibility, no less.

This, then, is what we understand by the church doctrine:—a doctrine which claims that by a special, supernatural, extraordinary influence of the Holy Ghost, the sacred writers have been guided in their writing in such a way, as while their humanity was not superseded, it was yet so dominated that their words became at the same time the words of God, and thus, in every case and all alike, absolutely infallible.

I do not purpose now to undertake the proof of this doctrine. I purpose rather to ask whether, assuming it to have been accepted by the Church as apparently the true one, modern biblical criticism has in any of its results reached conclusions which should shake our previously won confidence in it. It is plain, however, that biblical criticism could endanger such a doctrine only by undermining it—by shaking the foundation on which it rests—in other words by attacking the proof which is relied on to establish it. We have, then, so far to deal with the proofs of the doctrine. It is evident, now, that such a doctrine must rest primarily on the claims of the sacred writers. In the very nature of the case, the writers themselves are the prime witnesses of the fact and nature of their inspiration. Nor does this argument run in a vicious circle. We do not assume inspiration in order to prove inspiration. We assume only honesty and sobriety. If a sober and honest writer claims to be inspired by God, then here, at least, is a phenomenon to be accounted for. It follows, however, that besides their claims, there are also secondary bases on which the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures rests, and by the shaking of which it can be shaken. These are:—first, the allowance of their claims by the contemporaries of the writers,—by those of their contemporaries, that is, who were in a position to judge of the truth of such claims. In the case of the New Testament writers this means the contemporary church, who had the test of truth in its hands: "Was God visibly with the Apostles, and did He seal their claims with His blessing on their work?" And, secondly, the absence of all contradictory phenomena in or about the writings themselves. If the New Testament writers, being sober and honest men, claim verbal inspiration, and this claim was allowed by the contemporary church, and their writings in no respect in their character or details negative it, then it seems idle to object to the doctrine of verbal inspiration on any critical grounds.

In order, therefore, to shake this doctrine, biblical criticism must show: either, that the New Testament writers do not claim inspiration; or, that this claim was rejected by the contemporary church; or, that it is palpably negatived by the fact that the books containing it are forgeries; or, equally clearly negatived by the fact that they contain along with the claim errors of fact or contradictions of statement. The important question before us to-day, then, is: Has biblical criticism proved any one of these positions?

I. Note, then, in the first place, that modern biblical criticism does not in any way weaken the evidence that the New Testament writers claim full, even verbal, inspiration. Quite the contrary. The careful revision of the text of the New Testament and the application to it of scientific principles of historico-grammatical exegesis, place this claim beyond the possibility of a doubt. This is so clearly the case, that even those writers who cannot bring themselves to admit the truth of the doctrines, yet not infrequently begin by admitting that the New Testament writers claim such an inspiration as is in it presupposed. Take, for instance, the twin statements of Richard Rothe: "To wish to maintain the inspiration of the subject-matter, without that of the words, is a folly; for everywhere are thoughts and words inseparable," and "It is clear that the orthodox theory of inspiration [by which he means the very strictest] is countenanced by the authors of the New Testament." If we approach the study of the New Testament under the guidance of and in the use of the methods of modern biblical science, more clearly than ever before is it seen that its authors make such a claim. Not only does our Lord promise a supernatural guidance to his Apostles, both at the beginning of their ministry (Matthew 10:19, 20) and at the close of his life (Mark 12:11; Luke 21:12, cf. John 14 and 16) but the New Testament writers distinctly claim divine authority. With what assurance do they speak—exhibiting the height of delirium, if not the height of authority. The historians betray no shadow of a doubt as to the exact truth of their every word,—a phenomenon hard to parallel elsewhere among accurate and truth-loving historians who commonly betray less and less assurance in proportion as they exhibit more and more painstaking care. The didactic writers claim an absolute authority in their teaching, and betray as little shadow of doubt as to the perfectly binding character of their words (2 Cor. 10:7, 8). If opposed by an angel from heaven, the angel is indubitably wrong and accursed (Gal. 1:7, 8). Therefore, how freely they deal in commands (1 Thes. 4:2, 11; 2 Thes. 3:6–14); commands, too, which they hold to be absolutely binding on all; so binding that it is the test of a Spirit-led man to recognize them as the commandments of God (1 Cor. 14:37), and no Christian ought to company with those who reject them (2 Thes. 3:6–14). Nor is it doubtful that this authority is claimed specifically for the written word. In 1 Cor. 14:37, it is specifically "the things which I am writing" that must be recognized as the commands of the Lord; and so in 2 Thes. 2:15; 3:6–14, it is the teaching transmitted by letter as well as by word of mouth that is to be immediately and unquestionably received.

Now, on what is this immense claim of authority grounded? If a mere human claim, it is most astounding impudence. But that it is not a mere human claim, is specifically witnessed to. Paul claims to be but the transmitter of this teaching (2 Thes. 3:6; παρά); it is, indeed, his own (2 Thes. 3:14, ἡμῶν), but still, the transmitted word is God's word (1 Thes. 2:13). He speaks, indeed, and issues commands, but they are not his commands, but Christ's, in virtue of the fact that they are given through him by Christ (1 Thes. 4:2). The other writers exhibit the same phenomena. Peter distinctly claims that the Gospel was preached in (ἐν) the Holy Spirit (1 Peter, 1:12); and John calls down a curse on those who would in any way alter his writing (Rev. 22:18, 19; cf. 1 John, 5:10). These, we submit, are strange phenomena if we are to judge that these writers professed no inspiration.

"But," we are asked, "is this all?" We answer, that we have but just begun. All that we have said is but a cushion for the specific proof to rest easily on. For here we wish to make two remarks:

1. The inspiration which is implied in these passages, is directly claimed elsewhere. We will now appeal, however, to but two passages. Look at 1 Cor. 7:40, where the best and most scientific modern exegesis proves that Paul claimed for his "opinion" expressed in this letter direct divine inspiration, saying, "this is my opinion," and adding, not in modesty, or doubt, but in meiotic irony, "and it seems to me that I have the Spirit of God." If this interpretation be correct, and with the "it seems to me" and the very emphatic "I" staring us in the face, drawing the contrast so sharply between Paul and the impugners of his authority, it seems indubitably so; then it is clear that Paul claims here a direct divine inspiration in the expression of even his "opinion" in his letters. Again look for an instant at 1 Cor. 2:13. "Which things, also we utter not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit; joining spiritual things with spiritual things;" where modern science, more clearly even than ancient faith, sees it stated that both the matter and the manner of this teaching are from the Holy Ghost—both the thoughts and the words—yes, the words themselves. "It is not meet," says the Apostle, "that the things taught by the Holy Ghost should be expressed in merely human words; there must be Spirit-given words to clothe the Spirit-given doctrines. Therefore, I utter these things not in the words taught by human wisdom—not even in the most wisely-chosen human words—but in those taught by the Spirit, joining thus with Spirit-given things (as was fit) only Spirit-given words." It is impossible to deny that here there is clearly taught a suggestio verborum. Nor will it do to say that this does not bear on the point at issue, seeing that λόγος and not ῥῆμα is the term used. Not only is even this subterfuge useless in the face of what we will have still to urge, but it is even meaningless here. No one supposes that the mere grammatical forms separately considered are inspired: the claim concerns words in their ordered sequence—in their living flow in the sentences—and this is just what is expressed by λόγοι. This passage thus stands before us distinctly claiming verbal inspiration. The two together seem reconcilable with nothing less far reaching than the church doctrine.

2. But we must turn to our second remark. It is this: The New Testament writers distinctly place each other's writings in the same lofty category in which they place the writings of the Old Testament; and as they indubitably hold to the full—even verbal—inspiration of the Old Testament, it follows that they claim the same verbal inspiration for the New. Is it doubted that the New Testament writers ascribe full inspiration to the Old Testament? Modern science does not doubt it; nor can anyone doubt it who will but listen to the words of the New Testament writers in the matter. The whole New Testament is based on the divinity of the Old, and its inspiration is assumed on every page. The full strength of the case, then, cannot be exhibited. It may be called to our remembrance, however, that not only do the New Testament writers deal with the Old as divine, but that they directly quote it as divine. Those very lofty titles, "Scripture," "The Scriptures," "The Oracles of God," which they give it, and the common formula of quotation, "It is written," by which they cite its words, alone imply their full belief in its inspiration. And this is the more apparent that it is evident that for them to say, "Scripture says," is equivalent to their saying, "God says," (Romans 9:17; 10:19; Galatians 3:8.) Consequently, they distinctly declare that its writers wrote in the Spirit (Matthew 22:43; cf. Luke 20:42; and Acts 2:24); the meaning of which is made clear by their further statement that God speaks their words (Matthew 1:22; 2:15, etc.), even those not ascribed to God in the Old Testament itself (Acts 13:35; Hebrews 8:8; 1:6, 7, 8; 5:5; Eph. 4:8), thereby evincing the fact that what the human authors speak God speaks through their mouths (Acts 4:25). Still more narrowly defining the doctrine, it is specifically stated that it is the Holy Ghost who speaks the written words of Scripture (Hebrews 3:7)—yea, even in the narrative parts (Hebrews 4:4). In direct accordance with these statements, the New Testament writers use the very words of the Old Testament as authoritative and "not to be broken." Christ, himself, so deals with a tense in Matthew 22:32, and twice elsewhere founds an argument on the words (John 10:34; Matthew 22:43); and it is in connection with one of these word arguments that his divine lips declare "the Scriptures cannot be broken." His Apostles follow his example (Galatians 3:16). Still, further, we have, at least, two didactic statements in the New Testament, directly affirming the inspiration of the Old (2 Timothy 3:16, and 2 Peter 1:21). In one of these it is declared that every Scripture is God-inspired; in the other, that no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but borne along by the Holy Ghost it was that holy men of God spoke. It is, following the best results of modern critical exegesis, therefore, quite certain that the New Testament writers held the full verbal inspiration of the Old Testament. Now, they plainly place the New Testament books in the same category. The same Paul, who wrote in 2 Timothy, "Every Scripture is God-inspired," quotes in its twin letter, 1 Timothy, a passage from Luke's Gospel calling it "Scripture" (1 Timothy, 5:18),—nay, more,—parallelizing it as equally Scripture with a passage from the Old Testament. And the same Peter, who gave us our other didactic statements, and in the same letter, does the same for Paul that Paul did for Luke, and that even more broadly, declaring (2 Peter 3:16) that all Paul's Epistles are to be considered as occupying the same level as the rest of the Scriptures. It is quite indisputable, then, that the New Testament writers claim full inspiration for the New Testament books.

Now none of these points are weakened in either meaning or reference by the application of the principles of critical exegesis. In every regard they are strengthened. We can be quite bold, therefore, in declaring that modern criticism does not set aside the fact that the New Testament writers claim the very fullest inspiration.

II. We must ask, then, secondly, if modern critical investigation has shown that this claim of inspiration was disallowed by the contemporaries of the New Testament writers. Here again our answer must be in the negative. The New Testament writings themselves bristle with the evidences that they expected and received a docile hearing; parties may have opposed them, but only parties. And again, all the evidence that exists coming down to us from the sub-apostolic church—be it more or less voluminous, yet such as it is admitted to be by the various schools of criticism—points to a very complete reception of the New Testament claims. No church writer of the time can be pointed out who made a distinction derogatory to the New Testament, between it and the Old Testament, the Divine authority of which latter, it is admitted, was fully recognized in the church. On the contrary, all of them treat the New Testament with the greatest respect, hold its teachings in the highest honor, and run the statement of their theology into its forms of words as if they held even the forms of its statements authoritative. They all know the difference between the authority exercised by the New Testament writers and that which they can lawfully claim. They even call the New Testament books, and that, as is now pretty well admitted, with the fullest meaning, "Scripture." Take a few examples: No result of modern criticism is more sure than that Clement of Rome, himself a pupil of Apostles, wrote a letter to the Corinthians in the latter years of the first century; and that we now possess that letter, its text witnessed to by three independent authorities and therefore to be depended on. That epistle exhibits all the above-mentioned characteristics, except that it does not happen to quote any New Testament text specifically as Scripture. It treats the New Testament with the greatest respect, it teaches for doctrines only what it teaches, it runs its statements into New Testament forms, it imitates the New Testament style, it draws a broad distinction between the authority with which Paul wrote and that which it can claim, it declares distinctly that Paul wrote "most certainly in a spirit-led way" (ἐπʼ ἀληθείας πνευματικῶς. c. 47.) Again, even the most sceptical of schools place the Epistle of Barnabas in the first or at the very beginning of the second century, and it again exhibits these same phenomena,—moreover quoting Matthew definitely as Scripture. One of the latest triumphs of a most acute criticism has been the vindication of the genuineness of the seven short Greek letters of Ignatius, which are thus proved to belong to the very first years of the second century and to be the production again of one who knew Apostles. In them again we meet with the same phenomena. Ignatius even knows of of a collected New Testament equal in authority to the Divinely inspired Old Testament. But we need not multiply detailed evidence; every piece of Christian writing which is even probably to be assigned to one who knew or might have known the Apostles, bears like testimony. This is absolutely without exception. They all treat the New Testament books as differentiated from all other writings, and no single voice can be adduced as raised against them. The very heretics bear witness to the same effect; anxious as they are to be rid of the teaching of these writings they yet hold them authoritative and so endeavor to twist their words into conformity with their errors. And if we follow the stream further down its course, the evidence becomes more and more abundant in direct proportion to the increasing abundance of the literary remains and their change from purely practical epistles or addresses to Jews and heathen to controversial treatises between Christian parties. It is exceedingly clear, then, that modern criticism has not proved that the contemporary church resisted the assumption of the New Testament writers or withstood their claim to inspiration: directly the contrary. Every particle of evidence in the case exhibits the apostolic church, not as disallowing, but as distinctly recognizing the absolute authority of the New Testament writings. In the brief compass of the extant fragments of the Christian literature of the first two decades of the second century we have Matthew and Ephesians distinctly quoted as Scripture, the Acts and Pauline Epistles specifically named as part of the Holy Bible, and the New Testament consisting of evangelic records and apostolic writings clearly made part of one sacred collection of books with the Old Testament. Let us bear in mind that the belief of the early church in the inspiration of the Old Testament is beyond dispute, and we will see that the meaning of all this is simply this: The apostolic church certainly accepted the New Testament books as inspired by God. Such are the results of critical enquiry into the opinions on this subject of the church writers standing next to the Apostles.

III. If then, the New Testament writers clearly claim verbal inspiration and the apostolic church plainly allowed that claim, any objection to this doctrine must proceed by attempting to undermine the claim itself. From a critical standpoint this can be done only in two ways: It may be shown that the books making it are not genuine and therefore not authentic, in which case they are certainly not trustworthy and their lofty claims must be set aside as part of the impudence of forgery. Or it may be shown that the books, as a matter of fact, fall into the same errors and contain examples of the same mistakes which uninspired writings are guilty of,—exhibit the same phenomena of inaccuracy and contradiction as they,—and therefore, of course, as being palpably fallible by their very character disprove their claims to infallibility. It is in these two points that the main strength of the opposition to the doctrine of verbal inspiration lies,—the first being urged by unbelievers, who object to any doctrine of inspiration, the second by believers, who object to the doctrine of plenary and universal inspiration. The question is: Has either point been made good?

1. In opposition to the first, then, we risk nothing in declaring that modern biblical criticism has not disproved the authenticity of a single book of our New Testament. It is a most assured result of biblical criticism that every one of the twenty-seven books which now constitute our New Testament is assuredly genuine and authentic. There is, indeed, much that arrogates to itself the name of criticism and has that honorable title carelessly accorded to it, which does claim to arrive at such results as set aside the authenticity of even the major part of the New Testament. One school would save five books only from the universal ruin. To this, however, true criticism opposes itself directly, and boldly proclaims every New Testament book authentic. But thus two claimants to the name of criticism appear, and the question arises, before what court can the rival claims be adjudicated? Before the court of simple common sense, it may be quickly answered. Nor is it impossible to settle once for all the whole dispute. By criticism is meant an investigation with three essential characteristics: (1) a fearless, honest mental abandonment, apart from presuppositions, to the facts of the case, (2) a most careful, complete and unprejudiced collection and examination of the facts, and (3) the most cautious care in founding inferences upon them. The absence of any one of these characteristics throws grave doubts on the results; while the acme of the uncritical is reached when in the place of these critical graces we find guiding the investigation that other trio,—bondage to preconceived opinion,—careless, incomplete or prejudiced collection and examination of the facts,—and rashness of inference. Now, it may well be asked, is that true criticism which starts with the presupposition that the supernatural is impossible, proceeds by a sustained effort to do violence to the facts, and ends by erecting a gigantic historical chimera—overturning all established history—on the appropriate basis of airy nothing? And, is not this a fair picture of the negative criticism of the day? Look at its history,—see its series of wild dreams,—note how each new school has to begin by executing justice on its predecessor. So Paulus goes down before Strauss, Strauss falls before Baur, and Baur before the resistless logic of his own negative successors. Take the grandest of them all,—the acutest critic that ever turned his learning against the Christian Scriptures, and it will require but little searching to discover that Baur has ruthlessly violated every canon of genuine criticism. And if this is true of him, what is to be said of the school of Kuenen which now seems to be in the ascendant? We cannot now follow theories like this into details. But on a basis of a study of those details we can remark without fear of successful contradiction that the history of modern negative, criticism is blotted all over and every page stained black with the proofs of work undertaken with its conclusion already foregone and prosecuted in a spirit that was blind to all adverse evidence. Who does not know, for example, of the sustained attempts made to pack the witness box against the Christian Scriptures?—the wild denials of evidence the most undeniable,—the wilder dragging into court of evidence the most palpably manufactured? Who does not remember the remarkable attempt to set aside the evidence arising from Barnabas' quotation of Matthew as Scripture, on the ground that the part of the epistle which contained it was extant only in an otherwise confessedly accurate Latin version; and when Tischendorf dragged an ancient Greek copy out of an Eastern monastery and vindicated the reading, who does not remember the astounding efforts then made to deny that the quotation was from Matthew, or to throw doubt on the early date of the epistle itself? Who does not know the disgraceful attempt made to manufacture,—yes simply to manufacture,—evidence against John's gospel, persevered in in the face of all manner of refutation until it seems at last to have received its death blow through one stroke of Dr. Lightfoot's trenchant pen on "the silence of Eusebius?"7 In every way, then, this criticism evinces itself as false.

But false as it is, its attacks must be tested and the opposition of true criticism to its results exhibited. The attack, then, proceeds on the double ground of internal and external evidence. It is claimed that the books exhibit such contradictions among themselves and errors in historical fact, as evince that they cannot be authentic. It is claimed, moreover, that external evidence such as would prove them to have existed in the Apostolic times is lacking. How does true criticism meet these attacks?

Joining issue first with the latter statement, sober criticism meets it with a categorical denial. It exhibits the fact that every New Testament book, except only the mites Jude, II and III John, Philemon and possibly II Peter, are quoted by the generation of writers immediately succeeding the Apostles, and are thereby proved to have existed in the apostolic times; and that even these four brief books which are not quoted by those earliest authors in the few and brief writings which have come down from them to us, are so authenticated afterwards as to leave no rational ground of doubt as to their authenticity.

It is admitted on all hands that there is less evidence for II Peter than for any other of our books. If the early date of II Peter then can be made good, the early date of all the rest follows a fortiori; and there can be no doubt but that sober criticism fails to find adequate grounds for rejecting II Peter from the circle of apostolic writings. It is an outstanding fact that at the beginning of the third century this epistle was well known; it is during the early years of that century that we meet with the first explicit mention of it, and then it is quoted in such a way as to exhibit the facts that it was believed to be Peter's and was at that time most certainly in the canon. What has to be accounted for, then, is how came it in the canon of the early third century? It was certainly not put there by those third century writers; their notices utterly forbid this. Then, it must have been already in it in the second century. But when in that century did it acquire this position? Can we believe that critics like Irenaeus, or Melito, or Dionysius would have allowed it to be foisted before their eyes into a collection they held all-holy? It could not, then, have first attained that entrance during the latter years of the second century; and that it must have been already in the New Testament, received and used by the great writers of the fourth quarter of the second century, seems scarcely open to doubt. Apart from this reasoning, indeed, this seems established; Clement of Alexandria certainly had the book, Irenaeus also in all probability possessed it. If, now, the book formed a part of the canon current in the fourth quarter of the second century, there can be little doubt but that it came from the bosom of the Apostolic circle. One has but to catch from Irenaeus, for instance, the grounds on which he received any book as scripture, to be convinced of this. The one and all-important sine-qua-non was that it should have been handed down from the fathers, the pupils of the Apostles, as the work of the Apostolic circle. And Irenaeus was an adequate judge as to whether this was the case; his immediate predecessor in the Episcopal office at Lyons was Pothinus, whose long life spanned the whole intervening time from the Apostles, and his teacher was Polycarp, who was the pupil of John. That a book formed a part of the New Testament of this period, therefore authenticates it as coming down from those elders who could bear personal witness to its authorship. This is one of the facts of criticism apart from noting which it cannot proceed. The question, then, is not: do we possess independently of this, sufficient evidence of the Petrine authorship of the book to place it in the canon? but: do we possess sufficient evidence against its Petrine authorship, to reject it from the canon of the fourth quarter of the second century authenticated as that canon as a whole is? The answer to the question cannot be doubtful when we remember that we have absolutely no evidence against the book; but, on the contrary, that all the evidence of whatever kind which is in existence goes to establish it. There is some slight reason to believe, for instance, that Clement of Rome had the letter, more that Hermas had it and much that Justin had it. There is also a good probability that the early author of the Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs had and used it. Any one of these references, independently of all the rest, would, if made good, throw the writing of the book back into the first century. Each supports the others, and the sum of the probabilities raised by all, is all in direct support of the inference drawn from the reception of the book by later generations, so that there seems to be really no room for reasonable doubt but that the book rightly retains its position in our New Testament. This conclusion gains greatly in strength when we compare the data on which it rests, with what is deemed sufficient to authenticate any other ancient writing. We find at least two most probable allusions to II Peter within a hundred years after its composition, and before the next century passes away we find it possessed by the whole church and that as a book with a secured position in a collection super-authenticated as a whole. Now, Herodotus, for instance, is but once quoted in the century which followed its composition, but once in the next, not at all in the next, only twice in the next, and not until the fifth century after its composition is it as fully quoted as II Peter during its second century. Yet who doubts the genuineness of the histories of Herodotus? Again the first distinct quotation from Thucydides does not occur until quite two centuries after its composition; while Tacitus is first cited nearly a century after his death, by Tertullian. Yet no one can reasonably doubt the genuineness of the histories of either Thucydides or Tacitus. We hazard nothing then, in declaring that no one can reasonably doubt the authenticity of the better authenticated II Peter.

If now such a conclusion is critically tenable in the case of II Peter, what is to be said of the rest of the canon? There are some six writings which have come down to us, which were written within twenty years after the death of John; these six brief pieces alone, as we have said, prove the prior existence of the whole New Testament, with the exception of Jude, II and III John, Philemon and (possibly) II Peter, and the writers of the succeeding years vouch for and multiply their evidence. In the face of such contemporary testimony as this, negative criticism cannot possibly deny the authenticity of our books. A strenuous effort has consequently been made to break the force of this testimony. The genuineness of these witnessing documents themselves has been attacked or else an attempt has been made to deny that their quotations are from the New Testament books. Neither the one effort nor the other, however, has been or can be successful. And yet with what energy have they been prosecuted! We have already seen what wild strivings were wasted in an attempt to get rid of Barnabas' quotation of Matthew. That whole question is now given up; it is admitted that the quotation is from Matthew; and it is admitted that Barnabas was written in the immediately sub-apostolic times. But Barnabas quotes not only Matthew, but I Corinthians and Ephesians, and in Keim's opinion witnesses also to the prior existence of John. This may be taken as a type of the whole controversy. The references to the New Testament books in the Apostolic fathers are too plain to be disputed and it is simply the despair of criticism that is exhibited by the invention of elaborate theories of accidental coincidences or of endless series of hypothetical books to which to assign them. The quotations are too numerous, too close, and glide too imperceptibly and regularly from mere adoption of phrases into accurate citations of authorities, to be explained away. They therefore stand, and prove that the authors of these writings already knew the New Testament books and esteemed them authoritative.

Nor has the attempt to deny the early date of these witnessing writers fared any better. The mere necessity of the attempt is indeed fatal to the theory it is meant to support; if to exhibit the unauthenticity of the New Testament books, we must hold all subsequent writings unauthentic too, it seems plain that we are on a false path. And what violence is done in the attempt! For instance, the Epistle of Polycarp witnesses to the prior existence of Matthew, Luke, Acts, eleven Epistles of Paul, I Peter and I John; and as Polycarp was a pupil of John, his testimony is very strong. It must then be got rid of at all hazards. But Irenaeus was Polycarp's pupil, and Irenaeus explicitly cites this letter and declares it to be Polycarp's genuine production; and no one from his time to ours has found cause to dispute his statement until it has become necessary to be rid of the testimony of the letter to our canon. But if Polycarp's letter be genuine, it sets its own date and witnesses in turn to the letters of Ignatius, which themselves bear internal testimony to their own early date; and these letters of Ignatius testify not only to the prior individual existence of Matthew, John, Romans, I Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, I Thessalonians and I John; but also to the prior existence of an authoritative Divinely-inspired New Testament. This is but a specimen of the linked character of our testimony. Not only is it fairly abundant, but it is so connected by evidently undesigned, indeed, but yet indetachable articulations, that to set aside any one important piece of it usually necessitates such a wholesale attack on the literature of the second century as to amount to a reductio ad absurdum. We may, then, boldly formulate as our conclusion that external evidence imperiously forbids the dethronement of any New Testament book from its place in our canon.

What, then, are we to do with the internal evidence that is relied upon by the negative school? What, but set it summarily aside also? It amounts to a twofold claim: (1.) The sacred writers are hopelessly inconsistent with one another, and (2.) they are at variance with contemporary history. Of course, disharmony between the four gospels, and between Acts and the Epistles is what is mainly relied on under the first point, and it must be admitted that much learning and acuteness has been expended on the effort to make out this disharmony. But it is to be noted: (1.) That even were it admitted up to the full extent claimed, it would be no proof of unauthenticity; it would be no more than that found between secular historians admitted to be authentic, when narrating the same actions from different points of view. And (2.) in no case has it been shown that disharmony must be admitted. No case can be adduced where a natural mode of harmonizing cannot be supplied, and it is a reasonable principle, recognized among critics of secular historians, that two writers must not be held to be contradictory where any natural mode of harmonizing can be imagined. Otherwise it amounts to holding that we know fully and thoroughly all the facts of the case,—better even than eye-witnesses seem ever to know them. In order to gain any force at all, therefore, for this objection, both the extent and degree of the disharmony has been grossly exaggerated. Take an example: It is asserted that the two accounts (in Matthew and Luke) of the events accompanying our Lord's birth are mutually exclusive. But even a cursory examination will show that there is not a single contradiction between them. How then is the charge of disharmony supported? In two ways: First, by erecting silence into contradiction. Since Matthew does not mention the visit of the shepherds, he is said to contradict Luke who does. Since Luke does not mention the flight into Egypt he is said to contradict Matthew who does. And secondly, by a still more astounding method which proceeds by first confounding two distinct transactions and then finding irreconcilable contradictions between them. Thus Strauss calmly enumerates no less than five discrepancies between Matthew's account of the visit of the angel to Joseph and Luke's account of the visit of the angel to Mary. On the same principle we might prove both Motley's "Dutch Republic" and Kingslake's "Crimean War" to be unbelievable histories by gravely setting ourselves to find "discrepancies" between the account in the one of the brilliant charges of Egmont at St. Quentin and the account in the other of the great charge of the six hundred at Balaclava. This is not an unfair example of the way in which the New Testament is dealt with in order to exhibit its internal disharmony. We are content, however, that it should pass for an extreme case. For it will suffice for our present purpose to be able to say that if the New Testament books are to be proved unauthentic by their internal contradictions, by parity of reasoning the world has never yet seen an authentic writing. In fact so marvelously are our books at one that, leaving the defensive, the harmonist may take the offensive and claim this unwonted harmony as one of the chief evidences of Christianity. Paley has done this for the Acts and Epistles; and it can be done also for the Gospels.

Perhaps we ought to content ourselves with merely repeating this same remark in reference to the charge that the New Testament writers are at variance with contemporary history. So far is this from being true that one of the strongest evidences for Christianity is the utter accord with the minute details of contemporary history which is exhibited in its records. There has been no lack indeed of "instances" of disaccord confidently put forth; but in every case the charge has recoiled on the head of its maker. Thus, the mention of Lysanias in Luke 3:1 was long held the test case of such inaccuracy and sceptics were never weary of dwelling upon it; until it was pointed out that the whole "error" was not Luke's but—the sceptic's. Josephus mentions this Lysanias and in such a way that he should not have been confounded with his older namesake; and inscriptions have been brought to light which explicitly assign him to just Luke's date. And so this stock example vanishes into the air from which it was made. The others have met a like fate. The detailed accuracy of the New Testament writers in historical matters is indeed wonderful, and is more and more evinced by every fresh investigation. Every now and then a monument is dug up, touching on some point adverted to in the New Testament; and in every case only to corroborate the New Testament. Thus not only has Luke long ago been proved accurate in calling the ruler of Cyprus a "proconsul," but Mr. Cesnola has lately brought to light a Cyprian inscription which mentions that same Proconsul Paulus whom Luke represents Paul as finding on the island.—("Cyprus," p. 425.) Let us but consider the unspeakable complication of the political history of those times;—the frequent changes of provinces from senatorial to imperial and vice versa,—the many alterations of boundaries and vacillations of relation to the central power at Rome,—which made it the most complicated period the world has ever seen, and renders it the most dangerous ground possible for a forger to enter upon;—and how impossible is it to suppose that a book whose every most incidental notice of historical circumstances is found after most searching criticism to be minutely correct,—which has threaded all this labyrinth with firm and unfaltering step,—was the work of unlearned forgers, writing some hundred years after the facts they record. Confessedly accurate Roman historians have not escaped error here; even Tacitus himself has slipped. To think that a second century forger could have walked scathless among all the pitfalls that gaped around him, is like believing a blind man could thread a row of a hundred cambric needles at a thrust. If we merely apply the doctrine of probabilities to the accuracy of these New Testament writers they are proved to be the work of eye-witnesses and wholly authentic.10

We can, then, at the end, but repeat the statement with which we began: Modern negative criticism neither on internal nor on external grounds has been able to throw any doubt on the authenticity of a single book of our New Testament. Their authenticity, accuracy and honesty are super-vindicated by every new investigation. They are thus proved to be the productions of sober, honest, accurate men; they claim verbal inspiration; their claim was allowed by the contemporary church. So far modern criticism has gone step by step with traditional faith. There remains but one critical ground on which the doctrine we are considering can be disputed. Do these books in their internal character negative their claim? Are the phenomena of the writings in conflict with the claim they put forth? We must, then, in conclusion consider this last refuge of objection.

2. Much has been already said incidentally which bears on this point; but something more is needed. An amount of accuracy which will triumphantly prove a book to be genuine and surely authentic, careful and honest, may fall short of proving it to be the very word of God. The question now before us is: Granting the books to be in the main accurate, are they found on the application of a searching criticism to bear such a character as will throw destructive objection in the way of the dogma that they are verbally from God? This inquiry opens a broad—almost illimitable—field, utterly impossible to treat fully here. It may be narrowed somewhat, however, by a few natural observations. (1). It is to be remembered that we are not defending a mechanical theory of inspiration. Every word of the Bible is the word of God according to the doctrine we are discussing; but also and just as truly, every word is the word of a man. This at once sets aside as irrelevant a large number of the objections usually brought from the phenomena of the New Testament against its verbal inspiration. No finding of traces of human influence in the style, wording or forms of statement or argumentation touches the question. The book is throughout the work of human writers and is filled with the signs of their handiwork. This we admit on the threshold; we ask what is found inconsistent with its absolute accuracy and truth. (2). It is to be remembered, again, that no objection touches the question, that is obtained by pressing the primary sense of phrases or idioms. These are often false; but they are a necessary part of human speech. And the Holy Ghost in using human speech, used it as He found it. It cannot be argued then that the Holy Spirit could not speak of the sun setting, or call the Roman world "the whole world." The current sense of a phrase is alone to be considered; and if men so spoke and were understood correctly in so speaking, the Holy Ghost, speaking their speech would also so speak. No objection then is in point which turns on a pressure of language. Inspiration is a means to an end and not an end in itself; if the truth is conveyed accurately to the ear that listens to it, its full end is obtained. (3). And we must remember again that no objection is valid which is gained by overlooking the prime question of the intentions and professions of the writer. Inspiration, securing absolute truth, secures that the writer shall do what he professes to do; not what he does not profess. If the author does not profess to be quoting the Old Testament verbatim,—unless it can be proved that he professes to give the ipsissima verba,—then no objection arises against his verbal inspiration from the fact that he does not give the exact words. If an author does not profess to report the exact words of a discourse or a document—if he professes to give, or it is enough for his purposes to give, an abstract or general account of the sense or the wording, as the case may be,—then it is not opposed to his claim to inspiration that he does not give the exact words. This remark sets aside a vast number of objections brought against verbal inspiration by men who seem to fancy that the doctrine supposes men to be false instead of true to their professed or implied intention. It sets aside, for instance, all objection against the verbal inspiration of the Gospels, drawn from the diversity of their accounts of words spoken by Christ or others, written over the cross, etc. It sets aside also all objection raised from the freedom with which the Old Testament is quoted, so long as it cannot be proved that the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament in a different sense from that in which it was written, in cases where the use of the quotation turns on this change of sense. This cannot be proved in a single case.

The great majority of the usual objections brought against the verbal inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures from their phenomena, being thus set aside, the way is open to remarking further, that no single argument can be brought from this source against the church doctrine which does not begin by proving an error in statement or contradiction in doctrine or fact to exist in these sacred pages. I say, that does not begin by proving this. For if the inaccuracies are apparent only,—if they are not indubitably inaccuracies,—they do not raise the slightest presumption against the full, verbal inspiration of the book. Have such errors been pointed out? That seems the sole question before us now. And any sober criticism must answer categorically to it, No! It is not enough to point to passages difficult to harmonize; they cannot militate against verbal inspiration unless it is not only impossible for us to harmonize them, but also unless they are of such a character that they are clearly contradictory, so that if one be true the other cannot by any possibility be true. No such case has as yet been pointed out. Why should the New Testament harmonics be dealt with on other principles than those which govern men in dealing with like cases among profane writers? There, it is a first principle of historical science that any solution which affords a possible method of harmonizing any two statements is preferable to the assumption of inaccuracy or error—whether those statements are found in the same or different writers. To act on any other basis, it is clearly acknowledged, is to assume, not prove, error. We ask only that this recognized principle be applied to the New Testament. Who believes that the historians who record the date of Alexander's death—some giving the 28th, some the 30th of the month—are in contradiction? And if means can be found to harmonize them, why should not like cases in the New Testament be dealt with on like principles? If the New Testament writers are held to be independent and accurate writers,—as they are by both parties in this part of our argument,—this is the only rational rule to apply to their writings; and the application of it removes every argument against verbal inspiration drawn from assumed disharmony. Not a single case of disharmony can be proved.

The same principle, and with the same results, may be applied to the cases wherein it is claimed that the New Testament is in disharmony with the profane writers of the times, or other contemporary historical sources. But it is hardly necessary to do so. At the most, only three cases of even possible errors in this sphere can be now even plausibly claimed: the statements regarding the taxing under Quirinius, the revolt under Theudas, and the lordship of Aretas over Damascus. But Zumpt's proof that Quirinius was twice governor of Syria, the first time just after our Lord's birth, sets the first of these aside; whereas the other two, while not corroborated by distinct statements from other sources, yet are not excluded either. Room is found for the insignificant revolt of this Theudas—who is not to be confounded with his later and more important namesake—in Josephus' statement that at this time there were "ten thousand" revolts not mentioned by him. And the lordship of Aretas over Damascus is rendered very probable by what we know from other sources of the posture of affairs in that region, as well as by the significant absence of Roman-Damascene coinage for just this period. Even were the New Testament writers in direct conflict in these or in other statements, with profane sources, it would still not be proven that the New Testament was in error. There would still be an equal chance, to say the least (much too little as it is), that the other sources were in error. But it is never in such conflict; and, therefore, cannot be charged with having fallen into historical error, unless we are prepared to hold that the New Testament writers are not to be believed in any statement which cannot be independently of it proved true; in other words, unless it be assumed beforehand to be untrustworthy. This, again, is to assume, not prove error. Not a single case of error can be proved.

We cannot stop to mention even the fact that no doctrinal contradictions, or scientific errors can be proved. The case stands or falls confessedly on the one question: Are the New Testament writers contradictory to each other or to other sources of information in their record of historical or geographical facts? This settled, indubitably all is settled. We repeat, then, that all the fierce light of criticism which has so long been beating upon their open pages has not yet been able to settle one indubitable error on the New Testament writers. This being so, no argument against their claim to write under a verbal inspiration from God can be drawn from the phenomena of their writings. No phenomena can be pled against verbal inspiration except errors,—no error can be proved to exist within the sacred pages; that is the argument in a nut-shell. Such being the result of the strife which has raged all along the line for decades of years, it cannot be presumptuous to formulate our conclusion here as boldly as after the former heads of discourse:—Modern criticism has absolutely no valid argument to bring against the church doctrine of verbal inspiration, drawn from the phenomena of Scripture. This seems indubitably true.

It is, indeed, well for Christianity that it is. For, if the phenomena of the writings were such as to negative their distinct claim to full inspiration, we cannot conceal from ourselves that much more than their verbal inspiration would have to be given up. If the sacred writers were not trustworthy in such a witness-bearing, where would they be trustworthy? If they, by their performance, disproved their own assertions, it is plain that not only would these assertions be thus proven false, but, also, by the same stroke the makers of the assertions convicted of either fanaticism or dishonesty. It seems very evident, then, that there is no standing ground between the two theories of full verbal inspiration and no inspiration at all. Gaussen is consistent; Strauss is consistent: but those who try to stand between! It is by a divinely permitted inconsistency that they can stand at all. Let us know our position. If the New Testament, claiming full inspiration, did exhibit such internal characteristics as should set aside this claim, it would not be a trustworthy guide to salvation. But on the contrary, since all the efforts of the enemies of Christianity—eager to discover error by which they might convict the precious word of life of falsehood—have proved utterly vain, the Scriptures stand before us authenticated as from God. They are, then, just what they profess to be; and criticism only secures to them the more firmly the position they claim. Claiming to be verbally inspired, that claim was allowed by the church which received them,—their writers approve themselves sober and honest men, and evince the truth of their claim, by the wonder of their performance. So, then, gathering all that we have attempted to say into one point, we may say that modern biblical criticism has nothing valid to urge against the church doctrine of verbal inspiration, but that on the contrary it puts that doctrine on a new and firmer basis and secures to the church Scriptures which are truly divine. Thus, although nothing has been urged formally as a proof of the doctrine, we have arrived at such results as amount to a proof of it. If the sacred writers clearly claim verbal inspiration and every phenomenon supports that claim, and all critical objections break down by their own weight, how can we escape admitting its truth? What further proof do we need?

With this conclusion I may fitly close. But how can I close without expression of thanks to Him who has so loved us as to give us so pure a record of His will,—God-given in all its parts, even though cast in the forms of human speech,—infallible in all its statements,—divine even to its smallest particle! I am far from contending that without such an inspiration there could be no Christianity. Without any inspiration we could have had Christianity; yea, and men could still have heard the truth, and through it been awakened, and justified, and sanctified and glorified. The verities of our faith would remain historically proven true to us—so bountiful has God been in his fostering care—even had we no Bible; and through those verities, salvation. But to what uncertainties and doubts would we be the prey!—to what errors, constantly begetting worse errors, exposed!—to what refuges, all of them refuges of lies, driven! Look but at those who have lost the knowledge of this infallible guide: see them evincing man's most pressing need by inventing for themselves an infallible church, or even an infallible Pope. Revelation is but half revelation unless it be infallibly communicated; it is but half communicated unless it be infallibly recorded. The heathen in their blindness are our witnesses of what becomes of an unrecorded revelation. Let us bless God, then, for His inspired word! And may He grant that we may always cherish, love and venerate it, and conform all our life and thinking to it! So may we find safety for our feet, and peaceful security for our souls.

APPENDIX I

THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE

THE GENERAL ARGUMENT

THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE

WHEN the Christian asserts his faith in the divine origin of his Bible, he does not mean to deny that it was composed and written by men or that it was given by men to the world. He believes that the marks of its human origin are ineradicably stamped on every page of the whole volume. He means to state only that it is not merely human in its origin. If asked where and how the divine has entered this divine-human book, he must reply: "Everywhere, and in almost every way conceivable." Throughout the whole preparation of the material to be written and of the men to write it; throughout the whole process of the gathering and classification and use of the material by the writers; throughout the whole process of the actual writing,—he sees at work divine influences of the most varied kinds, extending all the way from simply providential superintendence and spiritual illumination to direct revelation and inspiration.

It is of great importance to distinguish between these various ways in which the divine has been active in originating the Scriptures, but it is of vastly greater importance to fix the previous fact that it is in the Scriptures at all and has entered them in any way. The present essay aims, therefore, without raising any of the many questions which concern the distinguishing of the various activities of God in originating his Scriptures, to busy itself with the one previous question: Is there reason to believe that God has been concerned at all in the origin of the Bible?

The question thus proposed is a very general one. And it is a very immense one—almost limitless. It is, of course, utterly impossible to do more than touch upon it in any reasonable space, and all that could be urged in a single paper or in any reasonably circumscribed series of papers would bear a very small proportion to all that might be urged—to the mighty case that could be made out. No attempt can be made, therefore, toward fullness of treatment. A series of propositions most baldly stated will only be laid down one after the other, and it will be left to the reader to develop and illustrate them and bring out their combined force, which will, however, it is hoped, be immediately partly evident from their simple statement. An effort will also be made, in the choice of the propositions and their ordering, to frame an argument of a kind which will demand, as of right, entrance into every mind; one, therefore, which will depend for its force on no original assumptions, but will begin rather with simple and patent facts—will simply put these facts together and then inquire what kind of facts they are and what they imply. Thus the reasoning will take the form of an inquiry rather than an argument—of an induction rather than a demonstration. The conclusions reached may not be so sharply and accurately defined as if reached by other methods, but they have the advantage of being obtained by a process to every step of which every man's mind ought to be open.

Our purpose is to look upon the Bible simply as one of the facts of the universe, of which every theory of the universe must take account, and for which, just as surely as for gravitation, it must make account or itself die, and then ask (and press the question): What kind of a cause must be assumed to account for it just as it is and just as it arose in the world? Thus we may inductively come to an answer to the query: "Must we assume superhuman activities at work in the genesis of this book?"

Without further introduction, we begin the inquiry at once.

I. THE HISTORY OF THE BIBLE

1. The basal fact from which our inquiry takes its start is the very indisputable and patent one that in the world there is such a book as THE BIBLE. There is a definite volume, well known and always the same in contents, about which there need be no mistake, which goes under this name, and under this name is accessible to all. This very patent fact is the first that we need to notice.

2. It is another fact, hardly less patent than the last, that this book occupies a unique position in the world of civilized man. No other book stands to-day among men for what the Bible stands for. We are not asserting here that it has a right to the position it occupies or the power it exerts: we simply assert that it is undeniable that it holds that position and exercises that power.

The legislation of civilized nations is profoundly affected by its teaching; the social habits of cultured people are largely determined by its scheme of life; the governmental forms of powerful countries are built on its principles, and their functions are carried on under its sanctions. Rulers are entrusted with the exercise of their powers, witnesses are credited in the deposition of their testimony, only after oaths sworn upon or according to it. Everywhere it has percolated through the fabric of civilization, and modern society is built up upon the lines drawn by it.

Still further, where it most dominates, there is most life. It is the great Protestant nations—those who most rest upon this book—which are the most prominent nations, the most full of abounding life and enterprising energy, the most impressive on the destinies of man. It is even the pioneer of civilization; instead of following, it breaks the way for material advancement. Go where you will, if you find life, you will find also the Bible; and you will find it in the very midst of the organism. You will find it in the hall of legislation, and in the laws that are there framed; in the courts of justice, and in the justice that is there administered; in the colleges of learning, and in the learning that is there imparted; at the home-firesides, and in the moral training and homely virtues which are there inculcated. In a word, it is, as no other book has ever been to a single nation, bound up with all civilization and progress and culture.

3. It is worth our notice, still further, that this position of power and influence has been attained and held by the Bible through a most remarkable history. Confined for ages to a rough, isolated corner of the globe, in the keeping of a small and peculiar tribe of men, it almost without a moment's warning, like a great lake receiving a new accession of waters, immediately on completion, burst all boundaries and deluged the world. It came commended by no external pomp of appearance, attended with no force of arms. Alone and single-handed, in the face of stinging contempt and bloodthirsty cruelty, it opposed ancient prejudices, long-settled habits, customs and religions, every consideration of self-interest or indulgence or safety, and swept them away like so many straws. By its simple, despised presence among men it conquered. It mattered not where it went; human society in every stage of development, under every form of administration, and composed of every race of men, everywhere alike yielded itself to it.

We cannot overstate the case; it is even impossible for us to mentally realize the profundity of the change induced. Look only at the straws of external action which, veering suddenly around, advertise to us the change of wind beneath and behind. See the revolution in the sentiment which the sight of a cross kindled.

Who can estimate, again, the profound revolution which was necessary in men's very habits of thought, in their inmost consciousness, before sacrificial ordinances could fall into neglect. Just think of it. From the beginning of the world sacrifices had been universal. Men knew, and had from the beginning known, no other way to express the deepest facts of their consciences. The habit had been ground in upon the race not only for a lifetime, but for a worldtime. Everybody everywhere spontaneously fled to this rite as the fit expression of the sense of sin and the hope of deliverance. And yet, in little more than fifty years after the introduction of Christianity into his province, Pliny complains that it had almost put a stop to sacrifices there. A world-habit, dominant from the beginning, thus rolled back upon itself in a single generation! We cannot possibly appreciate the greatness of this conquest. Sacrifices had been almost the whole life of the people: from childhood sacrifices had met each man in every form, in every quarter, in every act, in every duty of every day's business. Not only could he not engage in any of the graver duties of the citizen without being confronted with them everywhere; he could not rise from his bed in the morning, retire to it at night, partake of his necessary sustenance, without a recognition of a god or the performance of a rite at every step. And yet Christianity came, not undermining the principle which underlay sacrifices, but emphasizing it, and still they fled away from its presence.

Beneath such external changes, conceive, if you can, the immense revolution that was wrought. Not only was the whole practice of religion altered, but also the whole theory of religion; not only the whole practice of morals, but the whole theory of morals. Vices in former repute were suddenly raised to the highest pinnacle of virtues; virtues in former repute were thrust down to the lowest hell of vices. Everything was overturned.

Is it asked whether the human means employed in gaining this grand victory were not sufficient to account for it? Look at them. A dozen ignorant peasants proclaiming a crucified Jew as the founder of a new faith; bearing as the symbol of their worship an instrument which was the sign of ignominy, slavery and crime; preaching what must have seemed an absurd doctrine of humility, patient suffering and love to enemies—graces undreamed of before; demanding what must have seemed an absurd worship for one who had died like a malefactor and a slave, and making what must have seemed an absurd promise of everlasting life through one who had himself died, and that between two thieves.

Did their voices fall on willing or docile ears? This was the age of those princes of scoffers, Celsus and Lucian.

Did they prosecute their work in peace and quietude? They were thrown to the lions until the very beasts were satiated with their prey. Their blood seemed only to water the field of the Lord.

Thus, in the face of all discouragement and cruel persecution, the Bible found itself established with incredible rapidity in the hearts of an immense Christendom. In less than seventy years it was known over all the then known world; within little more than a single century it had won to itself "almost the greater part of the whole state."

Do you say that this, despite all appearances, must have been an exceptional age and an exceptional experience? We reply that it is the experience of the ages. When corruption had brought back an age of darkness and the Bible was once more lost from real life, it required but a Luther to tear off the veil for it to re-enact the same history and sow Europe with the blood of its votaries till a harvest could be reaped of equal victory. It cannot be necessary to repeat the story of the noble conflict. You know it well, and know that it was a Bible war and a Bible victory. The same history is even now working itself out about us. Madagascar, under our eyes, has repeated it. Every corner of the globe has felt the tingling of the mighty impulse. Even here, in America, we are living amid historical wonders, our eyes unopened to the sight. Rapidly as the population of the United States has grown since 1800, the proportionate increase of the votaries of the Bible has outstripped it. Yet so quietly has it all been done that we live utterly oblivious of it until, through painfully gathered statistics, the fact is made to look us squarely in the face.

How certain a fact, then, it is that the Bible has reached its present wonderful position and influence through a most remarkable history, and a history which it is still continuing on exactly the same lines!

4. It is important to note, next, that throughout all this history, and still to-day, this great influence which the Bible has exerted has been, and is still, purely and only beneficent. All its power has been exerted in the direction of the elevation of man and loving ministry to his needs. Of course we are in no danger of forgetting that the truth of this statement has been of late challenged in some quarters. But neither can we forget three other facts: 1. That it is not challenged by the well-informed and unprejudiced even among those who deny the divine origin of the Bible. 2. That the methods by which it is attempted to make the Bible appear in any other rôle than that of a cornucopia of good for man will (as Dr. Fisher has lately very clearly shown) avail equally to prove that love is a curse and the household fireside, with all its blessings, a very nest of corruption. Of course, it is not denied, either of love or of the Bible, that it sometimes has been the cause of pain; each has often ennobled man through the pain and self-sacrifice called out by it. Nor is it denied of either that it has been made at times the excuse of crime, but both have cried out upon the wickedness which would hide behind their sacred skirts. 3. That those who put forth the challenge have been led to do it only because the teaching of the Bible has so leavened society and the usages of modern life that it is almost impossible for men to believe that the world could ever have existed without the restraining and ennobling influences which now seem naturally to dominate us, and yet which really have their root in the Bible. A true picture of the boon which this book has really been to the world can be obtained only by an examination of two classes of facts—those belonging to the condition of society before it entered into its beneficent reign on the one hand, and on the other those belonging to the condition into which society lapses whenever the Bible in any degree loses its hold upon men. The shamelessness of Roman society under the early emperors will give us the norm of the one; the horrors of the Italian renascence and of the French Revolution will give us the norm of the other. It is not necessary to stop now to pollute these pages with the recital of the depths of degradation from which the Bible rescued man, and from which its potent influence (witness the Italian renascence and the Reign of Terror) alone keeps him rescued: they may be read in any accredited history of the times, and it is certainly justifiable to assume as fact what is recognized as fact by all competent historians.

Thus, then, the Bible is seen to tread the ages like the fabled goddess under whose beneficent footfall sprang beautiful flowers wherever she went. Hospitals and asylums and refuges for the sick, the miserable and the afflicted grow like heaven-bedewed blossoms in its path. Woman, whose equality with man Plato considered a sure mark of social disorganization, has been elevated; slavery has been driven from civilized ground; letters have been given by Christian missionaries, under the influence of the Bible and in order to its publication, to whole peoples and races. Who can estimate that boon? Thus Cyril and Methodius gave alphabet and written language to the vast hordes of the Sclaves; thus Ulphilas, to the whole race of Teutons; thus even Egypt, mother of letters, first received a manageable alphabet. Thus still to-day tribes and peoples sunk in barbarism are being lifted by the Bible to the ranks of literary nations. So the work goes on, and still to-day, as ever before, the Bible stands in all the world exercising everywhere its immense power in the restraining of all evil passions, in the advancement of all that is good and tender and elevating, in pouring out benefits unspeakable to the individual and the state.

5. All this immense influence for good which the Bible is exercising over the minds and hearts of men is due to a most deep-seated and steadfast conviction in their minds that it is from God and constitutes a law given from heaven for amending the lives and ameliorating the condition of men.

If this be a fanaticism, it is a most beneficent and a most remarkable fanaticism, far from easy to account for on the hypothesis that it is a fanaticism. Did men rush to embrace a delusion which had nothing to commend it to them amid the scoffs of Celsus and the ridicule of Lucian, against their every interest and against their every inclination, and that when the majesty of Rome was unsheathed to fright them back and the jaws of the lions yawned to engulf them? Men do not usually spring so to die for a delusion which offers so little and threatens so much. Then, too, how has the fanaticism so grown? How is it that it still holds captive so many millions of those whose intellect is of the clearest and whose culture is of the highest? How is it that it still embraces the civilized world? But, however it be attempted to account for it, here is the fact. The great influence which the Bible has ever exercised has been always, and still is accounted for by those who yield to it on their sincere conviction that this book, which differs so in power from all other volumes, differs from them equally in origin, being alone of books God's book, while all others are men's.

6. This conviction is traced by them not solely to the visible power and influence of the book, nor solely, conjoined with that, to the manifest grandeur and divinity of its contents and character, but also (continuing to dwell now on external particulars) to marvelous circumstances which attended the giving of this marvelous book to the world. Those who wrote its latter portion and sent the whole abroad asserted that they acted under commission from God and authenticated their mission by a series of astounding miracles. Thus the miracle of the book is appropriately believed to have sprung from the center of a God-endowed company.

We cannot pause now to prove that these miracles really occurred. All that can be said is that the testimony they rest on is irrefragable, and that they must be admitted to have occurred or the foundations of all history are swept away at a stroke. It is enough here to note how appropriately the wonderful history which has been wrought out by the Bible is made to spring from open miracles. All is here consistent and appropriate; and if those miracles which are asserted to have happened really happened, all is explained and constitutes a harmonious whole. Otherwise, we are landed in great difficulties and inconsistencies.

If we will ponder the facts which we have so baldly stated, it seems that we must conclude that the external history of this book is such as will so harmonize with a supernatural origin for it as to take away all strangeness from the assertion of such an origin. And what is that but saying that the history of the book suggests a supernatural origin for it—even raises a presumption in favor of such an origin for it? This book is certainly unique in the power it possesses: is it not unique in its source of power? It is certainly furnished with an influence possessed by no other book. Whence came it?

II. THE STRUCTURE OF THE BIBLE

And now let us open the volume and see what kind of a book this is which has exerted such remarkable power through so long and so wonderful a history. We have all, doubtless, a notion of the kind of book a volume is likely to be which will exercise vast influence over men—a masterly argument, say, well ordered and set foursquare against all possible opposition, each part fitted with consummate skill to each other part, and the whole driven with relentless force and unswerving purpose straight to the intended goal; or a fervid appeal, say, based on the primal emotions of the heart, with burning and well-chosen words touching each string of that mystic harp, beating out from them all one burst of answering music. A consummate master of thought and speech may be thus conceived of as so catching the human heart as to hold it almost permanently. Yet his influence would be limited—notably, by this: the radius of the circle of his sympathies. Certainly no man has yet arisen able to frame a writing of universal and age-long influence, simply because no one has arisen yet wholly above the environment of the social customs and age-influence in which he was bred. And certainly it is inconceivable that a book should exert great influence over a wide expanse of territory and through long stretches of time which was not consciously framed for influence by an intelligent and competent mind. All this being true, it is assuredly worth our most serious attention that the Bible is the only book in existence which has any pretensions to being universal and lasting in its influence; and yet, if it be not of superhuman origin, it could not have been framed consciously for influence. Let us look into this fact somewhat more closely.

7. On first throwing open this wonderful volume we are struck immediately with the fact that it is not a book, but rather a congeries of books. No less than sixty-six separate books, one of which consists itself of one hundred and fifty separate compositions, immediately stare us in the face. These treatises come from the hands of at least thirty distinct writers, scattered over a period of some fifteen hundred years, and embrace specimens of nearly every kind of writing known among men. Histories, codes of law, ethical maxims, philosophical treatises, discourses, dramas, songs, hymns, epics, biographies, letters both official and personal, vaticinations,—every kind of composition known beneath heaven seems gathered here in one volume.

Their writers, too, were of like diverse kinds. The time of their labors stretches from the hoary past of Egypt to and beyond the bright splendor of Rome under Augustus. They appear to have been of every sort of temperament, of every degree of endowment, of every time of life, of every grade of attainment, of every condition in the social scale. Looked at from a purely external point of view, the volume is a rough bale of drift from the sea of Time, a conglomerate of débris brought down by the waters and cast in a heap together. Nay, not only are there heterogeneous, but seemingly positively conflicting, elements in it. One half is a mass of Hebrew writings held sacred by a race which cannot look with patience on the other half, which is a mass of Greek writings claiming to set aside the legislation of a large part of its fellow. Yet it is this congeries of volumes which has had, and still has, this immense influence. The Hebrew half never conquered the world until the Greek half was added to it; the Greek half did not conquer save by the aid of the Hebrew half. The whole mass, in all its divinity, has attained the kingship.

The question which will not down is, Can the miraculous power of this book be explained by the measure of power to which other books are able to attain? Where does this book, seemingly thus cast together by some whirlpool of time, get its influence? If influence is not natural to such a volume, must it not point to something supernatural in it? Whence came it?

8. We may look, however, on a still greater wonder. Let us once penetrate beneath all this primal diversity and observe the internal character of the volume, and a most striking unity is found to pervade the whole; so that, in spite of having been thus made up of such diverse parts, it forms but one organic whole. The parts are so linked together that the absence of any one book would introduce confusion and disorder. The same doctrine is taught from beginning to end, running like a golden thread through the whole and stringing book after book upon itself like so many pearls. Each book, indeed, adds something in clearness, definition, or even increment, to what the others proclaim; but the development is orderly and constantly progressive. One step leads naturally to the next; the pearls are certainly chosen in the order of stringing.

An unbroken historical continuity pervades the whole book. It is even astonishing how accurately the parts historically dovetail together, jag to jag, into one connected and consistent whole. Malachi ends with a finger-post pointing through the silent ages to a path clearly seen in the Gospels. The New Testament fits on to the Old silently and noiselessly, but exactly, just as one stone of the Jewish temple fitted its fellow prepared for it by exact measurement in the quarries; so that, on any careful consideration of the two coexisting phenomena—utter diversity in origin of these books, and yet utter nicety of combination of one with all—it is as impossible to doubt that they were meant each for the other, were consciously framed each for its place, as it is to doubt that the various parts of a complicated machine, when brought from the factory and set up in its place of future usefulness, were all carefully framed for one another.

But just see where this lands us. Unless we are prepared to allow to a man some fifteen hundred years of conscious existence and intellectual supervision of the work, we are shut up here to the admission of a superhuman origin for this book. It is difficult to see how this argument can be really escaped. It will be perceived that it is analogous to what is often urged from the phenomena of the natural universe to prove for it a divine origin. Indeed, all the arguments urged in the one sphere are also capable of being urged in the other. The gradual framing of the Bible through a period of fifteen hundred years excludes human supervision. Now, the Bible, as a whole, is a result or an effect in the universe, and it must have had, as such, an adequate cause, which, since the result is an intelligent one, must have been an intelligent cause: there is the ontological argument, and it proves a superhuman intelligent cause for the Bible. It consists of orderly arranged parts, of an orderly developed scheme: there is the cosmological argument, and again it proves the activity of an intelligent cause (and much else not now to be brought out) of at least fifteen hundred years' duration. It is itself a cause of marvelous effects in the world for the production of which it is most admirably designed, and its whole inner harmony and all its inner relations are most deeply graven with the marks of a design kept constantly before some intelligent mind for at least fifteen hundred years: there is the argument from design, attaining equally far-reaching and cogent conclusions as in the realm of nature. The analogy need not, however, be drawn out further. An atheist of the present day spoke only sober truth when he declared that the divine origin of the Bible and the divine origin of the world must stand or fall together. The arguments which will prove the one prove also the other. Butler proved this proposition long ago. It stands indubitable; so that absolute atheism or Christianity must be our only choice.

9. Another point in which the unity of the Bible is strikingly apparent needs our attention next: amid all the diversity of its subject-matter, it may yet be said that almost the whole book is taken up with the portraiture of one person. On its first page he comes for a moment before our astonished eyes; on the last he lingers still before their adoring gaze. And from that first word in Genesis which describes him as the "seed of the woman" and at the same time her deliverer—with occasional moments of absence, just as the principal character of a play is not always on the stage, and yet with constant development of character—to the end, where he is discovered sitting on the great white throne and judging the nations, the one consistent but gradually developed portraiture grows before our eyes. Not a false stroke is made. Every touch of the pencil is placed just where it ought to stand as part of the whole. There is nowhere the slightest trace of wavering or hesitancy of hand. The draughtsman is certainly a consummate artist. And, as the result of it all, the world is possessed of the strongest, most consistent, most noble literary portraiture to be found in all her literature.

Yet we are asked to believe that this grand result has been attained, not by the skilled limning of a Michelangelo, but by the disconnected dabblings of a score and a half of untrained forgers, who, moreover, were ever at cross-purposes with each other. Why, if the creation and successful dramatization, through a few short years, of such a character as Hamlet required the genius of a Shakespeare, what genius was required for this astoundingly successful creation and dramatization of such a character as that of the GOD-MAN through the ages of ages and æons of æons—from the time when at his Father's side he sat, coequal with him, before all worlds, to the time when these same worlds shall be swallowed up in the final fire! One should certainly rather risk his sanity in the assertion that the play of "Hamlet" had formed itself by the fortuitous concourse of the alphabetical signs and made its own portraiture of the subtle Dane, than on the assertion that this portraiture of the GOD-MAN had been attained apart from the constant supervision and active labor of a consummate mind. If we should thus consider this portraiture only as a fiction, it would demand for its author something more than has yet been seen in man. As it is undeniable now that it occupies the chiefest portion of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and binds the portions it occupies together as a consistent dramatization of itself, it is equally undeniable that these portions of the Bible, at any rate, owe their origin to a mind able to superintend their composition for at least fifteen hundred years with a genius hitherto unexampled among men.

10. One other bond of connection between the parts of the volume must needs be adverted to briefly—that formed by numerous predictions of coming events given in the earlier portions and accounts of the fulfillment of them in later portions, by which these later portions are proved to be but the intended outgrowth and conclusion of the former. These predictions run through an immense range both of time and of circumstance, and are made too precise and detailed in form, and too precise and detailed in the account of their fulfillment, for it to be possible to doubt, on the one hand, that they were real predictions, or, on the other, that they were really fulfilled. Thus the various books are drawn close together; and if the Bible, externally considered, may be likened to a bale of drift, these prophecies, given in one part and reaching their fulfillment in another, are the strong cords which bind the bale securely together and make it one whole. The unity induced by this means is, indeed, complete and most conclusive to its own divine origin.

11. Thus we are led to appeal to prophecy, and that not only to prove the unity of the plan of Scripture, but, independent of and far above that—by its very nature as prediction of things yet hidden in the future—as an irrefragable proof of the divine origin of the whole of the closely-knit volume in which it finds place. It is not a function of human intellect to read the secrets of unborn ages; and the existence in this book of accurate, detailed predictions of even unimportant and certainly incalculable events of the far future demonstrates its divine origin.

It is, of course, impossible in this brief essay to illustrate the character and convincingness of Scripture prophecy, or even to indicate instances of its unquestionable fulfillment in detail. Were there space, we might point to the immense number of independent predictions, seemingly opposite, or even contradictory, to one another, before their fulfillment, found on the coming of Christ to be harmoniously gathered up and fulfilled in his unique personality and work—predictions covering not only the great outlines of his work and the marked traits of his person, but publishing ages beforehand the very village in which he should first see the light, the homage on the one hand, and the abuse on the other, which he should receive, the life he should live and the death he should die, even to the most minute description of the pains he should suffer and the scoffs he should endure as he hung upon the tree—yea, even the exact price of his blood and fate of Ms betrayer. Or, again, we might point to that ever-living witness to the truth of prophecy in the Jewish race upon whom everything that has been prophesied has been and is being duly fulfilled; or, again, to an infinite multitude of minute details of predictions touching many races and nations which have with infinite might fulfilled themselves everywhere. Space would fail, however, for such an enumeration. And it is the less necessary, now that the feverish efforts, on the part of those who wish to escape from the power of the Bible, to assign later dates to the prophetical books than most cogent proof from many quarters will allow, amount to an admission that the prophetical element in them cannot be denied. In prophecy, therefore, we have a continual miracle set in the midst of the Bible, to stand in all ages as a sure proof that it comes from God. As each prediction is in turn fulfilled before the eyes of each age which witnesses it, a miracle performs itself (and attests itself in the act) which is as cogent and sufficient evidence of the divine origin of the Bible as if all the miracles of the apostolical age were rewrought in our presence to reaffirm its teaching. Thus we see, in perhaps a new light, the meaning of our Lord's pregnant saying: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rise from the dead."

As, then, when we considered the external history of the Bible, we were driven back, step by step, through marvelous circumstances to open miracles of power proclaiming and demonstrating the divine origin of the book, so here, as soon as we look within it in even the most cursory way, we repeat the same process and move back from marvel to marvel, until we reach the open miracle of prophecy, again independently proving the divine origin of the book after a fashion which cannot be escaped or legitimately questioned.

III. THE TEACHING OF THE BIBLE

The same process is only again repeated, and cumulative evidence for the divine origin of the Bible obtained, when we look somewhat deeper into its contents and ask after the character and witness of its teaching—a subject broad as the earth itself and full of self-evidence, but upon which we have as yet not even cast a glance. The character and the nature of the contents of the Bible alone are enough to prove its divine origin. If men cannot have made the miracles of power by which its publication to the world was accompanied, nor the miracles of prophecy by which its progress through the world has been accompanied, no more can they have manufactured the miracles of teaching of which its contents consist. Independently of all other evidence, the miracle of the contents demands a divine origin. This, again, may be made plainer by some specifications, which again, however, must be presented in a very naked and fragmentary way.

12. Let us note, then, first of all, the unspeakable elevation and grandeur both of the teaching itself which this book presents and of the assumptions on which it bases that teaching.

The conception of God which is here presented—how unutterably divine is it! Apart from the Bible, man has never reached to such a conception. This element of it, and that element of it, has, indeed, through the voice of nature, separately dawned upon his soul; but the complete ideal is conveyed to him only by this book. Infinite and eternal spirit—pure and ineffable—unlimited by matter, or space or time, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in essence and attributes! And what a circle of attributes! Infinite power, infinite wisdom, infinite justice, infinite holiness, infinite goodness, infinite mercy, infinite pity, infinite love! Verily, if this conception be not a true image of a really existent God, the human heart must say it ought to be. And this is the conception of God which the Bible holds up before us—more than that, which it dramatizes through an infinite series of infinitely varied actions through a period of millenniums of years in perfect consistency of character. Everywhere in its pages God appears as the all-powerful, all-wise, necessarily just and holy One; everywhere as the all-good, all-merciful, necessarily pitiful and loving One. Never is a single one of these ineffable perfections lost or hidden or veiled.

The Bible's conception of the nature of man is of like nobility. Framed in the image of God, he was made like him not only in the passive qualities, but also in his endowment of active capacities. Even freedom of action—unbound ability to choose his own future—were placed in his grasp. So, also, the Bible's teaching as to the duties that man, even after he has made his fatal choice, owes to God and his neighbor, all founded on the principle of love; its teaching as to the possibilities before man and the destiny in store for him, culminating in the possibility of his enthronement as co-ruler of the universe with his divine Redeemer; its teaching as to the relation of man to the physical and irrational universe as responsible head over it; its teaching as to the origin of this universe itself and its purpose and destiny,—all reach the acme of grandeur. These instances must serve us as specimens of the grandeur of its teaching.

13. We must note, still further, that both the general tenor of the Bible and its special assertions are all in precise accord "with what the profoundest learning shows to be the actual state of the universe, as well as what the deepest and largest experience establishes as the actual course of nature." And it is a very pertinent question how it happens that the Bible was able, alone of ancient books, to forestall the conclusions of the latest science of the nineteenth century. It has taken scientific thought up to to-day to bring its conceptions of the origin of the world to the point at which Moses stood some three millenniums ago. This, again, must serve us now as a specimen fact (among a multitude) proving that "whoever wrote this book knew more than we know, and knew it distinctly when we knew nothing."

Yet, although possessed of a knowledge thus unspeakably advanced beyond all of their time, the writers of this book do not seem to have been proud of their possession or anxious to display it; they do not even formally transmit their knowledge, but simply act and speak on its presupposition; so that when we reach an equal stage of advancement to theirs, without having been hitherto conscious of its presence, we suddenly find it there continually implied and constantly underlying every part. It is thus always most deeply felt by those most conversant with the progress of knowledge, and yet does not in any degree clog the understanding of the book for the purpose for which it was given by those who are as yet ignorant of the basis of physical or philosophical fact assumed.

14. Thus we are led to take note of another general characteristic of biblical teaching—the fact that all its great truths are universal truths; i.e., truths capable of reaching and making entrance into and taking a strong hold upon the heart of man as man, and of all men equally, independently of their race-affinities, intellectual advancement or social standing. That this should be so is undoubtedly a great wonder, and it is redoubled when we remember that it is correlated with great and remarkable knowledge. Usually, when the profound philosopher speaks, he needs philosophers for his audience; and yet here is a book which naturally and without effort betrays acquaintance with the deepest reaches of modern discovery, and yet in its every accent speaks home to the child as readily as to the sage.

In still another respect this same fact—namely, that the truths of the Bible "find us"—has probative force, since, herefrom, it is equally evident that the Bible is suited to man and that its asserted truths are instinctively recognized by man as actual truths. The Bible thus certainly comes with a message to man—one that is recognized by each man who needs its words as specially for him, and that is witnessed to instinctively by each as true. How does it happen that this book, alone among books, reaches the heart alike of the Bushman and of a Newton? of a savage lost in the horrors of savagery and of a Faraday sitting aloft on the calm and clear if somewhat chill heights of science? This universality of effect seems to prove a corresponding universality of intention. But who of men has ever been able to hold before him as recipients of his book all men of all ages? Who has been able to calculate upon the hearts and characters of men removed from him by such stretches of both time and circumstance? Who could have been able to adapt a message penned in a corner, ages agone, to the mental position of the nineteenth century and the hearts of a Newton and a Faraday? Yet we must assume for the Bible an author who was capable of this. Was Moses capable of it? Was an anonymous forger of his name?

15. We must, however, turn to note another general characteristic of Scripture—the remarkable simplicity of its manner and the transparent honesty of its tone; so that its words, even when describing the most utter marvels, possess that calm, quiet ring which stamps them with indubitable truthfulness. If we are asked why we trust a friend in whom we have every confidence, and credit his every statement, we may be somewhat at a loss for a definite answer. "We know him," we say. This same evidence is good also for a book. We may judge of the truthfulness of men's writings by all those little intangible characteristics which when united go toward making a very strong impression of actual proof, but which one by one are almost too small to adduce or even notice, just as we may judge of the trustiness of men's characters by all the innumerable looks, gestures, chance expressions, little circumstances which make their due impression on us. Combined, they are convincing, though each by itself might seem ambiguous or valueless. The conclusion in each case is, however, valid and rational, and the evidence is unmistakably good evidence. Now, for the Bible, this evidence is unusually strong; and thus it happens that men who do not know how to reason, and who are incapable of following a closely-reasoned argument, are accepting the Bible on all sides of us on truly rational and valid evidence, and accepting it on like evidence as divine. They are continually reading accounts of miracles so numerous and so striking that the witnesses of them could not be mistaken; so embedded in a narrative of such artlessness, gravity, honesty, intelligence, straightforwardness as palpably to be neither fraud nor fancy that they form part and parcel of it and are absolutely inseparable from it; so embedded in a narrative which approves itself by a thousand simple and inimitable hints and traits to be transparently truthful and trustworthy that they must stand or fall with it. Now, this is most rational evidence, and evidence so strong that it is as difficult for the honest mind to resist it as it is for us to express it.

16. It becomes surely, then, of sufficient importance to justify special notice that in the midst of this narrative, and scattered all through it, we find calm and simple, but frequent, constant, and steadfast, assertions of a divine origin for itself. So honest and transparently truthful a narrative, filled with marks everywhere of superhuman knowledge, naturally enough does not, in the pride of human nature, claim all this superhuman knowledge for its human authors, but ascribes it all to God; naturally enough empties its human authors of any credit for knowledge before the time of knowledge and plans beyond the reach of man and ascribes it all to God. And its very honesty and simplicity of statement, the transparent honesty of this statement, proves the assertion truthful and trustworthy. Here, then, once more, we reach through orderly steps, exhibiting at each stage marks of God's hand, the assertion of a divine origin; here, once more, after walking through the aisles and nave and choir of a grand cathedral filled all along with the marks of genius in its planning and execution, we reach again the wall, and, lo! on it the marks of the chisel and the superscription of the Architect that prove it was made by a competent mind and did not grow.

It is very difficult to see but that the argument, if fully drawn out and illustrated, is conclusive.

IV. SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BIBLE

Another, and an even more cogent, argument might be presented from a consideration of some special characteristics either of the whole Bible or of some of its parts—an argument hitherto untouched. This argument would soon, however, grow much too vast to be included in this essay. We must content ourselves with only pointing at a distance to only one particular which might, were there space, be urged most convincingly.

17. We refer to the progressive character of the teaching included in this book, with the special cases which might be adduced under that head. It begins with first principles expressed in outward symbol, and advances gradually to the full system, working out its approaches in history before delivering it in dogma. We do not urge simply that this progressive scheme is consistent with a divine origin for it; we urge that this supremely wise method of delivering truth and training a people, taken in connection with the unity of the system throughout the whole, is consistent with nothing else. No doctrinaire made this Bible—see what kind of work they do in the history of Middle-Age Florence and Revolutionary France—but a most consummate statesman who knew what was in man and how to mould him to his purposes.

We would appeal, in this connection—progressiveness—specially to the practical and practicable character of Old-Testament legislation. And thus we are led to assert that those very passages concerning polygamy and kindred themes (which have been made an occasion of gibe against the Scriptures) are themselves a most cogent argument for their divine origin. We Americans ought to know by this time that the best way to secure polygamy unharmed and enshrine it unconquerably under the protection of a nation is to write on the statute-books inoperative laws against it. The Bible was framed by too wise a statesman to fall into that error, and we who enjoy Christian homes to-day have to thank God for it. The unspeakable wisdom of dealing at that age, and under those circumstances, with polygamy, divorce, slavery by regulative laws, which in regulating discouraged, and in discouraging destroyed them, makes strongly for a superhuman origin of the legislation.

So, again, growing out of this same progressive system, we could appeal most strongly to the ritualistic system of symbolical worship given to the Jews and by law secured from failure, by which object lessons—all schoolmasters to lead to something better and higher—were ineffaceably taught to a whole nation, which was thus prepared to receive the spiritual lesson meant for it.

Still again we should appeal to the wise method of New-Testament legislation through great principles rather than specific ordinances, thus securing absolute universality in connection with perfect definiteness; or again to the remarkable tenderness and beauty of this legislation, especially apparent in the cases of slaves, wives and children and temporal rulers—a phenomenon in the age when it was given enough of itself to suggest a divine origin for the one book which contains it; or still again to the wise silence of the same legislation on many subjects on which it must have been very tempting then to legislate, but legislation on which we can see now would have imperiled the success of the main purpose for which the book was given and obtained no corresponding gain.

On all these and like points, however, it is not now possible to touch. We pass on, therefore, to our last remark.

V. IMPOSSIBILITY OF ACCOUNTING FOR THE BIBLE

18. That the Bible, thus standing in the world, being of such sort, and having had such a history, has yet to be accounted for on the hypothesis that it had only a human origin. Here it stands, just such a fact in the universe, a substantive thing, tangible and that can be examined. The ingenuity of men has been feverishly busy with it these hundreds of years. Yet the world still awaits a theory which will render an adequate account of it on any other hypothesis than that it came from God. Theories have been attempted, but one after another they have broken down of their own weight or have had justice executed upon them by fellow-unbelieving hands amid the plaudits of all men of all parties. Thus it happens that up to to-day no hypothesis except that of superhuman interference has been able to stand a half century as an account of the origin of this book. What is this but the confession that without the assumption of superhuman interference this book cannot be accounted for? that these miraculous claims and these miraculous assertions cannot be rationally or satisfactorily explained away? Look for one moment at the efforts made to account on natural grounds for the miraculous element in the New Testament. First, a school arose which tried to work on the assumption that whenever a miracle is recorded the event described did really happen, indeed, but that it has been exaggeratedly and mistakenly described as miraculous, and not merely natural, by the New-Testament writers. The sick were healed, but by medicinal means; the dead were raised, but only from seeming, not real, death. That attempt to explain away the miraculous failed, as requiring as great a series of miracles of wonderful coincidences as it explained away. Another then arose which wished to account for it all as a series of myths, holding that there was a kernel of truth in each event described, but that this kernel had gathered much falsehood around it as it rolled through time, from mouth to mouth, before it got recorded in our Bible, just as a snowball grows almost unrecognizably greater as it rolls down a long slope. But this attempt was wrecked hopelessly on the lack of a soil for the myths to grow in (that is, of snow to frame the balls of) and of time for them to increase in (that is, of any hill for them to roll down). Then another rose on its ruins—an elaborate theory of party strifes and forgeries and reforgeries of books in every conceivable interest; so that the same material was worked over and over again by false and designing men, to serve each new notion, until the final outcome was our New Testament. Again this theory was wrecked on the lack of time for all this elaborate process before the date at which adequate proof is in hand for the existence of the books. The whole elaborate scheme falls with the failure of the attempted rape of the second century. It cannot be true unless all history is false.

Time is lacking for the New Testament to have grown in, if considered a product of time; whence, then, came it? Soil is lacking for it to have developed in, if considered a human development; then, whence came it? All schemes which have hitherto been invented to account for its origin without God have pitiably failed, and there is no particular reason to look for anything more cogent to be advanced in the future. If, however, this book cannot be accounted for apart from God, we seem shut up to account for it as from him. Certainly, the only rational course is to accept it as from him until it is able to be rationally accounted for without his interference.

With this we may fitly close our inquiry. The query with which we started seems abundantly answered. A supernatural origin for the Bible appears cumulatively proven.

In closing, it would be well for us to take note of one or two facts in regard to the argument which has been offered. Let it be observed, then:

1. That no attempt has been made to distinguish between a superhuman and a divine origin for the Bible. This is not because the two are not separable, but only because they are, in our present argument, practically the same.

2. That no attempt has been made to distinguish between the divine origin of the system and that of the books recording that system. This, again, is not because the two are not separable, but only because, so far as the argument has been pressed—though not much farther—the two need not be practically separated.

3. That no question has been raised as to the extent of the divine in the Bible. This is due to three facts: Because this question need not be raised primarily for the establishment of the faith, but is necessarily a consequent one to be raised after the general divine origin of the book is admitted; because, again, the humble Christian often looks upon and draws life from the Bible without raising this question, simply accepting what he reads as divinely given to strengthen his faith; and because, again, it was impossible in one essay to treat both questions.

4. That, nevertheless, the facts and arguments which have been adduced in a general way to prove the general divine origin of the Bible not only prepare the way, but even, narrowly questioned, will raise a strong presumption, for the further conclusions that this book has been not only in a general way given by God, but also specifically inspired in the giving, that thus its every word is from him, and that it is worthy of our reverent and loving credence in its every particular.

THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT:

HOW AND WHEN FORMED

THE FORMATION THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

IN order to obtain a correct understanding of what is called the formation of the Canon of the New Testament, it is necessary to begin by fixing very firmly in our minds one fact which is obvious enough when attention is once called to it. That is, that the Christian church did not require to form for itself the idea of a "canon,"—or, as we should more commonly call it, of a "Bible,"—that is, of a collection of books given of God to be the authoritative rule of faith and practice. It inherited this idea from the Jewish church, along with the thing itself, the Jewish Scriptures, or the "Canon of the Old Testament." The church did not grow up by natural law: it was founded. And the authoritative teachers sent forth by Christ to found His church, carried with them, as their most precious possession, a body of divine Scriptures, which they imposed on the church that they founded as its code of law. No reader of the New Testament can need proof of this; on every page of that book is spread the evidence that from the very beginning the Old Testament was as cordially recognized as law by the Christian as by the Jew. The Christian church thus was never without a "Bible" or a "canon."

But the Old Testament books were not the only ones which the apostles (by Christ's own appointment the authoritative founders of the church) imposed upon the infant churches, as their authoritative rule of faith and practice. No more authority dwelt in the prophets of the old covenant than in themselves, the apostles, who had been "made sufficient as ministers of a new covenant"; for (as one of themselves argued) "if that which passeth away was with glory, much more that which remaineth is in glory." Accordingly not only was the gospel they delivered, in their own estimation, itself a divine revelation, but it was also preached "in the Holy Ghost" (1 Pet. 1:12); not merely the matter of it, but the very words in which it was clothed were "of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:13). Their own commands were, therefore, of divine authority (1 Thess. 4:2), and their writings were the depository of these commands (2 Thess. 2:15). "If any man obeyeth not our word by this epistle," says Paul to one church (2 Thess. 3:14), "note that man, that ye have no company with him." To another he makes it the test of a Spirit-led man to recognize that what he was writing to them was "the commandments of the Lord" (1 Cor. 14:37). Inevitably, such writings, making so awful a claim on their acceptance, were received by the infant churches as of a quality equal to that of the old "Bible"; placed alongside of its older books as an additional part of the one law of God; and read as such in their meetings for worship—a practice which moreover was required by the apostles (1 Thess. 5:27; Col. 4:16; Rev. 1:3). In the apprehension, therefore, of the earliest churches, the "Scriptures" were not a closed but an increasing "canon." Such they had been from the beginning, as they gradually grew in number from Moses to Malachi; and such they were to continue as long as there should remain among the churches "men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

We say that this immediate placing of the new books—given the church under the seal of apostolic authority—among the Scriptures already established as such, was inevitable. It is also historically evinced from the very beginning. Thus the apostle Peter, writing in A.D. 68, speaks of Paul's numerous letters not in contrast with the Scriptures, but as among the Scriptures and in contrast with "the other Scriptures" (2 Pet. 3:16)—that is, of course, those of the Old Testament. In like manner the apostle Paul combines, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Luke under the common head of "Scripture" (1 Tim. 5:18): "For the Scripture saith, 'Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn' [Deut. 25:4]; and, 'The laborer is worthy of his hire' " (Luke 10:7). The line of such quotations is never broken in Christian literature. Polycarp (c. 12) in A.D. 115 unites the Psalms and Ephesians in exactly similar manner: "In the sacred books, … as it is said in these Scriptures, 'Be ye angry and sin not,' and 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.' " So, a few years later, the so-called second letter of Clement, after quoting Isaiah, adds (2:4): "And another Scripture, however, says, 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners' "—quoting from Matthew, a book which Barnabas (circa 97–106 A.D.) had already adduced as Scripture. After this such quotations are common.

What needs emphasis at present about these facts is that they obviously are not evidences of a gradually-heightening estimate of the New Testament books, originally received on a lower level and just beginning to be tentatively accounted Scripture; they are conclusive evidences rather of the estimation of the New Testament books from the very beginning as Scripture, and of their attachment as Scripture to the other Scriptures already in hand. The early Christians did not, then, first form a rival "canon" of "new books" which came only gradually to be accounted as of equal divinity and authority with the "old books"; they received new book after new book from the apostolical circle, as equally "Scripture" with the old books, and added them one by one to the collection of old books as additional Scriptures, until at length the new books thus added were numerous enough to be looked upon as another section of the Scriptures.

The earliest name given to this new section of Scripture was framed on the model of the name by which what we know as the Old Testament was then known. Just as it was called "The Law and the Prophets and the Psalms" (or "the Hagiographa"), or more briefly "The Law and the Prophets," or even more briefly still "The Law"; so the enlarged Bible was called "The Law and the Prophets, with the Gospels and the Apostles" (so Clement of Alexandria, "Strom." vi. 11, 88; Tertullian, "De Præs. Hær." 36), or most briefly "The Law and the Gospel" (so Claudius Apolinaris, Irenæus); while the new books apart were called "The Gospel and the Apostles," or most briefly of all "The Gospel." This earliest name for the new Bible, with all that it involves as to its relation to the old and briefer Bible, is traceable as far back as Ignatius (A.D. 115), who makes use of it repeatedly (e.g., "ad Philad." 5; "ad Smyrn." 7). In one passage he gives us a hint of the controversies which the enlarged Bible of the Christians aroused among the Judaizers ("ad Philad." 6). "When I heard some saying," he writes, " 'Unless I find it in the Old [Books] I will not believe the Gospel,' on my saying, 'It is written,' they answered, 'That is the question.' To me, however, Jesus Christ is the Old [Books]; his cross and death and resurrection, and the faith which is by him, the undefiled Old [Books]—by which I wish, by your prayers, to be justified. The priests indeed are good, but the High Priest better," etc. Here Ignatius appeals to the "Gospel" as Scripture, and the Judaizers object, receiving from him the answer in effect which Augustine afterward formulated in the well-known saying that the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is first made clear in the New. What we need now to observe, however, is that to Ignatius the New Testament was not a different book from the Old Testament, but part of the one body of Scripture with it; an accretion, so to speak, which had grown upon it.

This is the testimony of all the early witnesses—even those which speak for the distinctively Jewish-Christian church. For example, that curious Jewish-Christian writing, "The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs" (Benj. 11), tells us, under the cover of an ex post facto prophecy, that the "work and word" of Paul, i.e., confessedly the book of Acts and Paul's Epistles, "shall be written in the Holy Books," i. e., as is understood by all, made a part of the existent Bible. So even in the Talmud, in a scene intended to ridicule a "bishop" of the first century, he is represented as finding Galatians by "sinking himself deeper" into the same "Book" which contained the Law of Moses ("Babl. Shabbath," 116 a and b). The details cannot be entered into here. Let it suffice to say that, from the evidence of the fragments which alone have been preserved to us of the Christian writings of that very early time, it appears that from the beginning of the second century (and that is from the end of the apostolic age) a collection (Ignatius, II Clement) of "New Books" (Ignatius), called the "Gospel and Apostles" (Ignatius, Marcion), was already a part of the "Oracles" of God (Polycarp, Papias, II Clement), or "Scriptures" (I Tim., II Pet., Barn., Polycarp, II Clement), or the "Holy Books" or "Bible" (Testt. XII. Patt.).

The number of books included in this added body of New Books, at the opening of the second century, cannot be satisfactorily determined by the evidence of these fragments alone. The section of it called the "Gospel" included Gospels written by "the apostles and their companions" (Justin), which beyond legitimate question were our four Gospels now received. The section called "the Apostles" contained the book of Acts (The Testt. XII. Patt.) and epistles of Paul, John, Peter and James. The evidence from various quarters is indeed enough to show that the collection in general use contained all the books which we at present receive, with the possible exceptions of Jude, II and III John and Philemon. And it is more natural to suppose that failure of very early evidence for these brief booklets is due to their insignificant size rather than to their non-acceptance.

It is to be borne in mind, however, that the extent of the collection may have—and indeed is historically shown actually to have—varied in different localities. The Bible was circulated only in hand-copies, slowly and painfully made; and an incomplete copy, obtained say at Ephesus in A.D. 68, would be likely to remain for many years the Bible of the church to which it was conveyed; and might indeed become the parent of other copies, incomplete like itself, and thus the means of providing a whole district with incomplete Bibles. Thus, when we inquire after the history of the New Testament Canon we need to distinguish such questions as these: (1) When was the New Testament Canon completed? (2) When did any one church acquire a completed canon? (3) When did the completed canon—the complete Bible—obtain universal circulation and acceptance? (4) On what ground and evidence did the churches with incomplete Bibles accept the remaining books when they were made known to them?

The Canon of the New Testament was completed when the last authoritative book was given to any church by the apostles, and that was when John wrote the Apocalypse, about A.D. 98. Whether the church of Ephesus, however, had a completed Canon when it received the Apocalypse, or not, would depend on whether there was any epistle, say that of Jude, which had not yet reached it with authenticating proof of its apostolicity. There is room for historical investigation here. Certainly the whole Canon was not universally received by the churches till somewhat later. The Latin church of the second and third centuries did not quite know what to do with the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Syrian churches for some centuries may have lacked the lesser of the Catholic Epistles and Revelation. But from the time of Irenæus down, the church at large had the whole Canon as we now possess it. And though a section of the church may not yet have been satisfied of the apostolicity of a certain book or of certain books; and though afterwards doubts may have arisen in sections of the church as to the apostolicity of certain books (as e. g. of Revelation): yet in no case was it more than a respectable minority of the church which was slow in receiving, or which came afterward to doubt, the credentials of any of the books that then as now constituted the Canon of the New Testament accepted by the church at large. And in every case the principle on which a book was accepted, or doubts against it laid aside, was the historical tradition of apostolicity.

Let it, however, be clearly understood that it was not exactly apostolic authorship which in the estimation of the earliest churches, constituted a book a portion of the "canon." Apostolic authorship was, indeed, early confounded with canonicity. It was doubt as to the apostolic authorship of Hebrews, in the West, and of James and Jude, apparently, which underlay the slowness of the inclusion of these books in the "canon" of certain churches. But from the beginning it was not so. The principle of canonicity was not apostolic authorship, but imposition by the apostles as "law." Hence Tertullian's name for the "canon" is "instrumentum"; and he speaks of the Old and New Instrument as we would of the Old and New Testament. That the apostles so imposed the Old Testament on the churches which they founded—as their "Instrument," or "Law," or "Canon"—can be denied by none. And in imposing new books on the same churches, by the same apostolical authority, they did not confine themselves to books of their own composition. It is the Gospel according to Luke, a man who was not an apostle, which Paul parallels in 1 Tim. 5:18 with Deuteronomy as equally "Scripture" with it, in the first extant quotation of a New Testament book as Scripture. The Gospels which constituted the first division of the New Books,—of "The Gospel and the Apostles,"—Justin tells us, were "written by the apostles and their companions." The authority of the apostles, as by divine appointment founders of the church, was embodied in whatever books they imposed on the church as law, not merely in those they themselves had written.

The early churches, in short, received, as we receive, into their New Testament all the books historically evinced to them as given by the apostles to the churches as their code of law; and we must not mistake the historical evidences of the slow circulation and authentication of these books over the widely-extended church, for evidence of slowness of "canonization" of books by the authority or the taste of the church itself.

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Revelation and Inspiration, by B. B. Warfield, Copyright © 2021

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Table of Contents

Prefatory Note

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BENJAMIN BRECKINRIDGE WARFIELD

CHAPTER I: THE BIBLICAL IDEA OF REVELATION

CHAPTER II: THE IDEA OF REVELATION AND THEORIES OF REVELATION

CHAPTER III: THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE

CHAPTER IV: THE BIBLICAL IDEA OF INSPIRATION

CHAPTER V: "SCRIPTURE," "THE SCRIPTURES," IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

CHAPTER VI: THE REAL PROBLEM OF INSPIRATION

CHAPTER VII: "GOD-INSPIRED SCRIPTURE"

CHAPTER VIII: "IT SAYS" "SCRIPTURE SAYS:" "GOD SAYS"

CHAPTER IX: "THE ORACLES OF GOD"

CHAPTER X: INSPIRATION AND CRITICISM

APPENDIX

I. THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE

II. THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT