VI.
Professor Huxley's article alluded to just now is a somewhat melancholy example of a mode of reasoning which one had hoped had vanished from 'educated circles' for ever—that namely which regards Christianity as a 'religion of a book' in such sense that it is supposed to propose for men's acceptance a volume to be received in all its parts as on the same level, and in the same sense, Divine. On the contrary, Christianity is a religion of a Person. It propounds for our acceptance Jesus Christ, as the revealer of the Father. The test question of the Church to her catechumens has never been: 'Dost thou believe the Bible?' but 'Dost thou believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?' If we do believe that, then we shall further believe in the Bible: in the Old Testament as recording how God prepared the way for Christ; in the New Testament as recording how Christ lived and taught, and containing the witness borne to Him by His earthly friends and ministers. The Bible thus 'ought to be viewed as not a revelation itself, but a record of the proclaiming and receiving of a revelation, by a body which is still existent, and which propounds the revelation to us, namely the body of Christians commonly called the Church[50].' The Bible is the record of the proclamation of the revelation, not the revelation itself. The revelation is in the Person of Christ, and the whole stress therefore of evidential enquiry should be laid upon the central question whether the Divine claim made for Jesus Christ by the Church is historically justified. The whole evidential battle of Christianity must thus be fought out on the field of the New Testament, not of the Old. If Christ be God, the Son of God, incarnate, as the Creeds assert, Christianity is true. No one in that case will find any permanent difficulty in seeing that in a most real sense the Bible, containing both Old and New Testaments, is an 'inspired volume.'
Now faith in the Godhead of our Lord is very far from being a mere matter of 'evidences.' On this enough is said by more than one writer in this volume[51]. But so far as 'historical evidences' go, we have them in our generation in quite fresh force and power. For our New Testament documents have passed through a critical sifting and analysis of the most trenchant and thorough sort in the fifty years that lie behind us. From such sifting we are learning much about the process through which they took their present shape. But in all that is material we feel that this critical investigation has only reassured us in asserting the historical truth of the records on which our Christian faith rests. This reassurance has been both as to the substance, and as to the quality of the original apostolic testimony to Christ. As to its substance, because the critical investigation justifies us in the confident assertion—more confident as the investigation has been more thorough than ever before—that the Christ of our four Gospels, the Christ with His Divine claim and miraculous life-giving power, the Christ raised from the dead the third day and glorified at God's right hand, the Christ who is the Son of God incarnate, is the original Jesus of Nazareth, as they beheld Him and bore witness who had been educated in closest intercourse with Him. We are reassured also as to the quality of the apostolic testimony. In some ages testimony has been careless—so careless, so clouded with superstition and credulity, as to be practically valueless. But in the apostles we have men who knew thoroughly the value of testimony and what depended upon it, who bore witness to what they had seen, and in all cases, save in the exceptional case of S. Paul, to what they had seen over a prolonged period of years; whose conviction about Christ had been gradually formed in spite of much 'slowness of heart,' and even persistent 'unbelief'; formed also in the face of Sadducean scepticism and in the consciousness of what would be said against them; formed into such irresistible strength and unanimity by the solid impress of facts that nothing could shake it, either in the individual or in the body. Such testimony does all for us that testimony can do in such a case. It supports externally and justifies a traditional faith, which is commended to us at the same time internally by its self-evidencing power. And with that faith as the strength of our life we can await with confidence the issue of minor controversies.
It may be hoped that the discussion which this book has raised may do good in two ways.
It may enable people to put the Bible into its right place in the fabric of their Christian belief. It may help to make it plain that in the full sense the Christian's faith is faith only in a Person, and that Person Jesus Christ: that to justify this faith he needs from the Scriptures only the witness of some New Testament documents, considered as containing history: while his belief in the Bible as inspired is, speaking logically, subsequent to his belief in Christ, and even, when we include the New Testament, subsequent to his belief in the Church, as the Body of Christ, rather than prior to it[52].
There is also another good result to which we may hope to see the present controversy minister—the drawing of a clear line in regard to development between the Old Testament and the New. For all modern criticism goes to emphasize the gradualness of the process through which, under the Old Covenant, God prepared the way for Christ. Now all that can be brought to light in this sense, the Church can await with indifference from a theological point of view, because it is of the essence of the Old Testament to be the record of a gradual self-disclosure of God continuous and progressive till the incarnation of Jesus Christ. It is, on the other hand, of the essence of the New Testament revelation that, as given in Christ and proclaimed by His apostles, it is, as far as this world is concerned, in its substance, final and adequate for all ages. It is this, because of its essential nature. If Christ is 'the Word made flesh,' the 'Son of God made Son of Man,' then finality essentially belongs to this disclosure of Godhead and this exhibition of manhood. 'He that hath seen Him hath seen the Father,' and he that hath seen Him hath seen perfect man, hath seen our manhood in its closest conceivable relation to God, at the goal of all possible spiritual and moral development. All our growth henceforth can only be a growth into 'the measure of the stature of His fulness'—a growth into the understanding and possession of Him who was once manifested. Finality is of the essence of the New Covenant, as gradual communication of truth was of the Old.
If these two results are obtained, we shall not be liable any more to be asked 'where we are going to stop' in admitting historical uncertainty. 'If you admit so much uncertainty in the Old Testament, why do you not admit the same in the New?' We shall not be liable to be asked this question, because it will be apparent that the starting-point as of enquiry, so of security, lies in the New Testament and then proceeds to extend itself to the Old. For us, at least, the Old Testament depends upon the New, not the New upon the Old.
Nor shall we be liable any more to be asked, 'Why, if you admit so much development in actual substance in the truth revealed under the Old Covenant, cannot you admit a similar augmentation under the New?' This question will be prevented, because it will be apparent that the essential conditions are different in the two cases. Progress in Christianity is always reversion to an original and perfect type, not addition to it: it is progress only in the understanding of the Christ. 'Regnum tuum, Domine, regnum omnium saeculorum; et dominatio tua in omni generatione et generationem.'
C. G. Pusey House,
July, 1890.
The chief changes of any importance in this edition are (1) the addition of a note at the end of the first essay; (2) the alteration of a few sentences on pp. 289, 296-7 of Essay VII; (3) the alteration of note 2 on p. 345 and note 1 on p. 346 in Essay VIII; (4) the expansion on p. 357, § 6 of the opening sentences; (5) the addition of an appendix on The Christian Doctrine of Sin.
[3] By the phrase 'to attempt to put the Catholic faith into its right relation to modern intellectual and moral problems' (Preface to First Edition) it was not by any means intended to suggest that the modern problems or the modern sciences were the things of the first importance and the faith only secondary. What was intended was that, as holding the Faith, we needed, as the Church has often needed, to bring that with which we are ourselves identified, into relation to the claims, intellectual and practical, made upon us from outside.
[4] Cf. Dr. Pusey, University Sermons, 1864-1879. 'Unscience, not science, contrary to faith,' pp. 18 ff.
[5] Cf. the history of the relations of the Church to Aristotelian philosophy: Milman, Latin Christianity, ed. 4, vol. ix. pp. 110 ff.; and later the relations of Christianity to the Copernican astronomy: Salmon, Infallibility of the Church, p. 230.
[6] See the tribute to his memory by Mr. G. J. Romanes: Guardian, Jan. 29, 1890.
[7] From S. Bernard's most touching sermon (in Cant. 26) on the death of his brother Gerard.
[8] See Essay VI. pp. 226-227, 250 ff.; Essay VIII. pp. 324-327; and Essay IX. pp. 384-390.
[9] See Preface, p. ix. note 1.
[10] Cf. Dr. Westcott's note on 1 S. John iii. 4, ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ ἀνομία.
[11] Cf. F. Lenormant, Les Origines de l'histoire. Paris, 1880, t. 1, p. 191. 'C'est dans la race de Qaîn que la Bible place l'invention des arts et des métiers. "Les fils du siècle sont plus habiles que les enfants de lumière."'
[12] Cf. p. 534.
[13] Cf. p. 535, note 1.
[14] Cf. F. Lenormant, Les Origines, t. 1, pp. 63-66. It is a pleasure to refer to this work by a distinguished Catholic and man of learning. The Preface is an admirable discussion of the relation of scientific enquiry to belief in Inspiration.
[15] Oxford Diocesan Gazette, July, 1890 (Parker, Oxford), p. 91.
[16] The summary statements on pp. 351-2 as to the historical character of the Old Testament represent, I believe, a 'conservative' attitude, an attitude towards the history very unlike that, for instance, of Wellhausen.
[17] See Ed. Riehm, Einleitung in das A. T. (Halle, 1889), §§ 15-18, 24, 27. F. E. König, Offenbarungsbegriff des A. T. (Leipzig, 1882), t. 11, pp. 321 ff. Cf. also Hauptprobleme der Altisr.-Religionsgesch. (Leipzig, 1884). F. Delitzsch, Genesis, Clark's trans. (Edinb., 1888), i. 19-38. F. Lenormant, Les Origines, Préface. I venture to think that those who want to study the modern criticism of the Old Testament would be less likely to be prejudiced against it if they were to begin their study with the assistance of Riehm and König, rather than of more rationalistic scholars. I ought to add that while the scholars mentioned above agree substantially as to the analysis of the Pentateuch, they differ as to the position assigned to the Priestly Code, which Dillmann and Riehm hold to be prior to Deuteronomy, Wellhausen, König and Delitzsch subsequent to it.
[18] Essay on the place of Ecclesiasticus in Semitic Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890, pp. 20, 21. I allude to this essay because it has excited considerable interest, but it has not received favourable notice from critics either English or German. For a review by a very competent critic, see Prof. Nöldeke in the Lit. Centralblatt, July 12, 1890.
[19] I may say that the motive for what is said about Ps. cx on p. 359 was simply the conviction that our Lord in the passage there in question cannot fairly be taken as giving instruction on a critical question of authorship, not the difficulty of assigning the particular Psalm to the age of David. The solution which I propose, p. 359, as to our Lord's words is however only one of several which are possible even for those who agree with me in the conviction expressed above. See, for instance, Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (London, 1884), ii. p. 406, and Bp. Thirlwall as quoted in Dean Perowne's Commentary on the Psalms (London 1871), ii. pp. 302 ff.
[20] S. Augustine, Quæst. 73 in Exod.: 'Quamquam et in vetere [Testamento] novum lateat, et in novo vetus pateat.' Quoted by Dr. Liddon, The worth of the Old Testament, p. 28.
[21] Cf. Didymus in Psalm. xxi. 19, where he interprets Christ's 'seamless robe,' of the Holy Scriptures which they 'part' who accept one and reject another. 'This robe of Jesus is also indivisible, for it is seamless. Its unity is not enforced but natural [οὐ γὰρ βεβιασμένην ἕνωσιν ἀλλὰ συμφυῆ ἔχει]; it is 'from above' [from the top, A.V.] because it is inspired; it is 'woven throughout,' because in its whole force it is from above.'
[22] S. Matt. v. 17-48, cf. xix. 8: 'Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts,' etc.
[23] After S. Paul, S. Augustine is the great exponent of this principle in early days; see esp. de spiritu et littera, xix. (34): Lex ergo data est ut gratia quaereretur: gratia data est ut lex impleretur.
[24] See esp. Heb. ix. 8, 'The Holy Spirit this signifying;' and cf. Dr. Westcott on this Epistle, pp. 233 ff.
[25] I would venture to recommend Riehm's Messianic Prophecy (Clark's trans.), as a summary account of prophecy both reverent and critical.
[26] Cf. Hooker's account of our grounds for believing that 'Scripture ... is divine and sacred.' 'By experience,' he says, 'we all know, that the first outward motive leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the authority of God's Church.... Afterwards the more we bestow our labour in reading or hearing the mysteries thereof, the more we find that the thing itself doth answer our received opinion concerning it.' Later again, as against 'infidels or atheists,' we must 'maintain the authority of the books of God ... by such kind of proofs ... that no man living shall be able to deny it, without denying some apparent principle such as all men acknowledge to be true.' E. P. III. viii. 14.
[27] The Chronicles and the later historical books, as is well known, were included in the third class of 'Hagiographa' with the Psalmists and Moralists.
The truth of this paragraph depends upon (1) the character, (2) the extent of the idealism of Old Testament facts. On this something more is said later on. Here I am only concerned to distinguish an idealism which truly interprets facts, even if it throws their spiritual meaning into high relief, from a merely imaginative treatment which perverts and distorts them. Thus if the Chronicler idealizes, it is by emphasizing, beyond the point of actual fact, the priestly element in the history which at the same time did both really exist and really represent the divine purpose.
[28] De Gestis Pelag. v. (15), 'Sicut veteri Testamento si esse ex Deo bono et summo negetur, ita et novo fit injuria si veteri aequetur.' S. Augustine does not perhaps carry out the recognition of this principle as fully as some other of the Fathers: for refs. see pp. 229 ff.
[29] S. Matt. xix. 8.
[30] See pp. 329 ff.
[31] Religion of the Semites. Edinburgh, 1889, p. 4.
[32] p. 329, note 2. The passage here added is from S. Chrysost. in Matt. vi. 3. The same idea is discerned by Bp. Lightfoot in S. Paul; see on Gal. iv. 11.
[33] I use the word 'myth' for those primitive stories on p. 356. The legitimacy of this use may be disputed, see e.g. Riehm, Einleitung, p. 342. But I endeavour to explain exactly the sense in which the word is used. On Strauss's application of the myth theory to the Gospel narratives, I should quite assent to the remarks of Dr. Mill, Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels (Cambridge, 1861), pp. 97, 98.
[34] S. John i. 14, xix. 35, xxi. 24; 1 S. John i. 1-3.
[35] S. Luke i. 1-4.
[36] I would call attention in this connection to Dr. Salmon's remarks on S. Jude's use, even in the New Testament canon, of the traditions contained in the Assumption of Moses, and his quotation of the book of Enoch: see at the end of his lecture on S. Jude's Epistle in the Introduction to the New Testament.
[37] Cf. Riehm, Einleitung, i. p. 246: 'Das Gesetzbuch kann nicht erst unter Josia geschrieben sein, sondern es muss spätestens zur Zeit des Hiskia entstanden sein, und zwar bevor dieser König seine Reformation ganz durchgeführt hatte.'
[38] A common feature in all traditions is what Wellhausen describes as the main characteristic of the Chronicler, 'the timeless manner of looking at things which is natural to him.' He 'figures the old Hebrew people as in exact conformity with the pattern of the later Jewish community.' Proleg. to Hist. of Israel (Edinburgh, 1885), pp. 190-193. In tradition what is authoritative tends to be represented as what always has been authoritative.
[39] Thus the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals are properly called forgeries; and the evidence of this would lie in the fact that the author could not have afforded to disclose the method and circumstances of their production.
[40] Thus Riehm, whose position is described above on p. xx, has a noble section (Einleit. pp. 349 ff.) on the Pentateuch considered as the record of a Revelation. The conviction of the revelation of God is ascribed in part to 'the immediate impression which the Pentateuch makes. Anyone who reads it, so as to allow its contents to work upon his spirit, must receive the impression that a consciousness of God, such as is here expressed, cannot be derived from flesh and blood.'
[41] De fide Catholica. The treatise is ascribed to Boethius: see Boetii, Opuscula Sacra (Teubner Series), p. 178. On the fresh evidence of the authorship of those treatises supplied by the Anecdoton Holderi see Hodgkin's Letters of Cassiodorus, London, 1886, pp. 80-1.
[42] See the account in Manning's Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost, London, 1877, pp. 156-160, and p. 166. Cf. also Newman's words below, p. 350.
[43] pp. 359-60.
[44] Nothing—except, on the customary interpretation, His reference to Psalm cx. This does seem to lay stress on David's authorship, unless it be regarded, as it certainly seems to me fair to regard it, as a question, rather than as positive instruction at all—a question simply calculated to lead the Pharisees to examine their own principles. Unless it be so interpreted it does seem to depend, as an argument, on personal authorship, because unless it be by David, it seems very difficult to suppose it written in David's person. It would naturally be a Psalm in which the King is addressed.
[45] S. John v. 46-47.
[46] S. Luke i. 17; S. Matt. xi. 14; xvii. 12.
[47] Nineteenth Century, July, 1890, p. 20. The bulk of his argument is directed against a position different from mine. Here I am only concerned with a single point.
[48] The proper name 'Lazarus' is presumably used because of its meaning. It should be noticed that the story is not a parable proper like that of the Sower or the Prodigal Son.
[49] It may be remarked that to regard 'the flood' as a representative or typical expression of a whole class of divine judgments, helps us in interpreting S. Peter's use of it in 1 Peter iii. 19-20. There is no reason for an exceptional treatment of those who perished in one particular flood, but there is every reason why 'the Gospel should have been preached to those who died' under God's physical judgments of old times, supposing these, as we must suppose them, not to represent God's final moral judgment on individuals: see 1 Peter iv. 6.
[50] These words are Bishop Steere's: see the Memoir of him by R. M. Heanley, London, 1888, p. 404. He admirably characterizes the true function of the Bible in the Church. It is (1) a criterion, not a teacher; (2) a record of the proclamation of the revelation, not the revelation itself.
[51] See pp. 29 ff., 229 ff., 337 ff.
[52] Cp. pp. 338-341, where this is explained. The 'logical' order of belief is often no doubt not the order of experience. The Bible can draw men to itself, and through itself to Christ, before they take any heed of the Church. But to feel the power of inspiration is a different thing from having reasoned grounds for calling certain books inspired.