At the same period this new master key was found and applied by a greater man than any of these—by Kuenen, of Holland; and thus it was that three eminent scholars, working in different parts of Europe and on different lines, in spite of all obstacles, joined in enforcing upon the thinking world the conviction that the complete Levitical law had been established not at the beginning, but at the end, of the Jewish nation—mainly, indeed, after the Jewish nation as an independent political body had ceased to exist; that this code had not been revealed in the childhood of Israel, but that it had come into being in a perfectly natural way during Israel's final decay—during the period when heroes and prophets had been succeeded by priests. Thus was the historical and psychological evolution of Jewish institutions brought into harmony with the natural development of human thought; elaborate ceremonial institutions being shown to have come after the ruder beginnings of religious development instead of before them. Thus came a new impulse to research, and the fruitage was abundant; the older theological interpretation, with its insoluble puzzles, yielded on all sides.
The lead in the new epoch thus opened was taken by Kuenen. Starting with strong prepossessions in favour of the older thought, and even with violent utterances against some of the supporters of the new view, he was borne on by his love of truth, until his great work, The Religion of Israel, published in 1869, attracted the attention of thinking scholars throughout the world by its arguments in favour of the upward movement. From him now came a third master key to the mystery; for he showed that the true opening point for research into the history and literature of Israel is to be found in the utterances of the great prophets of the eighth century before our era. Starting from these, he opened new paths into the periods preceding and following them. Recognising the fact that the religion of Israel was, like other great world religions, a development of higher ideas out of lower, he led men to bring deeper thinking and wider research into the great problem. With ample learning and irresistible logic he proved that Old Testament history is largely mingled with myth and legend; that not only were the laws attributed to Moses in the main a far later development, but that much of their historical setting was an afterthought; also that Old Testament prophecy was never supernaturally predictive, and least of all predictive of events recorded in the New Testament. Thus it was that his genius gave to the thinking world a new point of view, and a masterly exhibition of the true method of study. Justly has one of the most eminent divines of the contemporary Anglican Church indorsed the statement of another eminent scholar, that "Kuenen stood upon his watch-tower, as it were the conscience of Old Testament science"; that his work is characterized "not merely by fine scholarship, critical insight, historical sense, and a religious nature, but also by an incorruptible conscientiousness, and a majestic devotion to the quest of truth."
Thus was established the science of biblical criticism. And now the question was, whether the Church of northern Germany would accept this great gift—the fruit of centuries of devoted toil and self-sacrifice—and take the lead of Christendom in and by it.
The great curse of Theology and Ecclesiasticism has always been their tendency to sacrifice large interests to small—Charity to Creed, Unity to Uniformity, Fact to Tradition, Ethics to Dogma. And now there were symptoms throughout the governing bodies of the Reformed churches indicating a determination to sacrifice leadership in this new thought to ease in orthodoxy. Every revelation of new knowledge encountered outcry, opposition, and repression; and, what was worse, the ill-judged declarations of some unwise workers in the critical field were seized upon and used to discredit all fruitful research. Fortunately, a man now appeared who both met all this opposition successfully, and put aside all the half truths or specious untruths urged by minor critics whose zeal outran their discretion. This was a great constructive scholar—not a destroyer, but a builder—Wellhausen. Reverently, but honestly and courageously, with clearness, fulness, and convicting force, he summed up the conquests of scientific criticism as bearing on Hebrew history and literature. These conquests had reduced the vast structures which theologians had during ages been erecting over the sacred text to shapeless ruin and rubbish: this rubbish he removed, and brought out from beneath it the reality. He showed Jewish history as an evolution obedient to laws at work in all ages, and Jewish literature as a growth out of individual, tribal, and national life. Thus was our sacred history and literature given a beauty and high use which had long been foreign to them. Thereby was a vast service rendered immediately to Germany, and eventually to all mankind; and this service was greatest of all in the domain of religion.(476)
(476) For Lowth, see the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, D. D., Professor of the
Interpretation of the Holy Scripture in the University of Oxford,
Founders of the Old Testament Criticism, London, 1893, pp. 3, 4.
For Astruc's very high character as a medical authority, see the
Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales, Paris, 1820; it is significant that
at first he concealed his authorship of the Conjectures. For a brief
statement, see Cheyne; also Moore's introduction to Bacon's Genesis of
Genesis; but for a statement remarkably full and interesting, and based
on knowledge at first hand of Astruc's very rare book, see Curtiss, as
above. For Michaelis and Eichorn, see Meyer, Geschichte der Exegese;
also Cheyne and Moore. For Isenbiehl, see Reusch, in Allg. deutsche
Biographie. The texts cited against him were Isaiah vii, 14, and Matt.
i, 22, 23. For Herder, see various historians of literature and writers
in exegesis, and especially Pfleiderer, Development of Theology in
Germany, chap. ii. For his influence, as well as that of Lessing, see
Beard's Hibbert Lectures, chap. x. For a brief comparison of Lowth's
work with that of Herder, see Farrar, History of Interpretation, p. 377.
For examples of interpretations of the Song of Songs, see Farrar, as
above, p. 33. For Castellio (Chatillon), his anticipation of Herder's
view of Solomon's Song, and his persecution by Calvin and Beza, which
drove him to starvation and death, see Lecky, Rationalism, etc.,
vol. ii, pp. 46-48; also Bayle's Dictionary, article Castalio; also
Montaigne's Essais, liv,. i, chap. xxxiv; and especially the new life
of him by Buisson. For the persecution of Luis de Leon for a similar
offence, see Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, vol. ii, pp. 41,
42, and note. For a remarkably frank acceptance of the consequences
flowing from Herder's view of it, see Sanday, Inspiration, pp. 211, 405.
For Geddes, see Cheyne, as above. For Theodore Parker, see his various
biographies, passim. For Reuss, Graf, and Kuenen, see Cheyne, as above;
and for the citations referred to, see the Rev. Dr. Driver, Regius
Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, in The Academy, October 27, 1894; also a
note to Wellhausen's article Pentateuch in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
For a generous yet weighty tribute to Kuenen's method, see Pfleiderer,
as above, book iii, chap. ii. For the view of leading Christian critics
on the book of Chronicles, see especially Driver, Introduction to the
Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 495 et seq.; also Wellhausen, as
above; also Hooykaas, Oort, and Kuenen, Bible for Learners. For many of
the foregoing, see also the writings of Prof. W. Robertson Smith; also
Beard's Hibbert Lectures, chap. x. For Hupfield and his discovery, see
Cheyne, Founders, etc., as above, chap. vii; also Moore's Introduction.
For a justly indignant judgment of Hengstenberg and his school, see
Canon Farrar, as above, p. 417, note; and for a few words throwing a
bright light into his character and career, see C. A. Briggs, D. D.,
Authority of Holy Scripture, p. 93. For Wellhausen, see Pfleiderer, as
above, book iii, chap. ii. For an excellent popular statement of the
general results of German criticism, see J. T. Sunderland, The Bible,
Its Origin, Growth, and Character, New York and London, 1893.
III. THE CONTINUED GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
The science of biblical criticism was, as we have seen, first developed mainly in Germany and Holland. Many considerations there, as elsewhere, combined to deter men from opening new paths to truth: not even in those countries were these the paths to preferment; but there, at least, the sturdy Teutonic love of truth for truth's sake, strengthened by the Kantian ethics, found no such obstacles as in other parts of Europe. Fair investigation of biblical subjects had not there been extirpated, as in Italy and Spain; nor had it been forced into channels which led nowhither, as in France and southern Germany; nor were men who might otherwise have pursued it dazzled and drawn away from it by the multitude of splendid prizes for plausibility, for sophistry, or for silence displayed before the ecclesiastical vision in England. In the frugal homes of North German and Dutch professors and pastors high thinking on these great subjects went steadily on, and the "liberty of teaching," which is the glory of the northern Continental universities, while it did not secure honest thinkers against vexations, did at least protect them against the persecutions which in other countries would have thwarted their studies and starved their families.(477)
(477) As to the influence of Kant on honest thought in Germany, see
Pfleiderer, as above, chap. i.
In England the admission of the new current of thought was apparently impossible. The traditional system of biblical interpretation seemed established on British soil forever. It was knit into the whole fabric of thought and observance; it was protected by the most justly esteemed hierarchy the world has ever seen; it was intrenched behind the bishops' palaces, the cathedral stalls, the professors' chairs, the country parsonages—all these, as a rule, the seats of high endeavour and beautiful culture. The older thought held a controlling voice in the senate of the nation; it was dear to the hearts of all classes; it was superbly endowed; every strong thinker seemed to hold a brief, or to be in receipt of a retaining fee for it. As to preferment in the Church, there was a cynical aphorism current, "He may hold anything who will hold his tongue."(478)