Living Fountains or Broken Cisterns: An Educational Problem for Protestants

by E. A. Sutherland

Higher criticism is Platonism

Murdock, in his notes, says: “Origen perversely turned a large part of Biblical history into moral fables and many of the laws into allegories. Probably he learned this in the school of Ammonius, which expounded Hesiod, Homer, and the whole fabulous history of the Greeks allegorically. The predecessors of Origen, who searched after a mystical sense of Scripture, still set a high value on the grammatical, or literal, sense; but he often expresses himself, as if he attached no value to it. Before him allegories were resorted to, only to discover predictions of future events and rules for moral conduct; but he betook himself to allegories in order to establish the principles of his philosophy on a Scriptural basis.... His propensity to allegories must be ascribed to the fertility of his invention, the prevailing custom of the Egyptians, his education, the instructions he received from his teachers, and the example both of the philosophers, of whom he was an admirer, and of the Jews.... He hoped, by means of his allegories, more easily to convince the Jews, to confute the gnostics, and to silence the objections of both. But we must not forget his attachment to that system of philosophy which he embraced. This philosophy could not be reconciled with the Scriptures; ... and therefore the Scriptures must be interpreted allegorically, that they might not contradict his philosophy.... As the body is the baser part of man, so the literal is the less worthy sense of Scripture; and as the body often betrays good men into sin, so the literal sense often leads us into error.”

Here is reason above faith

Mosheim himself tells us how Origen determined when a passage should be interpreted literally and when allegorically: “Whenever the words, if understood literally, will afford a valuable meaning, one that is worthy of God, useful to men, and accordant with truth and correct reason, then the literal meaning is to be retained; but whenever the words, if understood literally, will express what is absurd, or false, or contrary to correct reason, or useless, or unworthy of God, then the literal sense is to be discarded, and the moral and mystical alone to be regarded. This rule he applies to every part both of the Old Testament and the New.” This reasoning is sufficiently strong for any of our modern higher critics. If it led directly to the removal of the Word of God from the common people of the Middle Ages, because teachers adjudged no minds but their own capable of determining whether a certain passage should be interpreted literally or allegorically, to what will the same treatment of the Scriptures now lead? And if the disciples of Origen lacking the caution of the great teacher, were led into the gross licentiousness of the heathen, how much of the wickedness of modern society should be attributed to the spirit of higher criticism, echoed from the pulpit, and breathed from the schoolroom?

Minds prepared for the papacy

Mosheim continues: “He [Origen] assigns two reasons why fables and literal absurdities are admitted into the Sacred Volume. The first is, that if the literal meaning were always rational and good, the reader would be apt to rest in it, and not look after the moral and mystical sense. The second is, that fabulous and incongruous representations often afford moral and mystical instructions which could not so well be conveyed by sober facts and representations.”

Perhaps this is enough to show that scholasticism, or a philosophical interpretation of the Scriptures had its origin in the Christian schools. By this it is plain why these youth became papists, instead of followers of the meek and lowly Galilean. There was no other theory which could, so effectually as this, have stamped out faith. No other teaching than this same higher criticism could have more truly developed that power which “speaketh great words against the Most High, and thinketh to change times and laws.” It formed the beast in the third century; it is forming the image to the beast in the present century. Students under such instruction had received ample preparation for a belief in the right of the church to interpret Scripture, and a belief in the infallibility of the pope.

Scholasticism and higher criticism

We have seen the origin of two of the streams which, uniting, helped swell the torrent of the papacy. There are still other tributaries to this mighty river. Each rises somewhere in heathendom, flows with a devious course, but finally, as if in accordance with some great natural law, unites with those other currents in forming the mystery of iniquity. Each stream is an educational principle, opposed in itself to Christianity; but instead of being lost in the depths of the main channel, it seems to develop greater power of doing evil, and brings its adherents into more complete degradation after the mingling than before.

Mysticism