37. For that, observe, is the real meaning, in its first power, of the word Bible. Not book, merely; but 'Bibliotheca,' Treasury of Books: and it is, I repeat, a singular question, how far, if Jerome, at the very moment when Rome, his tutress, ceased from her material power, had not made her language the oracle of Hebrew prophecy, a literature of their own, and a religion unshadowed by the terrors of the Mosaic law, might have developed itself in the hearts of the Goth, the Frank, and the Saxon, under Theodoric, Clovis, and Alfred.
38. Fate had otherwise determined, and Jerome was so passive an instrument in her hands that he began the study of Hebrew as a discipline only, and without any conception of the task he was to fulfil, still less of the scope of its fulfilment. I could joyfully believe that the words of Christ, "If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead," had haunted the spirit of the recluse, until he resolved that the voices of immortal appeal should be made audible to the Churches of all the earth. But so far as we have evidence, there was no such will or hope to exalt the quiet instincts of his natural industry; and partly as a scholar's exercise, partly as an old man's recreation, the severity of the Latin language was softened, like Venetian crystal, by the variable fire of Hebrew thought, and the "Book of Books" took the abiding form of which all the future art of the Western nations was to be an hourly expanding interpretation.
39. And in this matter you have to note that the gist of it lies, not in the translation of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures into an easier and a common language, but in their presentation to the Church as of common authority. The earlier Gentile Christians had naturally a tendency to carry out in various oral exaggeration or corruption, the teaching of the Apostle of the Gentiles, until their freedom from the bondage of the Jewish law passed into doubt of its inspiration; and, after the fall of Jerusalem, even into horror-stricken interdiction of its observance. So that, only a few years after the remnant of exiled Jews in Pella had elected the Gentile Marcus for their Bishop, and [Pg 78] obtained leave to return to the Ælia Capitolina built by Hadrian on Mount Zion, "it became a matter of doubt and controversy whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could possibly hope for salvation!" [3-12] While, on the other hand, the most learned and the most wealthy of the Christian name, under the generally recognised title of "knowing" (Gnostic), had more insidiously effaced the authority of the Evangelists by dividing themselves, during the course of the third century, "into more than fifty numerably distinct sects, and producing a multitude of histories, in which the actions and discourses of Christ and His Apostles were adapted to their several tenets." [3-13]
40. It would be a task of great, and in nowise profitable difficulty to determine in what measure the consent of the general Church, and in what measure the act and authority of Jerome, contributed to fix in their ever since undisturbed harmony and majesty, the canons of Mosaic and Apostolic Scripture. All that the young reader need know is, that when Jerome died at Bethlehem, this great deed was virtually accomplished: and the series of historic and didactic books which form our present Bible, (including the Apocrypha) were established in and above the nascent thought of the noblest races of men living on the terrestrial globe, as a direct message to them from its Maker, containing whatever it was necessary for them to learn of His purposes towards them, and commanding, or advising, with divine authority and infallible wisdom, all that was best for them to do, and happiest to desire.
41. And it is only for those who have obeyed the law sincerely, to [Pg 79] say how far the hope held out to them by the law-giver has been fulfilled. The worst "children of disobedience" are those who accept, of the Word, what they like, and refuse what they hate: nor is this perversity in them always conscious, for the greater part of the sins of the Church have been brought on it by enthusiasm which, in passionate contemplation and advocacy of parts of the Scripture easily grasped, neglected the study, and at last betrayed the balance, of the rest. What forms and methods of self-will are concerned in the wresting of the Scriptures to a man's destruction, is for the keepers of consciences to examine, not for us. The history we have to learn must be wholly cleared of such debate, and the influence of the Bible watched exclusively on the persons who receive the Word with joy, and obey it in truth.
42. There has, however, been always a farther difficulty in examining the power of the Bible, than that of distinguishing honest from dishonest readers. The hold of Christianity on the souls of men must be examined, when we come to close dealing with it, under these three several heads: there is first, the power of the Cross itself, and of the theory of salvation, upon the heart,—then, the operation of the Jewish and Greek Scriptures on the intellect,—then, the influence on morals of the teaching and example of the living hierarchy. And in the comparison of men as they are and as they might have been, there are these three questions to be separately kept in mind,—first, what would have been the temper of Europe without the charity and labour meant by 'bearing the cross'; then, secondly, what would the intellect of Europe have become without Biblical literature; and lastly, what would the social order of Europe have become without its hierarchy.
43. You see I have connected the words 'charity' and 'labour' under the general term of 'bearing the cross.' "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, (for charity) and take up his cross (of pain) and follow me."
The idea has been exactly reversed by modern Protestantism, which sees, in the cross, not a furca to which it is to be nailed; but a [Pg 80] raft on which it, and all its valuable properties, [3-14] are to be floated into Paradise.