(iii) "Who would write a bulky treatise about the method to be pursued in interpreting Plato or Sophocles?"—asks Mr. Jowett. (p. 378.)—No one but a fool!—is the obvious reply. Plato and Sophocles are ordinary books; and therefore are to be interpreted like any other book. The Bible not so, as we shall see by and by. Again,—
(iv) "Each writer, each successive age, has characteristics of its own, as strongly marked, or more strongly, than those which are found in the authors or periods of classical Literature. These differences are not to be lost in the idea of a Spirit from whom they proceed, or by which they were overruled. And therefore, illustration of one part of Scripture by another should be confined to writings of the same age and the same authors, except where the writings of different ages or persons offer obvious similarities. It may be said, further, that illustration should be chiefly derived, not only from the same author, but from the same writing, or from one of the same period of his life. For example, the comparison of St. John and the 'synoptic' Gospels, or of the Gospel of St. John with the Revelation of St. John, will tend rather to confuse than to elucidate the meaning of either." (pp. 382-3.)—But really, in reply, it ought to suffice to point out that the result of the Church's experience for 1800 years has been the very opposite of the Professor's. "The idea of a Spirit from whom they proceeded," is, to the thoughtful part of mankind, the only intelligible clue to the several books of Holy Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation! Hence "the marginal references to the English Bible," (to which Mr. Jowett devotes a depreciatory half page,) so far from being the dangerous or useless apparatus which he represents, we hold to be an instrument of paramount importance for eliciting the true meaning of Holy Writ.—In a word, he is reasoning about the Bible on the assumption that the Bible is like any other book.
(v) "To attribute to St. Paul or the Twelve the abstract notion of Christian Truth which afterwards sprang up in the Catholic Church ... is the same error as to attribute to Homer the ideas of Thales or Heraclitus, or to Thales the more developed principles of Aristotle and Plato." (p. 354.)—Not if St. Paul and the Twelve were inspired.
(vi) He bids us remark, with tedious emphasis, that although the same philological and historical difficulties which occur in Holy Scripture are found in profane writings, yet "the meaning of classical authors is known with comparative certainty; and the interpretation of them seems to rest on a scientific basis.... Even the Vedas and the Zendavesta, though beset by obscurities of language probably greater than are found in any portion of the Bible, are interpreted, at least by European scholars, according to fixed rules, and beginning to be clearly understood." (p. 335.)
But at the end of several weak sentences, through which the preceding fallacy is elongated into distressing tenuity, who does not exclaim,—The supposed "scientific" basis on which the interpretation of books in general rests, is simply this; (α) that being merely human, and (β) not professing to have any other than their obvious literal meaning,—they are all interpreted in the obvious ordinary way!
For (α),—If any book were even suspected to be Divine, the manner of interpreting it would of course be different. Not that the "basis" of such Interpretation would therefore cease to be "scientific!" Take the only known instance of such a Book. The Bible has been suspected (!) for 1800 years to be inspired. How has it fared with the Bible?
The Science of Biblical Interpretation is one of the noblest and best understood in the world. It has been professed and practised in every country of Christendom. The great Masters of this Science have been such men as Hilary of Poictiers, Basil and the two Gregories in Asia Minor, Epiphanius in Cyprus, Ambrose at Milan, John Chrysostom at Antioch, Jerome in Palestine, Augustine in Africa, Athanasius and Cyril at Alexandria. The names descend in an unbroken stream from the first four centuries of our æra down to the age of Andrewes, and Bull, and Pearson, and Mill. These men all interpret Scripture in one and the same way. Their principles are the same throughout. They were all Professors of the same Sacred Science.
But (β),—If a book even professes to have a hidden meaning, it is interpreted by a special set of canons. Thus Dante's great poem[146] may not be read as Hume's History of England is read.—To proceed, however.
(vii) Sophocles is perhaps the most subtle of the ancient Greek poets. "Several schools of critics have commented on his works. To the Englishman he has presented one meaning, to the Frenchman another, to the German a third; the interpretations have also differed with the philosophical systems which the interpreters espoused. To one the same words have appeared to bear a moral, to another a symbolical meaning; a third is determined wholly by the authority of old commentators; while there is a disposition to condemn the scholar who seeks to interpret Sophocles from himself only and with reference to the ideas and beliefs of the age in which he lived. And the error of such an one is attributed not only to some intellectual but even to a moral obliquity (!) which prevents his seeing the true meaning." (p. 336.)
It has fared with Sophocles therefore, (according to Mr. Jowett,) in all respects as it has fared with the Bible. "It would be tedious," (he justly remarks,) "to follow the absurdity which has been supposed into details. By such methods," Sophocles or Plato might "be made to mean anything." (p. 336.)