To recognise then the inspiration of the Bible is to put ourselves to school in every part of it, and everywhere to bear in mind the admonition of the De Imitatione 'that every Scripture must be read in the same spirit in which it was written.' So far it will not be a point in dispute among Christians what inspiration means, or what its purpose is. 'The Councils of Trent and the Vatican,' writes Cardinal Newman, 'tell us distinctly the object and the promise of Scriptural inspiration. They specify "faith and moral conduct" as the drift of that teaching which has the guarantee of inspiration[314].' Nor can it be denied that the more Holy Scripture is read from this point of view, the more confidently it is treated as the inspired guide of faith and conduct, no less in the types of character which it sets before us than in its direct instruction, the more the experience and appreciation of its inspiration grows upon us, so that to deny or to doubt it comes to mean to deny or to doubt a matter plain to the senses. Indeed what has been said under this head will probably appear to those practised in the spiritual use of Holy Scripture as an understatement, perhaps not easy to justify, of the sense in which the Scripture is the Word of God, and the spiritual food of the soul[315].

5. But here certain important questions arise. (a) The revelation of God was made in a historical process. Its record is in large part the record of a national life: it is historical. Now the inspiration of the recorder lies, as we have seen, primarily in this, that he sees the hand of God in the history and interprets His purpose. Further, we must add, his sense of the working of God in history, increases his realization of the importance of historical fact. Thus there is a profound air of historical truthfulness pervading the Old Testament record from Abraham downward. The weaknesses, the sins, of Israel's heroes are not spared. Their sin and its punishment is always before us. There is no flattering of national pride, no giving the reins to boastfulness. In all this the Old Testament appears to be in marked contrast, as to contemporary Assyrian monuments, so also to a good deal of much later ecclesiastical history. But does the inspiration of the recorder guarantee the exact historical truth of what he records? And in matter of fact can the record, with due regard to legitimate historical criticism, be pronounced true? Now, to the latter of these two questions (and they are quite distinct questions), we may reply that there is nothing to prevent our believing, as our faith certainly strongly disposes us to believe, that the record from Abraham downward is in substance in the strict sense historical. Of course the battle of historical truth cannot be fought on the field of the Old Testament, as it can on that of the New, because it is so vast and indecisive, and because (however certainly ancient is such a narrative as that contained in Genesis xiv.) very little of the early record can be securely traced to a period near the events. Thus the Church cannot insist upon the historical character of the earliest records of the ancient Church in detail, as she can on the historical character of the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles. On the other hand, as it seems the more probable opinion that the Hebrews must have been acquainted with the art of writing in some form long before the Exodus, there is no reason to doubt the existence of some written records among them from very early days[316]. Internal evidence again certainly commends to our acceptance the history of the patriarchs, of the Egyptian bondage, of the great redemption, of the wanderings, as well as of the later period as to which there would be less dispute. In a word we are, we believe, not wrong in anticipating that the Church will continue to believe and to teach that the Old Testament from Abraham downwards is really historical, and that there will be nothing to make such belief and teaching unreasonable or wilful. But within the limits of what is substantially historical, there is still room for an admixture of what, though marked by spiritual purpose, is yet not strictly historical—for instance, for a feature which characterizes all early history, the attribution to first founders of what is really the remoter result of their institutions. Now historical criticism[317] assures us that this process has been largely at work in the Pentateuch. By an analysis, for instance, the force of which is very great, it distinguishes distinct stages in the growth of the law of worship: at least an early stage such as is represented in 'the Book of the Covenant[318],' a second stage in the Book of Deuteronomy, a last stage in 'the Priestly Code.' What we may suppose to have happened is that Moses himself established a certain germ of ceremonial enactment in connection with the ark and its sacred tent, and with the 'ten words'; and that this developed always as 'the law of Moses,' the whole result being constantly attributed, probably unconsciously and certainly not from any intention to deceive, to the original founder. This view would certainly imply that the recorders of Israel's history were subject to the ordinary laws in the estimate of evidence, that their inspiration did not consist in a miraculous communication to them of facts as they originally happened: but if we believe that the law, as it grew, really did represent the Divine intention for the Jews, gradually worked out upon the basis of a Mosaic institution, there is nothing materially untruthful, though there is something uncritical, in attributing the whole legislation to Moses acting under the Divine command. It would be only of a piece with the attribution of the collection of Psalms to David and of Proverbs to Solomon. Nor does the supposition that the law was of gradual growth interfere in any way with the symbolical and typical value of its various ordinances.

Once again, the same school of criticism would assure us that the Books of Chronicles represent a later and less historical version of Israel's history than that given in Samuel and Kings[319]: they represent, according to this view, the version of that history which had become current in the priestly schools. What we are asked to admit is not conscious perversion, but unconscious idealizing of history, the reading back into past records of a ritual development which was really later. Now inspiration excludes conscious deception or pious fraud, but it appears to be quite consistent with this sort of idealizing; always supposing that the result read back into the earlier history does represent the real purpose of God and only anticipates its realization.

Here then is one great question. Inspiration certainly means the illumination of the judgment of the recorder. 'By the contact of the Holy Spirit,' says Origen, 'they became clearer in their mental perceptions, and their souls were filled with a brighter light[320].' But have we any reason to believe that it means, over and above this, the miraculous communication of facts not otherwise to be known, a miraculous communication such as would make the recorder independent of the ordinary processes of historical tradition? Certainly neither S. Luke's preface to his Gospel, nor the evidence of any inspired record, justifies us in this assumption. Nor would it appear that spiritual illumination, even in the highest degree, has any tendency to lift men out of the natural conditions of knowledge which belong to their time. Certainly in the similar case of exegesis, it would appear that S. Paul is left to the method of his time, though he uses it with inspired insight into the function and meaning of law and of prophecy as a whole. Thus, without pronouncing an opinion, where we have no right to do so, on the critical questions at present under discussion, we may maintain with considerable assurance that there is nothing in the doctrine of inspiration to prevent our recognising a considerable idealizing element in the Old Testament history. The reason is of course obvious enough why what can be admitted in the Old Testament, could not without results disastrous to the Christian Creed, be admitted in the New. It is because the Old Testament is the record of how God produced a need, or anticipation, or ideal, while the New Testament records how in fact He satisfied it. The absolute coincidence of idea and fact is vital in the realization, not in the preparation for it. It is equally obvious, too, that where fact is of supreme importance, as in the New Testament, the evidence has none of the ambiguity or remoteness which belongs to much of the record of the preparation.

(b) But once again; we find all sorts of literature in the inspired volume: men can be inspired to think and to write for God under all the forms of natural genius. Now one form of genius is the dramatic: its essence is to make characters, real or imaginary, the vehicles for an ideal presentation. It presents embodied ideas. Now the Song of Solomon is of the nature of a drama. The Book of Job, although it works on an historical basis, is, it can hardly be denied, mainly dramatic. The Book of Wisdom, which with us is among the books of the Bible, though in the second rank outside the canon, and which is inside the canon of the Roman Church, professes to be written by Solomon[321], but is certainly written not by him, but in his person by another author. We may then conceive the same to be true of Ecclesiastes, and of Deuteronomy; i.e. we may suppose Deuteronomy to be a republication of the law 'in the spirit and power' of Moses put dramatically into his mouth. Criticism goes further, and asks us to regard Jonah and Daniel, among the prophetic books, as dramatic compositions worked up on a basis of history. The discussion of these books has often been approached from a point of view from which the miraculous is necessarily unhistorical. With such a point of view we are not concerned. The possibility and reality of miracles has to be vindicated first of all in the field of the New Testament; and one who admits them there, cannot reasonably exclude their possibility in the earlier history. The question must be treated simply on literary and evidential grounds[322]. But we would contend that if criticism should shew these books to be probably dramatic, that would be no hindrance to their performing 'an important canonical function,' or to their being inspired. Dramatic composition has played an immense part in training the human mind. It is as far removed as possible from a violation of truth, though in an uncritical age its results may very soon pass for history. It admits of being inspired as much as poetry, or history, and indeed there are few who could feel a difficulty in recognising as inspired the teaching of the books of Jonah and Daniel[323]. It is maintained then that the Church leaves open to literary criticism the question whether several of the writings of the Old Testament are or are not dramatic. Certainly the fact that they have not commonly been taken to be so in the past will be no evidence to the contrary, unless it can be denied that a literary criticism is being developed, which is as really new an intellectual product as the scientific development, and as such, certain to reverse a good many of the literary judgments of previous ages. We are being asked to make considerable changes in our literary conception of the Scriptures, but not greater changes than were involved in the acceptance of the heliocentric astronomy.

(c) Once again: an enlarged study of comparative history has led to our perceiving that the various sorts of mental or literary activity develop in their different lines out of an earlier condition in which they lie fused and undifferentiated. This we can vaguely call the mythical stage of mental evolution. A myth is not a falsehood; it is a product of mental activity, as instructive and rich as any later product, but its characteristic is that it is not yet distinguished into history, and poetry, and philosophy. It is all of these in the germ, as dream and imagination, and thought and experience, are fused in the mental furniture of a child's mind. 'These myths or current stories,' says Grote writing of Greek history, 'the spontaneous and earliest growth of the Greek mind, constituted at the same time the entire intellectual stock of the age to which they belonged. They are the common root of all those different ramifications into which the mental activity of the Greeks subsequently diverged; containing as it were the preface and germ of the positive history and philosophy, the dogmatic theology and the professed romance, which we shall hereafter trace, each in its separate development.' Now has the Jewish history such earlier stage: does it pass back out of history into myth? In particular, are not its earlier narratives, before the call of Abraham, of the nature of myth, in which we cannot distinguish the historical germ, though we do not at all deny that it exists? The inspiration of these narratives is as conspicuous as that of any part of Scripture, but is there anything to prevent our regarding these great inspirations about the origin of all things,—the nature of sin, the judgment of God on sin, and the alienation among men which follows their alienation from God,—as conveyed to us in that form of myth or allegorical picture, which is the earliest mode in which the mind of man apprehended truth?

6. In spite of the arbitrariness and the irreligion which have often been associated with the modern development of historical criticism in its application to the Old Testament, the present writer believes that it represents none the less a real advance in literary analysis, and is reaching results as sure, where it is fairly used, as scientific inquiry, though the results in the one case as in the other are often hard to disentangle from their less permanent accompaniments. Believing this, and feeling in consequence that the warning which the name of Galileo must ever bring before the memory of churchmen, is not unneeded now, he believes also that the Church is in no way restrained from admitting the modifications just hinted at, in what has latterly been the current idea of inspiration.

The Church is not restrained, in the first place, by having committed herself to any dogmatic definitions of the meaning of inspiration[324]. It is remarkable indeed that Origen's almost reckless mysticism, and his accompanying repudiation of the historical character of large parts of the narrative of the Old Testament, and of some parts of the New[325], though it did not gain acceptance, and indeed had no right to it (for it had no sound basis), on the other hand never roused the Church to contrary definitions. Nor is it only Origen who disputed the historical character of parts of the narrative of Holy Scripture. Clement before him in Alexandria, and the mediaeval Anselm in the West, treat the seven days' creation as allegory and not history. Athanasius speaks of paradise as a 'figure.' A mediaeval Greek writer, who had more of Irenaeus than remains to us, declared that 'he did not know how those who kept to the letter and took the account of the temptation historically rather than allegorically, could meet the arguments of Irenaeus against them.' Further than this, it cannot be denied that the mystical method, as a whole, tended to the depreciation of the historical sense, in comparison with the spiritual teaching which it conveyed[326]. In a different line, Chrysostom, of the literal school of interpreters, explains quite in the tone of a modern apologist, how the discrepancies in detail between the different Gospels, assure us of the independence of the witnesses, and do not touch the facts of importance, in which all agree.

The Church is not tied then by any existing definitions. We cannot make any exact claim upon any one's belief in regard to inspiration, simply because we have no authoritative definition to bring to bear upon him. Those of us who believe most in the inspiration of the Church, will see a Divine Providence in this absence of dogma, because we shall perceive that only now is the state of knowledge such as admits of the question being legitimately raised.

Nor does it seem that the use which our Lord made of the Old Testament is an argument against the proposed concessions. Our Lord, in His use of the Old Testament, does indeed endorse with the utmost emphasis the Jewish view of their own history. He does thus imply, on the one hand, the real inspiration of their canon in its completeness, and, on the other hand, that He Himself was the goal of that inspired leading and the standard of that inspiration. 'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day:' 'I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.' This, and it is the important matter for all that concerns our spiritual education, is not in dispute. What is questioned is that our Lord's words foreclose certain critical positions as to the character of Old Testament literature. For example, does His use of Jonah's resurrection, as a type of His own, depend in any real degree upon whether it is historical fact or allegory[327]? It is of the essence of a type to suggest an idea, as of the antitype to realize it. The narrative of Jonah suggested certainly the idea of resurrection after three days, of triumph over death, and by suggesting this gave our Lord what His discourse required. Once more, our Lord uses the time before the flood[328] to illustrate the carelessness of men before His own coming. He is using the flood here as a typical judgment, as elsewhere He uses other contemporary visitations for a like purpose. In referring to the flood He certainly suggests that He is treating it as typical, for He introduces circumstances—'eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage'—which have no counterpart in the original narrative. Nothing in His use of it depends on its being more than a typical instance. Once more, He argues with the Pharisees on the assumption of the Davidic authorship of Psalm cx[329]. But it must be noticed that He is asking a question rather than making a statement—a question, moreover, which does not admit of being turned into a statement without suggesting the conclusion, of which rationalistic critics have not hesitated to avail themselves, that David's Lord could not be David's son. There are, we notice, other occasions when our Lord asked questions which cannot be made the basis of positive propositions[330]. It was in fact part of His method to lead men to examine their own principles without at the time suggesting any positive conclusion at all.