No country, however, has done more than India, possibly none has done so much, in the peculiar exercise of ingenuity by which all sorts of senses are deduced from sacred texts. The Veda formed in that highly religious land the common basis on which each variety of philosophy was founded, and by which each was thought to be justified. Dr. Muir has collected a number of facts in proof of the diverse interpretations that found defenders among the champions of the several schools. In these facts, according to him, "we find another illustration (1) of the tendency common to all dogmatic theologians to interpret in strict conformity to their own opinions the unsystematic and not always consistent texts of an earlier age which have been handed down by tradition as sacred and infallible, and to represent them as containing, or as necessarily implying, fixed and consistent systems of doctrine; as well as (2) of the diversity of view which so generally prevails in regard to the sense of such texts among writers of different schools, who adduce them with equal positiveness of assertion as establishing tenets and principles which are mutually contradictory or inconsistent" (O. S. T., vol. iii. p. xx).
Exactly the same methods were applied to the sacred books of Buddhism. "It is in general," says Burnouf, "the same texts that serve as a foundation for all doctrines; only the explanation of these texts marks the naturalistic, theistic, moral or intellectual tendency" (H. B. I., p. 444). To meet the case of contradictions occurring in the Buddhistic Sûtras a theory of a double meaning has been invented. The various schools that had arisen in the course of time did not venture to reject the Sûtras that failed to harmonize with their own opinions, as not having emanated from Buddha, but maintained he had not expressed them in the form of absolute truth. He had often, they thought, adapted himself to the conceptions of his hearers, and uttered what was directly contradictory to his veritable ideas. Hence his words must be taken in two senses; the palpable and the hidden sense (Wassiljew, pp. 105, 329). As it has been with the Chinese Classics, with the Veda, and with the Tripitaka, so it has been with the Zend Avesta. Speaking of the progress of scholarship in deciphering the sense of that ancient work, Professor Max Müller justly observes that "greater violence is done by successive interpreters to sacred writings than to any other relics of ancient literature. Ideas grow and change, yet each generation tries to find its own ideas reflected in the sacred pages of their early prophets, and in addition to the ordinary influences which blur and obscure the sharp features of old words, artificial influences are here at work distorting the natural expression of words which have been invested with a sacred authority. Passages in the Veda or Zend Avesta which do not bear on religious or philosophical doctrines, are generally explained simply and naturally, even by the latest of native commentators. But as soon as any word or sentence can be so turned as to support a doctrine, however modern, or a precept, however irrational, the simplest phrases are tortured and mangled till at last they are made to yield their assent to ideas the most foreign to the minds of the authors of the Veda and Zend Avesta" (Chips, vol. i. p. 134).
It is remarkable that almost identical expressions are employed by a Roman Catholic writer in reference to the efforts that have been made by theologians to discover the doctrine of the Trinity in the pages of the Hebrew Bible. I am glad to be able to quote an authority so unexceptionable as that of M. Didron for the proposition, that the poverty of the Old Testament in texts relating to the Trinity has caused the commentators to torture the sense of the words and the signification of facts. He adds the interesting information that artists, pushed on by the commentators, have represented the signs of the Trinity in scenes which did not admit of them. Thus, commentators and artists have united to find a revelation of the three persons of the Godhead in the three angels whom Abraham met in the plain of Mamre; in the three companions of Daniel who were thrown into the fiery furnace, and in other passages of equal relevance. No wonder, when such are the texts relied upon to prove the presence of this cardinal dogma, that M. Didron should observe that the Old Testament contains very few texts that are clear and precise upon the subject, and that in this portion of the Sacred Books we do not see a sufficient number of real and unquestionable manifestations of the Holy Trinity (Ic. Ch., pp. 514-517).
Perhaps, however, the most conspicuous instance of the power of preconceptions in deciding the sense of Holy Writ is the traditional interpretation of the Song of Solomon. In this little book, which is altogether secular in its subject and its nature, the love of a young damsel to her swain is described in peculiarly plain and sensuous language. But precisely because it was so plain was it necessary to find allegorical allusions under its rather glowing phrases. Hence such expressions as "let him kiss me with a kiss of his mouth; thy caresses are softer than wine," are held to refer to "the Church's love unto Christ," and an enthusiastic encomium passed by the Shulamite upon the physical perfections of her lover is called "a description of Christ by his graces." So, when another speaker, in this case a man, flatters a woman by enumerating the beauties of her form, the feet, the joints of her thighs, the navel, the belly, the two breasts so passionately praised by her admirer, are thought in some mystic way to signify the graces of the Church. A passage referring to a young girl not yet fully developed is made out to be a foreshadowing of "the calling of the Gentiles," and the natural and simple appeal to a lover to make haste to come is "the Church praying for Christ's coming."
Equal, or nearly equal, absurdities are found in the Chinese interpretations of certain Odes contained in their classics. These Odes are, like the Song of Songs, mere expressions of human love. But the critics find in them profound historical allusions; history being the staple of the Chinese sacred books, as theology is of the Hebrew ones. Now it happened in China, as it has happened in Europe, that there was a traditional meaning attached to this portion of the sacred books; and the traditional meaning was embodied in a Preface which was generally supposed to have descended from very ancient times, which came to be incorporated with the Odes, and thus appeared to rest on the same authority as the text itself. But a Chinese scholar, named Choo He, who examined the preface in a freer spirit than was usual among the commentators, formed a very different opinion as to its age and its authority. He believed it to be of much more recent date that was commonly supposed, and by no means to form an integral portion of the Odes. The prevailing theory was that the Preface had existed as a separate document in the time of a scholar named Maou, "and that he broke it up, prefixing to each Ode the portion belonging to it. The natural conclusion," observes Choo He, "is that the Preface had come down from a remote period, and Hwang" (a scholar who, in one account, is said to have written the Preface) "merely added to it and rounded it off. In accordance with this, scholars generally hold that the first sentences in the introductory notices formed the original Preface which Maou distributed, and that the following portions were subsequently added. This view may appear reasonable, but when we examine those first sentences themselves we find some of them which do not agree with the obvious meaning of the Odes to which they are prefixed, and give merely the rash and baseless expositions of the writers." Choo He adds, that after the prefatory notices were published as a portion of the text, "they appeared as if they were the production of the poets themselves and the Odes seemed to be made from them as so many themes. Scholars handed down a faith in them from one to another, and no one ventured to express a doubt of their authority. The text was twisted and chiseled to bring it into accordance with them, and nobody would undertake to say plainly that they were the work of the scholars of the Han dynasty" (C. C., vol. iv. Proleg., p. 33).
Ample confirmation of the justice of Choo He's opinion will be found on turning to the Odes and comparing them with the notices in the Preface, which bear a family likeness to the headings of the chapters in the Song of Songs. Here, for example, is an Ode:—
"If you, Sir, think kindly of me,
I will hold up my lower garments, and cross the Tsin.
If you do not think of me,
Is there no other person [to do so?]