_The growth of this theory is plain to us, and discredits its authority._
The explanation that Max Müller makes of the growth of superstitious
reverence for ancient traditions in Hindu history is suggestive on this
point.
"In an age when there was nothing corresponding to what we call
literature, every saying, every proverb, every story handed down from
father to son received very soon a kind of hallowed character. They became
sacred heir-looms, sacred because they came from an unknown source, from a
distant age. There was a stage in the development of human thought when
the distance that separated the living generation from their grandfathers
or great-grandfathers was as yet the nearest approach to a conception of
eternity, and when the name of grandfather and great-grandfather seemed
the nearest expression of God. Hence what had been said by these half
human, half divine ancestors, if it was preserved at all, was soon looked
upon as a more than human utterance. Some of these ancient sayings were
preserved because they were so true and so striking that they could not be
forgotten. They contained eternal truths, expressed for the first time in
human language. Of such oracles of truth it was said in India that they
had been heard, Sruta, and from it arose the word Sruti, the recognized
term for divine revelation in Sanskrit."[10]
How, in later times, the great writings of the Hebrews came to acquire the
same exaggerated sacredness, we can also observe. We read in one of the
historical books of the Jews that "Nehemiah founded a library and gathered
together the writings concerning the Kings, and of the prophets, and the
(songs) of David and epistles of Kings concerning temple gifts."[11] This
formation of a National Library was really the germ out of which grew the
Old Testament. It was a purely civic act by a layman, but it expressed the
honor in which the national writings were coming to be held. It is
coincident with this that we find a priestly movement to draw a sacred
line around the more important writings of the nation.
Tradition has credited Ezra, the priestly coadjutor of Nehemiah, with the
first formation of the Old Testament Canon. The two traditions express one
and the same fact from the secular and ecclesiastical points of view. In
the exile, the stricken nation came to value and honor its national
heritage as never before. Its literary sense was quickened by close
contact with the civilization of Babylonia, whose great library
constituted one of the chief treasures of the central city. It was natural
that on their return to their native land the Jews should gather their
race-writings and found a National Library.
The genius of Israel had always been religious. Its very literature was
pre-eminently religious. That their venerable writings should be received
as sacred was thus wholly natural. They were in reality sacred writings.
Moreover, a large part of these writings, and that part largely drawn from
very ancient times, was composed of judicial decisions, legislative codes,
etc., around which veneration properly gathered. This veneration was
heightened by the popular traditions which assigned to Moses the bulk of
their legislation, and traced it through him to Jehovah himself. During
the exile a remarkable priestly development, which had been running on
through two centuries, at least, culminated in a completely organized
hierarchy and an elaborate cultus.
In the process of this final development in Babylonia the legislation and
histories of the nation were worked over by priestly hands in the priestly
spirit. The law of Moses was now for the first time completely set before
the people, and on the restoration to Judea was made the law of the land.
It became, therefore, in a new sense sacred.
The fresh, free inspirations of the prophets--inspirations most real and
divine--died out in the exile, smothered partly by this priestly
development.[12]
When no living prophet arose to make men hear the voice of God, men had to
hearken for that voice in the words of the dead prophets. In the
synagogues or meeting-houses which developed during the exile, when the
holy temple was in ruins, and which, having been found useful, were
continued in the restoration, the writings of the prophets were read each
Sabbath. The true writings of the chief prophets had therefore to be
indicated. Thus came the canon of the prophets.
The freedom with which the author of the Chronicles used the material of
the older historians which had been taken up into the sacred writings,
shows that the sacredness attached to them had not isolated them into
extra-human writings even a century and a half after Ezra.
The process of exaltation was at work, however, and continued thenceforth
through the national history, increasing as the life of the nation ebbed.
It was the period immediately following the destruction of Jerusalem by
the Romans, which busied itself in closing the canon of Jewish Scriptures
Death bound up that Bible. No new chapters could be added, because there
was no more life left to write them. In its dotage this noble nation
became known, by its superstitious reverence for the law, as "the people
of the book." Learned doctors gravely taught their pupils that "God
himself studies the law for the first three hours of every day."
The superstitious exaltation of the sacred writings, coincident with the
lapsing life of the nation, was partially responsible for it, as it
discouraged the fresh inspirations of the soul, and suppressed all free
spiritual thought.
The genesis of the similar theory concerning the Christian Scriptures
repeats the story told above.
The formation of the Christian Church was a period of astonishing literary
productivity, commensurate in extent and worth with the importance of
Christianity. It was a creative epoch in history. The life and teachings
of Jesus stirred the minds and thrilled the souls of men. The higher
spheres brooded low upon our world. Spiritual influences of unparalleled
magnitude were working in society. The "Spirit of God moved upon the face
of the waters."
Writings of all sorts abounded. They carried such weight as their author's
name or their intrinsic worth imparted to them. Even the most valuable
were not so prized or guarded as to prevent some of them from being lost.
Paul's own letters suffered from this neglect. Had a few copies of these
inestimable letters been made by the churches to whom they were sent such
a fate could not have befallen any of them. These writings were quoted
freely by the early fathers, who rarely cared to give the exact language
even of the great apostle.
As the churches multiplied and organized, the need of selection from the
multitudinous literature of Christianity was felt. Genuine letters had to
be distinguished from spurious letters. Accurate knowledge of the life and
teachings of Christ had become a vital necessity. The growth of legend and
fable, in the Apocryphal Gospels, threatened to swallow up the memory of
the real Jesus. A sifting process went on in the churches, by which the
unimportant and objectionable writings were gradually winnowed out and the
wheat retained.
The Christian consciousness tried and tested every writing, accepting
those which approved themselves inspired by inspiring.
In the course of time this thoroughly vital process, through which public
opinion passed upon the Christian writings, was recorded officially in the
legislative action of councils, and thus, after many incertitudes and
vacillations, the selection of sacred writings was finished and the New
Testament canon was closed. It was closed, as in the case of the canon of
the Old Testament, by the gradual loss of free spiritual and literary
productivity; closed, as the visions fade and the tides fall within the
soul, and the period of criticism follows the period of creation.
These writings became rightly sacred as the mementoes of the Divine Man,
and the counsels of the great apostles; a shrine in which men drew near to
the supreme manifestation of God upon earth. But they became wrongly
sacred also, as the lengthening lapse of time isolated these precious
heirlooms of the Christian household into relics it was blasphemy to
criticise; as the falling waters of the river of life stranded high above
men's reach the thoughts and experiences of the inspired fisher-folk of
Galilee. In the Dark Ages, when to read was a sign of distinction, and to
write a schoolboy history like "Eginhard's Charlemagne" was a prodigy;
when to lead clean lives, and to labor as hosts are doing now for their
fellows made a man a saint; the literary and spiritual power of the
apostles was nothing less than preternatural.
In the Reformation the old story repeated itself.
In the days of fresh inspiration men surely did not fail to prize the
blessed books whence had come their new life. But the sense of the divine
life in their own spirits enabled them to judge of the inspiration of the
Apostles at once reverently and rationally. They did not hesitate to
criticise freely the sacred books. Erasmus wrote of the Revelation:
"I certainly can find no reason for believing that it was set forth by
the Holy Spirit.... Moreover, even were it a blessed thing to believe
what is contained in it, no man knows what that is.... But let every
man think of it as his spirit prompts him."[13]
Luther wrote of the Epistle of James,
"In comparison with the best books of the New Testament, it is a
downright strawy epistle."[14]
The ebbing tide again left the second generation critical and not
creative. After the sages and prophets of Protestantism came the scribes
and doctors, and they were concerned not so much with the manly religion
of free learning which Erasmus cherished, or the ethical and spiritual
religion which Luther roused, as with establishing Protestant_ism_ and
waging its doctrinal controversies. They wanted an authority for faith and
morals to set over against the authority of Rome. The age knew of no other
authority than external, extra-natural official authority, the king by
divine right in the realm of thought. In the place of the authority of the
Church rose the authority of the Bible; an oracular, infallible,
miraculous Book, instead of an oracular, infallible, miraculous Church.
Men could only sustain the elaborate speculative system they had spun out
of the New Testament letters, by insisting upon the authority of the
apostles in metaphysics as strongly as upon their authority in ethical
and spiritual principles. When dogma became divine, the books whence it
was drawn were deified.[15]
We simply enter into the heritage of the men who spent two and a half
years in elaborating the Westminster Confession, the first chapter of
which petrified this superstitious theory of the Bible. Profoundly as we
reverence these truly sacred books, for the real revelation they record as
coming in the spirits of holy men who spake as they were moved of the Holy
Ghost, and supremely in the person of the Son of Man; and rightly as we
recognize a Providential purpose in the preparation of these books for the
guidance of human life; the history of these same thoughts and feelings in
the past should warn us from renewing ancient exaggerations, injurious to
the best influence of the Bible.