teach men about divine judgments, then our Lord in the same Spirit can
refer to the flood, for the same purpose. It has however been recently
denied that this can be so, unless the tradition accurately represents
history. 'I venture to ask,' Professor Huxley writes[47], 'what sort
of value as an illustration of God's method of dealing with sin has an
account of an event that never happened?' I should like to meet this
question by asking another. Has the story of the rich man and Lazarus
any value as an illustration of God's method of dealing with men?
Undoubtedly it has. Now what sort of narrative is this? Not a
narrative of events that actually happened, in the sense that there
was a particular beggar to whom our Lord was referring. The narrative
is a _representative_ narrative[48], a narrative of what is constantly
occurring under the form of a particular typical incident. Now the
narrative of the flood belongs to a quite different class of
literature, inasmuch as it is not due to any _deliberate_ action of
imagination; but it resembles our Lord's story _at least_ in being
representative. It is no doubt based on fact. The traditions of the
flood in all races must run back to a real occurrence. But the actual
occurrence cannot be exactly estimated. What we have in Genesis is a
tradition used as a vehicle for spiritual teaching. As the story is
told it becomes, like that of Dives and Lazarus, a typical narrative
of what is again and again happening. Again and again, as in the
destruction of Jerusalem, or in the French Revolution, God's judgments
come on men for their sin: again and again teachers of righteousness
are sent to warn of coming judgment and are ridiculed by a world which
goes on buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, till the
flood of God's judgment breaks out and overwhelms them. Again and
again, through these great judgments there emerges a remnant, a
faithful stock, to be the fountain head of a new and fresh
development. The narrative of the flood is a representative narrative,
and our Lord, who used the story of Dives and Lazarus, can use this
too[49].
VI.
Professor Huxley's article alluded to just now is a somewhat
melancholy example of a mode of reasoning which one had hoped had
vanished from 'educated circles' for ever--that namely which regards
Christianity as a 'religion of a book' in such sense that it is
supposed to propose for men's acceptance a volume to be received in
all its parts as on the same level, and in the same sense, Divine. On
the contrary, Christianity is a religion of a Person. It propounds for
our acceptance Jesus Christ, as the revealer of the Father. The test
question of the Church to her catechumens has never been: 'Dost thou
believe the Bible?' but 'Dost thou believe that Jesus Christ is the
Son of God?' If we do believe that, then we shall further believe in
the Bible: in the Old Testament as recording how God prepared the way
for Christ; in the New Testament as recording how Christ lived and
taught, and containing the witness borne to Him by His earthly friends
and ministers. The Bible thus 'ought to be viewed as not a revelation
itself, but a record of the proclaiming and receiving of a revelation,
by a body which is still existent, and which propounds the revelation
to us, namely the body of Christians commonly called the Church[50].'
The Bible is the record of the proclamation of the revelation, not the
revelation itself. The revelation is in the Person of Christ, and the
whole stress therefore of _evidential_ enquiry should be laid upon the
central question whether the Divine claim made for Jesus Christ by the
Church is historically justified. The whole evidential battle of
Christianity must thus be fought out on the field of the New
Testament, not of the Old. If Christ be God, the Son of God,
incarnate, as the Creeds assert, Christianity is true. No one in that
case will find any permanent difficulty in seeing that in a most real
sense the Bible, containing both Old and New Testaments, is an
'inspired volume.'
Now faith in the Godhead of our Lord is very far from being a mere
matter of 'evidences.' On this enough is said by more than one writer
in this volume[51]. But so far as 'historical evidences' go, we have
them in our generation in quite fresh force and power. For our New
Testament documents have passed through a critical sifting and
analysis of the most trenchant and thorough sort in the fifty years
that lie behind us. From such sifting we are learning much about the
process through which they took their present shape. But in all that
is material we feel that this critical investigation has only
reassured us in asserting the historical truth of the records on which
our Christian faith rests. This reassurance has been both as to the
substance, and as to the quality of the original apostolic testimony
to Christ. As to its substance, because the critical investigation
justifies us in the confident assertion--more confident as the
investigation has been more thorough than ever before--that the Christ
of our four Gospels, the Christ with His Divine claim and miraculous
life-giving power, the Christ raised from the dead the third day and
glorified at God's right hand, the Christ who is the Son of God
incarnate, is the original Jesus of Nazareth, as they beheld Him and
bore witness who had been educated in closest intercourse with Him. We
are reassured also as to the quality of the apostolic testimony. In
some ages testimony has been careless--so careless, so clouded with
superstition and credulity, as to be practically valueless. But in the
apostles we have men who knew thoroughly the value of testimony and
what depended upon it, who bore witness to what they had seen, and in
all cases, save in the exceptional case of S. Paul, to what they had
seen over a prolonged period of years; whose conviction about Christ
had been gradually formed in spite of much 'slowness of heart,' and
even persistent 'unbelief'; formed also in the face of Sadducean
scepticism and in the consciousness of what would be said against
them; formed into such irresistible strength and unanimity by the
solid impress of facts that nothing could shake it, either in the
individual or in the body. Such testimony does all for us that
testimony can do in such a case. It supports externally and justifies
a traditional faith, which is commended to us at the same time
internally by its self-evidencing power. And with that faith as the
strength of our life we can await with confidence the issue of minor
controversies.
It may be hoped that the discussion which this book has raised may do
good in two ways.
It may enable people to put the Bible into its right place in the
fabric of their Christian belief. It may help to make it plain that in
the full sense the Christian's faith is faith only in a Person, and
that Person Jesus Christ: that to justify this faith he needs from the
Scriptures only the witness of some New Testament documents,
considered as containing history: while his belief in the Bible as
inspired is, speaking logically, subsequent to his belief in Christ,
and even, when we include the New Testament, subsequent to his belief
in the Church, as the Body of Christ, rather than prior to it[52].
There is also another good result to which we may hope to see the
present controversy minister--the drawing of a clear line in regard to
development between the Old Testament and the New. For all modern
criticism goes to emphasize the gradualness of the process through
which, under the Old Covenant, God prepared the way for Christ. Now
all that can be brought to light in this sense, the Church can await
with indifference from a theological point of view, because it is of
the essence of the Old Testament to be the record of a gradual
self-disclosure of God continuous and progressive till the incarnation
of Jesus Christ. It is, on the other hand, of the essence of the New
Testament revelation that, as given in Christ and proclaimed by His
apostles, it is, as far as this world is concerned, in its substance,
final and adequate for all ages. It is this, because of its essential
nature. If Christ is 'the Word made flesh,' the 'Son of God made Son
of Man,' then finality essentially belongs to this disclosure of
Godhead and this exhibition of manhood. 'He that hath seen Him hath
seen the Father,' and he that hath seen Him hath seen perfect man,
hath seen our manhood in its closest conceivable relation to God, at
the goal of all possible spiritual and moral development. All our
growth henceforth can only be a growth into 'the measure of the
stature of His fulness'--a growth into the understanding and
possession of Him who was once manifested. Finality is of the essence
of the New Covenant, as gradual communication of truth was of the Old.
If these two results are obtained, we shall not be liable any more to
be asked 'where we are going to stop' in admitting historical
uncertainty. 'If you admit so much uncertainty in the Old Testament,
why do you not admit the same in the New?' We shall not be liable to
be asked this question, because it will be apparent that the
starting-point as of enquiry, so of security, lies in the New
Testament and then proceeds to extend itself to the Old. For us, at
least, the Old Testament depends upon the New, not the New upon the
Old.
Nor shall we be liable any more to be asked, 'Why, if you admit so
much development in actual substance in the truth revealed under the
Old Covenant, cannot you admit a similar augmentation under the New?'
This question will be prevented, because it will be apparent that the
essential conditions are different in the two cases. Progress in
Christianity is always reversion to an original and perfect type, not
addition to it: it is progress only in the understanding of the
Christ. 'Regnum tuum, Domine, regnum omnium saeculorum; et dominatio
tua in omni generatione et generationem.'
C. G.
PUSEY HOUSE,
_July, 1890_.
The chief changes of any importance in this edition are (1) the
addition of a note at the end of the first essay; (2) the alteration
of a few sentences on pp. 289, 296-7 of Essay VII; (3) the
alteration of note 2 on p. 345 and note 1 on p. 346 in Essay VIII;
(4) the expansion on p. 357, § 6 of the opening sentences; (5) the
addition of an appendix on _The Christian Doctrine of Sin_.
[3] By the phrase 'to attempt to put the Catholic faith into its right
relation to modern intellectual and moral problems' (Preface to First
Edition) it was not by any means intended to suggest that the modern
problems or the modern sciences were the things of the first
importance and the faith only secondary. What was intended was that,
as holding the Faith, we needed, as the Church has often needed, to
bring that with which we are ourselves identified, into relation to
the claims, intellectual and practical, made upon us from outside.
[4] Cf. Dr. Pusey, _University Sermons_, 1864-1879. 'Unscience, not
science, contrary to faith,' pp. 18 ff.
[5] Cf. the history of the relations of the Church to Aristotelian
philosophy: Milman, _Latin Christianity_, ed. 4, vol. ix. pp. 110 ff.;
and later the relations of Christianity to the Copernican astronomy:
Salmon, _Infallibility of the Church_, p. 230.
[6] See the tribute to his memory by Mr. G. J. Romanes: _Guardian_,
Jan. 29, 1890.
[7] From S. Bernard's most touching sermon (_in Cant. 26_) on the
death of his brother Gerard.
[8] See Essay VI. pp. 226-227, 250 ff.; Essay VIII. pp. 324-327; and
Essay IX. pp. 384-390.
[9] See Preface, p. ix. note 1.
[10] Cf. Dr. Westcott's note on 1 S. John iii. 4, ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ
ἀνομία.
[11] Cf. F. Lenormant, _Les Origines de l'histoire_. Paris, 1880, t.
1, p. 191. 'C'est dans la race de Qaîn que la Bible place l'invention
des arts et des métiers. "Les fils du siècle sont plus habiles que les
enfants de lumière."'
[12] Cf. p. 534.
[13] Cf. p. 535, note 1.
[14] Cf. F. Lenormant, _Les Origines_, t. 1, pp. 63-66. It is a
pleasure to refer to this work by a distinguished Catholic and man of
learning. The Preface is an admirable discussion of the relation of
scientific enquiry to belief in Inspiration.
[15] _Oxford Diocesan Gazette_, July, 1890 (Parker, Oxford), p. 91.
[16] The summary statements on pp. 351-2 as to the historical
character of the Old Testament represent, I believe, a 'conservative'
attitude, an attitude towards the history very unlike that, for
instance, of Wellhausen.
[17] See Ed. Riehm, _Einleitung in das A. T._ (Halle, 1889), §§ 15-18,
24, 27. F. E. König, _Offenbarungsbegriff des A. T._ (Leipzig, 1882),
t. 11, pp. 321 ff. Cf. also _Hauptprobleme der Altisr.-Religionsgesch._
(Leipzig, 1884). F. Delitzsch, _Genesis_, Clark's trans. (Edinb.,
1888), i. 19-38. F. Lenormant, _Les Origines_, Préface. I venture to
think that those who want to study the modern criticism of the Old
Testament would be less likely to be prejudiced against it if they
were to begin their study with the assistance of Riehm and König,
rather than of more rationalistic scholars. I ought to add that while
the scholars mentioned above agree substantially as to the analysis of
the Pentateuch, they differ as to the position assigned to the
Priestly Code, which Dillmann and Riehm hold to be prior to
Deuteronomy, Wellhausen, König and Delitzsch subsequent to it.
[18] _Essay on the place of Ecclesiasticus in Semitic Literature._
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890, pp. 20, 21. I allude to this essay
because it has excited considerable interest, but it has not received
favourable notice from critics either English or German. For a review
by a very competent critic, see Prof. Nöldeke in the _Lit.
Centralblatt_, July 12, 1890.
[19] I may say that the motive for what is said about Ps. cx on p. 359
was simply the conviction that our Lord in the passage there in
question cannot fairly be taken as giving instruction on a critical
question of authorship, not the difficulty of assigning the particular
Psalm to the age of David. The solution which I propose, p. 359, as to
our Lord's words is however only one of several which are possible
even for those who agree with me in the conviction expressed above.
See, for instance, Edersheim, _Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah_
(London, 1884), ii. p. 406, and Bp. Thirlwall as quoted in Dean
Perowne's _Commentary on the Psalms_ (London 1871), ii. pp. 302 ff.
[20] S. Augustine, _Quæst. 73 in Exod._: 'Quamquam et in vetere
[Testamento] novum lateat, et in novo vetus pateat.' Quoted by Dr.
Liddon, _The worth of the Old Testament_, p. 28.
[21] Cf. Didymus _in Psalm._ xxi. 19, where he interprets Christ's
'seamless robe,' of the Holy Scriptures which they 'part' who accept
one and reject another. 'This robe of Jesus is also indivisible, for
it is seamless. Its unity is not enforced but natural [οὐ γὰρ
βεβιασμένην ἕνωσιν ἀλλὰ συμφυῆ ἔχει]; it is 'from above' [from the
top, A.V.] because it is inspired; it is 'woven throughout,' because
in its whole force it is from above.'
[22] S. Matt. v. 17-48, cf. xix. 8: 'Moses, because of the hardness of
your hearts,' etc.
[23] After S. Paul, S. Augustine is the great exponent of this
principle in early days; see esp. _de spiritu et littera_, xix. (34):
Lex ergo data est ut gratia quaereretur: gratia data est ut lex
impleretur.
[24] See esp. Heb. ix. 8, 'The Holy Spirit this signifying;' and cf.
Dr. Westcott on this Epistle, pp. 233 ff.
[25] I would venture to recommend Riehm's _Messianic Prophecy_
(Clark's trans.), as a summary account of prophecy both reverent and
critical.
[26] Cf. Hooker's account of our grounds for believing that 'Scripture
... is divine and sacred.' 'By experience,' he says, 'we all know,
that the first outward motive leading men so to esteem of the
Scripture is the authority of God's Church.... Afterwards the more we
bestow our labour in reading or hearing the mysteries thereof, the
more we find that the thing itself doth answer our received opinion
concerning it.' Later again, as against 'infidels or atheists,' we
must 'maintain the authority of the books of God ... by such kind of
proofs ... that no man living shall be able to deny it, without
denying some apparent principle such as all men acknowledge to be
true.' _E. P._ III. viii. 14.
[27] The Chronicles and the later historical books, as is well known,
were included in the third class of 'Hagiographa' with the Psalmists
and Moralists.
The truth of this paragraph depends upon (1) the character, (2) the
extent of the idealism of Old Testament facts. On this something more
is said later on. Here I am only concerned to distinguish an idealism
which truly interprets facts, even if it throws their spiritual
meaning into high relief, from a merely imaginative treatment which
perverts and distorts them. Thus if the Chronicler idealizes, it is by
emphasizing, beyond the point of actual fact, the priestly element in
the history which at the same time did both really exist and really
represent the divine purpose.
[28] _De Gestis Pelag._ v. (15), 'Sicut veteri Testamento si esse ex
Deo bono et summo negetur, ita et novo fit injuria si veteri
aequetur.' S. Augustine does not perhaps carry out the recognition of
this principle as fully as some other of the Fathers: for refs. see
pp. 229 ff.
[29] S. Matt. xix. 8.
[30] See pp. 329 ff.
[31] _Religion of the Semites._ Edinburgh, 1889, p. 4.
[32] p. 329, note 2. The passage here added is from S. Chrysost. _in
Matt._ vi. 3. The same idea is discerned by Bp. Lightfoot in S. Paul;
see on Gal. iv. 11.
[33] I use the word 'myth' for those primitive stories on p. 356. The
legitimacy of this use may be disputed, see e.g. Riehm, _Einleitung_,
p. 342. But I endeavour to explain exactly the sense in which the word
is used. On Strauss's application of the myth theory to the Gospel
narratives, I should quite assent to the remarks of Dr. Mill,
_Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels_ (Cambridge, 1861), pp. 97,
98.
[34] S. John i. 14, xix. 35, xxi. 24; 1 S. John i. 1-3.
[35] S. Luke i. 1-4.
[36] I would call attention in this connection to Dr. Salmon's remarks
on S. Jude's use, even in the New Testament canon, of the traditions
contained in the Assumption of Moses, and his quotation of the book of
Enoch: see at the end of his lecture on S. Jude's Epistle in the
_Introduction to the New Testament_.
[37] Cf. Riehm, _Einleitung_, i. p. 246: 'Das Gesetzbuch kann nicht
erst unter Josia geschrieben sein, sondern es muss spätestens zur Zeit
des Hiskia entstanden sein, und zwar bevor dieser König seine
Reformation ganz durchgeführt hatte.'
[38] A common feature in all traditions is what Wellhausen describes
as the main characteristic of the Chronicler, 'the timeless manner of
looking at things which is natural to him.' He 'figures the old Hebrew
people as in exact conformity with the pattern of the later Jewish
community.' _Proleg. to Hist. of Israel_ (Edinburgh, 1885), pp.
190-193. In tradition what _is_ authoritative tends to be represented
as what _always has been_ authoritative.
[39] Thus the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals are properly called
forgeries; and the evidence of this would lie in the fact that the
author could not have afforded to disclose the method and
circumstances of their production.
[40] Thus Riehm, whose position is described above on p. xx, has a
noble section (_Einleit._ pp. 349 ff.) on the Pentateuch considered as
the record of a Revelation. The conviction of the revelation of God is
ascribed in part to 'the immediate impression which the Pentateuch
makes. Anyone who reads it, so as to allow its contents to work upon
his spirit, must receive the impression that a consciousness of God,
such as is here expressed, cannot be derived from flesh and blood.'
[41] _De fide Catholica._ The treatise is ascribed to Boethius: see
Boetii, _Opuscula Sacra_ (Teubner Series), p. 178. On the fresh
evidence of the authorship of those treatises supplied by the
_Anecdoton Holderi_ see Hodgkin's _Letters of Cassiodorus_, London,
1886, pp. 80-1.
[42] See the account in Manning's _Temporal Mission of the Holy
Ghost_, London, 1877, pp. 156-160, and p. 166. Cf. also Newman's words
below, p. 350.
[43] pp. 359-60.
[44] Nothing--except, on the customary interpretation, His reference
to Psalm cx. This does seem to lay stress on David's authorship,
unless it be regarded, as it certainly seems to me fair to regard it,
as a question, rather than as positive instruction at all--a question
simply calculated to lead the Pharisees to examine their own
principles. Unless it be so interpreted it does seem to depend, as an
argument, on personal authorship, because unless it be by David, it
seems very difficult to suppose it written in David's person. It would
naturally be a Psalm in which _the King is addressed_.
[45] S. John v. 46-47.
[46] S. Luke i. 17; S. Matt. xi. 14; xvii. 12.
[47] _Nineteenth Century_, July, 1890, p. 20. The bulk of his argument
is directed against a position different from mine. Here I am only
concerned with a single point.
[48] The proper name 'Lazarus' is presumably used because of its
meaning. It should be noticed that the story is not a _parable_ proper
like that of the Sower or the Prodigal Son.
[49] It may be remarked that to regard 'the flood' as a representative
or typical expression of a whole class of divine judgments, helps us
in interpreting S. Peter's use of it in 1 Peter iii. 19-20. There is
no reason for an exceptional treatment of those who perished in one
particular flood, but there is every reason why 'the Gospel should
have been preached to those who died' under God's physical judgments
of old times, supposing these, as we must suppose them, not to
represent God's final moral judgment on individuals: see 1 Peter
iv. 6.
[50] These words are Bishop Steere's: see the _Memoir_ of him by R. M.
Heanley, London, 1888, p. 404. He admirably characterizes the true
function of the Bible in the Church. It is (1) a criterion, not a
teacher; (2) a record of the proclamation of the revelation, not the
revelation itself.
[51] See pp. 29 ff., 229 ff., 337 ff.
[52] Cp. pp. 338-341, where this is explained. The 'logical' order of
belief is often no doubt not the order of experience. The Bible can
draw men to itself, and through itself to Christ, before they take any
heed of the Church. But to feel the power of inspiration is a
different thing from having reasoned grounds for calling certain books
inspired.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
I.
FAITH.
PAGE
I. Faith; its situation; its behaviour; challenged by novel
experiences; alarmed at its own perplexity 3-5
Yet why alarmed? 5
Perplexity consistent with faith, when faith is stripped of
its habitual corroborations from without: and summoned to
submit itself to internal observation 5-8
For faith is an elemental act of personal self: and,
therefore, like all such acts, e.g. of thought; will; love;
is, necessarily, incapable of offering itself for
scientific examination 8-11
II. What is faith? 11-12
The motion in us of our sonship in the Father; the
conscious recognition, and realization, of our inherent
filial adhesion to God 13-15
This intimacy of relationship is capable of indefinite
growth, of 'supernatural' development 15
The history of faith is the gradual discovery of this
increasing intimacy 16-18
The demand for faith is (_a_) _universal_, for all are sons;
(_b_) _urgent_, as appealing to a vital fact;
(_c_) _tolerant_, as reposing on existent fact 18-21
III. Faith, an act of _basal_ personality, at the root of
all outflowing activities; is present, as animating force,
within all natural faculties. When summoned out, into
positive or direct action on its own account = Religion,
i.e. the emergence, into open manifestation, of Fatherhood
and sonship, which lie hidden within all secular life 21-28
Faith, an energy of basal self, using, as instruments and
material, the sum of faculties; therefore, each faculty,
_separately_, can give but a _partial_ vindication of an
integral act of faith 28-29
This applies to _Reason_; compare its relation to acts
of affection, imagination, chivalry; all such acts are acts
of _Venture_, using evidence of reason in order to go
beyond evidence 30-34
So faith makes use of all knowledge, but is, itself, its
own motive. It uses, as its instrument, every stage of
science; but is pledged to no one particular stage 34-38
IV. Faith, simple adhesion of soul to God; yet, once begun, it
has a history of its own; long, complicated, recorded in
Bible, stored up in Creeds 38-41