[260] S. Mark i. 10, 12. S. Luke iv. 1, 18; x. 21. S. Matt. xii. 28.
Heb. ix. 14. Rom. viii. 11. (These two last passages at least imply
the action of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrifice and Resurrection of
Christ.)
[261] Heb. v. 7-10. Phil. ii. 8.
[262] 1 Cor. xv. 45, 'The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.'
S. John vi. 63, 'Spirit and Life.'
[263] Iren. iii. 18, 1, and frequently elsewhere.
[264] Iren. iii. 24, 1. Cf. H. C. G. Moule's _Veni Creator_, pp.
39-40.
[265] S. John iii. 4. The intention of this passage is to express not
that the Spirit is lawless in His operations, but that He is beyond
our control.
[266] Aug. _de Spiritu et Littera_, xxvii. 47, 'Grace is not the
negation of nature, but its restoration.'
[267] Raymund of Sabunde, _Theol. Nat._ tit. 303.
[268] Basil, _de Spiritu Sancto_ ix. 23 (Lewis' translation). Cf.
Newman's _Univ. Sermons_, 'Personal Influence the means of propagating
the truth.'
[269] Cyril, _Catech._ xvi. 12. The attention to the differences of
individual character is very noticeable in S. Basil's monastic rule:
see the _Regulae fusius tractatae_, resp. 19, and the _Constit.
Monast._ 4. Also in the writings of Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom,
and Gregory the Great _on the Pastoral Office_.
[270] 1 Cor. ii. 15. 1 S. John ii. 20-27.
[271] Clement Alex. _Strom._ v. 13. 88.
[272] _Republic_, 401 D, 402 A.
[273] Caird's _Hegel_ (Blackwood's Philosophical Classics), p. 72.
[274] Anselm, _Proslog._ 4; he adds, 'So that even if I were unwilling
to _believe_ that Thou art, I could not cease to understand it.' But
the whole relation of authority and reason is most completely grasped
and stated by S. Augustine: see Cunningham, _S. Austin_ (Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1886), pp. 9, 157 ff.
[275] Dr. Salmon, _Infallibility_, p. 115, has a clever comparison of
the authority of the Church to that of the town clock. The value we
assign to having such an authoritative standard of the right time does
not prevent our recognising the importance of having it regulated.
'And if we desired to remove an error which had accumulated during a
long season of neglect, it would be very unfair to represent us as
wishing to silence the clock, or else as wishing to allow every
townsman to get up and push the hands backwards and forwards as he
pleased.'
[276] But cf. pp. 196-8, 229-232, 258-260.
[277] Manning, _Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost_, third edit. pp.
9, 29, 238-240.
[278] See, for instance, _c. Haer._ v. 10, 2. 'The wild olive does not
change its substance [when it is grafted in, see Rom. xi. 17], but
only the quality of its fruit, and takes a new name, no longer being
called an oleaster but an olive; so also man when he is by faith
grafted in, and receives the Spirit of God, does not lose his fleshly
substance, but changes the quality of the works which are his fruits,
and takes another name indicating his improved condition, and is no
longer described as flesh and blood, but as a spiritual man.' So also
v. 6, 1, 'whom the apostle calls "spiritual" because they have the
Spirit, not because they have been robbed of the flesh and become bare
spirit.' It is the recognition of this principle that makes most of
the language of the Fathers on fasting so healthy and sensible. The
end of fasting is not to destroy the flesh, but to free the spirit.
[279] See especially Mozley's _Lectures on the Old Testament_, x.:
'The end the test of progressive revelation.'
[280] Greg. Naz. _Orat._ xxxi. 25. Many of the greatest of the ancient
Christian writers depreciate the sacrificial law as a mere concession,
made to avoid worse things, when the incident of the calf shewed that
the first legislation of the Ten Commandments was too spiritual: so
Jerome _in Isai._ 1, 12, _In Jer._ vii. 21. Cf. Justin, _Trypho_ 19.
Chrys. _adv. Jud._ iv. 6. Epiphan. _Haer._ lxvi. 71. _Constt. ap._
i. 6; vi. 20. This method of interpretation is perhaps derived from
the Epistle of Barnabas, 2-4.
[281] Chrys. _in Matth. Homil._ xvii. 5-6 (slightly abbreviated). Cf.
_Libell. Faustin. et Marcellin._ in _Bibl. Vet. Patrum._ tom. v. 657
d.
[282] _On the Holy Spirit_, xiv. 33 (Lewis' trans.).
[283] Aug. _de Trin._ i. 10, 21. This principle alone gives a basis
for the doctrine of 'imputation' so far as it is true. God deals with
us, e.g. in absolution, by anticipation of what is to come about in
us, in Christ.
[284] Thom. Aq. _Summa Theol._ pars sec. sec. Qu. 1. Art. ix.
[285] The above paragraph is a summary of expressions constantly met
with in the Fathers. It is S. Ambrose who protests against the idea
that the priest can be spoken of as having power over the Divine
Things which he ministers, see _De Spiritu Sancto_, praef. 18, lib. i.
11, 118: 'nostra sunt servitia sed tua sacramenta. Neque enim humanae
opis est divina conferre.' S. Augustine, among others, draws the
distinction between gifts from the Spirit and the gift of Himself.
_Ep._ cxciv.: 'aliter adiuvat nondum inhabitans, aliter inhabitans:
nam nondum inhabitans adiuvat ut sint fideles, inhabitans adiuvat iam
fideles.' Didymus, _de Spiritu Sancto_ 15, calls attention to the
distinction in the New Testament between πνεῦμα (without the article)
i.e. 'a spiritual gift,' and τὸ πνεῦμα, i.e. the Spirit Himself: cf.
Westcott on S. John vii. 39.
[286] Greg. Naz. _Orat._ xxxi. 8.
[287] See Athan. _Epp. ad Serapion._ i. 17. Cyril Hieros. _Cat._
xvi. 24. Iren. v. 13, 2. Basil, _de Spiritu Sancto_, iii. 5.
[288] The _Dict. of Chr. Biog._, Art. HOLY GHOST (by Dr. Swete), has
an admirable summary of the theology of the subject.
[289] See Godet on S. John xv. 26, 27.
[290] Athan. _Epp. ad Serap._ i. 19. S. John xiv. 16, 18, 23.
[291] Plato's human trinity is made up of reason, spirit [θυμός], and
desire: S. Augustine's of memory (i.e. personal identity), reason, and
will; or mind, knowledge, and love. Nothing has been said in the text
of Patristic and more recent attempts to express the function of the
Holy Spirit in the inner relations of the Trinity. Some of the Fathers
speak of the Holy Spirit as completing the circle of the Divine Life,
or as 'the return of God upon Himself,' 'the bond of the Father and
the Son.' This eternal function would interpret His temporal mission
to bring all creatures back into union with God. Not very differently
S. Augustine speaks of Him as the Love of the Father and the Son:
'Vides Trinitatem si caritatem vides. Ecce tria sunt; amans et quod
amatur et amor.' And this Love is itself personal and coordinate:
'commune aliquid est Patris et Filii; at ipsa communio consubstantialis
et coaeterna.' But in such speculation they allow themselves with much
reserve and expression of unwillingness.
In fact it is easy to see that an eternally living God, knowing and
loving, must be a God Whose Being involves eternal relationships.
Knowledge involves a relation of subject and object: to make love
possible there must be a lover and a loved. It is more difficult to
see how a perfect relationship must be threefold; but there are true
lines of thought which lead up to this, such, for instance, as make us
see first in the family, the type of complete life. Love which is only
a relation of two, is selfish or unsatisfied: it demands an object and
a product of mutual love. See especially Richard of S. Victor, _de
Trin._ Pars i. lib. iii. cc. 14, 15: 'Communio amoris non potest esse
omnino minus quam in tribus personis. Nihil autem (ut dictum est)
gloriosius, nihil magnificentius, quam quicquid habes utile et dulce
_in commune deducere_: ... hujusmodi dulcedinis delicias solus non
possidet qui in exhibita sibi dilectione socium _et condilectum_ non
habet; quamdiu _condilectum_ non habet, praecipui gaudii communione
caret.' See also Sartorius, _Doctrine of Divine Love_ (Clark's Foreign
Theol. Libr.), p. 16.
[292] _Microcosmus_, B. ix. C. iv. (E. T. vol. ii. p. 660.)
[293] See especially Gal. i. 8, 9.
[294] Heb. ii. 3.
[295] See further on the fatal results of separating the Spirit's work
in Scripture, from His work in the Church, Coleridge, _Remains_
iii. 93, iv. 118; or quoted by Hare, _Mission of the Comforter_, Note
H. vol. ii. pp. 468, 474.
[296] This distinction was drawn by Bishop Clifford, _Fortnightly
Review_, Jan. 1887, p. 145.
[297] Cf. the quotation in Eusebius, _H. E._ v. 28.
[298] Athan. _de Incarn._ 12. Cf. Ewald's preface to his _History of
Israel_.
[299] See Gratry, _Henri Perreyve_, pp. 162, 163.
[300] Delitzsch, _O.T. History of Redemption_, p. 106. Cf. Prof.
Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, p. 108.
[301] See Epiphan. _Haer._ xlviii. 4. Westcott, _Introd. to the Study
of the Gospels_, App. B, sect. ii. 4, sect. iv. 4. Mason, _Faith of
the Gospel_, p. 255.
[302] See Professor Driver's admirable article on 'the cosmogony of
Genesis.' _Expositor_, Jan. 1886.
[303] Professor Cheyne, speaking of such narratives of Scriptures as
the record of Elijah, protests against the supposition that they are
'true to fact.' 'True to fact! Who goes to the artist for hard dry
facts? Why even the historians of antiquity thought it no part of
their duty to give the mere prose of life. How much less can the
unconscious artists of the imaginative East have described their
heroes with relentless photographic accuracy!' (_The Hallowing of
Criticism_, p. 5.) But it seems to me that such a passage, by treating
the recorders of the Old Testament as 'artists,' ignores their obvious
intention to lay stress on what God has actually done, the
deliverances He has actually wrought. They, at least, like the Greek
historical 'artist' of the defeat of Persia, would have laid great
stress on the facts having happened.
[304] Church, _Discipline of the Christian Character_, p. 57. This
work seems to me the best existing answer to the question, in what
does the inspiration of the Old Testament consist.
[305] Cf. pp. 161-167. In view of criticisms it may be explained that
in the account of the prophet given above only that view of his
inspiration is taken into consideration which appeals first to the
enquirer (cf. the words in the next paragraph 'in this general sense
at least'). When once this primary assurance of inspiration is gained
the evidence of detailed prophecies will be found cogent. As we
compare the anticipations of the Messiah or of the 'Righteous Servant'
in such passages as Ps. xxii., Is. liii., vii. 14, or ix. 6, 7, with
their fulfilment in Jesus Christ, we recognise a special action of the
Holy Ghost, marking even in details the continuity of His method. Cf.
p. 167 referred to above.
[306] See for instance Micah v. 2-6. On the subject of the limitations
of prophetic foresight, as on the whole subject of prophecy, let me
refer to Dr. Ed. Riehm, _Messianic Prophecy_ (Clark's trans.) pp. 79,
86 ff., 114, 157-162.
[307] Acts i. 8. S. John xiv. 25, 26; xvi. 12, 13.
[308] S. John xix. 35; xxi. 24. 1 S. John i. 1-3.
[309] See Prof. Sanday's _What the first Christians thought about
Christ_. (Oxford House Papers: Rivington.)
[310] 2 Tim. iii. 16.
[311] Mr. Horton's book on _Inspiration and the Bible_ is almost
naively lacking in this quality of impartial regard to inspired books.
[312] Prof. Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, p. 6.
[313] Cf. Prof. Robertson Smith, _The Old Testament in the Jewish
Church_, Lect. vii. p. 207: 'Another point in which criticism removes
a serious difficulty is the interpretation of the imprecatory psalms.'
[314] See _Nineteenth Century_, Feb. 1884, p. 189.
[315] 'When from time to time,' says S. Bernard to his monks,
'anything that was hidden or obscure in the Scriptures has come out
into the light to any one of you, at once the voice of exultation and
thankfulness for the nourishment of spiritual food that has been
received, must rise as from a banquet to delight the ears of God.'
[316] See the Annual Address (1889) delivered at the Victoria
Institute by Prof. Sayce, on the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-amarna,
pp. 4, 14 f.: 'We learn that in the fifteenth century before our
era--a century before the Exodus--active literary intercourse was
going on throughout the civilized world of Western Asia, between
Babylonia and Egypt and the smaller states of Palestine.... This
intercourse was carried on by means of the Babylonian language and the
complicated Babylonian script. How educated the old world was, we are
but just beginning to learn. But we have already learnt enough to
discover how important a bearing it has on the criticism of the Old
Testament.'
[317] See Driver, _Crit. notes on Sunday-School lessons_ (Scribner:
New York).
[318] Ex. xx. xxii-xxiii. xxxiii.
[319] The Books of Kings seem to be compiled from the point of view of
the Deuteronomist.
[320] Origen, _c. Cels._ vii. 4.
[321] E.g. chs. vii. ix. The Roman Church admits that it is, to use
Newman's phrase, 'a prosopopeia'; 'our Bibles say, "it is written in
the person of Solomon" and "it is uncertain who was the writer,"' l.c.
p. 197. It is important to bear in mind that the Western Church in
general has, since S. Augustine's day, admitted into the canon a book
the literary method of which is thus confessedly dramatic. Newman
makes this the ground for saying that the same may be true of
Ecclesiastes.
[322] On the evidence of O.T. miracles I may refer to Mr. Samuel Cox's
Essay: _Miracles, an Argument and a Challenge_. (Kegan Paul, 1884.)
[323] Of course the distinction must be maintained in the case of the
book of Daniel between a 'pious fraud' which cannot be inspired, and
an idealizing personification which, as a normal type of literature,
can. Further study will probably solve the special difficulty which on
the critical hypothesis attaches to the book of Daniel from this point
of view: see Stanton, _Jewish and Christian Messiah_, p. 109, note 1.
[324] This is certainly true of the Church as a whole. For the most
that can be said in the same sense of the Roman Church, see Newman in
the article above cited.
[325] _De Principiis_, iv. 15, 16, 17. His point is that incidents
which could not have occurred in fact, or at least did not occur, are
inserted in the narrative of the Old and New Testaments, that their
very historical impossibility or improbability may drive us to the
consideration of their spiritual significance. 'The attentive reader
may notice ... innumerable other passages, like these, so that he will
be convinced that in the histories that are literally recorded,
circumstances are inserted that did not occur.' Cf. Bigg, _Christian
Platonists_, pp. 137-8.
[326] Cf. Jerome, _ad Nepotian. ep._ lii. 2.
[327] S. Matt. xii. 40.
[328] S. Matt. xxiv. 37-39.
[329] S. Matt. xxii. 41-46.
[330] See especially S. Mark x. 17-18 (and parallel passages), where
our Lord's question, if converted into a positive proposition,
suggests a repudiation of personal goodness. Cf. also the question in
S. John x. 34-36 where, though the argument is _a fortiori_, still the
true character of our Lord's sonship is hardly suggested.
[331] This limitation of knowledge must not be confused with
fallibility or liability to human delusion, because it was doubtless
guarded by the Divine purpose which led Jesus Christ to take it upon
Himself.
[332] Of course He gave prophetic indications of the coming judgment,
but on the analogy of inspired prophecy. He did not reveal 'times and
seasons,' and declared that it was not within the scope of His mission
to do so. See esp. S. Mark xiii. 32. He exhibits supernatural insight
into men's characters and lives. But He never exhibits the omniscience
of bare Godhead in the realm of natural knowledge; such as would be
required to anticipate the results of modern science or criticism.
This 'self-emptying' of God in the Incarnation is, we must always
remember, no failure of power, but a continuous act of Self-sacrifice:
cf. 2 Cor. viii. 9 and Phil. ii. 7. Indeed God 'declares His almighty
power most chiefly' in this condescension, whereby He 'beggared
Himself' of Divine prerogatives, to put Himself in our place.
IX.
_THE CHURCH._
WALTER LOCK.
Christianity claims to be at once a life, a truth, and a worship; and,
on all these accounts, it needs must find expression in a church. For,
in the first place, the life of an individual remains dwarfed and
stunted as long as it is lived in isolation; it is in its origin the
outcome of other lives; it is at every moment of its existence
dependent upon others; it reaches perfection only when it arrives at a
conscious sense of its own deficiencies and limitations, and,
therefore, of its dependence, and through such a sense realizes with
thankfulness its true relation to the rest of life around it. Again,
the knowledge of truth comes to the individual first through the
mediation of others, of his parents and teachers; as he grows, and his
own intellect works more freely, yet its results only gain
consistency, security, width, when tested by the results of other
workers; and directly we wish to propagate these results, they must be
embodied in the lives of others, in societies, in organizations.
Without these, ideas remain in the air, abstract, intangible,
appealing perhaps to the philosophic few, but high above the reach of
the many, the simple. 'All human society is the receptacle, nursery,
and dwelling-place of ideas, shaped and limited according to the
nature of the society--ideas which live and act on it and in it; which
are preserved, passed on, and transmitted from one portion of it to
another, from one generation to another; which would be merely
abstractions or individual opinions if they were not endowed with the
common life which their reception in a society gives them[333].'
These two principles are, obviously, not confined to religious
questions. They apply to morality, to society, to politics. They are
assumed in all ethical and political treatises. The need of
co-operation for common life underlies the whole structure of the
Republic of Plato; it is implied in Aristotle's definition of man as a
social animal, and in his close association of Ethics with Politics:
it has created the family, the tribe, the state; each fresh assertion
of the principle, each breaking down of the barriers which separate
family from family, tribe from tribe, nation from nation, has been a
step forward in civilization. The strength of co-operation for the
propagation of ideas is seen in the persistence with which certain
nations retain hold on political theories or peculiar features of
character; it is seen in the recurring formation of philosophic
schools or religious sects or guilds, as soon as any new truth,
intellectual or religious, has been discovered, or any moral quality,
such as temperance or purity, has needed to be emphasized. The most
individualistic of Christian sects have found themselves forced to be
ecclesiastical, to define their creeds and to perfect their
organization, as soon as they have begun to be missionary.
These principles are as wide as society; but religion takes them up
and applies them on the highest level. Religion is, almost
universally, the link which binds man to man, no less than that which
binds man to a Power above him. So in the Christian Church--if we may
anticipate, for a moment, our special application of the
principle--the new-born child is taken at once and incorporated into a
body of believers; from the first it draws its life from God through
the body; it is taught that throughout life it must keep in touch with
the body; it must be in a right relation to the other members; it must
draw life from them; it must contribute life to them. And, further,
this body has existed always and exists still as the home of certain
_ideas_, ideas about God and about human life, which were revealed in
Jesus Christ, and which it has to attest in its teaching and embody in
its life. It is to be a body of visible persons, themselves the light
of the world, expressing so that others can see the manifold wisdom of
God, winning others to belief in the unity of God, by the sight of
their own one-ness. The first principle might be expressed in the
words of Festus to Paracelsus, when the latter had claimed to be God's
special instrument in the world;
Were I elect like you,
I would encircle me with love, and raise
A rampart of my fellows: it should seem
Impossible for me to fail, so watched
By gentle friends who made their cause my own
They should ward off fate's envy:--the great gift,
Extravagant when claimed by me alone,
Being so a gift to them as well as me[334]:
the second principle by lines applied originally to the Incarnation,
but which we may legitimately transfer to the Church, which continues
the work of the Incarnation,
And so the Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the Creed of Creeds
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
Store strong than all poetic thought[335].
But, further, religion adds a third application of its own to this
principle of co-operation: for a church grows also out of the
necessities of worship. The ritual needed for the offering of
sacrifice almost necessitates of itself a number of persons for its
performance. No doubt, an individual can worship God in private, but
so his worship tends to be self-centred and narrow: for the full
expression of his religious relation to others, for expiating a wrong
done by him to his neighbours or to the whole community, for
expressing gratitude for mercies which have come to him through
others, there must be the common meeting: and the community as a whole
has its great victories for which to thank God, its national dangers
for which to pray, its national sins for which to offer expiation; and
hence, common religious acts have been the universal accompaniment of
national life, and have in their turn reacted upon it.
The idea of a Church, then, as conceived in its most general form, and
without especial reference to the Christian Church, is this, that it
widens life by deepening the sense of brotherhood; that it teaches,
strengthens, and propagates ideas by enshrining truth in living
witnesses, by checking the results of isolated thinkers by contact
with other thinkers, and by securing permanency for the ideas; and
that it expands and deepens worship by eliminating all that is selfish
and narrow, and giving expression to common aims and feelings.
We pass from such _à priori_ ideas to the evidence of the Bible. There
we find that these principles were embodied first in Judaism. There
the whole nation was the Church. The Jew entered into the religious
privileges of his life, not by any conscious act of his own, but by
being born of Jewish parents; he retained his true life by remaining
in contact with his nation. The union of the different members of the
nation with each other is so intimate that the whole nation is spoken
of as a personal unit. It is called 'God's Son, His 'first-born Son,'
'Jehovah's servant.' The ideal of prophecy is essentially that of a
restored nation rejoicing in the rule of national righteousness.
Again, the nation was chosen out specially to bear witness to truth,
truth about the nature of God, the Almighty, the Eternal, the Holy;
truth embodied in the facts of history, and deepened in the
revelations of prophecy; truths which the fathers teach their
children, 'that they should not hide them from the children of the
generations to come[336].' In the striking phrase of S. Athanasius,
the law and the prophets were 'a sacred school of the knowledge of God
and of spiritual life for the whole world[337].' Their worship, too,
was essentially social and national. From the first it centred round
great national events, the fortunes of the harvest, or the crises of
national history: the individual was purified from sin that he might
be worthy to take part in the national service; the events of the
nation's history were celebrated in religious hymns; the capital of
the nation became the one and only recognised centre for the highest
worship.