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THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE
ON CIVILISATION
THE
INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE
ON CIVILISATION
BY
ERNST VON DOBSCHUeTZ
PROFESSOR OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
HALLE-WITTENBERG
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1914
_Copyright_, 1914
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published April, 1914
PREFACE
One of the greatest questions of our day is how modern civilisation and
Christianity can go on in harmony. One can approach this question by
several ways, but historical investigation has always proved to be the
surest. The author has in mind to write in German a full "History of the
Bible," when time will allow. Meanwhile this brief sketch may prove
useful. Readers who look for references will find most of them in an
article contributed by the present writer to Dr. J. Hastings's
Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. II, on "The Bible in the
Christian Church."
The author wishes to express his thanks to his friend, Professor J. H.
Ropes, for kindly reading the proofs for him, to Mr. W. J. Wilson and
Mr. H. A. Sherman, who helped him in improving the diction, and to
Professor Williston Walker for valuable information regarding early
American documents. If any reader should find fault with the English
style of this book, he must not blame any translator--the author himself
is responsible.
ERNST VON DOBSCHUeTZ.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
_January_, 1914.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE BIBLE MAKES ITSELF INDISPENSABLE FOR THE
CHURCH (TO 325 A. D.) 3
II. THE BIBLE BEGINS TO RULE THE CHRISTIAN
EMPIRE (325-600 A. D.) 28
III. THE BIBLE TEACHES THE GERMAN NATIONS (500-800 A. D. ) 47
IV. THE BIBLE BECOMES ONE BASIS OF MEDIAEVAL
CIVILISATION (800-1150 A. D.) 67
V. THE BIBLE STIRS NON-CONFORMIST MOVEMENTS (1150-1450) 94
VI. THE BIBLE TRAINS PRINTERS AND TRANSLATORS (1450-1611) 117
VII. THE BIBLE RULES DAILY LIFE (1550-1850) 138
VIII. THE BIBLE BECOMES ONCE MORE THE BOOK OF DEVOTION 164
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE TO FACE PAGE
I. HARVARD PAPYRUS. ROMANS 1 : 1-7 14
II. ORIGEN'S HEXAPLA 16
III. CODEX SINAITICUS 28
IV. ROLL AND BOOK 30
V. VIENNA GENESIS 32
VI. JOSHUA ROLL 38
VII. THE LORD'S PRAYER ON A POTSHERD 46
VIII. GOTHIC BIBLE 50
IX. ALCUIN'S BIBLE 52
X. THEODULF'S BIBLE 54
XI. LINDISFARNE GOSPELS 66
XII. BYZANTINE MINIATURE 70
XIII. ENGLISH MINIATURE 82
XIV. WYCLIFFE'S BIBLE 116
XV. GUTENBERG'S FIRST PRINTED BIBLE 122
XVI. FIRST PRINTED GERMAN BIBLE 126
THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON CIVILISATION
I
THE BIBLE MAKES ITSELF INDISPENSABLE FOR THE CHURCH (UNTIL 325 A. D.)
There is a small book; one can put it in one's pocket, and yet all the
libraries of America, numerous as they are, would hardly be large enough
to hold all the books which have been inspired by this one little
volume. The reader will know what I am speaking of; it is the Bible, as
we are used to call it--the Book, the book of mankind, as it has
properly been called. It has been commented upon, treated in every way,
but, curious to say, hardly any one has attempted to trace its history
through the centuries and mark the influence which it exerted upon our
civilisation.
In order to do this we follow the traces of the Bible through the
different periods of human or, to speak more accurately, of Christian
civilisation. In the first period of Christian history, the time of
persecutions during the first three centuries of our era, there is not
much to say about the Bible as influencing civilisation. Christianity
was but starting on its way and fighting for its place in the world. The
Bible could not exert a civilising influence upon a hostile world. But
by impressing its value upon the Christian mind it made itself
indispensable for the church and thereby laid the foundation for the
future development.
Christianity was a living religion. The first congregations were
dwelling in an atmosphere of enthusiasm. There was a general outpouring
of the Holy Spirit. The prophet's words seemed to be fulfilled: "They
shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother,
saying: know the Lord; for they shall all know me." Christianity was not
a religion of a sacred book, whose dead letter was to be artificially
kept alive by learned men. It was a religion of living experiences.
Nevertheless, Christianity from the beginning had a sacred book. Jesus
and his disciples used the Bible of their people, the Old Testament, and
Saint Paul carried it to the Christian communities of gentile origin,
which had not known of it before.
Christianity could not do without it. If it was necessary to convince
Jews that Jesus was the Messiah, how could this be done without arguing
from the Scriptures as proof? If the gospel was to be announced to the
heathen they would give less heed to the new tidings than to the
statement that it was really the most ancient form of religion as
attested by this sacred book, which was superior to all the books of
poets and philosophers and legislators by reason of its venerable age.
Christianity without any hesitation claimed the Old Testament as its own
book, its own Bible. Not only was Jesus the content of this book, he was
even believed to be its author. It was the spirit of Jesus which dwelt
in the prophets and made them seek and search concerning the salvation
offered by Christ (I Peter 1 : 10-11). "The prophets having their grace
from him, did prophesy unto him," we are told in the so-called letter of
Barnabas. So the Old Testament seemed to be a Christian book both in
content and in origin, and it was easy enough to add some properly
Christian pamphlets, as Saint Paul's letters and some gospels, the Acts
and other letters, and some books of revelation. It was as necessary as
it was easy, if Christianity was not to lose contact with its proper
origin.
The New Testament, as we have it now, was not complete at the start. It
was a collection of primitive Christian writings, larger in some ways
than it is now; on the other hand lacking some of its present elements.
Its precise content did not become finally established until a very late
period, not earlier than the end of the fourth century.
So also the size of the Old Testament was not quite fixed. There were
more books in the Greek Bible of the Alexandrian Jews than in the Hebrew
Bible of the Palestinian rabbis. The Christian church at first adopted
the Greek Bible, but from time to time some scholar pointed out the
difference, and many people thought they had better keep to the Hebrew
canon. This view, championed by Saint Jerome, led to a partial rejection
of the books which nowadays we usually call the Old Testament Apocrypha,
until in the sixteenth century the churches accentuated their difference
by a different attitude toward these books, the Calvinists rejecting
them altogether, the Roman church including them as an integral part of
the Bible, and the Lutherans giving them an intermediate position as
books to be read with safety but without canonical authority. When,
in 1902, King Edward VII was to be crowned, the British and Foreign
Bible Society intended to present to his Majesty the copy of the Bible
on which he was to take his oath. Then it was discovered that according
to the old regulations the king of England had to take his oath on a
complete Bible, that is a Bible containing the Apocrypha. The British
and Foreign Bible Society on its part, by its statutes, was prevented
from printing Bibles including the Apocrypha; so they presented to the
king a most beautiful copy, but the king did not use it for the
coronation service. It is the difference between the Alexandrian and the
Palestinian canon which reappears in this little struggle and thereby is
seen surviving to our own time.
Unsettled as the size of the Old and of the New Testament may have been,
nevertheless the principle was established at a very early date that
Christianity was to have a holy Scripture in two parts, one taken over
from Judaism, the other added from its own stores.
Let us stop here for a moment and try to realise what this meant.
Mohammed, when founding his new religion, acknowledged, it is true, the
books of the former religions, but for his own believers the unique
authority is the Koran, a book which originated within a single
generation and therefore is pervaded by one uniform spirit. Christianity
adhered to a Bible whose larger part originated in a period much
anterior to its own and in a religion inferior to Christianity. The
Bible covers a period of over a thousand years. What a difference in
civilisation between the nomadic life of the patriarchs and the time of
Jesus! What a difference in spirit between the sons of Jacob killing
the whole population of Sichem in order to avenge their sister and
Jesus' parable of the good Samaritan! or between the prophet Elijah
killing four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and Jesus preaching the
love of one's enemies! In fact, it was possible to overcome this
difference only in an age which did not read the Bible with historical
notions. Even so, the juxtaposition caused much difficulty. We shall see
the problem of the Law troubling the church through all the centuries.
We shall find the notions of sacrifice and priesthood adapted to
Christian institutions. Looking at Charlemagne or Calvin, we realise
that the Old Testament is ever introducing its views into Christian
minds, as authoritative as any word of the gospel.
Now, at the beginning the influence was rather the other way; the Old
Testament was to be interpreted in the light of the New. And, in truth,
much light came from the life of Jesus to the history of the ancient
people and to the prophecies. We do not wonder that Christian minds were
excited by all this fresh illumination, and we must not wonder that
sometimes they remodelled the tradition of the life of Christ to accord
with the Old Testament.
The harmony between the two Testaments soon became a leading idea in
Christian doctrine. Some heretics, indeed, would not accept the Old
Testament. Marcion maintained that it came from an inferior god, while
the supreme God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, had revealed
himself only through his Son. He found a great many contrasts between
the Old and the New Testament, and this criticism was supported by pagan
philosophers, as, for example, Porphyry. The church, therefore, was most
anxious to establish the harmony of the Testaments by any means at its
command. Taste varies from century to century; the minute parallelism
constructed by some early Christian writers, and evidently much admired
by their contemporaries, seems to us rather ridiculous and fanciful. On
the other hand, the church was right in maintaining the harmony. The New
Testament needs to be explained from the Old Testament; it is open to
much misunderstanding when taken apart. There was almost no sense for
historical development at that time; the criticism of Ptolemaeus, in his
famous letter to Flora, where he speaks of several strata of revelation
running through the Old and the New Testament, is an exceptional one.
For most of the faithful the Christian doctrine was directly looked for
and found in the Old Testament; the gospel was contained in every one of
its books, from Genesis to Malachi. Unity was conceived as uniformity.
This was the system which appealed most to the average Christian mind.
And the Bible was open to all Christians, as Harnack has brilliantly
demonstrated in a recent publication. The ancient church laid stress
upon this publicity and never tried to withdraw the Bible from the
people. There was no hidden mystery regarding the Bible. On the
contrary, all members of the church were anxiously urged to make
themselves as familiar with the Bible as possible. They were supposed to
have copies of their own and to read them privately as well as in the
congregation. Even when the struggles about the right doctrine began and
the heretics sometimes held to the Bible as their champion against the
doctrine of the church, the church did not remove the Bible from public
discussion. The ecclesiastical party maintained that the Bible was
always in favour of the true doctrine; one needs but to know how to read
it. Tertullian, it is true, once in the heat of controversy declared
that it was no use arguing against heretics from the Bible, but he did
it, nevertheless, and so did the other fathers.
The Bible proved its spiritual value to the experience of every reader.
A man familiar with the Psalms has a treasure which cannot be lost; in
any situation he will find what is suitable for his needs. If one looks
for examples of faith, the author of the epistle to the Hebrews in his
eleventh chapter gives a splendid model for finding heroes of faith all
through the Bible. The book of Genesis, especially its first chapters,
was of particular interest for most of the readers on account of the
sublime description there given of the beginnings of mankind. The
creation story in Genesis implies much more than even the finest of all
Greek myths, namely, the myth in Plato's Timaeus, with which it was
compared by the emperor Julian. The mighty words, "In the beginning God
created heaven and earth," proved to be the one true answer to all the
cosmological questions of Greek philosophy, and besides there was ample
room for introducing whatever was wanted--such as the creation and the
fall of the angels--if only one knew how to read between the lines.
In an old Christian book dealing with church regulations and the rules
for individual Christian life we find the following admonition to use no
other book at all except the Bible, because, as the author says, the
Bible contains literature of every kind. The passage runs:[1]
Stay at home and read in the Law and in the Book of the Kings and
in the Prophets and in the Gospel (which is) the fulness of these
things. Keep far away from all the books of the heathen; for what
hast thou to do with foreign words or with false laws or prophecies
which also easily cause young people to wander from the faith? What
then is wanting to thee in the Word of God, that thou throwest
thyself upon these myths of the heathen? If thou wishest to read
the tales of the fathers, thou hast the Book of the Kings; or of
wise men and philosophers, thou hast the Prophets amongst whom thou
wilt find more wisdom and science than among the wise men and the
philosophers, because they are the words of God, of the one only
wise God. If thou desirest song, thou hast the Psalms of David or
if the beginning of the world, thou hast the Genesis of great
Moses; if law and commandments, thou hast the book of Exodus of the
Lord our God. Therefore keep entirely away from all these foreign
things, which are contrary to them.
[1] Didascalia, ch. ii, p. 5 in Mrs. M. D. Gibson's translation.
The Bible, in fact, pervaded the whole life of a Christian. It was the
Bible, its history, its commandments, that he was taught as a child in
his parents' home. When the girls gathered in the women's hall to spin,
they would sing and talk about God's revelations more eagerly than even
Sappho had praised her luxurious love--according to an expression used
by Tatian in his Apology. The prayers, private as well as
ecclesiastical, all echoed Biblical phrases, and even at burials the
Christians sang joyful psalms.
So the Bible became familiar to the Christians of that time. We are
astonished to find how well they knew it. The sermons of this period
are full of Biblical allusions, and evidently the preacher could expect
them to be understood.
This is the more remarkable as the circulating of the Bible in this time
met with the greatest difficulties. There was, of course, a large amount
of Bible reading in the congregations. According to Justin's description
of early Christian worship about 150 A. D., the service began with
continuous reading of the Bible through many chapters, as far as time
would allow. Then an officer, bishop or elder, would begin to preach.
The office of reading was esteemed so highly that it was regarded as
based on a special spiritual gift; the anagnostes, _i. e._, the reader,
in the earliest time had his place among the prophets and spirit-gifted
teachers. And, in fact, if we look at the earliest manuscripts of the
Bible which have come down to us, we shall almost think that
supernatural assistance was necessary for reading them: no punctuation,
no accent, no space between the words, no breaking off at the end of a
sentence. The reader had to know his text almost entirely by heart to do
it well. From the "Shepherd of Hermas," a very interesting book written
by a Roman layman about 140 A. D., we learn that some people gathered
often, probably daily, for the special purpose of common reading and
learning. But even granted that the memory of these men was not spoiled
by too much reading, as is ours, so that by hearing they were able to
learn by heart--it is said of some rabbis that they did not lose one
word of all their master had told them, and, in fact, the Talmudic
literature was transmitted orally for centuries--nevertheless, we must
assume that these Christians had their private copies of the Bible at
home. The evidence from the allusions of preachers to private reading is
strong. Cyprian addresses a Christian: "Your life should be one of
assiduous prayer or reading (of the Bible): now you speaking to God, now
God to you."
Here begins our difficulty: how did they get so many copies? There was
an organised book-trade in the ancient world; publishers had their
offices, using (instead of printing-presses) slaves who were trained in
copying; they had shorthand writers, as well as calligraphers to do the
fine writing. But as long as Christianity was still an oppressed
religion it is doubtful if the Bible was among the books which
publishers would care to take. The Christians were, most of them, poor
people who could not spend much money for procuring Bibles. Besides, it
was no easy thing to get a complete Bible. At that time the books were
still written on papyrus rolls, not in book form. Only one side of the
papyrus could be used; the roll would become unwieldy if too long. So,
in order to get all the books of the Old and the New Testament, at least
two dozen rolls had to be written. Maybe a simple Christian copied for
himself one gospel or some letters or even one or more books from the
Old Testament. There are preserved on papyrus some unfinished attempts
which show what hard work it was (Plate I). We can scarcely imagine a
man going with this heavy hand through all the books of the Bible.
[Illustration: PLATE I--HARVARD PAPYRUS
An attempt to copy the letters of St. Paul (Romans counts as
A = first letter) giving the text only unto Romans 1 : 7; late
third or early fourth century.
From Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Vol. II, PI. II, Egypt Exploration
Fund--London.]
We are told that wealthy Christians helped their brethren by procuring
copies for them. Origen, the greatest Bible scholar of the ancient
church, is said to have been supported by a rich admirer, who put at his
disposal a number of slave copyists. With their help he succeeded in
creating one of the greatest works which Bible criticism ever undertook,
his so-called Hexapla, which is a comparison of more than six various
Greek translations of the Old Testament. Scholars in the nineteenth
century held that scarcely more than one copy of this enormous work had
ever been written, but by recent discoveries we know that it was copied
several times (Plate II). A later admirer of Origen, Pamphilus, is said
always to have carried with him several rolls in order to provide poor
brethren. Now that was the third century. Christianity had already begun
to spread among the higher classes and to become a feature in the
world's life.
Devotional reading of the Bible was accompanied by scholarly
interpretation. We mentioned Origen as the greatest Bible scholar of his
time, if not of all times. It may be worth while to insert here a few
words on his life. A native of Alexandria, he saw as a boy his father
dying as a martyr for his Christian faith; he longed to become a martyr
himself, and was only prevented from giving himself up by a trick of his
mother's, who concealed all his clothes. He got a good training at the
catechetical school of Alexandria, not restricting himself to mere
Christian and Biblical studies, but reading the pagan philosophers of
his time as well as the Greek classics. A youth of only eighteen years,
he became the head of the school, and his fame spread all over the
empire. He travelled to Rome, to Greece; he was even asked by the Roman
governor to come to Arabia to settle certain questions. So zealous was
he to fulfil the commandments of the gospel that, misunderstanding one
of the Lord's sayings, he made himself a eunuch for the kingdom of
heaven's sake, which brought him into trouble in his later life. When
once on a journey through Palestine he, being still a layman, had
preached before the bishop of Caesarea, he was summoned by his
own bishop and ordered not to preach. Some years afterward the bishop of
Caesarea, who was among his strongest admirers, ordained him a priest,
which caused his bishop to banish him from Alexandria. He settled at
Caesarea and lived there for twenty years without ever aiming at any
ecclesiastical position, pursuing his study of the Bible and gathering
around his chair the best men from every part of Christianity. So great
was his fame that the empress Julia Mammaea, being still a pagan, asked
him to see her when she was travelling in the East. He was the one man
to refute the vigorous attack made against the truth of Christian
doctrine by the philosopher Celsus. When persecution began again he
wrote a tractate of comfort, "On Martyrdom," and another, "On Prayer."
He himself suffered imprisonment and torture, and died after his
release, as a result of these sufferings, at the age of sixty-nine.
[Illustration: PLATE II--ORIGEN'S HEXAPLA
Fragment found in the Cairo-Genizah and published by E. Taylor in
1900; parchment, fifth century, with part of second, third, and
fourth columns: Ps 22 : 25-28; used later for copying Hebrew texts.
From "Hexapla of Origen," by E. Taylor, published by G. P. Putnam's
Sons.]
We can scarcely do honour enough to this man, who three centuries after
his death was proclaimed to be one of the most dangerous heretics, the
church, however, using his learning in the form of extracts. The vast
amount of reading, the sagacity, and the perspicuity of the man are
alike admirable. He is said to have commented upon nearly all the books
of the Bible, and this three times. He wrote short annotations, he
compiled large and learned commentaries, and he preached before the
congregation. Only a small part of his works has come down to us, but
this fills volumes. Origen's great merit is that he brought Christian
interpretation to a system which enabled the church to retain the plain
historical sense alongside the so-called higher meaning.
For a long time gentile philosophers as well as Jewish preachers had
adopted the method of treating their sacred books allegorically. Homer,
it was assumed, in telling his stories of battles of gods and heroes,
meant quite another thing; otherwise he would be guilty of irreligion.
He meant that the powers of nature and the energies of the human soul
came into struggle, and therefore virtues and vices were fighting one
with another. The same thing was done by Philo for the Old Testament.
There was no real history; all was symbolical, allegory. Christianity
tried to follow in this path. The gnostics indulged in the wildest form
of allegory. But it was not safe to give up the idea of historicity
altogether. Jesus and his gospel were historical facts, not mere ideas;
they were emptied of all meaning if turned into allegory. And likewise
the history of the Old Testament could not simply be reduced to
allegorical metaphors. Origen saved the situation by asserting that each
of these two views had its proper place. His theory is that as man
consists of body, soul, and spirit, so the holy Scripture has a
threefold nature, to which corresponds a threefold interpretation. The
body stands for the plain historical meaning: Jesus did cast out of the
temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of
money. There are some historical difficulties, Origen admits, if we
compare the different gospel narratives and if we take account of the
fact that a single man did this; Origen explains that it was a miracle
showing the divine power in Jesus. But there are other aspects too. The
soul represents the higher moral view: Christ is always casting out of
his church, which belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem, the men who are
profaning it by their money-making. And, lastly, there is the spirit,
that is, the supreme mystical understanding. The spirit of Christ,
entering its temple, the man's soul, casts out of it all earthly desires
and makes it a house of prayer. Now that is very ingenious. These three
strata of interpretation allow for a great variety in explanation and
adaptation. Origen succeeds by this method in keeping the essential
historical basis and adding what in those days was thought to be most
significant. The Bible, being a divine book, seemed to require a higher
form of interpretation; the Holy Ghost of God was supposed to be a
spirit of mysteries; it was assumed that to interpret the Bible in a
plain way was to think of God meanly.
Of course, the Bible contained some allegories which might seem to
support this theory of allegorical interpretation; for instance, the
beautiful vision of Ezekiel, told in the thirty-seventh chapter of his
book: he sees the valley full of dry bones, and at the command of God he
prophesies over them and they begin to come together, and flesh came up
and skin covered them above and at last breath came into them and they
lived. It is a magnificent allegory of the people of Israel, scattered
in the exile and brought to life again by the power of God. It is
irritating to see the fathers just at this point declining to follow the
path of allegorical interpretation. They insist upon the reality of the
occurrence; it is to be taken literally as resurrection of the dead--so
it has influenced all mediaeval pictures of the last judgment! I need
only add that the rabbis took Ezekiel's description in the same way, as
a real occurrence, arguing for the historicity by showing the
phylacteries which the risen persons had worn--and one feels what a pity
it is to treat allegory as history. But the opposite fault is still
worse: the spiritualising and allegorising of real history is the
greatest damage ever done to religion.
Theologians tried to establish the authority of the Bible. This had
already been done in some measure by the rabbis of the synagogue. In
taking over the Bible the Christians had only to accept their estimate
of it, but they were not quite satisfied with it. The rabbinical
doctrine was a rather mechanical one: God had used men, just as a man
uses a pencil to write with. The pencil does not act consciously: so the
Old Testament writers, according to this theory, did not take any part
in what they were writing; it was to them as another man's script.
Commenting upon the last chapter of Deuteronomy, where the death of
Moses is described, a rabbinical authority remarks: "Until this passage
God dictated and Moses wrote; henceforth God dictated and Moses wrote
weeping"--namely, the account of his own death. There was so little
interest in the human author that he could be eliminated altogether. We
are told by an early Jewish legend that all books of the Old Testament
had been destroyed at the time of Nebuchadnezzar, when the temple was
burned; so God dictated them all to Ezra. According to this theory Ezra
would be the real author of the whole Old Testament. This is the most
mechanical way of representing the equal inspiration of all parts of the
Old Testament. The Jews of the dispersion had a somewhat similar theory
about the inspiration of their Greek Bible; when Ptolemy Philadelphus,
king of Egypt, gathered at Alexandria seventy elders of the Jews to make
the Greek translation of their law, he put each one of them in a
separate cell in order to avoid any communication between them, so the
legend runs. Then, after working for seventy days, all at once they
shouted "Amen" from their cells, having accomplished their task, and
when the seventy copies had been compared they were found to agree even
in the smallest detail. Here we have again an attempt to assert
inspiration not only for the book itself but also for its translation.
It is as mechanical as the former, all human co-operation being
excluded.
Christians did not want this. In Jesus they had experienced living
revelation; they had prophets among themselves. So, at least at the
beginning, they had a much higher view of inspiration. God enters a
man's soul and fills it with his spirit; now the man acts and speaks in
the power of this spirit, and yet he is not unconscious of his own doing
and speaking. There are two ways of inspiration, we are told by Clement
of Alexandria: either God snatches up the man's soul and conducts it to
the unseen world and shows to it whatever he wishes it to know--this is
ecstasy--or God enters the man and fills him and makes him his organ.
The latter, less striking though it appears, is nevertheless the higher
and more valuable concept. Therefore the fathers do not so much use the
metaphor of the pencil as the similitude of a musical instrument,
whether a flute through which the Holy Spirit is playing, or a harp
which he touches with a plectrum.
Much as they appreciate the holy Scripture, the early fathers usually
talk about it in a very unpretentious manner. They have not yet
developed those gorgeous formulas of quotation which are used in later
times. They quote simply: "Scripture says," or "Paul says," not "the
holy and glorious apostle in his most excellent epistle to the Romans
says exceedingly well." They talk in simple words, but they are prepared
even to die for this Bible.
Eusebius, the first historian of the Christian church, to whom we are
indebted for so much invaluable information, tells us a moving story
about Marinus, a young Christian officer in the Roman army, at Caesarea,
in Palestine. He had the confidence of his superiors and was to be
promoted to the higher rank of captain. Then out of jealousy one of his
comrades denounced him as a Christian. Summoned before his colonel, he
was asked if this was true, and when he confessed he was urged to abjure
his faith. The colonel gave him three hours' time. So he went to the
small Christian church, where he found the venerable old bishop. The
bishop, hearing his story, took the Bible in one hand and the soldier's
sword in the other. "This is your choice," he said. And the soldier,
without hesitating, grasped the Bible, went back, and declared himself
to be and to remain a Christian. And instead of receiving military
promotion he became a martyr.
It is a significant little story. Indeed, after a hard struggle, lasting
through nearly three centuries, when the Roman empire found it necessary
to attempt the final destruction of Christianity the attack was mostly
directed against the Bible. Diocletian, in 303 A. D., on the 24th of
February, issued an edict ordering all Christian churches to be
destroyed and all Bibles to be burned. He relied on the Roman law, which
forbids not only the exercise of magical arts, but the science of magic,
too, and therefore condemns all books of magic to be burned. The
Christians were accused of employing magic, and their Bible was treated
as a magical book.
We have thrilling accounts of Christians trying to conceal their
treasured Bible rolls from the eyes of the inquiring officials. They
took them from the church into their private homes, securing the Bible
in safety but many a time bringing persecution upon themselves. To the
officials they surrendered books of various kinds in order to escape
from surrendering the Scriptures. Asked if they had sacred books in
their houses, many of them would answer: "Yes, in our hearts." The
enthusiasm was so great that they believed the story of any miracle in
support of the Bible. They maintained that copies of the Bible which had
been thrown into the fire by the heathen were not burned or even touched
by the flame.
Naturally there were others who were not strong enough in their faith to
resist, but these "surrenderers," as they were called, were cast out of
the church and never admitted again. During the fourth century to bring
against a clergyman the charge of having surrendered sacred books at
that period of persecution was felt to be the most serious accusation
possible. Even to be ordained by a bishop who was under suspicion of
having surrendered his church's holy Scriptures was held a disgrace by a
large party of zealous Christians who demanded that orders of this kind
be invalidated. The records of a trial held at Carthage in 329 A. D.
dealing with this question have come down to us. Here documents from
303 A. D. were introduced as evidence against the clergy, and the whole
forms one of the most illuminating pages of church history.
Even to be found reading the Bible made a man guilty of obstinate
resistance to the emperor's law and involved him in penalty. There was a
deacon at Catania in Sicily named Euplus. He was reading the holy
Scripture when the sheriff laid hold of him. Brought before the judge he
takes his copy of the Gospel and reads from it (Matt. 5 : 10): "Blessed
are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven," and (Matt. 10 : 38): "And he that doth not
take his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me." The judge asks
him: "Why did you not surrender those volumes which the emperors
forbade?" "Because," he replies, "I am a Christian and it was not loyal
to surrender. It is better to die than to surrender." We do not need the
addition made by a late Byzantine hagiographer that the copy of the
Gospels was hung on his neck when he was conducted to execution. It is
clear enough that he was suffering for his devotion toward the Bible and
that it was the gospel which inspired his boldness.
Euplus does not stand alone. I could mention a dozen martyrs whose acts
all give the same impression. Sometimes a gathering of men and women is
apprehended while reading the Bible, and the whole company is forthwith
carried away to the most painful tortures.
These Christians knew what the Bible was to them. All declamations of
later theologians about the inspiration and the authority of the Bible
count for nothing compared with this testimony.
After all, we do not wonder that the Bible became a civilising power as
soon as Christianity had won its victory.
II
THE BIBLE BEGINS TO RULE THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE (325-600 A. D.)
After the persecution by Diocletian a new era began. Constantine
proclaimed tolerance, and by and by Christianity became the religion of
the empire. The victory of Christianity was a victory of the Bible as
well. This finds its expression in the remarkable fact that the first
Christian emperor, the immediate successor of those who persecuted the
Bible and tried to destroy it, ordered fifty splendid copies of the
Bible to be prepared at his expense for the churches of the newly
founded capital, Constantinople. Some scholars have thought that one or
two of these copies still survive in the famous manuscript discovered by
Tischendorf in the Convent of Mount Sinai (Plate III), or in the Codex
Vaticanus at Rome. I venture rather to think that both copies belong to
the period of Constantine's sons. But the fact that the Bible, after a
period of destruction when most of the earlier copies were burned, got a
surprising circulation under official direction accounts, I think, for a
puzzling feature in the transmission of the text. From the Old Latin
and the Old Syriac, as well as from the testimony of the fathers, we can
infer that various forms of the Greek text must once have been widely
circulated, which have now almost disappeared, whereas most of our
present Greek manuscripts give a text evidently based on a late official
recension. Looking at Diocletian's attempt to destroy the Bible
altogether and at Constantine's official order to provide a large number
of manuscripts, we easily understand the situation. The older forms of
text had been swept away; now there was room to supply their place with
the learned attempts of later scholars from the schools of Origen or
Lucian who endeavoured to bring in more critical texts.
[Illustration: PLATE III--CODEX SINAITICUS
End of St. Mark (15 : 16-16 : 8) and beginning of St. Luke
(1 : 1-18); Mark 16 : 9-20 is missing; 15 : 47 is added at the
lower margin by a later hand; remark the numbers of Eusebius's
sections and canons. The eight columns of the open book recall
the roll-system.
Reduced one-fifth from the fac-simile edited by Prof. Lake and
published by the Clarendon Press (Oxford and London).]
Another change is to be mentioned at the same time. The old form of
papyrus rolls became obsolete and the parchment book took its place. The
use of this latter form seems to originate in the law schools; the
codex, or parchment book, is at first the designation of a Roman
law-book. But at an early date the Christian church adopted this form as
the more convenient one and gave it its circulation. We hardly say too
much when we call the Bible the means by which our present form of book
came into general use. Even if the Bible had done nothing else for
civilisation than to give mankind the shape of its books that would be
a great deal (Plate IV).
The form of a parchment book, or codex, would admit of the copying of
several books in one volume. The great Bibles of the fourth and fifth
centuries of which we know contained all the books; they formed one
volume. So the internal unity running through the Bible as a whole came
to be represented even in the outward form.
The copying of the Bible went on rapidly, monks and noble Christian
ladies undertaking it as a form of ascetic work, providing a heavenly
merit and sometimes earning bread and butter, too. Instead of the plain
copies in an unskilled hand we now find sumptuous books of the finest
parchment with purple colouring, in the most luxurious manuscripts the
sacred text being written in gold and silver, and the margin sometimes
being covered with beautiful paintings. A copy of Genesis in Greek at
the Vienna library has forty-eight water-colours, one at the bottom of
each page, telling the same story as the text. The manuscript when
complete must have had sixty folios: this gives one hundred and twenty
of such decorated pages for Genesis, and if it contained the whole
Pentateuch we may allow for five hundred and ten illustrations (Plate
V). And this manuscript does not stand alone; it is but one of
a large group of illuminated manuscripts. This sumptuous appearance may
be taken as a sign of the value attached to the Bible. Persecuted
hitherto, it became the ruler of the Christian empire, invested with all
the glory of royalty.
[Illustration: PLATE IV--ROLL AND BOOK
St. Luke the Evangelist copying from a roll into a book (codex
form): miniature from a Greek manuscript at the Vatican library
(gr. 1158), eleventh century.
From "Vatikanische Miniaturen." Copyright by B. Herder, Freiburg.]
The place given to the Bible is best shown by the fact that it presided
over the great councils, a copy of the Bible lying upon the presidential
chair. It was meant as a symbol for Christ himself taking the place of
honour and deciding the great questions of faith. The same holds true
for non-ecclesiastical assemblies. In an ordinance of the emperor
Theodosius it is required that a copy of the Bible be present in every
court-room. The Bible, or rather the Gospels, or to speak even more
precisely the most prominent page in them, the beginning of the first
chapter of St. John's Gospel, was used for taking an oath. The worn
condition of this page in many a manuscript still attests this use.
Presiding over the courts, the Bible began at once to exercise its
influence upon the Law. We can already trace this influence in the
legislation of Constantine himself: when he forbids to brand a criminal
on his face, giving as reason that the image of God ought not to be
marred, it is the Biblical notion of the man's face being the likeness
of God which underlies this law. When, in a law published in 334, he
insists that no man, whoever he is and whatever rank he has, shall be
admitted as a solitary witness unless supported by another witness, it
is the well-known Biblical rule that at the mouth of two or three
witnesses every word shall be established. When he makes divorce more
difficult, denying the right of remarriage to the man who repudiates his
wife without sufficient reason on her part, we feel that it is the
injunction of Jesus which is behind this law. I would not say the same
of all parts of this legislation which various scholars have adduced as
proving Christian influence. Roman law from the second century was
influenced to a large extent by the Stoa, all the famous lawyers such as
Gaius and Paulus belonging to this school and introducing its ideas into
the practice of the courts and into the legislation of the magistrates,
especially of the emperor. There is an evident development in the Roman
law toward a more humane conception of slavery; this is due to the Stoa.
The views on marriage and divorce, the position of "natural children,"
as the Roman law calls illegitimates, all this is largely due to
non-Christian influences. Nevertheless, there are unmistakable traces of
a particular influence of the Bible upon the legislation of the
Christian emperors, and this influence increases from decade to decade.
Constantine gives a rather vague ordinance for keeping Sunday as a day
on which courts are not to be held. Theodosius is much stricter; and the
climax is reached with Justinian, when Sunday has become a legal
holiday.
[Illustration: PLATE V--VIENNA GENESIS
The paradise: Adam and Eve appear three times: (1) under the tree
of knowledge, Gen. 3 : 6; (2) when discovering their nakedness,
3 : 7; (3) when hiding themselves from the Lord among the trees,
3 : 8. The divine voice, represented by the hand from heaven,
belongs to this third scene; it is put in the centre merely for
artistic reasons.
From "Die Wiener Genesis." F. Tempsky, Vienna.]
Justinian, of course, codifies the Roman law, but his Novellae, the laws
issued by himself, show the new spirit of a legislation ruled by the
Bible. He sometimes refers directly to the Bible as authority. Still
more is this spirit prevalent in some provincial codes. One of these
says that everything has to be judged according to the ancient and to
the modern law, i. e., the law of Moses, which antedates the laws of all
other nations, and the law of Christ, as it is contained in the laws of
the emperors Constantine, Theodosius, and Leo. Lawyers of this period
indulge in comparisons between the Roman law and the law of Moses.
The Roman empire was Latin in some respects, Greek in others. Latin was
the official language of the court, of the law, of the army. But the
population spoke mostly Greek, though from the third century on large
parts used their native language, Syriac and Coptic, as well. The Bible
had been translated into these languages during the former period. Now
the general political situation brings the empire into contact with the
Goths in the North, with Armenians and Georgians in the East, with
Libyans and Ethiopians in the South. As soon as the empire gains any
influence among these neighbouring peoples, the Christian mission tries
to get hold of them and we see the Bible translated into these
languages, which hitherto have had no writing. The Bible marks for these
peoples the beginning of a national literature. Their alphabets were
made up from the Greek, thus showing that the reading of the Bible with
these nations began in connection with their intercourse with the Roman
empire.
The Bible ruled even the Greek language of this empire. There are many
changes in the later Greek which are surely due to familiarity with the
Bible. Words previously unknown in Greek or used in a different sense
became quite familiar; everybody knows what is the meaning of Beelzebub,
Messiah, Paradise, Satan, and that an angel is not a mere messenger, but
is a messenger from God, a spiritual being, and that the word demon
always means an unclean spirit.
Moreover, the Bible influenced the style of the writers, especially of
the great preachers. One may distinguish three forms of influence in
this department: artificial imitation; naive use of Biblical names and
phrases (what is usually called in Germany the language of Canaan); and,
lastly, the unconscious influence which the style of any book exerts
upon a careful reader. I do not think that there are many instances of
artificial imitation in this period. Sometimes a preacher skilfully
composed his whole sermon by adding Biblical quotation to quotation;
asked to preach a sermon on a saint's day, he did nothing else than
comment upon the saint's life in Biblical phrases. The second type of
influence is very common; the present emperor is usually spoken of as
the new David; the story of a war is always told as if David were
fighting the Philistines; each heretic is entitled to be called the new
Judas Iscariot who betrays his Lord. The most famous example of this
kind is the sermon attributed to Chrysostom after his first return to
Constantinople, when he had fled from the wrath of the empress: "Again
Herodias is furious, again she flurries, again she dances, again she
desires the Baptist's head to be cut off by Herod." The preacher's own
Christian name, of course, was John, and the empress was trying to get
rid of him for political reasons.
The most important influence, however, is the unconscious influence
simply from the use of the Bible. The great power of Chrysostom's
sermons was partly due to his eminent rhetorical talent and training. He
knew how to gain his hearers' attention; yet for the greater part his
thorough acquaintance with the Bible seems to be responsible. Reading
the sermons of those great Greek Christian orators of the fourth
century, we are often struck by the embedded quotations from the Bible.
In the midst of this fluent Greek there is something quite different,
something stern, something austere, something dignified and solemn,
which immediately appeals to the hearer. As a matter of fact, the
preachers themselves, proud as they were of their classical training,
had rather the opposite impression; they apologise for introducing
barbarous language. Chrysostom insists, in many a sermon, on the idea
that the apostles were fishermen, unskilled in literary style, and that
it is one of the proofs of inspiration that those men could write at
all. He evidently is not aware of the fact, clear to us, that it is just
the vigour and strength of Biblical language which gave to his own
sermons their magnificent effect. He was filled with Biblical
phraseology as was no other preacher of his time. He himself did not
realise it, nor did, I presume, the greater part of his congregation,
yet it was this which so impressed them. If only the modern editors
would note all the Biblical allusions in his works! Yet they are hardly
able even to recognise them. We find preachers noted for their
brilliancy in extemporaneous speaking, and usually the remark is added,
it was because the speaker knew the Scriptures by heart.
In this way the people became accustomed to Biblical phraseology, and we
do not wonder that at last the colloquial Greek also was influenced by
the Bible. We can trace its influence even in the romances.