/_-•

*?

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY
RECONCILED WITH THE CONCLUSIONS OE MODERN
BIBLICAL LEARNING;

A THEOLOGICAL ESSAY,
WITH CRITICAL AND CONTROVERSIAL SUPPLEMENTS.

JOHN WILLIAM DONALDSON, D.D.
LATE FELLOW OP TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,

PECTUS EST QUOD FACIT THEOLOGrUJ-I.

WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON;
AND
20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.

HDCCCI.VII.

STEPHEN AUSTIN,

PBINTEB, HEBTFOBD.

TO THE HONOURABLE
STTJAET. ALEXANDER DONALDSON, ESQ.,
colonial tkeasueer of mew south wales, etc. etc. etc.

Mr Deak Stuabt, I have ventured to gratify my own
feelings by inscribing this Work with the name of one of
my nearest relatives and most intimate friends. That you
will agree with me in all the details of my argument, I have
no right to assume; but it is probable that you will not
dissent from my general principles, which are those of the
most intelligent and enlightened men in this country ; and
you, at all events, will give me full credit for a sincere wish
to serve the great cause of religious truth.

Ever your affectionate Brother,
J. W. DONALDSON.

PKEFACE,

The object of this book is the most important that could
be proposed to a Christian divine in the middle of the
nineteenth century. It is to make the evidences of our
religion independent of all those objections which have been
successfully urged by its opponents ; to show that the faith,
which is to render us happy here and hereafter, does not
rest on the floating clouds of human dogmas, opinions, as
sumptions, and superstitions, but stands fixed on the granite
basis of inherent truth and historical certainty.
In undertaking this work, I have been instigated mainly
by a strong conviction that some such attempt is absolutely
necessary at the present time. It appears to me to be im
peratively demanded that some one, who has adequately studied
the subject, should come forward, like Aaron, to take his stand
between the living and the dead, and, by an offering of re
conciliation, to stay the plague of unbelief, which has for
some time followed in the train of a dishonest Bibliolatry.
Although the respectable middle classes of this country too
generally lean upon a textual authority, and are unwilling to

be roused from their torpid acquiescence in the conventional
and external representatives of their religion, there are at
this moment among them, and in the classes above and below
them, many thousands of sincere and intelligent men, who
would fain be theoretically orthodox in the faith, which is prac
tically the guide of their conduct, but are perplexed or repelled
by finding that it is made responsible for propositions which
are manifestly untrue. Eor the sake of these and others who
find a perpetual stumbling-block in the popular misrepre
sentations of Christian orthodoxy, I have undertaken to show
that our religion is not an effete or superannuated system ;
that it is as true now as when it was first preached; that,
in fact, its worst enemies are those anachronists who would
tell us that it has no truth except so far as it is presented
under certain forms of speech or modes of thought, with
which the intelligence of the present day can have no sym
pathy; that, on the contrary, every detail of sound doctrine
may be defended on the broad and solid basis of modern
learning, common sense, and personal godliness.
It will be observed that, in its outward form, this work
is a continuous essay, supplemented by a number of special
disquisitions on certain important subjects, which are neces
sarily connected with the general argument, but could not
have been discussed in the text without an interruption to
the regular progress of the reasoning. The considerations,
which have led to the adoption of this arrangement, were
suggested chiefly by a regard for the convenience of the
reader, who may now, if he pleases, confine his attention in
the first instance to the essay itself, which is printed in a

PREFACE. IX
larger type, and otherwise adapted for a rapid and unbroken
perusal. Although every Appendix is directly connected with
the chapter to which it belongs, they may all be regarded,
if any one chooses to do so, as independent papers or articles
on the subjects to which they refer. They are described in
the title-page as critical and controversial ; and though the
subjects may seem to be here and there of merely transient
interest, — questions of the present day, in fact, — it must be
remembered that such questions have, in many cases, been
the starting-point in investigations of lasting importance. In
theological literature, one of our most valuable books, the
Ecclesiastical Polity of Richard Hooker, originated in a con
troversy between the two preachers of the Temple. And in
philology, there is not a more instructive or epochal treatise
than Bentley's reply to Boyle and his coadjutors.1 If I had
lived in the days of Plato, I should, no doubt, have intro
duced those, from whose views I dissent, as interlocutors in
a series of dialogues ; but as I happen to live in the days
of leading articles and reviews, I have adopted a mode of
criticism in accordance with the spirit of the age.
And here I must direct the reader's attention to a distinc
tion which seems to me to have no slight importance, and
which I have endeavoured to indicate in the wording of my
title-page. This book is essentially controversial, but it does
not engage in tlieological or dogmatic controversy. On the
contrary, it is, from first to last, a protest against theological
warfare and dogmatic intolerance. It is designed to serve
1 iEschincs has remarked with great truth (c Timarch. § 2) : at yap idiui
e'xfyt" iroWa irdvv t&v koivwv ziravopOovvTai.

PBEFACE.

as an argument for reconciliation, not as a fresh aggrava
tion of discrepancies. It insists on the importance of that,
in which all religious men are agreed, and on the triviality
of those particulars, on which the best Christians may con
sent to differ. In these pages there is no approximation to
doctrinal party-spirit or sectarian polemics. I have no wish
to interfere with any man, whether within or without the
National Church, who serves God according to his own con
science, and is willing to concede to others the liberty which
he claims for himself. And yet it is one of the objects of
this treatise to expose the conduct and to confute the opinions
of those who represent themselves as the most religious men
in this country. Now if any one maintains that there is an
inconsistency in this, he has fallen, consciously or uncon
sciously, into a very old fallacy. The ancient logicians used
to maintain that he who predicates non-entity is thereby in
volved in a predication of existence. Just in the same way
some persons may endeavour to show that an attempt to ex
pose and protest% against theological dogmatism and intolerance,
is itself an act of intolerance and dogmatism. If so, the
man wh6 brings an action for libel is a slanderer, the advo
cate of liberty is a tyrant, and every Protestant is a perse
cutor. No one can wish more sincerely than I do, that
there was no necessity for the censures which I have been
obliged to bestow on certain professors of Christianity in this
country. But the aggressive attitude which Bibliolatry has
assumed towards all those who dare to think for themselves,
has left no choice in this matter for any one who would
claim for himself and others the privileges of educated man-

PKEFACE. XI
hood and the rights of intellectual freedom ; and, in my own
particular case, the duty of self-defence and vindication is
added to the more general obligations of a conscientious regard
for the truth, and for the interests of religion. If any of
my readers think that the evils, with which I have had
to deal, might have been treated with a gentler hand, they
can hardly know the full extent and atrocity of the anti-
christian manifestations, which I have felt myself called upon
to denounce and condemn. When there is not only undis
guised malignity instead of Christian love, but shameful dis
honesty instead of literary candour, it would be a dereliction
of duty to speak with reserve or qualification. As the old
dramatist says, "It is not the part of a skilful leech to
utter incantations in a plaintive tone over a disease that
requires the knife." The Author of our religion, who ex
emplified the love which He enjoined, inveighed, in no mea
sured terms, against the Scribes and Pharisees, who repre
sented the selfish intolerance of those days; and the same
plainness of speech must always be used whenever religious
zeal is made a cloak for maliciousness. I know, however,
that there are good men in every denomination of Christians,
and many Bibliolaters have escaped the evil influences of the
party to which they outwardly belong. With those whose
¦faith, whether rational or superstitious, exhibits its practical
working in the love which fulfilleth the law, I have no
controversy in the following pages ; and if a single word of
mine has given pain to any sincere and pious and charitable
believer, whatever may be his ignorance or prejudices, I
heartily regret it, and would gladly blot it out, provided this

Xli PBEFACE.
could be done without a sacrifice of the truths which I have
feebly endeavoured to advocate. I can lay my hand upon
my heart, and declare that I regard with unfeigned tolera
tion every opinion which I deem erroneous, except those
which find their necessary expression in acts of unchristian
malevolence. If I were careful about the judgments of my contempo
raries, or actuated by the usual motives of literary men, I
should be sufficiently sustained by the knowledge that I have
been true to the spirit of my own Church, and by the pro
found conviction that, with the growth of knowledge on
these subjects, an increasing number of Anglican divines will
appreciate the principles which I have assumed, and adopt
the conclusions at which I have arrived. And to show that
I do not merely flatter myself by a reliance on my own
judgment, I will quote some words addressed to me in a
letter a few years ago by a dignitary of our Church, who
has no superior in literary eminence, and who was, at that
time, personally a stranger to me. "The day must come,"
he wrote, " when, if the Church of England refuses to stand
on the ground of sound scholarship, if she will repudiate the
aid of those who, like yourself, know the progress of the
rest of Europe on such subjects, she will be liable to a most
dangerous conflict, in which she will hardly escape being
worsted." But I am not careful about men's judgments on
these matters, or solicitous to obtain their approbation. I
know that we must all look forward to a day when an inquiry
will be made by our only Master respecting the use of every
talent and opportunity committed to us, and that it will be

PREFACE.

of little avail to have won the applause of fallible men like
ourselves, if we cannot gain the testimony that " we have
been faithful in a few things." I have been permitted to
attain a mature age, and, during the greater part of my life,
I have been enabled to occupy myself with the studies and
pursuits best calculated to p'repare and qualify me for the
task which the present work has impdfeed on me. While,
then, it is the simple result of my sense of religious respon
sibility, I shall not look back on my labours as fruitlessly
bestowed, if I can convince only two or three unbelievers, or
half-believers, that our faith does not rest on the erroneous
assumptions to which their reason objects; if I can wean
only two or three sincere but mistaken Christians from the
fatal dogmatism, which checks the growth of heavenly graces
in their souls. In this hope, and in the full confidence of an
honest heart, I commend my work, with all its imperfections,
to Him, who alone can accept or reject the labours of His
servants — to whom alone they stand or fall.

J. W. D.

Cambridge,
31si! December, 1856.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
THE CHARACTERISTICS AND QUALIFICATIONS OF A
CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.
PAGE
Internal conflicts of the Christian warrior  3
Mistaken views involved in polemical theology  4
Why it is necessary to state the duty and functions of the Christian
advocate  5
Value and significance of the metaphorical and allegorical language of
Scripture  8
The Christian panoply as described by St. Paul  10
Its double reference — primarily, to our own spiritual victory over the
enemies within ; and then, to the conversion of the world without ib.
Our Lord's conflict on our behalf was also internal  13
Examination ofthe passage in the Epistle to the Colossians  13-15
The victory of faith is a victory of life and conduct  16
The same combination of faith with obedience is necessary for the work
of converting others  18
Texts which enjoin the Christian to justify his cause by his conduct ... 19
Those who would win others to Christ must show that they are them
selves the children of light and wisdom  21
Practical proofs of the manner in which the cause of Christianity is
hindered by the foolishness of zealous Christians  22
Foolish ceremonies  a.
Foolish penance  ^  23
Foolish moroseness  25
The sword ofthe Spirit — an expressive figure  28
It must not be confused with its scabbard  a.
The religion ab extra and the religion ab intra  29
The latter maintained by the so-called Latitudinarians  31

XVI CONTENTS. PAGE
Opinions of Whichcot and his school  32
In accordance with St. Paul's assertion of liberty and charity  34
The competency of the Christian advocate depends on his personal
religiousness and spiritual wisdom  37

APPENDIX I.
<3N THE CONNEXION BETWEEN REVEALED RELIGION AND
THE NATURAL AND MORAL HISTORY OF MAN.
Importance of the inquiry  4-1
Oken's theory of natural history  ,  42
The three kingdoms  .'  ib-
Structure  ib.
Functions  ib.
The animal  43
Conditions of movement  il>-
What is man qua animal?  44
Superiority of his physical organization  ib.
What is man besides being an animal?  45
His true definition  ib.
Reason and speech coextensive with humanity  46
How far reason is connected with structural development  47
Reason and speech denied to the lower animals  ib.
Distinctions to be observed  48
Man distinguished chiefly by his moral attributes  49
Monogamism a peculiarity of man  , ib.
His instinctive hope of immortality  50
Consonance of these views with the lessons of revelation  51
Texts which oppose the flesh to the spirit  ib.
The world substituted for the flesh in this opposition  52
The heart as the source of sin  54
Death connected with sin and life the result of righteousness  ib.
Testimonies of the Fathers  55
This view is implied in the third chapter of Genesis  56
The Incarnation and Atonement  58
Special discussion ofthe passage in the Epistle to the Colossians  61
St. Paul's doctrine respecting the pre-existence of Christ  62

CONTENTS. XVII PAnti

His controversial use of Gnostic phraseology  63
The celestial hierarchy  64
St.' Paul's arrangement ofthe invisible things  65
Meaning of apxh and Qouo-ta as used by him  66
The participle aireKSva-i/Mevos must be construed strictly  63
This rendering supported by the Syriac version and the Fathers  69
Fruitless attempts to support the old interpretation  70
Dishonest quotation from Matthias-  73
The Oxford preacher  74
General results ofthe inquiry  76

CHAPTER II.
THE LAWS AND OBJECTS OF A TRUE DEFENCE OF THE
FAITH.
Anachronisms in religion and politics  81
Conservatism implies a timely concession of the untenable  82
This is indicated by the history of political conservatism in England ... 83
The same principles apply to the conservatism ofthe Church  85
Necessary curtailments ofthe Prayer Book  87
The Articles should be revised  88
Arguments for a corrected version ofthe Bible  89
The maintenance of religion in general is amenable to the laws of
conservatism  91
The parable of the patched garment and the old wine-skins is a warning
against conventional anachronism  92
Who is the true conservative in regard to religion ?  95
How the concession of the untenable leads to a confusion between the
friends and the opponents of revelation  96
The three classes of opinions on this subject  ib.
The folly of relinquishing the impregnable in order to maintain the
indefensible  97
The two propositions to be established in a rational defence of
Christianity  99
(1) Divine origin and distinctive character of the Christian religion ... 100
The personal existence of the Deity and the personal immortality of
man are revealed and not discovered by reason  ii.
b

XV111 CONTENTS. PAGE
The three forms of religion as de.ised by man  101
Revelations respecting the personal character of God and the nature of
sin  105
Not affected by erroneous opinions or practices of the Jews  112
The facts of historical Christianity to be maintained by the advocates
of religion  114
Wherein the rise of Mohammedanism is essentially different  115
Evidences of Christianity  116
Divine ingredients in Judaism  117
How the origin of the Mosaic religion may be shown to be superhuman ib.
The counter statements do not explain the facts ofthecase  119
(2) Christianity is not implicated in the defence of the untenable
dogmas of theologians  121
Reasons for supposing that erroneous assumptions have been introduced
into the defence ofthe faith  ib.
The most important of these erroneous assumptions are represented by
the hypothesis of an infallible literature and by the belief in good
and bad angels  123
Why it is necessary that these assumptions should be formally relin
quished  124

APPENDIX II.
ON MANICH__EISM AS OPPOSED OR RELATED TO
CHRISTIANITY.
Importance of Manichseism  ,  127
Zoroaster's system  128
This Persian dualism rejected by the earlier Jews  132
How far the later Jews were infected by dualistic superstition  135
Dualistic phraseology used by the early Christians, but with a contro
versial application  137
Corruptions of Christianity traceable to Alexandria and Babylon  139
Career of Manes  140
Doctrines of Manichaeism  141
Tendencies of this system  142
Permanent results of Manichaeism  I44
Manichaeism of the Low Church Party  145

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.
THE HYPOTHESIS OF AN INFALLIBLE LITERATURE.

PAGE

The circular and vicious reasoning which is employed to support the
hypothesis ofthe infallibility of Scripture  153
This assumption is overthrown both by inductive philosophy, and by
philological criticism  156
Ignorance and errors of the sacred writers exposed by the discoveries
of science  ib.
Historical criticism still more decisive  158
Objections to the extended canon of Scripture  159
Composition ofthe New Testament  ib.
Formation of the Old Testament collection of writings  160
Indications of secondary editorship and compilation  161
Effects ofthe proofs of unequal authority in the sacred books  162
General conclusions as to their liability to error  163
The doctrine of inspired infallibility is not necessary for the establish
ment of Christianity on an historic basis  165
Requirements of historical evidences  166
Arguments from necessity and convenience  167
The liberty of private judgment is applicable to all particular opinions
respecting the authority of Scripture  .-  170
Vagueness ofthe term "inspiration"  ib.
As predicated of a writing it must refer to the subject-matter only  172
How the Scriptures are inspired  173
The divine revelation contained in Scripture is indicated by the concent
or harmony of religious teaching  174
Our Lord's summary of this consistent doctrine  176
This view alone entertained by religious and reasonable men  177
The Church of England does not maintain any theory of inspiration ... 179
Importance of the liberty conceded on this point  180
The word " inspired " never applied to the Scriptures in our Liturgy ... 181
Force of the terms, " Holy Scripture " and " The Word of God "  182
The liberty conceded by the Church must not be surrendered to the
pretensions of arrogant and ignorant ministers  183
Reasons which recommend an immediate and vigorous opposition to
Bibliolatry  18fi

CONTENTS.

APPENDIX III.
ON THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE JEWISH COLLECTION
OF SACRED BOOKS. PAGE
The formation of the Jewish Canon must be viewed as a gradual
process  189
The component parts, and gradual extension  190
Protracted period of Masoretic editorship  191
Why the Masoretic editors have been supposed to be infallible  192
Our Lord's statements on this subject should he properly examined and
rightly estimated  193
How He distinguished between the ritual and the moral law  195
Our Lord's preference for Deuteronomy as the most authentic text
book  196
His quotations from the Prophets, where they disallow the Levitical
law  198
Our Lord did not recognise the divine origin of the Jewish sacerdotal
system  199
The Pentateuch, as a whole, was unknown to the great Prophets  200
Priests and Levites were not originally distinguished  201
Beginnings and gradual development of Hebrew literature  202
The schools of the Prophets  204
The book of Jashar  205
The meaning of this title  206
The force of the word as a national designation  207
Comprehensive signification of jash&r  208
Inference respecting the book so entitled  209
Ewald's inconsistency  ib.
Importance of an attempt to restore the book of Jashar  210
Procedure adopted by the present author  211
The first part, or history of the Fall  n,.
The Elohistic version  212
The Jehovistic allegory  #_
Foolish objections on the score of modern prudishness  213
Plain-spokenness of the Old Testament  214
Instinctive tendency to this interpretation  215
The second part — ethnology of the Israelites  216

CONTENTS. XXI
PAGE
The third part — Noah and Solomon  217
The Hebrew Deluge originally an allegory  218
Subsequently confused with the Deluge of Babylonia  221
The fourth part — the hook of Jashar and Deuteronomy  222
The fifth part — the benedictions of Israel  223
The sixth part— the triumphal odes  '.  224
Jeremiah's citations  225
The seventh part — poems relating to David and Solomon  ib.
Date ofthe book of Jashar  226
Argument from the sevenfold division  227
Reasonableness of the conjectural procedure  228
Conjecture and Induction  229
Why the same procedure cannot be applied to the restoration of other
lost books in Hebrew literature  230
Sketch of the lost literature of Israel  ib.
Jehovistic and Elohistic compilers  232
The Elohistic later than the Jehovistic editor  233
Reasons for assigning the Elohistic editorship to the latter half of the
Babylonian captivity  234
The Elohistic period  235
Epochs of Jewish literary history  237
The present text of the sacred books of the Jews  ib.
The Samaritan Pentateuch  238
The Masorah  239
Christian Orthodoxy not impugned by these results of Biblical learn
ing  240
The author's procedure vindicated  241
His opposition to the theory of the gradual development of a purer
religion among the Jews  ib.
Violent and unreasoning criticisms to which he has been exposed  242
These attacks can produce no effect on the general question, and are
harmless as far as this author is concerned  244
Passion enjoined as a duty by these fanatics ....,  245
It may be shown by the most favourable specimen, that these strictures
do not deserve or require refutation  247
The best of these reviews begs the question at issue  ib.
The allegation of recklessness  248
The Reviewer's appreciation of evidence  249
The Greek word in Genesis  251
Why we have had only three avowed antagonists  255
The Oxford preacher perverts his text  256

Xxii CONTENTS. PAGE
His manifest unacquaintance with the present state of Biblical learning 257
His deliberate misrepresentations  259
The general result is incontrovertible— that the sacred books of the Jews
are not in their original state  260

APPENDIX IV.
ON THE PECULIAR CHARACTER AND MUTUAL CONNEXION
OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.
The peculiar character of the Gospels does not consist in their infalli
bility  262
It is due to the revelation of which they are the vehicle, and is explained
by their connexion with the Redeemer, and with one another  263
Composition of the Apostolic body  264
The true classification of the Apostles explains their arrangements for
the division of missionary labour  266
The Christophany at Emmaus  267
Identified with the appearance to James  268
Harmony of the resurrection  ib.
Slight discrepancies in the statements  269
The order of the Christophanies mentioned by St. Paul  270
The home district assigned to the sons of Alphaeus  271
Their secondary place among the Apostles  272
The two classes of Apostles  ib.
Wieseler's opinion controverted  273
Missionary labours of the original Apostles and St. Paul  274
Matthias works and suffers with the family of Alphasus  275
This subdivision ofthe Apostles explains the literary activity of the
earliest Church  ib.
Literary qualifications of St. 'Matthew  276
Greek translation of his Gospel  fj.
The second and third Gospels represent the teaching of Peter and Paul . 277
Some account of St. Mark and his Gospel  278
Its importance and unfinished state  280
Identification of Luke and Silas  281
Explanation of the change of name  282
Harmony of the actions of Luke and Silas  {5.

CONTENTS. XXUl PAGE
This harmony explains the composition of the third Gospel and the
Acts  283
When and where the third Gospel was written  285
St. Luke's materials  287
His information partly derived from our Lord's family, and especially
from St. James  ib
Differences in the style and tone of St. Luke's writings, occasioned by
differences in his materials  289
The miracle of Pentecost  ib.
Glossolalia  290
The conversion of St. Paul  ib.
Words suggested by Euripides  292
Peculiarities of the fourth Gospel  294
Literary history of St. John  296
Plan and objects of his Gospel and first Epistle  298
The contents and subjective characters of the former  299
Its doctrinal harmony with the other Gospels and with St. Paul  301
Its phraseology borrowed by early heretics  302
The title "Boanerges" explained  303
Interpolations  ib.
Our reverence for the Gospels is independent of any hypothesis respecting
their infallibility  304

APPENDIX V.
ON THE DYNAMICAL THEORY OF INSPIRATION.
General character of Mr. Lee's book  305
Fallacies involved in Mr. Westcott's view  306
Mr. Lee's erroneous attempt to distinguish between Revelation and In
spiration  308
Mr. Westcott's theory and Mr. Lee's distinction are inconsistent with one
another, but equally unprofitable  310
Mr. Lee's disingenuousness in dealing with the history of the Canon ... 311
Inspiration and Canonicity  **•
Growth of the Canon  312
Futility of citing the Fathers to prove the infallibilty of Scripture  314
Mr. Lee's vicious reasoning  315

XXIV CONTENTS, PAGE
The presumptuous presumption  317
Mr. Lee's method of dealing with Scripture difficulties  318
Fallacious reasoning of Mr. Rogers  319
Science and faith   '»•
Limits of Inspiration  321
How the Bible can bo both divine and human  **.
Mischievous tendency of Mr, Lee's book  322

APPENDIX VI.
ON THE UNCHRISTIAN SPIRIT OF BIBLIOLATRY.
Christian love a test of Christianity  323
Characteristics of the Haldanes  324
Their Exeter Hall panegyrist  ib.
Attempt to excuse their conduct  325
The case of Dr. Carson  326
The Record newspapej  328
The gravity of this phenomenon  ib.
Examples of the libels ofthe Record  330
The attack on Bishop Colenso  331
Misconduct of the paper towards Mr. Alford  332
Aspersions on the Bishop of Lincoln  334
The Record's attempted defence  336
Its futility  337
The Record and the Reasoner compared  338
The former represents a party  a.
The Liverpool Clerical Society and Mr. Maonaught  339
Mr. Macnaughfs book on Inspiration  341
Mixed motives of the Bibliolatrous party  ,,  342
Their conduct denounced in the words of Jesus Christ  $_
Devilishness of lying and hatred  ,  _ 343
Hopes of a reaction against the unchristian spirit of Bibliolatrj-  ib.
Attempted tyranny of the Bibliolatrous party  344

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SUPPOSED EXISTENCE OF INTERMEDIATE INTEL
LIGENCES.

PAGE

The difficulties and contradictions occasioned by this dogma  3 47
It runs counter to the general tenor of all revealed teaching  348
The belief in created intelligences other than man is merely the result of
fanciful language  349
Origin and growth ofthe doctrine of intermediate agency  300
Every step in the procedure exemplified in the Bible  351
The clouds and the rainbow as visible phenomena  352
The lightning and the hurricane were personified under the fanciful form
of the Seraphim and Cherubim  353
How these symbols become signs of unapproachable sanctity or forbidden
ingress  ,  355
Growth of dualism among the Jews after the Babylonian captivity  356
Modern Manichseism  358
Why our Lord condescended to the phraseology of the Jews in this
respect  359
The dsemonology ofthe Jews  360
(a) They understood that bodily possession by daemons was a bodily
disease, which they could not otherwise explain  361
Our Lord's wisdom in acquiescing in this vagueness of language  362
Examples of his adoption of established phraseology  363
(b) His mode of dealing with the doctrine of spiritual possession  364
Impossibility of this doctrine  365
Our Saviour did not teach any dualism ; the Lord's Prayer  368
St. James says that temptation is not external  369
The belief in good angels  ib.
Want of evidence for angelic appearances  370
The Pharisees and Sadducees  371
Approximation of our Lord's teaching to the latter school  372
His opposition to them in regard to the resurrection may account for his
want of formal agreement with them on other points  373
. No dogmatic teaching on the subject of intermediate intelligences in the
formularies of the English Church  374
The feast of St. Michael and all angels  376
The ter sanctus  377

PAGE
References to Satan in the Prayer-book  ib.
The world, the flesh, and the devil in the renunciation of sin  378
How this is involved in the decalogue  379
Collect for the first Sunday in Lent  380
The ninth Article denies an objective tempter  381
Explanation of our Lord's temptation  ib.
Importance of maintaining his complete and absolute humanity  ib.
In what sense he was sinless and impeccable  .^  383
Our Lord's human nature implies that he was liable to temptations from
within  384
Comparison of the conflicting difficulties  385

APPENDIX VII.
ON A RECENT ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH THE PERSONALITY
OF ABSTRACT EVIL.
Why Dr. Vaughan's sermon deserves a special notice  387
What he admits and what he assumes  388
The opposition of literal and figurative statements  389
The former supported by the general tenor of the whole of Scripture ... ib.
Dr. Vaughan's fallacious criterion for the literal interpretation of the
latter  390
The narrative of our Lord's temptation is necessarily figurative  391
Quinet's argument for the subjectivity of the temptation  392
The Gadarene miracle  393
Dr. Vaughan's citations from the Epistles shown to be figurative  ib.
The supposed personal history, character, and destiny, of the tempter ... 395
Schleiermacher's remarks on Dr. Vaughan's text  395
The formidable alternative proposed by Dr. Vaughan  397
He incurs the censure implied in our twenty-eighth Article  39s
Dr. Vaughan's sermon is an example of destructive conservatism ... n,

CONTENTS. XXVU

CHAPTER V.
ON THE ORTHODOXY OF A NATIONAL CHURCH.

PAGE

Definition of orthodoxy  402
The positive test supplied by the confession of St. Peter  403
The blessing explained  404
Atonement and redemption  405
The negative test furnished by St. John's definition of antichrist  407
St. Peter's confession, and St. John's "warning, considered as coordinate
propositions, and as separate statements  408
The four original forms of heterodoxy  409
Practical manifestations of antichrist  410
Mischievous effects of religious dogmatism  412
Why it is antichristian in its tendencies  413
National orthodoxy must be as wide as personal religiousness  414
The English Church is properly latitudinarian  415
The attempts to narrow its basis occasioned by the selfishness of the
extreme parties  416
Man's present littleness, compared with the grandeur of his future
destiny  417
The religious system of a great nation must not be controlled by arbitrary
dogmatism  418
Analysis of the Thirty-nine Articles  419
The dogmatism of the Church of England is limited to the doctrine of
the Trinity  420
This is farther shown by the Catechism  ib.
This criterion of orthodoxy is implied in the blessing of Peter  422
The same criterion should suffice for a National Church  423
The doctrine of the Trinity is both catholic and distinctive  ib.
Its prominence in the Church system  424
Why it led to heresies  425
It is not, but has been made, a speculative or logical proposition  ib.
Our Lord's final injunction respecting baptism in the name of the
Trinity  426
Connexion of faith and obedience  427

XXV1U CONTENTS. PAGE
Religious results of faith in the Trinity  428
The Liturgy gives a practical application to the Trinitarian orthodoxy... 430
This is shown especially by the Athanasian Creed  ib.
Similar teaching in the Collects, etc., for the Sundays after Trinity  433
The eternal necessity of holiness and love  434
The obligations and privileges of the English divine  435
His position is ministerial, not sacerdotal  436
His superiority, if he is superior, is professional only  437
St. Paul's criterion of spirituality  438
The duty of obtaining information, which is incumbent on the Christian
minister  441
Our Lord's comparisons of the store-keeper and the money-changer  443
The Church of England requires both spirituality and learning  446
Academical character of the National Church  447
The liberty of private judgment not only conceded, but recommended by
the ordination vow  ib.
Why the Church is thought to be narrow  450
Suicidal fallacy of sectional intolerance in the National Church  451
This intolerance is proportional to the amount of the Bibliolatry  452
Neologians and Anachronists, Rationalists and Bigots  453
The charge of dishonesty brought against Rationalists by a bigoted
Bibliolater  455
It may be answered and thrown back on the accuser  457
Conclusion  459

APPENDIX VIII.
ON THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
Why this Creed is preferable to the other two 
The circumstances under which it was written 
A Creed is merely a commentary on Scripture 
How far a Creed, as such, is authoritative 
Its value not necessarily permanent 
Orthodoxy is comprehensive, not exclusive 

463
464 465466 ib.
467

CONTENTS. XXIX PAGE
The Athanasian Creed does not theorize, but rebukes erroneous theories 468
Trinitarians are also Unitarians  470
Views of Hooker and Calvin  472
Explanation of the second verse of the Athanasian Creed  473
Comparison of the Athanasian with the other Creeds  475

ERRATA.
Page 97,
line
18 bott.
for
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117,
ult.
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"Gospel"
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" Gospels."
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" Testaments."
CHAPTEE I.

THE ADVOCATE OF CHEISTIANITY.

CHEISTIAN OBTHODOXY.

CHAPTER I.

THE CHARACTERISTICS AND QUALIFICATIONS OE
A CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.
We are accustomed and encouraged to speak of Christianity
as engaged in perpetual warfare. The Church is described as
militant here upon earth, and all those who are admitted by
baptism to a participation in the New Covenant are enrolled
as soldiers, and sent forth to fight against the powers of
evil under the banner of their Redeemer. Every Christian,
as an individual, is thus pledged to contend with " the fleshly
lusts which war against the soul " x ; and the Church, as a
body, no less than the members of which it is composed,
must strive perpetually " to overcome the world " z : that is,
not only to resist its absorbing and converting tendencies,
but to bring it, as fully and as speedily as possible, under the
domination of the Gospel, and thus to hasten the coming of the
time when it may be truly said that " the kingdoms of this
world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ." 3
Although the very terms of this phraseology imply that
1 1 Peter, ii. 11. 2 1 John, v, 4. 3 Rev. xi. 15.

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.

Christianity is opposed to that which is professedly and out
wardly alienated from it, or inherently and essentially at variance
with its principles, we find practically that the great battle
field of the disciples of Jesus is the Church itself, and the com
batants those who sincerely believe themselves to be true
followers of the Redeemer. When we talk of polemical theology
or the warfare of religious controversy, we do not allude to
hostilities carried on between belief and infidelity, but to the
unceasing conflicts between the different manifestations of reli
gious dogmatism. We are like the last defenders of the visible
Temple of God, who were fighting to the knife in the streets of
Jerusalem, while Titus and his legions were thundering at the
gates. Not only now, but in every age since the first beginning
of our religion, an anxiety to uphold some particular opinions
respecting Christian doctrine, or a wish to tyrannize over the
consciences of other men, has taken the place of our true voca
tion as the soldiers of Jesus, — as those who have solemnly
undertaken to fight against the sin which is within themselves,
and against the open infidelity which is dominant in the world
without them.
In this mistaken view of our duties as Christian warriors,
we overlook all that is essential to our position as reasonable
creatures and as believers in a revealed religion. On the one
hand, we ignore the prescriptive conditions of our composite
nature, namely, the opposition between flesh and spirit, — between
the merely animal, which is of the earth, earthy, and the mental
and moral qualities, which distinguish us from all other living
creatures and claim a celestial origin, — and the perpetual conflict
which philosophy and religion proclaim, with united voice, to
be the inevitable destiny and the primary duty of the reasonable
being as such.1 And, in regard to the special revelations of
1 See Appendix I.

THE ADVOCATE 0E CHRISTIANITY.

Christianity, we forget that, if " the Captain of our salvation
was made perfect through suffering"1; if he was obliged to
strip off from himself the principalities and powers — the potent
lords of sin, which rule in our members — and to triumph over
them by an internal conflict, and a victory over self3; if he
was content to advocate his own cause only by the example of
patient endurance, which appeals from the world's tribunal to
"Him that judgeth righteously"3; we, who are but common
soldiers, can have no other rule either for the discipline of our
hearts or for the defence of our faith. Neglecting these funda
mental principles, we act as if our business here was not to
learn the will of God, in order that we may endeavour to per
form it, but to scrutinize the opinions of our fellow-men, in
order that we may contradict and condemn them ; and thus,
instead of doing our own work, as children of light, we spend
our time in doing the world's work, as persecutors of those who
endeavour most sincerely to carry their faith into practice.
The tendency to substitute dogma for duty, to become
zealous adherents of some factious party, instead of patient
followers of Christ, to echo the words of others, instead of
consulting the whispers of our own conscience, and having con
fidence towards God because our own heart does not condemn
us,4 is all the more dangerous, because it springs from the carnal
selfishness inherent in our nature, which it is the main object
of Christianity to control, if not to eradicate. We all find it so
much more easy to adopt zealously some formula of external
religion, and to uphold and propagate it at the expense of our
neighbours, than to carry on a constant struggle with our own
evil inclinations, to aim at improvement, which seems to become
less attainable the more we appreciate its necessity, and to
» Heb. ii. 10. « Col. ii. 15. 3 1 Peter, ii. 3. i 1 John, iii. 21.

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.

practise the perpetual discipline of self-distrust and self-denial.
It gratifies our vanity to hear on all sides the voice of assent,
encouragement, and commendation ; and it is a happy diversion
to be able to forget the beam, which would otherwise be pain
fully sensible, while we magnify the mote, which, as we fancy,
obstructs the vision of others. And yet, in all this, our leader
is but Antichrist arrayed in the royal robes of Immanuel ; we
are but rebels dressed in the livery of fictitious loyalty; and
we are using the name of Jesus, while we are breaking his laws
and endeavouring to overthrow his kingdom in this world.
It is highly needful, then, that timid and zealous believers
should be told from time to time what it is that the advocate
of Christianity is called upon to maintain, and what piinciples
ought to regulate our defence of the faith. They will thus be
reminded that the legitimate object of religious apologetics is
religion itself, and not the opinions of men about religion ; and
that the defence of Christianity does not consist in the pro
pagation or overthrow of any doctrinal system current among
believers ; for whether they belong to orthodoxy or heterodoxy,
opinions are but opinions still, types of the inevitable diversities
of thought on those subjects, which do not fall within the scope of
scientific demonstration. And a proper examination will relieve
many sincere men from the prevalent inability to distinguish
between the friends and the enemies of revealed truth, and
enable them to see that the true advocate of Christianity is
he who recommends the teaching of the Gospel by exhibiting
in his own life the triumph of love and purity and heavenly
wisdom over the selfishness and concupiscence and worldly
folly of the unregenerate heart; and who, whenever the need
arises for an open conflict with infidelity, can uphold the facts
of revelation without violating the laws of Christian charity, or
implicating himself in the conscious maintenance of errors and

THE ADVOCATE OP CHRISTIANITY. 7
falsehoods : ' but that he, on the other hand, is not the friend but
the enemy of the Christian religion, who falsifies his profession
by an impure and selfish life, or by an intolerant and persecuting
dogmatism ; and who, in the maintenance of his own distinctive
opinions, makes Christianity responsible for the fictions of
ignorance and for the sophistries of conscious falsehood, to the
discredit of the truth in the judgment of honest and intelligent

\ ^e. Pr0Per functions of the Christian, as far as relates to the conversion
of his erring brethren, are well described in a passage which has not been
sufficiently understood and applied. "We learn from 2 Tim ii. 23—26, that
the "servant of the Lord" is not to be found in the arena of polemical
theology, but that he is the gentle and patient " fisher of men," who rescues
his brethren from the deadly sleep of a carnal life, which is the snare of
the devil, and arouses them to a proper sense of the light and truth of the
Gospel. The words are : Tas Se papas Kal airaiSevrovs (wr-lio-eis irapcurov,
elSiis, 8Vi yevv&aiv fidxas' SovKov Se Kvpiou oil Se? /j.axe<r6ai, a\X tpnov ehai
vpbs -wavras, Si3aKTitc6j/, avej-iKaKov, & TrpqiirrjTi iratSevovTa robs avTiStari-
defieirovs' jifaore S(pv airoTs 6 6ebs peravoiav els eirlyvuaw rrjs a.\n6elas, Kal
avavtyaaiv 4k rrjs tov Siafi6\ov TrayiSos, efayprifxevoi inr' avrou els to
exetpov SeKrifia, i.e., "Deprecate foolish and shallow speculations, knowing
that they engender contentions (or polemics) ; now the servant of the Lord
ought not to engage in contentions, but he should be gentle to all, anxious
to give information, tolerant of calumny, instructing those opposed to him with
meekness, with the hope that God may give them repentance unto an acknow
ledgment of the truth, and that they may- be awakened from the drowsy sleep
in which they have been entrapped by the tempter, and may be rescued by the
fisher of men, and led to do the Lord's will." It is clear that efaypnuevoi.
must be interpreted in the same reference as the promise to Peter (Luke, v. 10):
airb tov vvv avdpdnrovs effrj (uyp&v, which is the only other passage in the New
Testament, where the word occurs. AVe see from Matth. iv. 19, Mark, i. 17,
that a Minister of Christ (uypei avSpdirovs, because he is aMeis avBpuirwv, i.e.,
because he takes the unconverted from the deep waters of destruction and
places them in the church as in an ark of safety {of. Acts, ii. 40, 47, 1 Peter,
iii. 20). The verb a.vav{,<pa> should properly imply a return to sobriety after a
drunken stupor, but in this passage it refers to the state of darkness and sleep,
as a type of death, in which the unconverted are considered to lie, until they
are aroused to the light and life of the Gospel {see 1 Thess. v. 4, 10, which is
the locus classicus, and cf. Ephes. v. 14, Romans, xiii. 11, 12). That "the
foolish and shallow speculations, which engender contentions," include the
usual subjects of religious controversy, is sufficiently clear from the nature of
the case ; and that the same caution is applicable to the literal interpretation
of mythologies, to which the Bibliolater attaches so much importance, follows
from the very similar passage in 1 Tim. iv. 7 : tovs Se 0e0^Aovs Kal ypadSeis
fivBovs irapaiTov. yvfiva^e Se aeavTov irpbs evaefieiav, i.e., " Deprecate the irre
ligious and oldwifish mythologies, and practise yourself in piety," compared
With 1 Tim. i. 4 : finSe irpoaexeiv fivdois Kal yeveaXoyiais airepavTOis, ctirlves
(jnTiicrets Trapexovaiv fiaWov .) omovo/iiay ©ecu tV iv TtlaTei. "not to attend
to endless mythologies and genealogies, which cause controversies rather than
the ministration of religious faith." {cf. Tit. i. 14.)

O CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
men, and to the subversion of the faith in the minds of the weak
and uneducated.
Influenced by these general considerations, we have under
taken to show at length, in the following pages, that the proper
functions of the advocate of Christianity are those which we
have briefly described; that conservatism, or the maintenance
of established views and principles, has its laws and objects, its
limitations and conditions, when it represents the apologetics of
Christianity, no less than when it professes to uphold an existing
constitution in Church and State ; that this true conservatism
presumes a timely relinquishment of the untenable ; that there
are two dogmas most especially rejected by learning and com
mon sense, so that by their maintenance the conservatism of
orthodoxy is signally imperilled in these latter days ; and that
Christian orthodoxy in general, and our national orthodoxy in
particular, are the same now as they were when Jesus accepted
with a blessing the confession made by Peter, or when John gave
the original definition of Antichrist.
Before, however, we pass to a detailed discussion of this most
important subject, it seems desirable that we should examine
as closely as possible the metaphorical language in which
Scripture depicts the armour and the enemies of the Christian
warrior. We reserve for subsequent discussion all questions
connected with the authority of Holy' Writ. But assumin°-
that it is authoritative with those to whom we are now more
especially addressing ourselves, we appeal with especial con
fidence to its figurative phraseology, as containing the most
primitive expression of the lessons which we are to derive
from it. For it cannot be denied that some of the greatest
truths of revelation are wrapt up in allegories, which, like the
hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, present at once the most durable
records of facts, and, when properly understood, the most significant

THE ADVOCATE OE CHRISTIANITY. 9
representations of ideas. This is notoriously the case with
regard to those parables to which our Lord confined the main
part of his direct and popular teaching. And we shall see that
the figurative language — which St. Paul derived from the Old
Testament and applied to the condition of Christians engaged
in that perpetual struggle with enemies within, which is included
in the general name of temptations or trials — is fraught with
the deepest instruction for all those who will really use the proper
key to this casket of truths, concealed only from the careless and
profane. That, in circumstantial narratives, a certain variety
of statement is quite compatible with general accuracy, is
well known to all who have examined the evidences of history.
That didactic teaching is not always transmitted without any
alteration of form or substance, is shown by the manner in
which the Sermon on the Mount, given as a whole by St.
Matthew, is represented only by detached fragments in St.
Luke's history. But a figurative picture or description contains
in its own coherency and completeness a permanent guarantee
for the accuracy with which it has been preserved and trans
mitted ; and here, if at all, we find the very words of inspired
teaching. This preliminary examination will enable us to establish the
following most important propositions : —
( a ) That the real battle-field of the soldier of Christ is his
own heart ; his real enemies, the lusts which war in his
members. (5) That in regard to the conquest or conversion of the
world, the Christian champion must vindicate his cause by his
conduct. (c) That the weapon of the Christian warrior is the sword
of the Spirit, or the Word of God in its naked essentials, and
not the scabbard of human opinions, by which it is concealed.

10 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
(a) We find that St. Paul's descriptions1 ofthe panoply to
be borne by the militant Christian, presume, if we may so
express ourselves, a double function of defence ; the one having
reference to an internal conflict for ever going on within the
believer's heart, the other belonging to the occasional combats
to which he is challenged by the outward enemies of his faith.
The true soldier of Jesus Christ is not only furnished with the
means of protecting his own heart from the assaults of the sin
which reigns in his members ; he has not only the breastplate
of righteousness, otherwise described as consisting of faith and
love, — that is, of faith working by love; — he has not only a
girdle of truth about his loins, the foundations of the gospel of
peace for his feet, and the helmet of hope for his head ; but he

1 Ephes. vi. 11, 17, 1 Thess. v. 8., Horn. xiii. 12, 2 Cor. vi. 7. Although
the first of these passages contains the most minute description, the others are
perhaps more precise in their application of the figures. For example, the
Epistle to the Thessalonians tells us, what we should not have learned from
Ephesians alone, that the helmet of salvation means the Christian grace of
hope, while the breastplate of righteousness includes the two other graces of
faith and charity (1 Cor. xiii. 13) ; and we are thus enabled to throw a new
light on Isaiah lix. 16, 17, to which, in all probability, the passage in the
Ephesians directly refers. For the Hebrew words npti and nDW> or
njniWi, which are constantly used by Isaiah in a sort of synonymous
parallelism, are expressly employed to denote the two functions of the Messiah
who, in the passage just quoted, is described as having put on "righteousness
(ripIV) as a breastplate, and salvation (ru>.u?>) as a helmet ; " and in
another not less remarkable passage, the intercessor declares himself (Isaiah
lxiii. 1) as "he that speaks of righteousness (iipiv), and is mighty to
save" (jj'tlrirfi). Nay more, it is worthy of remark, that these two
words contain the roots of the two names Jesus or " Saviour," and " the iust "
or "righteous man," by which title our Saviour was especially known
And, in this way, it is interesting to see how the ideas of righteousness, faith
and salvation are brought together in the passage which tells us that the name
of the Redeemer shall be called Jehuvuh Tsidqinu, " the Lord our righteous
ness;' (Jer. xxiii. 5 6) Now if, as we learn from St. Paid, righteousness
consists ot faith and love, and salvation is represented in this world bv an
assured hope of the future to all the righteous, we see plainly how all hangs
together in the person of our Lord, who was our Saviour by his acts . e
mighty to save, and a preacher of righteousness, which he also exemplified
(Isaiah, lxm. 1). While, then, the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the
apostle to the Thessalonians, give us the helmet and breastplate as the
essential parts of our protective armour, we find in the girdle of spiritual
truth whxch holds all together (John, xvi. 13), and in the ero^La or
foundation of the gospel of peace, by virtue of ,_,____ we build our house on
a rock (Matth. vn. 24, compared with Matth. xvi. 18), the confirmations and

THE ADVOCATE OE CHRISTIANITY. 11
has, besides and above all these, the Word of God, as a spiritual
sword to conquer his outward adversaries, and the shield of
faith — that is, the means of an outward vindication of revealed
truth — with which he may give a reason for the hope that is in
him, when questioned by gainsayers, or, if necessary, bestride
and defend a wounded and fallen brother, and encourage him to
renewed efforts in the good fight.
With regard to the protection of our own heart in its internal
battle with sin, and in its resistance to the outward attacks of
unbelief, it is obvious, from the terms used to designate it,
that the gifts and graces which constitute this panoply, and
make us secure from the inward solicitations of our carnal nature
and from outward attacks on our faith, spring from that re
generation of the heart without which we could not have faith
at all. And here we are introduced to another class of metaphors.
Grace is described as strengthening food as well as protecting
supports which we require ; and in the shield of advocacy and in the sword
of the Spirit, the means of protecting others and overthrowing the human
opponents of religion. "With regard to the enemies with whom we have to
do battle on our own account, we should certainly infer, from a first view of
the passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, that our enemies were evil
spirits, supposed, on the Babylonian hypothesis, to be separate and external
existences, inhabiting the realms of darkness. But we learn from the Epistle
lo the Romans {I. e.) that the armour of light, which we are to put on, is the
Lord Jesus Christ ; and that the works of darkness, which we are to put off,
are the fulfilment of the lusts of the flesh {of. Coloss. ii. 11). "We wrestle
then with our own evil propensities, which are classified and described as
the world, the flesh, and the devil. And when the Epistle to _the Ephesians
declares that our struggle is not against blood and flesh {irpbs ai/ia Kal aipKa),
we must remember that this phrase does not imply the propensities of our own
nature, but the concrete or external world in its present state. The phrase
occurs in three other passages of the New Testament : once in Matth. xvi. 17,
where our Lord tells Peter that blood and flesh had not revealed bis faith in
the Son of God : again in 1 Cor. xv. 50, where the Apostle says that blood and
flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven ; and lastly in Galat. i. 16,
where St. Paul says that he did not communicate with blood and flesh on the
subject of the commission given him by express revelation {cf Sir. xiv. 18,
xvii. 31). All these passages show that the phrase "we wrestle not_ with
blood and flesh," so far from giving an external existence to our spiritual
enemies, expressly states that they do not belong to the outer world, but to
our inner spiritual existence. That this is the meaning is clear from the
important passage in the Epistle to the Colossians, which is fully discussed in
the text and in the disquisition appended to this chapter.

12 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
armour ; and thus it is forcibly said by the Apostle Paul,1 that the
Divine righteousness is, by means of faith in Jesus Christ, poured
into and put upon all who believe. These metaphors are inter
changeable as expressing the same effects ; for the believer not
only feeds on the flesh of Christ, the bread which came down
from heaven, and drinks of his blood, the outpouring of the
everlasting vine, but also derives from the same source the

1 Rom iii. 22 : SiKaioaivri Se Beov Sw. irtcrTeus 'Inffov X/jhttoS, els irdv-ras
Kal M irdpras robs vurrevovras. The true force of this passage was first
shown by the Rev. J. T. Goodsir, in a privately printed " Statement laid
before a committee of the Presbytery of St. Andrew's" (Edinburgh, 1850), p. 61 .
"There is recorded in Matth. ix. 17, Mark, ii. 22, Luke, v. 37, and with most
evident carefulness by each of the Evangelists, a conversation of our Lord
with some of the disciples of John and with certain Pharisees, containing
a prediction of what changes would he produced on the religious services of
men under the gospel dispensation, which sheds a light on my subject, the
least valuable part of which is the grammatical, important though that be.
In the passages which record this conversation, we find that, in speaking of the
wine, it is described as being poured eis tovs ao-Kobs, and of the cloth as being
sewed <hrl iiidriov (Luke, v. 36). The force of the els and eVi is here most
beautifully illustrated ; and when it is considered what subject our Lord was
describing when he uttered the saying or parable just quoted — when it is home
in mind what by wine, on the one hand, is symbolized, and what by a garment
on the other, then I think that the full meaning of the SiKawtrvvn Beov must
appear. It can he nothing else than that righteousness of God spoken of in
Matth. vi. 33, and Rom. xiv. 17 ; that righteousness of God within and upon
the subjects of the kingdom of God ; that righteousness of God required in
that kingdom which is within man, and the least subject of which is greater
than John the Baptist ; that righteousness of God exceeding the boasted
formal righteousness of scribes and Pharisees, and without which ' no man can
enter into the kingdom of God' (Matth. v. 20)." It is worthy of remark,
that the ideas of superposition and infusion are often interchanged in speaking
of the gifts of the Spirit. Thus in Isaiah, xiii. 1, we have : vVj> >rm WO
" I have given or put my spirit upon him ; " and xliv. 3 : bi) Wl p1f«
"UPrt, "I will pour my spirit upon thy seed;" and that these ideas run
into one another is shown by the preposition bl " upon," which is used in
both passages, whereas we have in Ezekiel, xxxvi, 27 : 031133 jn» >im nt.1,
" I will put my spirit within you." Indeed, J. Grimm has shown, in the
" Transactions of the Royal Academy of Berlin," for 1848, that the idea
of giving in general is often intimately connected with that of pouring.
Thus schenken means to " pour out," as well as " to make a present ; " aud
our word " give," geben, is traceable to the same origin as x«o = x&w> " '° pour
forth." The Greek idea of inspiration was also mixed up of the two notions
external taction and internal filling : comp. jEschyl. Suppl. 43 : 4£ iirnrvoias
Zrjvbs ecpa^itv, with Prom. 874 : iira<puv aTapfSe? Xe'P^ Ka^ Biyay pivov, and
Pind. 01. v. viii. 70 : eveirvevaev fievos 7^jpaos avrliraAov. In the New
Testament, the constant occurrence of the phrase " full of the Holy Ghost"
(irAijprjs weuynoTos ayiov), points rather to the latter mode of viewing an
inspired gift.

THE ADVOCATE OE CHRISTIANITY. 13
wedding-garment of righteousness, .the fine linen, pure and
white, which is the righteousness of saints, and the real armour
of the soul. The simple and necessary force of the language
shows that this interchange of metaphors can only be justified
by the fact, that, in either case — both as food and as a garment,
or armour fitting closely to the body — the righteousness of faith
is considered as belonging to the individual believer, and as
limited to his use. It is appropriated to him who feeds on it
or wears it close to bis heart. It is strength and safety to him
self — not to others also. What then would be the use of such
armour of the soul and such internal support, and what would
be the significance of these figures, if the battle-field and the
enemies were not internal also ? Eaith and love, truth and
peace and hope, whether they are poured into us or put upon
us, must be the soul's defence against some foes which attack it
in the inner citadel of our being. And all Scripture tells us that
sin and death are the results of a successful warfare carried on
by the flesh against the spirit of man.1
That our blessed Lord's conflict on our behalf was carried on
within the bounds of his own double nature ; that he found the
powerful enemies, which he subdued for us, in the human weak
ness which he condescended to assume, is proved by a most
distinct and explicit passage in St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians,
which, though properly understood by the Syriac translator, and by
Origen, Hilary, Augustine, and other early Fathers, has been mis
interpreted with perverse consistency by every modern expositor.
The Apostle first tells us 2 that the Eather has delivered us from
the power of darkness (ix T.79 H~ov<rlas tov ct/cotow) and trans
ferred us to the sovereignty of the Son of his love, in whom
(iv c5) we have redemption; and that Jesus was the exemplar
of all creation (7r/3__>TOTO«o? 7rd<rr)<; KTio-em), for that all things
1 See Appendix I. 2 Col. i. 12, sqq.

1-1 CHRISTIAN- ORTHODOXY.
heavenly and earthly, visible and invisible, including among the
latter the principalities and powers of permitted or possible evil
(apxal, ifjovo-lcu), were created potentially in Him (iv avT&
i/CTta-Or/) ; and that, by thus combining the divine and the
human, our Lord was enabled to be the medium of reconciliation
or atonement between the things of earth and heaven. He then
declares in the following chapter,1 that we, as Christians, derive
the fulness of Godhead, or a complete participation of divine
grace, from Him who is the head of all principality and power,
that is, of all the functions and faculties of our lower nature 3
(apXVS Kal i%ov<rLas). Thus, as he expresses it, we are fulfilled
in Sim (iv avTm ire'TrXripcofievoi,), because in Him also (iv a> ical)
we have been circumcised in an immaterial sense (TrepiTOfiy
ayetpoTroif)Ta>), in the putting off (a-rreicSvaei) the body of the
sins of the flesh in Christ's circumcision, that is, when he thus
excided sin. And that there may be no chance of mistaking
his meaning, he adds that Christ blotted out the condemnation,
to which our fleshly uncircumcision was liable, and nailed it to
his cross ; and that, by thus stripping from himself, by a public
martyrdom, the principalities and powers of our lower nature
(a'TTeicSvadfMevo'i ra? apyas ical to.? e'lfoucr/a.?), he gave an
open proof, a manifest exhibition, of his victory over death and

1 Col. ii. 10, sqq.
2 The sense, in which Christ is said to he the head of that which stands in
a certain opposition to his spiritual and divine personality, may be gathered
from the other passages in St. Paul where the same designation is applied to
Him. Thus we constantly read that Christ, whose spirit animates the Church,
is its head, and the Church is His body (Col. i. 18 ; Eph. i. 22. 23, iv. 15, 16,
v. 30 ; 1 Cor. xii. 12) ; it is stated that this relation of headship is also borne
by the husband as compared with the wife (Eph. v. 23) ; and the same is de
clared in regard to the subordination of the human to the divine in Christ
himself. " I would have you know," says St. Paul (1 Cor. xi. 3), " that the
head of every man is Christ ; and the head of the woman is the man ; and the
head of Christ is God." We can have no difficulty therefore in understanding
that Christ is the head of all principality and power, on the supposition that
these are special terms representing the functions of our lower nature.

THE ADVOCATE OE CHRISTIANITY. 15
the grave, and triumphed over them on his cross before the
wondering eyes of Jewish priests and Roman soldiers.1
Nothing can be more explicit and consistent than this state
ment ; and its metaphorical phraseology is in strict accordance
with the passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, which describes
figuratively the contest which all true believers have to encounter.
There the Apostle says, that " our wrestling is not against blood
and flesh," i.e., not against living men, "but against principalities
and powers (dpyal, i^ovalat), against the world-rulers of this
life's darkness or sin, against the spiritualities of wickedness in
heavenly things.2 And there is not the least reason to doubt
that the most learned of the Fathers, Clement of Alexandria, has
rightly interpreted this pictorial exhibition of the inward fight
between the spirit and the flesh, in the following instructive
words : — " The contest involving all kinds of weapons (to
-iray/cpaTtov to Trdfipayov), is not against blood and flesh, but
against the spiritual powers of innate passions, which work by
means of our carnalities." 3
If, then, we would desire to be " buried with Christ in
baptism," and "to be risen with him through faith in the
operation of God who hath raised him from the dead," we
1 That iSetyfidricrev iv irajifino-lq (v. 15) refers to the publicity of the real
crucifixion is clear from the fact that iv va^Ticriq is opposed to iv Kpinra as a
synonym of (pavepms ; ef. John, vii. 4, 1 0 ; and for the publicity of the crucifixion,
see John, xix. 20. It must be allowed that a great exuberance of metaphors,
like that in which St. Paul indulges here and elsewhere, does not allow the
comparison to go on all fours. But when it is objected that the vanquished
enemies of Christ are " led in open triumph," and that " the heathen victors
did not display their own cast off garments in their triumphal processions,"
it is forgotten that the ancient Romans did not war with enemies who
took the field or formed a hostile array in their own limbs and fought against
their souls (James, iv. 1, 1 Peter, ii. 11); and when it is asserted that "it
would be a clear blasphemy to say that our Lord was clothed with active and
powerful fleshly lusts till the hour of his crucifixion," it is overlooked, that,
according to one of his chief apostles, Jesus " himself carried up our sins in
his own body to the cross " (1 Peter, ii. 24). A full discussion of the passage
in the Colossians, with reference to the criticism and controversy on the
subject, will be found in the Appendix at the end of this chapter.
2 Eph. yi. 12. 3 Strom, vii. p. 839, Potter.

16 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
must, like Him, submit to this circumcision, not effected by
hands; we must, like Him, put off this "body of death,"1
this scelerata pulpa' or "flesh of sin,"3 this "muddy vesture
of decay," which "doth so grossly close us in"*; we must,
in imitation of Him, " crucify the flesh with its passions and
lusts"5; and this must be done so "openly" that the world
may see and understand the completeness of the Christian's
triumph, and may cling with us to the faith that " when this
corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall
have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying
that is written, death is swallowed up in victory." 6
It is clear from all this that our first and main duty as
soldiers of Christ is to conquer the sin which reigns in our
members ; to cut off and cast away the impurities of the flesh ;
to triumph over those powers which tyrannize over our will and
enslave our affections. It is clear that the armour of grace,
which is offered to us, is intended for our defence in this conflict,
which, in the first instance, concerns ourselves only. It is clear
that the battle-field is our own secret heart, and that we celebrate
our triumph only by exhibiting in our conduct the victory we have
obtained, and the mastery we have secured over our own passions
and lusts. That this victory of faith is a victory of life and con
duct, and not of intellectual assent to certain propositions, is shown
not only by the figurative language of St. Paul, but also by the
express declarations of our Lord himself. He has told us 7 that
" if any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the
doctrine whether it be of God ;" in other words, that as faith
is religiousness of the heart and life, our perceptions of the
divine origin of what we believe will be strengthened by our
1 Rom. vii. 24. 2 Pers. ii. 63. 3 Rom. viii. 3.
4 Shakspere's ' Merchant of Venice,' v. i.
5 Gal. v. 24. » 1 Cor. xv. 54. ? John vii. 17.

THE ADVOCATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 17
acting in accordance with those precepts which we accept as
coming from God : and he concluded his Sermon on the Mount
with the emphatic assurance that, by carrying our faith into
practice, we should so strengthen the foundations of our re
ligious convictions that all the storms of persecution and
temptation would fail to shake the edifice : "Whosoever
heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken
him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock;
and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds
blew, and beat upon that house ; and it fell not, for it was
founded on a rock." ' Whereas those, who hear the words of
Christ without doing them, are likened in the same passage to
the fools who built their house on the fleeting sands, to be
swept away by the first onset of the storm. An Apostle, who
had lived in intimate intercourse with his Lord and Master, has
told us that "he that believeth on the Son of God hath the
witness in himself;2 and this self-acting criterion can have no
reality, unless the belief is carried into practice. The "pre
paration or foundation a of the Gospel of Peace " can be nothing
but "the faith which worketh by love"4 — for "there is no
peace, saith my God, for the wicked."6 It is a solemn truth
for all preachers and hearers, that it is not the loud profession
of allegiance, or an eager desire to rebuke what seems to us
the little faith of our brethren, which will serve the false
prophet in the great day of reckoning. Internal tranquillity
and real assurance of belief come only from the consciousness of
a godly and benevolent life. We may depend upon it that
religious irritability springs from an imperfect faith, which rests
only on the sandy basis of hypothesis and dogma. There is no
* Matth. vii. 25. 2 1 John v. 10.
" Eph. vi. 15. It is well known that tToiimo-la translates the Hebrew
too, Ezra, ii. 68. ; Ps. lxxxix. 15, which implies a firm foundation.
' 4 Gal. v. 6. 6 Isaiah xlviii. 22 ; lvii. 21.

18 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
fear for the religious stability of those who live religiously, and
with whom faith and obedience are necessarily co-ordinate and
correlative. They need no theories of an infallible literature,
or an infallible Church, for with them Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Let us once secure the victory
over the principalities and powers of our unregenerate nature,
let the spirit triumph over the flesh, let love control selfishness,
and there will never be wanting the witness from within to
assure us that our doctrine is from God. For if we understand
by faith the practical principle of religiousness, which finds its
expression not in words but in actions, we shall assent heartily
to Augustine's statement that "faith is to believe what as yet
you see not, of which faith the reward is to see what you
believe." 1
(b) It was not without reason that St. Paul distinguished
between the shield of faith, which should quench the fiery darts
of evil, and the breastplate of faith and love, that is, of Christian
righteousness, which sat close to the heart and protected it, even
when the shield was not held forth for its defence. But he
attributes them both to the same faith ; and, in point of fact,
they cannot be disjoined ; the wearer of the breastplate must be
also a bearer of the shield. Although it is the first duty of
Christ's disciple to work out his own salvation, to make his own
calling and election sure, man does not live for himself alone
and least of all in his relations with that religion which rests on
the abnegation of selfishness and on the union of brethren.2
1 Sermon xliii. cf. Clem. Al. Strom. I. p. 338, Potter.
2 The superiority of the relative principle to the personal and' individual
has been well shown by Mr. "Wilson in the sixth of his ' Bampton Lectures '
especially with reference to the imitation of Christ's sacrifice. " Here too "
he says '(p. 202), "most properly belongs that other text of St. Paul (Col
i. 24). ' I fill up in my body that which is lacking of the sufferings of Christ '
t« 6o-T€p^/_oTct tov XpuTToD, that is, that which Christ, the great self-sacrificer
left behind for me to do, in the way of suffering or self-denial, not for mv own
sake, not even for my own eternal interests, hut for the advancement of His
kingdom."

THE ADVOCATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 19
And it is by being Christians in the true sense of the word that
we are enabled to make converts to Christianity; it is by having
conquered the principalities and powers, which reigned within
ourselves, that we are empowered, as a Church, that is, as a
company or army of Christians, to overcome the principalities
and powers which rule in the unbelieving world ; and we bear
on our arm the shield of faith, at once the outward ensign of
our profession and the instrument of shelter and defence.
Standing ourselves on the firm footing or foundation (erotfiacrid)
of the gospel of peace, we can have no other principles for the
edification or building up (oiKoBofila) of our brethren. And
from whatever point of view we regard the subject, we must
come to the conclusion that Christian conduct is the best
justification of the Christian's cause.
This conclusion, however, is not merely a natural result from
our own reasonings on the subject. Our Lord himself, in his
most solemn address, has expressly given us this general rule
of action. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may
see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in
heaven." 1 And St. Peter, in applying this precept, passes
directly from our .victory, in the internal conflict with our
passions, to this example of righteousness which is to convince
and convert the world. " Dearly beloved," he says,2 " I beseech
you as strangers and pilgrims — as sojourners in a world which
is not your abiding city — abstain from fleshly lusts, which war
against the soul, keeping your behaviour comely among the
gentiles, that, wherein they malign you as evil-doers, they may,
from the beauty of your conduct, by merely beholding it, glorify
God when the time of his visitation (i.e., of their conversion) shall
arrive." The connexion between the innocency or personal
righteousness of Christians, and that wisdom or prudence, by
i Matth. v. 16. 2 1 Peter, ii. 11, 12.

20 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
which they are to recommend their cause to an unbelieving
world, is farther enforced in the Rabbinical saying, which.
our Lord appropriated when he gave his Apostles a sig
nificant warning, that, in preaching the Gospel to carnal
and selfish men, they would have to encounter the most
rancorous opposition and animosity1 — "Behold, I send you
forth as sheep in the midst of wolves : be ye therefore
wise ((f>p6vifwt!) as serpents, and harmless or pure (a/cepaioi)
as doves." He is here alluding to what the Jewish doctors used
to say of the Israelites in general : " They are wise as serpents
in their dealings with the gentiles, but pure as doves in their
faith towards God." 2 That this injunction did not apply exclu
sively to the Apostles, as the first ministers of our religion, but
was intended as a caution for Christians in all ages, is clear from
the universality and permanence of the state of things whielj it
describes, and from the manner in which the Apostles themselves
transfer this warning to their own converts and disciples. Not
they alone, but all Christians, to the end of time, have under
taken, as such, to go forth into a world at variance with their
religion, unwilling to receive its precepts, anxious to misunder-
i Matth. x. 16.
2 " Shir hashirim rabba," fol. 15, 3. Although, tha adjective <pp6vi/ios
used in St. Matthew's text is the same as that w/hich the T,Xx~. employs
to render tD11j> in Gen. iii. 1, it is not to he imagined that either the Jewish
doctors predicated of their countrymen the diabolical subtlety attributed to the
serpent m the old Hebrew allegory, or that our Lord recommended any such
subtlety to his disciples. There is no doubt that some of the ancients re
garded the snake tribe as cunning and mischievous ; and the later Jews who
were accustomed to the fables of the Persians, discovered a sort of Ahriman in
the serpent of Paradise (Wisdom, ii. 24; Rev. xii. 9, 20; Targ. Jon. on
Gen. iii. 6). But we are convinced that the original reading was not t3-Y"il>
but Q.*U>, the word which occurs in the context; and that the other reading-
with the Septuagint version, flowed from the view which the Jews took of the
matter in and after the Exile. At any rate, it appears from the very passage
in which Aristotle attributes bad qualities to the serpent tribe, that Ip6vmos
expresses cautious prudence rather than malice ; and this, no doubt was the
quality predicated of the Jews and recommended to Christians, as it 'was also
one predicable of most serpents, which generally shrink from provokins. their
enemies. Aristotle says (Hist. Anim. i. 1, 32), speaking of the characteristics
(fiBos) of animals : Tap.ev yap ear, -xpaa k.tT,. t^ S. Qpovipa Kal Se*d, 0ToV
e\a<j>os. Bao-movs, t<_ Se aveKevBepa Kal iiriQovKa oTov ol S<peis.

THE ADVOCATE OF CHEISTIANITY. 21
stand the motives, and to misrepresent the conduct of its most
sincere and earnest professors. All Christians therefore must be
prepared to cultivate a wisdom and cautious discretion, which are
innocent, pure, and harmless, — not only harmless from the spirit
of love, which belongs to all Christianity, but harmless to the
cause which we advocate. This is what St. Paul means when
he says ' : "Be children in malice or harmfulness, but be perfect
or full-grown in wisdom or understanding" ; and with reference
to the effect which this conduct would produce on the world, he
exhorts his disciples to do all things without niurmurings or
disputings, in order that they may be " blameless and harmless
or pure (d/cepaioi), the irreproachable sons of God in the midst
of a crooked and perverse generation"; and he adds : "among
these shine as lights in the world." 2
Here, then, we come back to Christ's general exhortation in
the Sermon on the Mount ; and we see that, when he bids his
disciples to let their light shine before men, and to be both harm
less and wise, the intended application of his words is one and
the same, and that they may be blended, as St. Paul has blended
them, in one sentence, warning us to take care lest the way of
truth should be evil spoken of through our faults and follies.3
Hence, too, we understand the practical bearing of our Lord's
brief but emphatic assertion that " wisdom is justified of her
children." 4 And we see that, as heavenly wisdom is heavenly
light, we best justify the wisdom of which we are professedly
the children, when we "walk as children of light."5 It is by
this preaching, as it were, to the eyes of the world that
disciples are won to Christ. The bright halo of light, which
pictorial fancy places over the head of the ecclesiastical saint, is
not more discernible than the sheen of holiness which plays about
i 1 Cor. xiv. 20. 2 Phil. ii. 15.
s 2 Peter, ii. 2. 4 Matth. xi. 19 ; Luke, vii. 35. 5 Eph. v. 8.

22 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
the truly good Christian, as he walks the tangled path of his
every-day life with unaffected piety and unostentatious benevo
lence. And while he is thus wise in regard to his own eternal
happiness, his wisdom must be harmless also in regard to the
promotion of the cause which he is anxious to recommend from
an unfeigned love for the souls of other men. That all sincere
Christians do not succeed in justifying by their conduct the
wisdom of which they are the adopted children; that, on the
contrary, many, by the outward exhibition of their carnal weak
ness, bring great discredit on the cause which they have espoused,
and afford the world an easy triumph over their own foolishness,
no one who knows the past or present state of Christianity will
be prepared to deny. That we may not lose ourselves in vague
generalities, let us consider three special forms of mistaken
Christianity ; and let us show, in each case, how- wisdom is not
justified of her children.
I. Wisdom is not justified of her children when they place
their chief reliance on a minute observance of religious rites and
ceremonies. Christianity was destined for all countries and for
all ages, and, by the nature of the case, rejects all that is Bpecial,
formal, local, and transitory. It would seem, therefore, a strange
justification of Christianity, if, when it began by setting itself
free from all the burdensome ordinances which encrusted the
inspired nucleus of-Judaism, we were now to confine our religion,
not only to devotional worship, which is the necessary comple
ment of faith in this imperfect state of probation, but even to
ceremonial mummeries of dress and symbolical action, many of
which were suggested by the pageants of heathendom, and which
are all, in themselves, matters of perfect indifference.1 Copes
1 It is said of an English clergyman in the 17th century — "As to church
ceremonies, as things indifferent, he was indiffering, never admiring them nor
judging them otherwise than Calvin did, for tolerabiles ineptias."—(IMe of
Matthew Robinson, edited by Mayor, p. 74).

THE ADVOCATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 23
and chasubles, altar-cloths and lighted candles, genuflections and
obeisances, are, with many, the indispensable conditions of a
comforting profession of faith; and, as if to recommend this
retrogression to the practices of Jews and Pagans, we are invited
to believe that the continual practice of outward devotion will be
the only employment of the blessed company of just men made
perfect, who encircle the glories of the heavenly throne ! Under
any circumstances, it must be somewhat unprofitable to speculate
on the possible occupation of those whose hopes are turned into
everlasting fruition. We might, if we were so disposed, indulge in
Platonic reveries respecting the soul's continued progress after
death ; we might gladden our poetic fancy with visions of perpetual
light, of never-ceasing harmony, of perfect emancipation from
all passions and all suffering, of love for ever gushing from the
soul, and unriWing as the amaranthine garlands which festoon
the avenues of that celestial Paradise. All this we might imagine,
and it would be neither more nor less idle than other fancies.
But to recommend to Christians, emancipated as they are from
the trammels of carnal ordinances, that they should devote their
lives here to ceremonial rites, on the ground that this will be
their sole employment hereafter, is quite as preposterous as it
would be to recommend an elaborate attention to our outward
vestments on the plea that our bodies after the resurrrection will
be decked out with a glory far surpassing that of earth. Worship
is but the external attire of our religious sentiments. It is the
less necessary in proportion as we are more spiritual, and must
become of no avail in that future state when we see, not as
now', through a glass darkly, but face to face ; when faith and
hope will abide no longer, because their functions will be super
fluous ; and when charity alone will survive, as the last fruit and
final exponent of Christian perfection.
II. Wisdom is not justified of her children when they make

24 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
religion to consist in voluntary hardships — such as fasting and
penance. In one sense it is true that the life of the genuine
Christian must be a perpetual Lent. Not only in the springtide,
but throughout the year, so long as he is a member of the militant
Church, he must endeavour to use such abstinence that, his flesh
being subdued to the spirit, he may be able to obey the godly
motions of his heavenly monitor. But he would neither obey
our Lord's precepts, nor would he act up to the spirit of our
religion, if he thought that by stated performances of periodical
self-denial — if a change of diet can be called by such a name, —
he will do that which is well-pleasing to God on its own account,
or secure the welfare of his soul. " Let no man," says the
Apostle,1 " judge you in meat or in drink " ; and it was in re
gard to a censure passed upon him for not engaging in stated
fasts, that our Lord declared that "wisdom is justified of her
children." Let those who feel that they are more than matched
in the struggle of flesh and spirit, which is going on within
them, — let those who find it hard to say " no " to sinful inclina
tions, and who, while their heart is willing, feel the weakness of
their carnal nature, — let such, in private, and not to be seen
of men, practise such discipline as they believe to be most
efficacious : but as far as eating and drinking are concerned
we cannot imagine any principle of action applicable to the
case of a reasonable and civilized Christian beyond this rule
— that he should at all times feel ashamed to eat or drink
more than his health and constitution require, and that he should
feel equally ashamed at any time to eat or drink less than he
requires, in the belief that he will please God by such a con
temptuous disregard of the law of self-preservation.2
1 Col. ii. 16.
2 Dr Whichcot has stated the case with his usual felicity :— « In eatino-
and drinking, let a man do nothing contrary to the health of the hodf,

THE ADVOCATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 25
III. Wisdom is not justified of her children when they
exhibit their religion in a peevish and morose austerity. We
shall best see this, if we revert to the figure in accordance with
which the children of wisdom are described as children of light.
Now, light is essentially cheerful; sour and petulant tempers
for ever dwell in gloom of their own creating. Christianity,
which manifests itself, wherever it has a genuine existence, in
peace, joy, hope, and love, can have no fellowship with that
sodden and comfortless heart which welcomes all merriment with
a growl of disapprobation. And yet to many, to very many, of those
who believe themselves to be the only true children of heavenly
wisdom, all unconstrained cheerfulness appears as something near
akin to a guilty disregard of religion. Those who have read
history are aware that this was essentially the characteristic of
the so-called Puritans of the 17th century. They regarded
all recreations as sinful. To their fierce and sullen temper the
most harmless diversions were tinged with criminality, and they
were never contented except when they were thoroughly miser
able themselves, and utterly offensive to all around them. Un
fortunately the race is by no means extinct. We still find in
this country, and even in our own Church, many who mistake
a stupid disregard of all that is beautiful, cheerful, and attractive
for a purely spiritual frame of mind, and who confuse between
the' wayward fretfulness of their own melancholic disposition
and the solemn influences of an ever-present fear of God. Let
those who have seen how such persons spend the Sunday tell us
whether wisdom is justified of her children. Truly one might
say, that with many of them religion was another name for bad
temper ; and it would not be a new case in the history of self-
deception, if those who were unable to contend successfully with
nothing to indispose it, as a mansion and instrument of the soul ; nothing to
the dishonour of himself, as a rational being, the image of God."

26 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
a physical infirmity were to gratify their conceit by promoting
it to the rank of a spiritual influence. While it is quite certain
that this assumption of Puritanical and Pharisaical austerity
produces a malignant effect on the religious tendencies of all
who are brought within its reach, the true children of wisdom
are still more impressed with a sense of the injury which it
inflicts on the moral character of the young.1 Experience tells
us that many of the worst profligates, and many of those who
have grown up with an unalterable distaste for religion, have
belonged to families in which Christianity has appeared only
under the form of a morose melancholy. The young are na
turally cheerful, and their very instincts tell them that mirth
cannot be always sinful ; and if, as too often happens, they
discern the slightest hypocrisy or even inconsistency behind the
gloomy veil of Pharisaical sanctity, their faith is weakened,
perhaps expelled for ever. A religion, the first Author of which
mingled freely in the social festivities of his age and country, is
not falsified by those who indulge in innocent amusements suited
to their position and circumstances. The entertainments of
fashionable life may involve much that is objectionable on its
own account. Late hours, and all that approaches to reckless
dissipation, would be censured even by a heathen moralist ; and
the Polemos of Athens had to dread the rebukes of Xenocrates.

1 The author of the " Essay on Church Parties," (reprinted from the
Edinburgh Review, for October, 1853), has made some good remarks on the
mischief of this Sabbatarian strictness. " Thousands," he says (p. 24), " are
alienated from piety, by associating it from thi? earliest childhood with a day
of gloom and restriction, imposed upon them by arbitrary force." Nothing
could well be more short-sighted than the recent efforts of the Puritanical
party to prevent the performance of even sacred music in the public parks on
Sunday afternoon. Their success will probably tend to widen the breach
between those who are already distinguished as the religious and irreligious
public respectively. It is to be hoped that rational godliness will in the end
prevail over Pharisaical bigotry, and that we shall at all events escape the
infliction of such Sunday-keeping as wo have in Edinburgh and Glasgow
where the prohibition of all innocent amusements leads to a frightful increase
of sottishness and debauchery.

THE ADVOCATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 27
But even the excitements of a London ball-room are more whole
some and less prejudicial than those of Exeter Hall, and a good
novel is more instructive than an absurd treatise on prophecy.
Religion suffers from every form of needless austerity and en
thusiastic extravagance. And if, in private life, the faith of a
child is shaken by the interferences to which we have referred,
a still greater risk is incurred when the Puritanical party under
take to treat the whole population of a great city like a set of
naughty children, who must not indulge in any recreation on
the first day of the week. The Jews themselves allowed a
Sabbath-day's journey; and there is no evidence to show that
they denied themselves any of the innocent enjoyments of life on
their weekly festival. And if the operatives of Manchester and
the shopkeepers of London are not to be permitted to escape
from smoking factories and narrow courts, and to listen to public
performances of even sacred music on their day of rest, the folly
of the party which would impose the arbitrary restriction will
soon be proved by a reaction against rehgion itself.
From all this it is quite clear that the shield of faith, with
which we ward off the fiery darts of evil, whether aimed at our
selves or others, in fact, the outward arm of defence, which the
Christian soldier wears in his conflicts with the world, is com
pacted of the same faith as his breastplate ; it is the faith which
works by love ; it is the faith which springs from hght and leads
to wisdom. In other words, the Christian's conduct, or his
obedience to the religion which he professes, is both the only
protection for his own heart and the chief recommendation of his
rehgion in the eyes of other men ; and his defalcations in love or
in wisdom tend, however little he may desire it, to injure the
cause which he professes to maintain.
(c) In addition to all the defensive armour, which he had
specified, St. Paul exhorts the Christian warrior to take "the

28 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." It is needless
to adduce a multitude of passages from sacred or profane writers,
in which the tongue or the utterances of speech are compared
to a weapon with its metal-edge or point.1 The power of pene
trating into the soul of the listener, which spoken words
exercise, fully justifies the figure ; and if we are to describe,
in military language, a weapon or instrument, by which Christi
anity would, as it were, take the offensive, and penetrate into
the strongholds and citadels of sin and unbehef, we could hardly
fail to say of the Word of God or Gospel as preached in the
world, that it is "living and active, and sharper than any two-
edged sword, piercing even to the separation of soul and spirit
(i.e. of the natural and religious life of man), and of joints and
marrow, and discriminating all the thoughts and intents of the
heart." 2 The instrument, however, to which such power is
attributed, is of divine origin. It is the word of God, and not
the word of man. It belongs to him who gave the message,
and not to the messenger. It is not some merely human blade,
dishonestly, foolishly, or ignorantly substituted ; nor is it the
human scabbard, in which the divine weapon is encased, and in
which it hangs idle and useless, until drawn forth for active
combat. It must be the Spirit's own sword, naked and sharp
and free from the rust of ages. It must be the Word as it
was originaUy dehvered to the saints ; it must be the veritable
revelation from God to man, which was consistent and har
monious, whether preached by Moses under the inspiration of
God, or by God himself in the person of Jesus Christ. And we
must not substitute for this or combine with it as a necessary
adjunct, either the ritual and formal system of the Jews or the
traditionary dogmatism of the Christian Church.
1 See the author's note on Pindar, 01. vi. 82. 2 Hebr. iv 12

THE ADVOCATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 29
On a former occasion,1 we have endeavoured to show that
there are only two forms, modes, or manifestations, under which
rehgion is possible. The first is the religion of those who are
impatient of the exactions of conscience, and wearied with the
duty of continued watchfulness and self-restraint; who being
unable, however, to get rid of their religious instinct, and having
an undefined fear of the future, create for themselves, or eagerly
adopt, some system of outward observances, and place upon a
stereotyped set of opinions, or *pon a visible church and priest
hood, the responsibilities which belong to themselves. The
other manifestation is the religion of those who feel that
worship is merely food for the love of God and man ; who are
assured that there is no way of getting rid of duties and
responsibilities ; who are convinced that contrivances for deaden
ing the conscience, and substitutes for the performance of
obligations, can find no favour in the sight of the righteous
Judge, to whose sentence they refer aU their doings ; and who
firmly believe that a conquest of self is the only means by
which we can become godlike here, and hope to hve with God
hereafter. The former is the religion ab extra, and its rule is :
credo firmiter, pecco fortiter. The latter is the rehgion ab intra,
and its rule is : credo quam maxime, pecco quam minime. The
history of revelation is the history of what God has done for
the establishment of the second manifestation of human re
ligiousness, — the religion of the heart, which rests on the per
sonal faith and conscience of the worshipper; and for the
discouragement of the former mode of religion — the rehgion of
forms and opinions, which is but a human approximation to the
true worship of God. The rehgion which Moses preached, as
we derive his doctrines from Deuteronomy — the only book which
professes to be from his pen — is emphaticaUy a rehgion of the
i " Protestant Toleration." London, 1850.

30 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
heart ; ' and the same was the character of the rehgion taught
by the great prophets.2 And after it had become graduaUy
overlaid and incrusted with the sacerdotal dogmas and cere
monies of the Jews, Jesus Christ again threw aside the scabbard,
and exhibited the sword of the Spirit in its naked brightness,
going back to the great commandments, which enjoined the love
of God and man, and on which hang aU the law and the
prophets ; and rejecting, as not only worthless but mischievous,
the ordinances, which his countrymen had learned to regard as
divine and essential. But the tendency to substitute a rehgion
of forms, for the religion of the heart and conscience, was not
eradicated by the estabhshment of Christianity. From the first
days of the Church, the religion ab extra began its encroach
ments, and continued to draw strength and nourishment from
the depraved instincts of our faUen nature, until both the East
and West had established forms of dogmatism and discipline
more carnal and more tyrannical even than those maintained
and enforced by the scribes and Pharisees, whom our Lord so
severely rebuked. How difficult it is for the true religion of
the heart and conscience to struggle effectuaUy with the carnal
ingredients, which check its growth in the soul, is shown most
clearly by the fact, that, even after England had, by at least
two efforts, shaken off the Roman Cathohc system of outward
forms and positive dogmas, and even after the Protestantism of
this country had combined itself with • political and literary
freedom, the same tyranny of external rehgion re-asserted itself;
and at the present moment, and nominaUy within the Church
the true faith, or genuine Christianity, is struggling for existence
in this land under the oppression of antagonistic partizans, who
are equally intolerant, and equaUy resolved to recognise nothing
1 Deut. x. 16. 2 See e. g. Jer. iv. 4.

THE ADVOCATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 31
as Christianity, which does not lean on some narrow ordinances
of positive and tangible import.
It is the great business of the genuine Christian, the true
soldier of Christ — who is neither more nor less than the manly
and honest Protestant — to draw forth the sword of the Spirit
from its scabbard ; to exhibit the Word of God, or the reve
lation from God to man, in its naked strength and beauty and
simplicity — as a rule of life, not as a Shibboleth of dogmas ;
and while by his conduct he* shows that he is one of the
children of light, he must take care that his weapon be bright
and flashing also ; that the word of preaching and teaching, by
which he penetrates to the soul and spirit of his hearers, be of
the genuine metal and temper ; otherwise he wiU not win souls
to Christ; otherwise he wiU but add new professors to that
rehgion from without, which belongs to the flesh rather than
to the spirit, which is classed with the kingdoms of this world
and not included in the kingdom of God, or the blessed company
of aU faithful people.
The Church of England, although beset on both sides by
the clamorous advocates of some form of infallibility, has never
been entirely without those true champions of Christianity, who
fight for Christ with the genuine weapon of the revealed Word,
and refuse to take instead of it or along with it a duU and latten
blade of human manufacture. Even in the seventeenth century,
when Prelatism and Puritanism had between them set up the
most rancorous hatred and uncompromising dogmatism, instead
of the Gospel of Love and Peace, there was found at least one
man, who could claim for the Anglican communion a broad and
indestructible basis of essential truth, necessary morality, and
universal benevolence.1 Dr. Benjamin Whichcot was the head,
1 See a paper by the writer of these pages in Fraser's Magazine for
October, 1851, entitled "Dr. "Whichcot and Bishop Butler."

32 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
and perhaps the founder, of a school of liberal conservatives,
on whom the bigots of the day bestowed the name of Latitudi-
narians, and who are now caUed the Broad Church, but who
are reaUy the true champions of the Christian Orthodoxy of
England, as they were in the latter half of the seventeenth cen
tury. Their characteristics, and the influence which they exercised
on their own generation, are thus described by Bishop Burnet :
" If a new set of men had not appeared of another stamp,
the Church had quite lost hei* esteem over the nation. They
were generaUy of Cambridge, formed under some divines, the
chief of whom were Drs. Whichcot, Cudworth, Wilkins, Moore,
and Worthington. All these, and those who were formed under
them, studied to examine farther into the nature of things than
had been done formerly. They declared against superstition on
the one hand, and enthusiasm, on the other. They loved the
constitution of the Church and the Liturgy, and could weU hve
under them ; but they did not think it unlawful to live under
another form. They wished that things might have been
carried with more moderation. And they continued to keep
up a good correspondence with those who differed from them
in opinion, and aUowed greater freedom both in philosophy
and divinity, •from whence they were caUed 'the men of
latitude.' And upon this, men of narrower thoughts and fiercer
tempers fastened on them the name of Latitudinarians. They
read Episcopius much. And the making out the reasons of things
being the main part of their studies, their enemies called them
Socinians. They were aU very zealous against Popery. And so
they becoming soon very considerable, the Papists set themselves
against them to decry them as Atheists, Deists, or, at least,
Socinians. And now that the main principle of rehgion was
struck at by Hobbes and his foUowers, the Papists acted upon
this a very strange part. They went even so far into the argu-

THE ADVOCATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 33
ment for Atheism, as to publish many books, in which they
affirmed that there was no certain proof of the Christian religion,
unless it was taken from the authority of the Church as infaUible.
This was such a delivering up of the cause, that it raised in aU
good men a very high indignation at Popery, — that party show
ing that they chose to make men, who would not turn Papists,
become Atheists, rather than believe Christianity on any other
ground than infaUibility."
The manner, in which the head of this school of sober and
rational believers feU back upon the essentials of Christian
morality, wiU be best shown by a few citations from the
aphorisms in which Dr. Whichcot's doctrines have been most
satisfactorily preserved : " We worship God best, when we
resemble him most. The first act of religion is to know what
is true of God; the second act is to express it in our hves.
Religion is not a system of doctrines, an observance of modes,
a heat of affections, a form of words, a spirit of censoriousness.
Religion is unity and love ; therefore it is not rehgion that
makes separation and disaffection. Christ's design was to rid
the world of idolatry, to discharge the burthen of ceremonies,
and to advance the divine life of man. Those who have not
the temper of religion, are not competent judges of the things
of religion. We may maintain the unity of verity in point of
faith, and unity of charity in point of communion, notwith
standing aU differences in point of apprehension. Men's appre
hensions are often nearer than their expressions ; they may mean
the same thing when they seem not to say the same thing. God
has set up two lights to enlighten us in our way ; the light of
reason, which is the light of His creation; and the light of
Scripture, which is an after-revelation from Him. Let us make
use of these two lights, and suffer neither to be put out. He
that useth his reason doth acknowledge God. What has not

34 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
reason in it, if held out for rehgion, is man's superstition : it is
not rehgion of God's making."
These extracts, taken almost promiscuously from the exten
sive coUection of Dr. Whichcot's aphorisms, contain the germs
of a complete system of individual and personal religiousness,
resting on the essential truths of revelation, deduced from
Scripture by the free use of the reason. He saw plainly that
our rehgion does not consist in a system of doctrines, but in a
rule of life, and that we best serve God by working out the
spirit of the Gospel. He saw that the Church of England must
be catholique a gros grain, 1 that she must be dogmatical only in
regard to vital or essential matters, else she could 'not be the
church of the majority. And in the true spirit of Protestantism,
he insisted on hberty and charity, feeling that the rehgion,
which rests on the supremacy of the individual conscience,
claims for aU its professors a perfect freedom of judgment ; and
that the system, which finds the fulfilment of the divine law
in doing unto others as we would they should do unto us, can
allow no zeal to temper the toleration which charity enjoins.
If, then, we would really use the sword of the Spirit as
the instrument of conversion, we must first of all be spiritual
ourselves. In this way alone can we distinguish between the
word of God and the word of man ; for spiritual things are
spirituahy discerned.2 In this way alone can we get to the truth
which is invincible, and escape the false opinion which is hable
to overthrow. In this way alone can we attain to the know
ledge which marks the true Church, as distinguished from the
1 This excellent phrase and its explanation arc given in the " Ducatiana "
p. 476: "Cela peut signifier catholique gueri dcs superstitions les plus
grossieres. Le chapelet  est compose de gros et de petits grains Les
gros ser vent a dire le Pater . . . et les petits sont pour les Ave. . . Ainsi le
catholique a gros grain est celui dont les oraisons s'adressent a Dieu et qui
laisse les Ave k dire aux superstitieux." '
2 1 Cor. ii. 14.

THE ADVOCATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 35
ignorance which characterises paganism, and the dogmatism
which engenders heresies.1 The sword of the Spirit, which is
the Word of God, does not consist in the tradition of men,
or the visible elements of writing, which lead to fixed and
dogmatic ordinances ; 2 those who would use it must be ministers
not of the letter which killeth, but of the spirit which giveth
life.3 As Jesus himself declared :4 "It is the spirit that quick-
eneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing ; the words that I have spoken
unto you, they are spirit and they are life." And as St. Paul
says : 6 "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." But
we cannot get either life or liberty from the weak and slavish
elements of literal dogmatism;0 we can then only grasp the

1 aviKijTos r) ak-'i]0eia, ipevSoSol;ia Be KaraXveTat. Clement of Alexandria
(Strom, vi. p. 780 ; Potter). — The same learned Father says (Strom, vii.
p. 894 ; Potter) : Tpiav ovoStv StaOeaeav Trjs tyvx vs, ayvoias, oHiffetcs, iirio'T-
"flfjiTls, oi fiev iv tt} ayvolq, to. eQvi], ol Be iv Ty imffT-i]p.ri , 7] 'E«KAijcrIa 7]
a\7]6f)s. ol Se iv otfo'ei oi Kara, ray aipe&eis : i.e. " As there are three con
ditions of the soul, ignorance, opinion, and science, those who are in ignorance
are the heathen, those who depend on science constitute the true Church, and
those who are slaves to opinion are divided among the different heresies."
2 Col. ii. 8, 20—22. 3 2 Cor. iii. 6. 4 John, vi. 63. 5 2 Cor. iii. 17.
6 An examination of the passages cited in the text, will show clearly that
our Lord — and St. Paul, as the expositor of his meaning — fully recognised
the distinction between the letter of Scripture and its spirit ; and indicated
that, whereas the latter alone was the Word of God, the former was merely
its worldly, visible, carnal, corporeal, and tangible vehicle. This, in a word,
is the sacramental character of Scripture ; and in this, no less than in the
sacraments of the Church, we must be careful to distinguish between the
outward visible sign and the inward spiritual grace. The Church of Rome
confounds the sign with the thing signified in the Lord's Supper ; but the
Puritan makes a similar mistake in regard to Scripture, and substitutes an
infallible text for an infallible revelation of spiritual truths. As we have
indicated above, both Papists and Puritans assert a religion ab extra, a religion
resting on beggarly elements, for that religion which is spirit and life. Now
Jesus says (John vi. 63) : t!> vvev/id iarw Tb faovowvv, r) ahpt, ovk axpeAe? ovSev.
Ta tfnaTa a iya \a\& vfuv wvev^d iaTiv Kal (at) iirnv. The immediate
reference of these words is to the sacrament of his body and blood ; but they
are equally applicable to his doctrine couched in words, and to his own nature
as a compound of the divine spirit and human flesh. With regard to the
latter St. Peter says (iii. 18) that he was BavaTaBels fiev o-apKi, J>ott_i7)0_1s
Be vvei/ian. With regard to the former, St. Paul says (2 Cor. iii. 6) : t_
ypdu.ua airoKTeivei, t_ Be Tvvev/w (aoiroteT. And no scholar can fail to see the
exact accordance of the doctrine in these three passages. But in the other
passages quoted from the Epistles to the Colossians and Galatians, St. Paul
expressly designates the scriptures of the Jews, and the traditions and dogmas

36 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
vital truths of God's revelation, when we descend to those
essential verities, which the Jewish and Christian dispensations,
being both divine, must have had in common, and when we
appropriate them to ourselves by a conformity of heart and life,
of faith and practice.
We see, then, that the Christian's first duty is to conquer the
sinful tendencies of his own carnal nature, because religious life
consists in a triumph of the spirit over the flesh. Until he has
done this, he is not qualified or competent to wage war with
the unbelieving world, or to win souls to Christ. He must
recommend his cause by his conduct ; the shield of his faith
must be compacted of the materials of Christian righteousness.
And if he is to gain a spiritual victory, his weapon must be the
genuine sword of the Spirit; it must be the simple revelation
from God to man, and not those forms of human dogmatism by
which it is encumbered and rendered ineffectual ; or even the
mere letter of the written word, in which it is included and
contained. For as Christ himself was God and man, as every
man is a compound of spirit and flesh, so Scripture exhibits both
the letter which kiUeth and the spirit which giveth life ¦ both
the weak and beggarly elements of human tradition and the
Word of God, or the revelation of true religion.

and
risen

which they contained, as worldly elements {to. o-roixeta tov k6o-u.ov)
intimates that, in Christ, his disciples have died to all these things andnsm
to the spiritual law of liberty. The word o-Toixetov is used in good authors
to signify either the elements of which the visible world is composed- or
the letters as elements of written words ; or the simple sounds of the voice
as the first elements of spoken language. As St. Paul adds the explanatorv
genitive to. koo-u-ov (Gal w. 3 ; Col. ii. 8, 20), it is clear that he means
something temporary and tangible. As he couples these elements with
human traditions („ ™p«_o<r« tZv ayBparrav, Col. iv. 8), and ordinances
(SVoto, Col.u. 14 20; cf. Acts xvi 4: irapeSiSovv avroh <pv\d<ro-eiv rh
S6yuaTa), he manifestly opposes them to divine revelation. As he calls them
weak and beggarly elements {ao-Bevrj Kal 7rTo,xd: Gal. iv. 9) he clearlv dis
tinguishes them from the strength and riches of divine grace. Is he
attributes to them an enslaving power (Gal. iv. 3), be obviously intends the
deadening and debasing and profitless letter, as contrasted with that vivi W
spirit, which is a pledge and earnest of freedom (2 Cor. iii. 17). ' °

THE ADVOCATE OF CHRISTIANITY. 37
In thus endeavouring to show that the Christian advocate's
competency depends on his personal religiousness and spiritual
wisdom, we have appealed to texts of Scripture, and especially
to those which, being couched in figurative language, have been
transmitted with the additional safeguard of a peculiar phrase
ology. But the same results might have been deduced from the
general tenor of Gospel teaching. The poet has said, with great
point and energy —
" For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight :
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right."
Whatever criticisms may be passed upon this sentiment by the
vehement upholders of particular opinions in theology, it cannot
be denied that, supposing it to be said of one who is already a
Christian,1 it is in accordance with the general spirit and with
the very letter of the Bible. Guided by this criterion, we can
have no hesitation in saying that Christianity is a rule of life,
and not a set of speculative opinions. Accordingly, those points
in which aU religious men agree, must be more essential to
religion than the questions in which they differ, and which are
generaUy made the most of by those who are least conspicuous
for practical hohness and Christian charity. This being the case,
we not only nurture our own spiritual life, and encourage the
faith of others, by acting in obedience to the laws of practical
Christianity ; but also, by contending only or mainly for those
principles in which aU good Christians are agreed, we wield the
unsheathed Sword of the Spirit, and find the whole body of
believers ranged on one side and forming one line of battle. By
thinking men, in Protestant England, this assertion of the real
unity of all believers, in that which is essential to their spiritual
1 This proviso removes this sentiment of Pope ("Essay on Man," 3rd
Epist. ad fin) from the class of opinions condemned in our XVIII. Article.
It is strange that Dr. Hey did no't see this.

38 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
life, has been put forward from time to time as a principle of
toleration and an argument of strength. It was maintained in
the seventeenth century by John MUton. "It is written," he
says, " that the coat of our Saviour was without seam ; whence
some would infer that there should be no division in the Church
of Christ. It should be so indeed ; yet seams in the same cloth
neither hurt the garment nor misbecome it ; and not only seams
but schisms wiU be while men are faUible. But if they who
dissent in matters not essential to behef, while the common
adversary is in the field, shaU stand jarring and pelting at one
another, they wiU be soon routed and subdued. To save our
selves therefore and resist the common enemy, it concerns us
mainly to agree within ourselves, that with joint forces we may
not only hold our own but get ground." And in another passage
he remarks — " The Gospel faithfuUy preached, the desolate
parishes visited and duly fed, loiterers thrown out, wolves driven
from the fold, had been a better confutation of Popery and the
Mass than whole hecatontomes of controversies, and all this
careering with spear in rest and thundering on the steel-cap of
Baronius and BeUarmine." To the same effect we may quote the
words recently addressed by a Bampton Lecturer to the University
of Oxford1 — "The unity of moral disposition and of moral
purpose, which has in fact made aU sincere foUowers of Christ
one, in aU times and in aU churches, has and does and wiU
traverse their differences — not as a generalization from them —
without superseding or tending directly to supersede their several
creeds and special constitutions, unless it be when they are
essentially exclusive or damnatory. But this unity must itself
be founded on some faith, — some faith common to aU Christians,
— some faith capable of being received, without difference, by aU
1 Wilson's " Bampton Lectures," pp. 278 — 280,

THE ADVOCATE OE CHRISTIANITY. 39
men. For, in making the identity of their disposition and pur
pose, rather than their dogmatic faith, than their historical faith,
than their feelings, than the supernatural influences in which
they beheve, than their worship, or than their formal virtue, the
true Cathohc characteristic — this moral purpose, wherever per
manent, must imply an habitual wiU. Wherever there is habitual
wiU, there is fixed faith and conviction, — fixed faith and conviction
of some good within reach. It is a fixed faith in the supremacy
and victory of good over evil. By this faith disciples in ah ages
have wrestled confidently with the evU within ; have stood, when
enabled to stand, believing that He, which had begun the good
work in them, would confirm it unto the day of the Lord Jesus
Christ. By this Apostles and apostohc men have removed
mountains, have struggled with and overcome adversaries, have
resisted unto death ; because, with them, this faith is not only
in the victory of good over evil, but that they are appointed
instruments to the winning of it."
We conclude, therefore, that the genuine advocate of Chris
tianity, the true champion of the Church, can only be found in
the ranks of those who have come forth victorious from the ordeal
of an internal conflict; who undertake to defend and propa
gate, in the name of Christ, only that religion from within in
which their own peace and happiness consist, and in which aU
good men must find the common ground of a sincere and cordial
union and agreement; and who win over souls to Christ by
"walking as children of hght," and so leading men, who "see
their good works on earth," to glorify their Father which is in
heaven.

APPENDIX I.
(CHAP. I. pp. 4, 13, 15.)
ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN REVEALED RELIGION
AND THE NATURAL AND MORAL HISTORY
OF MAN.

Although our belief in the personal existence of God and the
personal immortality of man is not instinctive ; although this
belief, in aU that gives it a special character, is necessarily
derived from revelation, it is not the less true that, if we omit
the idea of personality in either case, if we speak only of the
existence of God and man's immortality, we may seek for these
truths in the evidences of natural reason. And in any case,
religion, to be accepted at aU, must accommodate itself to man's
nature, must recommend itself to his reason, and must concur
in its promises with his antecedent expectations. Besides, we
cannot maintain that which is peculiar to the Christian religion,
as the one formal manifestation of divine truth, without re
verting to that which is involved in the general definition of aU
rehgion. And in order to do this we must be able to apprehend
what it is that makes man, as such, essentially a religious being.
Accordingly, the whole inquiry respecting religion wiU resolve
itself into an analysis of the opposition between the moral and
natural history of man ; between that which is peculiar to
himself, and that which he has in common with" other animated
beings. In this way, alone, can we see why man, who exists
in the present, raises his thoughts to the absent and the future ;
why, subjected here to all the conditions of sin and pain, of

42 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
decay and death, he still connects himself with an expected
existence, in which these clogs and incumbrances will no longer
impede and confine him.
The important inquiry, which we propose to discuss very
briefly, involves three successive questions.
1 . What is an animal ?
2. What is man as one of the animal kingdom ?
3. What is man above and beyond that which he owes to his
rank in animated nature ?
1. In answering the first of these questions, we wiU accept
the theory of Lorenz Oken, not because we adopt the materialistic
conclusions of that great naturalist, but because the concession
of that theory wiU give an a fortiori value and strength to our
own argument.
Natural history properly includes a scientific account of all
visible nature ; but it is practically confined to a discussion of
the separate or separable objects on the surface of this planet.
These objects are divided into three great kingdoms — the
mineral, the vegetable, and the animal ; to which three distinct
sciences correspond — mineralogy, botany, and zoology. We
may distinguish the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal
with reference either to their structure or to their functions.
(a) When we speak of their structure, we mean the
primary elements of which they are composed. To adopt the
common nomenclature, — there are four primary elements : earth,
water, air, and fire or aether.
If earth is combined with only one of the other three, the
result of this binary combination is a mineral. If earth is com
bined with both water and air the result of this ternary com
bination is a vegetable. If earth is combined with aU three of
the other elements, the result of this quaternary or exhaustive
combination is an animal.
(b) When we speak of the functions of the three classes of
natural objects, we mean what they are capable or incapable
of doing. The mineral is dead or inorganic, and has ho activity, save
in magnetism and crystallization.
The vegetable lives, grows, and propagates its species, but
docs not move spontaneously.
The animal does aU this, and moves also.

OKEN S THEORY. 43
Without entering into the details of the ingenious theory, by
which Oken explains the relation between the structure and the
functions of the three different classes of things which con
stitute the objects of natural history, and without criticising the
facts and principles which form the basis of his speculations, we
wiU briefly state his views respecting the animal, considered as
a further development of the mineral and vegetable.
While we find that a binary combination of the elements in
the mineral does not produce life, we see, when we pass on to
organic bodies, that the plant not only consists of earthy particles
capable of reduction to carbon by the action of fire, and contains
water in a fluid state, but also is fuU of passages or spiracles
for the air, which penetrates the whole body, and electrifies and
oxydizes the substance just as it does in the atmosphere. So
that we have here earth, air, and water, in juxtaposition, but
retaining properly theh respective functions. The result of
their combined agency we call life, which is, indeed, a sort of
galvanism. As, however, the plant does not go about to seek
its nutriment, but remains passive on the earth on which it
lives, it is not an agent, but only a recipient of imposed
conditions. In order that the organic body may move as weU as live, we
must add to the earth, water, air, and the fourth element which,
for want of a better name, we call aether. For a self-moving
body must have aU three parts of the sether, according to Oken's
view of its nature : it must have ( 1 ) weight, i.e., a centre of
gravity, which makes it independent of the surface of the
planet ; (2) heat, especially expansion and contraction, or inde
pendent movement in all its parts ; ( 3 ) hght, which gives
activity to the system of movement, and refers the whole body
to a centre. A body thus constituted by a quaternary com
bination, or complete union of aU the elements, is caUed an
animal. It has an earth-organ in the blood, a water-organ in
the intestinal canal, an air-organ in the lungs or ghls; and
three organs for the Eetherial element, namely, bones for weight,
muscles for heat or movement, and the nerves, and especially the
eye, for light, i.e. for the stimulation of movement. And thus
we have in the animal a separate organic structure, which has
not only a distinct existence, but also the means, in combination
with its own kind, of propagating its species ; whereas the plant

44 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
is not only attached to the soil, on which it lives, but is in most
cases limited to itself for the means of fecundity.
Thus, according to Oken's theory, the three domains of
natural history present in their structure a regular development
from a combination of two elements up to a combination of four,
which, as it were, carries all nature in itself; and, in their
functions, a progress from the negation of motion to perfect
motion. For the mineral has no faculty of motion, either
within or without ; the plant has internal motion, consisting of
life and growth ; and the animal has not only this internal
motion, but also external motion; it not only has circulation
and growth, but also a spontaneous movement of its organs.
It appears from this view of the matter, that the animal is
only a further development of the same sort of combinations
as those which produce the mineral and the vegetable — that they
are aU three of the earth, earthy ; — made up of the visible and
tangible materials of whioh this planet is composed.
And now comes our great question — what is man ? How does
he stand related to this system of successive developments ?
Is he only an animal, or is he something more ? Can he be
described and defined by natural history alone ? or, would not
the main part of his definition and description be omitted, if we
confined ourselves to his apparent place in the animal kingdom ?
2. In order that we may come to a satisfactory solution, let
us inquire what is the natural history of man ? What is he
merely as a member of the animal kingdom ?
We may concede, without the least hesitation, that, what
ever man is besides, he includes a development of the structural
organization which is found in aU the highest classes of animals.
As far as he lives, and moves, and feeds, and grows, and pro
pagates his species, he is a member of the animal kingdom.
His nervous system is more fuUy organized, and his brain is
much larger and more active. But, although the principle of
motion is the same in kind, there are, nevertheless, even in the
outward frame of man, peculiarities not to be found in any
other member of animated creation. The essential and organic
difference between man and beast, so far as the limbs are con
cerned, consists in the soles and hands of the former. No other
animal has this diversity of structure. The free agency of man
depends on this difference between his two pairs of limbs.

MAN AS AN ANIMAL. 45
Among beasts, both fore and hind feet are employed in carrying
the body; but in man, the hinder limbs, with their feet, carry
the whole body through every diversity of movement ; and the
body carries the hands, which thus obtain a free play, and are
consequently enabled to perform every variety of employment,
without at the same time impeding the actions of the body.
In this consists all the mechanical power of man — his ability
to increase his agency by the use of tools and instruments. If
we suppose that apes have an advantage in four hands instead of
two, we must remember that our advantage consists not in the
number, but in the diversity of our organs. Unable to walk on
his hinder pair of hands, the quadrumanous animal is reduced
by this augmentation to the rank of a scrambler or climber.
The position of his face and forehead, which enables man,
while walking upright, to look around, before, and above him
self, is a consequence of an enlargement of his cranium cor
responding to that of his brain, of which we shaU speak by and
by. It is this which gave him his distinctive title in the
language of the Greeks — avdpanros, "he that looks upwards;"1
and which the Roman poet has described in his striking line :
" Os homini sublime dedit ccelumque tueri."
If, however, man had no advantage beyond that of his physical
conformation, we should assign him a place in mere zoology.
He would constitute a higher species by himself, but would stiU
stand on a footing of paraUehsm with other animals. Besides,
he would not be able to make a fall use of his other endowments
and physical advantages, if he had not something within him to
guide and direct his energies. And this brings us to our remain
ing inquiry.
3. What is man above and beyond that which he owes to. his
rank in animated nature ? What is the true definition of man ?
That which distinguishes man from aU other animals is what
we caU, in common language, a reasonable soul : and he has, as the
coordinate and necessary result of this, the faculty of speech.
The true definition of man is that " he is the only reasonable
and speaking animal." This definition not only draws a dis
tinction between man and beast, but also overrules aU attempts
to divide mankind into separate species. As a class, man is not
1 See Lobeck, Paralipomena, pp. 118, 142.

46 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
only separate or solitary, but is one within himself. We not
only reject all brotherhood with other animals, but we claim
brotherhood with all men (see "New Cratylus," p. 59, 2nd
edition). Now, as there are great physical differences among
men, this separation and this unity must be attributed to the
fact that man's essential definition depends upon his moral, not
upon his physical characteristics. Consequently, man is what
he is, by virtue of that which distinguishes him from aU other
members of the animal kingdom — his faculty of reasoning, and,
consequently, of speaking.
To maintain the proposition that man is the only reasoning
and speaking animal, we must be prepared to defend two pro
positions. 1 . All men have reason and speech. 2. No animal,
except man, has reason and speech.
1. All men have reason and speech.
If we take the most debased and degraded of human beings —
for instance, the Bosjemen and Austrahan aborigines — we find
that they can not only speak, but that they can remember and
describe. Indeed, we have seen in the former race some re
markable exhibitions of dramatic representations; and nothing
of this kind is found in lower animals.
When our attention is directed to the case of infants or idiots,
we must remember that these are instances in which the animal is
not a completed or unimpaired receptacle of the rational faculty.
It does not dweU there for want of an adequate abode. The
same remark applies in a lesser degree to the case of those who
are unable to speak in consequence of some physical infirmity.
In the highest degree, however, an imperfect development of the
reason in man is only the same in the individual case, as it was
with the whole world before the creation of our species, or in
uninhabited deserts now. For animal hfe, as we have seen, is
but a combination of the elements of space, and the reason is
something distinct or superadded.
The manner in which the reason seems to depend on struc
tural development in the case of the infant, and, stiU more, of
the idiot, leads to the inquiry suggested by the phrenological
theory. The proper answer to this solves aU the difficulties
suggested by the two former cases — of degraded or imperfect
humanity. The error into which people generaUy fall is that of
confusing between the cause and the effect. Craniological struc-

REASON AND SPEECH. 47
ture is the effect, not the cause, of intellectual culture and
civilization. This has been shown by an enormous induction in
the case of national or large and long-continued families of men ;
and even in the case of individuals, it has been observed that
particular studies tend to produce a corresponding enlargement of
the frontal structure. We knew one case of an eminent mathe
matician, who ascertained by regular admeasurement that his
organs of perception, most particularly engaged in his studies,
gradually increased in distinct prominence. It is also known
that children inherit more or less the craniological forms of their
parents ; and some persons have thought that the mother transmits
to the sons and the father to his daughters the more striking
peculiarities of their mental and moral characters respectively.
Consequently, the intellectual results of the characters formed by
habit and study are continuous and not limited to a single life.
That this is independent of the effects of climatology is shown by
a very large induction in the case of the Anglo-Americans, who,
although their physiognomy is affected, like that of the native
Indians, by the loss of fat in the ceUular substance and other
effects of the chmate, retain in full vigour the mental and moral
energies of their British ancestors. From these and a number of
other considerations, which might be adduced, we infer that in
man the tenement of organic life is moulded at its nervous centre
by the tenant and his heirs, and that the godlike dwells with the
human in proportion as the human is fitted for its reception.
2. No animals, except man, have reason or speech.
If we reaUy consider the meaning of the word, we must allow
at once that speech does not consist merely in words spoken, but
presumes a corresponding act of the mind, which we caU abstrac
tion, or the power of framing general names and predications.
Where there is no evidence of the existence of this sort of speech,
there is no evidence of the indweUing of reason ; for speech, in
the proper sense of the term, is an endowment necessarily co
ordinate with reason. The merestbaby, which has the fuU use of
its faculties, seems to abstract and begin to generalize ; but the
most sagacious brute can only understand, fancy, and associate.
It is necessary that we should carefully distinguish reason,
imagination, and inference, from understanding, fancy, and
association, if we would clearly perceive how the former belong
to man only, while he shares the latter with lower animals.

48 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
Understanding deals only with facts, learned immediately from
the senses ; reason ascends to principles, which, to it, are as
certain as any facts for which there is the evidence of the senses.
Fancy frames pictures of single objects from the suggestive
presence or recoUection of that which is seen by the bodUy eye ;
imagination combines these fragments of fancy into coherent groups
and detailed compositions, which are pleasing, because they are
possible, even when they are most felt to be unreal. Association
merely connects certain objects or actions with others which
always or generaUy accompany or foUow them ; but inference
recognises a necessity of sequence, even when there is a long
chain of intermediate or connecting ideas. Thus aU animals
may be said to understand and know what to eat, drink, and
avoid ; but man alone can investigate the principles of nutriment
and poison ; he alone can distinguish between the gluten, starch,
and fat, which contribute to our sustenance, and the aUyle,1
with which we season our food ; and he alone can prepare for his
use a compound or artificial diet. The dog may dream of his
pursuit of game, or the horse may fancy that there is 'dangerous
life in a heap of stones or the trunk of a tree ; but it is only
man who can create a consistent and lengthened detah of dreamy
fiction, or can suffer from the effects of continuous delusion.
The pointer may associate the work which he has to perform
and the corrections which enforced it ; or the horse may learn by
habit that a certain turn in the road leads to his stable ; but it is
only man who can form systems resting on necessary inferences
and supported by demonstrations which all men can appreciate.
With regard to speech, it is idle to say that beasts would speak
if they had the power of articulation ; for many birds can frame
syllabic sounds, and yet cannot discourse, or say, as the expres
sion of theh own thoughts and wishes, what they are taught to
say by imitation. If it even seems to be otherwise, as when the
parrot says, " Give poUy a bit ! " this is the result of association,
quite as much as when the lap-dog stands up to beg for a scrap.
The learned pigs, trained horses, and performing elephants,
which are exhibited, are merely taught by similar associations
to do a certain limited range of performances, and they never
originate anything analogous to that which they are so labo-
1 See "Johnston's Chemistry of Common Life," vol. ii., p. 270.

MORAL ATTRIBUTES OF MAN. 49
riously taught to execute. And when we talk of training or
educating the pointer and the retriever, we merely mean that,
without reasoning about it, they are made to understand that,
under certain circumstances, they are to do certain things not
unconnected with their natural instincts. They are only instru
ments or tools, not independent agents; and it is a favourite
phrase with sportsmen, that " hounds have no right to think ! "
No amount of education wiU produce an effect even on the cranial
development of a lower animal, though in man this effect is not
only producible, but even transmissible to his offspring.
But the distinction between man and beast is not limited to
the intellectual qualities of the former. The divine or non-animal
element in man is shown far more by his moral attributes. It is
man only who has a conscience, a sense of right and wrong, an
approving and disapproving faculty, a conviction of his own
responsibility. It is man only who can systematically control
the impulses of his lower nature ; who, in his highest develop
ment as an individual, cultivates virtue and discourages vice ;
and who, in the best forms of that political society and civiliza
tion which he alone is qualified to conceive and carry out, makes
laws and rules for the subjugation and control of rude passion
and brutal selfishness. Even in regard to those impulses, which
are necessarily common to man and the inferior animals, we
observe that his moral and inteUectual qualities, where they are
aUowed theh full play, exercise an absolute pre-eminence and
authority, and make man most unlike the beasts of the field even
in those functions which are most essentially bestial. For
instance, in regard to the propagation of his species, man is the
only true monogamist. In proportion as his moral instincts are
duly cultivated, he regards " casual fruition '"as moraUy wrong
and abhorrent to his higher nature. It is he alone who under
stands and enjoys the happiness which springs from the mutual
1 Milton, from whom this phrase is borrowed, expresses very happily the
strictly human character of monogamy (" Paradise Lost," iv. 750) :
" Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety
In Paradise of all things common else.
By thee adulterous lust was driven from men
Among the bestial herds to range ; by thee
Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities
Of father, son, and brother, first were known."

50 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
affection of a famUy. The relations of husband and wife,
father and child, brother and- sister, are appreciated by all good
and civilized men ; but the lower animals know nothing of this
beyond the temporary and instinctive duties of the breeding -
season. The she and dam and young of this year wiU be strangers
and rivals when a few months have passed away.
In addition to these reasons for distinguishing between man
and beast, we must take into account our own irresistible con
viction of the independence of our moral and inteUectual being.
We have here an argument of the same kind with that which
proves to us the reality of the external world and its opposition
to ourselves. Man's distinctive personality, with aU its results,
depends upon his self-consciousness ; and this self-consciousness
teUs him that his soul is not bound down by the conditions of
animal life. The a priori argument for the immortality of the
soul consists in an impression or instinctive belief, which con
firms itself whenever it is reaUy awakened in the mind. Ante
cedently to the discoveries of revelation, reflecting men would
acquiesce in the conclusion suggested by Jean Paul — that it is
not and cannot be the final destination of the essential part of
man to be imphcated in the sufferings and casualties of his
merely animal nature ; l and as it is a consequence of this feeling
that man regards himself as belonging reaUy to another world,
he is essentiaUy a religious being ; and long before the conversion
of the heathen, rehgious societies were formed, in which the bond
of union was some hope, more or less vague, of a future life.
Greek philosophers could teach that the body was but the out
ward dress of the soul, to be worn in this world as a mere attire,
and to be cast off and left behind when its present use was at an
end, when it was worn out and no longer available. And poets
could teU us, that the drunkard stifles, and the profligate sensualist
enslaves, his reason, and that an unlimited indulgence in carnal
desires sinks man to the level of the beasts that perish, by the
tale of Circe's cup of pleasure, which transformed into bestial
shapes the men that drank of it.
If we now pass from purely human reasonings on the
opposition between the natural and moral history of man, to the
revelation of Scripture on this subject, we shaU see that the
1 "Der Kampaner Thai," "Werke," vol. xl., pp. 67, foil. The remarks
in pp. 62, 63, appear to us eminently beautiful.

CONSONANCE OF REVELATION. 51
same lesson is conveyed from the first to the last page of the
Bible ; that the opposition of the flesh to the spirit, and the
reference of sin and death to the predominant influences of the
former, while the latter is represented as divine in itself, and
calculated to raise our whole nature to a personal immortality,
is, as it were, the key-note of the Old as weU as the New
Testament, the main element in that harmony which binds
together the earlier and later, the Jewish and Christian systems
of revealed truth.1
The book of Genesis states that " the Lord God formed man
of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life : and man became a living soul " (Gen. ii. 7) ; and
this is the opposition between the material and the spiritual in
the composite structure of man, to which we have been led by
the theory of Oken, and by our own reasonings. In the same
way the Creator is described as " the God of the spirits of aU
flesh" (Numb. xvi. 22; xxvii. 16); and a similar opposition
between the divine origin of the spirit and the dissoluble sub
stance of the flesh is assumed in Isaiah's expression (xxxi. 3) :
" the Egyptians are men, and not God ; and theh horses flesh,
and not spirit." Hence the flesh is the cause both of sin and
of death, regarded as the termination of the spirit's limited
sojourn in its mortal tenement. In the book of Genesis (vi. 3)
Jehovah is made to say : " My spirit shaU not always preside in
man, because of theh sin, that is, the flesh." In other words;
the sinfulness of the flesh makes it unable or disqualified to
serve as an enduring tenement of the divine spirit.2 There is a
perpetual opposition between these two elements in the com
posite nature of man. If the flesh gains the mastery, the
spirit, being vanquished, flees away — moraUy by the triumph of
sin ; physicaUy by the triumph of death. If, on the other hand,
the spirit asserts its supremacy, the flesh is led captive — moraUy,
by the triumph of religious faith; physically, by the resur
rection and consequent immortality of the body and soul. The
view thus briefly expressed in the sixth chapter of Genesis is
fully developed in the New Testament, and especiaUy in the
1 This subject is fully discussed in " Jashar," pp. 41—73 ; 347, 348.
8 There is great force in the expression scelerata pulpa used by Pcrsius
(ii. 63). It is quite the Biblical o-dpl

52 CHRISTAIN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
writings of St. Paul,1 and it seems likely that St. James, in
an important passage (iv. 5), reaUy refers to the text of Genesis ;
for we ought to read : 7T/30? <f>96vov im, 7766(0 [legitur iTmroOeT^
to TTvevfMi oi [legitur o] fcaToa/crjo-ev iv r)fuv. He is speaking of
"the pleasures or lusts which make war [o-TpaTevovrat] in our
members " (ver. 1) ; and he goes on to refer to the operations of
carnal selfishness — concupiscence, envy, war, battle, murder,
(v. 2); "ye adulterers," he adds (v. 4, 5), "know ye not that
to love the world is to hate God ? or think ye that the Scripture
says with no meaning (tfewS?) : it was from enmity against lust
that the spirit did not dweU in us ?" In precisely the same way,
St. Paul says (Gal. v. 16 sqq.) : "Walk in the spirit and ye
shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh ; for the flesh lusteth against
(eTrtOvfiet KaTa) the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; and
these things are opposed to one another, so that the wiU is not
free." And after enumerating the works of the flesh and the
spirit respectively, he adds : " the disciples of Christ have cru
cified the flesh with its passions and lusts " (aiiv toI<s Trady/iao-iv
Kal Tat? eTTidv/Auus.)
As the flesh is that which binds man down to the present life
and to this lower world, we find that /coo-fios or " the present
order of things," is often substituted for aap%, "the flesh."
Thus, as St. Paul has, in the passage just quoted, spoken of the
flesh as necessarily crucified by those who are reaUy Christ's, so
in the next chapter (Gal. vi. 14) he says : " God forbid that I
should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by means
of whom (or which) the world is crucified to me (i/jtol /cocr/io?
ia-TavpwTai) and I to the world." And in the Epistle to
Titus, ii. 12, the lusts ofthe flesh are called Koo-fuical e7ridv/j,iat
or " worldly lusts." Hence St. James, in the passage just quoted
(iv. 4), says that the love of the world is hatred of God (57 <pi\la
tov Koo-fiov exOpa tov deov io-Ttv). And in precisely the same
way St. John warns us (1 John, ii. 15) : "Love not the world
neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the
world the love of the Father is not in him." And having
mentioned the lust of the flesh (r) imOv/Ltla tt?? o-ap/c6<s) as one
of those things that are in the world, he opposes the transient
« ™ S.ee Th°luct'i. "¦ E™?"** TJntersuchung iiber _-ip| als Quelle der Siinde."
"Theol. Stud. u. Krit." 1855, pp. 477 sqq.

THE FLESH AND THE WORLD. 53
nature of the world and its lust (r) irndv/jLta avTOv) to the
immortality of those who do the will of God. According to the
same Apostle, this world, which loves darkness or sin rather than
hght or spiritual illumination (John, iii. 19), is the source of
temptation, and is 6 7701/77/365, "the wicked one or tempter."
Thus, in the passage just quoted (I John, ii. 13, 14), he says
twice: "Ye have conquered the wicked one" (vevi/cijicaTe tov
irovripov); in the same Epistle (v. 4) he says: "Every thing
that is born of God conquers the world " (vtica tov icocrfiov) ; and
again (18, 19) : " We know that whosoever is born of God sinne th
not ; but he that is begotten of God keepeth (Tijpet) himself, and
the wicked one (6 Trovrjpo^) toucheth him not. We know that
we are of God, and that the whole world heth in the wicked
one" (6 Koa/jtot; o\o$ iv tg> Trovqpcp /ceiTai). And in the same
way as we are taught to pray in the Lord's prayer, " lead us not
into temptation (et? Tretpacrfwv), but deliver us from the evU
one " (a7ro tov Trovqpov), Jesus himself, according to St. John
(xvii. 15), prays for us: "I do not ask that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them
(Trjpfio-rj'i) from the evU one " (ix tov Trovqpov). With
sinhlar reference to the Lord's prayer, the writer of 2 Peter, ii. 9,
substitutes pveaOat e/c 7retpao-fiov for pveo~6at a/irb tov irovqpov.
And it may be laid down that temptation, the world, and the evU
one are commutable terms ; and the lust of the flesh, as the
predominant principle in the world, as the tendency to a selfish
regard for the present life only, is justly oaUed "the ruler of this
world " (6 tov Koo-fiov apyoov, John, xiv. 30), and the passions
are " the world-rulers of the darkness or sin of this life "
(Koo~fioKpdrope<; tov o-kotovs [tov atwvo<f\ tovtov, Eph. vi. 12).
In the same sense, and with reference perhaps to the material
elements of which our lower nature is composed, we are told " to
mortify o*r members which are upon the earth " (to, fJbiXrj Ta
eVt TJ7S <yrj<;, Col. iii. 5), where the vi/cpcoo-K, or mortification of
that which is earthly, is a putting off of the old man (Col. hi. 9),
by a sort of circumcision (Col. ii. 11) or crucifixion of the flesh,
foUowing the example of the veKpasai<;, to which Jesus himself
submitted (2 Cor. iv. 10). And it is in reference to this that St.
Peter says (1 Peter, iv. 1) : " He who has suffered in the flesh
has ceased from sin" (6 traQoov iv o~ap/cl TriiravTai afxapTtas)
cf. Rom. vi. 7. Hence the Fathers explain the (ppovrj/xa o-apico<;

54 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
as 76068779 hiavoias opfifj, "an earthly impulse of the mind"j
to be in the flesh is rfqivtos tjrjv, " to live in an earthly sense "
((Ec. ad Horn. viii. 13) ; and the flesh itself is caUed 77 Trovr/pa
irpoaipeo-iM, 6 Xoyio-fjLo<; 6 76008779, " the wicked will, the earthly
thought " (Chrys. ad Gal. v. 16). Specially, with reference to
those passionate impulses in which the selfishness of the flesh
finds its expression, the heart is regarded as the source of
temptation and sin both in the Old -Testament and in the New.
Thus in the book of Genesis we read (vi. 5) that "God saw that
the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil every
day " ; and again (viii. 21 ) that " the imagination of man's heart
is evil from his youth." The book of Proverbs mentions (vi. 18),
among the things which the Lord hates, " an heart that deviseth
wicked imaginations." And 'the prophet Jeremiah says (xvii. 9)
that " in every man the heart is crooked and desperately wicked,"
where the predicate nhdq6v," crooked," is tacitly opposed to jdshdr,
"straight," just as jdshdr is opposed to the word rendered "im
agination" of the heart in Ecclesiastes vii. 29: "God made
mm. jdshdr, straight, (as opposed to crooked) ; but they devised
(i.e. in theh hearts) many imaginations or inventions." In
accordance with all this, our Lord says emphaticaUy (Mark,
vii. 21 — 23) : " From within, out of the heart of men, proceed
wicked wranglings, fornications, murders, (and other sins which
he enumerates) ; aU these evil things (irdvTa TavTa tcl irovnpa)
proceed from within and defile a man."
But the flesh, the world, and the heart are not only the
causes of sin, which is theh moral triumph ; they are also the
causes of death, which is their physical triumph over the soul ;
and when St. Peter says (1 Pet. i. 11): "dearly beloved, I beseech
you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, inasmuch
as they make war against the soul" (anreyeaOe tcou aapKtK&v
iTn8vfii6jv, aiTive? aTpaTevovrat Kara T779 tyvyfjs), he refers
no doubt, to the mortality and destruction, which are the fruits
of carnal selfishness : for we are strangers and pilgrims with
reference to the transient nature of our sojourn in this world.
In the same way St. Paul says (Rom. viii. 6) : " the affection of
the flesh is death, but the affection of the spirit is life and
peace." Thus also he says (Gal. vi. 8): "he that soweth to
his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption (<f>6opdv) ; but he

SIN AND DEATH. 55
that soweth to the Spirit, shaU of the Spirit reap life ever
lasting (%cor)v alcbvtov)." SimUarly, the author of 2 Peter i. 4,
says: "that ye may be partakers of the divine nature, having
escaped the corruption (cf>9opdv), which is in the world through
lust." And as the book of Genesis says figuratively that the
Spirit of God refused to preside continuaUy in man on account
of the sin which is in the flesh, St. Paul declares distinctly
(Rom. v. 12) that "by means of one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin." Conversely, in proportion as the
lusts which wage war against the soul are defeated in the battle
which rages within, in the same proportion the Spirit of God
returns to preside within us, until the corruptible puts on
incorruption, and the mortal puts on immortality ; when death
is robbed of its sting, which is sin, and swaUowed up in a per
petual victory over the grave (1 Cor. xv. 53 — 57). When this
triumph of the spirit over the flesh is complete, the terrestrial
fabric, which is represented as our vestment or tabernacle, has
superinduced upon it a garment of spiritual life, and its mor
tality is absorbed or swaUowed up in a new spiritual existence
(2 Cor. v. 1—5).
This, then, is distinctly the doctrine of the whole body of
Scripture, and revealed rehgion fuUy confirms what we learn
from philosophy, that there is an opposition between the two
ingredients of the composite nature of man; between man as
merely an animal, and man as a spiritual being; between the
terrene and the heavenly which are combined in his double
life. "I know," says the Apostle (Rom. vii. 18), "that in
me, that is, in my flesh, dweUeth no good thing." But man
is not only flesh ; and while in his body he carries about him
the germs of sin and death, in his spirit he bears at least a
susceptibility for righteousness and immortality. This prevah-
ing doctrine of Scripture did not escape either the Jews, who
read the Old Testament before the coming of Christ, or the
Fathers, who studied the New Testament. The author of the
fourth book of Maccabees says (4 Mace. vii. 18) : "as many as
take thought for piety with their whole heart, these alone are
able to conquer the passions of the flesh." (oaoi evo-efielas rrpo-
voovatv e£ 0X779 /capSlas, ovtoi fjtovot, hvvavTai Kparelv two
tt)? aapicbs iradwv). Chrysostom (ad Rom. vii. 18) says : " the
corruptibUity of the flesh does not possess a freedom from

56 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
passion, consequently, it is not perfect, complete, and sinless "
(to T779 crap/cbs <f>0apTov ovk eyjet, to diraQks, oihe to TeXetov icat,
dvevheh Kal dvafidpTr/Tov). Cyril of Alexandria, commenting
on the same passage, writes: "the appetites which carry us off to
everything, and the sins of a life of pleasure, have the flesh for
theh fountain-head, and make war against the spirit,'' (at opeifet?
al 7rpo9 Trdv otoovv dnvoKop>iCpvo~ai Kal T779 <piXr)86vov £__>.79 Ta
ijKXijfiaTa 77777771/ eypvct ttjv aapKa Kat KaTaaTpaTevovTai
tov TrvevpMTOs). And Theodore of Mopsuestia says on the
14th verse : "fleshly is equivalent to mortal, and on this account
having much inclination to sin," (aapKiKos ovtI tov 6vr]To<;
Kal 8ta tovto ttoXXtjv irepl tov dfiapTavew eywv poirfjo). And
again on the 18th verse: "as far as relates to the flesh, since
the nature which it has is mortal, none of those things which
contribute to virtue are practicable : for our mortal condition
induces us to aim only at the present, and from our eagerness
for these things, sins are engendered " (oaov eVt tt} crapKi Qvr\-
rr/v iypvarj ty)v <pvo-iv, oi/Sev tojv et9 dpeTr/v awTeXovvTcov
•jrpayOrjvat SvvaTar 97 fiev yap 6vrjT0T7j<; two TrapoVTCov i<f>l-
eaOai fwvov 777x^9 TrapacrKevd^et, e'/c Se T779 7rept Tavra o~ttov-
8779 d/MapT-rjfiaTa TtKTeTai).
According to the true interpretation, — of which the writer
of these pages claims the discovery, — the third chapter of
Genesis, which has been regarded theologically as the chief
authority for aU that we know of the origin and nature of sin,
is merely a Jehovistic or peculiarly Israelitish — and, to a certain
extent, local and temporary — view of the subject which we have
been considering under its cosmopolitan and everlasting aspects.
To an Israelite, living in the golden age of theocratic discipline,
meditating on the principles and rules of life, which separated
his own race from the rest of the world, and contemplating the
characteristic sins against religion and morality, by which the
conterminous nations were disgraced and ruined, it must have
appeared that sin and death were not merely functions or results
of the flesh in general, but speciaUy inherent in the gross
fornication and idolatry involved in the phallic worship of
Baal-peor, which met him on aU sides with its revolting
symbols and bestial practices. It is a natural tendency that we
should contemplate abstract and general questions from the point
of view suggested by our own age and country, and, as it

THE THIRD CHAPTER OF GENESIS. 57
were, substitute the example for the rule. As, therefore, the
idolatry of Baal-peor was the form of apostasy from Jehovah,
which was selected as an object of special prohibition, it was
almost inevitable that the concrete would take the place of the
abstract, and that the specific form would serve as a starting-
point for aU general denunciations of moral and religious guilt.
That the worship of Baal-peor or Priapus reaUy led to flagrant
immorality, is weU known to every reader of the book of
Numbers ; and it was quite reasonable that the Phallic emblem
of generation and hfe, which was sometimes represented as a
serpent, should be regarded in its nudity as a source, or the
source of temptation. What, then, could be more natural than
that a Jew, who was taught to regard with special abhor
rence the idolatrous fornication of Baal-peor, should seek in
some analogous primeval sin for the cause of the painful
necessities of circumcision and chUdbhth ; and for the ex
planation of the lot of labour, which was especiaUy entahed on
the fathers of famUies ? The more strictly we scrutinise the
peculiar phraseology of the Hebrew text, the more convinced
we must be that this is the intended meaning of this obviously
figurative narration.1 Nor is its truthfulness confined to the
case of the Jews, or its warning to the specific sinfulness of
phallic idolatry. It must always remain true that sexual abuse is
the most bestial and pernicious form of carnal lust, and therefore
the most opposed to the due supremacy of our higher or spiritual
nature. Clement of Alexandria, referring to 1 Cor. vii. 1, 2, 5,
says that the Apostle's warning does not refer to the case of those
who confine themselves to the legitimate objects of marriage, but
1 See " Jashar," pp. 45-56. To the criticisms and interpretations there
proposed, we adhere with undiminished confidence. We add the following
hints for the consideration of those who are capable of appreciating an exe
getical argument. The plea for the punctuation QilJJ (above, p. 20) seems
to us irrefragable, because this word is used emphatically, both in ii. 25, and
in iii. 10, 1 1, and because mik kol must mean " in all " both here, and in v. 14,
and in Jerem. xvii. 9. For the reference of such a statement to the con
ceptions of a pastoral nation like the Jews, we might refer to Theocritus and
Lono-us. One of our opponents, the Mr. Perowne mentioned below, who
is a°Lecturer on Hebrew (!!) has the effrontery to say that we are guilty
of " a strange inconsistency," when we write \ for !) here, but refuse to change
;-|Ve> i"1*0 ib&i because this reading "involves too great an alteration m
the Masorethic punctuation." As we said nothing about the punctuation in
this latter case, but referred, of course, to the inserted letter jod, the Hebrew
Lecturer must be convicted either of ignorance or of misrepresentation.

58 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
to those who go beyond this, "lest the enemy by blowing hard
should turn the surging billows of appetite to pleasures which
do not belong to us " (iva fjtr) ttoXv iirtiTvevaoyi [legitur
eTrtvevo-as] 6 Bi ivavTta% iKKV/joyvrj ttjv ope^tv et9 aXXoTptas
77S01W?) ; and the same Father weU observed that it is the
fornicator and adulterer who is truly bestialized (6 toiovtos
iK0ripcovTai, Clem. Alex. Strom, iii. p. 558, Potter). The aUe-
gory in Genesis iii. connects the general sinfulness of lust with
the special sinfulness of disobedience to the divine law. The
Jews were dhectly forbidden to imitate the idolatrous wickedness
of theh neighbours; and the warning commandment not only
rendered sin more inexcusable, but added to the carnal con
cupiscence, which degrades the spiritual nature of man, the
carnal arrogance, by which he shakes off his aUegiance to the
divine rule and makes a god of himself. This feehng of
impious autonomy is referred to in the narrative itself (Gen. iii.
5) ; and the most learned of the Christian Fathers and the most
profound of the Scholastic Theologians have seen that the root
of sin is two-fold — inclination to carnal lust, and disobedience,
or the proud disaUowance of God's authority. Clement of
Alexandria says (Cohort, ad Gentes, p. 86, Potter) : "The first
man sported freely in the garden of delights, and was subjected
to pleasure : for the serpent aUegoricaUy denotes pleasure. So
the boy was seduced by pleasure, and the grown-up man by
disobedience." SimUarly, Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary
on Rom. vii. 7, says (fol. 27, Paris, 1541): " Concupiscentia
de qua hie loquitur est generate malum, non communitate generis
vel speciei, sed communitate causalitatis. Nee est contrarium
quod habetur Eccle. xxx. Initium omnis peccati superbia.
Nam superbia est initium peccati ex parte aversionis. Concupis
centia autem est principium peccatorum, ex parte conversionis
ad bonum commutabile."
The great fact, by which religion iUustrates this essential
opposition between the carnal and spiritual components of human
nature, is that of the Incarnation and Atonement. By assuming
our flesh with aU its liabilities, and triumphing over the tempta
tions inherent in our lower nature, the Word subdued and recon
ciled to God not only the tendency to carnal lust, but also the
tendency to carnal disobedience. Thus Clement of Alexandria
says, in the passage just quoted, that " whereas man, originaUy

THE INCARNATION AND ATONEMENT. 59
free, was found bound in sins, the Lord was wiUing to make him
free again from those bonds ; and being imprisoned in the flesh,
with this he vanquished the Serpent and enslaved the tyrant, death,
and exhibited that very man who was in the fetters of destruction
free with open hands. The Lord died, and man rose up again ;
and he who feU from Paradise receives Heaven as a greater
reward of obedience." This is the consistent doctrine of the
Apostles, who represent the victory of Christ over sin and death,
as a triumph of the Spirit over the flesh, of the divine over the
merely animal element in the nature of man. St. Paul says.
(Rom. i. 3, 4) that Jesus Christ, " who was born of the seed of
David according to his flesh (Kara adpKa), was declared to be
the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by
the resurrection from the dead " (eV Bvvdfiet, Kara rrvev/jta
dr/Looo-vvris e'f dvao-Tdo-ews veKpwv). In the same way St. Peter
says (1 Peter iii. 19) that Jesus Christ " was put to death in the
flesh, but made alive in the spirit." It was this successful contest
with his lower nature which constituted his sinlessness. If there had
been no passion, no liabUity to temptation in his lower nature, if,
in fact, he had not been man, as we are men, there could have
been no contest, and consequently there would have been no vic
tory, and no example or encouragement for us to hope to obtain
the resurrection and a similar exaltation of our nature. But it
is expressly stated that he had our nature with its liability to
sin and its subjection to the condemnation of the law. St. Paul
says (Gal. iv. 4) : " When the fulness of time had come, God
sent forth his Son born of a woman, and so born under the law,
in order that he might redeem those who were under the law."
Again he says more fuUy (Rom. viii. 2, 4) : " The law of the
spirit of hfe in Christ Jesus has liberated me from the law of sin
and death ; for when the law was incompetent from its carnal
weakness (eV & r)aQkvet Sta, tt)<; aapKO<i), God by sending his
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (iv ofiouufiari crapKos
dpapTias), and as a sacrifice for sin, condemned the sin in the
flesh, in order that the righteousness of the law may be fulfiUed
in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the
spirit." In this assumption of our flesh, with its liability to sin,
which made it obnoxious to the law, consisted the reconciliation
or atonement between the human and divine, which was the
result of the self-sacrifice of Jesus. God " reconciled us to him-

60 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
self through Christ," because "God was in Christ reconeUing the
world to himself" (2 Cor. v. 18, 19). " He made him, who — in
his divine nature — had not known sin, to be sin for us, that we
might become the righteousness of God in him" (ibid, v. 21).
For although " Christ did no sin," he " carried up our sins in his
body to the cross, in order that we being free from sin might hve
in righteousness and be healed by the blow inflicted on him "
(1 Peter, ii. 22, 24). In this way he stripped off from himself the
powers of sin and darkness, the natural sinfulness and mortality
of human flesh, and triumphed over it on his cross (Col. ii. 15) ;
and it was only by his sufferings that he was made perfect
(Hebr. ii. 10). TJntU this triumph was effected, and his human
nature thereby transformed and exalted (PhU. ii. 20), he was in aU
respects like his brother men (Hebr. ii. 17, 18), and was able to
sympathise with our weakness, because, although actuaUy sinless,
he was tempted in aU respects as we are (Hebr. iv. 15). Nor does
St. Paul hesitate to make a direct contrast between the original fall
of man and the triumph and exaltation of Christ ; and from this
contrast to derive the great duty of imitating Christ, to which
St. Peter also refers (1 Peter, ii. 21). He says (PhU. ii. 5 sqq.) :
" Endeavour to imitate the temper and spirit of our blessed Lord,
who, although he was from the first (vTrdpycov) in the form of
God, nevertheless did not think that the being equal with God
was an object of eager desire (apirar/fiov) ; but, on the contrary,
emptied himself of his attributes, and became not only a man but
a slave, and even submitted to the slavish death of crucifixion."
It is easy to recognise in these words a reference to the account
of the FaU of Man as given in the Book of Genesis. The induce
ment to transgress, to which our first parents yielded, is there
represented not only as fruit hanging on a tree, an dpTray/Aos,
a thing worth catching at, a prize to be eagerly sought after, an
object of longing to the eyes, and " to be deshed to make one wise ' '
(Gen. hi. 6); but also as calculated to make those who partook of
it to be "as God, knowing good and evU" (hi. 5). The first
man then, being made in the image of God, did think it a
matter worth catching at " to be equal with God " ; and, in con
sequence of this precipitate attempt at self-exaltation, was de
prived of his privUeges and banished from the presence of God.
The Redeemer, on the other hand, being from the first (vTrdpyav)
in the form and substance and nature of God, being the bright-

THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. 61
ness of his glory and the express image of his person (Hebr. i. 3)
did not snatch at superhuman immunity from obedience and
suffering, but, divesting himself of his divine privileges, obtained
for his human nature a perpetual exaltation to the highest place
in heaven. But by far the most important and distinct of aU the passages
in which St. Paul states his view of the double nature of
Christ, and of his relation to the double nature of man, is
that in the Epistle to the Colossians, which was much better
understood by the early Fathers of the Church than it has been
even by the most learned of modern commentators. And it will
ever be a subject of just pride and rejoicing to the author of
these pages that he has been permitted to revive the true inter
pretation of a passage which leads of itself to the overthrow of
the most fatal of conventional errors in regard to the person and
office of our Saviour.1
A general interpretation of the passage is given in the text.
We shaU here vindicate our exegesis by a more detaUed examina
tion of the original Greek, and shaU take this opportunity of
exposing some of the dishonest subterfuges by which an attempt
has been made to bolster up the authorized mistranslation of St.
Paul's words.
It would carry us too far from our immediate object if we
:_ Although all the German expositors have failed to discover the true signi
fication of this passage, we have learned, since writing the above, that one of
them has at all events avoided the obvious error respecting the voice of
aireKSvadfievos. In his book entitled " der Schriftbeweis," vol. i. p. 305 Dr.
Hofmann of Erlangen writes as follows : — " That here not Christ, but, as iii
the previous sentences, God is the subject, is now the universal opinion  ¦
Baur only excepted. Just as universally are people agreed in contenting
themselves with the assurance that the middle aireKSieaBai may be used with
an accusative of the person in the sense ' to strip off or despoil.' That this is
false, and that aireKSveffBai here bears the same meaning as in iii. 9, or as
cnreKSvo-is in ii. 11, needs only to be suggested; it needs no proof." But
although Dr. Hofmann thus clearly perceives the meaning of the participle,
he is led by the German notion, that God is the subject, into a most fantastic
explanation of the context. He says — " God has put off from himself the
powers, which ruled in the heathen world, which hung round him like a
covering, and concealed him from the heathen. By showing Himself to the
heathen in unveiled brightness, He exhibited in open triumph, before the eyes
of all, those powers of heathendom, which could no longer withdraw Him
from their eyes, in their true character, as gods who are yet no gods, who
therefore could not withstand Him, but must yield to him the field of battle."
As we have shown in the text that the nominative in agreement with
aweKBvffdiievos is not Be6s, but Xpurrds, we will not waste a word in refitting
this fantastic interpretation.

62 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
inquired how far St. Paul's conceptions were effected by the
phraseology which he had learned in the school of Gamaliel, and
how far that Rabbi, like the other Jewish teachers, had adopted
the Babylonian and Persian duahsm, which during and after the
Exile exerted no httle influence on Hebrew hterature. It wiU
be sufficient, in examining the passages in the Epistle to the
Colossians, to investigate the meaning of the Greek words,
illustrated as they are by the context of the Epistle, and by the
interpretations of the oldest commentators.
St. Paul's views respecting the pre-existence of the Son of
God, and his relation to the double nature of man (Col. i. 12 — 23 ;
ii. 9 — 15), are in strict accordance with St. John's statement
respecting the Logos (i. 1 — 5 ; 8 — 14 ; 16 — 18). Both Apostles
have adopted the phraseology, which speaks of the opposing
realms of light and darkness, and which, in the hands of the
Manichaeans, connected itself with a most pernicious dualism.
It is clear, however, that with these early teachers of Chris
tianity, no dualism is implied in the phraseology, beyond that
opposition of spirit to matter which we have already discussed.
The doctrine, which they inculcate, is simply this : The Father,
dwelling in the hght which no man can approach unto, whom
no man hath seen or can see, has become appreciable, in the
creation of this universe, and in aU his dealings with it, through
or by means of bis only begotten Son. In this personal mani
festation, he existed before aU time, and so contained within
himself, potentially, aU that subsequently came into being. The
Son, therefore is not only the image or representative of the
invisible God (bIkc&v tov Oeov tov dopdrov, Col. i. 15), but also
the prelude of aU creation (rrpcoTOTOKOS trdar]^ Kriaeari) ; 1 in
1 It is to be observed that, although the word tcpwtStokos or tcputotSkos
occurs in the classical writers, its usage by St. Paul in Col. i. 15, 18, differs
not only from the classical but even from that in other passages of the New
Testament. George Chosroboscus (Epimerismi in Psalmos, page 167, ed.
Gaisford), has rightly said : tI Siatpepei irpotrSTOKos ko.1 irpanoTOKOs ;
ttpwtStokos pev yap i<TTi 6 irpwTos yevvrnBeis' TcpatroT^Kos Be 7) apart)
yevvkaaaa. The first of these senses it bears in all the other passages in
the New Testament, and in Anthol. Pal. ix. 213 : the second in the classical
authors, e.g. in Horn. II. xvii. 5; Plat. Thesetet, p. 151 c. ; Theocr. v. 27.
But in the Colossians it must mean "born before all the creation," for the
Word was the instrument of creation ; and " raised before all from the dead."
We have an analogy for this in the adjective 7rpuT6ir\ovs, " going to sea before
all other ships" {i.e. the Argo), Eurip. Andr. 865 ; upoiroTtSpos, "going before
the rest of the army"; TrparSp'pvTos, "flowing first," etc.

GNOSTIC PHRASEOLOGY. 63
him, as the statue is in the marble (Aristot. Metaphys. viii. 6),
aU creation existed, potentially (v. 16); through him, as the
instrument (_>_-' avTov), and for him, as the object (ek axrrov),
aU things were made (ib.) ; and he is the antecedent and founder
of aU things (v. 17). Thus much for his pre-existence and
agency in the creation of the world (cf. John i. 3, 10, 18 ; v. 37 ;
vi. 46 ; xiv. 8, 9. Heb. i. 9. Philo i. p. 162). In the same
way, it is stated that, in his incarnation, he was the head
of his body, the Church, the exemplar of bodily resurrection
(TrpaiTOTOKo^ m twv veKp&v v. 18) ; because the whole Godhead
deigned to dweU in him in a bodily form (v. 19 ; cf. ii. 9). Con
sequently, he was able in himself to reconcUe the divine with
the human, by a self-denial, or circumcision, of the latter (v. 20,
ii. 11). And aU, who unite themselves with him by faith and
baptism, partake of his divinity, and triumph hke him over
death and sin (h. 10 — 15).
In this statement, we are chiefly concerned with the ex
planation of what Christ did after his incarnation, and what we
are caUed upon to do in imitation of him. Not only did aU the
fuUness (TrXijpafia) of Godhead dweU in him in a bodily form
(o-afiariK&'i), but, having previously contained within himself the
opposing powers of good and evil (cf. Is. xiv. 7), he was enabled,
by his self-sacrifice, to cut off the influences of the flesh, as by a
circumcision, vhtuaUy but not materially performed ; and so to
triumph over the potent lords of sin who rule in the members of
man. In this way the perpetual liberation of the divine and
immortal from the trammels of the merely human and perish
able body was secured by him, and in him for aU his true
foUowers. In the phraseology used by the Apostle, both here
and in other passages (1 Tim. i. 3, 4; iv. 1, sq. ; vi. 20. 2 Tim.
ii. 16. Tit. iii. 9. Ephes. i. 23; hi. 19), we cannot faU to
recognise an allusion to the Gnostic theories, which, even in
these early days, had begun to influence the Church. And in aU
probabUity, St. Paul used the language of his opponents, with
a controversial reference, and not in their sense, but in one in
which he thought it more correctly applicable.1 According to
1 It seems that St. Paul's contemporary, Simon Magus, first adopted the idea
that &pxal and Qovatai constituted an order of inferior and malignant spirits.
Epiphanius (adv. Beer. p. 58, B.C.) says of Simon Magus: bv6imra Sejiva
S abrbs vnoTlBeTai apxSiv Te Kal i£ovu-wv. ovpavobs Be Sta<p6povs </>r)<rl KaB' eKaa-

64 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
the Gnostics, the Father of Light, who was caUed the Depth
(/3_i#09) from his unfathomable divinity, dwelt in the ever-
illumined region, which they caUed Fullness (TrXrjpoaiAa), because
he occupied it. According to St. Paul and St. John, this latter
name is more appropriate to the Deity himself. For though, in
the Ephesians (i. 23), the Church is called " the fuUness
(rrXi^pcofia) of him that fiUeth all in aU," in other passages
(Eph. ih. 19; iv. 13. John i. 16), as in that before us, this
word denotes that which fills, rather than that which is fiUed.
SimUarly, the word altbv, "an age or period of the. life of man,"
which the Gnostics personified and understood to mean " eternal
beings," is used by St. Paul, in the chapter before us, in its
proper and classical sense ; for he speaks of " the mystery which
was hidden from ages (dirb tSsv alwvtov) and from generations
(i.e. from previous periods), but is now made manifest to the
saints." We may conclude, therefore, that in speaking of the
powers of hght and darkness, which were personified by the
Jewish teachers of his time, as they were personified afterwards
by the Manichaeans, and had been previously personified by the
Persians and Babylonians, he throws aside the false and literal,
and adopts the true and figurative sense of the expressions,
according to theh real value in the Greek language. It might
be difficult enough to arrive at the actual opinions entertained
by the Jewish contemporaries of St. Paul, to which he covertly
aUudes in the passage before us. But the writings, which bear
the name of Dionysius the Areopagite (Acts xvii. 34), and
which probably contain the Neo-platonic mysticism of the fifth
century, give an arrangement of the heavenly hierarchy, which
may have been derived, more or less dhectly, from the Jewish
schools. This author recognises three orders in the spirits of
heaven, and in these assigns very arbitrary places to the four
terms in St. Paul's hst. Fhst he places the thrones (dpovoi),
cherubim, and seraphim. Secondly, the dominions (KvpioTrjTesS,
tov Be STepeaua Kal ohpavbv Sovdfteis Tivas veprryelTai Kal ovopaTa fiapfiapiKa roi-
tois iKTiBeTai. jui) &\\as Se BivaffBai e^eaBai Tiva el /if) ti hv /idBoi Tairrivr^v
Hvaraywyiav Kal t&s Toiavras Bvo-ias t$ irarpl toiv '6\wv Sib. tZv Hpx&v Kal
Qovo-iZv Trpoo-ipepeiV elvai Te Tbv al&va tovtov curb apxav Kal Qovtnwv (br/ci
ttjs KaKlas iv iKaTTajiaTi KareaKevaapLevov. He adds : ko! oiirus apxerai t&v
TvuariKav KaKovfievoiv r) apxh. So that a superficial and confident divine
was not justified in telling' the University of Oxford that there was no
Gnosticism till the reign of Hadrian.

THE CELESTIAL HIERARCHY. 65
virtues (Bvvdfieis), powers (igovalai). Thirdly, the princi
palities (dpyai), archangels, angels (Dionys. Areop. de hierarchia
ecelesti, c. vi. sqq.). It is clear, from what this author says
(c. vii.), that he places the thrones in the same rank with the
cherubim and seraphim, because in the Jewish Scriptures these
representatives of the elements are the throne or chariot
of God. And, for simUar reasons derived from the name, he
finds a classification for the other six species. But aU these
are, according to Dionysius, good or heavenly spirits. And
Milton recognises a simUar order in the hierarchy of heU. An
examination, however, of St. Paul's language, in regard both to
its primitive meaning, and to the interpretations of the glosso-
graphers, wiU show that he opposed the thrones and dominions,
as indicating the ministers of light, to the principalities and
powers, which denote the functions of darkness ; and that what
with the Gnostic was a real personification, was with him merely
a figure of speech.
The context of -verse 16 gives us a regular distribution or
arrangement of the things created in the Son. They are
All things
in heaven and on the earth
visible and invisible
a. thrones a. principalities
b. dominions b. powers.
The four things mentioned in the last place are, therefore,
two classes of terrene but invisible functions ; that is, in the
language of those whose opinions the Apostle wished to con
trovert, the spiritual powers which work for good in the outer
world and in the heart of man, and the spiritual powers which
work for evU in the elements and in our lower nature. This
division of the four-terms into two pairs, is not only implied in
the context, but shown also (a) by the meaning of the words
themselves; (J) by PhavorinuB' explanation of the two former;
and (c) by St. Paul's distinctive use of the two latter. For
(a) dpovos, "a throne," imphes the lofty seat of a king or a
god, who was a suzerain or sovereign to inferior potentates ; but
dpXV, especially in the plural, might imply delegated authority :

66 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
see iEsch. Prom. 228 sqq. : 0770)9 Ta^tcrra tov TraTpwov is
Qpbvov KaOe^er', eiiOix; Salfioaiv vifiet yipa aXXoiaiv dXXa
Kal Bteo-Tot,x^eTO dpxvv- Ln precisely the same way, KvpioTrj<;
denotes primary, principal, self-contained authority; but iifovala
imphes permission, licence, aUowance derived from some higher
power. And as KvpioT7j<; stands higher than Bvvafiit; in Ephes.
i. 21, we find i^ovo-La described as something conferred and
received (Matt. ix. 8 ; x. 1 ; xxi. 24, etc. ; Mark, xiii. 34),
and an inferior officer is described as being v7ro i^ovcrlav
(Matt. viii. 9). In Ephes. ii. 2, i^ovcrta is subordinated
even to dpyfi ; for we have 6 dpxcov T779 i^ovo~ta<;. Ac
cording to this, the powers of good are described as acting
with immediate authority, and independently ; whUe evil is
merely permitted and allowed to exercise a derived and dele
gated influence. And this seems to be both the true and the
Scriptural view of the matter (see Luke, xxii. 53 ; John, xix. 11).
(b) That the dpovot and KvptoTr/Tet represent the powers of
good, is farther shown by the glosses of Phavorinus, who, though
a modern scholar, must be considered as representing, in many
cases, an old traditionary interpretation. He says : KvpioTrjTes
elcrt Swa/iets ay tat, XeorovpytKal Kvpiov, " dominions are
sacred powers, ministers to the Lord;" and: Qpbvov 8vvdfj,ei<;
cvyuu dx<*>pto-Toi deoii, "thrones are sacred powers inseparable
from God." (c) And that the dpxal and i^ovo-iac are the
spiritual powers of sin and evil appears not only from less
distinct aUusions, as when Satan is called 6 apx<ov tov koo-/j,ov
tovtov, " the prince of this world " (John, xii. 31 ; xiv. 30 ;
xvi. 11), or apxov T779 i%ovo-ia<; tov depot, "prince of the
power of the air or darkness" (Eph. ii. 2), or when St. Paul
speaks of our being "delivered from the power of darkness"
(eK Tr)$ i%ovo-la<; tov o-kotov;, Col. i. 13), but speciaUy and
fully, when it is stated that Jesus " stripped off from him
self, and triumphed over the principalities and powers" (Col.
ii. 15), or where we are told that "oui" wrestling is not
against blood and flesh, but against principalities and powers,
that is, against the world-rulers of this life's darkness,
against the spiritualities of wickedness in heavenly things"
(Eph. vi. 12). This last passage explains itself in the sense of
Origen (in Matt, xii, p. 528, De la Rue), that " every power and
world-ruler of this darkness and every spirituality of wickedness

'Apxal Kal 'Efjovo-lat. 67
in heavenly things, is a gate of hell and a gate of death "
(kKao-Tinv if;ovo~lav Kal Koo-fioKpaTopa tov o-kotovs tovtov ical
irvevfuuriKov T779 7rovqp[a<; iv toZs iirovpavioK 7rvXrjv elvat
aSov Kal rrvXr/v OavaTov). In fact, St. Paul himself gives a
simUar limitation of meaning, by the definitions which he has
appended. The dpxal Kal i^ovalat seem to be divided into
two classes. ( 1 ) They are " the world-rulers of this life's dark
ness," i.e., fleshly lusts and passions; for "the world" and
" darkness " are two common expressions for that sin which is
opposed to the armour of light ; and that 6 aUov o5to9 refers to
the conditions under which sin is possible, appears from Matt.
xiii. 22; Luke xvi. 8. (2) They include "the sphitualities of
wickedness in regard to heavenly or spiritual things," i.e. tempta
tion to religious infidelity ; for we read elsewhere of "an evil
heart of unbehef" (KapBla Trovrjpd dmo-Tlas, Hebr. iii. 12);
and whUe the very nature of the contest with " the prince of
the power of darkness who worketh in (evepyovvros iv) the
children of disobedience" (Eph. ii. 2), implies that this power does
not find its battle-field "in heavenly places, " there are other pas
sages which show that to, eTrovpdvta may denote " heavenly or
spiritual things," and that the word is almost a synonym for
Ta TrvevfiaTtKa (cf. Eph. i. 6 : 6 eiiXoyrjcras r)^as iv Trdari evXo-
yia TTvevfiaTiKrj iv To?? eTrovpavlots, with John, iii. 12 ;
7TW9 idv e'tTrco ifilv to, eTrovpdvta TTtaTevaeTe; and 1 Cor.
ii. 13 : 7rvevfiaTiK0i<; irvevfiaTtKa o-vyKpt,vovre<;). The
interpretation, which applies to Eph. vi. 12, must also explain
Eph. iii. 10; and the verb cpaiTlaai in ver. 9 shows that the
drip, ctkotos, " darkness," and not the region of heavenly hght,
was conceived as the abode of the invisible spirits respecting
which St. Paul adopted the phraseology of the Gnostics, with a
very different meaning.1
1 Without accepting the theory of De Wette, that the Epistle to the
Ephesians was not written by St. Paul, and that its language is carelessly
imitated from that of the Epistle to the Colossians, we must admit that its
style is by no means so precise and accurate as that of the sister composition.
In i. 20, it seems very doubtful if iwovpavlois is the right reading. Lachmann
reads iv to!s ovpavols, which seems to us infinitely better. Hofmann (Schrift-
beweis, i. pp. 401, sqq.) has a long discussion on irrovpdvios, which he in
terprets in the old superstitious manner. He remarks, however, which is an
approximation to the true meaning, as we conceive it : "when St. Paul says
that the evil spirits, which exercise their power in the world, so far as it is
darkness, so far as it is irreligious, are in heaven, he teaches in this nothing

.68 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
It is clear, then, that the principalities and powers are not only
invisible powers of earth, but also that they are powers of evil,
with which every Christian has to contend in the battle-field of
his own heart. And we must now inquire in what sense St.
Paul says that " by divesting himself of, or stripping off from
himself, the principalities and powers, he made an open show
of them and triumphed over them on his cross or in himself."
Although it was left to the writer of these pages to discover,
or rather to re-discover, the proper rendering of dTreKSvadfjtevoi
in this text, there is not the least doubt that the participle here
bears its only possible signification. The foUowing reasons ought
to be conclusive : —
(1). There is no instance of any other use of eK8v<» and
eKBvo/iai than that according to which the active signifies, " I
put or strip off from another," and the middle, "I put or strip
off from myfcelf." And aTreKBvofiai, which appears only in the
middle, must mean, " I take off and put away from myself."
(2). If there had been any instance of a different use of
aTreKBvofiai or even of iKBvofiat, the participle a7re/c8ucra/_(.e_'09
must have borne its proper middle sense in this passage, because
in Col. iii. 9, the only other passage where the word occurs in
the New Testament, it is confessedly used with reference to
putting off from ourselves the old man ; because in this very
chapter (v. 11) we have the phrase iv aTreKBvaet, tov o-w/AaTOS
t&v dfiapTtcav ; and because the analogous use of drroOeo-i'i and
aTroTiOefjtai leads inevitably to the same conclusion (cf. 1 Peter,
iii. 21 ; 2 Peter, i. 14 ; Rom. xhi. 12 ; Eph. iv. 22—25 ; Col.
iii. 8 ; James, i. 21 ; 1 Peter, ii. 1).
As far as the interpretation of the Greek words is concerned,
these considerations are sufficient to settle the point, and we had
acquiesced in the conclusion that this was the Apostle's meaning
long before we were caUed upon to defend this interpretation
from a charge of novelty. We then found that the oldest version
— the Syriac — and the most learned of the Fathers, either supplied
new or strange ; nor does he refer to any strange popular conception, but
merely asserts that they are spirits, and all that is included in that term. So
long as the evil spirits remain active in the terrestrial world, so long they
also remain in heaven, not confined to this or that locality of the terrestrial
world, but overruling it, as the heaven surrounds the earth." If the being
iv to7s iirovpavlois merely means that the irvevuaTiKa ttjs irovriplas are rrvev-
(Uoto, we do not get beyond the idea suggested in the text, though we attri
bute to St. Paul the Gnostic belief, which he rejected.

THE SYRIAC VERSION AND THE FATHERS. 69
Tr/v o-dpKa, as the immediate object of a7rey.Sv_r_£^ei/09, or, with
out this supplement, rendered the word in its proper sense. The
Syriac version has: " et per exspoliationem " ( _jw______l___.0 )
"corporis sui" vel "carnis" (OI'r^__i), "diffamavit" (__i____>;_Z>)
" principatus et potestates et eonfuditr eos palam in semetipso."
Here tt)v adpKa, which is found in one or two of the MSS., is
inserted to explain the nature of the clothing which Christ put
off by his death on the cross ; and the same reading has been
adopted by some of the Fathers. Thus HUarius Pictaviensis
translates the passage as follows : " spoiling himself of the flesh,
he led in procession or exhibited openly the principalities and
powers, triumphing over them in himself" (de Trinitate, ix.
p. 265, x. p. 355). SimUarly, Augustine : " What is the mean
ing of the circumcision of the flesh ? what but the putting off
that mortality which we carry as the result of our fleshly genera
tion ? On this account the Apostle says : ' putting off from
himself the flesh, he made an example of principalities and
powers, confidently triumphing over them in himself ' " (contra
Faustum, lib. xvi. p. 362, torn. x. ed. Benedict). Origen brings
out the intended meaning stiU more strongly, by defining the
principalities and powers as in us (iv t]juv). "Who is this," he
asks, " but Jesus Christ, by whose stripes we, who believe in him,
were healed, because he put off from himself the principalities
and powers which are in us, and made an example of them on
his cross ? " (contra Celsum, i. p. 55, i. p. 370, ed. De la Rue :
Ti9 8' ofiro9 el fir) 'Ir/crovs XptaTos ; ov tg> p.a>Xa>7rt Iddr/fiev
ol et9 avTov 7rio-TevovTe<;, aTreKBvo-a/jAvov Tas iv r]jjbiv
apxa<i Kai i^ovo-ta? Kat 7rapa8etyfiaTlcravT0<; avrds iv
tw %vXq>). From this it is perfectly clear that the enemies
caUed principalities and powers, whom Christ stripped off from
himself by his death on the cross, and with whom every Christian
has to contend, are the incidents of our carnal or animal nature,
" the pleasures that war (crTpaTevo/j,evcov) in our members "
(James, iv. 1), "the fleshly lusts that war (crrpaTevovTai)
against the soul" (1 Peter, h. 11) ; and in accordance with this,
Clemens Alexandrinus has weU said, that " the contest, involving
aU kinds of weapons, is not against blood and flesh, but against
the spiritual powers of innate passions working by and through
our members" (Strom, vii. p. 839, Potter; to Trar/KpaTtov to
7rd/j,fiaxov ov 7rpb<; alfia Kal crdpKa, dXXd r«9 Bid crapKtbv

70 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
ivepyovcrat irvevfiaTtKat igovfflas ifirradcbv [lege i/i(j>VTO)v]
Tradwv; where the word ivepyovcras refers to the important
text, Eph. ii. 2 : tov dpyovTa ttk igovata? tov depot, tov
/ nr.tr. 5 r, r r. r, > _^/^
TrvevfiaTOS tov vvv evepyovvTos ev too; viois T779 aTrebVetas).
As the statement that Jesus divested himself of the clogs of
mortal passions, by an act which is caUed his moral or meta
phorical circumcision, implies only a triumph over that which
was contained in the flesh of every man, it is manifest that
no separable personality is attributed to the principalities and
powers, which were thus stripped off and cast away. Nor can
any such inference be drawn from the fact that St. Paul refers
to the conquered principalities and powers by avTOVt, instead of
the more grammatical avTas, which is introduced by Origen.
This is merely a confusion of metaphor, which is common
enough. The principalities and powers are regarded as enemies,
who have pitched their camp in the flesh, and are also put off,
like a garment, with the flesh wherein they are contained. So
that avTovs refers to the transparent personification included in
the other metaphor, just as the neuter plural pkaftevTa, in __Esch.
Agam. 119, refers to the mother and child included in the feminine
singular : Xaryivav ipiKVfxova (pip/iaTi yevvav. We have a
similar mixture of metaphors in 2 Cor. v. 4, where the fleshly
tabernacle osciUates between a house and a garment. At any
rate, it is quite clear that we cannot reaUy suppose that the
principalities and powers were personahties like those which
figure in Milton ; otherwise we must come to the monstrous
and horrible doctrine that Jesus had not only " a devU," as the
Jews asserted, but a whole legion of them !
If this interpretation of Col. ii. 15, required any additional
support, it would find this in the foUy and recklessness of the
attempts which have been made to maintain the common render
ing. For when the advocate, who is so zealous for his cause
that he does not scruple to set at nought all the rules of veracity
and honesty, cannot produce an argument which is even plausible,
it may well be inferred that the cause is hopeless. Nor can any
favourable inference be drawn from the ignorance and want of
ability displayed by the maintainers of the old interpretation, as
if some better results might have been obtained by more com
petent reasoners ; for the sUence of all good scholars is in itself
an admission of the untenableness of the ordinary view.

ATTEMPTS TO DEFEND THE OLD INTERPRETATION. 71
Since the assertion of the simple and obvious proposition that
aireKBvo-dfjtevo<; must bear the same meaning, and that the only
possible one, in two contiguous chapters of the same short Epistle,
there have been three formal attempts to bolster up at any price
the erroneous rendering in the former of these passages. The
first attempt was made in 1855 by the Rev. John James
Stewart Perowne, FeUow of Corpus Christi CoUege, Cam
bridge, and Lecturer in Hebrew and Divinity in King's CoUege,
London, in a pamphlet, which was adequately disposed of at the
time both on this point and others. It wiU be sufficient to
mention here that his defence of the old version confines itself to
the assertion that " direKBvo-dfievo<; may very weU be rendered
having stripped, spoiled, disarmed for himself (i.e. for his own
glory) the powers of evil." Now he has not attempted to pro
duce from the whole range of Greek authors any one passage in
which direKBvofiat or even eKBvofMat bears this signification ; and
putting out of view the peculiar force of the double compound,1
there are many passages in which stripping another for our own
honour or advantage would have been expressed by iKSvo/u.at
rather than e'/cSwa, if it did or could bear this sense ; for instance,
in Luke x. 30, the thieves certainly stripped the poor traveUer for
their own advantage, and yet we have iKBvaavTes avTov. But
even if our opponent could have done this, which he was bound
above aU things to do and has necessarily not attempted, he could not
alter the true interpretation of direKBvadfievot, used twice, and
twice only, in immediate connexion with a certain drreKSvo-K.
Besides, it is false doctrine to say that Jesus stripped the prin
cipalities and powers for his own glory. He suffered on the
cross not for himself, but on behalf of others, i.e. mankind in
general (see 1 Peter, ii. 21, iii. 18, iv. 1 ; 1 John, iii. 16); and
instead of doing all for his own glory, his especial claim to
exaltation was that he humbled himself (Phil. ii. 8) ; for he
sought not his own will (John, v. 30, vi, 38) ; but, on the con
trary, his whole career was an abnegation of selfishness, as indeed
this very passage tells us.
The second attempt was made by an anonymous writer in the
1 We have it in one other passage, Josephus, Antiqu. vi. 14, 2 : cwre/cSis
tV /ScwiXikV eo-flijTo, "having divested himself of his royal habiliments."
For the distinction between airoSim and iKSiso, see Lysias, accus. Theomn.,
§ 10: (pdffKccv Bolp-driov aTToSeBvo-Bai r) tov xiT<av'l<rK0V iKSeSvaBat.

72 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
Record of July 6th, 1855, who undertook to bestride the first
champion of error, after he had been disgraced and overthrown.
And, truly, the two men were worthy coadjutors, worthy advo
cates of a cause which thrives by means of falsehood acting on
ignorance. The line of argument adopted by the writer in the
Record is a good specimen of the style of writing which imposes
on " the religious world." He begins with the insolent declara
tion that " it does not require profound learning to show that
this great discovery (i.e. that of the true rendering of direK-
Bvo~dpxvo<;) is nothing better than a gross and ridiculous
blunder." The first argument to show that it is " a gross and
ridiculous blunder" to render the participle in Col. ii. 15, in the
same way as all, including the Recordite, agree that it must be
translated in Col. iii. 9, is this : that " it is quite certain that
the middle of the kindred verbs iKBvo/Mat and ivBvo/jtat are used
in the New Testament in a passive sense, as Luke, xxiv. 49 ;
2 Cor. v. 2 — 5. For it is plain that the Apostles were passive
in receiving the miraculous gifts on the day of Pentecost, and
that the dead bodies of Christians do not raise themselves." And
from this it is argued that since the middle voice is used in a
passive sense, we should allow that it here receives an active
meaning ! A notable argument ! which wiU be appreciated by
aU school-boys, who know that the passive and middle actuaUy
concur in aU tenses except the aorist, whereas the deponent verb,
in which we have passive or middle inflexions with an active
signification, has no active form or passive meaning. It would
be absurd therefore to maintain that because a middle verb means
both "I clothe myself" and "I am clothed," which in result
are the same, it might also mean " I clothe another man." But
in point of fact the verbs are middle and not passive in significa
tion, even in the passages quoted ; for the parable of the wedding-
garment refers to the practice of the Jews, according to which
that necessary robe, prefiguring the graces of the Spirit, was
presented to the guests, who were liable to expulsion if they
neglected to put it on ; and St. Paul's metaphor about the house
and the garment would have httle meaning if it implied that we
were violently thrust into the one and forcibly endowed with
the other.
It would have been well, however, if the Recordite had con
tented himself with the self-evident folly of asserting that be-

DISHONEST QUOTATION FROM MATTHI.E. 73
cause clothing yourself and being clothed is much the same
thing, it is also a matter of indifference whether a verb, which
means " I take off my own clothes," should also be rendered
"I strip another person of his vestments." With perhaps a
conviction of the absurdity of this supposition, and despairing of
victory by any fair means, this champion of the truth has had
recourse to the worst form of falsehood — that of compelling a
book to bear false witness. The example is so striking, as in
dicating the degraded morahty — that " truly deplorable dulness
of moral perception " — which characterizes the Recordites, that
the whole passage must be quoted at length. " If Dr. Donaldson,
from his height of Greek learning, would condescend to turn back
to Matthias, sec. 492, he wiU read as follows : ' The peculiar
signification of the middle is the reflective, where the action
returns upon the subject of it. More frequently, however, the
subject of the action is the remote object of it, with reference to
which it takes place; so that the middle is equivalent to the
active, with the dative of the reflective pronoun. Thus dfyatpelv,
to take any thing from another, d<paipela9at, to take any
thing from another for one's self, to retain, to use it.' AU this
loud outcry, then, against Mr. Perowne, our translators, and aU
other critics, for not being able to distinguish the middle from
the active voice of a Greek verb, resolves itself into the Doctor's
oblivion of the most frequent use of the middle voice itself. The
words of the Apostle, by the most exact laws of the Greek
language, will bear that precise meaning which the whole scope
of the passage requires. Having, for his own sake (or with a
view to his own triumph), stripped naked principalities and
powers, he made them a public spectacle, triumphing over them
in it." Now the obvious intention of this citation from Matthise was
to gain a victory by appeahng to a weU-known grammatical
authority. It was hoped that the supporters of the Record, those
conscientious bibholaters who delight in slander and libel, would
probably not understand the drift of the passage quoted ; or, at
any rate, would not take the trouble of referring to the book
itself. Those, who do so, wUl not faU to see that Matthiae is
speaking of the very distinction on which we insist: and that
the next example but one to that at which the Recordite stops is
ivBveiv, " to put anything on another," opposed to ivBvecrOai

74 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
" to put anything on oneself" ! ! With this example close at
hand, it is idle to say that the Recordite did not understand
Matthiae's meaning. Accordingly, when he quoted this passage
to show that the meaning claimed for direKBiiofiat, was not in
accordance with the views of Matthiae, who particularly referred
to that meaning, and when he did this to bring discredit on the
scholarship of an opponent, the Recordite was guilty of the
most barefaced and dehberate falsification. The forgery of a deed
to destroy a man's title to his estate may be more criminal, but
it is not more dishonest in itself, than this act of a man, who is
probably a shining hght of the Low Church party. The poet
considers the detractor, who filches a man's good name, as a
worse robber than the common thief who steals one's purse.
Now here was an attempt to show that a professed scholar and
grammarian had been guUty of "a gross and ridiculous blunder" in
his own department ; that he was ignorant of a fact mentioned in
the commonest manuals of Greek grammar. And as far as the
writer succeeded in deceiving his readers, it was a robbery of reputa
tion. It was, in fact, just like poor Mr. Perowne's assertion that
the same writer was unacquainted with an elementary principle
of Hebrew scholarship, which, it turned out, was twice stated in
the little Hebrew Grammar on which that misguided individual
founded his ridiculous allegation. The only difference is that
the latter falsehood brought upon its author immediate exposure
and humiliation, whereas the anonymous Recordite is personaUy
safe behind his mask, and has only added to the general dis
credit of a jonrnal, which has no character to lose, and supphed
a fresh proof of the fact, that Bibholatry, which begins by
teaching men to believe a lie, ends by preventing them from
seeing the immorality of disingenuousness.
The third attempt to maintain the belief that St. Paul,
having twice and twice only used the participle dTreKBvadfjtevo<},
and that, too, in consecutive chapters of the same short epistle
employed it first without and then with a knowledge of the
language in which he was writing, has been made by the Rev.
Dr. Rigaud, Master of Ipswich Grammar School, in a note to a
sermon preached before the University of Oxford, which wiU be
noticed in its proper place. Dr. Rigaud has wisely avoided
compromising himself with any definite opinion respecting the
meaning of the participle; but, although he is a Doctor in

THE OXFORD PREACHER. 75
Divinity, he has not scrupled to teU us, as an obvious fact, that
the putting off the principahties and powers, together with the
other circumstances of the crucifixion, are predicated by St.
Paul of God the Father ! ! As this might seem incredible
without ocular demonstration, we subjoin the whole note (Two
Sermons, p. 68) : " Dr. Donaldson has relied much in one part
of his argument, and in his reply to Mr. Perowne, upon the
force of the participle direKBvadfievo'i in Col. ii. 15. The
simplest reply to aU which he has said consists in the fact
noticed to me by a friend, that this participle agrees with the
nominative to o-vve^aoTrolrjcrev in v. 15 ; i.e. God the Father,
not the Son. The English is ambiguous, but the Greek is not."
This wonderful discovery, which Dr. Rigaud accepts as soon as
it is offered to him, is to be found, where it ought to be, in an
English Unitarian version of the New Testament, and in ail the
commentaries of modern German expositors, with the single
exception of Baur.1
There are two different classes of heterodox theologians.
One consists of those, who have studied theology, who un
happily cannot agree with the formularies of the Church, who
perceive their disagreement, and conscientiously avow it. The
other class consists of those, who profess orthodoxy, and are
anxious to persecute all who do not come up to their own
imaginary standard ; but who, having no theological knowledge,
get out of their depth as soon as they engage in a biblical argu
ment, and betray at once their ignorance and their unsoundness.
Dr. Rigaud belongs to this latter class of heterodox divines;
for according to the interpretation, which he has so rashly
accepted, he is a SabeUian and Patripassian of the deepest dye.
Making the change, which he adopts, and supposing that he
translates direKSvad/Mevo'; in the usual way — though we cannot
see how a change in the nominative can affect the voice of a
verb, and so be " the simplest reply" to tbe proposal to construe
the verb properly — the following doctrine wiU result : " God the
Father blotted out the handwriting of ordinances, that was
against us, and raised it aloft nailing it to his cross ; and spoihng
principalities and powers, he triumphed over them on his cross,
or in himself." So that God the Father was crucified, as
the Sabellians maintain ! We congratulate the University of
1 "Paulus d. Ap. Jesu Chr.," p. 452.

76 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX I.
Oxford on the possession of such a divine; and the Vice-
ChanceUor, on his approbation of such a preacher. But even
if Dr. Rigaud had no fear of creeds before his eyes, he was
bound, as a professed teacher of the classical languages, to
attend to those simple rules of grammar, which German theo
logians may be permitted to neglect, but which aU competent
schoolmasters inculcate on their pupUs in this country. And
these simple rules would have told him that there can be
no nominative to awe^cooTrolr/o-ev in ver. 13, except the ante
cedent to 09 in v. 10, iv a> in v. 11, and iv 3> in v. 12, i.e.
Xpiarbt. We entertain the impression that St. Paul was weU
acquainted with Greek, and that he was no more likely to take
his nominative case from an incidental genitive like tov 6eov
in v. 12, than he was to misapply a participle like direKBvadfjie-
vot. But waiving the monstrous absurdity of predicating this
last word, in its proper sense, of God the Father, the context is
sufficient to show that Christ alone is intended. It is true that
in Ephes. ii. 5, we have the phrase b debt rjfidt o-vve%<Doirobt]0'e
ra XpicrTto, but this does not prove that the same writer
could not say o Xpto~Tot o-vvetpooTrol/qo-ev vfidt o-i/v avrm,
where the repeated crirv has its special force ; and that he
does mean this is clear, independently of the dtreKBvadfjtevot,
from the facts (1) that immediately after £we£&)07rot77_rei> in
this passage, he says of the subject of the sentence, x^P'-o'd/x.e-
vot r\juv iravTa to, TrapaTfTooiuvra, for this was what Christ
did, as he says in the next chapter (ih. 13) : Kadcbt Kal 6 Xptcr-
T09 ixapio-aTO {jfuv ¦ (2) that he says of the subject of the
sentence, i^aXev^rat to KaO ' rj/jta> v xelpoypa(pov Tolt Boy/jtao-tv
(cf. Acts iv. 19); and this again was a function of Christ, of
whom he says in Ephes. ii. 15 : ttjv exOpav iv tjj o-apxl avrov,
tov vbfiov twv ivToX&v iv Boyfiaatv KaTapy^aat ; ( 3 ) that he
says: avTO ?)pKev (or fjpev) e'/c tov fjteaov Trpoo-r/Xtoo-at
avro tw <TTavpa> — for, having come Iva Tat d/jtapTtat r/fi&v
apt) (1 John, iii. 5), and having been lifted up like the serpent
in the wilderness (John, ih. 14 ; cf. 1 Cor. v. 2), Jesus took away
our judgment with him, and nailed it to the cross on which he
was himself sacrificed.
The failure of these reckless attempts to defend the common
version is an additional proof of its hopeless error, and the mean
ing, which we have thus vindicated for St, Paul's most explicit

GENERAL RESULTS OF THE INQUIRY. 77
declarations on the subject, gives a fuU and ultimate development
to the proposition which we have endeavoured to Ulustrate. We
see that both philosophy and revelation agree in the conclusions
that man is reaUy a microcosm or union of spiritual aud material
life ; not in the Manichaean sense,1 as though he were a mixture
of hght and darkness, created by the powers of evU in imitation
of the brighter beings, like the man of Prometheus or Franken
stein, — a sort of prison-house for the soul ; but because he is reaUy
the apex of creation, a material and animal body, which the
one Supreme Being, the good and wise God, the only Creator,
has thought fit to endow with his own inbreathed Spirit. We
see that it is thus the duty of aU reasonable beings to sub
ordinate the flesh to the Spirit, not on account of any fantastic
duahsm, which opposes hght to darkness, and hfe to matter, but
because there is in man a real opposition between a higher and a
lower, a spiritual and a carnal, an immortal and a perishable
nature. And this being so, we see the fuU force of the Apostle's
statement, that, when the Father manifested himself in his Son,
or assumed personal relations in regard to the world in which we
live, and which He created through the Son, an exemplar or
anticipation of aU created nature was thus produced, and that,
instead of any duahsm, hke that which Simon Magus imagined
and Manes developed, aU powers and faculties, the active and
primary, and the derived and permissive, were included in this
one beginning, and God was all in aU.2

1 The speculations of the Manichaeans in general will form the subject of
the next Appendix. Their views with regard to the nature of man are thus
summed up by Baur (" das Manichaische Beligionssystem," p. 131) :
1. The soul of the world diffused through matter is'concentrated in man.
2. The body of man must be regarded as merely a prison, which, by
means of sexual generation, is continually tightening the bonds of
matter, and so increasing the captivity of the soul.
3. Man is a creation of the Prince of Darkness, but there is in him, as
in a microcosm, a reflection of the whole universe.
8 Since this Appendix was written, we have seen a little boo"k in which a
similar view of the question is maintained in a popular and rather superficial
style : its title is " An Inquiry concerning the Principles in the Constitution
of Human Nature, which are the Causes of Moral Evil." By a Layman.
London : Eivington, 1856.

CHAPTER II.

THE TEUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH.

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.

CHAPTER II.
THE LAWS AND OBJECTS OF A TB.UE DEFENCE
OF THE FAITH.
When we maintain, on the positive and consistent authority
of Scripture, and therefore without any fear of contradiction
from those who regard this authority as paramount, that
Christian Faith, whether we regard it as nurtured in the soul
of the believer or as propagated by the conversion of others,
must depend on the conduct of the professor, on his obedience
to the law of the Gospel, on his personal righteousness and
spiritual wisdom — in a word, on his power of subordinating the
flesh to the spirit, the lower to the higher nature of man, —
when we maintain this, we speak of the faith as it originaUy
was, as it was understood and intended by the first preachers
of our religion, long before its brightness was clouded by the
mists of human foUy and selfishness. But a defence of the
faith now-a-days implies a maintenance of special opinions
respecting Christianity, opinions which have grown up and
formed a sort of incrustation of rust around the simple and
sincere Word of God. The title, which is stiU borne by the
Sovereign of England — that of Defender of the Faith " — is
traced back to the time when Henry VIII. entered the lists
against Luther in support of some of the worst errors of
Bomanism. And this title, or some equivalent designation, is
6

82 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
from time to time conferred by the party-men of religion, the
heretics of some age or country, on those who most strenuously
and unscrupulously uphold their own peculiar dogmatism,
whereas aU opponents are stigmatized as unbelievers, as
adversaries and impugners of the faith. Much as we may
regret and deprecate this state of things, it naturaUy flows
from the conditions of our being and our subordination to the
intuitions of space and time. AU truth is viewed by man
through the coloured medium of his own temporary or local
prepossessions. A set of opinions is formed, and soon usurps
the place of the principles in which they originated. And
these opinions are hable to be preserved by artificial means
beyond the natural period of their existence, until a change
of atmosphere supervenes, and the mummy crumbles into dust.
Christianity, though designed for aU countries and aU ages,
contracts, in a particular age and in a particular country, some
corresponding peculiarities. Systems of theology, ritual, and
church government are gradually formed, and men think that
in contending for these they are fighting the battle of the
Lord, and defending the faith as it is in Christ Jesus. The
same is the case in regard to the political opinions and the
political institutions of men. And it is found that, in rehgion
as weU as politics, the machine requires to be adapted from time
to time to the atmosphere in which it moves; in other words,
the vital and inherent principles, for which we contend, must
from time to time be divested of the unessential appendages, by
which they are enveloped and encumbered. Accordingly, the
true conservative and the true defender of the faith, he who
really wishes to maintain what is tenable and essential in
existing systems of government and theology, must be prepared
from time to time to relinquish what he feels or finds to be
untenable and unessential. Otherwise, he becomes, whether
consciously or not, a destructive rather than a conservative ;

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 83
and delivers into the hands of the enemy the cause which he
undertakes to defend and the principles which he wishes to
assert. In order to the more satisfactory establishment of this view,
it wiU be desirable to inquire what conservatism really is. We
may say that the word, like the thing which it designates, is
not only of Enghsh growth, but stiU confined to its native soU.
His insular position, combined with those features of the Teu
tonic character which he has in common with his brethren on
the continent, makes the Englishman constitutionally averse to
all sudden changes, but especially to those changes which are
due to the importation of foreign ideas. The political and
ecclesiastical history of our country is one continued proof of
the adhesiveness with which we cling to every old practice,
to every time-honoured institution, which we are not forced,
by the pressure of circumstances or by the spirit of the age,
to abandon as untenable. There can be little doubt that this
insular idiosyncrasy, as it has been termed, is connected with
that pride in our country, and that regard for our own peculiar
form of government, which is the foundation of the noblest
emotions of patriotism and loyalty. M. Capefigue remarked
some years ago : l'esprit Torysme anglais est essentiellement
patriotique ; " M. de Montalembert has recently defined the same
principle as l'esprit de conservation, qui est le plus precieux
apanage de la race anglaise.1 And there can be no reason for
denying that an enthusiastic regard for that which we term
" our glorious Constitution in Church and State " springs

1 In another passage, M. de Montalembert observes : " l'esprit eonserva-
teur qui a toujours distingue les universites anglaises est uniquement le fruit
spontane de 1'independance et de la conviction. Elles sont en cela, comme en
tout, 1' image de la societe anglaise et de son aristocratie, libre, fiere, mais or-
donnee, d'autant plus respeetueuse envers l'autorite, qu'elle en est plus inde-
pendante, toujours ouverte au m6rite, toujours prete aux progress utiles, aux
riformes nicessaires, mais solidement assise sur la tradition et sur le droit
individuel."

84 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
from a spirit of grateful recognition, which has enabled us to
preserve many of the blessings of which we boast. When
firmly-established dynasties were falling to pieces on the con
tinent in the spring of 1848, and when those, whose hearts
were set upon disorder, thought that the favourable moment for
their operations had at length arrived, we saw how entirely the
spirit of conservatism predominated in this country; and the
10th of April will long remain a day remarkable in our annals
for the bloodless triumph of legality and existing rights.
But while we have clung tenaciously to all that is good in
the laws under which we live, the spirit of commerce and free
dom has not permitted us to surround ourselves with a Chinese
wall of exclusiveness, and to shut our ears to the voice which
proclaims from time to time, that the age demands a revision of
our code, and that we cannot retain our fixed position without
suitable modifications and improvements. And so from time to
time we have re-adjusted the machine, and accommodated it to
the atmosphere in which it has to move ; and thus by gradual
and progressive reforms we have in most cases avoided the
abrupt and dangerous innovations, which pave the way for
revolutions. Whenever we have failed to do this, we have
proved by the exceptional results the wisdom of our usual pro
cedure ; and we have found that the violence of the reaction
has been directly proportional to the obstinacy of the disease,
which, refusing the gentler remedies of reform, invoked the
sterner treatment of revolution. Then, again, the extravagance
of the cure has induced the opposite disorder —
Dumque nimis jam putria membra recidit,
Excessit medicina modum, nimiumque secuta est,
Qua morbi duxere, manus : 1
and a counter-revolution has restored the previous state of
things, with new calls for alteration. The resistance, which
1 Lucan, Phars. ii. 141.

THE TRITE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 85
kingly prerogative opposed to the just demands of the people in
the 17th century, caused the overthrow of Church and State;
and the tyranny of the victorious Eepublicans brought back the
abuses of royalty, which had to be again cast off with rude
vigour and boisterous effort. In our own time, the Duke of
WeUington's refusal to concede a gradual reform of Parlia
mentary representation brought about a more startling inter
ruption to our conservative tendencies. And we may truly say
that the 10th of April, 1848, would have been a day less
honourable to our patriotic unanimity, if it had found us with a
narrow and inconsistent franchise, with a tax on the importation
of corn, and with our penal laws still unmodified by a spirit of
wise and liberal toleration.
The existence of the Church of England may be attributed
to the same cautious and conservative method of reformation to
which we owe our political constitution. But the Church has
not continued to act on this principle, otherwise we should not
now be surrounded, as we are, by clamorous crowds of Non
conformists. At first we find that our Beformers endeavoured
to keep as closely as possible to the outward observances of
Church ritual and Church government, which the spirit of the
age, aroused and stimulated by the religious movement in
Germany, had compelled them to re-adjust and modify. And
herein they acted wisely ; for we cannot reform religion without
some shock to long-cherished associations, and every precaution
should be taken in order to prevent the amputation of the
morbid excrescences from proving fatal to the patient, whose
rehgious circulation is implicated in that of the tumour. In a
word, the excision must be gradual. But while it is unsafe to
make sweeping innovations in religion, — for this might over
throw the little faith of the many who cannot discriminate
between the value of that which is retained and the worthless
ness of that which is cast off, — this very confession of an im-

86 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
perfect reform presumes that the process wiU be repeated until
the whole of the necessary changes are fuUy effected. As a
second edition of our Articles was pubhshed some ten years after
the first, as the second was briefer and more comprehensive than
its predecessor, and as it contained passages referring to its pro-
visionary and temporary character, it might have been expected
that the good work would go on, as the occasion served, and
that the basis of the Church would be gradually widened until
it was purged of all dogmas and practices to which Protestants
could reasonably object. Unfortunately, some of the forms
retained by the Church of England were only too well suited to
the arbitrary character of the Tudors and the Stuarts, and too
weU adapted to countenance the sacerdotal pretensions of the
prelates who then ruled the Church. Although the foolish in
tolerance of Laud had contributed to the overthrow of king and
priests in the Great EebeUion, his successors at the Eestoration
had learned but little wisdom from his example and its conse
quences. The Act of Conformity was the result of the triumph
of Priestcraft over Protestantism; and we are stiU suffering
from the evils which it brought upon the cause of pure religion
in this country. It is true that the wide basis of the Articles
was still retained, and that the wise and hberal Tillotson, who
succeeded Sancroft at the Eevolution, would have been glad to
accommodate the Prayer Book to the larger Protestantism of the
formularies by which it is sanctioned. It is true that other
enlightened Archbishops have openly maintained the latitudi-
narian and comprehensive interpretation of our Liturgy. It is
true that the Bangorian controversy overthrew the priestly
power of the Convocation ; and that many attempts to narrow
the dogmatism of the Church have been signaUy defeated. StUl
the Prayer Book and its Rubrics furnish materials for a renewal
of the follies of Laud ; and the time is come when the Church
of England must imitate the true conservative principles of the

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 87
Enghsh commonwealth, and maintain what is worth maintaining
by a concession of reforms, which are felt to be so imperatively
demanded by the spirit of the age, and so urgently recommended
by the advances of Popery and the requirements of improved
scholarship. The reforms which seem to be desirable are (1) an
abridgement of the Prayer Book; (2) a new edition of the
Articles ; ( 3 ) a corrected version of the Bible.
( 1 ) It would be easy to point out the curtailments of the
Prayer Book1 which are necessary to effect the removal of
Eomanistic suggestions, or to obviate inferences at variance w ith
the results of a higher exegesis and criticism. No additions
would be needed ; and a few verbal alterations would enable us
to retain many a beautiful prayer which is felt to be objection
able on account of certain particular expressions. It might even
be left to the minister and his vestry, with or without the
sanction of the Bishop or Archdeacon, to abridge, at least, the
services of the Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury does this
in his own chapel at Lambeth, and the Episcopal ministers in
Scotland, at least in Edinburgh, have been known to dispense
with the Athanasian Creed, and, we believe, other parts also of
the Prayer Book, when their congregations have required the
omission. Indeed, it is difficult for a reasonable man to under
stand the superstitious reverence, which would retain at all
1 We have not seen the details of the plan proposed by the Ecv. James
Hildyard. A sensible writer in a weekly newspaper has made the following
suggestions bearing generally on the questions discussed in the text. He pro
poses—" 1. To interest the laity in the efficiency of the Church, by substituting
for the present Convocation, which, as now constituted, is an absurdity, a synod
in which they would be fairly represented ; 2. To shorten and vary the
services, so as to lead the people to feel their value more deeply, and to make
the churches continually available for their religious improvement^ 3. To
remove such stumbling-blocks as now needlessly deter good men from joining
the communion of the Church or entering its ministry ; and to this head I
will add (though no interference is here wanted except that of common sense
and a catholic spirit) to abstain from all theological law-suits, and from de
cisions calculated to narrow its pale; since it is of more consequence to us
to make war together, in the name of Jesus Christ, on unbelief and im
morality, than to wrangle on doubtful speculations as to the manner of His
presence in the Eucharist, or the exact nature of the change in baptism,"

88 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
costs the integrity of a misceUaneous compUation, to which no
man has ventured to ascribe a divine origin — (though we may
live to discuss some theory of the plenary inspiration of the
Liturgy), — and which owes aU its authority to acts of the
secular power, perfectly analogous to those which we so un
scrupulously repeal or neglect as obsolete.
(2). Although there is much of exaggeration and inaccuracy
in Lord Chatham's invidious statement that we have a Popish
liturgy, Calvinistic articles, and an Arminian clergy"; though
the second of these items of indictment is the least vahd of the
three, because, as Archbishop Laurence has shown, the Articles
rather represent the views of Melanchthon and Bucer than those
of the Genevan school ; and though there is little reason to
complain- of the narrowness of our Anglican confession, it would
still be advisable to foUow the example of those who, in 1562,
revised the formularies of 1552, and to pubhsh a new edition,
omitting those articles which tend to introduce specialties of
interpretation or inference. And here, as in the Prayer Book,
no additions would be required. Perhaps the following omis
sions are most calculated to widen the basis of the Church with
out surrendering any principles, and so to carry out the views
of those who originally framed the Articles or consented to
their abridgement ten years afterwards. As the third Article
was deprived of its specialty in the second edition, and as it
does not involve any great principle, nothing would be lost if it
were omitted altogether. As the second clause of the sixth
Article defines as canonical those books of the Old and New
Testament, the authority of which has never been doubted in
the Church, it would be as weU to omit a list containing some
books which faU within this law of exclusion, and to expunge
the last paragraph, which prefers the vulgar canon of the fourth
to the critical canon of the third century, and so contradicts the
definition of canonieity in the second clause of the Article. The

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 89
words prefixed in 1562 to the present tenth Article are either
superfluous or liable to misconstruction, and the Article might
very weU resume its original form. If the Articles are stUl to
be a test to be subscribed by those who are not complete
theologians, it would be advisable to withdraw the thirteenth
Article, with its scholastic subtleties. Although Archbishop
Laurence has fully reheved the seventeenth Article from the charge
of Calvinism, it does not seem desirable to have a dogmatic
statement on such a perplexing subject as predestination. The
gross misconceptions, which the eighteenth Article has occasioned,
show that it serves no good purpose in a general collection of
religious statements. The first two hnes of Article twenty,
which Archbishop Laud was wrongly accused of forging, might
be obliterated without any loss to the Church. As excom
munication is now an unknown thing, the thirty-third Article
is quite unnecessary. Since the HomUies are obsolete, and were
only intended to serve a temporary purpose, the thirty-fifth
Article concerning them might be allowed to fall into oblivion.
A similar remark applies to Article thirty-six, which refers
directly to objections no longer commonly entertained, or at least
set aside by a long continuance of Anglican ordinations. If,
then, by omitting these seven Articles — the third, thirteenth,
seventeenth, eighteenth, thirty-third, thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth ;
and by combining Articles twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and
thirty in one statement respecting the Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper, we reduced the Articles from thirty -nine to thirty, no
one, we conceive, would be a loser, and the national Church
would gain in breadth and efficiency. We make this suggestion,
not because we entertain any theological objections to the
Articles in question, but because others, who do not pretend to
theological knowledge, have found them superfluous or un
necessarily precise.
( 3 ). The necessity for a corrected version of the Bible has

90 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
been urged in the House of Commons, and argued by corres
pondents in the limes newspaper. It seems to us that if there
was no reason for this good work beyond that which is aUeged
as the chief objection to it, namely, that it would shake the
common people's unthinking idolatry of the sacred volume,
which is known to them only in the established version, — this
reason alone would be quite sufficient to recommend that revision
which the Bibliolaters so earnestly deprecate. For nothing can
be more directly opposed to the growth of vital religion than
this slavish adoration of its vehicle. That men should not only
worship an ancient hterature, but should even invest a transla
tion of ancient books, in some parts not made from the
original but from a Latin version, with the attributes of un
changeable exceUence, seems to us a prostration of the inteUect,
from which we cannot too soon rouse its insensate votaries. So
far is this homage paid to the letter or rather to the printed
types of the translated letter, from being a support to religion
or morality, that it actuaUy degrades and debases both. The
effects of this unreasoning devotion have been so disastrous, that
one of the ablest Englishmen now alive has been known to say,
that it would be a good thing for Protestants if the Bible could
be buried for one hundred years and then rediscovered, in order
that men might start afresh on the study of its meaning, un
encumbered by the prejudices which have grown up around their
minds. But even if it were desirable to consult the fancies of
an irrational multitude, it is obvious that their respect for the
estabhshed version is more disturbed by the constant statements
in the pulpit that given texts have been wrongly translated, than
it could possibly be by any differences which they might discover
for themselves between theh own printed Bible and that which
was used by their parents or forefathers. We happen to know
that the preacher's custom of pointing out mistranslations pro
duces a feeling of continual irritation and discomfort in the

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 91
minds of the more reflecting members of his congregation ; and
we have heard it said more than once, "if the English Bible is
so fuU of errors, why do they not give us an improved edition
of it? " The reasons for revising the estabhshed version at the
present time are chiefly the two following : (a). The discovery
and collation of manuscripts have placed the text of the Old and
New Testament on a footing entirely different from that in which
it stood when the authorised translation was made ; ( b ) Greek
and Hebrew scholarship have made greater progress in the last
half century than in aU the previous period since the revival of
letters. Having therefore both better materials and better
machinery, it seems perfectly preposterous that we should shrink
from doing in the middle of the nineteenth century what was
thought so necessary at the beginning of the seventeenth. Let us,
by aU means, retain the general style of our. existing version,
and its words, wherever they do not flagrantly violate the sense
of the original ; but let every acknowledged error be at once
removed ; let no passage stand in the context of the version
which scholarship has removed from the context of the original
Hebrew or Greek ; and let us without delay substitute a division
into paragraphs, according to the sense, for the absurd division
into verses, which has no value except as a marginal guide for
the purposes of comparison or reference.
But it is not only on behalf of the Church of England that
the true conservatism of Christians must prepare to concede that
which has become, or is felt to be, untenable. The same laws
apply to the defence of rehgion in general. Eevealed truth itself
requires no champion, and can make no concessions. It is in
vincible and indestructible ; and, as we have seen, is supported
by the witness within our hearts. But a message from God is
delivered in human language ; it is accommodated to the weak
ness of those to whom it is addressed ; it is written down and
preserved for after ages by men, who necessarily represented

92 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
their own conceptions of its meaning, and set it forth with
affections of phraseology and imagination suited to the mental
atmosphere, in which theh own spiritual life consisted. It is
clear, then, that although a revelation from God is in itself
immutable, its outward clothing may be only a temporary accom
modation to the weakness or ignorance of man ; it may be a
scabbard or even a coat of rust to the sword of the Spirit ; it
may become a disguise to the truth which it once helped to
convey, and may eventuaUy be mistaken for the truth itself. If
this happens, — if rehgion seems to identify itself with its
vehicle, if it seems to make itself responsible for statements not
in themselves religious, and manifestly inconsistent with the
established truths of science and with the general knowledge of
the generation, it encounters the greatest dangers to which it is
liable. Faith and reason, which are naturaUy inseparable, mis
take one another, and break out into open hostihty ; and unless
it can be shown that what is unreasonable and scientifically false,
is not a part of religion, and not an object of faith, the mind of
man wiU naturally revolt from its allegiance to that which it
cannot receive without renouncing its noblest prerogative.
The principle of political conservatism, which requires that
the machine of state should be re-adjusted from time to time, in
accordance with the progressive alterations of the atmosphere in
which it works, is equally applicable to the case of a religion
revealed in human language many centuries ago. As this reve
lation was made once for aU, it is clear that it was designed to
satisfy the inteUectual and religious cravings of mankind in all
ages. It must be as well adapted for the expression of re
hgious faith in the scientific and enlightened Europe of the
19th century, as it was to the very dissimilar medium through
which it was contemplated in different ages by Paul and John,
Clement and Origen, Abelard and Lombard, Thomas and
Ockham, Luther and Melanchthon. Christianity necessarily

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 93
expands with the mind of man, and strengthens with the
gradually increasing strength of human knowledge and reason.
With this expansive power, it cannot be shut up within the
narrow limits of bygone traditions and prescriptions ; and our
Lord himself has left us a significant warning of the danger of
such an attempt 1 : No man putteth a piece of new cloth into
an old garment, for that which is put in to fill up taketh from
the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do men put
new wine into old bottles : else the bottles break and the wine
runneth out, and the bottles perish : but they put new wine
into new bottles, and both are preserved." This text is the
locus elassicus for religious conservatism. The spirit and life,
which dweU in Christianity, are here compared not only to the
wedding-garment of righteousness, which is given new and com
plete to every Christian, and must not be used to patch up old
and superannuated systems of worship, in order to cover the
unseemly rents in the parti-coloured robes devised by man,
but also to the new wine stiU fermenting and active, which no
old bottles wiU ever be able to contain. On the one hand, our
Lord here makes answer to aU scribes and Pharisees, who wish
to reduce him to their own level, who would graft Christianity
upon Judaism, and take from the robes of Christian grace and
Ulumination only a few purple patches, to adorn an arrange
ment of rites and ceremonies and formal worship. On the other
hand, he warns us, that man goes on from age to age forming
for himself new orbits of scientific and moral speculation. What
was the sublimest reach of knowledge to our ancestors, is now
either scouted as superstitious ignorance, or regarded as super
ficial information within the reach of the most ordinary capacity.
But Christianity is eternal. By its inherent elasticity it accom
modates itself to all periods, to all developments of speculative
and practical wisdom ; and those, who, in the 19th century,
1 Matth. ix. 16, 17.

94 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
would confine it within the narrow limits of obsolete theories
and systems of dogmatism, are from time to time shaken in their
faith by finding that the old bottles burst asunder beneath the
pressure of a spirit which they are unable to contain. It is too
often forgotten that even the language of theology is undergoing
a constant change, and that we are perpetually unlearning and
relearning the vocabulary of our faith. So that contests arise
from the differences of the phraseology of the learned and the
ignorant ; and these are fomented by the unequal progress of
religious and secular education. One of the most profound
thinkers of modern Germany has justly observed 1 that " a full
half of the evUs, which at present oppress the Christian life,
come simply from the fact, that our Churches have not been
mindful at the right hour of arming themselves with a specu
lative theology. There was a time when phUosophy and the
doctrines of the Church reckoned with ideas of precisely the
same magnitude (since both employed the same alphabet of ideas)
and on that account understood each other mutually. The ap
paratus of ideas, which the Church received from an earlier age,
is antiquated in relation to science generaUy, and appears out of
course; so that the language sanctioned by the Church, to
phUosophically educated minds, is oftentimes unmeaning ; and
when the attempt is reaUy made to come to an understanding
with them in theh own language, the appropriate words and
phrases are entirely wanting." It is owing to this inequality in
the progress of the rehgious and secular inteUect respectively,
that we find outrageous opposition in one age, when a subsequent
generation cannot understand or recognise the discrepancy. The
whole of Europe was startled in the sixteenth century by pro
positions which are now accepted as the groundwork of Pro
testant theology by the great majority of the population in
Northern Germany, Holland, England, and North America.
1 Bothe, Theologisehe EthiJe, quoted in Wilson's Bampton Lectures, p. 52.

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 95
The flippant sneers of Voltaire in the last century are now more
than represented by the solemn concessions of religious men,
who believe themselves to be the advocates of Christianity.
And there can be no doubt that the struggles of Bibholatry at
the present day will be regarded less than one hundred years
hence with a mixture of amazement and indignation. The fact
is, that we have now arrived at a very critical period in the
development of the forms of belief. Christian orthodoxy, as
represented or caricatured by the conventional misconceptions of
an ignorant theology, has, especiaUy in England, broken out into
open warfare with that Biblical learning, which, in a former age,
was bound down by a corresponding limitation of knowledge.
In the conflicts which have already taken place, the conventional
anachronists have suffered a series of ignominious defeats, and
whether the reconciliation is brought about in the present
generation, or postponed until some future time, the ultimate
result cannot be doubtful; and, sooner or later, a final victory
must remain with the champions who are most fuUy armed in
the panoply of truth and knowledge.
Under these circumstances, who is the true conservative ?
who is the able and honest advocate of Christianity ? Is it the
patcher of obsolete vestments, the user of worn-out wine-skins,
who would destroy the old garment, and lose aU the wine,
rather than abandon his antiquated costume and his superannuated
vehicle ? Is it he who maintains that religion must stand or faU
with that which science has proclaimed to be chhdish credulity ?
or he who wiU not make the life of religion dependent on its
outward sheU ? who meets science half-way, and, whUe he admits
that the untenable is not to be maintained, proves to the satis
faction of aU reasonable men that the truth of religion is not in
the slightest degree affected by the rejection of any irrational
hypothesis or tradition ?
There would be no difficulty about the proper answer to these

96 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
questions if-aU men who have honest hearts had also clear heads ;
if, indeed, those who are sincerely attached to religion were not
in too many cases prevented by want of abUity or information
from understanding the steps of an argument, and discriminating
between that which is and that which is not essential to its
maintenance. And it must be aUowed that the defence of
religion has one peculiar difficulty, which increases the confusion
on the part of its friends. The facts of revelation are maintained
by two classes of believers. The one includes aU those who have
no independent learning, and who adopt without examination
every stereotyped opinion respecting the positive value of the
Scriptures and their contents. According to these persons, there
is no opening for a critical discrimination between the true and
the false in ecclesiastical traditions, and we must either accept
all, or relinquish aU, without any reservation. The other class
of believers consists of men whose upright and independent
minds are enlightened by science and strengthened by learning.
These persons are convinced that the teaching of religion has
been accompanied by the propagation of a great deal of falsehood
and error, which constitute the principal obstacles to the universal
reception of our faith. To both these classes of believers are
opposed those professed infidels, who deny altogether the divine
origin and distinctive character of Christianity. In conducting
their attacks against the evidences of religion, they insist chiefly,
if not exclusively, on the errors which the former class of believers
persist in considering as inseparable from religion itself, and
which the latter class relinquish as untenable. We find then
that each class or section of the friends of Christianity stands in
open agreement with infidelity on the very subject which fur
nishes unbelievers with the means of assaUing the faith.
Certain doctrines, resting either on presupposition or deduction,
have connected themselves with the teaching of Christianity.
Infidelity maintains ( 1 ) that they are false or erroneous ;

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 97
(2) that they are inseparable from Christianity. The former
class of believers admit, or rather strenuously assert, the second
of these propositions; but as earnestly deny the former state
ment. The latter class of believers at once and without the
slightest hesitation concede the errors of the teachers of religion,
but then they join battle with their opponents on the other pro
position, namely, that Christianity is answerable for these errors,
or endangered by their overthrow.
From this state of things arises that confusion in the minds
of simple believers to which we have adverted. They feel that
the admissions of more learned defenders of the faith have
weakened their own position, or left them unsupported at the
outposts, and therefore identify them with their assailants, or
rather regard them as traitors.1 But surely the facts are very
different. If the positions attacked by unbelief are reaUy
indefensible and strictly immaterial, the demonstration of these
two assertions is clearly a gain to Christianity and a loss to
infidelity, for it show3 that our adversaries have been fighting
with a shadow and have left the substance untouched. On the
other hand, the determination to stake all on the defence of an
untenable post is fatal to the cause of truth, and, if not attribut-
1 These facts have been well stated by Professor Norton in his able defence
of the " Genuineness of the Gospel," ii., p. 405 : " He who discusses the
errors that have been connected with our religion, for the purpose of separating
them from it, and preventing their further hinderance to its reception and
influence, must prosecute his labours under a great disadvantage, for he is
liable to be altogether misunderstood or misrepresented. There are two
classes of writers, who, with wholly opposite views, have called attention^ to
these errors. One class consists of those who have confounded them with
our religion, who regard them as essential parts of it, who direct their reason
ing or their ridicule against them, and, in exposing them, consider themselves
as confronting the claims of Christianity. The other class is composed of
such as, with a deep sense of the value of our religion, are solicitous to remove
from it all that has obscured its character and weakened its power. The
purpose of one class is the very opposite of that of the other, but they agree
as to the nature of the errors. By both they are equally considered as inde
fensible ; and often this correspondence alone is regarded, and the most earnest
defenders of Christianity have been confounded with its enemies, by such
Christians as agree with its enemies in viewing these errors as essential to
our faith."

98 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
able to treason, is certainly due to prejudice, obstinacy, foUy, or
ignorance. What should we say of a garrison which was
divided in opinion on the two proposals ( 1 ) that they should
await the enemies' attack within the walls of an impregnable
fortress situated on a rock ; ( 2) that they should break down their
waUs and level their approaches in order to include within the
circuit some low-lying vaUey cannonaded on aU sides by the
shot of the enemy? Suppose, for example, that Elliott had
made his defence of Gibraltar dependent on his maintenance of a
line of outworks on the neutral ground beyond the range of his
own batteries. Would this have been the proper method of
opposing the overwhelming force of CriUon ? If not, how can
any man be charged with hostility or faint friendship to Chris
tianity, when he refuses to peril the maintenance of his faith
by marching down to meet his enemy on ground which the
experience of ages has proved to be both neutral and beyond the
scope of his artUlery ? l
1 That this mode of regarding the true functions of the Christian advocate
or apologist is gaining ground even in this country, is shown by the fact that
writers, who have no immediate connexion with one another, and who cannot
be supposed to have borrowed from contemporaries the phraseology in which
they express their own ideas, have instinctively, as it were, adopted the
metaphor in which we have conveyed our meaning in the text, namely, that
Christianity is not concerned about the defence of those human outworks
which the enemies of our faith have so successfully assailed. Thus Phile-
leutherus has said ("Vindication of Protestant Principles," § 52, p. 114) :
" If the assaults of the unbelievers, grown every day more formidable, are to
break like the angry but impotent waves on the rock of our salvation, it must
be because we have concentrated our strength ; for these are not days when
we can keep back the earnest attacks of our enemies by a wide circle of paste
board outworks, which, in the present state of learning, we could not attempt
to maintain without sacrificing a part of our garrison, and so enabling the
triumphant victors to exhibit among their trophies the flimsy tinsel of cant,
which was worn instead of the golden panoply of truth." In a similar strain
Lord Arthur Hervey remarks (" Genealogies," p. 348) : " Truth is that at
which all men should aim, and those especially who are ordained to preach
the Gospel of truth. Now can there be a worse or more false calculation than
to suppose that the truth requires the assistance of falsehood to maintain it,
or that there is any danger lest the progress of truth should endanger the
Truth. The only danger is,- when rotten buttresses are set to prop up a solid
building, lest, when the buttress falls, inconsiderate and short-sighted people
should imagine that the building is falling too." The same view, in its
proper application, bas been fully developed by another able writer (" The

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 99
We shall endeavour to prove that the first class of believers
in fact make common cause with infidels and betray the faith into
their hands, and that the true champions of Christianity are
to be found in the second class only, by showing —
( 1 ) That there are certain truths, essential to the establish
ment of Christianity, as a revelation from God, which are
unaffected by the result of the controversies between the
defenders and impugners of our faith.
(2) That the dogmas supposed to be connected with reli
gion, which the results of the conflict between the advocates and
the enemies of Christianity have proved to be untenable, are not
among the truths which are essential to the establishment of our
faith ; that, in fact, they are immaterial as weU as indefensible.
If these two propositions can be established, it wiU foUow
that the champions of unbelief have up to this time thrown
away their labours, except so far as they have been seconded by
mistaken Christians, who have endeavoured to defend, under the
name of a divine revelation, a set of opinions as unsubstantial
and delusive as the scenic viUages which deceived and dehghted
the Empress of Eussia.1
Divine Drama of History and Civilization," by the Rev. James Smith, M.A.,
London, 1854, pp. 62 — 3) : "Thus falsely primed with first principles,
believers stumble at the "Word and are afraid of science, and infidels triumph
through the weakness of believers, and popular teachers have learned to sup
port one form of truth by hiding their faces from the other ; whilst enemies
assail and batter down the paper walls of the letter, in which there is no
strength, and shout like children, as if they had gained a glorious victory.
But there is neither victory nor defeat. Both armies have possession of a
portion of the field and will, keep their possession till a mutual understanding
takes place." And the author of these pages has elsewhere said ("New
Cratylus," 2nd edition, § 14, p. 17) : " If the Christian religion is to main
tain its distinctive position, if it is to enjoy other homage than that which
must always be paid to its intrinsic truthfulness, its final triumph over the
dangers to which it has been exposed by the ignorance and prejudices of its
teachers, will be secured by the scientific philology which has cleared away
the obstructive suburbs, and has thus shown the fortress in its true and native
strength." 1 Catherine II. had ordered some villages to be built, but her commands
had been neglected. To avoid the consequences of their disobedience, the
Ministers deceived the Empress by the erection of painted house-fronts in the
localities which she traversed in her rapid journeys.

100 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
AU that we have to plead for on behalf of Christianity is
contained in the demonstration of its divine origin and distinctive
character. Keligion, as the true and primary1 signification of the word
imphes, is a permanent influence, an abiding affection of the
conscience of man. It naturally rest3 on his beljef of the
personal existence of God and of his own immortality, and
necessarily presumes some sense of law and duty, and of sin as
their violation. Every thinking subject is convinced that there
is a reality in his own impressions, and in the world without
him, which he regards as their cause, — in a word, he believes in
the existence of himself and in the reality of the outer world.
He is also led to conclude that there is something, which i3
neither subject nor object, but which is the creator of both. In
some form or other he will connect the assumption of a first
great cause with the approving and disapproving power, which
resides in his conscience, and, however vaguely or imperfectly,
he wUl thus construct for himself some system of religious
belief and worship. An examination, however, of the mytho
logies of all nations wiU enable us to see that there is no instinc
tive belief of the personal existence of the Deity, and no true
consciousness of sin or its remedy ; and that it is only in the
religion of Jesus Christ, and less completely in the Jewish faith,
which served as its imperfect but necessary vestibule, that we
can find any clear statements with regard to these indispensable
conditions of all real religion. They are indispensable, because
the conscience would be left to its vague and uncertain promp
tings, if we had not a conviction of that everlasting relation
between the soul of man and ' the Father of the spirits of all
flesh," which is necessary to our reasonable conceptions respect-

1 Relligio, according to its primary signification, is "perpetually thoughtful
care in regard to some object affecting the conscience." — See Eat. Gr. p. 200 ;
Varron. p. 407, 2nd edit.

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 101
ing the moral government of the world. Granted that the soul
of man is destined to a conscious immortality, and that God is
not merely the animating principle of the Universe, but a Person
endued with certain attributes, and capable of making himself
more or less known to his creatures, we can then understand and
supply the_dmperfections of that scheme of retribution, which our
conscience requires and finds wanting in this world. For the
appearance of evil suggests but little difficulty, when we are
enabled to regard the present life as a state of probation only ;
and all the most intricate problems in biology are solved at once
by the fact that man is only a temporary lodger in this frail
tenement of clay, and wiU account in another state of existence
for aU conscious deviations from the true conditions of his
nature. In order to show that there reaUy is this essential distinction
between that which we call revealed religion, and aU the systems
of belief and worship, which we can trace to a human origin, it
is necessary that we should, however briefly, examine the dif
ferent modes in which the inteUect has grappled with religion,
and contrast them with those views respecting the personality of
God and the nature of sin, which are to be found only in the
religion of Jesus Christ, and in that part of the rehgion of Moses
which the Gospel has accepted and ratified.
It may be said with truth, that all false rehgions faU into
three main classes,1 involving some form or other of specific error
in regard to the distinction and opposition between man and the
world. ( 1 ). The lowest form of error is when man seeks for
God in the outer world itself, and prostrates his own personal
and individual consciousness before the visible elements of created
power, which he sees and feels. He worships as deities the suri
and moon and stars, the sea, the winds, the day and night, and
even the abstractions of his own passionate desires or intellectual
1 See Ebrard, Christliche Dogmatik, i. 18.

102 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
conceptions. In proportion to its refinement, this species of
worship connects itself with a poetic or philosophical mythology,
and calls in the aid of art to gratify a love for the beautiful,
and to reheve the mind, which is impatient of pure thought.
This form of error is called Polytheism, " the worship of many
gods," and its outward exhibition is generally idolatry, or the
veneration of images. It is so far from cultivating the reli
gious sentiment that it generaUy plunges its votaries into the
grossest abominations of superstitious sensualism. And yet it
was the religion of the most civihzed nations of antiquity, and
to this day, with different degrees of refinement, it is the faith
of heathendom, wherever the popular mass is united by a system
of outward observances. (2). The second form of error is when
man, unable to solve the conflict between himself and the world,
gets rid of the difficulty by assuming two opposing powers —
the power of good, who is represented by his own spirit, and
the power of evil, who is represented by matter. Thus man is
mixed up of both, he is a subject of both empires, or rather his
soul is a battle-field for the perpetual warfare of the Khig of
Light and the King of Darkness, the Good God and the EvU
Demon. This form of error is caUed Dualism, or a behef in two
gods of contradictory functions but antagonistic power, for the
material and the immaterial world are both invested with the
attributes of divinity. This duahsm was the creed of the Medes,
Persians, and Babylonians, among whom the Jews spent the
long years of their captivity, from which they returned not un-
imbued with the superstitions of their masters. It was also the
religion of the rude northern nations of Europe, who traced
back their origin to the Median territory. It was combined
with Christianity in the third century by a heretic, Manes or
Manichseus, of Persian extraction, and is unfortunately stiU
preached as Christian truth by many uninstructed divines,

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 103
chiefly of the Puritanical or Calvinistic persuasion.1 It is
the tendency of this development of false religion to encourage
self-conceit and arrogance, and to reject the pleasures and seduc
tions of sense. A sort of ascetic purity is its first discipline,
but it sometimes falls into the lowest abyss of carnality from
the behef that the spirituality of the elect cannot be stained by
fleshly sins. (3 ). The third form of error is the converse of the
first. Instead of worshipping God in the representative objects
of the visible world, it mixes up man and the world together,
and recognises a divinity in the whole complex mechanism of
the universe. This form of error is caUed Pantheism, or the
deification of coUective nature. It is only an apparent solution
of the conflict between man and the world. According to this
system, God, so far as He has any existence at aU, is identified
with man ; but in truth God and man both love their personality :
God becomes the floating substratum of a mass of phenomena,
and man, ceasing to be a person, is converted into an individual
form. This Pantheism was the ground-work of Egyptian
mythology, and so developed itself in the Alexandrine Gnos
ticism. It is the creed of the educated classes in India, and
it is the living result of long-continued scepticism in Germany.
It is in fact only a refined modification of Atheism; for we
cannot reaUy believe in God unless we regard him as endued
with a personal character and personal attributes. And it must
end in a subversion of morality ; for it tends to substitute the
merely subjective for the objective reahty, to make man, as an
individual, the criterion and standard of truth, to annihilate the
idea of law or duty, and to create an absolute autonomy or
independence in every thinking being.

'- The relations between Manichseism and Christianity are sufficiently
discussed in the Appendix to this chapter.

104 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
We thus see that although natural rehgion recognises as
three distinct reahties — God, man, and the world — it does not
arrive at the only pure monotheism, that which discerns the
personal character of God. It has a tendency to sink into
Polytheism, in which man finds God in the visible world, and
spirit bows before matter ; or into Dualism, which opposes spirit
to matter, as good and evU principles of equal and independent
power ; or into Pantheism, which mingles aU three realities in
one tangled web of inextricable confusion. Widely as the three
forms of false rehgion differ in other respects, they have aU one
common discrepancy from the truth ; they all equaUy ignore the
same rehgious postulates ; they are aU equaUy silent respecting
the personal character of God ; they aU refuse to answer the
demands of our conscience respecting that religious sense of
responsibUity and that consciousness of sin, to which it gives
birth in the awakened soul. It is true, that, by the very con
stitution of our nature, we can never be entirely without the
power of choosing the good and refusing the evU on its own
account. The conscience is never entirely dormant; the dis
tinction of right and wrong is never quite obhterated. But
we cannot attain to a truly rehgious condition, for we cannot
reaUy feel our responsibUity to a higher power — in other words,
our duty to God ; — we cannot be conscious of that state of
guUt and depravity which makes us sinners before Him, and
denies to our souls the tranquU thought that we are at peace
with our Maker — we cannot, in fact, rest upon the only sure
basis of faith and worship, if we frame to ourselves any system
or theory which strips God of his characteristic attributes.
Denying, then, that there is any other system, which may not
be reduced to Polytheism, Dualism, or Pantheism, let us now
see how the Christian rehgion and that part of Judaism, for
which Christianity is responsible, have dealt with the personality

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 105
of God and the consciousness of sin, which are essential to the
mutual support of faith and practice.
The earliest teachers of Christianity expressly teU us that the
first true knowledge of sin was conveyed by the law of Moses,
and that the first complete development or manifestation of the
personal character of God was revealed by Jesus Christ. St.
Paul said:1 "By the law is the knowledge of sin." St. John
declared2: "No man hath seen God at any time: the only
begotten Son, which is in the* bosom of the Father, he hath
revealed him." And the same Apostle records a conversation
in which the same fact was most significantly stated by our
Lord himself.3 "Lord, show us the Father and it sufiiceth us,"
said one of the disciples ; and the answer was : " Have I been
so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip ?
He that hath seen me hath seen the Father : and how sayest
thou then, show us the Father ? " In order to understand and
reconcile the two propositions, that the knowledge of sin was
by the law of Moses, but that the personality of God was mani
fested by Jesus Christ and not before, we must remember that
the distinction between the two schemes of revealed rehgion
consists entirely in a difference of degree. There could have
been no knowledge of sin without a corresponding knowledge
of a personal God. And whatever contributed to increase our
acquaintance with God would tend also to increase our appre
ciation, of that sin which his law forbids. On the one hand,
then, we are to understand that by giving a knowledge of sin,
the law did impart a proportional knowledge of God's character :
and, on the other hand, we are to perceive that by increasing,
or rather by completing, our knowledge of God's character, Jesus
Christ did increase and complete our appreciation of the nature
of sin. The false systems of religion, which we have briefly
1 Bom. iii. 20. 2 John, i. 18 ; cf. Matth. xi. 27. 3 John, xiv. 8, 9.

106 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
described, as various results of an attempt to reconcUe the two
elements in the double nature of man, show that it was neces
sary to enlighten the mind of man by an authoritative statement
of the truth. We contend that such a statement was made,
when the revelation of God's law was communicated through
Moses to the chUdren of Israel. The solemn injunctions
engraved on the two tables of stone were calculated to correct
aU false notions respecting the personal relations which connect
God, the Creator, with the rational beings whom He has made.
The Israelites were told that the duty of man consists in loving
God above all things and his brother man as himself : 1 so that
love, as the opposite of selfishness, is the fulfilling of the law.
WhUe the first table exhibited to them, in such a form as they
could understand it, the manner in which they should revere
God and theh parents, and the motives for it ; the second table,
by a series of prohibitions, laid bare the forms of that selfish
ness in which sin consists,2 and showed it under its three
aspects — ofthe world or selfish aggrandizement, the devil or selfish
malice and falsehood, and the flesh or selfish lust and voluptuous
ness. And in declaring the character of God, the revelation of
Moses chiefly exhibited him as a being who was the ideal of
moral uprightness (jashar), and the name given to the chosen
nation indicated that his worshippers were bound to do that
which was just and righteous, and so to hken themselves to the
personal character of the Jehovah whom they adored.3 For it
is a necessary inference from any monotheism, even though it
be a mere idealism, that moral rectitude and its consequent
happiness consist in becoming like God. Plato, who was not
unacquainted with some form of Oriental duahsm, seems to
1 Deut. vi. 5 ; Levit. xix. 18.
2 See Julius Miiller, die Ohristliohe Lehre von der Siinde, i. pp. 120—262,
3rd edition.
3 Jashar, pp. 178, 222, 327.

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 107
have recognised this in the midst of the erroneous speculations
by which he was surrounded. He makes Theodorus, the mathe
matician, say to Socrates : "If you could convince all men,
0 Socrates, as you do me, of the truth of what you say, there
would be more peace and less evil in the world." And Socrates
replies : " Neither can evil, 0 Theodorus, perish altogether, — for
there needs must be always some counterpart of good — nor can
it find a seat in heaven ; but it necessarily haunts our mortal
nature and this lower region. On which account we must
endeavour to flee as quickly as possible from this world to the
other. But that flight consists in our becoming as like God as
possible ; and we become like him when we become just and
holy as weU as wise." 1 In thus teUing men that they must
imitate the righteousness of a holy God, the law of Moses did
but hold up a warning against the inveterate self-love of man.
" It was added because of transgressions," 2 that is, it was put
forth as a set of positive rules to guide the childish and un
formed understanding of a barbarous people. It did but evince
the unreconcUed hostUity between God and man; it did but
justify and give greater force to the accusations of an un
satisfied conscience. And having thus estabhshed the con
sciousness of sin, of a faUen nature, of an abnormal relation
between God and man, it left the true Israehte longing for
a remedy. It was the slave who guided the child to the teacher's
door,3 but it tarried without. It pointed to a need which it could
not gratify; it set forth all the ghastly colours of sin ; it dissected
the crude anatomy of a corrupted soul; it placed a stamp of
divine reprobation on that which was aheady condemned by the
voice of conscience; for although sin was in the world before
the law, yet sin is not imputed where there is no law.4 And all
- Theatetus, p. 176 a. » Gal. iii. 19. 3 Gal. iii. 24. * Bom. v. 13.

108 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
this to prepare the way for that fulness of time when God would
exhibit himself to the eye of faith in aU the beauty and glory
of his true character ; when he would show himself not only as
the righteous judge, but also as the benefactor who by his self-
abasement purchased for man the inestimable gifts of spiritual
grace, and as the example of that noble humiliation which is the
only access to supreme exaltation and felicity.1
For the preparatory dispensation the voice of man was suffi
cient ; it was enough that man, speaking in the name of God,
should declare the nature of sin, whereby God and man were at
enmity ; but to prove and show to men that " God is love," 2
and that by loving we both obey God and become hke him, God
himself, manifested in the form and nature of man, came forward
to provide the means of reconciliation and atonement; for "the
law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ." 3 The only method by which the disease of a corrupted
nature could be healed, and the reproaches of a guUty conscience
quieted, was that which God himself contrived, which God him
self revealed to us. As man had allowed his lower or animal
nature to gain an undue control over that higher or spiritual
personality, which constitutes his resemblance to his Maker,
and had subjected his divine and immortal part to the mortal
and corruptible frame in which it was encased, it became neces
sary for his release from the consequences of this fatal overthrow,
that the lost ground should be more than regained, and that the
Godlike should reign triumphant over faUen humanity. Almighty
condescension has effected this. God assumed our nature, and
in the human form asserted the Spirit's superiority to carnal
selfishness. Jesus Christ became the victim for sin, and the
example of aU men who would escape from sin. He has taken
our glorified body up to heaven, and has sent his holy Spirit
1 Phil. ii. 5 sqq. » 1 John, iv. 8. '' John, i. 17.

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 109
to dweU with our bodies upon earth. He became man that
man might become Godlike. He is our advocate with the
Father,1 that his Spirit might be God's advocate in our hearts.2
God's spirit had never been absent from the world from the time
when it first brooded over the unformed chaos. It animated the
frame of man when he was first made from the dust of the
ground. Prophets spoke as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost, and the same influence filled those who were permitted
to haU the first coming of our Lord.3 But the descent of this
divine Paraclete, as the perpetual indweUer in aU believing
souls, was reserved for the time when men could appreciate and
appropriate to themselves the work of Jesus Christ in reconciling
man to God ; and this the Redeemer has done by laying low the
fence of sin, which kept them asunder, " for he is our peace,
who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle
wall of partition; having abolished in his flesh the enmity —
even the law of commandments contained in ordinances — in
order to make in himself of twain one new man, so making
peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body
by the cross, having slain the -enmity in himself." 4 The
hostility of opposing principles in man could only be conquered
by Jesus Christ, who was both God and man. And it is easy
to see that this victory effectuated the reconcihation or at-one-ment
of man, as such, with God. For sin or selfishness is overruled
by obedience or love. But God is love. Therefore the obedience
of man brings him into union with God. As, however, fallen man
could not by his own strength fulfil this obedience, a means has
been found by which the aid of God's Holy Spirit may be im
parted ; and for those, who in faith and repentance make theh
first approach to God, the divine wUl again unite itself with
1 1 John, ii. 1. 2 John, xiv. 16. 3 Luke, i. 41 ; ii. 25. « Eph. ii. 14-16.

110 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
the human, and the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us wiU again and again be nailed to the cross of self-denial.
We thus see that Jesus Christ revealed to the world a com
pletion of the Mosaic scheme, and taught men, more fuUy and
truly than they had known them before, both the nature of God
and the nature of sin. When even the Jews could not conceive
any other idea of God than that he was an offended and avenging
judge, Jesus Christ revealed him as a forgiving father, who ran
forward to greet the distant approach of the returning prodigal ;
and in this he showed forth, manifested, and declared to man
kind, in a way in which the world had never seen it before, the
" express image" of divine personality — in this he exhibited to
our re-awakened religious apprehensions the essential attributes,
the distinctive character, of the everlasting Ruler of the Universe ;
for he was here, in his communion with man and in his redeem
ing acts, a type of infinite power working by and through infinite
benevolence. Reason had concluded that God must be almighty,
omnipotent, and omniscient ; but it was left for Christianity both
to teach and to prove that " God is love." In a lower applica
tion, the visible world had long told us that this was so : every
flower, every blade Of grass, every hving creature that moves on
the face of the earth proclaims that " God is love." That word,
as the true designation of the Heavenly Father, is written on
the broad surface of this our dwelling-house in such distinct
and palpable characters, that the wayfarer, be he never so simple,
might read it there, if he could but distinguish between abstract
nature and a hving God. But this personal attribute of the
Creator was not imphed in human language.1 The epithet had

1 The following are the designations of " God" in the languages of civilized
nations. The Hebrew names are El, Eloah, denoting "power," Jehovah
Jahve, denoting " self-existence," Shaddai, meaning " the Almighty." "We
have of course passages in which His mercy and loving kindness are expressed
by predicates, as in Joel, ii. 13 ; but this is not the idea generally attached

THF, TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. Ill
not fixed itself as a general term. And though philosophers
had arrived at the fact, there was no world-consciousness of it.
In this sense too it might be said that the " only -begotten Son"
had manifested that God, whom "no man had seen at any time."
For the Divine Being was never so seen in his personal charac
teristics, as when he came into the world to struggle with sin
and die for us, that we might conquer sin and hve through Him.
Then was seen that divine love which poets had not imagined,
which phUosophers had faUed to discover. And when by that
Godlike condescension, mercy and truth, so long divided by the
stern decrees of perfect justice, at length exchanged greetings,
when peace and righteousness, so* hard to be reconcUed, were
once more clasped in a sisterly embrace,1 when the law, which
spoke of guilt and separation, was merged in the Gospel, which
proclaimed reconciliation and forgiveness; there was placed
before the world a manifestation of heavenly goodness, which
the whole universe, announcing as it does, with its million
voices, the infinite benevolence of the Deity, had failed to impress
on the thoughts and the language of men.
We maintain, then, that revelation is distinguished from aU
human rehgion by the development of the personal character of

to his name, and when the epithet 3'lD, " good" is applied to Him, it is gene
rally as a term implying that moral righteousness which He expects in his
worshippers. The Sanscrit term Divas, like the Greek Zeis, refers to "light"
as the visible emblem of God, and to "heaven" as his dwelling-place. The
Greek _.__, and the Latin deus, refer us to the root Be-, de-, signifying "to
make " and the same is the case with the Teutonic Gott (New Gratylus, \ 473).
There is therefore no connexion between "God" and "good" in our
language, and though the Greeks and Bomans called certain of their gods
ebuiviSes and manes, both terms denoting goodness or kindness, this was
rather a deprecating reference to the powers of the other world, than an idea
of deity as such. The Chinese names for God are Shin, denoting "spirit,"
and Shang-te, meaning " supreme ruler " (" Who is God in China ? " by S. C.
Malan pp. 135, 165). When God is called "good" in ancient systems of
religion^ it is generally only because he is placed on the side of light in a
system of dualism.
i Psalm lxxv. 8-11 ; Isaiah, xxxii. 17 ; Jerem., xxiii. 5, compared with
Isaiah, ix. 6; Hebr., vii. 1. .•

112 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
God and the real nature of sin, which is shown to have been
undiscovered and undiscoverable by the mere instincts of man,
by the fact, among others, that God is not personally designated
in any branch of human speech as love or benevolence, and that
sin is not described in any idiom or any system of faith as a result
of carnal selfishness.1
It wiU, of course, be objected that, as far as the Jews were
concerned, this revelation was mixed up with views of the
character of God quite inconsistent with the notion that " God
is love," — that, in fact, they adopted the gloomy superstition
that God required to be propitiated by the blood of innocent
victims — nay more, by that -of human victims — nay, worst of
all, that man was expected to offer up his own children to the
angry Deity, and that the turning-point in the religious history
of the Jews depended on the wilhngness of theh progenitor to
offer such a sacrifice when required of him by Jehovah.2 That
human sacrifices are connected with the worst form of idolatry,
that they take their origin in one of the most repulsive of

1 The Hebrew phrases for "sin" generally refer to the apostacy from
God, breach of covenant with him, and sin-offering incurred, which belong to
the sacrificial system; see Miiller, von der Siinde, vol. i. pp. 177, 268 sqq., 3rd
edition. Much the same seems to he the idea attached to our sin and the
German Siinde ; see Grimm, Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1839, pp. 747 sqq. The
Greek a/xaprdvio and a/nr\aKea> both denote " missing the mark or the way,
straying, wandering," etc. The Latin pecco means to commit " a stupid or
brutish" fault," " to act like a brute " (from pecas, cf. vacca, veho, etc.) The
other terms are delictum, "a fault of omission," crimen, "an established
charge," scelus, " a cause of expulsion," f acinus, "a monstrous act," nefas, "a
violation of divine law," flagitium, " a crying iniquity," vitium, " a forbidden
act," culpa, "a deceit," noxa, "a mischief," fraus, "a deprivation." The
Sanscrit papa is connected by Bopp {Gloss. Sanscr. p. 215) with the Greek
kok6s, which Pott (etym. Forsch. i. 232) connects with the Sanscrit fankura,
" fearful." The Greeks had the words abBaS-iis and ou8a8(o, QlKavros and
4>iAavrfa, but not as general designations of sin. It is somewhat remarkable,
perhaps as an indication of our inability to recognise the true character of our
natural sinfulness, that the English words "selfish" and "selfishness" are
not more than two hundred years old (see Trench, English Past and Present,
p. 69). 2 Thissubject has been fully discussed in a learned and able treatise by
F. W. Ghillany, die Mensehenopfer der alien Hebraer, Niirnberg, 1842. See
also Mackay, Progress of the Intellect, f»l. ii., pp. 406 sqq.

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 113
religious conceptions,1 that they were a part of that worship
of Moloch, which the Israelites too readily adopted from their
immediate neighbours in Canaan, that they passsed from the
Eastern coasts of the Mediterranean to those regions in which
Phoenician adventure first clashed with Hellenic civilization,
that the interruptions to the sacrifice of Isaac and of Iphigenia
indicate a revulsion of feeling, which ended in the abolition
of these hideous rites, or, at least, in their temporary suspension, —
aU this we are willing to admit. But it does not follow that
because the Jews, as a nation, adopted the superstitions of their
neighbours, a pure religion was not antecedently revealed to
them. On the contrary, our belief in the original divinity of
that revelation is increased by our knowledge of the difficulties
with which its transmission was encumbered. The sun is not
the less a source of warmth and light because the atmosphere
is occasionaUy obscured :
" The clouds are earth-born, but his fire divine."
And when we find that in spite of the golden calves of Egypt,
the phallic abominations of Baal-Peor, the cannibalism and
infanticide of Moloch, and the forged ritual of a sacerdotal caste,
the great truths of revelation, the law of righteousness and the
1 Mr. Helps has made a very remarkable apology for human sacrifices-
He says ("The Spanish Conquest in America, vol. ii. p. 165): "Human
sacrifices, though very horrible, are not by any means the most cruel things
that are done under the sun, being full of motives. Considering what we
know of each other's sufferings, how the most prosperous life is thick with
concealed disaster and disappointment, no more to be relied on than the
smooth surface of the sea near a rocky coast, how any man can needlessly
molest another is astonishing, but nothing is to be wondered at when the
logical faculty is once fairly applied to the service of superstition or resent
ment." And again (ii. pp. 339, 340) : " When we reflect upon the untoward,
disastrous, and ridiculous aspect of human life — when we behold the successful
iniquity, the immense injustice, and the singular infelicity, which often beset
the most innocent of men — nay, further, when we see the spitefulness of
nature — for so it seems unless profoundly understood— when we consider the
great questions of human life, such as free-will and the origin of evil, etc.,
we cannot wonder at the belief in evil deities of great power and supremacy.
And then what more natural than to clothe such deities with the worst attri
butes of bad men,— than to offer to such gods of the best upon earth, namely,
our fellow-men ? "

114 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
law of love, so far survived all interruptions and hindrances,
that an Incarnate God could make the old system a basis for his
divine teaching, we strengthen rather than weaken the d priori
argument, which appeals to the inherent distinction between
revealed religion and all faiths and worships invented by man.
If, then, the truths which are necessary to the completeness
of rehgion ; if this revelation of God as essentiaUy loving and
good, this manifestation of sin as a result or product of carnal
selfishness, cannot be recognised in any of the systems which
are referred to a human origin, and if it may therefore be in
ferred that these truths are not discoverable by our unaided powers
of reasoning, it is necessary that our knowledge of them should
be derived from divine revelation. As, therefore, the Christian
rehgion alone contains a distinct statement of these aU-
important facts, it may be concluded, d priori, that Christianity
is from God.
Thus, the very existence of our faith proves its divine
origin; and those who are versed in phUosophical speculations,
and qualified to test the claims of abstract truth, require no
other demonstration. To the majority of men, however, some
thing more tangible and concrete than absolute truth is neces
sary as a foundation of assured belief ; and for them — that is for
the world at large — we are required to establish the facts of
historical Christianity. We have to maintain, as real occur
rences, recorded in the annals of the past, and confirmed by all
the aids of documentary evidence, the momentous statements
that God spoke to man by Moses, that He has revealed himself
to man in Jesus Christ; that by the former, as a preparatory
dispensation, and by the latter, as its fulfilment and completion,
He has brought life and immortality to light. Now this amounts
to an assertion of the miraculous origin of Christianity and its
antecedent Mosaism. All revelation from God to man is a super
human act; and if we cannot believe that a certain doctrine

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 115
comes from God, because the truth involved, though it approves
itself to our reason, is not discoverable by our ordinary faculties,
we must faU back upon history for some testimony to the
supernatural signs by which the manifestation originally esta
blished its divine origin. However much it may have been
misrepresented, this is the only question reaUy at issue between
the believer and the infidel. If we do not believe d priori, or
cannot prove historically, that Christianity and the spiritual
substance of the Mosaic religion, for which it has pledged itself,
contain a distinct revelation from God to man, we must subside
into Pantheism. For we must give up all idea of a personal
God, if we do not believe, or cannot show, that He has revealed
himself personaUy to man. And even when we acquiesce for
ourselves in the internal evidences of Christianity, and admit
that miracles are not for us the proofs of its celestial sanction,
we must assume the occurrence of something supernatural at
the time when the rehgion was first promulgated, for otherwise
we cannot account for the fact of its original reception as a
message from God to man.
The spread of Mahommedanism admits of an obvious ex
planation, which is not applicable to either of the religions
which preceded it, and furnished it with all the religious
ingredients which it possesses. For the faith of Mecca is, after
aU, only an offshoot from the heresies and corruptions of the
Nestorians and other Eastern Christians, supported by fresh
materials borrowed from Rabbinistic Judaism, and diffused by
the only missionaries of arbitrary opinions— conquest and despo
tism. To say nothing of the fact that Moslemism has no reli
gious originality, and that it owes its solidity to the revealed
truths which it has borrowed from Christianity, the difference
in the mode of propagation destroys aU analogy between the
opposed dominations of the Crescent and the Cross. We have
no occasion to seek for miraculous signs of a heavenly mission

116 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
on the part of a man who drew to his standard wild hordes of
Arab warriors by the profession of a faith much nobler than
theh previous religion, and by the natural magic of courage,
ability, and success.
But if we consider the phenomena presented by the religion
of Moses, and stiU more by that of Jesus, we shall find no
explanation of their continued existence except that which is
supplied by their history, namely, that they, from the first,
approved the divine origin, to which they lay claim, by super
natural and miraculous confirmations.
With regard to Christianity, we have aU the evidence which
history can furnish — more evidence than can be found for any
other occurrences of that age — to support the belief that miracles
and mighty signs were wrought by the first Founder of our religion.
The positive testimonies are sufficiently precise and consistent, and
there is no extant record of an early contradiction to the state
ments of our annalists, but, on the contrary, a general admission
of their truth on the part of contemporaries, whether friends or
foes. Besides, it is clear that the miraculous origin of Chris
tianity was preached by those who were, by the act of preach
ing, rendered liable to cruel persecution, to stripes, bonds, and
death, and who could have had no inducement to play the
parts of hypocrite and impostor. The growth of this mustard-
seed of despised preaching into a tree of hfe overshadowing the
whole of civilized Europe, can only be traced back to the
energetic impulse of divinity at first imparted to it.
With respect to Judaism, it is to be remembered, in the first
place, that Christianity stands surety for the divine origin of aU
that is spiritual in the creed of Moses — that is, for its essence or
substantial reality. All the Levitical rites are abrogated by
Jesus, the machinery of a priesthood, a temple, a succession of
festivals, and a minute arrangement of sacrificial ordinances were
set aside by Him, and in all probability were not of Mosaic

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 117
origin : but He has declared that no jot or tittle shall be taken
from that divine law which is summed up in the two commands,
that we should love God above aU things, and our neighbour as
ourselves. In this respect, Judaism and Christianity mutually
support the pretensions of each other ; as Bishop Warburton has
well remarked, in speaking of the nature and genius of the two
ri anions, which lay claim to a true revelation : The first," he
says,1 is the Jewish, in which was taught the belief of one
God, the maker and governor of aU things, in contradistinction to
all the false gods of paganism. . . After this religion, comes
the Christian, which taught the belief of the same one God, the
supreme cause of all things ; and, being a revelation like the
other from heaven, must needs be built upon that other, or on
the supposition of its truth."
But in addition to the support which it derives from the
recognition afforded by Christianity, the religion of Moses has
independent proofs to offer of its divine origin. The complete and
absolute distinction of the Jewish faith from that of any other
ancient nation, and the pure and noble conceptions, which the
Israelites alone entertained of the nature of God, and of the duty
of man, combined with the undying influence of those convictions,
which kept them from the dim beginnings of history, and keep
them still, separate from all other nations, are phenomena ex
plicable only on the assumption that their history is substantially
true — that theh religion was communicated to them by im
mediate revelation from God and enforced by miraculous con
firmation, which produced an indelible impression on the fathers
of the race, and on the generations which foUowed them.
When we consider," says an able modern writer,2 what the
Jews were in other respects, the simple direct knowledge which
they possessed of God, as the sole Maker and Governor of the
1 "Divine Legation," book ii., sect. 6.
2 Norton " On the Genuineness ofthe Gospel," ii., p. 412-415.

118 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
Universe, presenting so striking a contrast to the mythology of
the most enlightened portion of the ancient world, affords the
strongest confirmation of what they asserted, that its source was
a divine revelation. This appears more clearly when we reflect
that the idea of God was not with them a matter of speculation
among a few phUosophers, but formed the fundamental doctrine
of theh popular faith. The mere fact, likewise, of theh most
extraordinary belief that they had been separated from all other
nations, by being caUed to woiship Him, admits apparently of no
other solution than that their belief was true. From an an
tiquity which would be shrouded in darkness were not a dim
hght cast upon it by their own history, this small people has
flowed down an unmingled stream amid the stormy waves of
the world. For a phenomenon so marveUous, it is idle to assign
any ordinary causes. One cause alone explains it. We must
regard it as an inexplicable wonder, or we must beheve that
this people were, as they profess, separated from the rest of
man by God, and this in a manner so evident, solemn, and
effectual, that the ineffaceable belief of the fact has been trans
mitted from generation to generation, as an essential characteristic
of the race."
In addition to these general considerations, we may remark
that the history of the Jews has been more carefuUy preserved
than that of any other nation, and the tendency of aU inves
tigation has been to confirm, rather than invalidate, its most
important features.1 And with regard to Christianity, which

1 In making this remark, we are far from sharing in the delusion that these
corroborations of the Jewish histories from external sources have any bearing on
the claim of infallibility which is set up for them. For instance, the Theban
hieroglyphics establish the fact that Shishak conquered Behoboam, hut this
does not render more credible the statement (2 Chron. xiii.) that in the reign
of Behoboam's successor, the two petty kingdoms of Judah and Israel fought
with 400,000 against 800,000 all mighty men of valour, and that the latter
lost 500,000 in the battle. In the same way, the Assyrian records may prove
the reality of the war between Hezekiah and Sennacherib, but they do not
explain the sun-dial of Ahaz, or the death of 105,000 Assyrians in one night.

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 119
is comparatively of recent origin, we have already said that the
admissions of enemies, the silence of calumniators, and the
minutely examined coincidences of letters and history, all com
bine to assure us that, whatever credit is due to the annals of the
past, may be safely reposed in the narratives which tell of the
wonders by which Jesus confirmed the divine authority of his
mission. Thus, then, stands the case of the advocate of Christianity.
An d priori presumption in favour of the revelation from God,
without which the peculiar doctrines of our religion could not
have been imagined by man, is supported by aU the historical
evidence of which the case admits. The existence of Judaism
and Christianity would be more wonderful, on the supposition
of their human origin, than any wonders by which their divine
origin was established.
And now, on what grounds are we invited to reject the
historical explanation of the phenomena ? What counter-
statement are we called upon to adopt ?
We are told that Moses was an enhghtened Arab, whose
enthusiastic genius and courage were tempered with the deep
learning of Egypt, and who, from various reasons, gained a
great influence over the mixed hordes which he led out of the
land of bondage. We are reminded that aU the ancient legisla
tors laid claim to inspiration, and that superior abUities and
energies are easily attributed by a rude nation to supernatural
influences, especiaUy when wisdom is recommended by success
in battle, which seems to have been the case with Moses.
With regard to our own faith, we are told that its founder was
neither more nor less than a learned Rabbi, who was cut short
in a noble attempt to reform the religion of his countrymen and

If we understand the cautious language of Sir Henry Bawlinson ('Journal of
the Royal Asiatic Society,' xv., p. 215, note), he is not a believer in the in
fallibility of the Hebrew records.

120 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
to restore the spirit of the law of Moses, which had been over
laid by the subsequent accretions of a sacerdotal system. We
are desired to believe that Jesus himself made no claim at first
to Messiahship or any superhuman attributes, but that he was
either led to the adoption of this character by subsequent con
sideration, or arbitrarily invested with more exalted pretensions
by the Jewish prejudices or ignorant enthusiasm of his foUowers.
And with regard to the history as it stands, we are reminded
that the books of the Jews are full of mythical ingredients, and
that the Gospels are made up of legendary exaggerations, in
some cases designedly fabricated for the purpose of giving to
Jesus a superhuman office and origin which he never claimed
for himself. FinaUy, we are assured that every fulfilled
prophecy is a lucky coincidence or a prediction posterior to the
event, and that every miraculous narrative is necessarily im
possible, and therefore, ipso facto, false.
Now it must be conceded by every candid man, whose logical
powers are in full activity, that this mode of accounting for the
origin of Judaism and Christianity does not touch the grounds
on which their advocate would rely. If the religion of Moses
and its influence on the Jews had been comparable with the
effects of legislation on any other ancient race, we might have
been disposed to disregard the claim to inspiration, which is the
only feature common to the Jewish and heathen lawgivers.
There are no resemblances between Mosaism and Mahommedanism
except those which the latter has borrowed from its predecessor,
and the schemes of older legislators have neither the sublime
conceptions nor the lasting separative effects of the Jewish
revelation. The statement with regard to Jesus does not accord
with the impressions which his history inevitably makes upon
every unprejudiced reader, and the denial of the possibUity of
miracles, without which such a view respecting the origin of
Christianity would be rejected with .disdain, is clearly begging

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 121
the whole question respecting the historical truth of a revelation
from God. The simple questions are : have we the testimony
of competent witnesses ? could they have been deceived ? were
they likely on any account to propagate a falsehood ? If our
evidences on these and other points wiU stand the test of the
strictest scrutiny, and this has been shown again and again, we
must believe that Christianity was from God, and then its
miraculous confirmations are mere incidents presumed in the
general fact. The evidence of prophecy is one which demands
a very minute examination ; and it must be treated in subor
dination to the results of scientific criticism ; but when submitted
to a strict and honest scrutiny, it wiU convince us that the holy
men of old were instruments in a revelation from God to man.
Into these and other details we need not enter ; they are fuUy
discussed in weU-known and generaUy accessible treatises. It
is sufficient to have shewn generally that nothing has been
advanced against Christianity which has tended to shake the
historical foundations of our rehgion or to impugn its divine
origin and distinctive character. And thus our first proposition
is established. We now come to our second proposition, namely, that
Christianity is not interested in the maintenane of the as
sumptions or aUegations on the part of itsadvocates, which its
assailants have successfully impugned.
If we consider the long period during which persons have
been found to object to the arguments adduced by the advocates
of Christianity, if we remember that the supposed enemies of
our faith have included among them many men distinguished
no less by their abihties and learning than by their wisdom and
love of truth, if we bear in mind that the course which they
have taken has exposed them to a great deal of obloquy, if not
to more serious inconveniences, and that it is recommended by
no prejudice or suggestion of personal advantage; we cannot

122 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
resist the impression, that the long-continued opposition to
Christianity must have been sustained by a conviction that the
right was at least partiaUy on the side of the assaUants, and
that the defenders had mixed up with the truths, for which
they pleaded, some large and fatal admixture of falsehood or
error. This impression grows stronger, when we observe that
the grounds on which our opponents mainly rely have received
an increasing support from the inductive philosophy of nature
and from philological and historical criticism. The men, who
have cultivated these branches of profound and accurate know
ledge, have generally been found among the friends of religious
truth ; some of them have been the most able and conspicuous
defenders of the Christian faith. And the sober veneration, with
which they regard all the works of the Creator, gives an addi
tional value to the concessions which they have so frankly and
unreservedly made. We cannot, therefore, refuse to accept the
explanation which has been already suggested, that Christianity
has been implicated in the maintenance of some untenable
positions, that the safety of the fortress has been compromised
by a descent to the neutral ground, or, to resume the Scriptural
metaphor, that the champion of our rehgion has taken, instead
of the shield of faith, the worthless buckler of ignorance pro
tected by sophistical argumentation, and has endeavoured to
propagate revealed truth, not by the genuine sword of the Spirit,
which is the Word of God, but by the human weapons of
stereotyped dogmatism and bigotry.
It is not difficult to show that the only triumphs which have
been achieved by the adversaries of religion result from the
developments of an apparent opposition between certain assump
tions of Christian theology and the inevitable conclusions of
learning and science. Revealed religion is true and certain,
because it is from God ; opinions respecting religion are not
necessarily true, because they are from man ; and when they have

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 123
no authority except that which they derive from traditions tracing
theh pedigree to an ignorant and uninquiring age, theological
dogmas are not calculated to carry on a successful war with the
results of modern philosophy and scholarship; for then it is
only a battle between human puerility and human manhood ;
unless, indeed, we go a step farther and say, that science is the
true interpreter of the voice of God, which speaks in nature,
anek scholarship the true interpreter of the voice of God, which
speaks in the records of revelation, so that theological dogmatism,
in this opposition, represents man as engaged in a controversy
with his Maker.
A little consideration will convince us that aU the difficulties
by which the defence of Christianity has been impeded have
arisen from the maintenance by our teachers and advocates of
two specific opinions ; ( 1 ) that every statement in the Scrip
tures is inspired and, infallibly true,1 and (2) that Christianity
has made itself responsible, not only for the truth of Judaism,
to which we attribute an authority scarcely less divine than that
of Christianity itself, but also for a belief in good and bad
angels, which is clearly traceable to a human origin. Learning
and science repudiate these dogmas : there is no leading man
in any sect who will attempt to defend them on scientific prin
ciples, and the pleas by whioh they are generally supported are
so irrational that we can hardly resist the occasional suspicion
that they are brought forward with a secret conviction of their
worthlessness, and with the dishonest intention of deluding the

1 This dogma has been most unflinchingly avowed by Dr. S. P. Tregelles,
who says: "I avow my full belief in the absolute plenary inspiration of
Scripture, 2 Tim. iii. 16. I believe the 66 books of the Old and New Testa
ment to be verbally the Word of God, as absolutely as were the Ten Com
mandments written by the finger of God on the two tables of stone." It is
needless to add that Dr. Tregelles, who is a very confident gentleman, has
never attempted to prove this astounding proposition ; he does not even tell
us to which of the two copies of the Decalogue he gives the preference ; but
his edition of Gesenius' Lexicon shows that he can repeat usque ad nauseam
the most peremptory and unreasoning platitudes.

124 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
ignorant and superstitious into a belief, which may strengthen
the authority of the priestly conscience-keeper.
What can be more destructive than such a conservatism as
this ? What can be more unwise than to say that all Chris
tianity depends upon dogmas, theories, or assumptions, caU
them what you wiU, for which no man can be found to put
forward nn honest argument ? We are told that speculations on
these subjects are dangerous; — to what? to the indestructible
truth of God, or to some perishable faUacy of man ? 1 If to the
latter, why do we consecrate error with an apotheosis, and fling
the charge of blasphemy against those who would break to
pieces this monstrous image of Dagon ? Such is the fatal
obstinacy of those who identify human error with divine truth,
that an able, and, in one sense, learned Bishop, has told his
assembled clergy that a man can hardly deny the received theory
of inspiration without caUing in question the historical evidences
of Christianity, and so advancing one step towards the rejection
of the Gospel as a revelation from God.2 And evangelical
clergymen, who endeavour to compensate for a lack of critical
learning and argumentative ability by loud denunciations of
those who differ from them, have been known to wind up a
Manichsean sermon with the astounding declaration, that, if we
do not believe in the personal and eternal existence of the
devil, we must relinquish all faith in God and in Christ ! If it
can be shown that these dogmas are quite unconnected with the
truths of revelation, and quite untenable even on theological
grounds, what shaU we say of those whose faith is dependent on
their maintenance ? Do they deserve to be called the advocates
of Christianity ? Are they even worthy of being termed the
friends of religious faith ? And are not both names more

1 Dr. Whichcot well observes : " Every thing is dangerous to him who is
afraid of it."
2 Bishop of London's Charge, 1850, p. 59.

THE TRUE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH. 125
properly applicable to those who would set our rehgion free
from the necessity of sanctioning indefensible error ?
As we entertain no doubt whatever on this subject, we feel
that we shall do good service to the cause of Christian truth,
and that we shall place the defence of the faith on a true and
secure basis, if we show that these two erroneous assumptions
or opinions — the latter of which is a mere offshoot from the
former — are not only indefensible in themselves, but also un
essential as theological dogmas, and not included among the
elements of Christian orthodoxy.

APPENDIX II.
(CHAP. II. p. 103).
ON MANICH_EISM AS OPPOSED OR RELATED TO
CHRISTIANITY.

The particular form of heresy which is called Manichseism,
from the Persian Gnostic, Manes, or Manichaeus, to whom it
owed its special development in the middle of the thhd century,
is, in every sense, the most important and interesting of those
attempts to connect Christianity with existing forms of belief or
speculation, which were so rife in the earliest ages of the Church.
It has not faUed to attract the notice which it deserves, for, in
addition to the clear and sensible account of this heresy which is
to be found in the pages of Mosheim and Norton, we have two
complete and elaborate works on the subject, that by Beausobre,
of which the first volume appeared in 1734,1 and that by
Ferdinand Christian Baur, which was pubhshed in the corre
sponding period of the present century ; 2 and with a special
reference to these works, Dr. Pusey has caUed attention to the
subject in an appendix to his translation of the Confessions of St.
Augustine.3 But the majority of theologians in this country
entertain very vague notions as to the relationship between Chris
tianity and Manicheeism ; as to the amount of truth or falsehood
1 Sistoire Critique de Manichee et du Manicheisme. Amsterdam, vol. i.,
1734, vol. ii., 1739.
2 Das Manichaische Religionssystem nach den Quellen neu untersucht tind
entwickelt. Tubingen, 1831.
3 Pp. 314-346. Dr. Pusey says that " Beausobre's work on Manichaeism is
altogether confused by its liberalist principles. It is not a history, but an
apology of a system which he ill understood."

128 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX II.
in the latter, and as to the influence which, in its worst features,
it has exercised, and still exercises on the opinions and practice
of Protestants. We propose, therefore, to indicate very briefly
(1) the nature of the Iranian religion, in which this dualism
originated ; (2) the declared opposition of Jewish monotheism to
this system of behef ; (3) the tendency of the Jews, during and
after theh connection with Babylon, to adopt some portion of
this duahsm ; (4) the maimer in which the early Christians
adopted what was true, and rejected what was false in the dualistic
theory ; (5) the special attempt of Manes to make Christianity
responsible for the whole system ; (6) the existing manifestations
of Manichaeism. This inquiry wiU be a necessary supplement to
the discussions in our first Appendix.
(1). With the exception, perhaps, of the Jews, there is no ancient
nation whose religion is more interesting to us than that of the
Persians. Occupying, as they did and stiU do, a part of the
original home of the great Indo-Germanic family to which we
belong, and standing more closely in contact with the Semitic
tribes than any other branch of the family, theh rehgion fur
nishes a much better basis for comparative mythology than that
of any other Arian race. For whUe, as we shaU see, theh
duahsm has passed from theh Babylonian subjects to the Jews,
and from the Jews to the Christians, the oldest remains of the
Indian language and hterature betray evident traces of the
ancient worship of Persia, and the European children of Iran
have retained in theh vocabularies many peculiar terms borrowed
from the same form of rehgion. Thus the name of God in old
Persian is da&va, a word connected with the root div or dyu, " to
shine," and so indicating the Persian conception that the good
God is the principle of light. We have the same word, but not
always the same idea, in the Sanscrit ddvas, Latin deus or divus,
and dies-piter, Greek Zevt, BtFot, Lithuanian dievas, German Zio
and Tyo. The Persian Timd becomes, with a slight change of
attributes, the Tama of the ancient Indians (see Spiegel, Avesta,
p. 7). SimUarly, Ahura, who, as Ahwa-maz-dao, "the sphit
of the great God of light," is the beneficent deity of the
Persians, is represented in India by a bad divinity, Asura;
and in both religions we have the Haoma or Soma, a plant
regarded both as an instrument and as an object of worship.
Independently of the more ancient traces of religious influence,

Zoroaster's system. 129
such as the stories of Artemis Tauropola and Europa ( Varronianus,
pp. 49-51), the attempts of the Persians to conquer Eastern
Europe, theh settlements in Asia Minor, the early intercourse
of Greek physicians and travellers with the subjects of the great
King and with the great King himself, above all the fulfilment
by Alexander of those plans of conquest, which Xenophon's nar
rative had suggested and proved to be feasible — aU this would
fuUy account for a steady and continuous dissemination of the
creed of ancient Iran. It seems probable that the speculations,
which claim Zoroaster for their author, were given to the world
in the sixth century before Christ, namely, in the same century
with those of Buddha and Confutsee or Confucius, but a little in
advance of them (see Roth, Gesch. unserer aberliindischen Philo
sophic: Mannheim, 1846, pp. 348 foU.). The machinery of the
rehgious system, which was introduced or elucidated by the
Bactrian sage, is weU known, and may be stated very briefly.
Zoroaster assumed that all things good and evil emanated from
one everlasting but unmanifested deity, who created from himself
a dualism perpetually exhibiting the antithesis of light and dark
ness. This absolute god they caUed Zaruana altar ana, " the
uncreated eternity " (Roth, u. -s. note, 604), and they considered
that this primary existence contained aU space and time
(Damascius, de primis principiis, p. 384, Kopp). From Zaruana
akarana, two special gods, the real objects of worship and fear,
were immediately derived — the god of hght and goodness, whom
they called Ormu%d, in Zend Ahura Maz-dao, " the spirit of the
great god," also gpento-mainyus, "the holy-minded": — and the
god of darkness and evU, whom they caUed Aliriman, in Zend
Anghra-mainyus, "the evh-minded," also dush-mainyus, Bvcrfievrjt,
"the hostile" (Burnouf, Yagna, pp. 88-91). It is remarkable
that they regarded the evil principle as anterior to the good in
this manifestation of dualistic divinity, so that the latter came
into being as a remedial dispensation, as a principle of light and
order, to regulate the chaotic darkness and anarchy, which had
aheady established itself in the universe. This work, however,
was supposed to involve a perpetual contest ; and Zoroaster was
not content to place "light" and "darkness," as Pythagoras
did, on the two opposite sides in a avo-TOtyla or parallel columns
of opposed realities. It was supposed that the gpento-mainyus,
Ormuzd, generated from himself six other sphitual beings of the
9

130 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX 11.
same nature, bearing the name of Amshaspand, that is, in Zend,
amescha-gpenta, " immortal saint " ; and Ahriman, in like manner,
gave birth to six devs, daevas or evil spirits, between whom and
the foUowers or companions of Ormuzd there is perpetual war.
These bands of six are not only opposed to each other in the
aggregate, but in each class the separate beings have their special
opponents. The foUowing table exhibits the supposed opposition :
Amshaspands (Ormuzd). Devs (Ahriman).
1. Rahman, "goodness." 1. Akuman, "malice."
2. Khordad, "creator." 2. Tarik, "destroyer."
3. Amerdad, "giver of immortality." 3. Zarech, " the waster."
4. Rashnerast, "truthful." . 4. Ndoghaitya, " deceiver."
5. Ardibehesht, " pure-fire." 5. Sarva, "destroying fire."
6. Shahriver, " giver of wealth." 6. Lndra, "the divider or
impoverisher of men."
The first five pahs in this comparison are given by Roth
(u. s., p. 400). We have opposed Lndra to Shahriver, who, as
Kshathravairya, " the lord of the desirable," is a god of wealth,
and corresponds to TrXovTOt, placed by Plutarch among the
Amshaspands (de Iside, c. 47; cf. Burnouf, Yagna, p. 151), be
cause the first spirit in each class seems to stand by itself, because
Khordad and Amerdad always form a pah of spirits (Burnouf,
Yagna, pp. 158-9), and because Ndoghaitya, Sarva, lndra, form
a trio in the Indian mythology, and the two former being appro
priated as opponents of Rashnerast and Ardibehesht, there remains
only Shahriver as the opponent of Andra or lndra. It is true
that the latter is sometimes opposed to Rehram, the spirit of the
planet Mars, and is the rival of Ardibehesht in the creed of the later
Parsees. But Rehram is not a regular Amshaspand, and Ardi
behesht is better matched with his mischievous correlative Sarva.
Having, by this play of fancy, arranged the oppositions in the
spiritual world, Zoroaster's scheme proceeds to deal with the
visible and tangible creation. The higher spiritual existences
constitute the model or type according to which the visible world
is formed ; and the agent in the creation is either Ormuzd alone,
or this good spirit in conjunction with the Amshaspands. The
same word, honover, by which Zaruana created Ormuzd, is used
by the latter for the creation of the World-egg, and the twenty-
four Izeds which it contained (Roth, u. s. p. 401). The work of
creation was carried on for a succession of six periods ; and as

Zoroaster's system 131
the six days' creation of the Jews was connected with the ordi
nary week of the Egyptians, which they had adopted, so the
simUar theory of the Persians points to the division of the year
into six seasons. It was not without reference to this, that Plato
adopted the perfect number, six, as the type of completed
creation. (See Transactions of the Philological Society, 1843,
No. 8.) Although the scheme of Zoroaster makes a marked dis
tinction between the invisible world and its visible counterpart,
it must be remembered that the latter too was fuU of objects of
worship. Heaven and earth, the stars, the sun and moon, light,
fire and water, the winds, the mountains, the rivers, and even the
trees, were supposed to be instinct with life, and to be worthy of
adoration. But this does not raise them to the rank of deities.
They are rather watched over and protected by spirits of their
own, who play the same part as the guardian angels of medieval
Christianity. The sun especially — in Zend, Hware — is connected
with a great spirit, Mithras, who, as the diffuser of light, and
the dispeUer of darkness, is the chief associate of Ormuzd, and the
most active enemy of Ahriman. He is called the invincible Sun-
god, because he exhibits himself every morning as victorious over
the darkness of night ; and he is also termed the mediator, either
because the sun conveys to men the blessings of hght and
warmth, for which they praise Ormuzd, or because he stood be
tween Ormuzd and Ahriman, and partook, in some measure, of
the nature of both (Plutarch, de Iside, c. 46). The latter expla
nation of the name 'mediator' appears to be supported by the
planetary mythology of the Chaldseans, who considered two of the
planets as beneficent, two as malignant, and the other three as
partaking of both natures. And the same view seems to have
been adopted by the Greeks, when they regarded Jupiter as the
god of light and blessing, Hades as the god of darkness and
evU, and imagined Harmonia as the offspring of malignant Mars
and benignant Venus (Plut., ibid. c. 48). Without pursuing the
Persian rehgion into its details, it is clear that it was a system of
dualistic belief, refined by the Bactrian Zoroaster from a more
ancient worship of the elements. To the end, however, of their
history, the Persians adored the visible elements, both imme
diately and under the form of representative symbols. In the
Yagna we find such invocations as the foUowing (Burnouf, p.
375) : " I celebrate, I invoke Ahura and Mithra, exalted, im-

132 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX II.
mortal, pure ; and the stars, holy and celestial creations ; and
the star Tashter, luminous, resplendent ; and the moon, which
preserves the seed of the bull; and the sun, sovereign, rapid
steed, eye of Ahuramazdao ; Mithra, chief of the provinces."
In accordance with this, Darius, who in the Behistun inscription
ascribes his sovereignty to the favour of Ormuzd, is made by
Herodotus (ih. 84-88) to record on an inscription the fact that he
owed his throne to a groom and a steed ; and we have shown, in
a special paper, that this inscription must have referred to the
favouring influence of the Sun-god, whom the Persians wor
shipped under the form of a horse, or of a chariot and horses
(see Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xvi., pp. 1-7).
Now this idea must have been much older than the time of
Zoroaster. The chariot of Phoebus was imagined or adopted by
the Greeks long before the sixth century, and horses and chariots
of the sun are mentioned among the imported superstitions of the
Jews before the- reign of Josiah in the seventh century (2 Kings
xxiii. 11); so that, if Zoroaster's epoch is fixed at the period
from 589-512 b.c (Anquetil du Perron, apud Kleuker, Zendavesta,
part iii., p. 40, sqq., Anhang, pp. 327-349), he must have con
fined himself to systematizing or explaining by philosophical
commentaries an elementary duahsm, reaching back to the
earhest ages of the Iranian race. And when Plutarch teUs us
(u. s., c. 46) that Zoroaster taught the Persians to offer prayers
and thanksgivings to Ormuzd and his associates, but to make
averting and gloomy oblations to Ahriman and the host of dark
ness, he must mean that the Bactrian sage, whom he so completely
ante-dates, stood as the representative and improver of an existing
creed, which he carried to its last refinement, when he divided
fire into the two opposing deities, Ardibehesht and Sarva, the one
representing the purity and life of the element, the other its
agency in destruction and death.1
(2). The Jews, who had previously known, and shown a
tendency to adopt, some parts of the elementary worship of theh
Eastern neighbours, became acquainted with the special doctrines
of Zoroaster when the Persians conquered Babylon, the land of
theh captivity ; and at Alrs epoch we have a direct reference to
1 It is worthy of observation, with reference to the functions of Sarva,
that the Greeks qualify both fire and Hades by the same epithet, aiSr\\os,
" destructive ; " cf. Horn. II. ii. 455, Soph. Ajax, 608.

DUALISM REJECTED BY THE EARLIER JEWS. 133
the Bactrian dualism in the religious writings of the Jews. It
is a weU-known and generally-admitted fact in Biblical criticism,
that the prophecies attributed to Isaiah must be divided into two
main subdivisions; the one, consisting of the first thirty-nine
chapters, is the work, for the most part, of the great prophet, who
flourished in the eighth century b.c ; the other, containing chapters
xl.-lxvi., is attributed to some eminent writer, who flourished
in the sixth century, in the time of Zoroaster, when the Persian
conquerors of Babylon began to hold out to the exUed Jews some
prospect of a return to their native country. This beautiful
supplement to Isaiah, by whomspever written, is inspired with
the noblest sentiments of the prophetic school, and represents the
thoughts of the truest Israelites. Although, therefore, the writer
regards Cyrus as a benefactor, as a servant or instrument of the
true God, he does not hesitate, in directly addressing the Persian
king, to controvert in express terms the dualism of Zoroaster, and
to maintain that there are no opposing deities of light and dark
ness, but only one Supreme Being, to whom good and evU equally
belong. Jehovah is made to address " his anointed Cyrus " in
these remarkable words (xiv. 5 sqq.) : "I am the Lord, and there
is none else, there is no God beside me : I ghded thee, though
thou hast not known me : that they may know from the rising
of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I
am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the hght and create
darkness : I make peace and create evU : I the Lord do all these
things." Surely there could not be a more exphcit contradiction
and repudiation of the Persian duahsm than that which is con
tained in these words addressed to a Persian king. We have
another example of the same kind in the Elohistic cosmogony in
the Book of Genesis, which, as wiU be shown on independent
grounds in the foUowing Appendix, was drawn up at the same
epoch as the supplement to the prophecies of Isaiah. In this
account of the creation, we find it stated, with a tacit reference
to Zoroaster's theory, that, although the elements of water and
darkness, which he placed in the domain of Ahriman, were ante
cedent to the creation, yet it was Elohim, who, at first, and with
out any previous. creation of Ormuzd, introduced light and order
into the chaotic mass ; it was He — for the polytheism is merely
grammatical — who immediately divided the hght from the dark
ness. And though the writer speaks of the heavenly host (ii. 1),

134 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX II.
there is not the slightest reason for any assumption that the
heavenly bodies were regarded as created inteUigencies. These
are special examples of the opposition between the more ancient
Judaism and the duahsm of Zoroaster. But in the whole body
of Jewish hterature prior to the exUe, there is constant evidence
of the fact, that no intermediate agencies were recognised, that
there were no separate powers of light and darkness, of good and
evil, but that, in aU his manifestations, the one personal God was
immediately apparent or immediately active. The term maVhdk,
which we render "angel" in the earlier books of the Old Testa
ment, is never used to signify, a created inteUigence, but always
indicates God himself, in some manifestation or other. Indeed,
the form of the word, as Eiirst has shown, excludes the sense of
personahty. Thus, when the three angels come to Abraham
(Gen. xviii. 1, 22), it appears that his intercourse is with God
alone. When Jehovah so emphaticaUy reveals himself to Moses
(Exod. 2 sqq.), it is said that the angel of the Lord appeared to
him in the bush. And when the angel had appeared to Manoah
and his wife, the remark is "we shaU surely die, because we
have seen God" (Judges, xiii. 22). Perhaps the best examples
of the fact to which we are referring are those in which God
appears as an agent in the suggestion of evU thoughts. Thus
not only is it stated (Numbers, xxii. 32) that God himself ap
peared to be a Satan or adversary to Balaam, but he is represented
as hardening Pharaoh's heart (Exodus, iv. 21, vii. 3, 13, etc.) ;
and whUe, in the book of Chronicles (xxi. 1), which was written
after the captivity, David's sinful wish to count his people is
attributed to the suggestion of Satan, in the older books of Samuel
(2 Sam. xxiv. 1) it is expressly said that the Lord moved David
to number Israel and Judah. With regard to the most distinctly
symbolical of those forms under which the Jews conceived the
agency of God, namely, the Cherubim and Seraphim, which they
represented under forms derived from the Egyptian hieroglyphics,
it is quite clear that these were not regarded as spiritual intelli
gences, but merely as the natural phenomena of meteorology ; the
clouds and the winds being called cherubim or " snatchers,"
and the lightning and other fiery appearances being regarded as
seraphim or "burners," just as __Eschylus sums up the objects of
elemental fear in the description, that the "mid-air teems with
floating fires, and that things which walk and fly can teU of the

JEWISH DUALISM AFTER THE EXILE. 135
virulence of gusty hurricanes" (Choeph. 581-4) ; a classification
of precisely the same kind as that in Psalm civ. 4, where we read
that God makes the winds his messengers, and the flames of fire
his ministers. The same renunciation of the idea of intermediate
agency between God and man may be seen in the general opposi
tion, by the Old Testament no less than by the New, of the
divine Spirit to the flesh, whether of man or beast. Nothing
stands between these two. They form the one antithesis. The
true Israelites worshipped Jehovah as "the God of the spirits of
aU flesh" (Numbers, xvi. 22. xxvii. 16), whether of men
(Isaiah, lvii. 16) or of other animals (Psalm civ. 29, 30 ; Isaiah,
xxxi. 3). His spirit hovered over the unformed mass of matter
and animated it (Gen. i. 2) ; the same inspiration made a living
soul to dweU in the dust of the ground (Gen. ii. 7 ; Job, xxxii. 8,
xxxiii. 4) ; and wherever men are clever artists (Exod. xxxi. 3),
skilful generals (Numbers, xxvii. 18), brave warriors (Judges,
vi. 34; Psalm cxii v. 1), and zealous preachers (Isaiah, lxi. 1),
it is the spirit of Jehovah that comes upon them, and gives them
their competency or inteUectual and moral eminence.
(3). Notwithstanding their previous immunity from any super
stitious personification of the powers of nature, the Jews did not
return from exUe without some infection from the system with
which they lived in contact during theh residence in Babylonia,
and subsequent influences tended to strengthen the hold of this
new superstition, which had asserted its fuU supremacy by the
time when the Book of Daniel was composed, in the second
century before our era. In this book we find the celestial
hierarchy of Amshaspands fully recognised. We may be disposed
to waive the question whether the word K>V.jJ, which means
"a saint," or "a holy one," in Daniel, iv. 13, viii. 13, Zech.
xiv. 5, is, or is not, a translation of the old Persian gpentd. The
same word is found, with a simUar reference, in a more ancient,
but interpolated poem, the supplement to the blessing of Moses
(Deut. xxxiii. 2), and seems there to be predicated of the
seraphim (see Jashar, p. 230), the fiery spirits who surrounded
the throne of Jehovah (Isaiah, vi. 3), and constituted his host
(1 Kings, xxii. 19), though they were not personified tUl the
Jewish writers, as in the last quotation, had an opportunity of
enriching theh style with pictures borrowed from Babylonian
mythology. In the Book of Daniel, however, we have not only

136 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX II.
a distinct personification, but a nomenclature, to which the
Jerusalem Tahnud expressly assigns a Babylonian origin. The
statement is (Lightfoot, Horce Heb. et Talm. in Luc., p. 723) :
"R. Simeon, the son of Lachish, says: 'the names of the
angels came up in the hand of Israel from Babylon. For, before
this, the expression merely was : one of the seraphim flew to
me ; the seraphim stood before him, Isaiah, vi. etc. ; but, after
wards, the man Gabriel, Dan. ix. 21, and Michael, your prince,
Dan. x. 21.' " In the Book of Tobit, the angel Raphael describes
himself as " one of the seven holy angels who enter in before the
glory of the Holy One (xii. 15)"; and in precisely the same way,
the angel Gabriel describes himself in St. Luke's Gospel. He
says to Zacharias (i. 19) : "I am Gabriel, that stand in the
presence of God." In the former of these passages, Gabriel
makes himself one of seven ministering spirits, and this is in
close approximation to the Zoroastrian idea of Ormuzd and his
six Amshaspands. But the Jews, in adapting this machinery to
their own purposes, seem to have limited the attendant spirits to
the number four, probably from some confusion between the
Amshaspands and the seraphim of Isaiah on the one hand, and
the four creatures of Ezekiel on the other. Hence arose the idea
that the Tsaba, or "heavenly host," was divided into four armies,
corresponding to the four great divisions of the Hebrew host in
the wilderness, and distinguished by simUar ensigns (Numbers,
ii., cf. Rev. iv. 6). And the Jewish tradition teUs us, that
" there are four armies of angels of ministry singing praises
before the Holy and Blessed One. The first, that of Michael on
his right hand; the second, that of Gabriel on his left; the
thhd, that of Uriel in front of him ; the fourth, that of Raphael
behind " (Pirke Rabbi Eliezer iv. init.). It is idle to object to
the obvious fact that these ideas came from Babylon and Persia,
by saying that the names of the angels " are not only Semitic,
but of that Semitic form which is distinctively and peculiarly
Hebrew, as distinguished even from the Aramaic of Babylon, in
which the greater part of the book of the prophet of the cap
tivity is written " (Mill, Mythical Interpretation of Luke i. p. 57).
As the Jews retained their own name, Mal'hdk, although it was
properly inapplicable to these created intelligences, and did not
adopt the Persian word, which had, at a much earher period,
ound its way into the Greek language (see Leducq, On the Origin

THE APOSTLES REPUDIATED THE DUALISTIC THEORY. 137
and Primitive Meaning of the word Ange, Trans, of the Philo
logical Society, vol. vi. No. 132), it was not likely that they
would borrow designations for the individuals of the hierarchy,
which they did not import literaUy and in extenso. With regard
to the names, which they composed for the purpose, it is worthy of
observation, that they are the same formations as those which are
found in the names of the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel ; and we
shaU see, in the foUowing Appendix, that this is reaUy an argu
ment of time, and tends to show that Michael, Gabriel, Uriel,
and Raphael, were designations compounded at the time when
Jehovism was temporarily suspended, in the latter half of the
captivity. When it is urged that an evU being, an accuser and
afflicter of men, is undoubtedly brought forward in the Book of
Job (i. 6, sqq. ; ii. 1, sqq. ; xxxviii. 7), and that a being, with
the attributes of the archangel Michael, appears to Joshua before
Jericho (Josh. v. 13-15), we merely say, waiving aU argument on
the latter passage, which may, after all, be a theophany, that
these two books belong to the class in which we should expect to
find some traces of the Babylonian influences ; for the Book of
Job is shown, by its place in the Hagiographa, and by many
internal evidences, to be one of the later books in the Canon ;
and the Book of Joshua, with its quotations from older works,
and its confusion between Joshua and Barak, is one of the least
original of the Masorethic compilations, the taU-piece being a
clumsy Elohistic restoration. On the whole, then, it cannot be
doubted that Dr. Strauss stated a simple fact when he said
(Leben Jesu, § 17) : "it is in the Maccabean Daniel, and in the
Apocryphal Tobit, that this doctrine of angels, in its more precise
form, first appears ; and it is evidently a product of the influence
of the Zend rehgion of the Persians on the Jewish mind."
(4). As Christianity took its rise among the Jews after they
had been familiarised with the most influential superstitions of
the Persians and Babylonians, it was a matter of course that the
Jewish Christians should more or less adopt what had become
the religious phraseology of theh countrymen. The extent, to
which the first teachers of our rehgion imphcated themselves in
the demonology of their countrymen, wUl become the subject of
discussion in a subsequent chapter. Here it wUl be sufficient to
call attention to the fact, that at all events they were free from
any real approach to dualism. This wiU be shown best by con-

138 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX II.
trasting the general spirit of their teaching, and some of theh
most emphatic declarations, with the language which they bor
rowed from the Babylonian school. For in this way it wiU
appear that they used the language of Oriental duahsm with an
intentionaUy controversial reference. The commencement of St.
John's Gospel is a striking example of the opposition between
hght and darkness as types of good and evil respectively, which
is common, to the teaching of Zoroaster and the early Christians.
Yet we see here that there is no assumption of paraUel kingdoms
of opposed spiritual beings. The language is obviously meta
phorical; but there are express statements in contradiction to
the duahstic hypothesis. The writer begins by saying that the
Word was co-eternal with the Father, not a created being like the
Ormuzd of the Persians. AU things were made by him, and
without him was not anything made that was made. There were
not therefore separate creations of hght and darkness, separate
workings of Ormuzd and Ahriman. The Word is the only source
of hght and life ; and when it is said that the hght shineth in
darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not (John, i. 5), we
are to understand that this refers to that love of evU in the lower
nature of man which prevents him from discerning the righteous
ness of God (John, ih. 19, xii. 35, 46, viii. 12). When, there
fore, Satan is mentioned as the ruler of this world, and as a
power of darkness (John, xii. 31 ; Acts, xxvi. 18; Ephes. ii. 2,
vi. 12, etc.), we see that this is only a personification referring
to the carnal wickedness, which makes the natural man, repre
sented by the wicked world in general, at enmity with the hght
of God (cf. 1 John, h. 13, with 1 John, v. 4, 18, 19). And that
the disciples of Christ may not be so far misled by the adoption
of the Babylonian antithesis of light and darkness, as to beheve
that even the representatives of the former are angehc beings to
be worshipped on theh own account, even in the most fantastic
and pictorial forms of this imagery, a caution is introduced (Rev.
xix. 10, xxii. 9) ; and St. Paul expressly says to the Colossians,
by way of warning against these Rabbinistic anticipations of
Manichaeism, " let no man beguUe you of your reward, in a
voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into
things which he hath not seen" (ii. 18). That there were in
consistencies in the opinions and expressions of the Apostles
respecting angels and devUs is only too true, and they had, no

ALEXANDRIAN AND BABYLONIAN CORRUPTIONS. 139
doubt, very little idea of the use which would be made of their
concessions to prevalent phraseology. But they did not pretend
to infallibility ; and if they could now see the manner in which
they are invested with superhuman attributes, they would ex
claim to theh modern worshippers, as they did to the poor mis
taken heathens of Lystra, "Sirs, why do ye these things? we
also are men of like passions with you" (Acts, xiv. 15). But it
is one thing to personify the elemental agencies, which exhibit
the power of the great Creator in his dealings with this lower
world, and it is another thing to adopt the Persian superstitions,
and pay worship to a hierarchy of intermediate beings. It is one
thing to say to Christians, who have devoted themselves to a life
of purity and holiness, after having been addicted to gross and
polluting superstitions : "Te were sometimes darkness, but now
are ye light in the Lord : walk as chUdren of light" (Ephes. v. 8) ;
or : " Ye are aU the children of light, and the children of the day :
we are not of the light, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not
sleep, as do others ; but let us watch and be sober" (1 Thess.
v. 5, 6) : it is another thing to say with Zoroaster and his
foUowers, that the Supreme Being has created two distinct king
doms of light and darkness, and has placed them under the con
trol of immortal beings, good and evU, who are in perpetual con
test and controversy, and to caU upon men to offer idolatrous
worship, of prayer and deprecation, to the deities of these two
realms. Whatever hold or handles the Apostles of Christianity
may have given to those, who wished to bind more closely the
ties which connected effete Judaism with the dualistic worship of
Persia, they themselves beheved and preached that there is only
one God, and he supremely good, and that all men, Jews and
heathens, have access through the Son by one Sphit to the
Father (Ephes. ii. 18).
(5). Originating as it did with a people who had connections
with Alexandria on the one side, and with Babylon on the other,
it was to be expected that the earhest affections of Christianity
would be traceable to those two sources of corruption. And, in
point of fact, we find that the first and most influential heresies
took their rise either in the Neo-Platonic phUosophy, which
found its cradle in the Grseco-Egyptian metropolis, or in the
Medo-Persic speculations, which the Rabbis of Babylon were too
wiUing to adopt and propagate. On the one hand, most of the

140 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX II.
Gnostics were Egyptians, who contemplated Christianity from the
point of view attained by the Platonic philosophy, modified by
fresh contact with those Egyptian ideas which had influenced
Greek thought from the days of Pythagoras. It was here, too,
that Philo and others had made a mixture of Judaism with the
same elements. On the other hand, in addition to the less
prominent influence of the Rabbinistic doctors, whose lore was
derived from Babylon, we have the great and prominent case of
Manes, who professedly and'intentionaUy rejected aU the doc
trines and facts of Christianity, which he could not bring into
harmony with the Zoroastrian religion of ancient Persia, and his
own speculations buUt up on this basis. It is quite possible that
the Gnostics may have imbibed some principles of Persian dual
ism, and that even the Greek phUosophy of Pythagoras and Plato
may have derived some materials from the same source. But the
author of the Manichaean heresy stands distinct by the boldness
of his avowals, and the completeness of the scheme of accommo
dation which he endeavoured to substitute for the Christianity of
his age.
It appears that Manes, or Manichseus, was born probably at
Carcub, in Huzitis, in the year 240 a.d. He was of Magian
blood, and combined with a perfect knowledge of the doctrines
of Zoroaster a number of accomplishments eminently rare in
those days and in that part of Asia. He was acquainted with the
language and hterature of Greece. Mathematics, music, and
geography, were his favourite studies, and he had made himfelf
master of Jewish and Christian theology. It is difficult to say
whether he was most zealous originaUy for the faith of his ances
tors, or for the creed of Christianity, which he had adopted. But
there is no doubt that personal vanity was mingled with his en
thusiasm, and that, in seeking to combine in one system the
duahsm of ancient Persia and the revelations of the Gospel, he
assigned to himself a part not less prominent than that which he
aUowed to the lawgiver of the Magians, or the Head of the
Church. And he paid the penalty for his ambition by a death,
which was martyrdom, or just punishment, according to the sin
cerity of his convictions. This took place in 277 a.d., and
Manichseism was estabhshed by the death of its founder
(Beausobre, i. p. 209).
The system of Manes, as we have already said, was an

DOCTRINES OF MANICHiEISM. 144
amalgamation of the old dualism of the Persians, as we have
described it above, with the more salient features of the Christian
revelation. Starting from the opposition between light and
darkness, and the spiritual beings who peopled the two kingdoms,
he assumed that they had long existed side by side, when the
Prince of Darkness, happening to discover that there was this
antagonistic realm, invaded it with his host of Devs. The armies
of hght, with the first man for their leader, did battle with him,
but not so successfully as to prevent him from infusing his
material elements into the once pure kingdom of light. And
although the Living Sphit, who succeeded to the "Command of
the host of light, gained some advantage over the invaders, the
common ground was still occupied by both parties, and Ahriman
was able to create the parents of our race, who were compounded
of both natures, having a material body and two souls, one full
of concupiscence, and the other fraught with reason and immor
tality. The earth, as a habitation for man, was framed by the
Living Sphit from the matter of darkness ; and as allies to what
was good in man, the Supreme Being produced from his own
substance two secondary existences, Christ, who resided in the
sun, and corresponded to the Persian Mithras, the mediator ; and
the Paraclete or Holy Ghost, who floated in the earth's atmos
phere, penetrating the souls of men, and gradually preparing
them for restoration to the kingdom of light. In the course of
time, Christ came down from the sun, and assuming the form of
man, appeared among the Jews, and taught and worked miracleSj
tiU the Prince of Darkness instigated the unbelievers to procure
his semblance of death on the cross. The Mediator then re-
ascended to the sun, leaving the Paraclete to complete his work
on the earth. Manes announced that he was this Paraclete, and
that those who received his version of Christianity would gra
dually triumph over matter, and, after an abode of fifteen days
in the purifying waters of the moon, would proceed to the sun,
whose fire would cleanse them from aU the stains of matter.
Those, on the other hand, who refused to receive the teaching
of Manes, would, after death, pass to other forms of matter, and
inhabit the bodies of the lower animals till they had atoned for
theh unbelief. Lastly, the world would be consumed by fire,
and so the powers of darkness would be expeUed, and driven
back to theh original abode in the realms of gloom and despair.

142 CHBISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APTENDIX H.
From this account it wiU be seen that Manichaeism was, in
the language of Gibbon (iii. 42, ed. Smith), " an artful composi
tion of Oriental and Christian theology." Our present hmits
wiU not aUow us to draw a paraUelism between Manes and
Mahomet (Mosheim, p. 748), or to inquire how far he was antici
pated by Simon Magus (Baur, pp. 467-475), and how many points
of resemblance there are between his scheme and that of the
Buddhists (Baur, pp. 433-451). But it is highly important to
show, however briefly, that the heresy of Manichaeism, or that
which constituted its distinctive position in regard to Christianity,
consisted in" his attempt to make Christianity responsible for the
whole system of Persian dualism ; to substitute that system for
Judaism as a basis of Christianity, and, assuming for himself the
functions of an Apostle, or more, to supersede those Jewish
Preachers and Evangelists to whom the foundation of our reh
gion was actuaUy due. In setting aside the authority of the
Old Testament, and maintaining that the books of the Jews were
overlaid with un-Mosaic falsifications, the ManichaBans merely
took the same ground as the authors of the Clementine Homilies,
and anticipated the results of Biblical criticism. But this was
only a negative part of theh system. Not content with this
abjudication, he made the Zoroastrian duahsm more completely
a substratum for Christianity than Judaism had ever been. On
the one hand, the ManichaBans accepted only the moral law of
Moses. "Age, si libet," says Eaustus (op. August, xxii. 1),
"assensu eommuni scriptoribus damnatis, defensionem suscipiamus
legis et prophetarum. Legem autem non dico ego, non circum-
cisionem, nee Sabbatha et sacrificia, ceteraque ejusmodi Judaeorum,
sed earn quae vere sit lex, id est, non occides, non mcechaberis,
non pejerabis, et cetera. Cui quia olim diffamatae in gentibus,
id est, ex quo mundi hujus creatura consistit, Hebraeorum scrip-
tores irruentes, tanquam lepram et scabiem, abominanda haec sua
et turpissima prsecepta commiscuerunt, quae ad peritomen spectant
et sacrificia, age, si es pro certo et tu amicus legis, damna eos
mecum, qui hanc violare ausi sunt hac commixtione inconvenien-
tium eidem prseceptorum." It would have been very weU if the
Manicheeans had stopped here ; but they proceeded to estabhsh
their dualism with aU its angelic machinery in the place of the
Jewish rehgion, and to carry to the extreme point that Babylonian
and Persian system which the Jews only partially adopted after

TENDENCIES OF THIS SYSTEM. 143
the Exile, and which was more opposed to the spiritual law of
Moses than the after-growths of Levitical ritual. On the other
hand, the Manicheeans received only those parts of the Christian
system which squared with their Magian speculations. " What
ever," says Baur (p. 375), " in the writings of the New Testa
ment seemed to concur with the dualism set forth by Manes, was
accounted among the most genuine ingredients in the doctrines
of Christianity, and Manes and his adherents were very glad to
cite for the confirmation of their own doctrines and principles
passages like Matthew vii. 18, xiii. 24; John, i. 5, viii. 44,
xiv. 30 ; 2 Cor. iv. 4 (cf. Epiph. Hair. lxvi. 67-69) ; and
especiaUy also those in which the apostle Paul speaks of the
opposition between flesh and spirit. As they, however, found so
much in the New Testament, which not only did not confirm the
Manichsean doctrines, but stood in open opposition to them, they
were obhged, in accordance with the hypothesis that the original
doctrines of Christianity did not differ from those of Manichaeism,
to regard aU passages of this kind as a distortion and falsification
of Christianity. Accordingly, they laid down the rule that the
written records of Christianity ought not to be received uncon-
ditionaUy, but must be subjected to a previous scrutiny, with a
view to ascertain how far they exhibited the genuine substance of
Christianity ; and this was limited to those portions which bore
the character of Manichaeism; so that, foUowing this criterion,
whatever did not harmonize with theh own doctrines, was
rejected without hesitation, because original Christianity could
not contradict itself." These ideas they worked out in a manner
peculiar to themselves, and with results decidedly unfavourable
to the integrity and authenticity of the New Testament. They
could accept neither the doctrines nor the facts of revelation,
unless they could regard them as a reflex of theh own duahsm.
Without wishing to reject Christianity, they made theh own
system the standard of measurement, and lopped or stretched the
religion of the Cross, wherever it did not fit in with the religion
of Light and Darkness. The identification of Christ with
Mithras led, of course, to a profession of Doeetism, namely, to
the assertion that our Lord's sufferings on the cross were not
real but apparent only. Christ had no real human body, no
double nature, but only a fantastic semblance of corporeity, in
which his essence, as the Son of Everlasting Light, was presented

144 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX II.
to the eyes of mon. In his letter to Odas, the heresiarch himself
says: "When the Galilaeans speak of two natures in Christ, we
break forth into loud laughter at their not knowing that the
nature of Light does not mix itself with another nature, that of
matter, (97 ovaia tov (pwTOt eripa ov fjulr/WTai vXr/') but is pure,
and cannot combine itself with another nature, even though such
a union may seem to have taken place. The name Christ is a mis
applied designation, which denotes neither a kind nor a nature.
The supreme Light, combined with its own essence, showed
a body in the material bodies. In and for himself, Christ is
throughout only one nature." Accordingly, Christ had no human
birth, and his apparent sufferings were reaUy inflicted on him
by his enemy, the Prince of Darkness ; and in thus resolving the
life of Jesus into a series of illusory appearances, the Manichaeans
take from Christianity all its historical foundation, and leave us
nothing but the realistic applications of a few Christian metaphors.
In order to make this nullification of the human nature in Christ
as conspicuous as possible, they inverted the meaning of the
passage in the Epistle to the Colossians, which we have dis
cussed in the first Appendix. For whereas St. Paul makes
the Son of God the exemplar of aU creation, as weU as
an agent in it, the Manichaeans transfer this office to theh
archon or evU spirit, and make the primitive man the exemplar
or microcosm. "In eadem," said Manes — that is, in the image
of the archon — " construebantur et contexebantur omnium
imagines, ccelestium et terrenarum vhtutum, ut pleni videlicet
orbis id, quod formabatur, simihtudinem obtineret " (Baur,
p. 146). That there is a certain amount of phUosophical and
theological truth in this idea, has been sufficiently shown by the
discussions in the first Appendix. But the duahsm perverts the
truth of the statement ; and the fuU amount of the error wiU be
most fuUy appreciated by those who can best understand the
meaning of St. Paul in the passage which we have so fuUy
examined. (6), In spite of its manifest opposition to Christianity, Mani-
chaeism had adopted so much of the truth, and had exhibited a
method so much in accordance with the subsequent procedure of
reflecting men in their reasonings on the subject of religion, that
it necessarUy found partial representatives in the most opposite
parties and sections in the Church. Baur has well remarked

PERMANENT RESULTS OF MANICH-flEISM. 145
(p. 402) : " Great as is the opposition which Manichaeism, with
its rationalism and docetism, raises in contrast to a Christianity
resting on a firm and historical basis ; and much as the contra
diction, which ensues, runs into vagueness and excentricity,
we nevertheless see here the starting-point in that remarkable
opposition, which protests against the Christianity of the Catholic
Church, and which pervades the later Manichseans and Cathari,
and other sects standing in nearer or remoter connexion with the
old Manichaeans. This contradiction was always opposed to a
view which wished to raise the external above the internal, the
letter above the spirit, and to sanction forms, in which genuine
and living Christianity seemed destined to perish — dead, material
forms resting on a blind belief in authority, which threatened to
throw back Christianity into the same class with Judaism and
heathendom." A similar opinion is expressed by Mr. Keightley
(Roman Empire, p. 406) : " The Manichaean system long con
tinued to flourish. It spread itself over both the empires. We
believe there is little doubt, that those who, under the names of
Albigenses, Paulicians, Cathari, and other denominations, were so
crueUy persecuted by the Church of Rome in the middle ages,
were the descendants of the Manichaeans. There is reason to
suppose that the mistresses and the loves of the Troubadours of
the south of France were not earthly ; that the conventional
language, retained by the Soofees in Persia, had been carried by
the Manichaeans to Spain and France ; that in Italy, this lan
guage, which had hitherto been confined to religion, was by
Frederick II. and his friends extended to politics, and made the
bond of union of the Ghibellines, and that it is only by a know
ledge of it that the writings of Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, and
the other writers of that age, can be understood. In fine, it might
appear that Manichaeism eventually led to the Reformation."
We have no intention of entering on the wide and important
argument which is here indicated : nor do we wish to inquire
how far the more vahd principles and more valuable results of
Protestantism are traceable to the procedure ef the early Mani
chaeans. It wiU be sufficient for our purpose to show how far
the dualistic hypothesis, on which Manes built up his speculations,
is adopted by professing Christians in this country. We must
premise that dualism, properly so called, personifies the evil or
material principle no less than the good or spiritual essence, and
10

146 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX II.
invests the former as weU as the latter with the attributes
of divinity. In point of fact, genuine duahsm approaches more
nearly to polytheism than it does to monotheism. The very idea
of two distinct realms, independent of each other, and governed
by separate powers, presumes a coequal authority and a godhead
in the prince of each domain. It is true that the Manichaeans,
when pressed on the subject, endeavoured to evade the argument
of the orthodox party by restricting the name of God to the
principle of light and goodness, whereas they called the lord of
the other realm of darkness and evU by the name of " matter "
or "daemon" (August, contra Faustum, xxi. 1 ; Baur, p. 25). 1
In denying, however, that God, properly so caUed, exerted
his power in the other realm, they reaUy made the power of
darkness act as an independent deity, and thus, whatever they
professed, theh religion was a dualism in the proper sense of the
term. " Duahsm," says Baur, (p. 26), " emanating from Poly
theism, remains true to its proper character only when it places
both principles side by side as gods ; if, in name only, it regards
the one as God and the other as daemon, it is on the point of
passing over to absolute Monotheism." The question, however,
is — whether the distinction in name only is or is not a mere
evasion. If the attributes of divinity are conceded to the prin
ciple of evil, if God is not regarded as the one and only Creator
of aU that is in the world, no evasion wiU rescue the creed from
the charge of duahsm ; and there is no doubt that this charge
may be sustained against Manichaeism in aU its forms and mani
festations. Now it so happens that the party, which claims
exclusively the high-sounding titles of " orthodox" and " evan
gelical," is Manichaean or dualistic in its worst form, namely,
that which approaches nearest to Polytheism. A belief in the
personality of the evil spirit — the ruler of this world — is as
much an article in the creed of the Recordites, — as they are
caUed after the scandalous journal, which is the organ of the
ultra-section in the Low Church faction, — as a belief in the per
sonality of God. Indeed, it is reported that one of the party,
Mr. Howson, who has written the life of St. Paul, said, at the
Liverpool Clerical Society's meeting, on the 5th May, 1836,
1 For the classical distinction between 8ebs and Salpuv, see note on
Pindar, Ol. vi. 8, 9. According to Plato's definition (Symp. p. 202 E)
neither Ormuzd nor Ahriman could properly be called " a dtomon."

MANICHAEISM OF THE LOW CHURCH PARTY. 147
" that his difficulty was not to beheve in the devU. Of that he
found abundant proof in himself, and in everything; his diffi
culty was to believe in God" (!!). This is the faith exacted
from aU who would be considered "orthodox" and " evan
gelical ; " and those, who are most anxious for success as school
masters, are caUed upon to give more than negative proof of
theh soundness in this respect. The head master of Harrow has
been obliged to reeord his faith in the "personality of the
tempter," and he has been servilely foUowed by the principal of
a municipal grammar school, who, besides publishing a sermon
expressly on the subject, has declared, before the University of
Oxford : "I need not pause here to prove the Personality of the
Tempter [Dr. Yaughan's own phrase !] ; — a personality which I
do not hesitate to say is as distinctly put forward on the face of
Holy Scripture as that of either [does he mean ' any one ' ?]
of the Persons of the adorable Trinity." This is, in fact, next
to the hypothesis of infallible Scripture, the favourite Shibboleth
of the school. And what does it amount to ? Simply an asser
tion of Manichaean duahsm, not unconnected with a sort of
tritheism. Starting with a bibliolatry, with which Manichaeism
has nothing to do, these mistaken Christians assume the divine
infalhbUity of the Jewish conceptions in the time of the
Maccabees. Thus, they not only recognise the divine sanction of
the Jewish ritual system, but extend the same veneration to the
belief that this world is a battle-field between the spirits of good,
and the daemons, or evil spirits, which were cast out from
heaven. Their views on this subject have received some ad
ditional consecration from the genius of Milton, and the Arianism
of that great poet passes with them into a sort of tritheism,
which they deny to themselves and others, but reaUy entertain.
In a Seatonian poem, by the late Mr. Hankinson, one of this
school, we have even the Manichaean machinery of seven spiritual
beings recognised as distinct but corresponding realities in
heaven.1 The Three Persons of the Trinity, and the four beasts
about the Throne, are so placed side by side, that no reader could
fail to understand something similar to those collections of greater
and lesser deities, whom Homer groups around the throne of
Zeus, or those Amshaspands, who shared in the derived divinity
1 The Ministration of Angels. Hankinson's Poems, p. 228.

1 48 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX II.
of Ormuzd. In accordance with the same view of the mediatorial
office, Christ, as the Spirit of Light, must not be contaminated by
union with a. real humanity; and we find this class of theologians
perpetually evading or denouncing aU inferences from the fact
that Jesus was perfect man as well as perfect God. Although
they are far from any Docetism, with regard to his sufferings,
which theh adoption of the Jewish sacrificial theory obliges them
to regard as real and complete, yet, by deifying the humanity of
the Son of God, they make him as httle a man of like passions
with ourselves, as though he had been a Mithra descended from
the Orb of Light. These Recordites also carry out the duahsm of
the Manichaeans by a system of separation among the professed
and matured believers in Christ. They have theh line of demar
cation between the men of light and the men of darkness.
It was the practice of the Catholic Church to recognise only
one distinction among Christians — that between the Fideles
and the Catechumeni, between the mature Christians and those
who were not yet fuUy instructed in their profession, or fully
prepared to undertake it. The Manichaeans, adopting this dis
tinction, in name and appearance only, considered the Auditores —
who corresponded to the Catcchumeniin designation, but compre
hended aU the members of their community, who freely engaged
in worldly and social occupations — as an inferior branch of co
religionists, not yet fully weaned from the world of darkness ;
whereas the Flecti, corresponding in terminology to the Fideles,
were the purifying lights of the world, who stood on a pedestal
of high rehgious exaltation. "In general," says Baur (p. 281),
" the Flecti and Auditores are related to one another in the same
way as the Gnostics used to distinguish the pneumatic and psychic,
the spiritual and natural man ; and as the hylic, or material,
stood in the third rank, this class, according to the Manichaean
view, included aU who were not to be found in the Manichaean
society, and stiU belonged entirely to the material world. Strictly
and consequentiaUy as Manichaeism laboured to carry out its
dualistic view of the world in other respects, it was compelled
here, at least, to prevent the practical problem of religion and
morality from appearing an inextricable puzzle, to interpolate
something intermediate between spirit and matter, and to admit
of a gradual transition from one to the other of theh opposed
principles." But notwithstanding this, as the same writer re-

MANICTTiFJSM OF THE LOW CHURCH PARTY. 149
marks (p. 282) : "What the Manichtean church is in relation to
the world, is again the narrower circle of the Flecti in relation
to the wider union of the Auditores ; and what in this is sub
divided into many parts, and separated into distinct units, is, in
the latter, concentrated in a substantial unity." It will be
observed that the religious party, to which we are referring, carry
out this distinction to its fullest extent. Those -who are willing
to pronounce the Shibboleth of theh party, to adopt their
Bibliolatry, Sabbatarianism, Proselytism, and Jewish enthusiasm,
are alone caUed " Evangelical," " Orthodox," " Gospel-Chris
tians," "the Religious World." All the rest of men, whether
professing behevers or not, are still in darkness. The preachers,
who do not take their view, preach anti- Christ ; and while any
amount of sin and wickedness may be condoned in a member
of the inner circle, while even a swindling banker may find a
groan of pity in the Record, no blamelessness of life, no amount of
Christian zeal and activity, can save a man from misrepresentation
and mahcious slander, if he happens to oppose himself, however
theoreticaUy, to the pet doctrines of these " children of the
mist," who consider themselves the only denizens ofthe kingdom
of Light.

CHAPTEE III.

INFALLIBLE LITEEATUEE.

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY,

CHAPTER III.
THE HYPOTHESIS OF AN INEALLIBLE LITERATURE.
The hypothesis of an infallible literature, which has assumed
the form of the most degrading idolatry that ever enslaved the
reasonable soul of man, has in our days reached the critical
period in its development. Devised by the religion ab extra, as
a substitute and counterpoise to its other resource, the dogma
of an infallible Church, Bibliolatry is now rejected by all in-
teUigent and well-informed men, and is maintained with various
modifications by those only who prove, by the recklessness of
their arguments and by their personal violence, that they are
the advocates of a desperate cause.
The grounds on which the dogma or hypothesis of the
infallibility of the Old and New Testament is made to rest, or
the ultimate argument to which its supporters are invariably
driven, may be described by the following combination of the
vicious circle with the assumption of the thing to be proved.
(a). Inspiration is equivalent to infallibility.
(b). The books of the Old Testament are inspired, and
therefore infallible, because St. Paul has said so.
(c). The books of the New Testament are inspired, and
therefore infaUible, because it is reasonable to suppose that, if
these qualities belong to the records of the Jewish religion, they

154 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
must be equally characteristic of the records of Christianity, and
because it would be a great inconvenience if it were not so.
(d). As the books of the New Testament are inspired and
therefore infaUible, we have a certain knowledge of the very
words of Jesus Christ, and he appeals to the Old Testament as
a decisive authority. Therefore, again, the Old Testament is
inspired and infallible, and therefore, by analogy, the New : and
so ou in a perpetual circle.
It does not require much logic to discern, or much candour to
confess, that these arguments are utterly worthless ; and yet it
is on the strength of this reasoning, if it deserves the name, that
men, not only caUing themselves Christians, but almost claiming
an exclusive possession of Christian truth, venture to denounce
the ablest and most sincerely pious men of the day as little better
than heathens and publicans. .And it is to be remarked that
not only is the reasoning in itself circular and vicious, but that
each separate proposition in it is either false or incapable of
demonstration. For ( a ) it is not true that inspiration is equi
valent to infaUibility. On the contrary, although there is abun.
dant evidence that the Apostles were inspired in the highest
sense of the term, it is equally certain that they were fallible
men, of like passions with ourselves.1 This proposition being
contradicted, the word infallible must be expunged from all the
other statements respecting inspiration, (b). St. Paul does not
say that aU the books of the Old Testament were inspired, but
only that all inspired writings — whatever that means — must be
profitable, (c). There is no analogy between the Jewish and
Christian collections of sacred books, because the former are the
whole literature of the ancient Jews, whereas the New Testament
is neither the whole literature of the early Christians, nor is
there, either within or without the Canon, any sure line of
1 This has been shown, popularly but sufficiently, by Mr. Macnaught, in
his book on "The Doctrine of Inspiration." London, 1856.

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 155
demarcation between the books which ought and ought not to
be regarded as sacred. On the contrary, it is certain that our
present Canon contains some books, which, in the judgment
of the third century, were not entitled to a place in it, and it
is probable that some books have been lost or omitted, which
were equal in value to any that we now have ; for example,
the original of St. Matthew's Gospel, (d). Waiving any question
as to our Lord's human infallibility before the resurrection,
there is internal evidence that we do not know the exact terms
in which Jesus Christ cited the Old Testament. For example,
in the three accounts of the same transaction, he is said to have
cited the third chapter of Exodus in three different forms of
speech.1 Assuming that any one of these three citations was an
infaUibly accurate statement of the very words which Jesus used,
it is obvious that the other two are inaccurate ; and as we can
not know which of the three is to be preferred, we must con
clude that there is no certainty as to the fact that he called the
book of Exodus the book of Moses." Again, even if we had
this certainty, we cannot be confident that he did not acquiesce in
a merely conventional expression, just as inteUigent clergymen
among ourselves talk of the Creed of Athanasius, although they
know that the Symbol so designated was written in France one
hundred years after the death of that Father. And that Jesus
Christ did not regard the books attributed to Moses as divine and
infallible is proved by the fact that he abrogated the ritual and
ceremonial law of the Jews, without stating that he did this in
virtue of his divine authority, or because that law, though divine,
was instituted by God to serve a temporary purpose. On the con
trary, he declared expressly that he came to fulfil, not to destroy,
the moral law, — that heaven and earth should pass away before
that law suffered the least diminution. He did therefore most
emphatically distinguish between the spirit of the decalogue
1 Compare Matth. xxii. 3 ; Mark, xii. 26 ; Luke, xx. 37.

156 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
aud the Levitical ordinances of his own countrymen, and both
by his words and actions signified that the one was divine
and eternal, the other human and temporary.1
We see then, by a mere statement of the reasoning used in
its support, that the hypothesis of an infalhble literature is as
baseless as the fabric of a dream. But even though we allowed
aU weight to the antiquity of this hypothesis, even though we
conceded that the greatest respect was due to the Fathers and
Doctors of the Church, who, in proportion as their age receded
from the origin of Christianity, in the same proportion attached in
creasing reverence to the selected records of their faith, we should
stiU be unable to believe, and, as honest men, we should not be
permitted to assert, that the sacred books of the Jews and early
Christians were infaUible, if, as a matter of fact, we found them
betraying the usual marks of human inaccuracy. And if we
wished to regard them as inspired, we should be obliged to seek
out some signification of that term which did not denote or
imply that these books were entirely free from error.
Now the foUowing are the results of the inquiry by which it
has been discovered that the assumption of the infaUibihty of
Scripture is contrary to the facts of the case ; and these results
are derived, as we have already intimated, from two distinct
branches of modern science — inductive philosophy and philo
logical criticism. *
Since the days of GalUeo and Copernicus, an opinion has
been gaining strength that the writers of the Old Testament
were, as might have been expected from the age in which they
lived, simply and entirely ignorant of the facts of physical
astronomy. No rational and educated man will now believe
that God made the round world so fast that it never should
move at any time ; or that the sun and moon and stars revolve
around the globe, and were created subsequently to this planet,
1 See Appendix III., where these and other matters are fully treated.

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 157
and solely for the purpose of giving light upon the earth ; or
that the atmosphere is a sohd expanse or firmament, with doors
and windows to aUow the passage of the rain ; or that the rain
bow was fixed in heaven for a sign, after the world had existed
some 2000 years, and consequently that there was no rain before
the first appearance of that phenomenon. To say nothing about
the sun standing still upon Gibeon, or on the dial of Ahaz, the
erroneous conceptions, to which we have referred, are sufficient to
assure us that the writers of the Old Testament, so far from being
infallible on the subject of cosmogony, had neither more nor less
knowledge than their contemporaries ; in other words, they were
utterly ignorant of the facts which modern science has discovered
and demonstrated. This appears stiU more clearly when we call in
the aid of geology, which teaches us that the work of creation did
not take place in six periods of twenty-four hours each, but in a
succession of incalculable ages ; and that the phenomena attri
buted to an universal deluge, long subsequent to the origin of maD,
are really due to the lacustrine period which preceded the de
velopment of dry and solid earth, capable of furnishing a healthy
abode to our species. Even natural history, which already counts
more than 307,944 species of breathing creatures, independently
of fishes and infusoria, pronounces sentence upon the ignorance of
a writer -who supposes it possible that an ark 500 feet long,
82 feet wide, and 50 feet high, could contain at least duplicates
of every zoological specimen, such as hve in the water being
alone excepted, together with their appropriate food for 110
days ! 1 Unless, indeed, we adopt the very rational supposition
that the deluge of Noah, like that of Deucalion, was only
partial, and affected only those tribes who descended at a very
early period from the mountains of Armenia to the Mesopotamian

! The argument referred to in the text, is fully sustained in a pamphlet
by an incumbent of the Established Church, which was published in 1850,
under the title : Hebrew Cosmogony, and Modern Interpretations. — See p. 22.

158 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
plains ; but then there would be no occasion for the formation of
a floating menagerie, and we should only substitute a charge of
inaccuracy and exaggeration for one of simple ignorance of the
facts of natural history.
An attempt has been occasionaUy made to get rid of these
difficulties by a mode of interpretation, which, if it is put for
ward in good faith, is eminently puerUe and absurd. The
plainest meaning of the Hebrew text is perverted, in order to
extract a sense in accordance with the deductions of modern
science. But whatever partial success this endeavour may have
had on the minds of the indolent and careless, who have pre
judged the case, it is obvious that the removal of any objec
tions on the score of physical science could have no effect on the
issue of the questions raised by philological criticism.
All children, and many uneducated people, accept, without
scruple, whatever they find in print, and this torpid acqui
escence once regulated the opinions of scholars also, in regard to
the whole domain of ancient literature. The first great shook to
this lethargic state of mind, was produced by Bentley's demon
stration, from internal evidence, of the spurious character of the
Epistles attributed to Phalaris. From that time to the present,
the spirit of critical inquiry has been alive and active, and
many ancient writings have been assigned to other authors than
those whose names they had previously borne. It was not to be
expected that the canon of Scripture would escape from an
application of the same procedure, especiaUy as the slightest
investigation tended to show that not a few of the books,
now classed together as equally authoritative, were regarded
by the early Church as differing in the degree of credit
which was due to them. Indeed, we can fix the time when
the line of demarcation between the universally received and
the doubtful writings of the New Testament was broken
down by an age which had not the same means as its

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 159
predecessors of testing the genuineness of these documents.
When we find, then, that the third century exhibited a dis
crimination which is wanting in the fourth, it would be the
strangest result of a veneration for transmitted opinions to prefer
the more recent to the more ancient tradition. And yet such
is the case in the Christian Church. Now, Biblical criticism
starts from the point of view conceded by the Church historians,
and every result of an examination is in favour of the judgment
displayed by those who placed a mark of doubt on some of the
so-caUed Apostolic Epistles. There is internal evidence to show
that the Epistle attributed to Jude was not written by any
Apostle or in the time of the Apostles,1 and that the second
Epistle attributed to Peter was coined in the same mint or
derived from the same common source. The Apostolic origin
of some of the other Epistles might justly be caUed in question ;
and though the genuineness of the historical books — in their
original form — may be considered as sufficiently established,2
want of manuscript evidence or incoherences of style and matter
would induce the critical scholar to omit or inclose in brackets
many passages of greater or less importance. Thus, the first
two chapters- of the Gospel according to Matthew are obviously
a preface of inferior authority borrowed from some other source ;
and the whole Gospel, as we have it, is, by almost universal
agreement, regarded as a mere translation from an Aramaean or
Hebrew original ; and if this were extant, the Greek text, which
contains many obvious errors, would sink to the same rank as
the Alexandrine version of the Old Testament. With regard
to the only prophetic book, the Apocalypse, although there are
reasons for the prevalent belief that the author was the Apostle

1 Jude, verses 17, 18 : " Remember the w ords formerly said (irpoeipriu.4va>v)
by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they used to say (i\eyov) to you
that in the last time there shall be (effovTai) mockers."
2 Sec Appendix IV.

160 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
John, there have been many who have attributed it to a Presbyter
of Ephesus who bore the same name.
Careful investigation has proved that the formation of the
Canon of the Old Testament originated in a wish to collect all
the remains of Hebrew literature which were extant when the
Jews returned from the captivity ; that the process of coUec
tion commenced about 450 b.c1 and continued for nearly three
centuries ; that the existing miscellany contains no book which,
in its present state, is older than the reign of David and Solomon ;
that, with the exception of the majority of the Prophets and the
books of Ezra and Nehemiah, no author's name can be fixed
with anything like certainty ; that the historical books in parti
cular are compilations from older documents, which are some
times quoted ; 2 and that we cannot, except by conjectural
criticism, determine even approximately the authorship or age
of all the poetical fragments which are incorporated, and some
times erroneously interpreted, in the narratives of the Masoretic
1 Zeruhabel came to Palestine in 536 b.c, Ezra in 478 n.c, Nehemiah in
444 b.c. ; and it was at this time that -we hear of the public reading of the
law (Nehem. viii. 1 sqq. ; cf. 2 Maccab. ii. 13).
2 The following are. some of the principal works quoted as authorities in
the sacred books of the Jews, but now lost : —
1. The Book of the "Wars of Jehovah; Numbers, xxi. 14, 15.
2. Joshua's Division of the Land in Seven Parts ; Josh, xviii. 9.
3. The Book of Jashar; Josh. x. 13, 2 Sam. i. 18. To this collection pro
bably belonged also the fragment from those " that speak in proverbs,"
Numbers, xxi. 17.
4. Solomon's Proverbs, Songs, and Natural History; 2 Kings, iv. 32, 33.
6. The Acts of Solomon; 1 Kings, xi. 41.
6. The Annals of Samuel, Nathan, and Gad ; 1 Chron. xxix. 29.
7. The Life of Solomon, by Nathan, Ahijah, and Iddo ; 2 Chron. ix. 29.
8. The Acts of Kehoboam ; 2 Chron. xii. 15.
9. The Chronicles of Judah or Israel ; quoted thirty-one times.
10. Life of TJzziah ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 22.
11. The Book of Jehu ; 2 Chron. xx. 34.
12. The Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah ; 2 Chron. xxviii. 26, xxxv.
27, xxxvi. 8. The last two may have been included in No. 9.
13. Isaiah's Life of Hezekiah ; 2 Chron. xxxii. 32.
14. The Life of Manasseh ; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 18.
16. The Prophecy of Ahijah ; 2 Chron. ix. 29.
16. The Book of Shemaiah ; 2 Chron. xii. 15.
17. The Sayings of Hosea ; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 19.
18. The Lamentations; 2 Chron. xxxv. 25.

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 161
editors. The language, in which the whole collection is penned,
is, with trifling exceptions, one and uniform, and there is no
trace of those archaisms by which the ancient writer is invariably
distinguished from those who wrote the same language many
centuries after him. Chaldaic words and idioms, and even
Persian terms and Greek vocables, mark the later writings,
which proceeded from men to whom the classical Hebrew of the
Priests was becoming a dead language ; and this infection of
foreign residence is not always wanting in the purer works :
but otherwise there are no differences which would not be con
sistent with the supposition that the whole Bible, as we have
it, was written out in uniform style by a series of contemporaries.
Now this unity of language is not only inimical to the aUeged
authorship of the older books, on the ground that the difference
of age would have exhibited a difference of phraseology : it also
shows that the poetical works, which, either as entire or frag
mentary remains, are attributed to ancient writers to whom
Hebrew was a foreign language — such as the book of Job and
the prophecies of Balaam — could not have proceeded in the first
instance from those Edomites and Moabites, but .anust have been
fictitiously ascribed to them, or, at best, were free poetical
translations of traditionary documents — internal evidence being
decidedly in favour of the former conclusion. It has been
observed that the most original and genuine works contain
spurious additions loosely incorporated or appended. Thus the
undoubted Psalms of David form but a small portion of the five
successive collections in which they are contained, and which
are so carelessly put together that the same poem is sometimes
inserted twice from slightly different transcriptions. In the book
of Isaiah it is not difficult to separate the authentic vaticinations
of that great Prophet from the later but congenial author bound
up with him. And in the books attributed to Moses, it may be
shown that the older Jehovistic portions are imbedded in a
11

162 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
continuous fabrio of Elohistic compilation. The spirit of the
revelation, of which Moses was the minister, undoubtedly finds
its most original and accurate manifestations in the last book —
that of Deuteronomy — which alone professes to have been
written by him ; at any rate, it is obvious that the decalogue
is more satisfactorily set forth in that book than in the book of
Exodus. There is abundant evidence to show that the pro
visions of the Levitical law did not emanate from Moses, but
were subsequently invented by the Priestly caste, whose suc
cessors, the Scribes and Pharisees, are charged by our Lord
with having made the law of God of no effect by their traditions.
It is scarcely necessary to remark that the proofs of an
unequal authority, furnished by this examination of the Scrip
tures, are no less fatal to the theory of an infaUible dictation, or
even guidance, than the results of physical science, when com
pared with the statements of the older books. For if we have
compilations from older writings, in prose and verse, sometimes
cited, and sometimes quoted at length — if the greater part of
the Hebrew coUection is of the nature of a rifacimento, or
modernized ediiion and remodeUed abbreviation or expansion of
old fragmentary remains — and if we have translations from lost
works by the side of genuine relics, it is impossible to believe
that such a farrago can possess, as a totahty, the unvarying
impress of a celestial sanction, extending to every detaU, how
ever minute and insignificant, and claiming infalhble accuracy,
as well for the passage quoted, as for the work in which the
quotation appears, with comments more or less erroneous. With
regard to the longest and most circumstantial of the four
Gospels, it has been admitted, by the warmest defenders of the
cause, that its authority would be precarious and uncertain, and
its value and claim to respect almost set aside, if the general
tradition respecting it were to be received.1 And yet this
1 It is almost amusing to find that the Eev. Jeremiah Jones, in his " New

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 163
general tradition, which represents the extant Gospel of St.
Matthew as the anonymous translation of a lost original, is con
firmed by every available testimony; and it has never been
shown that its claim to a canonical authority is less than that of
the other Gospels, which are as universally supposed to be
original works. The theory of inspired dictation, or literary
infaUibihty, takes account of the canonical books only, but
extends itself to all of them without reservation or exception.
Consequently, the tradition, which constitutes the canon of Scrip
ture, is the sole criterion of infallible authority ; and if it is
admitted that any document, though canonical, is yet of uncer
tain or precarious importance, it must follow that a place in the
canon does not bestow a character of infallibility, and that the
theory of inspired dictation or guidance i3 not more applicable
to a canonical work, than to any other ancient writing.
But the results of phUological criticism are not confined to this
mode of examining the literary history of Scripture. Effects
not less decisive to the question of plenary inspiration, or scrip
tural infallibility, are produced by a scrutiny of the context and
subject matter of the particular works.
AU scholars can convince themselves that the cosmogony and
and Full Method of Settling the Canonical Authority of the New Testa
ment," mentions, as a reason for not accepting the universal tradition respect
ing the Hebrew original of St. Matthew's Gospel, that the " supposing it to be
so makes its authority very precarious and uncertain " (vol. iii., Oxford, 1827,
p. 250). He is candid enough to add, that " this argument is founded upon
the supposition of this (as well as other historical hooks) being wrote by the
influences and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Now the supposing it a trans
lation is inconsistent with that authority and esteem which every inspired book
does necessarily demand." And this was also the opinion of Casaubon, whom
he quotes {Exercit. ad Baron. Ann., c. xvi. § 115) : "Si auctoritas Grseci
textus pendet ab Hebraeo textu, quum Hebrsea dudum perierint, neque usquam
exstent hodie, sequitur necessario, nullum hodie ejus Evangelii debere esse
pondus, nullam auctoritatem." Again Mr. Jones says : " For my part, I freely
own if I believed it to be a translation made by a person I know nothing of, I
could not yield it the same respect, and have that same value for it, as the other
parts of the sacred writings." And after referring to the use made by the
Roman Catholics of the fact that St. Matthew's original work is lost, he finishes
by saying : " As we would avoid this consequence of making the authority of
this Gospel uncertain, we must conclude it not to be a translation."

164 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
the history of the fall of man are a pragmatical translation of
deep phUosophical or rehgious symbolism ; that the lists of
patriarchs are poetical or ethnographic statements personified by
an arbitrary rationalism, not unhke that by which Euhemerus
endeavoured to reduce the ancient mythology to a dry deposit of
uninteresting biography ; that the sums of years, assigned as
periods of longevity to the members of these primeval pedigrees,
are calculations of secular cycles, and that the date of the birth
of each successive descendant of Adam is arranged so as to pro
duce for the whole series a round number of exactly 2000 years.
This pragmatical meddling with the old poetry of the Jews, or,
if it is more correct to say so, this substitution of priestly in
genuity for primeval tradition, speaks but poorly for the judg
ment of the editorial scribes ; and whatever value we may
attach to the truths concealed in the old mythological allegories,
we cannot reasonably ascribe the slightest authority to the
commentatorial misrepresentations by which they have been still
farther disguised. Similar remarks might be made respecting
aU the historical books of the Old Testament. Glaring discre
pancies in the statement of facts, dates, and places, and all the
usual apparatus of difficulties suggested by ancient writings,
might be adduced to invalidate the hypothesis of literal and
verbal infaUibUity.1
Nor would the same process faU in its application to the
New Testament. A want of sequency in the narrative of events,
and in the record of speeches and conversations, inconsistency in
the different descriptions of the same incident, and many circum
stantial varieties in the detaUs of the history, set aside aU
attempts at a synopsis of the four Evangelists, except on the
exploded principle, maintained by Osiander, that every discor
dant statement refers to a separate and distinct occurrence, a
1 A sufficient collection of instances will be found in Ghillany, die
Menschenopfer der alien Hebriier, pp. 8 sqq.

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 165
principle which would be fatal to the reception of all evidence,
whether forensic or historical. In some places we find absolute
poetry, in the shape of hymns or psalms, mixed up with de
scriptions of supernatural occurrences ; and in many parts of the
historic books the critic cannot resist the impression that the
writer had received an imperfect or erroneous account of the
event which he wishes to record.1
Without entering into any further particulars, we are only
expressing the sentiments of every sober theologian when we say
that the assumption of a verbal or absolute infallibility of
Scripture is felt to be incompatible with the known facts of
science and with the reasonable deductions of scholarship ; and
therefore it is obvious that we cannot hope to confute an un
believer, or one who refuses to accept of the fact that God has
personally revealed himself to the world, so long as we admit,
what he is anxious to maintain, that, religion depends upon an
acquiescence in the literal and verbal inspiration or unexceptional
infaUibihty of the Old and New Testaments.
In order then to show, which is our present purpose, that
Christianity is not interested or implicated in the adoption of
this or any other theory respecting the Scriptures, we must
begin by caUing attention to the fact, so constantly overlooked,
that the question of inspiration is of dogmatic, not of historical
import. The advocate of Christianity is engaged to maintain
the historical fact that God did personally and at a given epoch
reveal himself to man. It is clear that the establishment of this
fact does not in the slightest degree depend on any dogma or
opinion respecting the documents in which it is recorded and
preserved, but that it stands or faUs with our belief or disbelief of
the witnesses, with our convictions respecting their competency

1 These difficulties are noticed, not only by such writers as Strauss,
Parker, and Newman, but by earnest Christians like Mr. Macnaught, in his
book on Inspiration (pp. 27-52).

166 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
and veracity. A string of circumstances, attested by a mis-
ceUaneous assemblage of persons, often including some of the
most worthless of our species, wiU satisfy us that a great crime
has been committed, and induce us, with perfect tranquillity of
behef, to sentence the offender to an ignominious death. We
do not ask whether the witnesses are inspired or infaUible,
whether their testimony is dictated or dynamieaUy guided by a
higher power. Theh general agreement and the coherency of
their statements, though, perhaps, affected by occasional dis
crepancies, are sufficient to convert our suspicions into certainties.
Nor do we apply any other criterion to test the credibUity of
ancient history. But here a long lapse of time gives an addi
tional advantage ; for the absence of all contradictory testimony,
of all statements tending to weaken our belief, of any other way,
in fact, of accounting for transactions, which have left their
impress on the world, increases our confidence in received and
admitted history. And of course this argument is applicable
d fortiori to the case of religious history, where enemies of the
faith are always found, and where an objection to aUeged facts
would naturaUy be made, if it were capable of establishing itself
in successful opposition to the narratives on which the doctrines
are supposed to depend. If we look into works professedly
written in defence of the truth of Christianity, such as Paley's,
or its forerunner, Lardner' s, we shall see that the evidences
brought forward are such as we have briefly described. No
allusion is made to the inspiration of the documents, as furnish
ing any additional or independent confirmation of the statements
they contain. These able advocates avoided the petitio principii,
since they well knew that they had to prove the occurrence of
facts, and that they would weaken rather than corroborate the
credibility of the historians, if, for the use of their senses and
reason, they substituted some other machinery which can neither
be conceived nor described. The dogma of inspiration adds

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 167
nothing to the facts of revealed rehgion, but it calls upon the
believer for faith in something besides and independent of the
revelation itself ; and its only effect must be to add the im
possibiUty of adopting an unnecessary and incomprehensible
theory to the difficulty of behoving in the occurrence of
supernatural events.
But though it must be admitted that the historic truths of
religion are quite independent of the dogma of inspiration, and
therefore that the Christian advocate need not concern himself
about it, it will be urged that it is essential to Protestant theology
that there should be an infaUible record of facts and doctrines.
The theory of verbal or absolute inspiration was first started
with the intention of opposing the claims of Popery by a counter
claim of stiU greater authority, and the liberty of private judg
ment was conceded on the assumption that the subject matter of
the judgment would be fixed and unalterable. This view has
been allowed even by some of the most moderate and rational
divines. A reasonable belief," says a distinguished Oxford
Professor, requhes that there should be somewhere found a
broad and unambiguous line of separation between that which is
revelation and that which is not : some direct authentication of
the depositary of inspired communications and divine truth.
This is the essential point in all discussion of the evidence of the
New Testament ; and to this point the learning and talents of
the most eminent critics and divines of successive ages have
been worthily dedicated. Their continued researches have fuUy
confirmed and brought home to the present age the force of that
evidence which enabled contemporaries to draw a distinct line
defining the Canon of the New Testament." x Now, this plea
on behalf of authority seems to confuse the adoption, by the
common consent of the Church, of one standard of appeal for all
matters of faith and doctrine, with the attribution of certain
1 Professor Baden Powell, Tradition Unveiled, p. 69.

168 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
characteristics to the documents thus accepted as the materials
of private judgment. It does not foUow that because we regard
only a certain number of books as canonical, therefore aU that
is contained in those books is infallibly true. In proportion as
the canonical books deal with subjects not immediately connected
with the development of religious truth, in the same proportion
must theology refer to something contained in them rather than
to aU that they contain. And this seems to be the view adopted
by our sixth Article. The argument from necessity is quite
inadmissible in a case like this. It has indeed been said that
if the general truth of Scripture be proved, the simple prin
ciple of the necessity of the case wiU go far to establish a
minimum, below which we cannot naturaUy reduce the degree
of Scriptural inspiration." J But how can we prescribe rules,
according to which Divine Providence must act? or on what
principle are we entitled to assume that it was the will of God
to enlighten and evangelize the world, not only by the preaching
but also by the writings of the Apostles ? The Church was
constituted long before any coUection of sacred writings was
canonized by the early Christians ; and the same tradition, which
discriminates between the canonical and uncanonical books, might
have transmitted to us, in a secondary form, a history of our
religion and a summary of essential doctrines. That the Creed
and the Canon rest on the same authority has been stated plainly
enough by the leaders of one extreme party in the English
Church. One of these writers, after admitting that God
both secretly inspired the books and secretly formed them
into a perfect rule or canon," proceeds to say: "if asked
how we know this to be the case, I answer, that the early

1 Bishop Terrot, translation of Ernesti's Institutes, vol. ii., p. 3. This
plea from the necessity of the case, whether it appears as an a priori or as an
d posteriori argument, has been well exposed by Mr. Macnaught, Inspiration,
pp. 158-163.

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 169
Church thought so, which must have known. And, if this
answer does not please, the inquirer must look out for a better as
he can. I know of no other ; I require no other : for our
present Church it is enough, as the HomUies show.1 It is
enough that Scripture has been overruled to contain the whole
Christain faith, and that the early Church so taught, though its
form, at first sight, might lead to an opposite conclusion."2 Ac
cording to this view, we should have had an equally authentic
depositary of revealed truth, if the Christians of the third and
fourth centuries, instead of transmitting to us a collection of
books bearing the names of the original preachers of Christianity,
had, like the author of the Epistle attributed to Jude, been con
tent to convey to us in theh own names, the words which were
spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ."3 And
though the Church of England accepts the Creeds because they
may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture," the
advocates of ecclesiastical tradition have maintained, with good
reason, that, instead of setting up an infallible literature against
an infallible Church, those who object to Church doctrines, as
such, ought, if they acted consistently on their own principles,
to object to Scripture also ; and the writer, to whom we have
referred, says, with the emphasis of sincere alarm : 4 "I wish
to declare, what I think will be found really to be the case,
namely, that a battle for the canon of Scripture is but the next
step after the battle for the Creed, — that the Creed comes first in
the assault, that is aU ; and that if we were not defending the
Creed, we should, at this moment, be defending the Canon.
Nay, I would predict, as a coming event, that minds are to le
unsettled as to what is Scripture, and what is not ; and I pre-

1 The writer forgets that the Homilies claim inspiration for the Apo
crypha. 2 "Tracts for the Times," No. 85, pp. 32, 33.
3 Jude, 17. i UM suPra, p. 72.

170 CHBISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
diet it, that, as far as the voice of one person in one place can
do, I may defeat my own prediction in making it." This warn
ing voice was lost on the eager assaUants of Tractarianism, and
they have been taught, by experience only, that the mode of
attack, which they indicated in their deahngs with Ecclesiolatry,
was equally applicable to their own Bibholatry ; that, by assail
ing one form of the rehgion ab extra, they .undermined theh own
defence of another form of the same substitute for Christianity ;
that if the dogma of an infallible Church was untenable, the
hypothesis of an infalhble literature was not less indefensible.
Although, therefore, we admit the convenience of recurring
for our information respecting the doctrines and practices en
forced by Christianity, to a determinate written record alone
authentic and authoritative," we must maintain at the same
time that any particular opinions respecting the origin or nature
of the composition of Scripture belong to that class of dogmas
concerning which Protestantism maintains a liberty of private
judgment. And it seems strange that those, above aU others,
who proclaim themselves free to think in matters of religion
should have aUowed themselves to regard free-thinking as a
synonym for infidelity, as soon as it is applied to one of the most
vague and uncertain opinions ever entertained by religious men.
The fact is, that the term inspired," which is used to
designate some theory or other respecting Holy Writ, is a meta
phorical epithet which entirely escapes from the control of
accurate definition as soon as it is apphed to the text of the Bible.
A Calvinistic divine, who is regarded as the great champion of
plenary inspiration in our time,1 has told the world, with some
indignation, that he has been unjustly accused of maintaining
the system of dictation ; that his distinctive theory on this sub
ject is not to have a theory at all ; and that he has often insisted
on the impossibiUty of forming any system, and on the danger of
1 See Gaussen's letter in the Record, 24th October, 1850.

INFAXLIBLE LITERATURE. 171
the attempt. While he maintains that the Bible is everywhere
entirely from God, he is careful to assure us that it is every
where of man ; and thus aUowing the individuality of its human
authorship, he complains of an almost constant disposition to
consider inspiration in the man, instead of seeing it in the book.
When, after this jumble of ideas, he insists on " the great fact
of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, while abstaining
from hypotheses touching its modes," and wishes us "to contem
plate this work of God in its result — the Bible — rather than in
the secret impressions of the men of God," it must be obvious to
every clear-headed reader, that he designs to compel us to use a
certain word, and that he wiU not allow us to inquire for our
selves, or ask him to teU us, what that word means ! If this
mode of proceeding is not akin to the nonsensical mysticism,
with which nurses rebuke the impatient curiosity of intelligent
children, we know not how we ought to designate it. When
the writer says that he cannot explain the mode of inspiration,
while he insists upon the fact, he can only mean that he uses a
word which conveys no sense to himself or others.
If we faU back upon the Greek original of the epithet in
spired," namely, the compound adjective debirvevaTot, we see
that it implies the inherent influence of the spirit of God in
some person or thing. The word occurs once, and once only,
in the New Testament, namely, in the Second Epistle to
Timothy, where we read that all inspired Scripture is also, or
as such, profitable for instruction, for rebuke, for correction, for
religious education," and where the reference is, of course, to the
sacred writings (ra iepd ypd/x/xaTa) of the Old Testament, in
which Timothy had been instructed from his childhood.1 The
1 2 Tim. iii. 16 : iraffa ypa<pri BeSirvevffTos Kal ai<pe\iu.os, rrpbs 5iSao~Ka\iav,
•jrpbs eXeyxov, rcpbs ircavopBojo'tv, npbs iraiBelav tt]v iv StKatoavvri. It appears
to us really surprising that any one calling himself a scholar should for a
moment hesitate to recognise that 8e6irv evaros here is an epithet and not a
predicate. First of all, it is the obvious intention of the writer to say of the

172 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
same adjective occurs also in the hnes attributed to Phocylides,
but in all probabUity written by some Christian poet in the
fourth century, where we read that " the reason is the best part
of that wisdom which comes from divine insphation ; " l and
several of the fathers have borrowed the compound which
appears in the Epistle to Timothy, without, however, appending
any precise definition of the meaning which they attached to it.z
Now any one, who inquires into the signification with which
this epithet is applied to the Scriptures, must see at once that it
refers to the subject matter, and not to the mode of composition.
ypdu-fiaTa,, which he has already called tepd, that they are Svvd/ieva crocptaat,
or oxpe\iu.a vpbs SiSatrKa\iav k. t. A., not that they are BeorrvevaTa. Again,
there is no example to prove that ypa<pr), without an article or epithet, denotes
the sacred writings of the Jews or any special work. When the Scripture, as
such, is designated, we have 7) ypa(p7), al ypa<pai, or some collocation (irao-a
7rpo(p7]Teia ypa<pr)s, 2 Pet. i. 20), or epithet {iv ypacpdis aylais, Rom. i. 2,
Sia ypa<pav 7rporp7]TmS>v, xvi. 26), which serves the purpose of definition. The
same is the result of the addition of such epithets as eTepa (John, xix. 37),
and at \onral (2 Peter, iii. 16). Again, the parallel construction in the first
Epistle (1 Tim. iv. 4) shows that Be67rvevo-Tos is here also the limitation of a
general phrase ; for in Trav KTiau.a Beov Ka\6v, the genitive Beov, corresponding
to the adjective 8e67rvevj-Tos, determines the universal ir£v KTio-fia, and KaAbv
the predicate is appended like axpeMnos without a copula. Again, the Greek
idiom shows that Kal is placed between the limiting epithet and the main predi
cate to imply the apodosis of a condition included in the former. The Apostle
says to Timothy, ' ' you know from a. child the tepa ypdfi/iaTa, which are able
to make you wise " ; and adds : " every writing, if it be iepbs or BeSirvevo-Tos,
must be also profitable for instruction," etc. Just in the same way Aristotle
says (Eth. Nie. i. 10, § 10) : tovtojv 5* avTav al TifiidyraTai Kal fiovip.&TaTai,
"of these very virtues the most valuable are also the most permanent."
Lastly, the Fathers were not unable to see the true construction. For
although Clemens Alexandrinus {Cohort, ad gentes, ix. p. 71, Potter) rather
inverts the sentence, he implies that BeiTwevo-ros is an epithet, when he says :
Tas ypa<pas aKoKovBus u avrbs a.7r6ffTo\os 8eo7cvev<rTovs KaAe? uxpn\l/j.ovs
oSo-as. And others of the Fathers directly interpret it as we do. Origen
(ii. p. 443, ed. Delarue) cites the passage thus : irS<ra ypatpT/ Bedirvev&Tos oUaa
w(pe\ip.6s iffn. Joannes Damascenus {de fide orthodoxa, lib. iv. § 17, t. i.
p. 282, ed. Le Quien, Paris, 1712) thus : 7rS<ra toIvvv ypatpr) 8e67rvevo-Tos
trdvTOiS Kal a><pe\tu.os, &ffTe KdWiaTov Kal tyvxaxpeXeo-TaTov ipevvav Tas Betas
ypacpds. Kuffinus (Expos, in Symb. Apost. p. 26, apud Cyprian., ed. Amstel.
1691) thus: "Omnis Scriptura divinitus inspirata utilis est ad docendum."
"We are happy to add that Mr. Ellicott, the most accurate and seholarlike of
modern commentators on St. Paul, has adopted the true rendering.
1 Phocyl. 121 : ttjs 6^ BeoTtvevo'Tov o~o<piris \6yos iffTiv apiffTos.
2 Basil, Moral. Reg. 26 ; Cyril, Hierosol. Cateches. iv. 33 ; Syn. Antioch.
adv. Paul. Samos., apud Kouth, Rel. Sacr. iii. 292. They also used other
phrases of similar intention, as Belos, Be'iKis, S710S, lepos, 8e6<paTos, BeoSlSaKTOs,
BeoTno-Bels, etc. ; cf. Lee, on inspiration, pp. 470 sqq.

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 173
We might speak of a writer as influenced by the spirit of God,
just as we read that ' holy men of God spoke as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost."1 But a writing cannot be so
described, except with reference to its contents. To say, in any
inteUigible sense of the term, that the Scripture is inspired, is
the same as saying that it is the Word of God ; not that it is, in
a material and carnal manner, a coUection of words, syllables, or
letters of divine origin ; but that it includes or contains the sub
stance of the true revelation of God's will ; that it is a properly
authenticated record of His holy communications ; that it is a
memorial, wherein His declarations respecting Himself are ex
plained and preserved. The separate books, of which it is com
posed, and even the older works from which they were trans
lated, abridged, or compiled, were written by men, and betray
the human ingredients of error ; they contain much that is not
connected with the revelation of God's wiU, and not a little which
is alien from the spirit of His religion. But if, in the midst of
aU these fallible materials, the divine truth runs through the
pages, as the limpid stream winds its way through tangled
bushes, swampy meadows, verdant groves, blooming orchards,
flourishing corn-fields, and desert heaths, until it mingles with the
boundless ocean, we may truly say that the Holy Scriptures are
debirvevaToi ; that is, inspired, or divinely animated ; 2 that the
spirit of God breathes through this Book ; that the Word of God
sounds in its echoes ; that we may draw from it, as from a well
of life, the refreshing water of eternal comfort and grace.
It is idle to object that we have no test or criterion to enable
i 1 Peter, i. 21.
2 This translation of Be6-KvevaTos was first suggested in the opening sentence
of Jashar : " Sacros Judseorum Christianorumque libros divino quodam afflatu
animari, nemo negaverit," etc. It is adopted independently by Mr. Bowland
"Williams, Rational Godliness, p. 291 : " If the religious records represent
faithfully the inner life of each generation, whether a people or a priesthood,
they will all he, in St. Paul's phrase, divinely animated, or with a divine life
running through them ; and every writing divinely animated will be useful."

174 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
us to distinguish between that which i3 and that which is not
religious revelation in the documents; between that which is
essential to our faith and to our religious system, and that
which is human history, tradition, or poetry. Clement of Alex
andria has told us that the canon of Scripture is neither more
nor less than the concent and harmony of the law and the
prophets with the covenant delivered at the time of our Lord's
appearance," 1 and this statement respecting the substantial
1 The whole passage from Clemens is well worthy of the attention of the
theological student. He had said before (Strom, vi. p. 784, Potter) that
various similes might be borrowed from harmony ; for example, we might
compare man in a state of salvation to a harp : " You may understand," he
adds, " another sort of musical concord, that of the Church, namely, the
harmony of the law and the prophets with the writings of the Apostles, and
with the Gospel ; and the concord which enters into each individual prophet
and is independent of the changes of person" (Ad&ois Jf av Kal &Was /j.ovvikt)v
crvpjpwviav T7/V iKK\71crtaOTlK7)v, vSpLOV Kal 7Tpocp7}TWV 6u.ov Kal hnoGToXoov o-bv
Kal ral evayyeXiw' t4\v re imo^e^TjKVLav Tf]V KaB1 eKarjTov 7rpo<p4]T7]V Kara Tas
fieTaiTTiS^a-eis twv ivpoowirwy o-vvwSiav). He clearly implies that this harmony
is best perceived by the philosophically instructed reader (p. 786) : " As some
for the benefit of their neighbours take to writing and others to preaching
the "Word, both other education is useful, and the reading of the dominical
Scriptures is necessary for the demonstration of what is said, and especially
if those who hear come from the schools of Greek learning" {Sid Se rov t&v
ire\as wcpeXeiav TUtv u.ev itrl t_- ypd(peiv iefxevav, Ttav Be ilrl t_< 7rapaSiS6vaL
trreWofievoiv rbv Aoyov, 7) Te dWrj TraiSeia xp^ip-os 7) Te t&v ypatpuv twv
KVpiaKwv dvdyvwffis els a,7c6Sei£iv twv Xeyofiepwv avayKala, Kal ndhiara eav
ct7ri> T.js 'Y.KA71VLK7JS avdywvTai iraiSeias ol ifrajLOVTes). Indeed he does not
hesitate to say that philosophy by itself contains the elements of theology
(p. 802) : " Philosophy at all events, in declaring the providence of God, and
the rewards and punishments of a future state, gives a summary of theological
instruction" {7) yovv (ptAovoQla . . . 7repiX7)7tTiKws BeoXoyeT). And having
intimated that all the instruction contained in the Scriptures is conveyed
under the form of parables, he adds (p. 803) : " But, as the Scripture says,
all things are right in the eyes of those who understand (Prov. viii. 9), those,
namely, who have received and preserve the explanation of the Scriptures
declared by our Lord himself, according to the Canon of the Church : now
the Canon of the Church is the harmony and concord of the Law and the
Prophets with the Testament delivered at the coming of the Lord " (ir\V
aivavra opBa ivwmov tw ffvvievrwv, tprialv 7) ypacpT)' Tovreo-Tt, twi/ offot u7r'
avTov [tov Kvpiov] cra^viaBelaav twv ypa<pwv itfiyq&iv KaTa Tbv iKK\7)<naa-
TMbv Kdvova iKSex6/i.evoi 5iaaw(pvai' Kdvwv Be eKK\7]o-iacrTiKbs 7) crvvwSla
Kal <rvfi<pavia vo/iov Te Kal 7rpo<p7]Twv tJ kotqi tV tou Kvplov napovalav
7rapaSi.5oii.evri SiaBi)Kri). This view of the Canon of Scripture as regulated by
the internal coherency of its different parts is identical with the doctrine of
inspiration maintained in the Vindication of Protestant Principles. " "Whe
ther the books in the Bible," says Phileleutherus (p. 51), " were written by the
men whose names they bear, or by others even less exempt from error or sin,
we still hear, from its first to its last page, the still small voice of divine truth,

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 175
unity of the religious contents of the whole Bible sufficiently
describes the Word of God, which is contained implicitly in this
coUection of documents. The message from God to man, which
forms the link of connection between the Old and New Testaments,
which is consistently delivered in the first no less than in the last
pages of the Bible, is at once the proof of inspiration, namely,
that a revelation has been given, and, at the same time, it is the
speaking, iu one continuous or ever-recurring harmony, to the secret echoes of
our moral convictions." The same author quite agrees with Clemens that the
divine truth contained in the collection of the works of men which we call the
Bible, is most likely to be extracted therefrom by the enlightened eye and by
the pious hand (p. 50). The view of inspiration propounded by Phileleutherus
Anglicauus has been supported by Mr. De Quincey with his usual power of
language and logic in some articles on Protestantism, which appeared in Taits
Magazine for 1847 (pp. 758 sqq., 843 sqq.). He says : "My own solution of
the problem would reconcile all that is urged against an inspiration with all
that the internal necessity of the case would plead on behalf of an inspiration.
So would Phil's. His distinctions, like mine, would substantially come down
to this — that the grandeur and extent of religious truth is not of a nature to
be affected by verbal changes such as can be made by time, or accident, or
without treacherous design. It is like lightning which could not be muti
lated, or truncated, or polluted. But it may be well to rehearse a little more
in detail both Phil's view and my own. . . . "Whilst rejecting altogether
any inspiration as attaching to the separate words and phrases of the Scrip
tures, Phil, insists (§ 25, p. 49) upon such an inspiration as attaching to the
spiritual truths and doctrines delivered in these Scriptures. And he places
this theory in a striking light, equally for what it affirms and for what it
denies, by these two arguments— first (in affirmation of the real spiritual in
spiration) that a series of more than thirty writers, speaking in succession
along a vast line of time, and absolutely without means of concert, yet all
combine unconsciously to one end— lock like parts of a great machine into
one system — conspire to the unity of a very elaborate scheme, without being
at all aware of what was to come after. ... At length all is finished. A
profound piece of music, a vast oratorio, perfect and of elaborate unity, has
resulted from a long succession of strains, each for itself fragmentary. On
such a final creation, resulting from such a distraction of parts, it is indis
pensable to suppose an overruling inspiration, in order at all to account for
the final result of a most elaborate harmony. . . . Briefly, a great mysterious
word is spelt, as it were, by the whole sum of the Scripture hooks — every
separate book forming a letter or syllable in that secret and that unfinished
word, as it was for so many ages. This co-operation of ages, not able to
communicate or concert arrangements with each other, is neither more nor
less an argument of an over-ruling inspiration, than if the separation of the
contributing parties were by space and not by time. ... So far on behalf
of inspiration. Yet, on the other hand, as an argument in denial of any
blind mechanical inspiration cleaving to words and syllables, Phil, notices this
consequence as resulting from such an assumption, viz., that if you adopt any
one Gospel, St. John's, suppose, or any one narrative of a particular transac
tion, as inspired in this. minute and pedantic sense, then, for every other
report, which, adhering to the spiritual value of the circumstances, and

176 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
substance of the revelation itself. Jesus has declared to us, in
few words, what is the essential purport of the law which Moses
preached, and which he came to restore, confirm, and purify.
For in answer to the question, What is the great command
ment in the law?" he said: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with aU thy
mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the
second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." s
virtually the same, should differ in the least of the details, there would
instantly arise a solemn degradation. All parts of Scripture, in fact, would
thus be made active and operative in degrading each other. Such is
Phil's way of explaining Beoirvevo-Tia, or divine prompting, so as to recon
cile the doctrine affirming a virtual inspiration; an inspiration as to the
truths revealed, with a peremptory denial of any inspiration at all as to
the m6re verbal vehicle of those revelations. He is evidently as sincere in
regard to the inspiration which he upholds as in regard to that which he
denies. Phil, is honest, and Phil, is able. Now comes my turn. I rise to
support my leader, and shall attempt to wrench this notion of a verbal inspi
ration from the hands of its champions by a reductio ad absurdum; viz. by
showing the monstrous consequences to which it leads ; which form of logic
Phil, also has employed briefly . . . but mine is different, and more elaborate."
After pointing out the futility of drawing inferences from either interpre
tation of 2 Tim. iii. 16, Mr. de Quincey proceeds to develope his own argu
ment against the theory of verbal inspiration, which, he says, "turns on the
self-confounding tendency of the common form ascribed to BeoirvevaTla, or
divine inspiration." He shows that besides the inspiration of the original
composers of the sacred books, which he grants, though distinguishing as to
its nature, the Bibliolaters want inspiration for the countless translations of
the Bible ; again, for a selection of the best version ; again, for the selection
of the right reading in every textual variation ; and, " even after this fourth
inspiration has qualified us for selecting the true reading, we shall still be at a
loss how, upon this right reading, to fix the right acceptation ; so that we
want a fifth inspiration, which, as we all know — each knows by his own expe
rience—is not forthcoming; and, in the absence of that, what avail for us all
the others?" But, as Mr.de Quincey adds : "These chains of inspiration
are needless. The great ideas of the Bible protect themselves : the heavenly
truths, by their own imperishableness, defeat the mortality of languages with
which, for a moment, they are associated." And borrowing the phraseology
of Phileleutherus and Clemens, he speaks of religious truth as one ' ' to which
the key-notes of Scriptures (once awakened in the great organ of the heart)
are sure to call up corresponding echoes. It is not," he adds, "in the power of
language to arrest or to defeat this mode of truth ; because, when once the
fundamental base is furnished by revelation, the human heart itself is able to
co-operate in developing the great harmonies of the system, without aid from
language, and in defiance of language ; without aid from human learning, and
in defiance of human learning" (p. 847).
1 Matth. xxii. 36-40.

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 177
Whatever is in accordance with the spirit of these words, what
ever illustrates their meaning, or enforces their obligation,
whether found in the Old Testament or in the New, is part of
the revelation from God to man, — and we can draw this sphitual
food from almost every page : whatever is inconsistent with them,
or does not speak their meaning, is not of God, but of man ;
not of the body, but of the vestment ; not of the eternal, but of
the temporary and transient ; not of the spirit, which giveth
life, but of the letter which kUleth. And thus we come back to
the principle on which we have more than once insisted, that we
appreciate the difference between the voice of God and the voice
of man, just in the same proportion as we do the wiU of our
Father which is in heaven ; and so our insight into the mysteries
of faith becomes brighter and clearer as our growth in holiness is
more and more confirmed and assured.
If we question any really religious man, who can see truth,
and wiU own it when seen, as to his belief on the subject of
inspiration, we shaU find that it reaUy amounts to this. He wUl
tell us that he receives the Bible as an authoritative guide for his
conduct, an authoritative sanction for his hopes, because the
voice of God, which speaks in Scripture, finds its echo in the
voice of God, which speaks in his own conscience.1 He knows
that he wiU not be the happier, here or hereafter, for the esta
blishment of any theory respecting the mode of communication.
1 This is the meaning of J. A. Ernesti when he says (Opusc. Theol. p. 609)
that " as formerly the Holy Spirit afforded a testimony of truth and divine
authority to the doctrines of Jesus Christ, and in that way brought over many
to the faith, so also afterwards in all time he has offered himself and still
offers himself as a witness in the minds of men to the celestial truth of the
"Word of God, so that no doubt is left concerning it" ; and then follows the
passage quoted in Jashar, p. 3. To the same effect Mr. Rowland "Williams
(Rational Godliness, p. 309), after admitting "that the Church was before the
Bible as a speaker is before his voice, and that Holy Scripture is not the
foundation of the Christian faith so much as its creature, its expression, and
its embodiment," concedes also " that the two things from which Scripture
sprang are for ever in the world — namely, the conscience of man and the
Holy Spirit of God — and that from these two, meeting in the Church, the
Bible derives its origin, its authority, and its power to persuade." 12

178 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
He, whose heart is set on practical holiness, is satisfied with
learning and obeying the wiU of God. For this purpose, it is
sufficient for him that the religion of Jesus, in its essential
import, and the religion of Moses, so far as it is confirmed by
Jesus, should be both true and cognisable. He can walk in the
garden of the Lord, and derive spiritual sustenance from the
fruit of the Tree of Life, without thinking it necessary to feed
on the boughs and foliage, or on the grass under his feet. He
knows that God breathed into his soul the breath of life, and
gave him a spirit by which he might discern spiritual things.
When, therefore, his mind is properly enhghtened by education,
he scorns the teaching which identifies the sheU with the kernel,
and he refuses to take the husk instead of the flour of wheat."
To him the Bible is a human composition, or rather a compUation
from literary fragments, but its theme and substance are divine ;
for it teUs how God manifested Himself, and declared His wiU
to the beings into whom He had breathed a particle of His
own Spirit. And he thankfully acknowledges the good provi
dence which has preserved such an intelligible record of great
facts and greater truths.
This is the only doctrine of inspiration which is sincerely
entertained by religious and reasonable men. They value the
Bible for what it teaches — for what they can draw from it ;
they thank God for His revelation, and for His providential pre
servation of its records ; but they do not, contrary to aU reason,
bow down to the mechanical traces of words and letters, which
neither live themselves, nor can give life to others. Even Mr.
Gaussen means this, if, indeed, any definite idea is involved in
the hazy mist of words by which he has endeavoured to express
or disguise his confused apprehensions. He asks: "is it not
enough for me always to see in Jesus Christ the son of man and
the Son of God, as it is enough for me to see always in the Holy
Scriptures the word of man and the Word of God?" To say

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 179
nothing of the inapplicable and vhtually heterodox reference to
the two natures of Christ, it is obvious that the Bible cannot be
at once the Word of God and the word of man, in any sense,
except that which has already been given ; namely, that it is the
word of man in reference to its literary composition and author
ship, and the Word of God in reference to those divine commu
nications of which it is the only authentic record. Thus the
doctrine of plenary inspiration is, to all intents and purposes,
abandoned by its most eager and unscrupulous advocates, and
thus we are left without the least defence of an opinion1 which
is useless to theology and prejudicial to religion, which clogs
with unnecessary impediments the wavering faith of the in
telligent but unenlightened Christian, and invites the unbeliever
to an assured and even easy triumph.
But though we hope to have shown that Christianity in
general is independent of the untenable assumption that the
books of the Bible were written under infallible dictation, the
important question remains — how far the national Church of
England has included in the terms of its communion any opinion
respecting the question of Inspiration ?
We shaU show more at length in a subsequent chapter that
whatever tends to narrow the basis of a State Church is, ipso
facto, detrimental to its security '; and it would be a great
aggravation of the difficulties occasioned by expressions in the
Liturgy and Articles referring to distinctive detaUs, if the Church
were pledged to maintain a theory which has periUed the
existence of general Christianity. The doctrine of plenary
inspiration has contributed in no slight degree to form the
rationalistic scepticism of Germany ; and though the Bibhcal
learning of that country has averted the evUs which were
threatened by the spread of a general disbelief in revelation,
1 For the dynamical theory, see Appendix "V.

180 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
the rank weeds have been transplanted to the uncultivated
soU of English theology, and seem likely to produce lasting
mischief. In spite of theh ordination vow, the great mass of
our clergy are grossly ignorant of Biblical criticism. There is
scarcely one in a thousand among the clergy of the Low Church
party who could give any account of the origin of the Canon,
or sustain a rational argument on the internal discrepancies of
Scripture. In the meantime, speculative knowledge is spreading
rapidly among the working classes, especiaUy among the inteUi-
gent mechanics who crowd our manufacturing towns. The
results, if not the detaUs, of science, are communicated by lec
tures delivered at Athenaeums and other Literary Institutions ;
newspapers discuss or allude to religious difficulties, which are
farther enforced by the clamorous denunciations of the so-caUed
reUgious press ; cheap editions of sceptical works are extensively
chculated ; and if, in the midst of all this, the clergy are found
to repeat and appropriate the ignorant assertions of ages long
gone by, if they maintain assumptions which they cannot defend
and which all intelligent men feel to be indefensible, it is clear
that the obstacle of general unbelief and perhaps general con
tempt may soon be added to the more easUy conquerable diffi
culties of hereditary or personal dissent from the Church.
Even those who countenance the sacerdotal pretensions of
our ministers must admit, what we shaU afterwards endeavour
fo prove, that their position is virtually professional, and that
theh influence depends more or less on theh educational supe
riority. And those of the Broad Church, as it is caUed, have
openly insisted on this supposed distinction between the clergy
and the laity. An able and weU-informed divine has recently
declared before the University of Oxford, that " an effectual
ministration must commend itself to the popular judgment (ill-
directed as it too commonly is), by at least evincing an en-

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 181
hghtenment which keeps 'pace with that of the age " ; and
especiaUy for the reasons which he adduces : " It is not suffi
ciently considered," he says, " that at the present day among
the thinking and educated classes there are hundreds of acute
and powerful, though not always weU-dhected, inteUects, engaged
in keenly scrutinizing the very foundations of faith ; and that
among the half-educated and evil-disposed masses the example
is widely foUowed with a less equivocal tendency towards total
hreligion. This state of things is not to be met by empty
denunciations or clinging to prescriptive authority ; and, least
of all, amid ecclesiastical contentions and divisions; but by a
more enUghtened and honest devotion to the cause of truth,
combined with the true spirit of charity and moderation in the
mode of upholding it." 1
When sentiments like these proceed from an Oxford Pro
fessor, and when we recoUect that liberal views are entertained
by many resident members of the two Universities, and by not
a few distinguished writers, who are not only clergymen, but
beneficiaries of Cathedral estabhshments, there is httle reason
to fear a total want of scientific and phUosophic Ulumination
on the part of our ministers. But it is desirable to show, and
we shaU do this more fuUy in a subsequent chapter, that theh
hands are not tied, as is too often supposed, by any thing in
the formularies of the Church to which they belong.
The words "inspiration" and "inspired,'' as apphed to Scrip
ture, do not occur once in the Articles or Liturgy,2 and therefore
1 Professor Baden Powell, " The State Church," a Sermon preached
before the University of Oxford, 5th November, 1850, p. 36.
2 The word inspiration is used in the Liturgy to denote the influence of
the Holy Spirit on the minds of all true believers ; thus we have it in the
first Collect of the Communion Service, and in the Collect for the fifth Sunday
after Easter (cf. Collect for "Whitsunday) . In the same sense it is used in the
English version of Job, xxxii. 8 : " But there is a spirit in man, and the
inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." If, then, we
thought it necessary to derive a dogma about inspiration from the use of the
term in these passages, we should conclude that all good and wise men are

182 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
it cannot be said that the Established Church has any received
theory respecting the composition of the Bible, as affected by
a special influence exerted on the minds of those who wrote
the Sacred Books. We cannot be said to assert, under a parti
cular form, that which we do not even mention in express terms.
It is perfectly true that the Bible is termed "Holy Scripture"
and "the Word of God"; that it is repeatedly mentioned as
the only source of information respecting the doctrines of theology
and the truths of rehgion, as the only authority for creeds,
church-decrees, and councUs ; it is true that we acknowledge
the Canon in its most comprehensive form ; that we recognise
the religious harmony of the Old and New Covenants, and
declare that the Holy Spirit spoke by the Prophets ; and that,
extending the words of St. Paul to the New Testament, we
ascribe it to the good providence of God that he has "caused
aU holy Scriptures to be written for our learning." But we
have aheady shown that by the phrase " Word of God," it "is
sufficient to understand the divine revelation contained in and
conveyed by the Bible, and that we need not extend this to the
literary fabric which serves as the vehicle. The epithet "holy"
merely implies a religious use, and " sacra scriptura" refers, like
"sacra theologia," to the subject-matter of the book, and ofthe
inspired in some general sense ; and we should infer from the profession made
by the Deacon that he trusts he is inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take
upon him that office and ministration, and from the words "receive the Holy
Ghost," which are addressed to every Priest and Bishop at his ordination and
consecration, that the Church of England attributes inspiration in some special
sense to all ordained ministers. And this special sense can only be an inten
sive use of that general meaning of inspiration which is implied in the prayers
that " the thoughts of our hearts may be cleansed by the inspiration of God's
Holy Spirit," and that " by God's holy inspiration we may think those things
that be good" ; so that Godfrey Hermann was not far wrong when he con
sidered the "receiving the Spirit" spoken of by St. Paul (Gal. iii. 2) as
equivalent to " being imbued with religiousness of heart." He says (Opusc. v.
p. 124) : " Pradictus est a prophetis cruciatus Jesu, per quern, non per legem,
ilia animorum pietate (hoc est enim t_ 7rvevfia) imbuti estis." And so we
come back to our former principle that we must needs discern and distinguish
what is and what is not inspiration in Scripture by the amount of inspiration
or real religiousness in ourselves.

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 183
science which deals with it. In giving an equal authority
to aU the books of the latest Canon, the Church only places
itself on the footing of the fourth century ; and no evU can arise
from the extension, if we only admit the proper functions of
Bibhcal criticism, and reject the material hypothesis of verbal
infaUibUity ; for the Protestant divine may always use the
language adopted by Scaliger in speaking of the doubtful
treatises : " Ego credo iis quae intus quia nihU contra nos." 1
The doctrine of a providential preservation of the documents
may indeed be carried too far; and, as we have seen, it is
extended beyond its proper hmits when it is used as an argu
ment from the necessity of the case ; but, in itself, it is perfectly
in accordance with the most obvious view of the dealings of God
with his reasonable creatures.
The Church of England, then, asserts the value of the Scrip
tures, and allows theh authority, without developing or adopting
any theory respecting the mode of theh composition. If the
Prayer-Book cites any passages at variance with the conclusions of
modern science, or modern scholarship, we are not to argue in
favour of an assumption which enhances this antagonism, but
must perforce admit that the criticism which is apphcable to
the Bible itself, cannot be inapphcable to these extracts from the
Bible. But, above aU, we are not to allow the most able, inteUi-
gent, and honest of our clergy and laity, to be saddled with
arbitrary conditions, not implied in the terms of our national
subscription, merely because it suits the convenience of those
ignorant Puritans, who appropriate the name of Evangelicals,
to fortify theh arrogant pretensions by an appeal to the literal
infaUibUity of translated Scripture, or because the middle classes
are prejudiced in favour of a system of text- worship, which they
have neither the leisure nor the ability to compare with the
1 Scaliger'ana, p. 72.

184 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
results of learning and common sense. We can readily under
stand that certain preachers of the Exeter HaU school should
feel their vocation to be gone from them, or, at least, theh hold
on the aUegiance of the weak-minded persons who constitute the
majority in every congregation, to be shaken, by the concession
of a right to examine into the authority and real signification
of documents, which, by garbled quotations, can be made to
speak any language, and to confirm any doctrine. But the
Church of England is a Protestant community, and we are not
hkely, as a body, to sacrifice a liberty, purchased by the blood of
martyrs, in order to bow our heads to a yoke which our fathers
were not able to bear. Those, whom Moses led out of the land
of Egypt, did not pass into the wilderness merely to substitute
the domination of Xorah and his company for that of the
sceptered Pharaoh of Memphis. If criticism is to be brought
under bondage to an arbitrary hypothesis, merely to avoid any
interference with the presuppositions of blundering pastors and
ignorant congregations, we have reaUy rather lost than gained
by the Eeformation. " In the Church of Borne," said the late
Archdeacon Hare,1 " a person subjects himself to condemnation
if he dares to notice any error in the "Vulgate. This practice we
reprobate as Eomish : but the self-same spirit is perpetually found
even in those who are loudest in raihng at the Church of Eome ;
and they will be no less eager in condemning a person who points
out any mistake, not in the Bible, but in our vulgar conception
of it, in our "Vulgate. This, however, assuredly is, as it ever
has been, a tendency subversive of faith. Faith may easUy
co-exist with much latent, unconscious error; but, when we
become conscious of it, we must cut it out, or the mortification
wiU spread through the whole body. Every honest heart revolts
from trickery in the service of religion." The ignorance of the
1 " Letter to the Editor of the English Review," p. 43.

INFALLIBLE LITERATURE. 185
mass of people in a congregation is often pleaded as an excuse
for upholding views respecting inspiration which the minister
himself feels to be untenable, and we are told that we ought not
to remove any of those artificial supports by which a feeble faith
is kept from falhng. But even though we should admit that a
worthless credulity is to be invested with the holy name of
faith, and carefully guarded from every shock by which it might
be alarmed or subverted, this consideration should only prevent
us from announcing the truth until our audience is better pre
pared to hear it ; it would not justify us in continuing to incul
cate error, stiU less in denouncing as enemies to the faith those
who are supposed or known to hold a different opinion. The
fact is, that the ignorance and superstition of congregations have
no necessary or independent existence ; they are produced and
sustained by the clamorous pulpit oratory of those evangelical
demagogues, who rival the popish priests of the middle ages in
violent bigotry, and in open hatred of science and learning.
To these false brethren, who spy out the liberty which we have
in Christ Jesus, that they may bring us into bondage, let us not
give place by subjection, no, not for an hour,1 but let us so expose
and rebuke them, that the Gospel, which they misrepresent, may
continue among the people of England, uncompromised by
ignorance and foUy, and untainted by subterfuge, trickery, and
falsehood. That the spirit of biblioiatry is as inconsistent with
Christianity, as the dogma itself is prejudicial to the advocacy of
religious faith, may be learned from the history of the Haldanes,
its most uncompromising champions in these latter days, and
from the whole career of the hbeUous and dishonest journal
which is the acknowledged organ of the party.2 And there
cannot be the least doubt that, if their power was equal to
their wiU, — and they boast of theh power, — the advocates of
1 Gal. ii. 5. 2 See Appendix VI.

186 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
an infaUible Bible would treat the upholders of free criticism
with persecutions not unhke those by which the fanatical
votaries of an infalhble church endeavoured to queU the first
struggles of Protestanism.
With aU the facts before us, we must be blind to the signs of
the times, if we cannot see that we have arrived at a critical
period, when it is imperatively demanded of aU who claim to be
lovers of inteUectual and rehgious freedom, — nay, of aU who
caU themselves educated men and Protestants, — that they should,
by one combined effort, terminate for ever the tyranny of that
loud-voiced ignorance which has staked the existence of revelation
on the hypothesis of an infaUible literature. We have seen that
this assumption is utterly opposed to the facts of the case ; we
know that it is supported, not by honest arguments, but by the
most contemptible falsehoods, combined with the most mahgnant
persecution of those who assert either the contrary proposition,
or the right and duty of examining its truth. If the propo
sition were true, it would be condemned sufficiently by the
spirit which it has evoked, and the immorality which it has
occasioned. But it is so palpably false, that candid men, even
where they come to the inquhy with an antecedent prejudice
and an earnest wish to find it true, are invariably led to an
opposite conclusion.1 What Voltaire and D'Alembert exhorted
one another to do, with reference to that mother of super
stition and immorality, the dogma of an infaUible church,
all educated men, who are anxious for the development of
rehgion and Christian ethics, must endeavour to effect, in
regard to the other groundwork of the religion ab extra, the
1 That the writer of these pages, before he had professedly engaged in
biblical researches, both wished and expected to find the Scriptures as infal
lible in all respects as they had been represented to him, may be inferred from
the manner in which he approached the book of Genesis in one of the earliest
of his works— the " New Cratylus."

INFALLIBLE LITERATTTRE. 187
assumption of an infaUible literature.1 For this cumbrous idol,
to which human truth and human love are every day offered
up in sacrifice, there is only one duty to be performed —
to crush this pernicious faUacy, or misrepresentation of
the facts, and consign it to everlasting oblivion. And this
can only be effected by a sudden and unanimous effort on the
part of those who have the wisdom to see the truth, and the
manliness to assert it. An able writer has recently observed
that we ought "to remember that Protestantism, if it mean any
thing, is liberty of thought. It is not salvation which is at
stake, but rehgious and pohtical liberty. Every one who fears
to think, who submits reason to prejudice, is a Eoman Catholic
aheady in his heart ; and no amount of dogged obstinacy, or
sectarian party sphit, will ultimately prevent the spurious
Protestanism of the day, if unredeemed by a higher and more
universal education, from ultimately merging in Popery. Those
who would check thought, and make the mass of mankind into
mere machines, would fain persuade us that the meaning of the
Bible is equaUy or even more open to the simple and unin-
structed than to the educated. They would have it to be exactly
what the' doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is to the Cathohc
 a stumbling-block to the intellect, and a badge of mental
servitude. We must resist the infliction, and rouse ourselves
from the mental torpor and inanition engendered by the long
continuance of such treatment."
And in making this effort to shake off the trammels of Biblio-
latry, let us tear away the vain pretences, by which an attempt
is made to check, at the very outset, all critical inquiries re
specting the authority of Scripture. When we are told that,
if we hazard any doubts on this subject, we declare that "the
Church of God, the Church of Christ, has been wrong in its
1 It is now well known that the French philosophers were opposed not so
much to religion as to the Romish misrepresentation of Christianity.

188 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
behef for more than 3000 years," let us answer that we are not
concerned with the inherited prejudices of preceding genera
tions ; but that the history of the Jewish Canon is the history of
an editorial compUation, and that the history of the Christian
Canon teUs us of discriminations in the third century which the
fourth and foUowing centuries have thought fit to disregard;
so that the stately column rests on a rotten foundation, which
modern research has laid bare to the eyes of aU who can see.
Then again, when we are told that the Bible exercises a divine
influence wherever its free use is permitted, that it sheds a ray
of hght wherever it is allowed to circulate, and that this alone
proves its incontestable sanctity ; when this plausible argument
is advanced, we may always, without denying to Scripture its just
claim to reverential consideration, prove to demonstration that the
aUeged effects are due to those principles of Protestant hberty, to
that unfettered freedom of examination and discussion which Pro
testantism imphes, and which Bibliolatry, not less than the
doctrine of an infaUible Church, impedes and endeavours to pro
hibit. "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is hberty" : '
and conversely, where we find hberty, we may generaUy con
clude that we have the spirit as opposed to the letter.3 Above
aU, when the advocates of an infalhble Bible endeavour to justify
theh derehctions from Christian and moral principle by appeal
ing to their "zeal for the Word of God," we may reduce them
to silence by pointing out the undeniable fact that the idol, to
which they invite our reverence, is not the Word of God, the
revelation from God to man, for which we are quite as zealous
as themselves, but either a peculiar definition of that term,
which is not accepted by even a majority of Enghsh clergymen,
or else a special hypothesis respecting the literature of the
ancient Jews and early Christians, which aU candid and learned
men have renounced as utterly untenable.
1 2 Cor. iii. 17. » Ibid, v. 6.

APPENDIX III.
(CHAP. III. _-. 156).
ON THE OEIGIN AND GEOWTH OF THE JEWISH
COLLECTION OF SACEED BOOKS.

We are convinced that the only opinion respecting the Scrip
tures, which is compatible with true religious conservatism, or
with a safe advocacy of revealed truth, is that which implies that
the whole of the insphed record is in the Bible, though the whole
of the Bible is not the inspired record ; and that, although the
Scriptures are truly called the Word of God, they do not possess
in detaU that sovereign authority and absolute certainty which
would presume that theh human authors were infaUible. The
chief reason why this opinion is not universaUy adopted is the
unwillingness or inability of the great mass of theologians to
grasp and reahse to themselves the fact, that the whole Canon
of Scripture was formed by a gradual process, and that the Old
Testament in particular is a compilation, which has passed,
perhaps more than once, through the remodelling editorship of a
Masoretic school. Eeserving for another Appendix some re
marks on the structure of the Christian Scriptures, we will here
examine, as briefly as possible, the origin and growth of the
Jewish coUection, and endeavour to ascertain the materials which
were at the disposal of the Scribes, fo whom we owe the Canonical
recension. When a character of peculiar sanctity is claimed for a collec
tion of ancient books, it is natural that we should inquire, when
and under what circumstances this character was first recognised

190 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
and admitted. Now, there is no doubt, that the Jews did not
begin to make a formal coUection of their sacred books untU after
their return from exUe in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. It
was then, according to the Jewish account, which contains much
that is obviously fabulous, that the great synagogue or convoca
tion was convened and kept together for the establishment of
what was ultimately the Masora or traditionary text of the sacred
books, and the members of this committee of authorized editors
were called the Masorethse or traditionists. The labours of this
standing committee were carried on for many years, and they
graduaUy extended, with a diminishing regard for antiquity
and genuineness, the series of works to which they assigned an
indefeasible authority. At first they had only two classes of
sacred books — the Law, which included only the Pentateuch, or
the five books referring to the history of the Israelites before they
took possession of the promised land ; and the Prophets, or the
eight books, — i.e., Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the minor prophets, — which carried on the
history up . to the time of Ezra. The last of the Prophets
Malachi, " my messenger," was identified by some of the Jewish
doctors with Ezra, and the spirit of prophecy faUed after this
time. The third class of sacred books, commonly designated as
the Hagiographa or " Holy Writings," must have existed, at least
in the earlier portions of the five collections of Psalms, before the
time of Ezra. And as this was the first and most important of
the Hagiographa, it sometimes gave its name to the whole class,
as when our Saviour said : " All things must be fulfilled which
were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets and the
Psalms concerning me" (Luke, xxiv. 44). But the coUection
was kept open for the reception of additions at least until the
time of Antiochus Epiphanes (b.c 175 — 164), when the book of
Daniel was composed. It was probably about this time that the
Canon was closed. For Jesus, the son of Shach, in the prologue
to Ecclesiasticus (written about 130 b.c), speaks of his grandfather
as having " given himself to the reading of the law and the
prophets and the other books of our fathers " (tov vb/u,ov Kal
twv irpojyrjTaiv Kal t5>v aXXwv iraTpieov fttfiXlcov), which seems
to imply the whole coUection. On the same authority we learn
that a part at least of the Greek version of the Scriptures was
then in existence. And it is clear that in our Saviour's time the

MASORETIC EDITORSHIP. 191
Jews were acquainted with the whole collection, as we have it
now : for our Lord himself not only cites the Hagiographa, along
with the Law and the Prophets, under the name of the first and
principal part of that class, the Psalms (Luke, xxiv. 44), but in
apparent aUusion to the whole range of Jewish records, he places
Abel, who is mentioned in the fourth chapter of Genesis, and
Zacharias, who is commemorated in the second book of Chronicles,
at the beginning and end of past history (Matth. xxiii. 35). Now the
Hagiographa in the Masoretic text contain the following twelve
works — Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Solomon's Song, Euth, Lamenta
tions, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemia, Chronicles.
So that Genesis and Chronicles are the first and last books in the
Jewish Canon. Accordingly, there is presumptive evidence, that,
at the Christian era, the Jewish collection was fixed and com
pleted ; and Josephus, who flourished in the first century a.d.,
mentions all the books in a division of twenty-two parts corres
ponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
From this brief survey of aU the available evidence, the
reader wiU see that the Hebrew collection of sacred books
originated with the Jews, who returned from exUe in the fifth
century b.c ; that the second part was closed with the book of
Malachi, about 400 b.c ; and the third part with the book of
Chronicles, about 150 b.c. We have, therefore, a gradual growth
of the collection extending over some 300 years ; and it would
be a waste of words to show that the priestly caste, who took it
upon themselves to say what books should be regarded as sacred,
and what books should be excluded from the Canon, who ac
cepted Daniel, and rejected Jesus, the son of Sirach, did not,
during that long period, abstain from remodelling, perhaps re
writing, some of the older books. At any rate, as prophecy or
inspiration, according to their own tradition, terminated with
Malachi, the remaining 250 years of editorship, which are evi
dently the most important with reference to the present state of
the canonical books, must be regarded as a period when one
sided uncritical, and superstitious priests were left to the un
controlled tendencies of their own faUible judgment. That a
coUection, graduaUy growing up under such auspices, should be
invested with the attributes of literary infallibility, and that this
opinion should be maintained by any one in the nineteenth
century, is, of itself, a most remarkable phenomenon, which can

192 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IH.
only be explained by the existence of some deeply-seated error,
prejudice, or misconception.
The foUowing is, in fact, the reason why Christians acquiesce
in the Jewish notion that theh long series of Masoretic editors
were endowed with superhuman and infaUible accuracy. It is
supposed that our Lord has sanctioned this opinion by his divine
authority. It is maintained that, as He recognises the whole
coUection of Jewish Scriptures, and cites passages as unquestion
able authorities for doctrine or practice, with the simple introduc
tion "it is written," He must have regarded the Old Testament
in aU its parts, and in its then existing state, as divine and
infaUibly accurate. And there are enthusiastic Christians, who
stigmatise as infidelity or apostacy from Christ the proposition,
which we regard as an inevitable postulate, that the Masoretic
editors and compilers were and must have been fallible. Before,
then, we consider the nature of the Masoretic editorship, and
the materials from which they derived their compUation, it is
highly necessary that we should inquhe whether the Author of
our rehgion has pledged his sacred word for the genuineness,
authenticity, integrity, divine authority, and infaUible accuracy
of the Jewish coUection of sacred books. The main points in
this question have been aheady discussed, in a calm and dispas
sionate manner, by Professor Andrews Norton (" Evidences of
the Genuineness of the Gospel," vol. ii., pp. 475 sqq.). He
caUs attention to the two important considerations, "that, in
order to accomplish the great purpose of his mission, it was
necessary for Jesus to abstain from directly opposing many gross
errors of his countrymen;" and "that the fact is unquestion
able, that the Evangelists did not always report the language of
their Master with verbal exactness." From these considerations,
it follows, that, while we must not "reject any declaration
ascribed to him, as not founded on what he actually said, or as
not, in its essential meaning, true," we must make allowance for
the reserve with which He necessarily expressed himself when
his words would have rendered him liable to general misconstruc
tion, and must understand what was the meaning of the words,
attributed to Him in a particular case, by the general tendency of
his teaching. Professor Norton has not forgotten another reason
which makes it still more necessary to prefer the evidences fur-
nishe d by the main scope of our Lord's teaching to that which

OUR LORD S REFERENCES TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. 193
results from particular expressions, which the EvangeUsts have
recorded. "Everyone," he says, " easUy slides into the lan
guage of a popular error, or rather we may find it difficult to
avoid such language, when not expressly contending against the
error. But on the supposition that the Evangehsts had not de
cidedly renounced the opinions of their countrymen respecting
the Pentateuch and the Levitical law, we connot doubt that they
might unconsciously attribute to Jesus incidental expressions
favouring those opinions ; — that they might have done so in
cases, where, if his precise words had been compared with theh
report of them, they would not have recognised any important
difference of character or effect between his language and their
own." With these considerations before us, we shaU have no diffi
culty in estimating the character which our Lord attributed to
the Jewish collection of sacred writings. He necessarily ab
stained from any critical remarks which would have shocked
without edifying his hearers, and generaUy accepted the whole
coUection for the sake of the revelation of which it was the
record, and of the religious ideas of which it was the vehicle.
Accordingly, if his words are reported with literal accuracy, he
not only spoke of the Pentateuch in general as the work of
Moses, but even drew an Ulustration from the most incredible
incident in the fabulous book of Jonah, and quoted by the name of
Daniel the undoubtedly spurious book attributed to that prophet,
but not classed with the other prophetic writings by the Jews
themselves. It might indeed be said that the use of Bid instead
of vjto, in Matth. xxiv. 15 ,relieves the passage from the assertion
that Daniel was the author of the saying there quoted ; and this
presumes the most minute accuracy in the record, which is con
tradicted by the fact that in Mark, xiii. 14, we have virb
instead of Bid. On the other hand, it might be aUeged that the
citations of the same passage, even when most emphatic, are not
always given in the same words : thus the quotation, by which
Jesus sUenced the Sadducees, is given in Mark, xii. 26 : "Have
ye not read in the book of Moses, at the bush, how God spake to
him?" but in Matth. xxii. 31, it is: "Have ye not read that
which was spoken unto you by God ?" and in Luke, xx. 37, it
is merely : " Moses indicated at the bush." And in general it
might be urged that minute accuracy of citation eould scarcely be
13

194 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
expected from a writer who attributes to Jeremiah a passage
from Zechariah (Matth. xxvii. 9) ; or it might be remarked that
we often quote from writers whom we do not consider divine, or
of superior authority to ourselves, and that St. Paul, for example,
does not intend, by citing Aratus, Menander, and Epimenides, to
invest those poets with the attribute of infaUible inspiration.
Waiving aU'these criticisms, we incline to the conclusion suggested
above, that our Lord adopted the popular language in speaking of
the sacred books of the Jews, just as English clergymen speak of
the " Creed of Athanasius," although every man of ordinary infor
mation is aware that it was not composed by that learned Father,
and that, according to Waterland, it was written more than a cen
tury after his death by Hilary, Bishop of Aries. But although He
so far condescended to the general notions of his countrymen as to
quote from theh sacred books without any apparent discrimina
tion, and with a general recognition of their authority, our Lord
has told us, not only by the general tendency of his doctrines
and actions, but also in express terms, that even the books
attributed to Moses were not, as a whole, of divine authority
and lasting obligation. It seems wonderful that any readers of
the Gospels should faU to observe this. If we except that
obedience to the Levitical law, as the statute law of the land,
which was the duty of aU good citizens, and which Jesus there
fore both enforced and exemplified, we shaU find that he treated
aU the ritual and ceremonial ordinances of the Jews, even the
Sabbath, as matters of indifference in themselves, but which,
having become superstitious substitutes for the true religion of
the heart, must be abandoned even by the Jewish disciples of
Christ. As Professor Norton has weU observed : " Had the
ritual law been, as represented in the Pentateuch, promulgated
by God, it is evident that the obligation of the Jews to obey that
law could not cease tiU it was explicitly and solemnly repealed by
God. But we find nowhere any declaration of our Saviour
recognising its divine origin, and asserting his commission to
declare it no longer binding. One of two inferences necessarily
foUows ; either that the law remained binding upon his foUowers
from among the Jews, contrary to what is affirmed by St. Paul,
and contrary to what He himself taught by his actions and
words, or that this law did not proceed from God, and, therefore,
that no express declaration was necessary to invalidate its au-

THE RITUAL DISTINGUISHED FROM THE MORAL LAW. 195
thority." And again: "The ritual law was not solemnly re
pealed by our Saviour in the name of God, as if it had been
solemnly promulgated by God ; it fell before his teaching like a
form of human superstition ; " and this " shows that the common
opinion of the Jews respecting its divine origin was not sanc
tioned by the teaching of our Saviour." But we are not confined
to the mere tendency of our Lord's doctrine and actions. We have
express assertions that whUe the moral law as contained in the
decalogue, explained in the book of Deuteronomy, and enforced
by the Prophets, was of divine origin and eternal obligation, the
ritual and statute law attributed! to Moses was human and tem
porary and opposed to the true spirit of revealed rehgion. Thus
we have the locus classicus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matth.
v. 17 — 20). " Think not that I am come to destroy the law and
the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." As he
did destroy the ritual law, this must be understood of that reli
gion of the heart, which is taught by Deuteronomy and the great
Prophets, who so constantly, as we shaU see, repudiate the idea
that sacrifices are necessary or pleasing to God. "For verily
I say unto you, tUl heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law tiU aU be fulfiUed " (cf. Luke,
xvi. 17). Here again the moral law alone can be intended; for
this hteral and absolute retention of words, until the end of the
world, could only apply to brief and emphatic commandments of
divine origin like those of the ten tables. That this is the refer
ence is shown by the next verse. " Whosoever therefore shah
break one of these commandments, even the least of them, and
shaU teach men so, he shaU be called the least in the kingdom
of heaven : but whosoever shaU do and teach them, the same
shall be caUed great in the kingdom of heaven." As our Lord
is here speaking of the Christian dispensation, which is referred
to by the phrase " kingdom of heaven," and is obviously alluding
to the ministers of his own religion, it is plain that his warning
applies only to the ten commandments, as summed up in the two
great precepts of love to God and man, on which hang aU the law
and the prophets (Matth. xxii. 40) : and the aUusion to the least
or shortest commandments in the two tables is to be explained
by the commentary of St. James (ii. 8 — 11), namely, that the
spirit of the law of love is involved in every commandment.
That the moral law in its simple essence is here opposed to the

196 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
ceremonial ordinances substituted for it by the sacerdotal super
stitions of the Jews is clear from the concluding verse of this
important passage: "For I say unto you, that except your
righteousness shaU exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye
shaU in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." It is mani
fest from this general and sweeping statement that the ritual law,
as enforced and upheld by the Scribes and Pharisees, was tempo
rary and of human origin, and that the real law of God — the
moral law — was eternaUy binding even on the ministers and
disciples of Christ. And this general view is supported by special
examples. Take, for instance, the manner in which our Lord
speaks of the Jewish law of divorce (Deut. xxiv. 1 — 3). When
this law is aUeged against Him, he does not say that it was
ordained by God and that he was appointed to annul it : but
" Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to
put away your wives : but from the beginning it was not so "
(Matth. xix. 8). Surely there could not be a more express
admission that the law contained enactments of human origin,
and of incidental value and exceptional expediency.
But there are two supplementary considerations of great im
portance in reference to our Lord's estimate of the value and
authority of the Pentateuch ; his preference for Deuteronomy as
a text-book, and his citation of those passages in the great
Prophets which disaUow the divine origin of sacrificial rites.
Although, as we have seen, our Lord was probably acquainted
with the whole Pentateuch as we have it, and did not directly
contravene the common opinion or phraseology that this was
the work of Moses, no careful reader of the Gospels can fail to
observe that his chief authority, or, at any rate, the text which
was most distinctly impressed on his memory, was the book of
Deuteronomy. This is evident from the three cases in which the
'authoritative quotation from Jewish Scripture is placed in the
strongest hght. (a). In the narrative of the temptation, which
recounts the struggle in our Saviour's mind at the commencement
of his ministration, we find that He sUenced the promptings of
his lower nature by three appeals to the book of Deuteronomy.
As the Israehtes are especiaUy enjoined to commit to memory
these precepts of the book of Deuteronomy (vi. 6 — 9), it is rea
sonable to conclude that our Saviour had stored them up in the
treasure-house of his human reason, and they would therefore recur

DEUTERONOMY THE MOST AUTHORITATIVE TEXT-BOOK. 197
to his recoUection amid the distraction of contending thoughts.
That these quotations, and these alone, supphed him with
weapons in such a mental contest, seems to show that he attached
some peculiar and exclusive importance to the book from which
they were derived, (b). When our Lord summed up the pith
and marrow of the commandments on which "hang aU the law
and the prophets," the first and great commandment, or that of
the love of God, is derived literaUy from the book of Deuteronomy
(Matth. xxii. 37 ; Deut. vi. 5). And though the second com
mandment, or that of the love of our neighbour, which St. James
calls "the royal law" (vbfiov* fiaaiXiKov, ii. 8), is given inci-
dentaUy in Leviticus (xix. 18), there are critical reasons for
believing that this Jehovistic portion did not originaUy belong to
the Elohistic book of Leviticus, and that the particular command
at all events must have occurred along with the other great com
mandment in the chapter of Deuteronomy so exphcitly quoted
by our Lord ; and even if it were not found there in so many
words, the general tendency of the book, which enjoins the love
of the stranger (x. 18, 19), and regards it as a mortal sin "if any
man hates his neighbour" (xix. 11), would induce us to suppose
that our Lord, hke the prophet Micah (vi. 8), found in Deuter
onomy the requirement of righteousness and mercy, no less than
that of walking humbly with God. (c). Above aU, it was to the
book of Deuteronomy alone that our Lord appealed for the pre
dicted criterion of his own divine mission. He said to the Jews,
when they wished to slay him : "Ye search the Scriptures; for
in them ye think that ye have eternal life : and they are they
which testify of me ; and ye wiU not come unto me that ye
might have life" (John, v. 39, 40); and: " Had ye believed Moses,
ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me. But if ye
beheve not his writings, how shaU ye believe my words ? "
(id. ibid. 46, 47). Now, it is not denied by any commentator
that these words refer to the test of the true prophet, who was
to come, in the remarkable passage of Deuteronomy (xviii. 15-22),
and there is no other passage in the Pentateuch which can be
cited as distinctly foreteUing the coming of such a prophet as our
Lord. Moreover, the Prophets whom our Lord most preferred
to cite, Isaiah (li. 5, 7, 16 ; lix. 21), Jeremiah (xiv. 14, 15), and
Zechariah (xiii. 3), directly refer to this criterion of Messiahship j
and their authority was coupled with that of Moses in the expec-

198 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
tations entertained by pious Israehtes (John, i. 45). It cannot,
therefore, be doubted that Deuteronomy was also in this most
important reference our Lord's only standard of appeal.
Not less significant are those prophetic passages by the cita
tion of which our Lord distinctly intimates that the sacrificial
and ceremonial ordinances of the Jewish rehgion were not of
divine origin, and that their violation in the cause of humanity
involved no guilt. He said to the Pharisees, quoting Hos. vi. 6,
Micah, vi. 6, 7, and through them referring to Deuteronomy :
"Go ye and learn what that meane th, I wiU have mercy and not
sacrifice " (Matth. ix. 13) ; and again : "If ye had known what
this meaneth, I wiU have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not
have condemned the guiltless" (id. xii. 7). It seems quite
marveUous that any attentive reader of the Gospels should have
failed to see the full bearing and importance of such passages as
these. For while the former passage rebukes the exclusiveness
of the Jews and their neglect of the Deuteronomie precept to
show mercy to strangers (x. 19), the latter deals with the most
solemn ordinance of the ritual law — the observance of the
Sabbath — and proclaims that the violation of the Sabbath, as
understood by the Jews, might be guiltless in the sight of God.
And yet we read in the book of Exodus (xxxi. 15, xxxv. 2) :
"Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely
be put to death." Surely it must be certain, if anything is
certain with regard to our Lord's teaching, that he did not regard
a law, which might be violated without guUt, as part of that
divine revelation which was to last as long as the sohd fabric of
heaven and earth. We may also infer from this citation that our
Lord attached great weight to the discrepancy between the express
statements of the great Prophets of Israel and that law of cere
monies and sacrifices, which the Jews attributed to Moses as the
interpreter of God's revealed wiU. Now the Prophets before the
captivity not only speak of offerings and sacrifices as though they
were neither acceptable to God nor enjoined by Him, but even
teU us expressly that such rites were not required at the hands
of the Israelites, that they were the offspring of theh own
erroneous and irreligious hearts. Thus whUe Hosea, as we have
seen, speaking in the name of God, declares : " I desired mercy
and not sacrifice (vi. 6) ; while Micah asks : " What doth the
Lord require of thee, but to do justice and to love mercy and to

THE LEVITICAE LAW WAS DISALLOWED BY THE PROPHETS. 199
walk humbly with thy God ? " (vi. 8) : and while the authors of
the Psalms, in the earliest part of the coUection, declare : " Sacrifice
and offering thou didst not require " (Psalm xi. 6) ; and : " Thou
desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it : thou delightest not in
burnt offering " (Psalm li. 16) ; we find in other Prophets a
distinct contradiction of the popular belief that these Levitical
rites were as old as the Exodus and as divine as the Law which
was so terribly promulgated in the wUderness. Isaiah says
(i. 10 — 13) : "Hear the word of the Lord— I delight not in the
blood of buUocks or of lambs or of he-goats. When ye come to
appear before me, to trample my courts, who hath required this
at your hand? Bring no more vain oblations." StiU more
distinctly, Amos (v. 22—25) : " Though ye offer me burnt offer
ings and your meat offerings, I wiU not accept them. Did ye
offer me sacrifices and offerings in the wUderness forty years,
0 house of Israel ? " But the most emphatic announcement of the
fact that sacrificial rites formed no part of the authentic and
original system of the Mosaic law is that which is made by the
priestly Jeremiah (vii. 21 — 23) : " Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
the God of Israel : Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices
and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers nor commanded
them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt
concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices; but this thing com
manded I them, saying, Obey my voice and I wiU be your God
and ye shaU be my people : and walk ye in aU the ways that I
have commanded you, that it may be weU unto you." Our Lord
could not have been unacquainted with these statements of " the
Prophets and Psalms," which so exactly express his own views;
and the general tendency of aU his teaching is to show, as these
Prophets had previously done, that the genuine law of Moses,
the great former revelation of God's wUl, had been corrupted and
nullified by human aftergrowths and interpolations.
We are, then, far from conceding to our modern Judaizers that
Jesus has sanctioned by his divine word the coequal authority
and infaUibihty of the whole Jewish coUection. On the con
trary, we regard such a view as a grave and scandalous misre
presentation of his whole teaching ; and if it were necessary to
pronounce an opinion respecting the sinfulness of those who, as
we believe, neglect, misapply, or pervert the teaching of our
Lord, we should be obliged to stigmatise with the strongest

200 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
reprobation these modern Pharisees, who misrepresent not only
his recorded words, but the whole tendency of his ministration.
It appears to us as certain as any thing in this world, that he
regarded the Old Testament just as we regard the whole Bible,
namely, as containing the Word of God implicated and involved
in the words of man ; and that he sanctioned by his example the
practice of enlightened teachers in aU ages, who, while they
clearly indicate the truth, abstain, as far as possible, from startling
the prejudices of their hearers. As it was, he said and did
enough to bring upon himself the deadly hatred of those who
were interested in maintaining the divine origin of a sacerdotal
system ; but he would not have been allowed to teach as he did
for a few years, if he had begun by a plain declaration of that to
which all his teaching tended, namely, the human origin and
religious worthlessness of the ceremonial law commonly ascribed
to Moses. If from our Saviour, who had before Him the whole collection
of sacred books contained in the Masoretic Canon, we pass to
the great Prophets before the captivity, whose views, as we have
seen, he so fuUy adopted,. we shall be able to establish a con
clusion, which would have been stUl more shocking to the Scribes
and Pharisees of his day. It is this — that not only did they,
like him, prefer Deuteronomy to the other books of the Pentateuch,
not only did they regard the moral law as divine, and the cere
monial law as human ; but they had no book of the law except
Deuteronomy, and no law passing under the name of Moses
except that which taught the great obligations of morality.
When the temple was consecrated by Solomon, we read that
" there was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone "
(1 Kings, viii. 9). But when David asserts the doctrine, which
is also attributed to Samuel (1 Samuel, xv. 22), and which is
found in the book of Deuteronomy (x. 12 sqq.), that obedience is
the only requirement of the divine law, he appeals to " the roU
of the book" (Psalm xl. 7); and it is therefore probable that there
was some record of the teaching of Moses besides the two tables
of stone (cf. 1 Kings, ii. 3). Now the book of Deuteronomy, as
the name signifies, professes to be the exact or authentic copy of
that law which was kept in the temple by the side of the ark
(Deut. xvii. 18, xxxi. 24—26). In the reign of Josiah, it is
stated that Hilkiah the high priest " found the book of the law

PROPHETS NOT ACQUAINTED WITH THE PENTATEUCH. 201
in the house of the Lord " (2 Kings, xxh. 8) ; and it is clear
from the reference to Deut. xxix. 27, in v. 13, that this book of
the law was no other than Deuteronomy. It is asserted by
Clement of Alexandria, and it is probable in itself, that Hilkiah,
the father of Jeremiah, was the high priest who found and
repubhshed the book of the law ; at any rate, it is certain that
this discovery of the law of God was contemporary with the
appearance of Jeremiah as a prophet of Jehovah ; for the former
event is placed in the eighteenth (1 Kings, xxh, 3), and the
commission to prophecy in the thirteenth year (Jer. i. 2) of
Josiah's reign : and it is equally certain that the language of
Jeremiah is pervaded by a perpetual strain of aUusion to the book
of Deuteronomy, insomuch that some have been led to suppose that
he had a share in the revision and editorship of that book as it
now stands.1 The writer of the book of Kings, whose date is not
earlier than the fortieth year of the captivity (2 Kings, xxv. 27),
speaks of Deuteronomy as " the book of the law of Moses"
(2 Kings, xiv. 6; cf. Deut. xxiv. 16); and the contemporary
prophet Ezekiel (xvhi. 4, 20) refers to the same passage in such
terms as bring forth most emphaticaUy its opposition to the
doctrine of the books of the Pentateuch. A recent writer (Dr.
E. Eiehm : die Gesetzgebung Mosis im Lande Moab ; Gotha, 1854)
thinks that even the book of Deuteronomy was not written until
the second half of the reign of Manasseh (i.e. between 667 and
640 b.c). One of his reasons for concluding that the book was
not written before Hezekiah's time is that the confusion between
the priests and Levites only occurs in books written after that time,
and that the Deuteronomic expression, " the priests the Levites,"
is found in these books (Jer. xxxiii. 18 [21] ; Ezek. xliii. 19,
xliv. 15; Isaiah, lxvi. 21; 2 Chron. xxx. 27, xxiii. 18); and
the book of Kings (1, xii. 31) blames Jeroboam because he did
not take his priests from the tribe of Levi, not because he did
not take them from the famUy of Aaron. Admitting fuUy that
HUkiah may have made some additions and alterations in his
edition of the old book which he found in the temple, we think
i It is worthy of remark, that the later historical books (2 Kings, xvii. 13 ;
Ezra ix 11) actually speak of the Prophets as the authors ofthe law, which
must 'refer to the share which the schools of the Prophets had in the compila
tion of the sacred books, or to the editorship of Deuteronomy by Jeremiah in
particular.

202 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
that the necessary inference from the confusion of the priests
with the Levites is that the Deuteronomic view of the matter
was the only tradition on the subject which was, at that time,
recognised as Mosaic and divine ; that the ritual and sacerdotal
system set forth in the other books of the Pentateuch either did
not exist or belonged only to the bye-laws of the temple ; and
this inference is confirmed by the whole history of the Jewish
religion up to the time of the captivity. We find throughout
unmistakeable traces of the fact that the Levites were a servile
order, without any pre-eminence of rank or dignity. They some
times appear as private chaplains (Judges, xvii. 5 sqq., xxvii. 30) ;
but their ministerial aid is not necessary, and both private indivi
duals (Judges, vi. 17 sqq., xiii. 19 sqq) and kings (1 Sam. xv. 21 ;
2 Sam. vi. 13, xxiv. 25) and prophets (1 Sam. xvi. 2) offer
sacrifices to Jehovah without theh intervention. Even Solomon
acts as High Priest at the consecration of the temple (1 Kings,
ix. 25), and the Levites held office at the pleasure of the king
(1 Kings, ii. 27). Previously the High Priest seems to have been
an elected functionary, whose business it was to take care of
the ark (1 Sam. vii. 8). The first assumption of important func
tions by the sacerdotal caste was connected with the revolution,
which overthrew the usurpation of Athaliah (2 Chron. xxiii.
2 sqq.) ; and there can be no doubt that the downfall of the
secul.tr monarchy and the long period of exile enabled the priests
and scribes, who were the hterary men of the nation, to reduce
to a complete and elaborate system the ritual observances, which
had graduaUy come into vogue ; and, on their return, to ingraft
them on the law of Moses, to incorporate them in the oldest
historical records of the nation, and to pubhsh them, with theh
own glosses and comments, as the very words of the inspired
legislator (Nehemiah, viii. 1 — 8).
In order that we may the better understand the editorial pro
cedure of the priests and scribes, who returned from the exile,
and the manner in which they graduaUy completed the collection
of sacred books, it will be necessary to inquire what were the
original materials at theh disposal, and, for this purpose, to
ascend, if possible, to the first beginnings of Hebrew literature.
The Augustan age of Jewish literature was undoubtedly the
reign of Solomon, and the first beginnings of composition, perhaps
even of the art of writing, are to be traced to the time when

BEGINNINGS OF HEBREW LITERATURE. 203
Moses led the chosen people out of the land of Egypt. Between
these two epochs, the researches of Lepsius (Chronologie des
Fgyptes, pp. 314-404), independently confirmed by those of Lord
Arthur Hervey (Genealogies of our Lord and Saviour, pp. 204-
276), have shown that there was an interval of not more than
three centuries. We shaU have no difficulty in showing the
manner in which the sacred Uterature of the Jews was formed
and developed within these comparatively narrow limits. From
the venerable hands of Moses himself, we have, perhaps, only the
decalogue and the nucleus of its Deuteronomic exposition. The
song of triumph over the defeated Egyptians, retains probably the
main features, if not the very words, of the original hymn of
Mhiam. The similar song of Deborah was undoubtedly the
original production of that prophetess, and therefore belongs to
the second century after the Exodus. There is a stamp of genuine
antiquity on the fragments quoted in Numbers xxi. One of these
fragments is cited from a special work, " The Book of the Wars
of Jehovah" (v. 14), and it is a reasonable inference that this
book contained an epic chronicle of those . successful battles in
which the Israehtes engaged between the Exodus and their final
conquest of the promised land. It is with reference to these
battles that we read the expressions : " Jehovah is a man of war "
(Exod. xv. 3), and " Jehovah fought for Israel " (Deut. i. 30,
Josh. x. 14, 42, xxiii. 3). The fragment in the same chapter,
which is introduced with a general reference to the poets " that
speak in proverbs " (v. 27), seems, from the style, to have be
longed to a work of the same age as the former fragment, namely,
" The Book of the Wars of the Lord." But as the prophecy of
Balaam (Numb, xxiii. 7, 18, etc.) is described as "a proverb,"
as this prophecy belongs demonstrably to the Solomonean epoch,
and as Jeremiah mixes up the proverb of Balaam and this other
proverb in one quotation (Jer. xlvhi, 45, 46), it is a reasonable
supposition that, in the prophets' time, these fragments were side
by side in one coUection. There are traces of a poetical history
of the hero Samson, and it is probable that there were genealogies
and hsts of official personages more or less accurately preserved.
But in general there was httle union, either national or rehgious,
during the period which is so confusedly described in the book of
Judges, and therefore little hkehhood of the formation of a
national religious literature. It was in the beginning of the

204 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
third century after the Exodus, namely, the eleventh B.C., that
the great prophet and legislator, Samuel, began to fix in a literary
form the revealed system of religion and morality of which
Moses was the first minister. It was he who not only established
a centralised military government, but also constituted the schools
of the Prophets, which were destined to give a fixed and uniform
expression to the rehgious sentiments of the whole people. These
rehgious and literary colleges were estabhshed at Eamah, Jericho,
Bethel, and GUgal, in the very heart of the Holy Land, and,
like the schools of the rhapsodists among the early Greeks, fur
nished the community at large with an adequate supply of
religious teachers, poets, political demagogues, annalists, medical
men, and musicians. What the school of Pythagoras was to the
Greek colonies in Italy, the same, and much more, the prophetical
schools were to the people of Israel. Here, then, was the
real beginning of that sacred hterature which, only one hundred
years afterwards, reached its culminating point in the reign of
Solomon, and which finally developed itself in the glorious
compositions of Isaiah, Micah, Amos, Jeremiah, and Hosea. The
great warrior of the nation, David, was an illustrious member of
the prophetic schools, and his poems remain as a proof of his
prolific genius and eminent insphation. Even Saul was once
known to prophecy at Naioth, in Eamah, along with David and
Samuel, and among the "proverbs," which emanated from these
rehgious and literary fraternities, there was one which recorded
that solitary instance of poetic enthusiasm on the part of the
rude and violent Benjaminite — " Saul also among the Prophets '.'
(1 Sam. xix. 24), though, according to another tradition, this
proverb referred to an earlier outburst of prophetic inspiration
(1 Sam. x. 11, 12). We read of special literary productions
attributed to the pens of particular prophets. Thus the acts of
David, first and last, are said to have been written in the book of
Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in
the book of Gad the seer (1 Chron. xxix. 22), where the book of
Samuel must refer to the present compUation, known by the
name of the Prophet, who died before David became king.
Similarly, the acts of Solomon, first and last, are said to have
been written " in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the
prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the
seer" (2 Chron. ix. 29). And Eehoboam's acts, first and last,

THE BOOK OF JASHAR. 205
were written " in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and Iddo
the seer, concerning genealogies" (2 Chron. xii. 15). These and
similar histories were incorporated " in the book of the Chronicles
of the kings of Judah," or " of Israel," from which there are
thirty-one quotations in our present books of Kings. But the
first and most important product of the prophetic schools was,
according to a conclusion at which we have deliberately arrived,
" the book of Jashar,"— that is, " the book of the upright," or
" of the true ideal Israel, of the nation blessed and chosen by
Jehovah, so far as they were upright or obedient to his laws," —
a book which contained a coUection of religious and national
poems either of more ancient date, or then first composed, for
the purpose of explaining and developing the main principles of
the Mosaic dispensation, — a book which was commenced by
Samuel and David, and completed by Nathan and Gad, at the
beginning of the reign of Solomon.
The book of Jashar, according to this conception of its original
form and significance, has been made the subject of a critical
investigation by the author of these pages (Jashar : Fragmenta
Archetypa Carminum Hebraicorum collegit, etc. Joannes Guilelmus
Donaldson, Berohni, 1854). Eeferring to the book itself for all
necessary details, we will here make some supplementary obser
vations, which may tend, in conjunction with what has been
said, to elucidate stiU farther the general scope of the book, and
to correct the misconceptions, and perhaps dissipate the prejudices
of adverse criticism.
If we had nothing to guide us in an attempt to restore the
book of Jashar beyond the two quotations in the Masoretic text
(Josh. x. 13, 2 Sam. i. 18 sqq.), we must needs acquiesce in the
common opinion about it, namely, that it was a coUection of mis-
ceUaneous poems, containing commemorations of victories, like
that of Joshua, and songs relating to heroic characters like Saul
and Jonathan. With regard to the latter, most attentive and
acute readers of the Bible would come to the same conclusion. as
Mr. Lee ("Inspiration of Holy Scripture," p. 454): "The
author of the books of Samuel on one occasion only makes express
mention of documentary sources. The frequent insertion, how
ever, of poetic pieces, plainly intimates that such sources were at
his command. Hence we may not unfairly form a conjecture as
to the source of such quotations ; and conclude that these poetic

206 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
pieces were selected from the book of Jashar." The same in
ference is apphcable to the other case of direct citation ; and if
Joshua's triumphal ode belonged to the book of Jashar, it would
be in the highest degree probable that the triumphal odes of
Moses and Deborah were contained in the same coUection. If it
were urged, on the other hand, that, as Jehovah is called " a
man of war" in the song of Moses, the poem, in which these
words occurred, more properly belonged to " The Book of the Wars
of the Jehovah," the answer is plain and conclusive ; for it is
said of Joshua's victory, that "Jehovah fought for Israel," and
Joshua's victory was undoubtedly commemorated in the book of
Jashar ; and therefore the inference clearly is that the triumphal
odes belonged to that book, and the epic narratives to the other
record. Here, however, we must have stopped, if we had
nothing to guide us except the two fragments actuaUy referred to
in the book of Jashar. The further prosecution of the subject, and
aU the results which have been obtained by the author of these
pages, flow from a true perception of the meaning of the term
Jashar, which gave a title to the ancient book.
It is certain that the word Jashar, "IE" , denotes straightness in
the sense of a horizontal line. It is properly applicable to a per
fectly level road, neither rendered uneven nor made tortuous by
any obstacles on the surface of the ground. For this primary
signification, we have an ample guarantee in several passages of
Isaiah. Thus in xxvi. 7, we find : "the way of the just is
straightness (ht. levels, m&shdrim) : thou, 0 righteous (jdshdr),
dost direct the path of the just." Again in xl. 3, we have :
" make straight (jashshru) in the desert a high- way for our God ; "
and v. 4 : "the rough place (nhdq6v) shah become a level (mlshdr) : "
Again in xiii. 16 : "I wiU make the blind go in a road which
they know not ; I wUl make a road for them in a path they know
not ; I wUl make darkness before them to be light, and crooked
things (manhaqashsMm) to be a level (mishdr)." We have
similar references in 1 Sam. vi. 12, Proverbs, iii. 6, xi. 5, Psalm
xxv. 8. In this application, jdshdr is distinguished from its
moral synonym tsaddiq, which denotes vertical straightness in the
perpendicular line, and as this word contains the root of sed-eo
etc., " to be fixed in the ground," so ja-shar contains the root of
ser-o, Sanscrit sri, etc., " to go on in a straight line." In
their secondary sense, as denoting moral exceUence in general

THE MEANING OF THE TERM " JASHAR." 207
there is scarcely any difference between jdshdr and tsaddiq,
and they may be rendered alike "righteous," "upright," or
"just;" but this is only a result of the carelessness of common
language; and in its emphatic use jdshdr reverts to its ety
mology, and is employed as a special or distinctive term of
gravest significance. And here it connects itself with a weaker
form of the same root, which, though sometimes strictly synony
mous, generaUy denotes the prosperity/blessedness, and success of
those who proceed in the straight course of probity. This weaker
form 'hdshar, "IB'K, which, in the construct state, 'hashrdi, ^"WiA
is the key-note of so many of the Psalms, and begins the pre
fatory poem of that coUection, seems particularly applicable to
the expression of that happiness, which was promised to true
Israelites, as the reward of theh righteous conduct. Thus we
read at the conclusion of the song of Moses (Deut. xxxiii. 29) :
" 0 thy happiness ('hashreikd) 0 Israel; who is like unto thee, a
people preserved by Jehovah ? " So completely did the ideas of
goodness and prosperity run into one another, that derek jeshdrdh,
"a straight road," meant "a prosperous journey" (Ezra, viii. 21).
In fact, all prosperity was attributed to the great truth that God
was himself jdshdr, and therefore rewarded those who were faith
ful to that character. " AU his ways are judgment : just and
right f jdshdr) is he" (Deut. xxxii. 4). And therefore the
blessedness of his servants was a proof of His righteous dealing.
Thus the Psalmist says (xcii. 12 — 15): "The righteous shaU
flourish hke a palm-tree ; he shaU grow hke a cedar in Lebanon.
To show that Jehovah is right (jdshdr), that he is my rock, and
that there is no unrighteousness in him."
This being the usage of the word, it need not surprise us that
" Israelites indeed, in whom there was no guile " (John, i. 47),
that is, true servants of Jehovah, would on the one hand be
represented as doing that which was jdshdr or " right," and
would on the other hand be designated by this name as denoting
at once their moral or religious excellence, and the happiness
which was its natural result. As, then, the law enjoined the
Israelites to do what was jdshdr in God's sight (Deut. vi. 18),
so it is expressly said of true Israelites, when they furnished an
exception to the sinfulness of their race, that they did that which
was jdshdr before Jehovah (1 Kings, xv. 11). Hence the people
of God were coUectively styled the righteous, jeshorim (cf. Psalm

208 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
cxxv. 4, 5, cxi. 1, lxxiii. 1 ; Isaiah, xxvi. 7), and the collective
term jeshur-Htn is four times used in poetical passages (Deut.
xxxii. 15, xxxiii. 5, 26 ; Isaiah, xliv. 2) in the same significa
tion. Even the name Israel, or, as perhaps it ought to be pro
nounced, Ishrael, must be explained in the same way. For
although in Gen. xxxii. 28, it is referred to the root sdrdh, m'K>,
"he fought," we have a more distinct statement respecting the
imposition of this name,- in contrast to that of Jacob, in Gen.
xxxv. 9, 10: "And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he
came out of Padan-aram, and blessed him ; and God said unto
him, Thy name shaU not be caUed any more Jacob, but Israel
shall be thy name : and he caUed his name Israel." The context
clearly shows that the writer of this passage referred the name
Vk"1B>» either to "iE?K , "he blessed," or more properly to "W\ or
~W1\, "he made straight, i.e. prosperous or moraUy good," hence
" approved of" (Psalm cxix, 128) ; so that _>t.-|E» wiU be the
same sort of name as 78$i?!0% Fzekiel. And as jdshdr, IE", is
directly opposed to nhdqov, Dpu, we recognise in this change of name
the contrast between the previous and the subsequent, the ordinary
and the religious designation of the chosen people ; that is, they
were in their unconverted and uncovenanted state Janhaqov, a
" perverse, crooked " generation ; but became Lshrael, those
whom " God has made straight, right, moral, approved, happy."
We have seen that in Isaiah, xhi. 16, the word "i.E^D mishdr,
from "IE", jdshdr, is opposed to Eij?J?, nhiqq4sh, "crooked," "per
verse"; and the latter, which, like the former adjective, is pre
dicated of roads orways (Prov. ii. 15, xxviii. 6 ., is especially applied
to the Israelites when they departed from their true exemplar and
ideal ; as in Deut. xxxii. 5, where, after saying that God is just and
right (jdshdr), the poet adds that the Israelites had corrupted them
selves, and were "a perverse ifhiqq&h) and crooked generation."
There cannot therefore be a doubt that the word jdshdr does
in itself contain the substantial expression of the religious and
theocratic ideas of the chosen people — their idea of the nature of
God and of his dealings with men, theh idea of the connexion
between man's duty and man's happiness, their idea of aU that
was and ought to be distinctive of their own nature in contrast
to its condition before it was speciaUy selected by God, and in
contrast also to the other nations, from whom they were separated
and set apart.

EWALD'S INCONSISTENCY. 209
Such being the case, when we find that there was a book of
Jashar, and that this is quoted only twice by the Masoretic com-
pUers of the historical books ; when we find also that the funda
mental notion of such a book, and sometimes the key-note of the
word itself, is constantly repeated in those books ; when we find
here and there poetical fragments inserted in the text, like patches
of mosaic work, which contribute to the development of the idea
of jdshdr, and which, when detached from theh present con
nexion and placed side by side, thoroughly harmonise, as a com
bined expression of that idea ; it seems to be an inevitable con
clusion that the book of Jashar was the first religious book of the
Jews, the first offspring of the prophetic schools, which inaugu
rated their sacred literature ; the nucleus of that theocratic history
which, with a concretion of other materials more or less ancient,
more or less religious, more or less intrinsically divine, has been
transmitted to us by the scribes and priests who returned from
the Chaldsean captivity and found that the language of the law
and the prophets was no longer the living idiom of their native
land. The simple fact that a book with such a comprehensive title
is only twice quoted by name appears to us to show conclusively
that the two cases of express citation were exceptional, that is,
less in accordance with the general scope and idea of the book.
Ewald, in his review of our treatise (Gbtting. Gel. Anz., 1855,
pp. 144 sqq.), a review characterised by his usual self-confidence,
lays some stress upon the fact that we could not derive an adequate
idea of the book of Jashar from the two passages actually cited from
it. It appears to us that they were cited by name for that very
reason, namely, that they were less connected than the other
citations with the general bearing of the old religious book.
When Ewald lays it down that the first business of a critic, who
proposes to restore or recover the fragments of the book of Jashar,
is to show that the existing books contain other fragments besides
the two which are cited by name, he forgets his own procedure,
to which however, in the same page (149), he makes a very com
placent reference. He can tell us all about a great book of
TJrgesehichte, or "primeval history"; and like Dr. Astruc, who
wrote on the subject one hundred years ago, he can indicate the
different materials of which the great book was composed. One
of these he caUs the Ruch der Urspriinge, hke Cato's liber originum,
after the Hebrew n'n^fl tdlddth, although he acknowledges ( Gesch.
14

210 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
d. Volkes Israel, i. p. 96) that this is not the true force and applica
tion of the word! We, too, admit that there was a book of
tdlddth, but we use the word in its proper sense, and render it
genealogies et gesta patriarcharum. But even before his supposed
" book of origins," which he professes to restore with the greatest
confidence (p. 115) and attributes to some contemporary of Nathan
(p. 116), Ewald places with equal certainty "the oldest historical
work and its antecedents" (p. 75), and after it he gives us "a
third and fourth narrator of primeval histories" (pp. 118 sqq.).
Now he not only cannot prove that fragments of these four books
are to be found in the Masoretic text, but he cannot even aUege
any argument beyond conjecture to show that such books ever
existed. And yet he wUl not aUow us to assign to the book of
Jashar, which is cited by name, and that name a very compre
hensive and intelligible title, a number of undoubted and isolated
fragments, which range themselves naturaUy in accordance with
the scope of a book so designated. The fact is that Ewald
claims for himself an immunity from error, which he does not
concede to the traditions or records of the Church, and invariably
rejects every hypothesis which he has not originated.
Under any chcumstances, it would seem to us indubitable,
that an attempt to gather together the remnants of a book known
to have existed and cited under an inteUigible title, from the text
of a coUection of works, known to be a compUation and incor
porating a number of distinct, separable, and unappropriated
fragments, must be a legitimate object of literary and learned
speculation. To what an extent this process has been carried in
classical phUology is weU known to all who have studied the
coUections of Greek and Latin fragments. A pregnant example
of what may be effected by ingenuity and learning in this field
of conjectural research is furnished by Weleker's inquiries re
specting the lost dramas of ^Eschylus and the lost poems of the
Epic Cycle. In the case before us, however, we obtain results
much more important than the gratification of literary curiosity.
By developing the idea of jdshdr, we trace the spina dorsalis
which runs through the oldest records of revelation, and so bring
out in strong relief those features, which the Jewish and Christian
dispensations, being both divine, must have in common ; we give
greater distinctness to the religious significance of the Hebrew
records ; we strengthen the connexion between the Old and New

IMPORTANCE OF THE ATTEMPTED RESTORATION. 211
Testaments, and exhibit more fully the consistent harmony of the
substantial contents of the Scriptures.
The process is simply this : I. It was the profound and strictly
true notion of the ancient Israelites, that God was jdshdr ; that
it was the duty of men to become jdshdr hke Him ; and that by
becoming so, and by this alone, they would be prosperous and
happy. This idea has been fully expressed by that admirable
Christian divine, Benjamin Whichcot : " The best way to find
out what is religion in us, is to inquire what is true concerning
God : for religion in us is our resemblance of God, who is ever
best pleased with those things in His creatures which are most
eminent in Himself." And the Hebrew idea of jdshdr is still
farther developed by the religious poet, Joseph Addison ( Cato,
act v., sc. 1) : — " If there's a Power above
(And that there is all Nature cries aloud
Through all her works), He must delight in virtue, _
And that which he delights in must be happy."
Now the Book of Ecclesiastes, which is attributed to Solomon,
and undoubtedly contains excerpts from his traditionary sayings,
expressly declares (vii. 29) : " Lo, this only have I found, that
God hath made man (Adam) upright (jdshdr), but they have
sought out many inventions." No one wiU hesitate to refer this
emphatic passage to the statement in Gen. i. 27 : " God created
man (Adam) in his own image ; in the image of God created He
him." Now the word which we render "inventions" (°hish-
vdndth), is a derivation from the same root as machshvdth, predi
cated of the evU thoughts of man's heart, which led him into
sin (Gen. vi. 5) ; and in 2 Chron. xxvi. 15, the only other pas
sage where the word occurs, we have, in conjunction, "hishvdndth
rnachsheveth ch6sMv, "cunning-devices, the cunning-contrivance
of the cunning." Accordingly, we are led to seek the beginning
and foundation of the book of jdshdr in the account of the
creation and faU of man, which is given in the book of Genesis.
Here we have two distinct and separate statements. The first is
the brief, simple, and Elohistic narrative ; the second, the longer,
symbolical, and Jehovistic document. The latter, as we shaU
see is the more ancient and original version ; the former, a prag
matical commentary upon it.
(a). The Elohistic narrative states simply that man was

212 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
created in the image of God, but that, in consequence of his
fleshly lusts, he was deprived of the perpetual indweUing of God's
spirit. This is the substance of the fragments which are found
in the first and sixth chapters of Genesis. Whether the details
of the six days' creation were originaUy prefixed to this account
of man's downfall, so that the whole passage is of later date, we
have no means of judging. It is also uncertain whether the
Titanic attempt to scale heaven, and the subsequent dispersion of
man, which, as we have elsewhere suggested, might have been a
second version, or supplementary description, of the banishment
from Eden, might not have appeared in some connexion with the
primary sin of man. As it now stands, the account in Gen. xi. is
not only a mixture of the Jehovistic with the Elohistic, but other
wise betrays a later hand ; for Babel and its bricks could not
have been known to the Israehtes before the later years of the
monarchy, perhaps not until the time of the exUe. It might also
be asked, whether the -word, jdshdr must not have appeared in the
original fragment. If this was the case, it must have occurred
in the mention of man's blessing (Gen. i. 28), which would stand
on the same footing as the blessing of Jacob (Gen. xxxv. 9), if it
ran thus : " And God blessed them and said, I have made you
jdshdr, for my spirit is in you." It is clear that the ma°hshv6th,
or "cunning devices," by which man corrupted his way, are a
very good representative of the perverseness and tortuous course
which is opposed to the straightforwardness signified by jdshdr,
just as Pindar opposes bBol aKoXiai, or " crooked ways," to the
sincerity of the evdvyXato-aot dvr\p (Pyth. ii. 81).
(b). The Jehovistic narrative is given in a symbolical or aUe-
gorical form, and is, perhaps, wrapt up in intentional mystery
designed only for the edification of the initiated. The modern
grammarian can act as hierophant, if he is wilhng to trace
patiently the signification of every word, and is not afraid of
anatomical results, which, though revolting to us, were famUiar
enough to the ancient Jews. As Gesenius says of the metaphor
in Numbers xxiv. 7, these things are "ex nostro sensu obscosna,
sed Orientalibus familiaria." The true interpretation of the
aUegory, as it appears to us, is simply this. The garden of Eden,
or the paradise of delight or pleasure ("pj?), is the field of aU
those gratifications which God allows to the intellects and senses
of man. In the midst of this garden are planted, side by side

THE ALLEGORY OF THE FALL. 213
(Gen. ii. 9, hi. 3), and, therefore, in distinct contrast or opposi
tion, the trees of life and of the knowledge of good and evil.
The former represents the central or concentrated essence of the
spirit, that is, religious reason; the latter is the concentrated
essence of the flesh, that is, sensual concupiscence. In the former,
eternal life is involved, as the reward of a triumph over carnal
selfishness; in the latter is death, as the fruit of carnal sin
(Gal. vi. 8). Now with regard to the latter, the lowest form of
moral sin is the illicit and extravagant indulgence of the sexual
appetite, and the lowest form of religion is idolatry ; and these
two are described in the Bible under the common name of "for
nication," and were both practicaUy included in the Phallic wor
ship of Baal-peor, against which the Israehtes were especially
warned.1 This view is fuUy borne out by the details of the
allegory, which, in these days of false delicacy, can only be dis~
cussed in a dead language.2 It would, however, be the height of
1 In addition to other arguments, it may be mentioned that the Israelites
of David's time called Baal by the name of bosheth, i.e. shame, which denotes
the sexual shame alluded to in Gen. ii. 25.
2 Although our philological discussion respecting the temptation of Adam
is clothed in the classical garb in which the minutest details of anatomy are
expounded by medical writers, and though the object and results of the
investigation proposed are manifestly moral and religious, we have been
exposed to the most odious censures, couched in the most outrageously violent
language. One of the most ignorant and silly of our censors, who is in such
a ferment that he prints " passages" for "pages," declares that if our sense of
the allegory were true, it " would render it incumbent on all decent persons to
bury this leaf of the Bible nine fathoms deep in the earth." If this would be
his treatment of an allegory, what would he do with the thirty-eighth chapter
of Genesis, where there is no such disguise ? Another critic of a gentler stamp
objects to " the minuteness of the detail," by suggesting that " a few hints at
the interpretation proposed would have sufficed." As it appears that even a
complete sifting of the passage has not been sufficient to wean people from
their long-established belief that we have here a Protevangelium clothed in
the form of a Thier-Epos, we should rather conclude that we had been too
brief, and that more arguments were required. Even in the case of a heathen
poet, where no possible harm could result from a general interpretation, a
Bishop of our Church has not hesitated to tell us that the virgin Iphigenia is
called aTavpwTos "quia Tavpos est alSo?ov avBp6s" (Blomfield ad ^sch.
Agam. 236), and Valckenaer, to whom he refers us, has given the following
excuse for very minute details on that point {ad Ammon. p. 41) : " Caveant
seriores ne nostram in his exponendis diligentiam insulse reprehendant ; ne
Sacri quidera Scriptores ab hoc vocis Tauri usu ab6tinuerunt. Placet veteria
Poetse dictum, quo importunum aliquando repressit Aristippus i
Kal yap iv flaKxe^fjuiffiv
b vovs 6 <rw(ppwv ov SiaQBapfoeTat.'*
"We do not' know why Dr. Blomfield calls this excuse "facetious." It has
always appeared to us that St. Paul at least was serious when he said that

214 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
absurdity and ignorance to suppose that the want of modern
prudishness, in this ancient allegory, detracts in the slightest
degree from the probability of the interpretation proposed. The
plain-spokenness of the Old Testament, in matters which we
never mention, afforded Voltaire a ready plea for his scoffing
depreciation (Letires d'Amabed, Contes iii. p. 307) ; and it cannot
be denied that it would be preposterous to judge these ancient
writers by modern notions of delicacy. Not to speak of Gen.
xix. 5, 32, xxxiv. 2, 25, xxxix. 12, Numbers, xxv. 8, 1 Kings,
xxi. 21, Isaiah, xxx. 22, Ezekiel, xviii. 6, and a multitude of
"to the pure all things are pure" (Tit. i. 15); and that there is more
indecency in the prudery of even women in America, where they will not
talk of common things because there is a possibility of sexual associations in
connexion with them, than in all the Dionysiac and Phallic rites of the
ancient Greeks. It would be well if all these critics could recollect what
Porson says of the indecency of Aristophanes (Mus. Crit. ii. p. 113) : "Among
the ancients plain-speaking was the fashion ; nor was that ceremonious deli
cacy introduced, which has taught men to abuse each other with the utmost
politeness, and to express the most indecent ideas in the most modest language.
The ancients had little of this. They were accustomed to call a spade a spade ;
to give everything its proper name. There is another sort of indecency, which
is infinitely more dangerous ; which corrupts the heart without offending the
ear." But here we are met with another objection. One of our censors says
that our " argument proves too much ; for why should the writer, who uses
at one time and ordinarily certain words without shame, disguise his meaning
at another under a strange image ? If Moses had intended what is suggested,
he would have employed the common word, and not talked about a serpent."
On the same principle, the Greeks, who were plain-spoken enough, ought
never to have .employed such terms as Tavpos and x°1p°s- The fact was, no
doubt, that the Jehovistic writer of the allegory, to which we assign a place in
the religious book of Jashar, endeavoured to envelope his meaning in forms,
which required interpretation no less than those which were adopted by the
hierophants at Eleusis. And the later Jew's, from whose Masoretic text we
have derived the narrative, no doubt increased the obscurity of that which they
did not understand. On the supposition, which these censors adopt, that
every word in the Bible proceeds immediately from the Holy Spirit, Milton
has well said : " God, who is the author both of purity and eloquence, chose
this phrase [one objected to as obscene] as fitted for that vehement character
wherein he spake. Otherwise the plain word might easily have been forborne :
which the Masorets and Eabbinical scholiasts not well attending, have often
used to blur the margent with keri instead of kctib, and gave us this insulse
rule out of their Talmud: 'that all words, which in the Law are written
obscenely, must be changed to more civil words' • fools, who would teach men
to read more decently than God thought good to write" {Apology for
Smectymnuus, "Works, p. 84). This prudery of the later Jews sufficiently
explains the mystification which has converted the warning against Baal-Peor
into a prophecy. And it would be strange enough if Bishop Blomfield and
others were allowed to tell the classical student what the Greeks meant by " a
bull" and "a pig," while the Biblical critic is prevented from inquiring into
the signification ofthe Hebrew "serpent." "We recommend these over-delicate
censors to consult Bishop Lowth, de sacra Poesi Hebrmorum, Pral, xxxi,, and
the Notes on Gregory's Translation, vol. ii. pp. 318 sqq.

THE ALLEGORY OE THE FAIX. 215
other impurities, which are read to English congregations of men,
women, and chUdren, in the Proper Lessons of our Church, the
anatomical minutiae of Gen. xxxviii. 9, 28, the true meaning
of the words which we render "male" and "female" in Gen.
i. 27, and the constant aUusions to circumcision, and to the word
n?"!JJ, prcsputium (e.g. Exod. iv. 25), which, by its very meaning,
suggests the filthiest ideas, but which the Jews did not hesitate
to employ as the name of a place (Josh. v. 3) ; nay, the simple
facts that a champion was aUowed to lay at his king's feet a just
tale of 200 preeputia as the price of a princess's hand (1 Sam.
xviii. 27), and that such a word might be used gratuitously as a
botanical metaphor (Levit. xix. 23) ; aU this shows that the appro
priateness of an interpretation of the Hebrew text is not to be
judged by its accordance with, or repugnance to, the refinements
of modern English diction : and whatever censure may be
directed against a new interpretation on this account, must be
equally applicable to the numerous passages in the sacred text,
which no interpretation can reconcUe with the mawkish fastidious
ness of the present day. Be that as it may, it is the duty of an
honest commentator to look only to the meaning of his author, and
to the true force of the context. And we contend that the sense
which we have attributed to the symbolical narrative in Gen. hi.,
is not only the inevitable signification of the words, but theh
obvious tendency, when properly examined. In all ages this
seems to have been the instinctive feeling of those who have
grappled with the subject. Clement of Alexandria, even when
he is arguing against Julius Cassianus, who held that aU sexual
intercourse was sinful, admits that the sin of Adam consisted in
a premature indulgence of the sexual appetite (Strom, iii. pp.
552-556, Potter). MUton, too, attributes carnal and lascivious
effects to the fruit of the forbidden tree (Parad. Lost, ix. 1011
sqq.). And the same view has been propounded by the anony
mous writer of a tract, written in Anglo-Latin, and pubhshed in
Germany, but confidently, and we believe justly, attributed to
Archbishop Whately, (Tractatus tres de arboribus scientice et vitce,
etc. Ed. Secunda, Stuttgartia., 1849), who hits at least the main
point : " Nudos esse et non erubescere videtur necessario indicare
alterutrutn, aut pravitatem turpissimam brutisque similhmam,
aut affectus sexualis absentiam." This necessary interpretation
gains additional force from its reference to the worship of Baal-

216 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX HI.
Peor, the greatest national sin of the Israelites ; and if the mys
terious aUegory, in which these great truths of religion and
morality were enveloped, belonged to the esoteric teaching of the
prophetic schools, then, as the allegory of Noah, considered as a
type of rescue and regeneration, connects itself at once with the
similar figures in the Eleusinian language, this mystery also,
which may have been derived from Egypt, will harmonize closely
and accurately with the Phallic enigmas of the hierophantse of
Attica.1 II. The next step in a book of Jashar, properly so caUed,
would necessarUy be to indicate how the Israelites got this name,
and were separated from the conterminous and cognate nations.
And here the book of Genesis, when critically examined, fur
nishes us with four successive stages of the sifting and winnow
ing process, four successive hmitations of the primitive Church
of God. (1) The family of Shem is separated from those of
Ham and Japhet ; (2) The family of Abraham is separated from
the Kenites and other Semitic tribes ; (3) The family of Isaac is
separated from the Ishmaehtes and other Abrahamidae ; (4) The
famUy of Jacob is separated from the Edomites and other branches
of the Isacidae, and assumes the name of Israel. In order to
extract these distinct and intelligible statements of fact from the
present text of the book of Genesis, it was necessary to employ
not only the torch,2 but also the knife of scientific criticism; but
there never was a case in which it was more needless
Bp7]ve7v iTcwBds Trpbs TopiwvTi Trypan.
There never was a case, in which the commentatorial meddhng
of a compiler was more manifest. Inconsistent genealogies are
1 The view which we have taken (Jashar, pp. 59-62) of the two elements
in the sin of Adam, namely, concupiscence and pride, is supported by Thomas
Aquinas, ad Rom. vii. 7 : see above, p. 58.
2 That our torch has not always cast an uncertain light in these dark
chambers, has been shown by some recent confirmations. "We shall see below
that our opponent Ewald has come independently to our conclusion, that
Lamech is a Greek name. And Fiirst, in the last part of his Handworterbueh,
_. v. *fb, has furnished an indirect argument in favour of our view that Cain
represents the Kenites, a branch of the Amalekites. For Cain goes to the land
of Nod, to the east of Eden (Gen. iv. 16), which is generally identified with
Lud (Gen. x. 22), and referred to Lydia. Now the Kenites were the Eastern,
and, as it seems, the chief tribe of the Amalekites. But Fuerst has shown,
from Abulfeda {Hist. Anteisl., p. 16), that, according to the Arabic tradition,
Lud was the origin of the race of Amalek. This throws additional light on
the statement, that the Kenites went eastward, to the land of Nod or Lud.

ETHNOLOGY OF THE ISRAELITES. 217
made up partly from the same or slightly corrupted names. And
in these lists we have names of real men mixed up with abstract
personifications and the names of cities and tribes, much in the
same fashion as the ante-historical traditions of the Hellenic race.
The ages assigned to the supposed personages make up an arbitrary
round number, and throughout there is an abundant evidence to
show that we are dealing with compilation and patchwork,
redolent of the scholiast and editorial scribe. As every modern
scholar, with the exception perhaps of the late Fynes Chnton,
has for some years refused to regard as biographical the genea
logies of HeUen, Dorus, .ZEolus, and the rest, no Biblical critic
can consistently set up this claim for the Jareds and Lamechs,
the Mizraim and Philistim, of Genesis. When we are told that
the Bible is a book sui generis and must not be treated critically,
we know very well that this is merely the opinion of those who
have never studied criticism, and do not appreciate its methods
or its principles. If it is applicable to ancient history at all, it
cannot be applicable to profane and inapplicable to sacred history.
When it is urged that our Saviour himself cites the names of
Abel (Matth. xxiii. 35), Noah (Matth. xxiv. 37), and Lot (Luke,
xvii. 28, 32), as though these were historical personages, it must
be remembered, as we have already said, that it was not our
Lord's mission to criticise Jewish literature. If citation and
allusion were to be taken as a proof that he attributed his own
infallible truth to the works which he cited or alluded to, the
same argument would show that he attributed infallibility to the
Eabbinical writers, whose words he so often appropriates (cf.
Matth. x. 16, from the Shir hashshirim rabba, fol. 15, 3). Or,
carrying the same principle a little farther, we might refuse to
believe the contemporary history of Thucydides, because he refers
to Hellen, the son of Deucalion, as a real person (i. 3). Anyone,
who is wiUing to reflect, must see that our Lord referred to the
whole body of Hebrew Uterature, just as he used the existing
language of his countrymen, and that his object was to reach the
understandings of his auditors by the only legitimate channels.
III. Having indicated the process of elimination by which
the Israelites, as such, were separated from the rest of mankind,
the book of Jashar must have shown, in the next place, how the
chosen people became settled, according to their own idea irre-
movably, in a particular country (vide Deut. xxxii. 8 sqq.).

218 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IH.
According to the phraseology, which, to the last, was familiar to
the Jews as expressing this promised abode, it was the land of
me-nu\chdh or " rest." And we cannot but regard it as a striking
proof of the fact that scientific criticism has had httle to do with
the text of the book of Genesis, when it is left to us to indicate
that this attainment of a safe haven in the land of me-nuchdh is
the real meaning of the history of Noaeh, " the man of rest," and
of the resting (td-nach) of his storm-tost ark on the mount of
Zion, in that mountain region (Deut. xxxii. 13), which was pre
pared for him. The evidences which support this application of
the narrative are so striking, so consistent, and so numerous, that
it seems impossible to doubt the justice of the inference, that we
have here also, as in the third chapter of Genesis, a relic of the
mysterious and allegorical teaching of the Prophetic schools, which
the Masoretic scribes have misunderstood and rationalized. Its
connexion with the mode of speaking adopted in the Greek
mysteries, which were probably derived from the same source,
namely, the lore of Egypt, is too striking to escape the notice of
the classical scholar. An Apostle has told us that the ark of
Noah is a type of baptism (1 Peter, iii. 20, 21), and it was by
baptism that the mystse were admitted to the privUeges of
initiation. It could not therefore be an accident that those, who
were received into that shadowy church of heathenism, were
expressly taught to consider and speak of themselves as having
just escaped from the waves of a stormy sea and as having found
shelter and peace. " Happy is he," they cried, " who has fled
from the worse and found the better ! happy is he who, leaving
the sea, has escaped the waves and reached the haven ! And
oh ! what greater bliss than thus to reach the shore, and, safe
beneath some sheltering roof, to hear unmoved the pattering
storm without ! " The Exodus, or passing through the Eed Sea,
is regarded by St. Paul as also a type of baptism (1 Cor. x. i.).
And the Egyptian name of the ark, namely, tSdh, which occurs
only in reference to Noah's vessel and that in which the infant
Moses was preserved, points to Egypt, which, in its poetical name
Rahab, signifies a stormy sea or deluge, and from which the chosen
people escaped with all theh cattle, just as Noah takes with him
aU the animals. The Jews counted 215 years from the Patriarchs
to Joseph, and 430 from Joseph to the Exodus. In round num
bers the sum of these periods is expressed by the 600 years of

NOAH AND SOLOMON. 219
Noah's life. The forty days of Genesis vh. 1 2 are the forty years
spent in the wilderness, and the interval between the first and
second flight of the dove is that between Joshua and Samuel ;
whereas the second and more successful sally of the bird of peace
indicates the interval between Samuel and David, who, in the
evening of his life, contemplated the building of the temple.
The thhd flight of the dove takes us to the days of Solomon, the
true Noach, or man of rest, who gave a fixed and, as it was
thought, a lasting seat to the symbols of Jewish theocracy. The
very name of this pacific king suggests the ideas conveyed by the
narrative of Noah. His original designation was Jedidiah,
" beloved of the Lord," a name of the same kind as that of his
father David ; and this name is said to have been imposed by the
prophet Nathan (2 Sam. xii. 25). But the name Solomon, which
was perhaps his surname, and which signifies " peaceable," is
said expressly to have marked the contrast between him and his
father, whose warlike life had prevented him from consecrating
a temple to God. David is represented as addressing him thus
(1 Chron. xxii. 7 — 9) : " My son, as for me it was in my mind
to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God ; but the
word of the Lord came to me saying, Thou hast shed blood
abundantly and hast made great wars : thou shalt not build an
house unto my name, because thou hast shed so much blood upon
the earth in my sight. Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who
shall be a man of rest (me-nueh-dh), and I wUl give him rest
(Mnich6tM) from his enemies round about: for his name shall
be Solomon (Sheldmdh, i.e. 'peaceable'), and I will give peace
(shdldm) and quietness unto Israel in his clays." To say nothing
of the similarity of style between this last verse and Gen. v. 29,
we have here, in reference to the building of the temple, an
emphatic allusion to the significance of the name of Noa°h ; and
what shaU we say then to the fact, that the day on which
Solomon dedicated his temple, " was the seventeenth day of the
seventh month," which is the date of MafKs rest on the moun
tains (Gen. viii. 4) ? It appears that " aU the men of Israel
assembled themselves unto King Solomon at the feast of the month
Fthanim (i.e. of rains), which is the seventh month." The feast
of the month Ethanim — for there were two — was that of taber
nacles, which commemorated the restless wanderings of the people
of Israel. It began on the fifteenth day of that month and lasted

220 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
for seven days (Levit. xxiii. 33 sqq.). Now the feast of the dedica
tion lasted fourteen days (1 Kings, viii. 65), and the people were
dismissed on the twenty-third day of the seventh month (2 Chron.
vh. 10). Accordingly the great feast commenced on the ninth
day, i.e. the day before the feast of expiation (Levit. xxiii. 27).
Of this feast they celebrated the eighth day as their solemn
assembly : "for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days
and the feast seven days" (2 Chron. vii. 9). But 9 + 8 = 17.
Therefore the day of the dedication of Solomon's temple was the
seventeenth day of the seventh month. And this, we conceive,
contributes in no shght degree to confirm the inferential identity
of Woach and the man of menuchdh. These striking coincidences
lie upon the surface ; but there are others not less conclusive,
which have not yet been alleged and for which we must dig
deeper. It is stated that after the completion of Solomon's
temple, the King received an express revelation, promising, in
the phraseology of Deuteronomy (xi. 12), that God would haUow
the temple which had been buUt, to put His name there for
ever. " And mine eyes and mine heart shaU be there perpetually.
And if thou wilt walk before me (lephdnai), S.S David thy father
walked, in integrity of heart (see, of Noah, Gen. vi. 9) and in
uprightness (jdsher), to do according to aU that I have commanded
thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments ; then I will
estabhsh the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever" (1 Kings,
ix. 3 — 5). Now it was the express hope of the true Israehtes, that
"the upright (jeshdrim) should dweU in the presence of God"
(liphnei 'Fl) (see Psalm cxl. 15; cf. Deut. vi. 17, 18, 24, 25). And
this hope survived the downfall of the nation. But we find the
promise and pledge of God's presence especially given to Noah,
and confirmed by the symbol of the rainbow (Gen. ix. 9 — 17).
This rainbow was reaUy the same symbol as the ladder from
earth to heaven, which Jacob saw at Bethel, "the house of God'*
(Gen. xxviii. 12 sqq.), when God appeared to him, and which, in
the second instance, was more probably caUed Peniel, " the face
or presence of God " (Gen. xxxii. 30), than Bethel (Gen. xxxv.
15). At any rate, we have the express testimony of the continuer
of Isaiah that the rainbow of Noah was the pledge of God's per
petual presence with his true servants, those who deserved to be
caUed Israel, i. e. the " upright before God." After having spoken
of the chosen people as " a woman forsaken and grieved inspirit;

THE BABYLONIAN DELUGE. 221
a wife married in youth, but divorced by her husband," the
prophet utters the following consolation (liv. 8 sqq.): "For a
little while I have withdrawn my face from thee in anger, but
with everlasting kindness I will have mercy upon thee. For this
is to me the waters of Noah, which I swore should never again
overwhelm the earth ; in the same manner have I sworn that I
would not be wroth with thee or rebuke thee. For the moun
tains shall depart, and the hills be removed ; but my kindness
(kagd-i, i.e. "special protection") shaU not depart from thee;
neither shall the covenant of my peace (berith sheldm-i, cf. Gen.
ix. 11) be removed." From whatever side, then, we regard it, we
must perceive that the story of Noa°h refers to that " rest which
remaineth to the people of God " (Heb. iv. 9). There is no other
explanation which corresponds to aU the features of the narra
tive, and it is easy to see how the pragmatical or rationalistic
account of the deluge has been intruded on this basis of sig
nificant allegory by the Masoretic scribes. The traditions of
Babylonian archaeology, preserved to us in the fragments of
Berosus, exhibit a remarkable correspondence with those which
are incorporated in the book of Genesis. It might, of course, be
a question whether the Jews, during theh captivity, borrowed
the ten generations between Adam and Noah from the ten gene
rations which connect Alorus and Xisuthrus, or whether they
conversely furnished the Babylonians with the materials of theh
own cosmogony. In the absence of all evidence in favour of the
supposition that the Jews had any such cosmogony before the
exile, and with positive evidence of the fact that they borrowed
many of their ideas from the heathen nations, among whom they
sojourned at the time immediately preceding the formation of
theh present coUection of sacred books, it would be more reason
able to conclude that the Babylonian traditions were the source
of the Jewish. With regard to the deluge, at any rate, every
candid inquirer must admit that, even if we had no other expla
nation to offer respecting Noah, the fact that the ark is repre
sented as floating to the mountains of Armenia, points to the
local inundation, which devastated Babylonia, and which the
Babylonians hmited to theh own country (Niebuhr, Lectures on
Ancient History, i. p. 18). AU traditions respecting deluges
seem to have had a local origin, and to have referred to alluvial
plains where such floods were possible, and where neighbouring

222 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
mountains furnished the means of escape. Such an instance we
have in the Thessahan flood of Deucalion, and even the Americans
speak of a deluge, of which the scene was either the lofty table
land of Mexico, which has stiU its remnants of stagnant water,
or the great lake-country of the north, to which the traditions of
that country point as the origin of the race (see MiiUer's
Geschichte der Amerikanischen Z/rreligionen, Basel, 1855).
Whether the person who escaped was caUed Xisuthrus, Deu
calion, or Coxcox, the tradition in each case is local ; and as
there is nothing in the physical conformation of Palestine to
justify the supposition that it was ever visited by a flood, and
as the Jews had the best means of learning this tradition from
the Babylonians, whose country is peculiarly hable to such phe
nomena and was obviously the scene of the particular occur
rence, it seems an inevitable inference that the religious aUegory
of Noah has been mixed up with the traditions which the Jews
learned in theh exile.
IV. A book of Jashar would be necessarily incomplete if it
did not contain the rules and precepts of that " uprightness "
which it was intended to enforce and recommend. In both
passages where the book of Jashar is mentioned, the Chaldaic
paraphrast renders the title "the book of the Law;" and
Josephus (Ant. v. 17, § 1) intimates that the book of Jashar was
preserved in the temple. Now the only book ordered to be pre
served in the temple was the book of Deuteronomy, i. e. " the
transcript ofthe law" (Deut. xvii. 18, xxxi. 24-26). It foUows,
therefore, that the book of Jashar was either identical with the
book of the law, in its original form, or that the book of
Deuteronomy, in its original form, was included in the book of
Jashar. And this supposition is confirmed by the passages in
which Micah, who refers to one of the acknowledged fragments
of the book of Jashar, makes constant ahusion to the idea of that
book, to the uprightness and rest of the chosen people, and to
the book of Deuteronomy. We have aheady mentioned the
reasons which render it almost demonstrably certain that the book
of Deuteronomy was the only " book of the law of Moses " known
to the Jews, and recognised by them, before the captivity. Now
Micah, who was intimately acquainted with Deuteronomy, and
gives no evidence of an acquaintance with the other parts of the
Pentateuch, makes express reference to the benedictions of Balaam

THE BOOK OF JASHAR AND DEUTERONOMY. 223
in especial connection with Deuteronomy (vi. 5-8). The Talmud,
which contains traditions at least as old as those about the Great
Synagogue and its procedure in forming the Canon, says ex
pressly that "Moses wrote his book, and the portion of Balaam,
and the book of Job," and, though it mentions the Pentateuch,
does not attribute that collection to Moses (Talmud, Baba batra,
fol. 14, 15, quoted by Jolowicz, On the Correction of the Text of
the Hebrew Scriptures, from the Talmud, the Targumim, and other
Rabbinical Sources, Lond. 1855, p. 6). As, therefore, "the por
tion of Balaam " is now contained in the Pentateuch, and as the
same authority attributes to Joshua the last eight verses of the
book of Deuteronomy, it foUows that, according to this authority,
Moses was regarded as the author of his book, i.e. the rest of the
book of Deuteronomy, and of that part of the book of Numbers
w-deh contains the blessing of Balaam. The correctness of the
tradition, which refers these writings, together with the book of
Job, to the pen of the great legislator, may very weU be caUed in
question ; but this statement is extremely valuable, as classing
together a portion of the book of Numbers and the book of
Moses, which must have been Deuteronomy. It is, of course,
impossible to determine how much of the present book of Deuter
onomy was included in the book of Jashar. That it was re-
edited, and perhaps remodelled, by Hilkiah and his son Jeremiah,
seems more than probable. But it is clear that its main scope
was known to Micah and other earher prophets, and that, as
showing what was jdshdr, or "upright," and what were the
promised rewards of obedience to the upright law, it must have
contributed some portion, perhaps the main and central portion,
to the book known by this comprehensive and significant title.
V. As the term jdshdr denotes not only " uprightness," but
the blessedness of the upright, the law, which enjoined the prac
tice of obedience, would naturaUy be foUowed by a declaration
of the happiness which was its promised result. The book of
Deuteronomy, as we now have it, terminates with two poems, or
perhaps one poem in two divisions, attributed to Moses, in which
this theme is poeticaUy treated. And we have seen that the
Talmud places in the same category the benedictions of Balaam,
which it attributes to the great legislator. If we prefix to them
the blessing of Jacob, which stands in the forty-ninth chapter of
Genesis, and which being, as it stands, a poetical fragment, could

224 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IH.
scarcely have been excluded from the coUection with which it
now so naturaUy connects itself, we shall have three distinct but
cognate poems, which wiU conveniently form the fifth part of the
book of Jashar, with or without others, which are either non-
extant or not capable of identification.
VI. The promised blessings of Israel received historically their
seal and accomplishment in the signal victories, in which they
recognised the immediate interposition of Jehovah. Even if we
did not know that the triumph of Joshua was commemorated in
this coUection of ancient poems, we should have conjectured that
this argument would not have been passed over in a book so
designated. Knowing, however, that Joshua's epinicium was
written in the book of Jashar, we conclude with the utmost con
fidence that the noble songs of triumph, which Moses and Miriam
sang by the Eed Sea, and which Deborah chanted with Barak
by the waters of Megiddo, were extracted from this anthology by
the compUers of the books of Exodus and Judges. While, how
ever, these two- odes have descended to us complete, Joshua's
triumphal lay is preserved only in a very short fragment. Any
attempt to restore what is lost must be merely conjectural. We
have given our reasons for believing that the sphit of the lay
was imitated in those comparatively modern poems the 135th
and 136th Psalms, but of course we do not suppose that the
resemblance between these Psalms and the lost poem was greater
than that which we recognise in the 68th Psalm as compared
with the song of Deborah. If our restoration is so far right, and
if the lay of Joshua referred to recent victories on the other side
of Jordan, especiaUy to the conquest of Sihon's territory, we may
perhaps be disposed to recognise a lost strophe of this poem in
the fragment attributed in general terms to them " that speak in
proverbs" (Numbers, xxi. 27 — 30). The fact, to which we
have already adverted, that Jeremiah mixes up this fragment
with a quotation from the benediction of Balaam, and that, while
the latter is Solomonean, the former is obviously archaistic, seems
to show that the Prophet found them in a miscellaneous coUection ;
and this would be quite in accordance with the supposition that
Balaam's prophecy was the second poem in the fifth, and Joshua's
lay the second poem in the sixth, part of the book of Jashar. A
secondary argument for this conjecture is furnished by the order
in which Jeremiah introduces his citations, which is not that of

JEREMIAH S CITATIONS.

225

the book of Numbers, but that of the supposed book of Jashar, as
the foUowing comparison will show : —
Numbers, xxi. 28.
A fire is gone out of
Heshbon,
A flame from the city of
Sihon ;
It hath consumed Ar of
Moab,
And the lords of the high
places of Arnon.

Jeremiah, xlviii. 45, 46.
A fire shall come out of
Heshbon,
And a flame from the
midst of Sihon,
And shall devour the cor
ner of Moab,
And the crown of the
head of the children of
noise.
Woe be unto thee, 0
Moab!
The people of Chemosh
perisheth :
For thy sons are taken in
captivity,
And thy daughters cap
tives.

Numbers, xxiv. 17.
A star shall come forth
out of Jacob,
And a sceptre shall rise
out of Israel,
And shall smite the cor
ners of Moab,
And destroy all the chil
dren of noise.
Numbers, xxi. 28, 29.
"Woe to thee, 0 Moab !
Thou art undone, 0 peo
ple of Chemosh !
He hath given his sons
that escaped,
And his daughters, into
captivity
Unto Sihon king of the
Amorites.

As Jeremiah did not recognise the divine origin of sacrifices
(vii. 22), it is clear that he did not know or acknowledge the
book of Numbers, which is stamped with the impress of a sacer
dotal and sacrificial character. But he must surely have found
the two passages, which he has mixed up in one quotation, in
some book or collection with which he was famUiarly acquainted.
And as the fragment in Numbers, xxi., is essentially archaistic
in style, while that in Numbers, xxiii., xxiv., clearly belongs to
the end of David's or the beginning of Solomon's reign, it is a
fair inference that this citation or imitation was derived from a
coUection of poems, which contained, in adjacent sections, the
poetry of the Solomonean age, and the old triumphal songs of
the Israehtes. And such a coUection was the book of Jashar,
according to the general results of the preceding inquiry.
VII. In regard to any further portion of this ancient book,
the mere knowledge that there was such a coUection, and that its
title bore the signification which we have attributed to it, would
not enable us to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. But here
the citation in the second book of Samuel comes to our aid, and
shows us that it must have contained poems relating to David's
reign. If it contained the elegy on Saul and Jonathan, who
were the representatives of an excluded dynasty, it is not
probable only, it is almost certain, that it contained also the
15

226 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
other poems referring more directly to the exploits of David
himself, which are incorporated, without express reference to
their source, in the same historical books. And if Psalm xviii.
referred to the victory at Baal-Perazim (2 Sam. v.), we should
hardly exclude Psalm lx., which refers to the not less important
victories over the Moabites and Edomites (2 Sam. viii). Perhaps,
too, many others of David's Psalms were included in the collec
tion. But if the book of Jashar contained the last words of
David (2 Sam. xxiii.), the completion of the anthology must be
referred to the beginning of Solomon's reign. And in this
case, having regard to the ideal of uprightness and blessedness,
which the book professed by its title to develope and exemplify,
we must include the forty-fifth and sixty-eighth Psalms, which
commemorate the two great events of Solomon's earlier years —
his marriage with Pharaoh's daughter, and the dedication of his
temple. This date for the completion of the book of Jashar is
supported by many evidences in the text of the fragments, which,
on independent grounds, we have been led to assign to this coUec
tion. In the first part, we have the idea attributed to Solomon
that man was created jdshdr, but feU ; and it is only in the
Proverbs attributed to Solomon that we find direct aUusions to
the garden of Eden. In the second part, we have a reference to
the recovered independence of the Edomites, which belongs to
Solomon's reign. In the third part, as we have seen, there are
the most minute and circumstantial aUusions to Solomon and his
temple. In the fifth part, we have the benediction of Jacob, with
its dhect aUusion to Solomon's name ; the benediction of Balaam,
with its phraseology borrowed from the latest Psalms of David ;
the benediction of Moses, with its reference to the assemblage of
aU the Israehtes under the auspices of a king, an assemblage
which took place only at the dedication of Solomon's temple.
To these we may add incidental corroborations, such as the Greek
name of Lamech in the second, and the Greek word fidxaipa
in the fifth part, which could not be earlier than the time when
David, at the end of his reign, began to employ Cretan mer
cenaries. As the fourth and sixth parts, according to our view
are made up of ancient materials, we have thus in aU the portions
of the book which could have proceeded, by any thing like a
contemporaneous effort, from the authorship of the Prophetic
Schools, concurrent testimony in favour of the hypothesis, which

DATE OF THE BOOK OF JASHAR. 227
is antecedently most probable, that the book of Jashar was put
forth in extenso at the most glorious period in the reign of King
Solomon. This does not mihtate against our behef that Nathan,
or whoever was the editor, commenced his work, and perhaps
published part of it, under the auspices of King David. In the
eulogium on David (Ecclesiasticus, c. xlvii.), it is expressly stated
(vv. 9, 10) that "he established singers before the altar, and by
their music sweetened minstrelsy ; that he gave magnificence to
the festivals, and adorned the solemn seasons unto perfection, by
having the holy name of God sung from early morning." Now it
is said in the express citation of David's elegy from the book of
Jashar (2 Sam. i. 18), that the King " gave orders to teach the sons
of Judah nE'p," which has been rendered "the bow," or " the song
of the bow." That this rendering is inapplicable to the context,
must be obvious to any real scholar, although Lowth and Gesenius
have been led to sanction it. Thenius proposes to read 3g>j5 or ri3B>j2
i.e. " diligently," referring to Isaiah, xxi. 7. It appears to us
that the true reading is riE/j? from E'E'i?, like the common adverb
nai from D31, and that the meaning is "in their assemblies,"
i.e. "publicly," whioh would accord with the statement just
quoted from Ecclesiasticus respecting the pubhc minstrelsy first
instituted by David. In Zeph. ii. 1, where this verb occurs,
some have proposed to give it the meaning involved in Dg>j?
as suggested by Thenius ; but the more probable opinion is that
the verb, like the Arabic i_L-vi , refers to coUections of cattle or
men. The phraseology of the statement betrays a later hand :
for the phrase ir&h ".tJN'l is semi-Chaldaic (see Esth. i. 17 ; Dan.
ii. 46, iii. 13). But there may have been a sufficient tradition that
David's prophetic rhapsodists, like those of ancient Greece, recited
publicly the poetic fragments contained in the book of Jashar, and
if so, the beginning of this coUection must have been made by him.
We have thus deduced, from the traces furnished by the
fragments found in the Masoretic text, and Ulustrated by a true
conception of the title, seven distinct but connected parts of the
book of Jashar ; and though the work may have contained many
poems which are lost, or cannot be identified, there seems no
reason to suppose that it contained more than these subdivisions.
To say nothing of any a priori reasons in favour of the seven
fold division, it is remarkable that the book of Joshua, which
contains one of the two quotations from the book of Jashar, actually

228 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX HI.
mentions (xviii. 9) a periegesis of the Holy Land " described by
cities into seven parts in a book" ("iBD'Sj? Dp'pn njJ3E'b), where
the term igp, " a book," is that apphed in the other passage to
the book of Jashar. And it cannot be by accident that the
rnin, or " law," which, according to the Chaldaic paraphrast,
gave its name to the whole book, should thus form the main and
centre part of a book of seven sections, the first three consisting
of a regular introduction, and the last three of separate poems,
illustrating the blessedness of obedience. It will be observed
that this order of the sections has not been invented by us. It
flows spontaneously from the succession of the fragments in the
existing text ; for although Gen. xlix., is inserted before the law
is declared, the benedictions of Moses, which furnish the clue,
are placed at the end of Deuteronomy, and the benediction of
Jacob, like the triumphal ode by the Eed Sea, owe their present
place obviously to historical considerations.
And now we are entitled to ask whether this is not a legiti
mate application of critical exegesis to a text manifestly made
up of different materials ? We may challenge the objector to
show in what respects this reconstructive analysis is deficient in
internal probability, or built up on a narrow or precarious foun
dation. The classical phhologer wiU see that the principles and
method of our criticism are the same as those which enabled
Niebuhr to buUd up again the ruined vestibule of Eoman history,
and guided Miiller in his work of extracting and restoring the
fragments of Festus, imbedded in the compilation of Paulus
Diaconus. There are some, indeed, who, with Mr. Grote and
Sir G. C. Lewis, reject aU hypothetical reconstructions from frag
mentary materials, and content themselves with the results of a
merely negative scepticism. But we do not expect to find these
among the ultra-conservatives and literal interpreters of ancient
documents, who ought to prefer, if possible, any hypothesis of
original authorships to one which denies any such substratum as
still extant and cognisable. All reproductions, like that which
we have attempted, are the results of induction, furnished by
internal evidence. If such evidence cannot be derived from the
traces of compilation impressed on the Masoretic text of the Old
Testament, how can we admit, as most persons do, that Owen is
entitled to restore an entire skeleton from the evidence supplied
by a single bone ? To those, who imagine that all such restora-

CONJECTURE AND INDUCTION. 229
tions must be hypothetical and conjectural rather than the con
sequences of true induction, it is worth while to remark that a
large amount of assumption is necessarUy involved in every pro
cess of inductive reasoning, and that the philosophy of induction
is always more or less the philosophy of conjecture. This has
been well stated by Professor Baden Powell (Essays on the Spirit
of the Inductive Philosophy). He says (p. 6) : " The logical
analysis of induction exhibits a syllogism in which a large assump
tion is necessarUy implied beyond, and independent of, any accu
mulation of facts. Thus every induction is seen essentiaUy to
involve a certain amount of hypothesis, — a certain assumption of
more than the bare facts themselves seem strictly to warrant.
We form inteUectual conceptions of a nature more general than
the mere enumeration of instances, however many, and thus
supply the string on which (as Dr. Whewell happily exp*esses it)
the pearls are hung ; and perceive, according to the illustration
of another able writer, how philosophy proceeds upon a system
of credit, and that, if she never advanced beyond her tangible
capital, her wealth would not be so enormous as it is." And
having, in another place, appealed to Humboldt's assertion that
conjecture, opinion, and surmise must be conceded to the inquir
ing spirit of man, he adds (p. 90) : " Some persons speak as if
all conjecture were alike delusive; but wise and skilful conjec
tures are very different from hasty and crude guesses ; and the
comparative probability of several hypotheses, all purely imagi
nary, admits of many degrees ; and to reduce it to something
like fixed principles, would constitute no unimportant branch of
mental science — the logic of anticipation, the philosophy of the
unknown." In general it may be said that the man of genius
sees that the facts must be in accordance with his conjecture even
before his inductive proof is complete ; and in regard to the
criticisms of philology we have had more than once instance in
which hypothesis has been confirmed by positive evidence subse
quently obtained. In every case the proofs are cumulative, and
those, who have most abhity in coUecting them, are also most
capable of appreciating the necessary inferences. To those who
have passed through the requisite discipline in the schools of
critical philology, we appeal confidently on behalf of our restora
tion of the book of Jashar, as a theory which, at aU events, explains
the existing phenomena. And those who revere the true Word

230 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
of God — the revelation of the Divine will included and con
tained, and sometimes concealed, in the text of the Bible — must
feel that in proportion as we have been successful, in propor
tion as we have revived the oldest form of a portion of pro
phetic literature, — in the same proportion must revealed truth
gain an accession of distinct and authoritative significance.
It would not be possible to apply the same reconstructive
process with any hope of a satisfactory result to the fragments of
the other ancient books from which the Masoretic scribes derived
the materials of theh compUations. For, on the one hand, we
have no distinct and separable fragments, which we can assign
to one or other of those lost books ; and, on the other hand, when
history is formed on a basis of ancient annals, genealogy, statis
tical records, and epic poetry, aU these are so blended together,
that criticism cannot attempt to unravel the threads which have
been woven afresh into one composite texture. The only con
clusions, which seem to be reliable, are the following : —
(1). There was "the Book of the Wars of the Jehovah,"
which, in the absence of aU evidence to the contrary, may be
presumed to have contained an epic narrative of the events which
intervened between the Exodus and the complete occupation of
the promised land. Besides the fragment in Numbers xxi., we
attribute to this book the oath against Amaleq in Exodus xvii. 16,
and we assume that it supphed the materials for aU the narratives
contained in Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua.
(2). There was another epic book entitled " the Book of the
Suffetes or Judges," which formed the basis of the history known
by that name.
These two books may be considered as having formed the
Epic Cycle of the Hebrews, and were followed (3) by the annals
of Nathan and the other Prophets from which our present books
of Samuel and Kings are derived. In Greek literature we have
an antitype of the two older epic works in the poems of Homer •
and the fragments respecting Samson are probably genuine relies
of the second work. Though resting on a basis of authentic
itineraries and other records (cf. Numbers, xxi. 17 ; Josh, xviii. 9),
and referring to the oral reports of ancient tradition, both works
probably proceeded from the prophetic schools of Samuel.
(4). Anterior in reference, but probably subsequent in date of
composition, was the " Book of the Generations of the Fathers," a

LOST LITERATURE OF ISRAEL. 231
sort of Patrogony, which bore the same relation to the other epic
poems which the Theogony and Emm of Hesiod did to the epic poems
of the Homeridse. This work probably rested on genuine gene
alogies, which commenced with the Egyptian sojourn of the chosen
people, and which their task-masters had taught them to keep.
It is reasonable to suppose that these hsts of names, hke those
of the Egyptian kings, which have given so much trouble to
chronologers, were afterwards carried back to a period for which
there were no authentic vouchers ; and mythico-ethnological state
ments of successive events assumed the form of regular pedigrees.
(5). We have no means of fixing the commencement of that
antagonism of the prophet and the priest, of the preacher of
religion and the maintainer of ceremonial rites, which is so con
spicuous in the writings of the great Prophets, and which came
to its triumphant conclusion when our Lord established his own
eternal system on the ruins of sacerdotal Judaism. We find that,
even before Samuel revived the true spirit of the religion of
Moses, a man of God was found to denounce the hypocritical and
dishonest practices. of the Jewish priests (1 Sam. ii. 27 sqq.).
And though it seems that the Levitical priesthood did not obtain
any power or consideration until after the downfal of Athahah,
and though even then it was hmited to the smaUer kingdom of
Judah, there is every reason to believe, indeed there are many
passages which prove it, that the colleges of the priests had their
ritual books, which were disallowed indeed by the schools of the
prophets, but which gradually gained favor with the superstitious
populace, untU, after the downfal of the monarchy and the cessa
tion of the prophetic office, these ordinances were passed off by
the sacerdotal caste, which after the captivity assumed the chief
authority at Jerusalem, as genuine, integral parts of the original
legislation of Moses.
In addition, then, to the book of Jashar, which was the manual
or text-book of the prophetic schools, we must suppose that the
Jews before the captivity had epic poetry and annals, which seem
to have proceeded exclusively from the Prophets ; genealogies,
which may have been framed either by priests or prophets ; and
ritual books, which belonged exclusively to the priestly caste at
Jerusalem. From these materials the Pentateuch and the histo
rical books, as we now have them, were compUed by priestly
scribes, and it is not difficult to gather from internal evidence

232 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
a probable account of the different stages in the process of
compilation. For the last hundred years, the attention of Biblical students
has been dhected to the obvious fact that the book of Genesis
exhibits the traces of two different hands and faUs into two main
parts distinguished by the two names by which the Supreme
Being is consistently or preferably designated. For while in some
passages God is caUed by the general name Elohim, in others he
is denominated Jehovah, a title peculiarly appropriated to the
special worship of the Israelites; in others again we have a
combination of the two names.1 Further examination showed
that the portions thus distinguished as Elohistic and Jehovistic
respectively were discriminated by other peculiarities of style
and language ; and aU attempts, which have been subsequently
made to uphold the unity of the book of Genesis, have been
eminently unsuccessful, even when they have not betrayed the
eagerness of unscrupulous advocates. The same process of
examination has been extended to the other books of the
Pentateuch and the book of Joshua, and the foUowing are the
general results of the whole inquiry.
The Elohistic portions of the books of Genesis, Exodus, and
Numbers, are those which contain the continuous and connected
narrative, so that if these portions stood alone the books would
be tolerably complete. The book of Leviticus is entirely Elohistic,
with the exception of an interpolation (chapters xviii. -xx.),
which Ewald considers to be an isolated portion, and which from
other reasons we have classed with the book of Deuteronomy.
The book of Deuteronomy, on the other hand, is entirely Jehovistic,
with the exception of a few interpolations. The same hand may
be traced in the first twelve chapters of Joshua, but the taUpiece
1 It seems clear to us, from internal evidence, that the passages in the
book of Genesis, which have a combination of the names Jehovah-Elohim, be
longed to the oldest documents incorporated in Genesis, and that in these the
Elohistic editor merely appended the second name. The passages, in which
Elohim alone is found, seem to us to have been written during the period when,
as we shall see lower down, the name of Jehovah fell into temporary desuetude.
And as the passages, in which Jehovah alone is the name employed, are proved
by the style and other circumstances to belong to the latest period of the com
position, we conclude that these were written and introduced when the sacred
name had been resumed by the Elohists, and therefore we call them Jehovistico-
Elohistie. The passages belonging to these three classes in the book of
Genesis are enumerated by Keil, Lehrbuch, p. 82. This discrimination par
ticularly applies to the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

JEHOVISTIC AND ELOHISTIC COMPILERS. 233
has marks of Elohistic editorship. In the earlier books of the
Pentateuch we recognise as Jehovistic all those passages which,
from independent reasons, we have claimed for the book of Jashar,
with the exception of the first fragment of the first part, which
is, after all, only an expression in common language of the doctrine
involved in the Jehovistic allegory of the garden of Eden, and
ought, perhaps, to be regarded as a commentatorial exposition
rather than as a distinct fragment. At any rate, as we have
shown, the second part connects itself immediately with the
aUegorical narrative; and the third part, also allegorical, has
furnished some materials for the pragmatism of the Elohist.
Agreeing generaUy with the best German critics in regard to
the discrimination of the Elohistic and Jehovistic elements of
these old books, we differ from them entirely as to the compara
tive antiquity of their constituent parts. It is the opinion of the
German critics that the continuous Elohistic portion is the
Urschrift or original document, and that the Jehovistic passages
are subsequent insertions by way of supplement or completion ;
and it cannot be denied that this is d priori a very natural sup
position. Our researches, however, have led us to the directly
opposite conclusion. The two books of the Pentateuch, which
may be regarded as most complete in themselves, are Deuteronomy
and Leviticus ; and with trifling exceptions • the former is exclu
sively Jehovistic, the latter exclusively Elohistic. But we have
ample reason for believing that Deuteronomy was the only book
known as " the book of the law of Moses" before the captivity ;
and that the book of Leviticus was not known or not acknow
ledged before this epoch. From this alone we should conclude
that the Jehovistic writer was older than the Elohist. Again,
all the fragments which we claim for the book of Jashar, except
the literal version of the introductory symbolism, belong to the
Jehovistic portion and bear a Jehovistic stamp ; and we find in
the Elohistic parallelisms either expositions of the same state
ments or different and obviously less accurate accounts of the
same fact. From this also we infer the priority of the Jehovistic
element. Above aU, the evidence furnished by the continuous-
ness of the Elohistic sections in the earlier books of the Pentateuch
seems to us to show that we have here the last hand — that of the
final editor or compiler of the whole. If the whole collection
had been ultimately revised by a Jehovistic writer he would not

234 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
have placed the book of Deuteronomy at the end, nor would he
have commenced the Pentateuch with the Elohistic cosmogony,
adding, with a fresh beginning, that of the Jehovist. The mere
admission that the earlier books are a conglomerate of different
materials shows that the continuous thread, which runs through
the whole, comes from the redacteur, who brought the work into
its present shape. We do not therefore hesitate to conclude that
the Pentateuch and" the book of Joshua were compiled from older
Jehovistic materials by an Elohistic editor.
This view is confirmed by aU that we can learn respecting
the date of the compUation. That the Elohistic compUation was
not written till the Jews had become weU acquainted with the
country, the traditions, the usages of the Babylonians, is proved
by the fact that the Elohistic portions abound in references to
these matters, which the Jews had no previous opportunity of
learning. Thus the pragmatical version of the deluge of Noah
is clearly referable to the traditions of Babylon. So is the Jeho-
vistico-Elohistic account of the tower of Babel, and the state
ment that they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.
But the most decisive indication of the kind, is the statement, in
the Elohistic part of the book of Exodus (i. 14), that the chU
dren of Israel were employed in brick and mortar work during
their captivity in Egypt. Now the Israelites had abundant
opportunities of knowing, not only while the recollections of the
Captivity were fresh, but by intercourse with Egypt to the end
of theh abode in their own country, that the building-material
in that country was not brick but stone ; when, therefore, the
Babylonian materials are substituted for the Egyptian, we must
reasonably infer that Babylonian hfe was present and famUiar,
but Egyptian life unknown or forgotten. The same conclusion
follows from the Aramaic words, which are cited as Egyptian in
the Elohistic portion of Genesis (Bohlen, Genesis, vol. i., p. 63.
Hey wood's translation). It is also to be remarked, that the name
Javan, which, in the Jehovistico-Elohistic ethnography of Gen.
x. 2, 4, is the general designation of Greece, was not the name
adopted by the Oriental nations until after the time of Alexander
the Great (see Schlegel on the Rdmdyana, i. 2, p. 169 ; Gorresio,
Rdmdyana, vol. vi., p. 443V And we have referred above
(p. 133) to the antagonism between the Elohistic cosmogony
and that of the Persians and Babylonians. We have already

THE ELOHISTIC PERIOD. 235
seen that the Pentateuch, as it now stands, was unknown
to the Jews before the captivity, and that even after the
Israelites had been some time in exile, the book of Deuteronomy
was the only recognised book of the law. And yet, soon after
the return, we have every reason to believe that the present
Pentateuch was put forth and accepted. It foUows, therefore,
that the present collection was compiled during the Captivity.
And if there is any reason for believing that at this epoch there
was a tendency to substitute the name Elohim for Jehovah, we
have an adequate explanation of the composite phenomenon. It
has not escaped the notice of Biblical students, that changes in
the religious tendencies of particular generations among the
Israehtes are accompanied by corresponding changes in the proper
names of individuals. Now the first revival, or indeed emphatic
establishment, of Jehovism in Israel, was due to the great pro
phet Samu-el, whose name, like that of his father^ El-kanah, and
of his teacher, Eli, refers only to an Elohistic worship. The
same may be said of Saul's family, for his grandfather's name was
Abi-el. But Saul's ascent to the throne, under the auspices of
Samuel, makes him at first a Jehovist, and he indicates this by
the name of his son Jonathan, or Jeho-nathan, of which the other
form was Nathani-el. Similarly, the grandson of L li is Ahi-jah,
and David's heir is caUed Jedid-iah. Saul's subsequent apostacy
is indicated by the names of his son and grandson, Ish-bosheth, or
Ish-baal, and Mephi-bosheth, or Mephi-baal. But generaUy we
observe, throughout the kingly period, a predominance of the
name Jah, or Jehovah, in the designations of kings, priests, and
prophets. The great prophet, who preaches as a missionary to
the Baalites of Samaria, is caUed Fl-i-jah, " my God is Jah ! "
The last of the kings are Jos-iah, Jeho-ahaz, Jeho-i-akim, and
Zedek-iah. The great prophets before the exile are Isa-iah,
Jerem-iah, Mi-cah, or Mica-iah, and Hosea, or Jeho-sheanh. But
as soon as the kingdom of Judah is abolished, we find that the
name of Jah, or Jehovah, is either proscribed or disused. The
prophets are Ezeki-el, another form of Hezek-iah, and Bani-el.
Even archangels are Micha-el and Gabri-el. In the list of the
high-priests, Eli-ashib stands between Joiakim and Joiada. And
in the royal house of David we find the same interruption to the
succession of Jehovistic names. According to the ingenious
restorations of Lord Arthur Hervey (Genealogies, pp. 62 sqq.),

236 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
the true order of names, before and after the captivity, was
Josiah, Jehoiaohim, Jeconiah, Shealti-el, Zerubbabel, Hananiah, or
Jochanan. Here it wiU be observed that, with the exception of
the names of Shealti-el, "I have asked God," and Zerubbabel, all
the words involve Jah, or Jehovah ; and while St. Matthew ex
pressly teUs us that Jeconiah begat Shealti-el, " after they were
brought to Babylon " (i. 12), the name Zerubbabel denotes either
" born in Babylonia " (from J?."H), or " dispersed in Babylonia"
(from rnt). In either case, the name Rhesa, which, as Lord
Arthur Herveyhas shown (p. 112), means "prince," or "chief,"
may be taken with the word Zerubbabel, and the whole will
signify " the Prince of the dispersed in Babylonia " (which
would be equivalent to his actual title, fc.n..>J _?»}, "the chief of
the dispersion"), or "the Prince born in Babylonia." We see,
then, that the name of Jehovah is kept in abeyance during the
period of the exile, but revives immediately after, or shortly
before, the restoration of the Jews, when the names Nehemiah,
Obadiah, Zephaniah, Zechariah, and perhaps Malachiah, appear as
the names or epithets of prophets to the closure of the Canon.
If, in addition to this striking evidence of the cessation of a
reference to the name of Jehovah during the period of exUe in
Babylonia, we revert to the fact already mentioned, that the ulti
mate compilation of the book of Genesis exhibits a famUiar
acquaintance with the traditions of Babylonia, and with the
name of the country and its neighbours, and even with the
peculiarities of the soil, and its great tower of Belus, we cannot
entertain any reasonable doubt, that the last compiler or editor
was the Elohist, and that the period of his labours was the latter
half of the seventy years of exUe. At no other period subse
quent to the first establishment of the prophetic schools, can we
find any evidence of Elohism similar to that which is furnished
by this epoch, when priests, prophets, and kings, as if by general
consent, intermitted the practice of calling themselves by the
name of Jehovah (Isaiah xli v. 5). And as the book of Kings,
which is carried down to the thirty-seventh year of the captivity
of Jehoiaohim, i.e., b.c. 562 (2 Kings, xxv. 27), quotes the book
of Deuteronomy as "the book of the law of Moses," it seems
indubitable that the Pentateuch, in its Elohistic compUation,
must be referred to the interval between that date and the return
of the Jews in b.c. 446.

EPOCHS OF JEWISH LITERATURE. 237
On a general review of aU the facts and arguments which
have been adduced, we may be able to estabhsh the foUowing
conclusions respecting the origin and growth of the Jewish coUec
tion of sacred books. And for the sake of clearness, we wiU
present the results in the form of a chronological table, divided
according to the main epochs in the history : —
I. Legislative and Epic period ; — Moses to Samuel.
B.C. 1300—1150.
a. Decalogue, and Original Laws of Moses.
b. Book of the Wars of Jehovah.
c. Triumphal and other National Odes.
d. Epic Traditions respecting the Suffetes.
e. Genealogies and other Lists.
II. Complete Development of Literature ; — Samuel to Jeremiah.
b.c. 1150—600.
(1) Samuel to Solomon ; b.c. 1150 — 975.
a. Prophetic Psalms, Parables, and Proverbs.
b. Annals.
c. Book of Jashar.
(2) Solomon to Josiah ; b.c 975 — 641.
a. Psalms, and Longer Prophecies; Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah.
b. Annals. (3) Josiah to the Captivity; b.c. 641—600.
Literary Eevivals ; Hilkiah and Jeremiah.
III. Editorial Period, b.c. 600—130.
(1) ExUe; b.c 600—446.
a. Compilation of Pentateuch, and other Historical Eecords.
b. Ezekiel and other Prophets, including the Supplement to
Isaiah.
(2) Eestoration ; B.C. 446 — 130.
a. Formation of the Canon, and Adoption of the Hagiographa.
b. Prophecies of Zephaniah, Haggai, and others.
o. Daniel and Shachides.
Although we are prepared to admit that the Canonical books
of the Jews, of which we have been endeavouring to trace the
literary history, existed both in Hebrew and Greek at the time
when our Saviour quoted from them, we have no reason to
believe that the text was settled precisely in the state in which
it is now found. No Hebrew MS. is known to be older than

238 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
Kennicott's No. 154, which belongs to a.d. 1106; and though
there are much older MSS. of the Septuagint, there is so much
discrepancy between this version and the original that it furnishes
only a precarious guide for the estabhshment of doubtful texts.
It seems, indeed, pretty clear that the editors of the Complu-
tensian text arbitrarily accommodated the Greek to the Hebrew ;
and even in the Pentateuch, which is the oldest and best transla
tion, the Greek in many places corresponds to the Samaritan
rather than to the Hebrew. The Septuagint translation of
Daniel, probably the latest of the Jewish sacred books, is so
unlike the Hebrew that Theodotion's version was substituted for
it at a very early period. And the labours of Origen and others
seem to show that attempts were made from time to time to accom
modate the Greek to the changes introduced by the Masorethae
into the Hebrew text. With regard to the Pentateuch, Gesenius
supposed that the Samaritan and Septuagint versions were both
translated from a text older than the present Masoretic, and there
is nothing to invalidate this reasonable conjecture except the
absurd hypothesis that the Canon was closed and our present
Masoretic text established under the influence of inspired editors !
The Samaritan text itself, for the reasons mentioned by Gesenius,
must have been formed subsequently to the ExUe, — probably in
the reign of Darius Codomannus, when Manasseh, the brother of
the High Priest at Jerusalem, married the daughter of SanbaUat,
the Satrap of the Samaritans, and, in order to keep both his wife
and his priesthood, established on Mount Gerizim a temple-worship
in opposition to that at Jerusalem. It may be inferred that the
text, thus received by the Samaritans, was the same, in the main,
as that which was adopted by the Sanhedrim in Judaea ; and as
the tradition respecting the seventy-two interpreters of the
Septuagint points to the number of the Sanhedrim, who sanc
tioned that translation, as the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch,
stated to have been made by the pontiff Nathaniel a little before
Christ, agrees with the Targum of Onkelos, who flourished about
the same time, and also with the Septuagint published about 100
years before, it would seem to be a fair conclusion that, making
aUowance for the intentional alterations of the Samaritans, these
four versions represent to us the text of the Pentateuch, as it was
from the Maccabsean age to that of our Saviour, more fully, on
the whole, than the Hebrew text, which we have derived from

THE MASORAH. 239
the subsequent labours of the Masorah, although this later recen
sion is, in itself, better than any of the four. It is clear that the
Masoretic school at Tiberias was engaged in settling or unsettling
the Hebrew text until the final publication of the Masorah itself.
With regard to the origin and antiquity of the Masorah there has
been an old and long controversy among the Eabbis : on this
point we refer the reader to Jolowicz's Introduction to the five
books of Moses (Coeslin, 1847, pp, 22 — 30), who tells us in his
tract on the first epistle of Baruch (London, 1855, p. 5, note) :
" The most recent researches on this important subject incline to
the conclusion that the view of Elias Levita (b. 1472, d. at Venice
1549) ' the Massorah was committed to writing in 506 p.c at
Tiberias' is correct. Should this be admitted, then Ben Asher,
who lived at a later period, was its last compiler and author.
And in fact, Eabbi Saadja Gaon (b. 892, d. 941 or 42) states that
he had seen the Massorah of Ben Asher. See Leopold Duke's
Konteros ha-Massorah, Stuttgart, 1844." The same writer in
another tract, to which reference has been made above (p. 223), has
undertaken to show (p. 5) that " the Talmudists and the latter
Eabbis, as weU as the Chaldee paraphrast Jonathan ben ITziel,
not only knew various readings most strikingly differing from our
Canonical text, but also ' determined by the interpretations of the
same most important usages of life" ; and in his postcript (p. 15)
he gives special proofs that the Talmudists had copies of the
Pentateuch containing different readings, and that they sometimes
used one MS. roll to correct many others. If, then, we take into
consideration all the facts of the case — the variations of the
Hebrew MSS., none of which can boast any great antiquity, the
discrepancies between the Hebrew text and that of the Samaritan
and Greek versions, the evidences of different readings furnished
by the Talmud, Targumim, and other Eabbinical authorities, the
change of the Hebrew character from the older Phoenician form
to the square letters borrowed from the Syrians after the captivity,
the late introduction of points and distinctions between medial
and final letters,1 the probabUity that the Jewish editors may
1 " The quotations from Jonathan's translation of Hosea, vi. 5. and Mic.
vii. 4, give the best proof that at the time of the composition of that transla
tion the characters Y, f\ , ] , D . "1 . were not used as final letters, although there
is a note in the Talmud saying that thev were known. Probably they then
were used only as letters of numbers: ~\ 500, D 600, | 700, i] 800, y 900."
Jolowicz's Correction of the Text of the Hebrew Scriptures, p. 15.

240 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX HI.
have accommodated the Hebrew text to the Septuagint, and the
evidence furnished by the very remarkable fact that some of the
Jewish computations of time in the text of the Old Testament
involve the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, and therefore
presume a tampering with the text subsequent to this date,1 —
aU this, and a great deal more that might be aUeged, shows that
we cannot place implicit reliance on the Masoretic text, and that,
if conjectural emendation is aUowable in the case of the classical
authors, it is a stiU more legitimate instrument in the case of
these compUed, revised, and perpetually re-edited remains of the
ancient Jewish hterature.
There wiU be little difficulty in showing that these results of
Biblical criticism may be reconcUed with the claims of Christian
Orthodoxy. In point of fact, they contribute to the removal of
some of the greatest difficulties by which Orthodoxy has been
encumbered. When the treatise on the book of Jashar was first
announced, the author stated that his researches, and the method
of his inquiries, had enabled him "not only to throw some addi
tional light on the construction of the Canon, but also to establish
a number of original interpretations, which contribute, in a re
markable manner, to develope the religious significance of the
Hebrew records, to strengthen the connection between the Old
and New Testament, and to exhibit the consistent harmony of
the substantial contents of the Holy Scriptures." AU "that he
here professed to undertake the author still believes that he
accomplished. And with regard to the religious results, which
he has claimed, it seems to him obvious that the Jewish and

1 It has been shown, in a very curious book, called " Palmoni (i.e. the
mystic numberer), an essay on the chronological and numerical systems in
use among the Jews ; London, 1851," that the whole series of chronological
calculations in the Old Testament rests upon purely arbitrary and fanciful
combinations of solar and lunar years. The grand result is that we have
" from the Creation to the Call two millennia of solar, 2087 of lunar years :
from the Call to the second Destruction, 2000 solar, 2087 lunar years ; so
that it might be said that the time from the origin of the human species to
the selection of one race to be a peculiar people equalled the time from that
election to the rejection and final dispersion of the chosen people" (Palmoni,
p. 491). It thus appears that " the chronological tables of the Jews must have
been brought into their present state at a date posterior to the destruction of
Jerusalem ; and consequently that the charges which have been brought
against the Jews of corrupting their sacred books are true to a greater extent
than has been suspected, though the motive for the corruptions was not that
which has been usually supposed."

THE AUTHOR'S PROCEDURE VINDICATED. 241
Christian systems, being both divine, must have agreed abso
lutely in the essentials of revealed truth on which they rested.
A critical investigation therefore, of which the object was to
prove that the purer rehgion preached by the prophets, who
claim to speak by divine inspiration, was more in accordance
with the original teaching of Moses than the Levitical system,
to which the later Jews attributed a Mosaic origin, but which
our Lord rejected as neither divine nor worthy to be maintained, —
such an investigation did certainly tend to develope the rehgious
significance of the Hebrew records, by showing that it was the
business of the true Israelite to be upright, or jdshdr, rather
than a mere observer of ritual ceremonies : it certainly tended to
strengthen the connection between the Old and the New Testament,
for it reconciled the teaching of the Law and the Prophets
with that of Jesus Christ, and thus exhibited the consistent
harmony of the substantial contents of Scripture, relieved from
after-growths and corruptions which marred that divine concent
of the same recurring melody. The service thus rendered to the
cause of revelation wiU be stiU better appreciated by those, who
are aware that the rehgion of the Prophets stands opposed, not
only to the rites and ordinances of Levitical Judaism, but also to a
hideous practice of sacrificing human victims — even theh own chil
dren — to Moloch, which the later Jews had borrowed from their
Canaanitish neighbours. Now it has been argued1 that this practice
belonged to the most ancient and barbarous period of Israehtish
history — that " it must have been originaUy the congenial inven
tion of superstitious cannibals and savages, propagated and con
firmed by habit;" that "in process of ±ime these horrid rites
were exchanged for milder ones, when the Bible writers eagerly
vindicated the character of their God by transferring to old times
the improvements of newer date, making old practices appear as
detestable innovations, for which, with uncontrollable perverse-
ness, the Jews were ever deserting their own purer theism;"
that " among the Hebrews, as among other nations, there was a
progressive development of better ideas about God, and the mode
of worshipping him, which the compilers of the sacred volume,
in their anxiety to uphold the credit of theh ancestors, and the
1 "We are quoting here from an able pamphlet, printed for private distri
bution. The subject of human sacrifices among the Hebrews has been fully
discussed by Ghillany, die Mensehenopfer der alten Hebrder, Niirnberg, 1842.
16

242 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IH.
continuity of revelation, unconsciously, but unwarrantably, trans
ferred to ruder times." As this view of the case is directly
opposed to the behef that the divine law, which Jesus Christ
came not to destroy but to fulfil, was given by Moses, at the
very threshold of Jewish history, — as it makes the Christian
religion only the last of a series of gradual improvements, intro
duced into the Jewish rehgion by the growth of civUisation and
refinement, — and as it is, nevertheless, supported by the unde
niable aUegation of great incongruities, surely good service is
rendered to the cause of revealed truth when these incongruities
are explained, without any sacrifice of the harmony which unites
and combines" the two revelations of Moses and Jesus Christ ;
when it is shown that the Levitical compUers of the Pentateuch,
as we now have it, accommodated to their system rites and prac
tises borrowed from the barbarous worship of the Canaanites, and .
theories and traditions which they had learned at Babylon, but
that the religion of Moses and Samuel was, long anterior to theh
corruptions, a pure monotheism, resting on the everlasting basis
of that morahty, which alone can make a man Godlike, which
declares authoritatively that those only who are jdshdr can enjoy
the blessings, and inherit the promises of Jeshur an; that "he
who cometh to God must believe that he is," — that He has a per
sonal existence and a definite character, — " and that He is a
rewarder of them who dUigently seek Him," by endeavouring to
conform theh own behaviour to his revealed attributes.
Notwithstanding the declared intention of the essay on Jashar,
and its obvious tendency, when examined by intelligent and
candid persons, and iu spite of its being written in Latin, and
addressed to a limited circle of learned men, the author was
assaUed, from the moment almost of its appearance, by an out
burst of personal virulence. The attack was commenced by the
most ignorant of the religious periodicals, and the subject was soon
transferred even to the newspapers. Unscrupulous clergymen
seized upon the opportunity, and joined in the clamour with the
hope of making religious capital out of stimulated prejudices. And,
in short, there has not been such an outcry since the day when
Bentley first established the previously unsuspected fact — that aU
ancient books were not written by the men whose names they
bear. If, instead of merely showing that the materials, out of
which some of the Jewish books were professedly compiled,

VIOLENT AND UNREASONING CRITICISMS. 243
might be indicated and restored by inductive criticism, the author
had produced a forged book of Jashar, like that which was, with
minutely circumstantial falsehood, stated to exist in an old trans
lation by Alcuin,1 there might have been some reason for the
complaint that he was substituting something new for the Bible.
As it was, the cause of all the tumult was an interference with
the hypothesis of an infalhble hterature, as was stated plainly
enough by one of the London papers ; and, as this hypothesis
could not be defended by calm argument, the Bibliolaters took
the usual course, of crying out for the persecution and punish
ment of the bold bad man, who " caUed the chUd by the right
name." Gothe says, with sorrowful bitterness : — •
" Die wenigen, die was davon erkannt
Die thbricht g'nug ihr voiles Herz nicht wahrten,
Dem Pobel ihr Gefiihl, ihr Schauen offenbahrten,
Hat man von je gekreuzigt und verbrannt."
" The few, who know the truth, but foolishly
Disclose their full heart's feelings to the world,
And tell what they have learned — from earliest days,
These have been crucified or thrown to flames."
But England in the nineteenth century is not a favourable soil
for the rank growth of bigotry and intolerance. A man cannot
1 This clumsy fabrication, which bears about the same resemblance to the
fenuine Hebrew records, as the " Tales of the Genii " do to the "Arabian
fights," bears the following title : " The Book of Jasher : with testimonies
and notes, critical and historical, explanatory of the text, to which is (sic)
prefixed various readings, and a preliminary dissertation, proving the authen
ticity of the work. Translated into English from the Hebrew, by Flaccus
Albinus Alcuinus, of Britain, Abbot of Canterbury, who went a pilgrimage
into the Holy Land and Persia, where he discovered this volume, in the city
of Gazna. Bristol, 1829." The original author of this book, which claims a
place in the canon immediately before the book of Joshua (!), is alleged to be
one Jasher, the son of Caleb, who was an eminent associate of Moses, and
succeeded his father as Judge of Israel ; so that, if he had been a real person,
the omission of his name from the genealogies of the Jews would have been
most marvellous. The first citation from the real book of Jashar is carefully
introduced into the text ofthe forgery (chap, xxx. 11) ; but the other citation
is only represented by a statement (chap. vi. 12, 13) that, '• Caleb, the son of
Hezron, invented the bow : for he was a mighty man, and a man of renown.
He taught the children of Jacob to shoot with the bow : he learnt his brethren
to prepare themselves for the battle." There are many little pieces of ration
alism in the book, which would have been well enough as conjectures, but
which only aggravate the absurdity, when put forth as constituent parts of a
forged document. Perhaps, after all, the procedure of the Masoretic editors
was not so very unlike that which has been adopted by this modern manu.
facturer.

244 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
now be constrained by the frowns of secular or ecclesiastical
authority, or scolded to sUence by a venal press, if he feels that
he has truths to teU, which it is expedient not to conceal from
his contemporaries. At any rate, the author of these pages will
never become the echo or the presumed abettor of opinions which
he knows to be false ; and those who, either as open accusers or
as anonymous judges, have spoken out in his condemnation, are
greatly mistaken if they suppose that they have won theh cause
or gained a victory. It is easy enough to raise a premature song
of triumph — aXXJ ovti TavTT} Tavra, u.ri SoKelre ttw.
ct' elo~' dywves Tots SiKdQovaiv TdSe,
Kal to7s KaTny 6poiff iv ov (TfitKpol tt6voi.
Even if we had advanced an untenable theory, supported by
vicious criticisms, and if this had been shown by calm and rea
sonable argument, the position of the Bibliolater would not have
been improved by the confutation of a solitary attempt to reheve
the subject from some of the difficulties. An increasing number
of weU-informed and intelligent men agree with us in the main ;
and, as time goes on, more and more writers wiU be found to
give expression to the thought so generaUy entertained — that the
hypothesis of an infaUible literature is an insult to common sense
and a standing impediment to religion. But, as far as our hypo
thesis is concerned, we have not yet seen reason to recede in the
slightest degree from the position which we have assumed. On
the contrary, additional study and reflection have tended only to
confirm our confidence in the validity of our conjectures. And,
independently of this, we derive no httle assurance from the
character of the attacks to which we have been subjected. For
whUst the accusers — for so we may caU the few persons who
have given theh names to a controversy by which they hoped to
improve their professional position — have incurred not only de
feat, but even the most humUiating exposure, the self-constituted
judges — if we may give this name to the anonymous writers in
periodicals — have, without exception, adopted a mode of criticism
which is tantamount to the admission that they have no confidence
in the goodness of their cause. Every one of the attempts to
review the treatise on the book of Jashar starts with the assump
tion that the infallibility of Scripture is an established fact, and
that Christianity must stand or fall with its acceptance or rejec-

VIOLENT AND UNREASONING CRITICISMS. 245
tion. Consequently, an attempt to treat the historical writings
of the Jews as compUations, and to indicate conjecturaUy the
form of one of the more ancient books, which they cite as autho
rities, is to be regarded as an impiety, as an exhibition of un
belief, as high treason against, what one of these writers is
pleased to caU, "the majesty of holy writ." Under these circum
stances, there is no occasion for any argument. It is quite suffi
cient to state the results of the book or rather to exhibit those of
its conclusions which are most offensive to the prejudices of
Bibholaters, and then to raise a cry of condemnation — " away
with such a feUow from the earth : for it is not fit that he should
live" (Acts, xxii. 22) — and though, perhaps, there is no exact
paraUel to the case of the Jews who " banded together and bound
themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor
drink till they had kiUed Paul " (Acts, xxih. 12), there is no
doubt that some of these fanatics have complacently expressed
their conviction that they have done signal injury to the offending
editor, who is fortunately quite unconscious that he has received
any harm or danger from their malice. There is something
almost comical in the fact that there has been a quarrel among
the so-caUed religious journals on this point ; and while one of
them has resented as hbeUous the imputations put forward by
the most unscrupulous of these papers, that the High Church
periodicals had been criminaUy lenient, they have aU strenuously
claimed theh share in the work of casting stones — or mud — at
the blasphemer. Not to be in a furious passion in such a case
is positive sin. " There is such a thing," says the most violent
of these journalists, " as a Prussian policy in theological con
troversy, which takes the right side, in the abstract, but deals so
very tenderly even with heresy or blasphemy, as to become prac
tically an accomplice in the evU it condemns, and, in its dishke
to a vigorous assertion of the cause of truth, throws all its weight
insensibly into the scale of error." When passion is enjoined as
a sacred duty and calm reasoning rejected as an offence against
God and man, there is little danger to the cause which is attacked
in this sphit. What Lord John EusseU said in his reply to the
honorable and learned member for Sheffield, on the 19th July, 1 855,
— that is, exactly ten days after the appearance of the article just
quoted, — whether applicable or not to the speech in question, was
very applicable to the proceedings of these religious controver-

246 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
siahsts: — "He (Mr.Eoebuck)wassofuUof indignation that he left
out proofs and arguments altogether. Indignation may make very
good verses,1 but it does not constitute proof or argument. The
hon. and learned gentleman reminded me of an eloquent passage,
with which most persons must be acquainted, in a speech of the
great orator, Mr. Curran, who, when addressing a great states
man, then Lord ChanceUor, said, ' I am aware, my Lord, that
truth is to be found only by slow and painful progress ; I know,
also, that error is in its nature flippant and compendious ; it hops
with airy and fastidious levity over proofs and arguments, and
perches upon assertion, which it caUs conclusion.' That was the
course which the hon. and learned gentleman has taken. He has
perched upon assertions and called them conclusions." When the
question reaUy is whether the Bible, in its whole literary com
position, is entitled to be regarded as " the Word of the Almighty,
by which all mankind shaU be judged," it is not very likely that
a triumphant result wiU be obtained by those who assume this
point, the very point which they have to prove, and then caU
upon every Christian to " disburden his conscience and heart by
some plain, unmistakeable utterance of righteous indignation.''
Accordingly we find that in this, as in other cases, the advocates
of Bibliolatry have shrunk from an investigation of the truth,
and have contented themselves with statements and condemna
tions. What TaUeyrand said of the positive old lady may be
predicated of every one of these organs of rehgious dogmatism :
" EUe est tout assertion ; mais quand vous en demandez la
preuve, c'est la son secret." What would have been the result,
if there had been a fuU discussion of the critical details, may
be inferred from the only case in which such a discussion has
arisen — that of the proper interpretation of Col. ii. 15 (see above,
pp. 61-76) — for here we see that a view attacked as erroneous and
paradoxical turns out to be the inevitable inference from the fact
that St. Paul wrote Greek, and also to be in accordance with the
oldest and best authorities. And the same, instance shows that
the Bibliolaters employ without scruple the most dishonest artifices
in order to evade a true interpretation of that which they profess
to consider as the infaUible Word of God.
The attacks, or, as they would caU them, the judgments and
condemnations of anonymous critics, to which the essay on the
1 Facit indignatio versum.

THE PETTTI0 PRINCIPII. 247
book of Jashar has been exposed, are so numerous that it would
be impossible to reply to them aU ; and the majority of them
are written in a style so offensive from its insolence, and with
such a total absence of theological learning, that self-respect
would prevent the author from noticing them. Fortunately,
however, they are so uniform in their procedure that an exposure
of one of them is an exposure of the whole chorus. For the
ground taken up is simply this : (1), that the Bible being, in its
present state, infaUible, any attempt to find an inner marrow of
literary or religious import must be as erroneous as it is impious ;
(2), that the mode of criticism adopted by this author is utterly
absurd and vicious. On both these points, we might be weU
content to refer the reader to the discussion in the present
Appendix. But it wiU be desirable to show by one specimen
the otherwise incredible weakness of the anonymous judgments
which have been passed upon us ; and in selecting the Christian
Remembrancer for October, 1855, we shaU refer to by far the
most favorable example. The writer of this review is, in literary
ability, in scholarlike and gentlemanly style, and in Christian
temper, almost a solitary exception to the general rule in these
tirades. But with aU these recommendations, he is hable to the
same charge as the other critics — that he begs the question at
issue, and, instead of meeting the arguments to which he objects,
is contented to stigmatize their author as a person so reckless and
unreasonable that it would be a waste of time to attempt to
refute him.
The following extracts wiU show that this is reaUy the pro
cedure in the Christian Remembrancer. In p. 390 the reviewer
says: "Jashar, then, is an imaginary work, created out of
imaginary materials ; which, had it been on the subject-matter
of the early lays of Eome, or the fragments of Etruscan laws,
would have been admhable for the learning, and the ingenuity,
and the real contributions to criticism and archaeology, which
are incidentaUy brought out by it, in which the writer's want of
perception of the value of evidence and his wild dreams would
have been the occasion of many a smile, — but which applied to
the Book of Books, that wherein is contained the Eevelation of
the WUl of God, the teaching of his Holy Spirit; — the work, as
it were, of His hands — is simple impiety." Now here it will be
observed that the reviewer quietly begs the question at issue —

248 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
namely, in what sense the Bible is the Word of God. And this
petitio principii is the more remarkable, because he afterwards
brings this very charge against the editor of Jashar. He says
(p. 412): "Dr. Donaldson holds that they (the Old Testament
Scriptures) are to be treated on the same principles of criticism as
profane writings ; which is, in fact, assuming the very point at
issue." Supposing that the editor of Jashar had done this, would
he not have been on exactly the same footing as his reviewers,
who assume that these writings are not to be held amenable to
the usual laws of criticism, that it is in fact " simple impiety"
to treat them in this way ? What we have reaUy said is this —
that the science of criticism must be the same whatever be its
object (p. 346), but that there is a sacramental character in the
Bible, that it is a Bethel or house of God— the habitation of
Jehovah and the gate of heaven (p. 5). Now it is surely not im
possible that a temple of the true God should faU into ruins, and
that its fragments should be built up into a more modern edifice,
intended, partly at least, to serve the same purpose, or that people
should speak of the new fabric in terms which they would apply
to the original buUding. And if it were thought desirable to
endeavour by conjectural reproduction to form some idea of the
original building from the old fragments which were imbedded
in the modern waUs, and if this could be done without any dis
placement of the existing stones, we conceive that the effort would
be just as harmless in itself and would require precisely the same
taste, knowledge, and skUl as that which has been displayed by
Quatremere de Quincy and Hittorff in their conjectural restora
tions of Greek architecture and sculpture. If this is not so, if
the principles of Biblical and classical criticism are essentiaUy
different, and if it is a "simple impiety" to do in the former case
what would be " admirable" in the other, there must be an end
of all original and reaUy learned exegesis in sacred matters, and
Biblical scholarship must be, not only what it is in England,
neglected and nearly non-existent, but even denounced and for
bidden as dangerous and sinful.
So much for the petitio principii, on the strength of which
the reviewer charges his author with impiety. Now for 'the
allegation of recklessness by which he excuses himself from enter
ing into detailed arguments with such a writer. We are told, at
starting, that " the work is that of a person of wild and unre-

THE REVIEWER'S APPRECIATION OF EVIDENCE. 249
strained imagination, who lives in a world of his own, and seems
to be without the capacity of appreciating the value of evidence,
not to mention more grave faults " (p. 385). And, after giving
a general sketch of the argument, he repeats the same charge.
"Is it possible," he asks (p. 395), "for any one more entirely to
disregard the laws of evidence than the writer of this book?"
In order to estimate this contemptuous criticism at its true value,
we ought to know what are the writer's canons of evidence —
what are the rules of credibUity or probabUity which he lays
down for himself — and what is some particular instance of that
neglect of those laws which he charges on the editor of Jashar
With regard to the former point, his main principle is that con
jectural criticism is quite inapplicable to the Old Testament,
because the infalhble New Testament is responsible for its in
tegrity, authenticity, and signification. Now this view implies
a very peculiar notion of the laws of evidence. In the first
place, there is no proof whatever that our Lord or His Apostles
maintained the integrity and co-equal authority of aU parts of
the Jewish canon ; on the contrary, there is good reason to believe
that Jesus constantly distinguished between the marrow of the
Jewish moral law and the ritual system in which it was
enveloped. But, even waiving this point, the argument on
which these sticklers for evidence so entirely rely, belongs to a
class which aU educated persons reject as soon as heard. It
amounts to this. The Old Testament is infaUibly accurate, be
cause the infaUibly accurate New Testament says so ; and the
New Testament is infaUibly accurate, because the Apostles were
inspired, and because the New Testament cannot be inferior to
the Old. A great authority with the party to which the Chris
tian Remembrancer belongs, has told us that this is the only
argument on which he relies (Tracts for the Times, No. 85, p. 11):
"How do we know that the New Testament is inspired? Does
it anywhere declare this of itself? Nowhere. How, then, do
we know it ? We infer it from the circumstance that the office
of the Apostles who wrote it was what it was, and from the Old
Testament being inspired." If there is anything certain in the
literary history of the Jews, it is the fact from which our inves
tigations take their origin, namely, that aU the older books of the
Jewish canon have come to us in the form of a compUation — in
a revised, abridged, and secondary state. They are, therefore, so

250 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
far from being entitled to claim, the impress of genuine antiquity,
that they are fitter subjects for conjectural criticism and restora
tion, than any remnants of Greek literature, with the single
exception of Homer's poems. Indeed, it must be remembered
that whUe these latter, professing to be the oldest writings of the
Greeks, have merely passed through the successive editorship of
the Peisistratidae and of the Alexandrian school, the very latest of
the Jewish historical works, which were written before the return
from exUe, refers nearly forty times to older sources of informa
tion, and, besides the internal proofs of compUation, the whole
literature has been reduced by the Masoretic editors to a uni
formity of style and language which represents the latest rather
than the oldest form of Hebrew. An investigation, then, which
starts from these ascertained facts, is much more in accordance
with the laws of evidence, than the assumption by which it is
opposed — that we have, in this coUection of Jewish books, a
series of genuine and original documents. Our reconstruction is
put forward expressly as a theory, and with a disclaimer of any
thing beyond inferential and approximate results. But it rests on
the admitted fact that there was a book of Jashar ; on an explana
tion of that name, which we consider perfectly certain ; on the
presumption that fragments, which would naturaUy belong to
such a book, and are not claimed for any other book, did actually
belong to it ; and on the interlacing of internal and circumstantial
evidence which crops out in every direction. The objections to
this sort of evidence are just those which were put forward in
the case of WiUiam Palmer. Because strychnine was not ac-
tuaUy found in the body of his victim, it was contended that the
greatest criminal the world has seen for some time ought to
escape condign punishment; but judge and jury, and the uni
versal public, were satisfied that the evidence of his guilt was
overwhelming. In the same way, unless it can be shown that
the fragments claimed for the book of Jashar belong to the
original structure of the books in which they are found, or that,
being fragments, they belong more probably to some other old
book quoted as an authority, it is a fair inference that they
belonged to that book ; and in proportion to the general scope
and extent of that book ; in proportion as it must, from its sub
ject, have been the most comprehensive of the Jewish religious
books ; in the same proportion is it likely that an unclaimed quo-

THE GREEK WORD IN GENESIS. 251
tation or extract belonged to this rather than to any other of the
lost originals. We have, therefore, very little to fear from a
comparison of the laws of evidence and probability, by which we
have been guided, and those which the writer in the Christian
Remembrancer takes as his standard of credibility.1
If we now take some particular instance of the neglect of
the laws of evidence which is charged upon the editor of Jashar,
we shall see that the reviewer is as unable to absorb a gnat, as
he is ready and willing to swallow a camel. We wUl take the
instance to which the reviewer seems to attach most importance,
— that of the aUeged Greek word iTOO, meter dh, pAxaipa,
— to which he twice reverts (pp. 395, 414).2 And it is one of
the most important points in the whole discussion. For if the
so-caUed prophecy of the patriarch Jacob contains a genuine
Greek word, and that too the name of a weapon, and if there
was a particular time at which the kings of the Jews made use
of Greek mercenaries, we have a decided note of time, quite as
significant as any of those to which Bentley appealed in his dis
sertation on Phalaris. Now the reviewer objects to this argu
ment that " it is utterly valueless, being a mere conjecture, that
because two words in two languages are simUar, they are the
same, when there are many other ways of explaining the
fact." A statement of the argument wiU show how incapable
this reviewer is of " appreciating the value of evidence," when
he gives the name of " conjecture" to that which is established
both by testimony and by induction. In the first place, the Eabbi
1 A contemporary religious journalist, who copies the words of the Chris
tian Remembrancer, and applies tbem to Bohlen's Genesis, has given us a beau
tiful specimen of "his capacity of appreciating the value of evidence." He
writes as follows (Clerical Journal, Nov. 8th, 1855): "We cannot just now
fix the precise date of the appearance of Strauss's Leben Jesu, but we have
before us the third edition, published at Tiibugen in 1838. As Von Bohlen
published his trim's in 1836, there is evidence sufficient for our purpose that
Strauss's mythic theory took the lead, and most probably led the former to
attempt in the Old Testament what the latter sought to accomplish in that of
the New." Now, the fact is, that Strauss and Bohlen published their books
in the same year, 1835, and within a few weeks of each other; and we may
thus see that Bibliolaters are as reckless in their own literary conjectures, as
they are insolent in their judgments of others.
2 The Dublin Review, Sept. 1855, has »also a long note on this subject,
pp. 206-209. The conclusion that "we are quite as entitled to make ndxaipa
a word learnt by Greece from Asia, as to build a theory upon the opposite
genealogy," is overthrown at once by the fact that there are obvious Greek
etymologies for n"DD an<^ "ID^i an(' no Semitic affinity for either word.

252 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
Eliezer says expressly that "Jacob cursed their sword (using the
common Hebrew word 1"\T\) in the Ionian language." Secondly,
there is no Hebrew root from which the word could be derived ;
for to, to which some Hebraists refer it, makes rn.3P or ffltop,
and, at the very least, would require the form ITV3_? like Piyjt?
from 3-1*1 . Thirdly, there seems to be no doubt whatever that the
n3 , who were the body-guard of the Jewish kings, were Carians,
and that the *iri*0 were Cretans, who served together as mer
cenaries in Palestine, just as the former did in JEgypt (Herod, ii.
152 — 5), in Cyprus (id. v. Ill), and in the Phoenician colonies
(Thucyd. i. 8). Fourthly, one of David's captains is actually
caUed Chepher ham-Meter dthi, "Hepher the swordsman" (1 Chron.
xi. 36). Fifthly, the Carians were expressly distinguished by
theh use of the Bpeiravov and other cutting weapons (Herod, v.
Ill, 112), and would thus stand in opposition to the bow-men of
Palestine and Syria. Sixthly, to distinguish this weapon, which
the Carians introduced among the inhabitants of the East, from
his own Bbpv and £l(pot, -ZEschylus caUs the latter to fiaxaipo-
tpopov eOvot; so also Thucydides speaks of the Thracians as
/xaxaipocpbpoi (ii. 96, vii. 27 ; cf. Xen. Cyrop. vi. 2, 10) : and
this was a later name for guardsmen in particular (Menand.
Legat. 283, 19). Seventhly, when the classical Greek writers
distinguish between the (idxaipa and the %i(pot, which some
times hung side by side from the same girdle (Horn. II. iii. 271),
they always imply that the former was an instrument for strik
ing, as the latter was for cutting, the former having a concave,
the latter a straight edge. Thus whUe f icpot (from fw», %eFa>
cf. ftpetpot from fipvco) carries us to the idea of a ^vpov, or razor,
the pAxaipa is always compared to the KOTTit, a broad curved
knife, like our biU or chopper, and to the Bpenravov or Bpeirdvr)
of the Carians, which was a blade shaped like a sickle or scythe,
with a curved inner edge (cf. Xen. Equ. iv. 11; Eurip. Cycl.
241 ; Plut. Cleom. c. 26). Eighthly, although the word ptdxaipa
was generaUy used in classical Greek, and indeed from a very
early period, to denote the knife of the cook or the surgeon or
the priest, rather than a military weapon, it is derived from the
•root fiax — (Sanscrit maksh ormakha, Benfey, Wur&ellex, ii. p. 43;
mash or mush, Bopp, Gloss, pp. £60/268), which is at once the most
ancient and most permanent expression for " battle " and " com
bat." And in the oldest forms of Low German we have the same

TnE GREEK WORD IN GENESIS. 253
word in its mihtary sense ; for in Anglo-Saxon we have mice, in
Old Saxon, mdke, and in Old Norse, masker, signifying "a sword"
(Grimm, Deutsche Gram. ii. 511. iii. 440). Although, therefore,
he mythical priest, Maxaipeiit, of Delphi (Strabo, ix. p. 421 ;
cf. Pind. Nem. vii. 42), and the mythical surgeon, Maxdcov,
the son of .ZEsculapius (Horn. II. ii. 752), point to a very old use
of this sort of weapon for sacrificial or surgical purposes, the
derivation of the word, and its use by the Teutonic tribes in a
mUitary sense, show that this application must have been secon
dary, and that the substitution of the word %i<pot was due to the
introduction of a sword of a different shape. So that, in aU pro
bability, the inhabitants of the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean
fought with p.dxaipai, which were introduced among them by
the Carians, whereas the Greeks, as early as the time of Homer,
more generally substituted the straight £ic/>o?. Ninthly, the root
of the word p,dxaipa, in its primitive military sense, appears
also in the proper name "|D.>, for which Semitic scholars have
vainly sought a Hebrew explanation. It seems that this hero
represented the spirit of war and violence, at least this is the
purport of the song put into his mouth ; and if the word is
merely the Greek _4a-/*a%-09, probably an ancient name or
epithet of the God of War, we shaU have an additional evidence
of the fact that the foreign mercenaries introduced into Palestine
the names of theh gods and weapons, and- the spirit of open
violence which belongs to the profession of arms. For this view
we have an evidence in the admission of an opponent. Ewald,
who had previously made the most desperate attempts to find a
Semitic etymon for fph, has lately arrived independently at the
conclusion that this supposed antediluvian name is merely a
Greek epithet from the coasts of the Mediterranean. In the
Jahrbucher der Riblischen Wissenschaft, vi. p. 2, Dec. 1853, he
writes as follows: "The man's name _4a/ia%o?, Gen. v. 25,
iv. 18, recurs in Pisidia, Corpus Inscr. No. 4379; the woman's
name "ABa, Gen. iv. 19, 23 ; cf. xxxvi. 2, 4, likewise in that
district Corpus Inscr., iii. p. 333 : this coincidence is aU the
more remarkable, as both names never again occur in the history
of Israel." Tenthly, if rn3J? had been a term of native origin,
its appearance as a cnra% Xeybpxvov, or nearly so, in the lan
guage, would have been more surprising than the sohtary occur
rence of the proper name Lamech. For the Israelites had the

254 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
thing designated by the name p,dxaipa, and it is mentioned in
the Old Testament 380 times by its Hebrew name 'ztlfherev.
It is therefore nearly impossible that a thing of such common
occurrence should not have been mentioned occasionaUy by its
other designation if it had had two vernacular names. And the
only explanation of the fact is that which we have suggested,
namely, that the song, in which the word occurs, was written
at the same time as that when a guardsman was caUed ham-
mgterdthi, and this period has been fixed by Friedrich, on in
dependent grounds, as the epoch of Nathan the prophet, when
the employment of foreign mercenaries was first introduced into
Palestine, when theh names and the names of theh weapons
and the objects of their worship were strange to the Israehtes,
and when consequently these foreign words found acceptance for
a short time until they were translated into terms of domestic
origin. The Pyrgopolinices of Plautus was a later representation
of these soldiers, properly so caUed, who raised latrones for the
Eastern kings, and caUed themselves by the surname of Lamaehus,
the son of Mars, and husband of Venus or Ada, " the lovely," and
who were sooner or later adopted as national heroes by the people
whom they served. That the Semitic nations did, in fact, substi
tute theh own name, "herev, for a weapon corresponding to the
/jtdyatpa of the Greeks, and that this took place at a very early
period, is proved by the Grseco-Semitic fable of Perseus, whose
scimetar, the gift of the Phoenician Hermes, is caUed -_r.7r._=_nn,
and this word appears (in Hesiod, Op. et Di., 571 ; Soph. Fr.,
374) as a synonym for Bpenavov, being, as the works of art teU
us, strictly speaking a //.dxaipa.1 Belonging to the days of the
Phoenician intercourse with Greece, the myth of Perseus must
have gone back very nearly to the times of David and Solomon ;
and we may thus infer from the word dpirr], that the weapon
introduced by the Carians very soon got a Hebrew name, which
is just what we should expect from the sohtary occurrence of
miterdh. Now all these arguments are either stated or implied
in the original discussion. There is no Ulusion here — no " wild
and unrestrained imagination" — no "world of our own." A
Eabbi says that the Patriarch is made to use a Greek name for
1 It may be inferred from Aristoph. Thesm. 1120, that the liarpe of Perseus
was called a \i$ojiAxaipa in the Andromeda of Euripides. The Scholiast
says : ixeye t0 £upou.dxaipa ws Bpeiravo/tdxaipa.

THE GREEK WORD IN GENESIS. 255
the swords of Simeon and Levi. The best lexicographers agree
that the kings of the Jews, beginning with the latter years of
David, had Carians in their body-guard. The weapon which the
Carians used, — a curved sword with concave edge, — was caUed
by the very term used in the blessing of Jacob, a term employed
as a synonym for Bpiiravov. One of the guardsmen of David is
called " the man of the machcera." The representative of blood
shed is caUed by the Greek name Lamachus. In the earliest
ages the Greeks found the machcera called in the east by the name
which the Hebrews exclusively used in speaking of the sword.
This word occurs 380 times in the Old Testament, and the
machcera is mentioned only in the benediction of the Patriarchs,
and in the name of the guardsman. The benediction is attri
buted, by another scholar, and on independent grounds, to the
Prophet Nathan, who flourished at the end of David's reign, and
at the commencement of that of his successor, and therefore
at the very time when this weapon, then a novelty, would be
known by its foreign name. The combination of aU these par
ticulars amounts to a convincing proof, not only that Jacob is
made to curse his son's swords in the Greek language, but that
the poem, in which this foreign name occurs, could not have been
composed by Jacob, or even written by Moses, but must have
been as late as the days of "Hepher ham-M&chfrdthl. If the
reviewer cannot see this, it is plain that, although he is obviously
a man of ability, he has not served his apprenticeship to phi
lology, and that he has ventured to judge without knowledge.
" Every one," says the great philosopher, "judges weU what he
knows, and of these things is a good judge" (Aristot. Eth. Nic.
i. 2, § 5). Anonymous critics imagine that it is safe, if not
proper, to neglect this rule.
It is somewhat remarkable that only three writers — and
those three clergymen — have been found to lend their names to
"a raUing accusation " against us. Considering that there are
hundreds of persons who are anxious to render themselves con
spicuous, and to obtain preferment by espousing the cause of
popular prejudices, we should have expected that there would
have been as many avowed, as there have been anonymous,
assaults on the editor of Jashar. And when we find that only
three have ventured to come forward in propria persona, and
those three either unknown or of no repute, we may fahly

256 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX HI.
conclude that the task of refutation is neither so easy nor so
necessary as the writers in periodicals would represent it to be ;
that, in fact, respectable men, with characters to lose, shrink
from a warfare in which misrepresentation is necessary to obtain
even a partial success. Two of these assailants have been ade
quately exposed and demohshed. It remains that we say a few
words about Dr. S. J. Eigaud's sermon, preached before the
University of Oxford on the 1st July, 1855, and pubhshed at the
request of the Vice- ChanceUor. We should not have thought it
worthy of even the briefest notice, if it had not appeared in the
form of a solemn address, preached in a place of worship, before
the representatives of one of our great seminaries of learning,
and if it had not been printed at the request of, and with a pre
fatory recommendation from, the acting chief magistrate of the
University, along with other sermons, including one by the
Bishop of the diocese. Neither the literary character of Dr.
Eigaud, nor the merit of his sermon, entitle him even to a
passing castigation on his own account; but when the University
of Oxford becomes responsible for a theological denunciation, it
is not undeshable to show that the academical body is compro
mised by the patronage of an absurd and contemptible produc
tion. That Dr. Eigaud is an inaccurate scholar, and an unsound
theologian, has been aheady shown (pp. 74 sqq.). We wUl now
briefly indicate, from the contents of this sermon : (1) that he
has misused his text ; (2) that he is confessedly ignorant of the
subject on which he has ventured to write ; (3) that he misrepre
sents the argument which he undertakes to confute.
(1). It is generaUy supposed that a sermon ought to be a
deduction from the text on which it is written. Dr. Eigaud's
text is 1 Tim. vi. 20 : " Oppositions of science falsely so caUed,"
dvTideaeit Trjt ylrevBa>vv/u,ov yvoacrecot (i. e. opponencies of the
misnamed Gnosis) ; and whUe he finds in this text a proper
starting-post for an attack on what he calls " Neologian views,"
he contradicts aU the Fathers and all the best modern commen
tators in their assertion, that St. Paul here means some early
development of what was afterwards generaUy known as Gnos
ticism. Now St. Paul was himself a " Neologian," as his alle
gorical explanation of the story of Hagar (Gal. iv. 22 sqq.) very
clearly shows ; and the misnamed Gnosis, which he here depre
cates, is represented rather by the procedure of Dr. Eigaud and

THE OXFORD SERMON. 257
the other Oxford preachers, whose sermons accompany his, than
by the doctrines and practice of those who are denounced in this
set of discourses. For, whatever may have been the special
opinions which St. Paul had in view (and angel-worship formed
a part of them, Col. ii. 18), it is certain that he alludes to some
positive form of speculative dogmatism, pursued for selfish ob
jects, and at a sacrifice of Christian charity. In more than one
passage the Apostle contrasts this yvuso-it with ccyairr]. Thus,
in the Epistle to the Ephesians, he prays that it may be granted
to his readers "to know the love of Christ, which excels know
ledge" (ih. 19); to the Corinthians he says that "knowledge
puffs up, but love edifies" (1 Cor. viii. 1); and in this very
chapter of the First Epistle to Timothy, it is clear that he is
speaking of a similar effect of selfish dogmatism, — of a Gnosis,
which leads to aU kinds of uncharitable disputation, and which
belongs especiaUy to those who think that rehgion is a means of
getting money (1 Tim. vi. 4, 5). That this spirit, at all events,
is more hkely to be found among heresy-hunters, than with those
who speak what they believe to be true, jn simple honesty of
heart, and without fear of the consequences, is or ought to be
sufficiently obvious. And there is certainly some reason to sus
pect that an attack upon " a Neologian," who was, at the time, a
rival schoolmaster, may have had some special charms for one
who has endeavoured to promote his professional interests by pro
ceedings as obtrusive, "and, with all charity be it spoken, as
unscrupulous," as any chiropodist or patent-medicine-monger has
ever dared to adopt.
(2). Whatever other motives may have induced Dr. Eigaud
to add an attack on some new interpretations of the Hebrew
records, to his share in the declamation by which certain Oxford
men, under the guidance of their Bishop, have cleared themselves
from aU participation in the opinions of their Eegius Professor of
Greek, his self-conscious simplicity has enabled us to see that he
has not been led to enter on this subject by any course of previous
study, by any interest of long standing, by that jealousy which
we feel when we are watching our own preserves. Biblical
criticism is, with Dr. Eigaud, like a fruit or a vegetable pur
chased in Covent-Garden market ; he knows nothing of the cul
tivation, and is quite content to take it, stale or drooping, at third
or fourth hand, from the retail representative of the market-
17

258 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX III.
gardener. He has, indeed, the assurance to write the foUowing
words : " Dr. Donaldson's work on the book of Jashar, though it
may appear startling to many an Enghsh reader, contains httle
or nothing which would be new in Germany, or to one acquainted
even in a moderate degree with the history of German theology."
As the book was pubhshed in Berlin, and has been treated by
German reviewers as entirely original, we should have been dis
posed to inquire where Dr. Eigaud got this notion, if it had not
appeared, on his own showing, that he is simply and absolutely
ignorant of German hterature, — theology and aU, — and that he
merely makes these remarks in ignorant presumption. It seems,
indeed, that Dr. Eigaud has read only one book on German
theology, and that only in an Enghsh translation. At least, his
only references are to Havernick's Handbuch, of which he has
made considerable use, and he has to refer to this double medium
in order to teU us what are the opinions of De Wette ! (p. 54).
The very slight attention, which he has paid to the subject, is
farther shown by the fact that, although he has a distinct section
on the mythical interpretation of scripture-history (pp. 57-64),
he does not seem to have the remotest idea of the difference
between a myth and an aUegory, or between a myth and
euhemeristic rationalism, or between a myth and a more recent
falsification of history. AU that he says, on the strength of his
gleanings from Havernick, is inapplicable to the immediate ob
ject of his sermon. We have put forth no mythical hypothesis.
On the contrary, in the only passage in which we mention the
word mythictts (p. 242), we are insisting, as we do in this book,
on the historical basis of the Jewish traditions ! Our business is
with literary history, not with mythology. But when the
preacher ventures to insinuate (p. 58), that there is nothing
" approaching to a Hebrew mythology," he merely exposes his
childish innocence in regard to the question. Scientific writers
have' expressly placed the "religious mythical system" of
the Israehtes by the side of the " poetico-mythical system " of
the Greeks, and "the pmlosopho-mythical system" of the
Indians (Lepsius, Chronol. d. JEgypter, i. p. 2) ; and no one, who
pretends to have studied the subject, will venture to deny that
there is just the same mythology in the interrupted sacrifices of
Isaac and Iphigenia, and in the adventures of Sampson and
Hercules. The Jewish hterature is distinguished from the Greek

THE 0XE0RD SERMON. 259
by the fact, that, besides the relics of a genuine mythology, the
priests of a later day introduced arbitrary fables of theh own.
Thus the conversation between Balaam and his ass is manifestly
a later invention. The story of Jonah and the great fish is a
combination of biography and Phoenician mythology : and the
wonders of the furnace and the lion's den, in the comparatively
modern book of Daniel, are, in aU probabUity, a realistic expan
sion of the metaphorical complaints of an exUed Hebrew poet.
(3). It would have been weU, however, if Dr. Eigaud had
been content to betray his ignorance and presumption. He
underlies also the graver charge of intentional misrepresentation
— which is a form of mendacity. Speaking from a pulpit in the
University Church of Oxford, and after solemn prayer to the
God of truth, he has the audacity to describe iu these words the
purport of the book, which he makes the object of a religious
denunciation (p. 49): "The method in which the text of the
Old Testament has been dealt with may be briefly stated.
Whereas there are in holy Scripture two references to the book
of Jashar, therefore that book not only existed, but formed the
material from which, with many interpretations and interpola
tions of their own, the Hebrew doctors formed the mass of what
was accepted by the Jewish Church in later centuries as the
Canon." Not only every reader of the book referred to, but
every reader of the brief account of it, which we have given
above, must see at once that this is an utter misrepresentation.
It is false, and Dr. Eigaud knew it was false, that any attempt
has been made by us to show that the book of Jashar formed the
material from which the mass of the Canonical books was formed.
We have expressly excluded the ritual books from any connexion
with that ancient treatise. The annals of the Jews were not
included in it. The great mass of the prophetical writings were
long subsequent to it. Psalms and Proverbs had but little to do
with it. The noble book of Job was a later treatise on a subject
not altogether dissimilar, as the Eoman Catholic reviewer has
weU remarked (Dublin Review, Sept., 1855, p. 214),1 and as we
had remarked before him (Jashar, p. 328). This representation,
1 The reviewer asks " why we did not refer to Job, if at no other time,
when we were endeavouring to define the meaning of Jashar ? " "We answer,
because we consider the book of Job as a late production, which could have
had no value in our eyes for the development of Solomonean ideas. Internal
evidence shows that this article was written by Cardinal "Wiseman .- see, for

260 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX in.
then, is as false- as the absurd and preposterous form which is
given to our argument, that, because there are two citations,
which are the starting-point to prove that such a book existed,
therefore aU the conclusions are derived from the first of the
premises. Then again, Dr. Eigaud knew that he was stating an
untruth, when he said (p. 52) that the " one principle only of
selection" adopted in the book in question was the test of the
two commandments. For he must have known that in p. 6, to
which he refers, the book of Jashar had not yet been mentioned,
and that the passage refers generaUy to what is and what is not
the voice of God speaking in the whole of the Scriptures, Old
and New ; that, in fact, we are speaking of what is and what is
not inspiration, not of what is and what is not a Jasharan frag
ment ! EeaUy one would think that it was even less necessary to
be scrupulously truthful in the University pulpit at Oxford, than
in the anonymous contributions to dishonest and mahgnant
journals. With these remarks, we can afford to take leave of all our
critics and assailants. Whether writing in theh own names or
anonymously, they have merely succeeded in furnishing a fresh
proof of the truth of the remark, with which Bentley consoled
himself under simUar circumstances, " that no man was ever
written out of reputation but by himself." !
In fact, with the exception of the writer in the Christian
Remembrancer, to whom we have addressed a few observations,
and the Eoman Catholic censor in the Dublin Review, whose
stand-point is so different from ours that an argument on equal
terms is quite impossible, no one of these critics rises to the level
of ordinary abUity and information. And if they had been ever
so successful, the only important question would have remained
intact. For it is a matter of trifling moment whether a parti
cular author has or has not compromised his literary reputation,
whether a particular theologian is or is not deficient in learning,
good sense, or orthodoxy. The main point wiU remain as it was,
and it wiU stiU be said in the words of an able writer, printed
and communicated to us, but not yet pubhshed, "that the earher
books of the Old Testament are, generaUy speaking, compUations
instance, what he says about De Rossi in p. 216, and compare "Wiseman's
Lectures, vol. ii., pp. 175-177.
1 Monk's Life of Bentley, i., p. 16.

THE GENERAL RESULT IS INCONTROVERTIBLE. 261
from older documents, among which may be mentioned the Book
of the Wars of Jehovah, the Book of Jashar, the gradual accu
mulations of sacerdotal law, and particularly the two cardinal
authorities, the so-styled records Elohim and Jehovah, whose
intertwined lore explains the twofold account given of the chief
events of the early narrative " ; that " the Old Testament Canon
was not closed untU the age of the Maccabees " ; and that " from
smaU beginnings it seems to have progressively grown during the
whole preceding period, and to have undergone considerable
modifications even after the Captivity, if we can attach any
meaning to the legends about the great Synagogue, and the
miraculous restorations of the coUected books by Ezra and
Nehemiah." And these being the views entertained by aU
Biblical scholars, whose number is continually increasing, it is
an insult to educated manhood to suppose that any success in
arguing . against a theory respecting the detaUs can affect the
general proposition, — that no ancient literature has come down
to us in a less original state than the sacred books of the Jews.

APPENDIX IV.
( CHAP. III. p. 159).
ON THE PECULIAE CHAEACTEE AND MUTUAL
CONNEXION OF THE FOUE GOSPELS.
When Mr. Stanley speaks of a feature in the Gospel narrative
as affording a " striking example of inspiration,, or whatever else
we may caU the characteristic difference between ordinary writ
ings and those in the sacred volume " (Apostolic Age, p. 146),
he suggests a thought which has occurred to aU reflecting theolo
gians, and indicates at the same time, however obscurely, the
true correction of a common error. That the Gospels, simple as
they are, exhibit nevertheless the traces of a peculiar character,
which is not found in other records of the hves and actions of
rehgious teachers, is a fact which strikes aU candid and pious
and inteUigent readers. But when it is supposed that this is an
evidence of the insphation, which guided the literary composition
of these books, the general impression assumes to itself the form
of a special dogmatism, which cannot be admitted untU it can be
shown that this hypothesis is either the only or the best explana
tion of the phenomenon. Now, the assumption that the writers
were inspired is the assumption of theh literary infaUibUity ; and
this is quite inconsistent with the fact that the four narratives,
though exhibiting no discrepancies which are not compatible with
the honest testimony of four competent but merely human wit
nesses, do not so entirely agree as we must presume they would
have done if they had aU proceeded in an equal degree from the
infaUible supervision of the eternal Spirit. Mr. Stanley, there
fore, has done weU in caUing attention to the fact, whUe'he leaves
its explanation undecided, and intimates that the term insphation
is only a name, which may or may not be the most correct and
appropriate designation of the peculiarity, which we agree with
him in ascribing to the four memoirs of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ.

PECULIAH CHARACTER OF THE GOSPELS. 263
It appears to us that the divine hght which gleams in the
simple pages of the Gospels, the heavenly spirit which breathes
through these inartificial narratives, is entirely due to the celes
tial origin of the revelation of which they are the vehicle, and to
the Godlike character and attributes of the Person, whose sayingB
and doing's they undertake to record. For the writers them
selves, we need no explanation of these peculiarities beyond that
which is supplied by the fact, that they, or theh informants and
authorities, passed some years in close and intimate association
with the Fountain of Light and Life and Love ; and that they
were themselves so penetrated with his divine teaching, that they
could not faU to show its refractions even in the unpractised efforts
of theh hterary activity. The Persian poet said to the perfumed
clod of earth : " Thou could'st not dweU so long with the rose,
and not borrow thence some fragrance." And so we may say of
the EvangeUsts, that although men, and writing, as men, what
they had seen and heard themselves or had learned from others,
they, or those whom they copied, were so influenced by recent
contact with Jesus, so thoroughly imbued with the essence of his
rehgion, that their writings became fraught with the inspiration
of theh great theme, and were virtually the Word of God, for
they included and contained the utterances of a divine revelation.
This, we conceive, is amply sufficient to explain and account for
the peculiar character of the Gospels. But as sensible and candid
writers have maintained that something is requhed beyond this,
it may be necessary to show that there is no need to seek any
other qualification on the part of the Evangelists, in order that
they might be what they are to us. The most recent editors of
the New Testament (Messrs. Webster and Wilkinson : Introd.
pp. xxxvii. sqq.) have urged that the remarkable difference which
exists between the writings of the New Testament and other
compositions of nearly the same age can only be explained by
regarding the fact and nature of theh insphation in its four
elements. (1) Primary Tuition ; (2) InteUectual Eegeneration ;
(3) Internal Principle ; (4) External Influence. " We cannot,"
they say, " satisfactorily dispense with either primary tuition and
instruction, or a radical change of theh original order of mind,
or their conscious possession of a definite, powerful, and adapt
able master-principle, or the action of a suggesting, guiding, and
controUing influence from without. Each of these qualifications

264 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
must, from the necessity of the case, have been supernatural.
And the whole taken together make up what we understand by
Evangelical and Apostolic Inspiration." Now it must be observed
that, as the authors of this theory admit that the necessary or
actual conditions under which the insphation of the Evangelists
had to act, imply that their testimony must have been human,
exhibiting substantial truth under circumstantial variety, and
must have been co-existent with human imperfection and infir
mity, and must have varied with the medium employed, — it is
clear that the narrators are not regarded as immediately influenced
by any infaUible guide, that in fact the external influence is
limited to the facts which they narrate, to the Person with
whom they had to do, to the doctrine which he conveyed to them,
and to the general effect which was thus produced on the cha
racter and disposition of theh minds. Consequently, it is not
necessary to suppose that they were, as writers, selected instru
ments for a special purpose, or that they were acted on with a
view to that purpose in a special manner. On the contrary, it
is to be presumed that they were representatives of the spirit
which reigned in the earliest Church as a body, for it is only to
coUected Christians that the sphit of Christ is promised (Matth.
xvih. 20, xxviii. 20) ; and that any other Christians, who had
enjoyed simUar advantages, might have produced works stamped
with the same unique character. Indeed, the less qualified they
were individuaUy for the work of authorship, the more likely is
it that they derived the pecuharity of authorship, in which they
agree, from the general spirit of the Church, and from the stiU
present influence of Him, whose disciples they were. Accor
dingly, the best illustration of the peculiar character of the
Gospels is a knowledge of the relationship which connected the
Evangelists with the Eedeemer and with one another.
The first step is to inquhe, more accurately than has gene
raUy been done, what was the composition of that first and
smaUest society of Christians, which enjoyed the privUege of
personal and familiar intercourse with the blessed Author of our
religion. It is reaUy a remarkable circumstance, that although
churches have been named, and festivals kept, in honour of the
twelve apostles, and though bishops and priests profess to derive
a special authority from these first ministers of our religion, we
stiU require an effort of criticism to reconcUe and harmonize the

COMPOSITION OF THE APOSTOLIC BODY.

265

original lists of these persons, as furnished by the Gospels
hsts are as follows : — Mark, iii. 16-19.

These

Matth. x. 2-4.
1. Sl/iav Tlerpos
2. 'AvSpeas
3. 'ldKufios S ZefieSaiov
4. Iadvv7js
5. ^iXlttttos
6. BapBoXopdios
7. ®wfias
8. MaTBalos o TeX&vns
9. 'idKU&os 6 'AA(paiov
10. AeP&aios
11. ^Ifiwv 6 Kavavdios
12. 'louSas 'IffKapu&TTis

1. ~S,Iuaov TleTpos
2. 'laKwQos i ZefieSatov
3. 'Iwdvvris
4. 'AvSpeas
5. ^tXlTCTCOS
6. BapBoXofjmos
7. MarOaioj
8. ©<_•/_«_-
9. 'IctKtvjSoy (5 'AXtpalov
10. ©aBSaios
11. 'Zip.wv o Kavavalos
12. 'IovSas 'laKapiwd

Luke, vi. 14-16.
1. 2,1/auv Tlerpos
2. 'AvSpeas
3. 'IaK&jjSo.
4. 'Iajcew^s
5. *t\i7nroy
6. BapQoXofxdtos
7. MaT0a?os
8. 0c_/_as
9. '\6.k(d{Sos 'AXfpaloi
10. 'XifiWV 7,7\X&T7\S
11. 'IoiJSas 'laKW&ov
12. 'WSa? 'laKapiwO

In St.. John's Gospel we read (i. 40 sqq.) that the first nucleus of
these apostles was furnished by the disciples of John the Baptist:
the earhest recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus was given by
Andrew, and another disciple, whose name is not mentioned, but
who was probably the writer, John the son of Zabdi or Zebedee.
Andrew brings his brother Simon to Jesus, and no doubt John
introduced his brother James, so that the first four names in the
above lists — the two sons of Jona, and the two sons of Zabdi —
were the four original attendants of our Lord ; and, in point of
fact, we find that three of these — Peter, James, and John — were
always his most special companions. The next disciple, according
to St. John, was Philip, of Bethsaida, a feUow-townsman of the
sons of Jona : and he introduces Nathanael to Jesus. As Bar
tholomew, i.e. Rar Talmai, "the son of Talmai," is a patro
nymic, it has always been concluded, with good reason, that this
Nathanael is the Apostle Bartholomew, who is always coupled
with Philip. And thus the first six of the Apostles are settled
without any difficulty. We can also see that they faU into pahs
very naturaUy, and we can thus arrange, so far, the manner in
which they were sent out "two and two" (Bvo Bvo, Mark, vi. 7).
The next pah in aU the lists is Matthew and Thomas. But it
appears from Mark, ii. 13-17, and Luke, v. 27-32, compared with
Matth. ix. 9-13, that MaT0atot or MaOdaiot was the same as
Aevlt b tov 'AXtpaiov (or, according to Origen, Opp. i. 376,
Ae/3rjt), and very httle criticism is required to show that whUe
Aefifialot, who foUows James,.the son of Alphseus, in Matthew's
hst, is this very Levi, or Lebes, the son of Alphseus, ©aBBaiot,
who occupies the same place in Mark's list, is a confusion be-

266 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
tween Ma66aiot, the other name of the same person, and Jude,
the son of James, who appears in Luke's hst ; and we know,
from St. John, that there were two Apostles of this name
(John xiv. 22). Eor, according to one way of writing the name,
it would be easy to mistake HD for TID («jASo), and we find that
the Apostle of the Syrians was called «-ijl as weU as «-»?A so
that, probably, a marginal explanation of the name of Matthew
has got mixed up with the other form of the name of Jude. As
this Jude is caUed the son of James, he probably was pahed with
his father, and although Matthew or Levi, as the son of Alphseus,
was brother of James, he is always placed with Thomas, or "the
Twin," who may have been his own twin-brother. At least
Eusebius teUs us (H. E. i. 13, p. 82, Heinichen) that Thomas'
real name was Jude, and there was a Jude among the relations of
Jesus (Mark, vi. 3). In the same way Judas Iscariot, who was
the son of Simon (John, vi. 71, xii. 4, xiii. 2, 26), is pahed
with his father in Matthew and Mark. It has generaUy been
supposed that the other Judas was the brother, not the son, of
James ; but 'IovSat 'IaKwfiov can only signify " Jude the son
of James;" and if we adopt the opinion of Grotius, that the
Epistle of Jude was written by the fifteenth Bishop of Jerusalem,
we shaU understand the phrase 'IovBat 'Itjo-ov XpicTov BovXot,
dBeX<pbt Be 'IaKtofiov, as expressing his office rather than his
relationship ; " Servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,"
means merely " Christian Bishop of Jerusalem, as James was."
Thus, then, the list of the Apostles wiU be complete, and will
form the foUowing six pahs of brothers, or near kinsmen : —
1. Simon, 1 „ T 4. Matthew or Levi, \ * ., .
Andrew, } sons of Jona- Thomas, ^ ' j sons of Alphseus.
2. James, ) , ,u. 5. James, son of Alphseus,
John, ) sons of ZaMl- Jude, or Thaddaif his son.
3. Philip, ) ,„, .... 6. Simon, the Zealot (son of Alphseus ?V
Nathanael, j sons of Talmai?' Jude, his son. * J'
This classification of the first adherents and ministers of our
Lord, enables us to understand the traditions which have reached
us respecting theh divison of labour in the great work of propa-
i To this supposed relationship it is objected that Philip was of Bethsaida,
and Nathanael of Cana,— as if two brothers might not reside in two neigh
bouring towns or villages in Galilee. That cra-ii BvBo-aiSd, hrb KavS, need not
imply the birth-place is clear, from the fact that Jesus, i (mb NoJopeV, was
born at Bethlehem.

THE CHRISTOPHANY AT EMMAUS. 267
gating the Gospel. As far as we can learn, the famUy of
Alphseus, or, as he was also caUed, Clopas or Cleopas (see Thorn-
dike, Gov. of Churches, p. 5), undertook the work of preaching
the Word and directing the churches in their native land, and in
the immediately- adjoining countries. Up to a period shortly
preceding the siege of Jerusalem, James, the son of Alphseus,
was resident at Jerusalem, as the representative of the Church
there. We here adopt the conclusion, that there were only two
eminent members of the earhest church who bore the name of
James, namely, the two Apostles, James, the son of Zebedee,
who was put to death by Herod Agrippa in a.d. 44, and James,
the son of Alphseus, who is caUed James the less, and also desig
nated as " the just," and as " the brother," i. e. the first cousin of
our Lord. We can see nothing more than d priori difficulty in
reconciling James, the Apostle, with James, the brother ; and
whUe everything tends to prove that, after the death of James,
the son of Zebedee, there was only one eminent disciple of that
name, it seems to us impossible that, if there were two in a
position equaUy prominent, we should not have had some dis
tinctive caution in those passages which mention them. For a
similar reason, we are convinced that the Cleopas mentioned in
Luke (xxiv. 15 sqq.) was the same as Clopas or Alphaaus, the
father of James ; and that Alphseus, the father of Matthew or
Levi, was not a different person. But, in addition to the argu
ment derivable from the absence of all distinctive appeUations,
there are other proofs, which have not been generaUy noticed, but
which directly confirm the obvious inference that Cleopas and
Clopas, or Alphseus, were one and the same person, and that
Matthew and James were sons of the same father. If we turn
first to the interesting account of the walk to Emmaus, on the
day of the resurrection, we shall observe that Cleopas and his
companion are described as "two of them" (Bvo it; avrcov),
i. e. of the Apostles and brethren ; and they identify themselves
with the immediate society of our Lord by speaking of Mary
Magdalene, and Mary, the wife of Clopas, as " certain women
of our company " (yvvaiKet nvet if; rjfiwv, v. 22). Moreover, on
their return to Jerusalem, they rejoin " the Apostles, and those
with them " (v. 33). In the absence, therefore, of aU evidence
to the contrary, is it not obvious, that the Cleopas mentioned in
this narration was the Clopas, or Alphseus, whose wife Mary had

268

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.

been one of the first to visit the sepulchre, and who had, as we
shall see, three sons and a grandson among the Apostles of our
Lord ? And if we inquire, who was his companion, this impres
sion derives an incidental corroboration. For St. Paul expressly
mentions (1 Cor. xv. 7) that one of the special appearances of
Jesus after his resurrection was that to " James ; " and whUe aU
the other manifestations, which he mentions, may be accommo
dated to one or other of those mentioned in the Gospels, this is
passed over in silence, unless we suppose that the unknown com
panion of Cleopas was his eldest son James, the Apostle. This
wiU best appear from the foUowing harmony : —

Matthew,

Mark,

Luxe,

John,

Patji.,

xxviii. 1.

xvi. 1-3.

xxiv.

XX. 1.

1 Cor. xv

Mary Magda

Mary Mag

Mary Magda

Mary Mag

lene and Mary

dalene, Mary

lene, Joanna,

dalene goes to

the mother of

the mother of

Mary the mo

the sepulchre.

James go to
the sepulchre.

James, and

ther of James,

Salome, go to
and other
the sepulchre,
women go to
anxious about
the sepulchre.
the removal of
the stone.
2-4.
4.
2.
An angel had
They see the
They see the
rolled away
the stone and
stone rolled
stone rolled
away.
away.
scared the
soldiers.
3.
The women
entering in do
not find the
body.
2.
Mary Mag
dalene returns
to Peter and
John.
5-7.
5-7.
4-7.
They hear
They see a
They see two
from an angel
young man
men, who tell
that the Lord
sitting, who
them that
is risen.
tells them that
Jesus is risen.
Jesus is risen.
8.
8.
8-11.
"With fear
Full of fear,
They tell
and joy they
carry the tid
they hold theh
whattheyhave
peace.
heard, hut are
ings to the
not believed.
disciples.
12.
Peter visits
the tomb.
3-10.
Peter and
John visit the
tomb.
HARMONY OF THE RESURRECTION.

269

Matthew,
xxviii. 9-10.
Jesus meets
them on the
road.

Mark,
xvi. 9.
Jesus shows
himself to
Mary Mag
dalene.

Luke, xxiv. 34.
Jesus appears
to Peter.

John,
xx. 14-18.
Jesus shows
himself to
Mary Magda
lene.

Paul,
1 Cor. xv.
5.
Jesus is seen
of Cephas.

12.
He appears
to two of the
disciples.

13-33.
He appears
to Cleopas and
another.

7.
He is seen
of James.

-

36.
He appears
to the disciples

19-23.
He appears
to ten of the
Apostles.

5.
He is seen
of the twelve.

14 sqq.
He appears
to the eleven
Apostles and
upbraids them
with unbelief.
26-29.
He appears
to the eleven
Apostles, and
upbraids Tho
mas with un
belief. xxi. 1 sqq.
He appears to
seven Apostles
by the sea of
Tiberias.
7.
He is seen
of all the
Apostles.
16 sqq.
He appears
to the disciples
in the- moun
tain of Gali
lee.
6.
He is seen
of above five
hundred bre
thren at once.
A careful and candid perusal of this harmony must lead us to
the conclusion that, although the different narratives rest on a
common basis of substantial truth and agreement, no one of the
writers gives a complete and strictly accurate account of what
occurred. The most striking differences have reference to the
number of persons who took a part in the successive stages of the
event recorded. St. John mentions only Mary Magdalene as
having gone in the first instance to the sepulchre ; but it is clear
from the other Evangehsts that the tomb was visited by several
women. We learn that Jesus was followed from Galilee by Mary
Magdalene, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, by Susanna, and many
270 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
other women (Luke, viii. 2) ; and we know that he was attended
by his own relatives, his mother Mary, Mary the wife of Alphseus,
and Salome, the wife of Zebedee. Of these it is expressly men
tioned that Mary Magdalene, Mary Alphsei, Salome, and Joanna
went to the tomb. And yet St. John mentions only the first of
them. Conversely, he teUs us that he accompanied Peter, when
summoned by Mary Magdalene ; whereas St. Luke mentions Peter
only. SimUarly, while Matthew tells us that Jesus appeared to
the women who came from the tomb, and whom, according to St.
John, Mary Magdalene had left, Mark and John teU us only that
he appeared to the latter. It is therefore quite in accordance
with the other shght discrepancies in the harmony, if, when
Matthew and John say nothing about the appearance to the two
disciples,- Mark teUs us only that they were two, Luke that they
were " Cleopas and another," and Paul that Jesus appeared to
James, he being the son of Cleopas. And it is not difficult to see
why Paul mentions James only. At the time when he wrote
between a.d. 52-59, the aged Cleopas was probably dead, but
James was one of the "piUars" of the Church at Jerusalem
(Gal. ii. 9), and Paul was personaUy acquainted with him. It
was therefore most natural that he should appeal to the hving
witness, as in v. 6 he is careful to state that the great part of the
500 brethren " remain unto this present." Luke, on the other
hand, compihng from the original traditions or documents, would
find the father mentioned either alone or more prominently, and
would commemorate him accordingly. As St. Mark speaks of
Cleopas and his companion as " two of them," and says that they
" told it unto the residue," we are limited to the number of
"them that had been with him" (Mark, xvi. 10). Now, with
the exception of the eleven Apostles and this Cleopas or Alphseus,
the father of three of the Apostles, and the husband of our Lord's
aunt, there were no men in His smaU society. The companion
¦of Cleopas was therefore an Apostle. And if so, it seems scarcely
possible that he would have been accompanied by one of the other
eight and not by one of his own sons. But Thomas was not his
companion, for he did not see Jesus untU his second appearance
to the coUected Apostles. And if Matthew had been the other
wayfarer to Emmaus, he could hardly have omitted to mention
so striking an incident in his Gospel. It remains, then, that
Cleopas or Alphseus was attended by his eldest son, James-

THE ORDER OF THE CHRISTOPHANIES. 271
With regard to the order of the events mentioned by St. Paul,
Dcedes (de Jesu in vitam reditu, p. 168) has weU observed:
"Utrum temporis rationem habuerit non inquhimus, etiamsi
eVra hoc certe verisimUe reddit, at de ejus fide nihU detrahitur,
si non eodem, quo Evangehstse, ordine Jesu apparitiones tradi-
derit." That St. Paul's order does not correspond to that in the
Gospels is obvious, for it is quite clear that the appearance to
" the twelve," mentioned in connexion with the appearance to
Peter (v. 5), is the appearance to the ten Apostles on the evening
of the resurrection ; and that the appearance "to aU the Apostles,"
which is mentioned in connexion with the appearance to James
(v. 7), is the appearance eight days afterwards when Thomas was
with them. It is clear that the appearance to the 500 brethren
was subsequent to this ; and if it were necessary to presume
minute accuracy in the sequence of events recorded by one who
was not an eye-witness, it would be necessary to suppose that we
have not the true reading, and that we ought to combine w. 5, 7,
thus &<p0r) Krjcpa [eireira axpdr/ 'laKwfiof], eVra Tolt BwBeKa
[eiTa rolt aTroo-ToXoit 7rdo~iv], errena axpdr} eTrdva> irevra-
Koo-loit k. t. X., which would also be better suited to the rheto
rical ehmax of the passage. But in any case we must suppose
that the appearances to the two individual Apostles would be
naturaUy mentioned before those to the coUective body, and this
wiU accord with our supposition and with the facts narrated in
the Gospels. With regard to Thomas and Jude, the son of
James, we have shown elsewhere (Jashar, p. 10) that Thomas
" the twin," was a surname of Jude, the brother of James and
Matthew, which he adopted to avoid confusion with his nephew,
who was joined with him in the work of evangelizing the Syrians.
We know very httle of his career : but he and his nephew Jude
are both mentioned as having been at Edessa ; and the Syrian
Christians, who from a very early period were settled in
India, refer theh conversion to St. Thomas, and this has led
to the idea that he went to that distant land. If he was
buried at Edessa, it is hkely that his missionary labours did
not extend beyond Mesopotamia. As, then, Matthew is con
sistently stated to have written his Gospel in Hebrew, i.e. in
Aramaic, for the use of the nations who used this language,
as James was settled to the last at Jerusalem, and as Thomas
and Jude were the Apostles of Syria, it appears that the

272 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
family of Alphseus were the representatives and active function
aries of the Church in the home district. Now, if the son of
Alphseus was the same as James, the brother of the Lord, his
brothers must have been included among those brethren who did
not beheve in him (John, vii. 5). We are told that, even to the
last, Thomas would not beheve without tangible proof; and
another brother of James, namely Joses, is never mentioned
among the Apostles. It appears to us, that this tardy adoption
of the cause of their great relative explains the place which the
famUy of Alphseus occupy in the second half of the list of the
Apostles. The first three pairs are made up of the sons of Jona,
Zebedee, and Talmai; and, on the most important occasions,
three disciples out of the first two pairs are the special attend
ants of our Lord. There is no reason to beheve that all twelve
of the Apostles were selected and commissioned together, and at
one time. The words, which introduce the hsts in Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, do not necessarily imply this; and the first
chapter of John distinctly teUs us how and when the first six
were selected, at a very early part of the career of Jesus. The
statement, to which we have already referred, respecting the
brethren of Jesus, assures us that they did not foUow theh
teacher from the first, and a stiU later place would remain for
Simon, whom some count among the sons of Alphseus (Mark,
vi. 3), and his unhappy son, Judas. If this Simon reaUy was a
son of Alphseus, the whole of the last six Apostles would belong
to the kindred of Jesus, and then the selection of the second
Jude would find some explanation, which his personal qualifica
tions wiU hardly supply. In addition to the distinct statement
in the first chapter of St. John's Gospel, that Evangelist gives us
incidentally another intimation that the first six of the Apostles
had been associated with the Lord for a longer time than those
of the number who belonged to his own kindred. In the four
teenth chapter, three of the Apostles are introduced as addressing
him with words of doubt or question. To Thomas (vv. 5 sqq.)
and to Jude (vv. 22 sqq.), the answer is made without any ex
pression of surprise. But to Philip he says (v. 9) : " Have I
been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me
Philip?" From aU this we infer that the twelve Apostles may be
divided into two classes of six each, the former consisting of

THE TWO CLASSES OF THE APOSTLES. 273
those who had been with their Master from the first, the latter,
of those who had subsequently joined his company ; the former
consisting of men who were not closely related to him, the latter
of men who were known as " his brethren." This view is simple
and harmonious in itself; it accords with aU that we read of our
Lord's connexion with his immediate foUowers, and throws a
clear light on the mutual relations of that little circle. But this
view of the matter would be overthrown at once, if we adopted
the paradox maintained by Wieseler (Studien und Kritiken, 1840,
pp. 648 sqq.), that the wife of Alphseus was not the sister of our
Lord's mother, but that his maternal aunt was Salome, the wife
of Zebedee ; consequently, that the sons of Zebedee, not the
sons of Alphseus, were the first cousins, i.e. the brethren of
Jesus. The main argument for this paradox is the assumption
that, in John, xix. 25, we are to suppose that four women are
denoted, namely, the mother of Jesus, her sister, the wife of
Clopas, and Mary Magdalene ; and then, as Salome, the wife of
Zebedee, was one of our Lord's attendants (Matth. xxvii. 56), it
is inferred that she was the sister in question. It seems that the
Peschito places a copula between the words " the sister of his
mother" and "Mary, the wife of Clopas," and it is argued that,
even without this, we might divide the four women into two
pairs. It is also urged that St. John would not have omitted to
mention his own mother, as she was there ; that there is a diffi
culty in supposing two sisters of the name of " Mary;" and that
our Lord would not have committed his mother to the care of
John if he had not been a relation. Now it appears to us that
all these arguments are very weak. The passage, as it stands in
aU the best MSS., clearly intimates that only three women were
present at the crucifixion; and, if St. John's own mother had
Deen there, our Saviour's address to him respecting the Blessed
Mary — "hehold thy mother" — would have been very harsh.
The difficulty about the two Marys in the same family is surely
not greater than that caused by the fact that both the sons of
Vespasian were caUed Titus Flavius. Besides, they may have
been half-sisters ; and there is a tradition that their husbands,
Joseph and Clopas, were brothers (see Wieseler, p. 673). That
our Lord should commend his parent to the disciple "whom He
loved " rather than to one of those brethren who had been less
eager to join Him, is not in itself surprising. Besides, the cir-
18

274 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
cumistances of the Apostle John may have enabled him to offer
to the bereaved and widowed mother a more comfortable home
than she would have found among her own kindred ; for it has
been inferred by Liicke and others, that Zebedee was in opulent
chcumstances (cf. Mark, i. 20, Luke, v. 10, John, xix. 27).
Our earhest accounts of St. John represent him as a disciple of
John the Baptist (John, i. 35 sqq.) ; we shaU see that this fact
appeared in the purpose of his Gospel, and there is no improba-
bUity in the tradition that Salome was a first cousin of the
Baptist (ThUo, ad. Cod. Apocr. i. 363 sqq.). As the Baptist's
mother Ehsabeth is caUed a relation (77 crvyyevlt o-ov, Luke, i.
36) of the mother of Jesus, there was, in this way, some con
nexion between the sons of Zebedee and our Lord ; but, if they
were more nearly related to John the Baptist, it is quite natural
that they should attach themselves in the first instance to him,
and pass from his teaching to that of Jesus.
It has been already intimated that the family of Alphseus, so
far as their share in the first preaching of the Gospel can be
ascertained, confined their activity to Falestine and Syria. At
first, the other Apostles also settled themselves at Jerusalem. We
hear especiaUy of James, the elder, who was slain by Herod,
of Peter and of John. The first beginning of preaching to the
heathen was made by Peter ; but when the converted Pharisee,
Paul, had joined the Church, the missionary work became the
chief employment of the Apostles. And while James the Less
remained at Jerusalem, and whUe his brother and son were
preaching in the conterminous districts, Paul carried the tidings
of the Gospel over Asia Minor, Greece, Macedonia,' Illyria, and
Italy. Peter foUowed in the same track, addressing himself,
however, more especially to Jewish converts (Gal. ii. 8). John,
after Paul's death, undertook the general management of the
churches in Asia Minor, making Ephesus his place of residence.
Philip, according to the tradition, was settled in Phrygia ; Bar
tholomew is stated to have preached in Lycaonia and Armenia ;
and Andrew, the other surviving Apostle of the first six, is
commemorated as the missionary to Thrace, and the other
northern regions.
We thus attain to a clear conception of the Apostolic agency
in the first spread of Christianity. While the Apostles of our
Lord's more immediate family, who, however, had originally

LITERARY ACTIVITY OF THE EARLIEST CHURCH. 275
been slower in theh acceptance of his mission, remained settled
in the birthplace of the religion, preaching its doctrines to their
countrymen and their eastern neighbours, who spoke cognate
languages ; the original Apostles, with the convert Paul to
supply the place of the martyred James, the son of Zebedee,
carried the glad tidings of salvation to the countries of the west,
where the conquests of Alexander had established the Greek
language as a general medium of communication. The other
supernumerary Apostle, Matthias, who was selected to fill the
place of the unhappy Judas Iscariot, is stated to have attached
himself to the second class of the Apostles, and after preaching,
like them, in the Semitic regions, and after pubhshing, like
Matthew, a Semitic Gospel, to have been stoned by the Jews,
before the destruction of the temple. If the two witnesses,
whose corpses were "in the street of the great city" (Eevel. xi.,
3-8), refer to two definite individuals, they can hardly have been
any others than James and Matthias.1
If we now turn to the literary activity of the first preachers
of Christianity, we shall see that the view which we have taken
of the composition of the Apostohc body, and of their combined
and divided operations, tends at once to explain and account for
the peculiar character and mutual connexion of the four Gospels.
We read that, at first, they remained together at Jerusalem. In
this way we may at once understand those features of hteral
agreement which lie at the basis of the first three Gospels, and
also trace the source of that divine vitality which must have been
due to the recent influence of a close and intimate familiarity
with the Lord Jesus himself. It cannot be doubted that at
Jerusalem, and in the first days of the Church, the Apostles
were obliged to teU over and over again the particulars of that
wonderful history, of which their minds and their hearts were so
full. It may be assumed, with perfect safety, that these narra
tives were delivered oraUy, and often, perhaps most frequently,
when the reciter was surrounded by those who, on other occasions,
were caUed upon to be spokesmen. By this frequent repetition,
not only the substance, but sometimes the very words of the nar-
1 It is remarkable that Eusebius concludes his account of the death of
James thus: iidprvs oZtos aA.76.js 'lovSaiois Te Kal "EXXtjo'i yeyevTiTai, Sti
iroXiopKe? tV 'lovSatav

'It/covs b Xpt<TT6s iffTiv Kal evBbs OveoTcaaiavbs iro
a\xi**XwTl<ras avrovs (H. E, ii. 23, p. 172, Heinichen).

276 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
rative would become identical in the successive versions of the
same incidents : and this would be especiaUy the case in regard
to those instances in which they dehvered to the new disciples
the parables and other records of our Saviour's direct teaching.
As the time advanced, and as the spoken narrative assumed a
fixed and definite form, it would be committed to writing, either
in whole or in part, and in this way different accounts would
come into use in different parts of the regions in which believers
were found, until some one of the original Apostles undertook
to prepare an authentic and authoritative record of the common
preaching of all the Apostles at Jerusalem.
The uniform and consistent testimony of the early Church
assures us that this business of formal authorship first devolved
upon St. Matthew, and that he wrote his Gospel in Aramaic for
the use of converts in Palestine and Syria, to whom this language
was vernacular. It is not difficult to understand why he of aU
the sons of Alphseus was best qualified for this literary under
taking. Having been a publican, probably a custom-house officer,
under the Eoman Government, he must have been weU- practised
in the use of his pen ; and having to deal with the provincials
as weU as with the Eoman officers, he would be at least as famihar
with the dialect of his own country as with the Greek language,
which was his medium of communication with the societas, under
which he acted. The Epistle of his brother James, if it is the
original and not a translation like the present form of St.
Matthew's Gospel, shows that literary aceomphshments of a high
order, and even a great mastery over the refinements of the Greek
language, were among the characteristics of the brethren of our
Lord.1 When and by whom the Greek translation, in which
Matthew's Gospel has come down to us, was first made and pub
lished, are questions to which no distinct answer can be given.
It seems reasonable to suppose that the translation could not have
superseded the original so entirely as it has done, until the de
struction of Jerusalem, and the consequent dispersion of the Jews,
had removed the class of readers for whom it was originaUy
1 The hexameter line in James i. 17, whether we should read it :
iraffa S6ffis Kal irav SdpTifia TeXeiov dvwOev
or 7raaa S&ffis t' dyaBf) Kal tto.v SdpTjfm TeXeiov
seems to be a quotation from some heathen writer. At any rate, the use of
the synonyms S6cris and $wp7iu.a with a slightly different shade of meaning
points to an author with whom Greek was vernacular.

st. matthew's gospel. 277
designed, to lands in which the Aramaic dialect was not under
stood, and where Jews and Gentiles ahke used the Greek lingua
franca, which had been grafted by the conquests of Alexander in
the Eastern provinces of the Eoman Empire. That the transla
tion, as we have it, could not have proceeded from the author is
clear from instances in which the traces of letters in the original
have been misapprehended (see Jashar, pp. 16, 17).1 We agree,
too, with Professor Norton ( Genuineness of the Gospels, i. pp. 204
sqq.), that the translator and editor must have added some pas
sages, which could scarcely have formed a part of the original
Gospel. For example, there is every reason to believe that the
first two chapters were derived from another source, and that the
original Gospel began, like that of St. Mark, with the preaching of
John the Baptist. Other probable interpolations or additions are
the foUowing : the account of the repentance and death of Judas
(xxvii. 3-10) ; the statement that many saints rose from the dead
at our Saviour's crucifixion (xxvii. 52, 53) ; the reference to the
sign of Jonah (xii. 40) ; and the doxology of the Lord's Prayer
(vi. 13). But neither these exceptions nor the effects of transla
tion and editorship prevent us from recognising in the first Gospel
an adequate representation of the preaching and teaching of our
Lord's brethren, who remained behind in the country of theh
birth and told the story of his life and death to the Jewish and
other Semitic converts.
The spread of the Gospel through Asia Minor into Greece
and Italy connects itself primarily with the great names of Peter
and Paul. And though neither of these Apostles, the earliest
and the latest of those who held that high commission, has left
us a Gospel bearing his name, there is no reason to doubt the
tradition that the second and third Gospels were written by men
who had been the associates of both Apostles, and who ultimately
became their literary representatives. If, as we think an English
writer has satisfactorily shown, Luke or Lucanus was the same
person as the synonymous SUas or Silvanus (see Journal of Sacred
Literature, October, 1850, pp. 328 sqq.), we shall be able to see
that the second Gospel was written by one who was first the
1 The phrase in Papias (ap. Euseb. jii. 39, p. 286, Heinichen) : i)pi)if)vcvje
S' ai/Ta (scil. Td xiyia) as r/SivaTo (or 7)v BvvaTbs\ eKaaTos, " each interpreted
the Aramaic Gospel of St. Matthew as best he could," shows that the transla
tion was made by different hands, and did not proceed from authority.

278 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
associate of St. Paul and afterwards the chosen companion and
secretary of St. Peter, under whose dhection his treatise was
composed; and that the thhd Gospel was written by one who
was first the special coUeague of St. Peter, and afterwards adhered
to St. Paul, from the time of his second progress, until, writing
from his dungeon, in the immediate prospect of martyrdom,
he said, "only Luke is with me" (2 Tim. iv. 11). This
view of the matter will not only explain the remarkable cor
respondence between the second and third Gospels, but wUl
also enable us to understand those features by which they are
distinguished. For while the very brief Gospel of St. Mark,
with its avoidance of all irrelevant matter, seems to agree
exactly with our expectations respecting a document recording
the concurrent preaching of the original body of Apostles, and
published at Eome, where a less lively interest was felt in those
particulars, which were speciaUy Judaistic; the more diffuse
treatise of St. Luke — an acknowledged compUation from various
materials — with its supplementary history of the Apostles, and
its other indications of literary self-consciousness, as clearly points,
on the other hand, to the writer of Antioch, who, living on the
confines of prostrate Judaism and adolescent GentUe Christianity,
turned his eyes now in one direction and now in another, and was
able to depict at once the expectations which the Jews had en
tertained and the blessings which the GentUes had realised.
We can see no reason to doubt that the writer of the second
Gospel was John, surnamed Mark, whose uncle was Barnabas,
the opulent and self-denying Cypriot, so weU known as the com
panion of St. Paul, and whose mother Mary occupied at Jerusalem
a house large enough to serve as the home of the Apostles and
the rendezvous of aU beUevers. It seems that Mark was origi
naUy converted by St. Peter. His relationship to Barnabas led
to his accompanying that missionary and St. Paul on their first
progress, as far as Perga ; and though a misunderstanding pre
vented him and his uncle from joining Paul and SUas on the
second missionary expedition, harmony was restored between him
and the great Apostle of the GentUes, whom he attended at Eome
during his first imprisonment, and by whom he was sent with
letters of recommendation to the Colossians. It may be inferred
from 2 Tim. iv. 11, that he visited Eome again during St. Paul's
final imprisonment, though he may not have arrived until after

st. mark's gospel. 279
the Apostle's death. From this period he seems to have been
the confidential secretary, interpreter, and amanuensis of St.
Peter, who calls him " Marcus, my son," in an Epistle which
must have been written, as we shall see, at a much earlier period
(1 Peter, v. 13); and there is every reason to believe that he
wrote his Gospel at Eome with the assistance or by the authority
of St. Peter. That Eome was the place of publication seems to
be a natural inference from the Latin words and phrases which
are introduced (vi. 27, xv. 39, xv. 15, xii. 43, xii. 15). He
refers incidentaUy to the Eoman law of divorce (x. 2, 3). And
his description of Simon the Cyrenian as "the father of Eufus"
(xv. 21), who resided at Eome with his mother (Eom. xvi. 13),
seems a clear proof that the writer was settled in the same place.
Indeed, it has been supposed that the original Gospel of St. Mark
was not only pubhshed at Eome, but written in Latin, and this
view, which is put forward by the Peschito, is maintained by
Baronius (Annal. ad ann. Chr. 45, No. 41), and supported by
the existence of a supposed Latin autograph (Dobrowsky, Fragm.
Prag. Evang. S. Marci, vulgo autographi) ; but we should have
heard of this from Jerome and TertuUian if it had been a noto
rious fact. It seems a great deal more hkely that as even
Hippolytus, who was formally settled at Tortus near Eome,
wrote in Greek, Mark would use the language of the East from
which he came and to which he probably returned; and the
introduction of Latin words would only indicate the class of
readers to whom he addressed himself. That he wrote for
GentUes and for those to whom Judsea and its usages were not
familiarly known, appears from many incidental explanations,
which he thinks it necessary to introduce; thus he says "the
river Jordan" (i. 5); the oriental corban is said to mean "a
gift" (vii. 21) ; it is mentioned that the preparation is the day
before the Sabbath (xv. 42); "defiled" hands are explained to
mean " unwashed" (vii. 2), and the Jewish superstition on that
subject is stated more at length than would have been necessary
for Jewish readers. At the same time we see traces of a refer
ence to or translations from some Aramaic original. Thus Bar-
timceus is translated " tlp.p son of Timseus" (x. 46) ; and we have
shown elsewhere that the uninteUigible Dalmanutha in viii. 10,
has arisen from the Syriac manutha, " the parts," so that the
complete phrase was "the parf;s of Magdala, manutha Magdala"

280 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
(cf. Matth. xv. 39). This would be perfectly consistent with
the universal tradition that Mark was the eppvqvevTr)t or " inter
preter" of St. Peter, and would also accord with the view already
propounded that the oral teaching of the Apostles had assumed a
written form. The statement quoted by Eusebius from Papias,
who aUeges the authority of John the Presbyter, assumes that
Mark was the only writer, and that he relied on his memory for
the narratives which he received from Peter. The foUowing
is the true rendering of the passage (H. E. ih. 39, p. 284,
Heinichen) : " Marcus, having become the interpreter of Peter,
wrote down accurately aU that he remembered, not however in
order aU that was said or done by Christ. For he neither heard
the Lord nor foUowed him : but, as I have said, he was subse
quently a foUower of Peter, who used to give his teachings
(i.e. to narrate portions of our Lord's history), as occasion re
quired (irpbt t^s XPe^a's)> but n°t as though he were composing
an orderly arrangement of the Lord's discourses (Xbycav or Xoylcov,
' histories'), so that Mark did not err when he wrote down some
things just as he recoUected them. In fact, his only object was
to leave out nothing that he had heard, and to make no false
statements." It is clear from this account that Mark depended
upon his recoUection of what he had heard. But stiU there may
have been fragmentary memoranda in writing, whether set down
by Peter or by Mark, and internal evidence shows that these
memoranda were in Aramaic, and that Mark, in accordance
with his title of ep/Mr/vevTf}t, or " interpreter," rendered them
into Greek. Irenseus (hi. 1, apud Euseb. H. E. v. 8, p. 53,
Heinichen), states that Matthew wrote his Gospel whUe Peter
and Paul were preaching at Eome, but that Mark committed to
writing the things preached by Peter, after the deaths of that
Apostle and Paul (jier'a tt)v tovtgov egoBov). Clement of
Alexandria (op. Euseb. vi. 14), and Papias (ap. Euseb. ii. 15),
refer the composition of Mark's Gospel to the life-time of Peter,
and teU us that the Evangehst obtained the concurrence and
approbation of the Apostle. These discrepancies are easily re
conciled by the supposition that an Aramaic sketch of Peter's
preaching was drawn up in his life-time, but that the Greek
Gospel, in which alone Mark could appear as his epfit)vevTr)t
or interpreter, was not published untU after his death.
The Gospel of St. Mark, being the shortest of the four and most

LUKE AND SILAS. 281
immediately and implicitly derived from the direct teaching of
an Apostle, whose sole object was to detail the facts of the Gospel
history, and not, as St. John, to give the discourses and to deve
lope the character of our Lord, ought to serve as the basis of a
Gospel harmony, and should be perused first of aU by those who
wish to learn the mere outlines of the Apostolic tradition respect
ing the ministry of Jesus Christ. For this purpose, no doubt, it
was used by the Western Church ; and we may attribute to this
cause the uniform accuracy of the text, to which there is only
one important exception, namely, the last twelve verses, which
seem to have been added by another hand. Professor Norton has
suggested that the Neronic persecution, in which St. Peter lost
his life (a.d. 64 or 65), may have prevented the Evangelist from
completing his work (Genuineness of the Gospels, i. p. 221). At
any rate, the imperfect state in which Thucydides and other
writers have come down to us is quite sufficient to prevent us
from wondering at any similar phenomenon in sacred literature.
The authorship of the third Gospel involves some questions of
great interest in the literary history of the New Testament.
Adopting the conclusion of the Enghsh writer, to whom we have
aheady referred, that Luke and Silas were synonymous designa
tions of one and the same person, we are able at once to under
stand all that is peculiar to the work for which we are indebted
to the author of the Acts of the Apostles. We are first intro
duced to SUas or Silvanus in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts,
v. 22, where he is mentioned as a leading man in the Church at
Jerusalem, and is specially deputed, along with Judas Barsabas,
to accompany Paul and Barnabas to Antioch, from whence he
starts with Paul on his second missionary progress ; and -the use
of the first person in subsequent chapters of the Acts indicates
the occasions in which he took a part personally. Now Eusebius
teUs us (H. E. iii. 4) that Luke was a native of Antioch ; and it
is inferred from Col. iv. 14, that he was not of the circumcision.
The writer of the Acts was clearly very familiar with all that
went on at Antioch, where, as he is careful to teU us (Acts,
xi. 26), the disciples of Jesus were first caUed "Christians";
and his selection to accompany Paul on his anti-judaizing mission
would tally weU with his own position as a converted GentUe.
The fact, too, that he was a physician, shows that he belonged
to the class of freedmen ; in this case he would have borne his

282 CHRISTIAN 0ETH0D0XY. APPENDIX IV.
patron's nomen ; and the variation between the synonymous
Lucanus and Silvanus may have been occasioned by some change
in the cognomen of his patron. As the name Lucas nowhere
occurs in the Acts, and as the name Silas is nowhere given to
him in St. Paul's Epistles, it may be inferred that up to a certain
period in his life he was known only as Silvanus, and this was
the cognomen of the Plautia gens, though it was borne also by
the Pomponii (Tae. Ann. xiii. 53), Gavii (ibid. xv. 60), and
Poppcsi (Id. Hist. 86). The name Lucanus was not borne by any
distinguished Eoman except the celebrated poet, and we know
not how he got it, for the cognomina of his father and his two
uncles were Mella (a cognomen of Pomponii), Gallio, and Seneca.
The name is first given to the beloved physician in those Epistles
which St. Paul wrote from Eome in his first imprisonment in
a.d. 62. As St. Paul had friends in Csesar's household (Phil.
iv. 22)) ; as Lucan was at that time in high favour with Nero ;
and as Paul and Silas might have made acquaintance with his
uncle GaUio at Corinth, it is not an unreasonable conjecture that
Silvanus changed his name to the synonymous Lucanus in honour
of the courtly poet, just as Paul himself took from Sergius Paulus
the substitute for his former name Saul.
There is every reason to believe that SUas stayed at Jeru
salem, while Paul, with Timothy, Erastus, and Titus, was
making the first stage in his third apostohc progress (vide Acts,
xviii. 22, and Tate, Continuoiis History of St. Paul, p. 198).
But we find him sent by St. Peter with an epistle to the " elect
pUgrims of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia,
and Bithynia" (1 Pet. i. 1), as one who was weU known to the
converts in those regions (1 Pet. v. 12) ; and this letter must have
been written about the time of St. Paul's third progress. As,
then, the first person reappears in Acts, xx. 6, we may fairly
conclude that when St. Paul, with his seven companions, was
about to return to Asia from Macedonia on that third progress,
he met Silas at Phihppi, and was accompanied by him to Troas.
After the proofs which have been given, that the Babylon of the
Apocalypse is Jerusalem (see Desprez, Apocalypse Fulfilled, pp.
369 sqq.), there can be no doubt that St. Peter also used the
phrase r) iv BafivXcbvi cvveKXeKTrj (sc. iKKXrjcrla) in the same
figurative reference. For if we adopt the Neronic date of the
Apocalypse, — and this seems to be fuUy established, — St. John

THE THIRD GOSPEL AND THE ACTS. 283
and St. Peter, who had been so intimately associated, could
hardly have used the same term, and at nearly the same time,
with a different signification. There is really no evidence for
the belief that St. Peter actually wrote from Babylon on the
Euphrates; and the arguments brought forward by Wieseler
(Journal of Sacred Literature, April, 1850, p. 306) seem to us of
very little weight. There is no reliable authority for the suppo
sition that St. Peter was ever at Babylon, and it would seem
most strange that Silas should take this letter to Asia Minor from
that distant city without passing through Palestine, and without
any greeting to the Church there. On the contrary, as we know
that Peter was a leading man at Jerusalem, nothing could be
more natural than that Silas should bear to the Asiatic churches
the greeting of one connected with the birthplace of the religion;
and as Peter's own journey to Eome, the scene of his martyrdom,
must have taken him through the same regions, and must have
been in contemplation at that time, it is easy to understand
why he should address — by the agency of one weU known to
them — an apostolic exhortation to the Asiatic churches, which he
was about to visit in person.
This view of the matter seems to harmonise all that we know
about Luke and Silas on the one hand, and all that we can
gather from internal evidence respecting the author of the third
Gospel and the Acts. We have here a man of GentUe extraction,
and not a native of the land of the Jews, belonging to a profes
sion which would necessarily imply some amount of literary cul
tivation, and personaUy connected with some Eoman family.
This is sufficient to explain all the peculiarities of style and dic
tion which we recognise in St. Luke's works, and wiU account
for the knowledge which he displays of matters far beyond
the reach of untravelled Israelites. But we find also that the
aUeged author, if Silas and Luke- are but different names of
the same person, went up to Jerusalem in the earliest days of
the Church, and there formed an intimate acquaintance with
Peter, Mark, and other members of the parent-society of Chris
tians ; and that he afterwards joined St. Paul on more than one
apostolic progress, and was his companion at Eome at the time of
his martyrdom. This entirely accords with the internal evidence
of the Acts. The heroes of that narrative are Peter for the first
part and afterwards exclusively Paul. The knowledge which the

284 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
writer exhibits of the transactions mentioned in the first half of
the book, seems to show that his informant was chiefly Peter. AU
the rest he may have derived from Paul, or recorded from his
own recoUections. The preface to his Gospel says distinctly that
he had derived his information from those " who had been from
the beginning eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word" (Kadmt
irapeBocrav r)fitv ol a7r' dpx^jt avToirrai Kal vir-qperrai
yevbfxevoi tov Xbyov, i. 2), and this, of course, refers to Peter
and the other Apostles whom he had known at Jerusalem. The
next verse, properly understood, declares that he had been, aU
along, the associate of those from whose teaching aU Christians
derived theh knowledge of the life and actions of Jesus. The
words ought to be rendered: "It- seemed good to me also"
(opposed to the "many," ttoXXoi, of v. 1), "inasmuch asi have
been the companion of aU (scil. the eye-witnesses mentioned in
the preceding verse) from the first, to set them down accurately
and in order for you." That TraprjKoXovdrjKOTi irdaw dvcoOev
must be understood of an association with persons, and not of a
mere attention to things, and that the second adverb aKpi/3u>t,
like the thhd, KaOe^fjt, belongs to ypdtyai,1 may be inferred
from the foUowing passages ; Euseb., H E. ih. 39 : MdpKOt
aKpiftcbt eypaijrev ov fievToi Ta^ei to, vtto XpicrTOv 7)
Xex^evra r) TrpayOivTa • ovre yap ijKOvae tov Kvplov ovre
irapriKoXovdricrev aiiTW, Id. vi. 14: Toiit Trapbvrat irapa-
KaXeaai tov MdpKov, d>t civ aKoXov6r]aavTa avrm
Trbppcodev, dvcuypdtyai to, elpr/fieva. Irenceus, iii. 1 : AovKat
b aKoXovdot UavXov. Both the Syriac and Persian ver
sions, though they take aKpi(3S>t with the participle, interpret
•rrdaiv as masculine, and the adverb dvcodev, like the iroppooOev
apphed to Mark's intimacy with Peter, can only be understood of
long personal and habitual intercourse ; so in Acts, xxvi. 5, 6, we
have: tvjv ^Laaiv p,ov ttjv e'/c veoTr/TOt, ttjv air' dpxfjt
yevofievrjv iv ra eOvei p,ov iv 'lepoaoXvfiolt, laaai irdvret
ol 'IovBaloi TrpoyiyvaxTKOvret pte avcoOev. If the writer was
Silas, he could say with truth that he had associated avwdev
1 If there is more difficulty in taking the two adverbs axptPas and
Kofle|^s with yp&tyai, than in taking the two, avwBev and dKpifiws, with wapT/K',
it may be obviated by reading &Kpi$S>s real KaBeffis, or o/cp. Kal e£i)s; for both
KaBetfs and e£rjs, which appear in no other part of the New Testament, occur
with equal frequency in St. Luke's writings.

DATE OF THE THIRD GOSPEL. 285
with all the eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus ; but he could not
say that he had watched all the facts themselves ; otherwise he
would have been himself an eye-witness, and would not have
needed the irapaBoait of others. Besides, he speaks of compUing
from existing accounts, and this is not the process of an eye
witness. There are many traces in St. Luke's works, both of
his writing from hearsay, and of his incorporating portions of
written documents ; and for both sources of information he was
indebted to his long residence at Jerusalem.
The time and place of St. Luke's literary activity must be a
matter of conjecture. Thus much is certain. Both the Gospel
and the Acts are dedicated to the same person, Theophilus ; and
therefore, in aU probabUity, were written at the same place or in
the same district. And although the conclusion of the Gospel
seems to indicate that the writer had no intention of continuing
the subject, it may easily be conceived that he would, after a
short interval, pursue his labours ; and the commencement of the
Acts refers to the TrpatTOt Xbyot, just as the second book of the
Anabasis of Xenophon does to the first book (o efnrpoaOev Xbyot)
of that continuous treatise ; and as the writer says not irpbrepot
Xoyot but irpooTot, one may infer that he did not intend to con
fine himself to one other book or to stop at St. Paul's first im
prisonment at Eome. If so, he had aheady before his eyes a
longer portion of the early history of the Church, and as he was
with St. Paul in his last imprisonment, there is no reason to
suppose that he commenced the work of historian until he had
completed his participation in the actions which he undertook to
describe. The use of the word dvccOev in the preface to the
Gospel shows that it was not written until a considerable time
after the commencement of the writer's intimacy with the eye
witnesses. And since he addresses Theophilus, as one who had
been instructed in the Gospel by word of mouth (irepl &v
KaTmmd^t Xbycov, v. 4), he seems to point to a time when
regular or formal instruction in the truths of Christianity had
become pretty common. The attempts which have been made
to identify this Theophilus with some individual known to us
from other sources rest upon mere guess-work. It is clear from
the epithet KpdriaTOt (cf. Acts, xxiii. 26, xxiv. 3, xxvi. 25), that
he was a person who held office under the Eomans ; and whether
the place of publication was Corinth, as some suppose, or Alex-

286 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
andria, as Bar Bahlul tells us, or Antioch, as seems to us most
probable, it is a fair inference that both works were written at
the same place, without any long interval between the composi
tion of each, and inscribed to a heathen convert, who occupied a
leading position in that particular locality. The arguments, by
which Townson and others have proved that St. Luke was
acquainted with St. Mark's Gospel, confirm our opinion as to the
later date of the two works written by the former. For St.
Mark did not write until after the death of Peter and Paul.
And this will of course place St. Luke's labours at a stiU more
advanced period, and, by narrowing the limits between the com
mencement of these works and his own death, furnish a better
explanation of the incomplete state in which he has left his
history of St. Paul. When St. Luke died cannot be ascertained,
but the period before which he must have composed his two
extant works is defined by the fact that he nowhere aUudes to
the destruction of Jerusalem and the downfal of the Jewish
nation, as he must have done if these events had aheady hap
pened. No attentive reader can doubt that the Acts, and of
course the previous book, were written whUe Jerusalem was still
standing, and whUe the Jews still retained their national exist
ence in Palestine.1 If, then, Mark's Gospel was written after the
death of Paul and Peter in a.d. 65 and 66, and Luke's Gospel
and the Acts were put forth between this period and the
taking of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, we have sufficiently narrow
Emits for a case in which there is no direct testimony or in
formation. Internal evidence supports the natural assumption
that after the death of St. Paul, Luke rethed to his native place,
Antiooh (Euseb. H E. iii. 4), and there, on the confines of the
Holy Land and of converted Asia, compiled a history of the
events commemorated in the preaching of his Apostolic associates,
or incidental to those missionary adventures, in which he had
taken an active part. It is easy to conceive that having finished
his second book with the first imprisonment of St. Paul, he had
meditated a third book on that great Apostle's subsequent career,
but was prevented by his own death or other circumstances from
completing it. If we are right in the conclusion that his name
was originally Silas, and that he did not assume the synonymous
1 The use of the present tense, in speaking of the Sadducees, is a direct
proof of this (see Luke, xx. 27, Acts, xxiii. 8).

ST. XUKE S MATERIALS. 287
designation Lucas until his first visit to Eome, we can under
stand also, why, if he wrote his history in his native Antioch,
he preferred to style himself by the name by which he was known
best in the place of his birth, and among those to whom he more
immediately addressed his history.
Internal evidence shows that St. Luke was not only acquainted
with the teaching of the original Apostles and with that of his
associate St. Mark, but had access to written documents, which
he has incorporated in his histories, but which were either not
known to the other Evangelists or were disregarded by them.
The important instance is the account given by St. Luke of the
birth of John the Baptist and of our Saviour. With regard to
this account it may be sufficient to quote some just observations
by Professor Norton (Genuineness of the Gospels, i. p. 205) : "I
agree with many critics in supposing that it existed in a written
form in Hebrew previously to the composition of Luke's Gospel,
in which he inserted a translation of it, perhaps his own, perhaps
one aheady made. The language differs from that of the rest of
his Gospel, as being more conformed to the Hebrew idiom ; and
the east of the narrative has something of a poetical, and even
fabulous, character, very different from the severe simplicity with
which he, in common with the other Evangelists, relates events
in his own person. But his adopting this narrative proves that
he regarded it as essentiaUy true ; and he would not have so
regarded it, had not the main fact of the miraculous bhth of Jesus
been believed to be true by the Apostles and other early Chris
tians with whom he associated. Now considering that two, and
probably three, of the Apostles (James, the son of Alphseus, and
his brother Jude, and probaby Simon the Canaanite), were
relatives of Jesus, and that others of their number, as John,
were familiar with his mother and famUy, there can be no doubt
that the behef of the Apostles rested on information derived
from them." To this intercourse with James and the other
members of the sacred family settled at Jerusalem, we may
attribute St. Luke's knowledge of the interesting incident respect
ing the childhood of Jesus, which he alone commemorates (ii.
41-52); and from the same source he must have derived the
account of the walk to Emmaus, which he alone narrates in
detail (xxiv. 13 sqq). We may trace a similar reference to the
authority of the brethren of Jesus in the account which St.

288 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
Luke gives of the final journey to Jerusalem, where he is much
fuUer than the other Evangelists (ix. 15, xviii. 14), and there is
something so hke the teaching of St. James' Epistle in the
Parables, which St. Luke narrates with the minutest accuracy,
and which are omitted in the other Gospels,1 that we cannot help
thinking that St. James must have committed to writing a special
memoir of Jesus, and that St. Luke has literally incorporated a
considerable portion of it. If, as we have suggested above,
Cleopas and his son James were the two who met Jesus in the
walk to Emmaus, and if St. James was the author of the account
incorporated in St. Luke's Gospel, what could be more natural'
than that he should omit the mention of his own name, as St.
John does in i. 35, 40, xx. 2, 3 ? This view of the case throws
an additional light on the preface to St. Luke's Gospel, which
mentions more than one source of written information ; and if
the Evangelist had before him the Hebrew Gospel of St.
Matthew, the Greek of St. Mark, and the memoirs of St. James,
and added to these the recoUections of St. Peter's teaching, and
the comprehensive views of St. Paul in regard to the scope and
bearing of Christianity, we need nothing more to explain his
reference to the teaching of the original eye-witnesses and
ministers, to his association with them, and to the existence of
more than one arrangement of the history, or his care to pre
serve the record of GentUe privileges in the Parable of the
Prodigal Son, and in other parts of his Gospel. With regard to
St. Paul's connexion with the literary labours of St. Luke, it has
been observed that the account of the Lord's Supper in 1 Cor. xi.
25, 26, is in close accordance with Luke, xxh. 19, 20, and that
1 The following comparison between St. James' Epistle and the Parables
recorded by St. Luke only, will show what we mean ; and it will be recol
lected that the writers of Christ's history naturally regarded it from their
own point of view. £t. John indeed wrote with a specific object, which is
echoed in his Epistles : —
The Good Samaritan  (Luke, x. 30)  James, i. 27.
The Lost Piece of Silver  ( „ xv. 8)  „ v. 19, 20.
The Prodigal Son  ( „ xv. 11) ... „ iv. 8.
The Unjust Steward ) , . , ,„. .. „ ,
Dives aid Lazarus )  < » ™- *-«) » ^sqq.,Y.l,sqq.
The Two Debtors  f „ vii. 41) ... „ iv. 6.
The Unjust Judge and the Widow ( „ xviii. 1) ... „ ii. 13.
The Pharisee and the Publican  f „ xviii. 9) ... „ iv. 10-12.
The Fig-tree in the Vineyard  ( „ xiii. 6)  „ iii. 12.
The Rich Man and his Vain Hopes ( „ xii. 16) ... „ iv. 13-16.

THE MIRACLE OF PENTECOST. 289
we have sometimes, as in Luke, x. 7, compared with 1 Tim. v.
18, and Matth. x. 10, indications that the Apostle and the
Evangelist used the same books of reference.
There are very few passages in which critical exception can
be taken to the existing text of St. Luke. In fact there are
only two which can be regarded as probably not genuine (ix. 55,
56, xxii. 43, 44) ; see Norton, Genuineness ofthe Gospels, i. pp. 221,
226. But it is to be remarked that, as St. Luke's works are partly
compilations from the writings of other men, partly the results
of hearsay information, and partly derived from his own per
sonal knowledge, we must regard, in a somewhat different light,
the passages which exhibit the strongest traces of this difference
of origin. In fact we pass sometimes from a sort of poetical
dream-land to the sober and certain testimony of an eye-witness.
The angelophanies at the beginning of this Gospel, with the
name of Gabriel introduced, and the hymns recorded there,
together with similar traditionary marvels in the early chapters
of the Acts, stand in bold contrast with the literal minuteness of
St. Paul's second progress, with the vivid and graphic account of
the tumults at Ephesus and Jerusalem, and with the almost
journalistic details of the voyage and shipwreck.
Considering the importance attached to miraculous endow
ment in the early Church, and St. Paul's mention of the gift of
tongues, in the Ehst Epistle to the Corinthians, we must make a
few passing remarks on the great event of Pentecost, as recorded
by St. Paul's tried and trusted associate. That he must have
derived his information from St. Peter, who figures as the chief
personage in the narrative, seems not only obvious in itself, but
harmonises best with what we know of the early intercourse of
SUas and that Apostle. But there is some difficulty or obscurity
in the account which is given in the Acts, and to which no allu
sion is made in the Epistles. Bunsen, in his Hippolytus, explains
the phenomena recorded as arising from a violent storm of wind,
accompanied by lightning, and understands the gift of tongues
as the result of a sudden impulse on the part of the assembled
Christians to praise God, " not in the formularies of theh sacred
language, but in the profane sounds of theh heathenish mother
tongues, of which the Greek was foremost, as the Sphit gave
them utterance." And a somewhat similar account has been
given by Neander. The glossolalia has been made the subject of
19

290 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
frequent discussion in theological journals. Perhaps the most
satisfactory view is the foUowing, which is proposed by Eeuss
(Revuede Theologie par Colani, iii. 2, 1851). He thinks that the
yXmo-o-alt XaXeiv of the early Church was not a speaking with
foreign tongues, but a higher kind of inspiration, which over
balanced the ordinary reason, and gave in various degrees an
uninteUigible exaltation to the language. In general, aU true
Christians were supposed to be inspired. But there were three
degrees of inspiration, as far as speaking was concerned: (1)
when what we should caU ordinary knowledge (yvSsait) led to
the power of teaching (BiBaxn) ; (2) when revelation (d-jro-
KaXvyjrit) led to prophecy (irpodyqTeia) ; (3) when spiritual enthu
siasm led to glossolalia. AU these are mentioned together in
1 Cor. xiv. 6. That this glossolalia was not speaking a foreign
language, is clear from 1 Cor. xiv. 11, where such a speaker is
opposed to the fidpftapot, or foreigner. It was rather a speaking
with new sounds unheard of before (Kaival yXmo-aai, Mark,
xvi. 1 7), and in languages different from those which are com
monly spoken (erepai yXmaaai, Acts, ii. 4, 1 Cor. xiv. 21). In
point of fact, the Apostles are never said to have spoken in any
language except those which they learned by human means.
And with regard to the miracle of Pentecost, it is clear that they
would not have been charged with drunkenness if they had
merely spoken in foreign tongues, which some, at least, of theh
hearers professed to understand. Bunsen does not deny that the
disciples at Pentecost began with unintelligible articulations,
from which they passed to theh native dialects. Circumstances
mentioned in Acts ii. are quite incompatible with the ordinary
view of the matter, and nothing there mentioned is reaUy incon
sistent with the view respecting glossolalia, which may be de
rived from St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians.
Another important incident in the Acts, which creates some
difficulty, is the account of the conversion of St. Paul. As the
wonderful incident of Pentecost was most probably communicated
by St. Peter, the other Apostle must have stated to the historian
the circumstances, which formed the turning-point in his reli
gious career. Indeed, besides the account given in the historian's
own words in chapter ix., we have two other narratives in chap
ters xxii. and xxvi., where the same event is represented as told
b3" the Apostle himself. It is clear, not only that St. Paul must

CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. 291
have been the sole authority for the story of his vision, but that
the event itself was subjective or at least fuUy witnessed by him
self alone. That he sincerely believed that he had on this occa
sion seen the risen Jesus, and received from him then and there
a commission of Apostleship, is obvious from his own words in
Acts xxvi. 16, where he teUs us that our Lord spoke to him
thus : "I have appeared to thee (axpdrjv o~oi) to the end that I
may make thee a minister and a witness both of the things
which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I wUl
appear unto thee " (a>v Te etBet &v Te bcpOrjaofiat, aoi). And
again, as he is made to teU the Jews (xxii. 17-21), he saw the
Lord in a trance at Jerusalem, and received from him the
Apostleship to the GentUes. He speaks of these appearances as
quite equivalent to the Christophanies recorded in the Gospels,
in the passage referred to above (p. 271), where he uses the very
same verb (&cp9r]) to describe them all. Yet it is clear that his
vision was confined to himself. For in Acts ix. 7, we read that
his companions " stood speechless, hearing a voice, and seeing no
man." And that this voice was St. Paul's, and not that of Jesus,
appears from Acts xxii. 9, where we read that those who were
with St. Paul " saw indeed the light and were afraid, but they
heard not the voice of him that spake to me." If they heard a
voice, but not the voice of Jesus, it must have been the voice of
the only other speaker, St. Paul. We often meet with cases in
which men in dreams or mental confusion carry on their part of
the dialogue with an imaginary visitor, and this is clearly pre
sumed in the narrative before us. Besides, the words put into
the mouth of Jesus are coloured with the peculiar phraseology
of St. Paul, and in one case, the Jewish idea of fighting with
God is clothed in the language of those classical poets, with
whom the Apostle became acquainted in the schools of Tarsus.
Indeed, it is very curious to see how in this instance the pupil
of Gamaliel and the scholar of the Greek rhetoricians appear
blended in the same person. The Apostle had heard Stephen
say at the end of his speech, just before the murderous attack
was made upon him (Acts, vii. 51): "Ye stiff-necked and un
circumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist (avrnriTTTeTe)
the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye." Now here was
clearly enough the idea of a 0eo/xa%w., as the Jews understood
it. Gamaliel had expressly warned the Sanhedrim (Acts, v. 39) :

292 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
" If it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found
even to fight against God " (pfproTe Kal Oeofidxoi evpedr/Te).
And similarly the Pharisees say (Acts, xxiii. 9), at least in
some of the manuscripts, " let us not fight against God " (fir)
0eofj,axa>p,ev). Now it is remarkable that the only two authors
of the strictly classical age, who use the verb 0eop,axa>, are
Euripides and Menander, the latter of whom copied from the
former, and from one or other of whom St. Paul derived his weU-
known iambic line in I Cor. xv. 33. From one or other of these
writers, then, he may have borrowed the word, and, in what he
reported to St. Luke, he may have used it in describing the
speech of Gamaliel or the words of the Pharisees. The passage
quoted from Menander is as foUows (apud Stob. p. 570) : —
fiT) Beoftaxov flTjSe irpojdyov t$ TrpdyfiaTl
Xei/xwvas irepovs ' Tobs avayKatovs tpepe.
Now there is nothing in this passage to explain the phraseology
of the Acts, and the change of voice in the verb is not to be
neglected. If, however, we turn to the Racchm of Euripides,
the only play in which that tragedian uses the word 6eopbax<b>
and in which he uses it twice, an enthely new light wiU flash on
the subject. It is the design of that drama to depict the dis
astrous consequences of attempting to resist the introduction of
Dionysian rites and the dreadful fate of the persecutor Pentheus.
His grandfather Cadmus, and the high priest Thesias, exhibit
the cautious wisdom of Gamaliel. In the prologue, the god
Bacchus describes Pentheus as the person (45) : —
%s 6eop.ax^1 Ta Kar' iu.e, Kal ffTrovBwv aTro
wBel fi iv evxals t' ovSafiov fivelav exei.
oiv e'lveK ' at/Ttp Bebs yeyws evBei^ofiai,
Trcio-iv Te ©Tifialoiffiv.
But Thesias says of himself and Cadmus (322) : —
iyw fiev ovv Kal KdS/AOs, ov tri* BiayeX^s,
Kic?<r<p t' ipety6u.eo-8a, Kal x°Peva,ou.ev,
7roA.i& tyvwpls. dXX' % fxws x°PevT*ov>
kov Beop.ax'ho'w, ffwv X6ywv ireiaBels Stto.
If, then, St. Paul was famUiar, as no doubt he was, with this
play of the rhetorical dramatist, he could compare his own case, as
the young persecutor, with that of Pentheus, and think of the
warnings of the martyr, whose death he witnessed, and of the
wise doctor, at whose feet he had sat as a learner. And when
the moment of conversion came, what could be more natural than

WORDS SUGGESTED BY EURIPIDES. 293
that his thoughts should suggest the words of warning which the
god in the play addresses to the infatuated king, just before his
stiff-necked obstinacy leads him to his ruin ? " I would rather,"
says Bacchus, "sacrifice to him than in my frenzy kick against
the goads, a mortal opposing myself to God" (794) : —
Bvotu.' av avT$ u.aX\ov, j) 8vp.ovp.evos
rrpbs KevTpa XaKTi^oip.1, Bvrirbs av Bew.
Although both the ox-goad (l»^D) and its point (fl-n) are
mentioned in the Old Testament, and though the latter is used
metaphoricaUy in Eccles. xii. 11, nearly in the same way as it
was said of Pericles by Eupolis, that he left the points of his
words in the hearts of his hearers (Meinek. Com. Fr. ii. pp.
458-460), there is no Jewish use of this proverbial expression ;
it is entirely classical, and is of frequent occurrence in the Greek
and Latin poets. It is always applied as a warning to those who
foolishly resist some higher power. Thus Pindar says (Pyth-
ii. 93 sqq.): "It is profitable, when one has got the yoke on
one's neck, to bear it without a struggle ; but surely to kick
against the goads is a slippery course," i.e. likely to throw one
down. Similarly, JEsehylus makes the tyrannical usurper
.iEgisthus say to the recalcitrant chorus (Agam. 1602): "Do
not kick against the goads, lest you stumble and suffer'- ; and
Oceanus gives Prometheus, who is vainly contending against the
superior power of Zeus, the friendly counsel (Prom. 331) : "If
you take me for your instructor, you will not stretch out your
leg against the goads." Chrysostom extends the application of
the phrase to any sufferings which we bring upon ourselves (in
Matth. xiii. p. 454, B) : " The plotter first destroys himself; for
he that treads on fire first burns himself; and he that smites
iron, does but spite himself ; and he that kicks against the goads
draws blood from himself. He who knows how to suffer wrong
and to bear it like a man, is somewhat like the iron, the goads,
and the fire ; but he who has used himself to do wrong is weaker
than any clay." But of all the passages, in which this reference
to "kicking against the goads" occurs, there is no one in which
it is more applicable directly to the case of St. Paul than that in
which it is applied to the simUar thcomachy of Pentheus ; and a
persecutor of Christianity converted, as St. Paul was, to a pro
pagator of the religion, could not have made such a reference
unconsciously, if ho had been acquainted with the Bacchce of

294 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
Euripides; and this maybe fairly presumed to have been the case
with Paul of Tarsus. It is remarkable that in the only passage
of the three, in which the mention of " kicking against the goads"
is inserted in all the best MSS., it is stated that Jesus spoke to
the Apostle eftpatBi BiaXeKTW ; but there seems to be good rea
son for Euinoel's supposition : " Hsec verba serius addita esse
videntur, cum qusestio orta esset, quanam dialecto Jesus loeutus
esset." And whatever we may think of the references to the
language of the Raeehce, there cannot be the least doubt that in
Acts, xxvi. 1 8, we have, in the words attributed to Jesus Christ,
that peculiar adaptation of the language of the Gnostics, which
marks St. Paul's phraseology : for example, there is precisely the
same train of ideas in the iTTio-Tpetyai dirb GKorovt elt <pS)t Kal
rrjt e^ovaiat tov %aTavd itrl tov Oebv ; and in Col. i. 13 : bt
ippvcraTO r)ptdt e'w Trjt i^ovcrlat tov crKOTovt, Kal fiereo'T'qo-ev
elt tt)v /3ao-iXelav tov vlov Trjt dydirrit avTov, where we have
one of the most distinct allusions to those ideas, which after
wards blossomed into Manichseism.1
These examples will serve to prove that the assumption of
literal exactness is not sustained by a searching interpretation
of aU the narratives in the two treatises of St. Luke.
The most cursory perusal of the four Gospels is sufficient to
show that the last is different in plan and character from the
other three. Not only does it abstain, with few exceptions, from
traversing the same ground in the statement of facts, but it also
bears on the face of it a strong colouring, derived from the cha
racter of the writer, and the objects, more or less controversial,
with which he composed his work. With regard to the differ
ence between St. John's treatise, and the three synoptical gospels,
considered as records of the facts of Christ's life and teaching, it
is quite clear that the beloved disciple did not intend to furnish
his readers with a complete and exhaustive history. He teUs us,
more than once (xx. 30, 31, xxi. 25), that he has omitted many
particulars, and that his object was to recount as much as might
suffice to estabUsh the divinity of Jesus. In point of fact, with
the exception of the history of the death and resurrection of
Jesus, which, as we shaU see, forms a distinct part of the work,
John does not repeat the other evangelists in more than two sec
tions, namely, the miracle of the loaves and fishes and the walk-
1 Above, pp. 66, 144.

PECULIARITIES OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 295
ing on the sea (vi. 1-21), and the anointing of the feet of Jesus
(xii. 1-8). As Ewald has pointed out (Gesch. Christus, p. 359,
note), there is an obvious principle of selection in the record of
miraculous occurrences given by John in the first hah of his
Gospel. He detaUs seven instances only ; and, to say nothing of
the sacred and mystical number, to which the detail is limited,
they all differ specifically. We have (1) A transformation of
substances; ii. 1-10. (2) Cure of a fever; iv. 47-54. (3)
Heahng of the lame; v. 1-9. (4) Feeding of multitudes; vi.
4-13. (5) Walking on a stormy sea; vi. 16-21. (6) Giving
sight to the blind; ix. 1-7. (7) Eaising the dead; xi. 1-46.
Nor does St. John's Gospel differ more from the other three in
this limited selection of particular facts, than in the general
impression which the first part of his biography leaves upon our
minds. This feature has been weU exhibited in an able review
of Ewald's Christus (National Review, No. i., pp. 100 foil.),
where it is weU remarked that, while the synoptical Gospels
represent Jesus as teaching only in GalUee, up to the time when
he went up to Jerusalem to encounter the fatal opposition of the
Sanhedrim, according to John, on the contrary, " Christ's inter
course with Jerusalem begins soon after the opening of his
ministry, and is never again interrupted ; successive feasts con
stantly take him up to it ; and we should naturally infer, from
the order of the narrative, that his time was almost equaUy
divided between Gahlee and Jerusalem " With regard to the
colouring which St. John's Gospel has received from the peculiar
characteristics of the writer, the same reviewer has observed
(p. 99) : " It was evidently conceived and executed from a point
of view, in which the objective precision and certainty of history
were less thought of than the subjective development of trains of
thought, which, however truly expressing the essential spirit of
Christ's mission and character, can hardly have failed to exert
some disturbing influence on the apprehension and arrangement
of outward events. Ewald aUows that St. John has used pre
vious Evangelists ; but in such a way that in the free utterance
of his own deep feelings respecting Christ, he supposes him to
set out continuaUy from some radical idea or characteristic ex
pression of the earlier narratives, and to come back to it again ;
and to be thus linked, as it were, by memory at ever-recurring
points, to the fundamental truth and reality of the primitive

296 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX TV.
history : and he compares this expansion of certain germs of
thought, transmitted from the discourses of Christ, which dis
tinguishes the fourth Gospel, with the variations of a performer
of genius on a given musical theme."
In order to appreciate the objects and plan of the fourth
Gospel, and the point of view from which the author surveyed
his subject, it is necessary that we should inquire into the pro
bable date of its composition, and the chcumstances by which the
writer was at that time surrounded. This wiU involve a brief
examination of St. John's apostolical and literary career.
There can be litle doubt that St. John had a house at Jeru
salem, and that he lived there with the mother of our Lord from
the time of the ascension tUl her death, or thi they both left the
city. This is the statement of Nicephorus (H. E. ii. 42), and it
is in strict accordance with aU that we read in the Gospel and
Acts of the Apostles.. The traditions respecting the place and
date of Mary's death are very uncertain. Whether, according to
one statement, she died in the fifth year of Claudius, or whether,
according to another statement, she lived till a.d. 63, or whether
her death is to be placed at a stiU later period, are open ques
tions. The safest inferences would be deducible from the Apo
calypse, if it were generaUy agreed: (1) that St. John was the
author of this book ; (2) that he wrote it in the reign of Nero.
To the first of these propositions we are disposed to assent. The
date of the composition involves the question whether it is a
prophecy before or after the event to which it refers. That this
event was the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, appears to us
perfectly certain. The argument for this has been put in a very
simple and popular form by Mr. Desprez (Apocalypse Fulfilled,
Lond. 1854), and we think that his general reasonings are un
answerable. But the book itself states (Eev. i. 9), that it was
written, or that the visions were seen, in the island of Patmos,
to which, as the title of the Syriac version teUs, St. John "was
banished by Nero Ccesar." He had, therefore, left Jerusalem,
and made acquaintance with the seven churches of Asia Minor,
and had, by his exertions, attracted persecution before the end of
Nero's reign. Accordingly, we are led to the probable conclu
sion that he resided at Jerusalem until the outbreak of the
Jewish war in a.d. 65, when, in accordance with our Lord's
prophetic warnings, the whole Church at Jerusalem, with the

LITERARY HISTORY OF ST. JOHN. 297
exception of the two witnesses, — namely, as we have .suggested
above (p. 275), James and Matthias, — migrated to Pella beyond
the Jordan (Euseb., H. E. iii. 5). That the Virgin Mother shared
in this flight, seems to be clearly stated in the Apocalypse (xii.
1-17), where the mother of the man child escapes from the
wrath of Jewish persecutors by taking refuge in the wUderness ;
and where the dragon — or the Jewish enemies of Christianity
— makes war with the remnant of her • seed, namely, with those
Christians who remained within the reach of his power. It is
implied in v. 6 that Mary lived at PeUa during the whole con
tinuance of the war. If, then, St. John left her when he went
on his mission to Asia Minor, after the death of Paul, and if she
rejoined him at Ephesus after his liberation from Patmos, and
the destruction of Jerusalem, we may very well adopt the tradi
tion, contained in the letter of the general councU of Ephesus in
the fifth century (Concil. ed. Labbe, iii. p. 573), that Mary lived
in that city with St. John, and there died and was buried.
Whether St. John was again banished to Patmos by Domitian,
and whether he was exposed to other persecutions, which earned
for him the title of martyr (Polycrates, apud Euseb. H. E. v.
24 x), it is clear, from the consistent tradition, that Ephesus was
his principal, if not only residence, to the end of his long life,
and that he composed his Gospel there about sixty years after the
death of our Lord. Independently of this tradition, it might be
concluded, from internal evidence, that Ephesus was the place,
and the end of St. John's long life the date, of the publication of
the fourth Gospel. And here the First Epistle of St. John con
tributes to the establishment of this fact in the literary history
of the Church. For there can be little doubt that this Epistle
was written as an accompaniment or introduction to the Gospel
(1 John, i. 1-4); and while the latter evidently looks back to
the events described as though they belonged to time long passed,
the Epistle throughout assumes the tone of an aged man addres
sing a generation younger than those to whom he could appeal
as witnesses of the hfe of Jesus. The term iralBia or TeKvia,
" little chUdren," is of frequent recurrence ; and in one passage
(1 John, ii. 13) he seems to distinguish three generations, begin
ning with his own contemporaries. Difficulties have been raised
1 Origen, ad Matth. torn. xvi. (iii. pp. 719 sqq.), calls St. John's banish
ment to Patmos his uapTvpiov.

298 CHUISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
respecting the meaning of the phrase ecr^aTij &pa iorl, "it is
the last or final time" (1 John, ii. 18), which, according to
some, implies that the destruction of Jerusalem had aheady taken
place, according to others, that it was imminent. Those who
entertain the only true view respecting the Apocalypse, namely,
that it refers to the approaching close of the Jewish dispensation,
wiU see that. St. John's language in speaking of that event whUe
stiU future, was essentiaUy different from this ; for whereas he
says, in the passage before us, that "the last hour is," namely,
that it has arrived, that the period so designated is present, or
on its course, his phrases in the Apocalypse are, " the time is
near" (i. 3); "behold, he is coming, and every eye shall see
him" (i. 7) ; " that which ye have, hold fast, until I shall have
come" (ii. 25); "he that testifieth these things saith surely/
come quickly" (xxii. 20); the events predicted are described
(i. 1, iv. 1) as " things which must shortly come to pass;" and
it is distinctly said (xxii. 10) : "seal not the sayings of the
prophecy of this book ; for the time is at hand." When St.
John says, at the end of the First Epistle, " we know that the
son of God has come," it may seem doubtful whether he refers
to the coming of Christ, as manifested in the flesh, or to his
coming to judge the Jews in the downfal of Jerusalem. Still
less could we draw any certain conclusion from the conjecture
that the title, given to the First Epistle in many Latin MSS.,
namely ad Parthos, is a corruption for ad sparsos, i.e. trpbt Toiit
Bieairappuevovt ; for the Epistle of Peter, which was certainly
written before the destruction of Jerusalem, is addressed to the
TraperriBriptoi Biao-iropdt. These, however, are not necessary
additions to the evidence, which assures us that the Gospel and
Epistles of John belong to the closing period of his life, and that
the place of theh composition was Ephesus, or some other city of
Asia Minor.
Adopting this, which is the received opinion, we shaU have
no difficulty in understanding both the special object, which the
writer of the fourth Gospel proposed to himself, and the peculiar
circumstances under which he undertook his work. That object
was, as we have aheady shown from ch. xx. 31, to establish a
true faith in Jesus as the Son of God. The First Epistle indicates
plainly enough that, at the time when he wrote, false doctrines
on this subject prevailed — there were many Antichrists or deniers

PLAN AND OBJECTS OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL. 299
of Christ's real nature (1 John, ii. 18, iv. 3) ; and in his Second
Epistle — a private letter addressed to a lady named Cyria (Liicke,
p. 351) — he says (v. 7) that "many deceivers (irXdvoi) are
entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh; this," he adds, " is the deceiver and the Antichrist."
The concluding words of the First Epistle show that he was
writing to Christians surrounded by heathen idolatry ; but it is
clear from the whole tenor and subject-matter of his Gospel and
Epistles, that St. John wished to combat some specific form of
error respecting the divinity of our Lord. It is a matter of less
consequence what this form was ; the Cerinthians, Docetse, and
Ebionites seem to be all more or less pointed at ; and there is
also reason to believe that the disciples of John the Baptist main
tained at Ephesus the school from which St. Paul made some
converts on his second progress (Acts, xix. 1 sqq.). This school
consisted, no doubt, of Jews, who opposed the doctrine of baptism
by the Holy Ghost. St. John himself had originaUy been a
disciple of the Baptist, and we cannot read the constantly recur
ring lessons on the Christian sacraments, in the first part of his
Gospels, or the long discourse on the Comforter and his office,
which we find in the second half of the book, without feeling
that it must have been one of his objects to correct erroneous
impressions respecting the doctrine of the Baptist, similar to those
which St. Paul had found in Asia Minor.
Putting aU these things together, we conclude with perfect
confidence that St. John, who, during his long residence at
Jerusalem, must have become acquainted with the Gospel his
tories published by the brethren of our Lord, did not wish to
repeat or supersede them in the work which he undertook so
many years afterwards ; but that his object was, while he tacitly
referred to them for particulars which he has omitted, to dwell
at length on those features in our Lord's teaching which had
been made the subject of special misrepresentation. Accordingly,
he has written a treatise, which may be divided into two nearly
equal portions, and which may be regarded as an authoritative
commentary on the life and doctrine of our Lord. In the first
half, which extends from his brief preface (i. 1-14), respecting
the incarnate Logos, down to the end of the eleventh chapter
(xi. 54), when he arrives at the time of the last Passover, an
account is given of the teaching of Jesus, with special reference

300 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
to the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The second
half contains the history of our Lord's death and resurrection,
with special reference to the coming of the Holy Ghost the
Comforter. This work is distinguished from the other three
Gospels, not only by the features which have been mentioned,
but also by the form in which our Lord's direct teaching has been
recorded. For while in the other Gospels Jesus is introduced as
speaking either in parables or in brief and sententious utterances
of striking thoughts, not unlike those attributed to the Jewish
doctors, of which we have a copious collection (see Duke's
Rabbinische Blumenlese), St. John gives only a few specimens of
this characteristic style, and generally reports the words of
Jesus in lengthened discourses, in which we recognise the pecu
liar language of the writer of St. John's First Epistle. It is
impossible, under these circumstances, to resist the impression
that the fourth Gospel is strongly coloured by the subjectivity
or individual pecuharities of its writer. We must not, however,
suppose on this account, that John has not faithfuUy reported
the effect and substance, and often the very words, of the com
munications made by our Lord to his immediate foUowers.
Although a short sententious saying or a parable may more
exactly represent the form and manner of our Lord's public teach
ing, as addressed to the multitudes in Galilee, St. John may have
given us an equally true deUneation of the expositions which He
delivered to the Apostles, or privately communicated to this
Apostle in particular. The conversation with Nicodemus must
have been learned by the writer either from Jesus or from
Nicodemus, for it appears that no other persons were present
at this midnight interview. And the more diffuse discourses
which he reports, with their frequent repetitions of the same
thought in other words, seem to be the results of an honest
attempt to recoUect the words used by Jesus a long time after
they were uttered. St. John was certain of the meaning con
veyed but did not always recal the identical phrases. He would
therefore expand the idea, as it was in his own mind, and enforce
it sometimes in his own language, sometimes in the very words
of our Saviour. Baur has gone so far as to say : "We must not
conceal it from ourselves that our conception of Christianity be
comes essentially different according as we assume that the four
Gospels harmonise throughout, or consider the differences be-

HARMONY BETWEEN 4TH GOSPEL AND REST OF NEW TESTAMENT. 301
tween St. John's and the three synoptical Gospels as constituting
a contradiction which cannot be solved historicaUy " (das Christen-
thum und die Christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte ;
Tubingen, 1853, p. 23). This contradiction would create serious
difficulties if we thought it necessary to maintain the literary in
fallibility and hteral accuracy of the four writers. But if we deal
with them as human writers on a divine theme, the mere fact that
St. John wrote so long after the others, and with a special object,
is sufficient to explain the differences in question. After all, the
doctrines taught in St. John's Gospel do not differ from those
which are to be found in other parts of the New Testament.
Tholuck has shown (Kitto's Cyclopcedia of Biblical Literature, ii.,
p. 132), that the peculiarites of St. John's Gospel consist espe
cially in the four following doctrines : —
I. That of the mystical relation of the Son to the Father.
II. That of the mystical relation of the Eedeemer to believers.
III. The announcement of the Holy Ghost as the Comforter.
IV. The peculiar importance ascribed to Love.
And he maintains that aU these doctrines may be derived from
other writers in the New Testament. Thus Matthew (xi. 27),
speaks of the relation of the Son to the Father so entirely in the
style of John that persons not sufficiently versed in Holy Writ
are apt to search for this passage in the Gospel of John. The
mystical union of the Son with believers is expressed in Matth.
xxviii. 20. The promise of the effusion of the Holy Ghost in
order to perfect the disciples is found in Luke xxiv. 49. The
doctrine of Eaul with respect to love in 1 Cor. xiii. entirely
resembles what, according to John, Christ taught on the same
subject. Eaul here deserves our particular attention. In the
writings of Eaul are found Christian truths, which have theh
points of coalescence only in John, viz., that Christ is eiKcov tov
Beov tov dopdrov, the image of the invisible God, by whom aU
things were created (Col. i. 15, 16). : Paul considers the Spirit
of God in the Church the Spiritual Christ, as Jesus himself does
(John, xiv. 16), frequently using the words elvai iv Xpiarw.
In regard to the doctrines taught, the difference between St.
John's and the other Gospels is this — that whUe the synoptical.
histories narrate the facts, St. John dweUs at length on the ideas
involved in the facts ; whUe they detail what Christ did, it is
1 See above, p. 62, foil.

302 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
John's design rather to develope what Jesus thought and intended.
Clement of Alexandria imphes this view of the matter when he
says (apud Eusebium, H. E. vi. 14) : that "John, last of all, per
ceiving that the bodily or substantial facts (ra o-aj/iart/ca) had
been declared in the Gospels, and being urged by persons of
influence and inspired by the Spirit (irvevptaTi 0eo<popr)9evTa),
composed a spiritual Gospel (irvevfjuaTLKOv evaryyeXiov)." St.
John's Gospel, then, does not differ from its predecessors in the
doctrines attributed to Christ, but in the distinctness and obvious
purpose with which those, doctrines are stated and enforced.
And it has been a favourite text-book with religious men in aU
ages, because it places before us so clearly and intelligibly the
practical bearing of the Christian dispensation. It is here that
we learn the opposition between the flesh and the sphit, between
holiness as life and light, and sin as death and darkness ; and it
is here that we see that sacramental character of our rehgion
which is imphed in the expressions " hving water" and " bread of
life." The same doctrines maybe derived from other parts of the
New Testament, but here we have them brought together and
taught as distinct lessons. Above aU, it is here that the law of
love is represented as Christ's special commandment, not merely
as the fulfilling of the law and the prophets, but as a new com
mandment, because it assumes under Christianity a new form
and value. Hence it has been reasonably inferred that St. John's
pecuhar phraseology produced an immediate effect on the litera
ture of the early Church ; and Valentinus, the heretic, who
' flourished in the middle of the second century, not more than
forty or fifty years after the death of St. John, not only used, in
his own sense, the terms Xoyot, p.ovoyevrjt, &V' %^j°'?) dXrjOeia,
and TrapaKXr/TOt, which are so characteristic of the fourth
Gospel, but even buUt up a main part of his doctrine on the
position b debt drydtrr) iaTiv, " God is love" (Hippolytus,
Philosophumena, p. 185) ; and when he names the devh
6 dpx^v tov Kocrptov tovtov, "the prince of this world"
(Philosophumena, p. 192), he has obviously derived this from
John, xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. 11 (see K. F. T. Schneider, die
¦ Aechtheit des Johanneischen Evangeliums, p. 36). It seems clear,
too, that even BasUides, who flourished in the reign of Hadrian,
and was therefore a contemporary of St. John, made direct cita
tions from the fourth Gospel (Philosophumena, p. 232, cit. John,

MEANING OF 'BOANERGES.' 303
i. 9 ; p. 242, eit. John, ii. 4), even if he did review St. John's
treatise in a controversial spirit.
When we speak of the peculiar character impressed on St.
John's Gospel, we do not refer to that trait which gained for him
and his brother James a name imposed by the Saviour himself.
It is clear that Jesus caUed the sons of Zebedee, each of whom
was patronymicaUy, and in the Aramaic language, Bar Zabdi, by
the Hebrew name fioavepyet, i.e. B>}"1 i}3, with reference to the
incident mentioned in Luke, ix. 54, where they are represented
as urging Jesus to caU down fire from heaven on the Samaritans*
who would not receive him. The Gospels, and their Syriac
version, render this "sons of thunder;" but the use of the
Hebrew p, instead of the Syriac "U, seems to show that the
words must be used in the Hebrew sense, namely, " sons of
rage or anger" (Ps. h. 1, lxiv. 3), and, in accordance with this,
he teUs them that they knew not the spirit which actuated them
(Luke, ix. 55). It was, therefore, a title of reproach, rather
than of honour, and John, at least, had learned to view his
Master's teaching with very different eyes when he wrote his
Gospel, and the accompanying Epistle.
The text of St. John's Gospel does not exhibit many or
striking evidences of interpolation. In ch. v. 3, 4, the words
describing the descent of the angel are omitted in several MSS.
and versions, and are obviously an insertion, foisted in from the
marginal note of some early transcriber, who wished to explain
the troubling of the water. The interesting narrative of the
woman taken in adultery obviously does not belong to the con
text of c. viii.; for it appears, from v. 11, that Jesus was left
alone, and yet we find, in v. 12, that he was stiU addressing the
people in the temple, who came to him in the morning to be
instructed (v. 2). We find, too, that this passage is omitted in a
great many MSS., and is marked as doubtful or spurious in many
others. Although we are glad to retain it on its own account,
we cannot consider it as belonging to the genuine text of St.
John's Gospel as it stands. It has been suggested by Erofessor
Norton (Genuineness of the Gospels, i. p. 232) that the attesta
tion at the end of the treatise cannot have been written by St.
John himself. With these exceptions, the text of the fourth
Gospel seems to be in the same state as when it was used by
Basilides and Valentinus.

304 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX IV.
From this general survey, we can see that the peculiar cha
racter of the Gospels, and their just title to our respect, do not
at aU presume or require any theory of inspired guidance or
Uterary infallibility. They come down to us as sufficient and
satisfactory records of the teaching and preaching of those who
had enjoyed personal intercourse with our Lord, or had lived
famUiarly with his chosen associates, or had, at any rate, access
to the lost writings of the early Church. Any difficulties occa
sioned by their want of perfect congruity in certain details are
troublesome to those only who fancy that miraculous history
cannot be true unless it is itself miraculously infaUible. And
though we may be firmly established in the conclusion, that our
Greek Gospel of St. Matthew is only the translation of a lost
original, though St. Mark's may be an unfinished fragment,
though St. Luke's may be only a compUation, and though St.
John may have looked back on the long-past events which he
describes through a medium of devout speculation and contro
versial earnestness, we are still convinced that we have in the
four Gospels a fresh and true picture of the words and deeds of
that Divine Person, whose precepts are the guide of our lives,
and whose promises are the sure foundation of our hopes.

APPENDIX V.
( CHAP. III. p. 179).
ON THE DYNAMICAL THEOEY OF INSPIEATION.

While M. Gaussen is so anxious to repudiate the supposition
that he has attempted to establish a theory of inspiration, most
thoughtful persons have been more and more inclined to agree
with the late Archdeacon Hare, that " an inteUigent theory of in
spiration is a most pressing want," and a very elaborate attempt has
been recently made to supply this desideratum in theological htera
ture. We have now before us a volume of 540 closely printed
pages with the title : " The Insphation of the Holy Scriptures,
its nature and proof : eight discourses preached before the
University of Dublin; by WiUiam Lee, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of
Trinity CoUege" (London, 1854). This work is recommended by
the outward appearance, at aU events, of a calm and dispassionate
contemplation of the subject, and by an adequate recognition of
what has been written by one class at least of German theologians.
There is also a certain formal consistency in the development
of the theory adopted by the author, and if his arguments are
neither lucid nor convincing, they are imposing from the con
fidence with which they are advanced and the methodical pon-
derousness with which they are sustained. On opening the
book, we find that the "mechanical" theory of inspiration is
abandoned as erroneous and untenable, and we flatter ourselves
with the hope that the author is about to give us some substitute
for it, which will reconcile the claims of Protestant theology with
the demands of scholarship and science. But we are soon dis
appointed. The preface contains distinct intimations of the fact
that the author maintains, after aU, the literary infaUibihty of
aU the Canonical Scriptures ; and he says expressly in his first
20

306 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX V.
lecture (p. 19) that, "although he can by no means accept the
system, which ignores the human element of the Bible and fixes
its exclusive attention on the divine agency exerted in its com
position," it is his object " to establish in the broadest extent all
that its supporters desire to maintain, namely, the infaUible
certainty, the indisputable authority, the perfect and entire
truthfulness of aU and every the parts of Holy Scripture." This
being the case, we cannot see that this bulky treatise tends to
reheve Christianity from any of the difficulties and dangers re
sulting from the consistent and uncompromising maintenance by
Bibliolaters of positions universally felt to be untenable. We
have a vast amount of verbal machinery, a great parade of metho
dical investigation ; and the result is dangerous Bibliolatry, or,
at best, a distinction without a difference.
The theory of "dynamical "inspiration is borrowed by Mr. Lee,
without any immediate and adequate reference or acknowledgment
(p. 25),1 from Mr. Westcott (Elements of Gospel Harmony, Cam
bridge, 1851, p. 8), who defines the term as denoting "an influence
which employs man's faculties according to their natural laws."
The problem to be solved, according to Mr. Lee, involves two
conditions : (1) the co-existence, in the Bible, of its human and
divine elements ; (2) the fact that certain portions of the Bible
are not revelations. The first condition is, he conceives, satisfied
by the dynamical theory of insphation ; the second condition is
satisfied by the distinction between revelation and insphation.
This last distinction, as Mr. Lee teUs us in his preface (p. v),
forms a chief element in the theory which he proposes, and he
thinks that it has never been consistently applied to the contents
of Holy Scripture, even by those writers who insist upon its im
portance. As the book rests mainly upon Mr. Westcott's theory
and Mr. Lee's distinction, we wiU show, before making any
remarks on detaUs, that the former is entirely fallacious, and the
latter utterly inaccurate and inapplicable.
(1). The object of Mr. Westcott's dynamical theory is to
show that the assumed infaUibUity of the Bible is reconcUable
with the known facts and phenomena of its human authorship.
"If," he says (pp. 7, 8), "we combine the outward and the
1 The reference to Mr. "Westcott appears in p. 142. We are not aware
who first introduced the term "dynamical inspiration;'' but the definition
adopted by Mr. Lee is due to Mr. Westcott.

DYNAMICAL INSPIRATION. 307
inward — God and man — the moving power and the hving instru
ment — we have a great and noble doctrine, to which our inmost
nature bears its witness. We have a Bible competent to calm
our doubts, and able to speak to our weakness. It is not an
utterance in strange tongues, but in the words of wisdom and
knowledge : it is authoritative, for it is the voice of God ; it is
intelligible, for it is the voice of man." Now every one, whose
logical faculties are clear and unclouded, must see that this
dynamical theory of inspiration implies no inspiration at all ; it
is simply a theory of providential teaching ; it merely impUes
that God's providence selected the writers, whose writings, being
providentiaUy preserved, would most appropriately, in theh sub
stantial contents, convey to the world those lessons, and record
for the instruction of the world those facts, which God designed
to reveal. And in this sense, that is, in the strictly Aristotelian
and scholastic sense of the term, we maintain that the Bible
includes dynamically a revelation from God to man, that it
involves and contains virtually the Word of God (see New
Cratylus, § 341) ; and in this sense we have said, without any
reference to Mr. Westcott's phraseology, which was then unknown
to us, that Holy Scripture is to be regarded as the Word of God,
" non carnah aut mechanica ratione, sed quia, respectu habito ad
librorum argumentum, concentu quodam suo inclusam contineat
divinse voluntatis significationem ; quia revelationem, a Deo ipso
consignatam, potentialiter (i.e. Bvvdp,ei), ut scholastici aiunt,
implicet atque involvat" (Jashar, p. 2). In spite of the confu
sion of terms introduced by himself, Mr. Westcott cannot travel
far without telling us that by inspiration he means merely provi
dential selection. In the very next page (p. 9) he says : "Reve
lation, which we may view either as the unveUing of mysteries
(from without), or the enlarging of human intuition (from
within), is not sufficient without the power of expression" (i.e.
the divine is not sufficient without the human element) ; " where
both are combined, we caU the result Inspiration. Thus, from a
Christian point of view, the notion of a perfect Dynamical
Inspiration is alone simple, sufficient, and natural. It pre
supposes that the same providential power, which gave the mes
sage, selected the messenger, and imphes that the traits of indi
vidual character, and the peculiarities of manner and purpose,
which are displayed in the composition and language of the

308 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX V.
sacred writings, are essential to the perfect exhibition of their
meaning." But if Inspiration = Eevelation -f- Human Author
ship (providentially selected), it follows that Inspiration— Beve-
lation=Human Authorship, and Inspiration — Human Author
ship = Eevelation; that is, inspiration, according to Mr. West
cott, is nothing more than a revelation communicated and pre
served by means of the works of human writers, providentially
selected on account of their peculiar (i.e. human) qualifications
and characteristics. The dynamical theory, therefore, does not
go beyond the assertion, stigmatised by Mr. Lee (p 20), that
"the Bible contains the Word of God;" and as a theory of
insphation, opposed — as Mr. Lee opposes it — to any such view,
it is enthely faUacious. It contradicts and subverts itself; for,
professing to recognise a human, as well as a divine element in
the Bible, and admitting in the separate writers perceptible
differences of "natural capacity and opportunities, as weU as
traits of individual character " (p. 24), which must presume the
free play of the inteUect, and therefore the faUibility of such
authors, it invests them individuaUy with the spiritual attributes
of a power " which stamps its unity, and confers its vital energy
upon the whole " (p. 25) ; so that the divine and human elements
are confused, and the theorist is obliged to maintain two incon
sistent propositions, or to fall back upon one or the other ; and
this is just the Scylla and Charybdis of the whole question.
(2). The distinction between Eevelation and Inspiration, to
which Mr. Lee attaches so much importance, is thus explained
by him. " By Eevelation I understand a direct communication
from God to man, either of such knowledge as man could not, of
himself, attain to, or which (although [it might have been at
tained in the ordinary way) was not, in point of fact, from what
ever cause, known to the person who received the Eevelation.
By Inspiration, on the other hand, I understand the actuating
energy of the Holy Spirit, in whatever degree or manner it may
have been exercised, guided by which the human agents chosen
by God have officiaUy proclaimed His will by word of mouth, or
have committed to writing the several portions of the Bible.
Eevelation and Inspiration are also to be distinguished by the
sources from which they proceed, — Eevelation being the pecuhar
function of the Eternal Word, Insphation the result of the
agency of the Holy Spirit" (pp. 27-29). This distinction is

REVELATION AND INSPIRATION. 309
utterly erroneous, and seripturally inapphcable. Every mani
festation or declaration proceeding directly from God, nay, even
his direct and distinctly-cognizable agency in the world, is a
Eevelation, and in whatever way he makes this Eevelation, His
Spirit is present, or there is an Inspiration. Thus, at the very
beginning of the world, " the Spirit of God moved upon the face
of the waters " (Gen. i. 2), when the Creator first uttered the
word by which the heavens were made. When the Psalmist
speaks of the cognizable omnipresence of God, and of his agency
in the works of creation, he asks (Ps. cxxxix. 7) : " Whither
shall I go from thy spirit ? or whither shaU I flee from thy
presence?" And that this Sphit was the same, whether it was
external or internal, whether it was the Eevelation to the Pro
phet, or the Prophet's Inspiration, may be shown by direct state
ments on the part of the Prophets themselves. Thus Isaiah says
(xlviii. 16) : "the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent mo;" and
again : " the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me ; because the
Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings" (lxi. 1). Nor is
Mr. Lee more correct in his assertion that Eevelation belongs to
the Word, and Inspiration to the Holy Spirit, as distinct from
one another. We have seen that the Spirit was present in the
creation, and yet this is expressly assigned to the agency of the
Word (John, i. 3, Col. i. 16, Hebr. i. 2). Mr. Lee does not deny,
but rather asserts, that all examples of the direct agency of
Jehovah are manifestations of the Word ; and he is careful to
express his acquiescence in the article of the Creed, that the
Holy Spirit spoke by the Prophets. And yet every such inspha
tion is described as a revelation from Jehovah. The phrase is
"the word of Jehovah came unto Nathan (n. e.) saying;" or,
what makes the inspiration more objective, we have the peculiar
expression nin* DX3, "an oracle of Jehovah," commonly used to
give a higher sanction and a greater emphasis to the declarations
of the prophets, in the sense : " thus says the Lord." But the
case of our Lord himself, who was emphatically the Word made
flesh, is sufficient to show the error which Mr. Lee has com
mitted in distinguishing between Eevelation as the function of
the Word, and Inspiration as the agency of the Spirit. For not
only did the Sphit of God descend on him at his Baptism, but
he was conceived by the Holy Ghost; and when he is speaking
of the subsequent agency of the Comforter, or, as he says, the

310 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX V.
other Comforter (John, xiv. 16), he expressly identifies the Spirit,
which was in himself, with that which was to inspire and actuate
them: "ye know him," he says (ibid. v. 17), "for he dweUeth
with you (i.e. abides by the side of you, Trap* v/uv ptevet),
and shaU be in you (eV vjuv eo~Tai)." In fact, there can be no
revelation without an inspiration ; and there are only two cases
which we need distinguish : (1) when God reveals his mind or
wiU to us objectively, and from without, whether by signs, or
theophanies, or by the words of prophets — and this is the his
torical revelation which was antecedent to the estabhshment of
Christianity, and was active in that establishment; (2) when
God reveals his mind or wiU to us subjectively, by his Spirit
acting within us individually ; and this is the revelation which is
promised to all true Christians (John, xiv. 21) : and from the
coming of the Comforter, to the end of the world, "he that
believeth on the Son of God, hath the witness in himself"
(1 John, v. 10). The Bible contains that former Eevelation, and,
so far as it contains it, the Bible is the Word of God : it is
insphed, or it is animated with the Spirit of God ; and all true
believers contain within themselves that latter Eevelation ; the
Spirit of God dweUs in them, and thus they, above aU other
men, if not they alone, recognise and discern the Sphit which
speaks to them in the Bible (above, p. 177).
It appears, then, that Mr. Westcott's dynamical theory is
faUacious, for it gives an apparent, not a real solution of the
problem which it undertakes : it does not explain, as it proposes,
how the human authorship of the Bible is compatible with the
infalhble and sovereign authority which is claimed for it. It
appears also that Mr. Lee's distinction of revelation and inspha
tion is in itself erroneous and unscriptural, and, besides, incon
sistent with the theory of his guide, Mr. Westcott, who has told
us that inspiration includes and presumes revelation. Since,
therefore, Mr. Lee professes to contend for aU the results of the
mechanical system of inspiration, and yet fails in the establish
ment of the theory and the distinction by the help of which he
hopes to remove the admitted incompatibility of that system with
the facts of the case, he has obviously not succeeded in the task,
which he has undertaken, to propose in its stead a system
altogether satisfactory. On the contrary, we can find nothing
in the details of his laborious compilation (for the book is nothing

INSPIRATION AND CANONICITY. 311
more) than an attempt to bolster up some of the old and worth
less arguments for the literary and hteral infaUibihty of the
Scriptures. An example or two wUl show that he has not been
more prosperous than his predecessors in this hopeless under
taking. It is obvious that any inquiry into the inspiration of Scrip
ture must depend upon some attempt at least to settle the Canon :
we must first ascertain — what is Scripture ? Although Mr. Lee
teUs us in his first lecture (p. 11), that his investigation is not
directly concerned with this question, we find that it is the prin
cipal subject of his second lecture, which is headed "the im
memorial doctrine of the Church of God," and, according to the
table of contents, begins with discussing " the Canon of Scrip
ture." Nor could it be otherwise. For in making the main
stress of his argument depend on the opinions which the early
Fathers entertained respecting the divine authority of theh sacred
books, it could not escape Mr. Lee's notice that it was necessary
to ascertain what were the. sacred books to which they attributed
this divine authority. And as Mr. Lee is careful to tell us that
the inspiration depends upon the Canonicity, on the fact that " a
selection of certain books was made to the exclusion of others"
(p. 43), rather than on the character and position of the writers
(pp. 44 sqq.), it was the more incumbent on him to show that
the immemorial testimony to the divine authority of the books,
on which he places so much reliance, was accompanied by an
equally immemorial testimony to the undoubted reception of the
whole Canon of Scripture as at present constituted. He appeals
to "that coUection of writings, whether of the Old or New
Testament, which our Church accepts as Canonical, and which
she defines in her Sixth Article" (p. 11). He knows therefore
that the Sixth Article speaks thus : " Sacrae Seripturse nomine,
eos canonicos libros veteris et novi Testamenti intelhgimus, de
quorum auctoritate in Ecclesia nunquam dubitatum est." And he
teUs us that " the reception of the different parts of the New
Testament as Scripture took place without external concert, —
from an inward impulse, as it were, — at the same time and in
the most different places ; and that, with scarcely an exception,
each writing which it contains was aU at once, and without a word
of doubt, placed on a level with the Old Testament, which had
hitherto been regarded as exclusively divine " (p. 48). He claims

312 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX V.
for the Old Fathers " that unceasing caution and anxious vigi
lance, which never admitted into the Canon a single book for the
rejection of which any valid arguments have ever been shown,"
and thinks that this enhances " the value of their opinions upon
every subject connected with the Scriptures, and, above all, upon
the subject of their inspiration " (p. 50). And though he refers
to the fact that Theodore of Mopsuestia denied the Canonical
authority of the book of Job, and of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes,
he wishes us to understand that this was a solitary exception,
and that the low estimate in which particular books were re
garded by him and Luther " arose from the -exalted sense iu
which the divine character of Scripture was felt and recognised "
(p. 71, cf. p. 34). The whole of the argument from authority,
which Mr. Lee places in the van of his battle, depends upon these
statements, and we must therefore conclude, that, as they are
directly contradicted by facts with which Mr. Lee ought to have
been acquainted, he has either attempted to deceive his readers
or has been guilty of inexcusable ignorance and carelessness.
In his Catena Patrum, Mr. Lee does not forget to cite Eusebius
PamphUus (p. 476) ; and in p. 76 he says, " the critical and
unimpassioned Eusebius, aUuding to an assertion that in the
superscription of the thirty-fourth Psalm, the name Abimelech
had been, by an oversight, substituted for Achish, rejects the
idea with indignation ; ' I hold it,' he observes, ' to be alike
rashness and presumption to venture to prove that the divine
Scriptures have err^d.' " To say nothing of the absurdity of
quoting as a " critical " authority a Father who speaks of super
scriptions, in which Psalms written after the Captivity are
ascribed to David, as divine and infalhble Scripture, it is clear
that Mr. Lee allows us to assert either that he was, or that he
ought to have been, acquainted with Eusebius, and that at least
he ought not to be ignorant of the locus classicus in the Canon of
the New Testament, with which aU BibUcal students are sup
posed to be familiar, and which directly contradicts Mr. Lee's
statement that " with scarcely a single exception, each writing
which the New Testament contains was aU at once and without a
word of doubt ( ! ! ) placed on a level with the Old Testament." It
is well known to every student of theology, who has gone through
the usual introductions to the Old and New Testament, that
Eusebius (___". E. iii. 25) divided the writings of the New Testa-

HISTORY OF THE CANON. 313
ment (Tat Br/Xwoeicrat Trjt Kaivrjt BiaOrjKrjt ypad^dt) into three
distinct classes : (1) the acknowledged (bptoXoyovpteva) ; (2) the
doubtful (avTiXeyopteva) ; (3) the spurious (vbda). In the first
class were placed the Gospels, the Acts, the Pauline Epistles
(how many he does not tell us), and the First Epistles of Peter
and John ; in the second class were placed the Epistles of James
and Jude, the Second of Peter, the Second and Third of John, the
Epistles of Barnabas and Clemens, and the so-called revelation of
Peter (H. E. vi. 13, 14) ; in the third class were placed the book
of the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd, the Gospel according to the
Hebrews, and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles. The
Apocalypse was placed by some in the first, by others in the
third class. The revelation of Peter and the Epistle of Barnabas,
which are enumerated above in the second class, were placed by
some among the spurious books ; and the Epistle of Clemens,
though still extant, like that of Barnabas, has, like it, failed to
obtain a place in the Canon, as it now stands. If from Eusebius
at the beginning of the fourth century, we pass to Origen in the
first half of the third century, we find the same evidences of
critical doubt and discrimination. Origen (apud Euseb. H. E.
vi. 25) acknowledges the four Gospels, that of St. Matthew in
its original Hebrew form, the Pauline Epistles (how many it is
not mentioned), and the Ehst Epistles of Peter and John. He
doubts about the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles of James
and Jude, the Second Peter, and the Second and Third of John.
He also seems to have recognised the possibility of a mixture of
the genuine and spurious in a document professing to be Peter's
writing (Comm. in Johann. iv. 226). Going back to the end of
the second or the beginning of the third century, we find the
Fathers generally acknowledging or using the Gospels and Acts
as history (evcuyyeXiov), and thirteen Epistles of Paul, First Peter,
First John, and the Apocalypse, as Apostolic records (dirbaToXot).
And in the middle of the second century, Marcion had a collection
of ten Pauline Epistles and one Gospel, probably that of Luke.
Some of these writings were known to Justin, Tatian, and Theo
philus at the same epoch. We find, therefore, that the farther
we go back the smaUer is the coUection universally recognised.
Whereas, if we go forward, the critical distinctions are more and
more broken down, and the greater part of the doubtful books
are placed on the same footing as the first class of acknowledged

314 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX V.
writings from the fourth century down to our days. With what
face, then, can Mr. Lee claim for his string of Fathers that
" unceasing caution and anxious vigilance," which he ascribes
to them, when it appears that in proportion as the means of
forming a judgment were lessened, in the same proportion the
caution and vigilance diminished also, untU at last we got the
translation of St. Matthew instead of the original (as Mr. Lee is
obliged to admit, p. 525 sqq.), until the Epistle of Barnabas (which
he admits to be genuine, p. 461), was denied its place in the
coUection, and until the Second Epistle of Peter and the Epistle
of Jude were placed by the side of the genuine Epistles of the
great Missionaries of our religion? To claim the immemorial
testimony of the Church of God to the divine authority of the
Canon as at present constituted, without stating that the books
referred to in that testimony were different at different times,
and from a very early period much fewer than those which we
now recognise — whether this suppression of the truth results
from intentional trickery or from mere ignorance and carelessness,
— is neither more nor less than an imposition, which, being easUy
detected, must bring discredit on . the advocate and prove sub
versive of the cause which he has espoused.
But even supposing that the argument from authority were
not liable to this fatal objection, it would stiU remain to be shown
that S. Chrysostom, S. Jerome, S. Gregory, and the other writers
whom Mr. Lee decorates with this prefix of veneration, were
themselves infaUible, and therefore competent to transfer this
character to the books, which they quote as divine. For Mr.
Lee's theory presumes that a book is inspired, because it is
Canonical, i.e. recognised by the early Church, not that it is
Canonical, i.e. so recognised, because it is inspired. Now we are
so far from accepting the dictum of a Father of the Church as
infaUible on this or on any other subject, that we are disposed to
question theh human judgment and to doubt their criticisms on
independent grounds. It is obvious, in fact, that they were
extremely unsafe guides in very many particulars. With regard
to the inspiration of the Scriptures, it is by no means certain in
what sense they understood the term. Both Clement of Alex
andria and Origen regarded the divine or spiritual element in
Scripture as belonging to the inner meaning, which they often
sought by mystical and allegorical interpretation. They could

FUTILITY OF CITING THE FATHERS. 315
not, therefore, have asserted that inspiration amounted to literary
infaUibUity. In using the terms 6ebirvevo-T0t, Beta itmrvola,
ipLTrvebptevot, and the like, it must be presumed that these
-writers referred tacitly to the weU-known passage (2 Tim.
iii. 16); and Clemens of Alexandria, (a.d. 200), Origen (a.d.
230), Euffinus (a.d. 390), and one at least of the later Fathers,
John of Damascus (a.d. 730), expressly cite that passage so
as to imply that Qebirvevo-TOt is an epithet and not a predi
cate (see above, p. 172). But there is nothing to show that
they attached any definite and precise meaning to the term ;
and certainly they did not anticipate the audacity of Mr. Lee,
who attributes to St. Paul the substantive deoirvevo-Tla (p. 80 :
" The word Inspiration, or, as St. Paul terms it, Theopneustia.")
If St. Paul had used this substantive, instead of a mere epithet,
we should have been better able to ascertain what he meant by
it : as he did not use it, Mr. Lee's inaccuracy, if intentional,
deserves a grave rebuke ; for, however easily it may be exposed
and corrected, it told Mr. Lee's less attentive hearers, that the
text of Scripture contains a word equal at least to inspiration,
and therefore that the thing, for which he contends, had received
Apostohc recognition. The fact is that neither Apostles nor
Fathers have used such a word ; and the epithet, which they
apply, can only mean that the Bible is the Word of God because
it is inbreathed or animated by God, because it contains and
records substantially a revelation from God to man.
The book before us presents many examples of the convenient
logic, which begs the question, or reasons in a circle, or draws a
conclusion d priori. Mr. Lee is careful to teU us that "the
adducing arguments from Scripture itself, in proof of its own
inspiration, is no petitio principii. It would only become so,"
he says, " were we to assume the fact of its inspiration in order
to infer therefrom the credibility of its contents" (p. 92). But
Mr. Lee does more than this. He cites the sacred writers as
infallible testimonies for the fact that they were infalhble ; and
this is "begging the question," or assuming the conclusion which
he desires to establish. If it should be said that his petitio
principii is not confined to a single proposition, but expanded
into a lengthened argument, we may refer him to his own Arch
bishop, Dr. Whately, who will tell him that reasoning in a
circle is only a more plausible form of the same faUacy. When

316 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX V.
he says (p. 93), "we do not, at starting, beheve what is con
tained in the Bible, because it is inspired ; but, having previously
established its claims to our belief, we are fully entitled to draw
our main argument for its insphation from its own pages," he
endeavours to make a distinction without a difference ; for he
knows very well that the statement of a writer's belief that he
was inspired by God might be erroneous, and yet he might
believe so ; that his credibility would not be affected by his unin
tentional error, whatever occasioned it, unless by credibility we
mean infaUibUity, which is the thing to be proved. Mr. Lee's
argument, when reduced to its elements, is simply this : the
sacred writers claim inspiration ; but they were inspired ; there
fore they are infaUible witnesses to their own infaUibUity. Of
Mr. Lee's d priori reasoning, we have an example in his sixth
lecture, in which he tells us (p. 250) that " there is the highest
possible presumption, a priori, that a certain degree of divine
assistance has been superadded (in the Bible), for the purpose of
enabling the authors of this record to compose their narratives
with perfect accuracy, and to transmit the Eevelation to others
in its original purity." He adds (p. 251) : " Without such super
human guidance it is inexplicable, considering the contents of
the Bible, that just so much should have been placed on record,
and no more. Were we to admit that any portion of Scripture
has resulted from the unaided exercise of human judgment, or of
human faculties, it would always be possible to argue that the
historian has omitted much information which it concerns us to
know, or that he has preserved many facts which are trivial or
unnecessary ; that he has but partially or imperfectly handed
down the communication from heaven; that such or such a fact
has not been reported with accuracy ; or, in fine, that some par
ticular expression or doctrine has not been conveyed to us as God
intended : — especiaUy in cases where the subject-matter of the
narrative appears strange, or opposed to human preconceptions.
If we had never heard of the difficulties which have been urged
against Inspiration — if we had never opened the Scriptures them
selves — could the suspicion have ever occurred to any fah mind,
that God may have thus left to all the chances of human falli
bility the history of that Eevelation which (it is assumed) He
has given to His creatures, instructing them in theh duties, and
unfolding to them his decrees ?" Now it certainly appears to us

THE PRESUMPTUOUS PRESUMPTION. 317
that this presumption, to which Mr. Lee attaches so much im
portance, is in the highest degree presumptuous. For what right
have we to argue from our own preconceptions as to what God,
in His infinite wisdom, might have been pleased to do or leave
undone ? And even if we could, with propriety, adopt this
argument, the result would be the very reverse of that for which
Mr. Lee contends. For if we were entitled to assume that God
must have left us an infallible record of His revelations, we should
assume, on the same principle, that the record must have been
free from ambiguity or contradiction : we should, therefore, d
priori, conclude that we cannot have such an infalhble record in
the historical books of the Old Testament, which are confessedly
a patch- work compUation from older works, now lost ; we should
expect that the history of Jesus Christ would be preserved in
some single document, and we should be unable to recognise any
thing but human authorship in four distinct treatises, one of
them the translation of a lost original, and aU of them presenting
discrepancies more or less serious ; and the presumption of super
natural guidance would seem to us contradicted by the fact that
books, which the early Church regarded with suspicion and
doubt, have been invested by the later Church with the attributes
of divine authority. But supposing that we were to acquiesce in
Mr. Lee's presumption a priori, it would be impossible for us to
deny its application to any writing which seemed essential to the
defence or promotion of Christianity. For example, there are
some persons who think that a valid theory of insphation is the
great want of Christianity in these latter days : if so, " there is
the highest possible presumption, d priori," that God would not
leave this wantunsupplied. Now the Christian Remembrancer told
us (October, 1 854, p. 506) that Mr. Lee's book was " the theological
book of the quarter " ; and Mr. Lee, perhaps, wiU not con
trovert that opinion. Therefore Mr. Lee must have had "a
certain degree of divine assistance " to enable him to compose
his work " with perfect accuracy;" and " without such super
human guidance it would be inexplicable that just so much"
argument should have been advanced by him " and no more."
" Were we to admit that any portion of" Mr. Lee's book "has
resulted from the unaided exercise of human judgment, or human
faculties, it would always be possible to argue that" he has
"omitted much information" respecting the Canon " which it

318 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX Y.
concerns us to know, that such or such a fact has not been
reported with accuracy;" or, in general, that he has done
something or other which proves his human fallibility, — not to
say, his human disingenuousness. If this argument wUl not
prove that Mr. Lee deserves to be canonized, it is equaUy worth
less in a theory which attempts to teU us " the nature and proof
of the Insphation of Holy Scripture."
Whatever success might have attended Mr. Lee's attempts to
reconcile the human with the divine element in the Bible by a
theory of dynamical inspiration, to prove the inspiration of the
authors by the testimony of the Church or their own declarations,
and to reason d priori from the presumed exigencies of the case,
it is quite clear that he must have failed to estabhsh "the divine
authority, the infallible certainty, and the entire truthfulness of
every part of Scripture ; " that, in fact, he must have left the
most important part of his task unperformed, if he had not
attempted at least to dispose of the discrepancies "not merely
apparent but real," both as between Scripture and Scripture,
and as between Scripture and the facts of history and physical
science, which the warmest advocates of Christianity have not
faUed to recognise and admit. Accordingly, he has devoted to
this subject his eighth and last lecture. And here his procedure
is characterised by aU his usual pecuharities of reasoning. He
confines himself to three classes of objections : I. that the sacred
writers contradict each other ; II. that the statements of Scripture
contradict those of profane history ; III. that the statements of
Scripture are often at variance with the results of 'science.
(I). To the first of these objections Mr. Lee opposes a principle
started by Augustine (p. 384) and set forth by Mr. Eogers
(Edinb. Rev. Oct. 1849, p. 352), that "wherever an objection is
founded on an apparent contradiction between two statements,
it is sufficient to show any possible way in which the statements
may be reconcUed, whether the true one or not." Mr. Eogers'
argument has been weU exposed by an able writer in the Journal
of Sacred Literature (April, 1850, pp. 456 sqq.), who has shown
that it is pervaded by " the faUacy of attributing objections to
the proofs, which do in reality, on the plenary hypothesis, lie
against the thing to be proved." Every aUeged discrepancy
remains as an invincible objection to the doctrine of infaUibihty
until it is removed ; and the onus probandi rests with the party

SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES. 319
who maintains that the discrepancy is not real but apparent only.
(II). Mr. Lee tests the second objection by the examination of a
particular case, in which it has not been sustained, and argues
from this example that the Christian apologist may always
deprecate the precipitancy of criticism, and appeal to our igno
rance of the whole of the case and to the possible accumulation
of further evidence explanatory of the facts (p. 397). If this
argument were to be admitted as generally apphcable, a pre
judice or presumption would always supersede and overrule aU
evidence ; for it would always be argued that we did not know
all the facts which might have transpired, if all the possible
evidence had been forthcoming ; and thus a judgment, whether
critical or forensic, resting on evidence before us, would become
impossible. The world does not generaUy act on this principle,
and the case of Bibhcal infallibility wiU not be remanded to give
time for the production of more favourable witnesses. If there
were no other reason for refusing to suspend judgment, it would
be sufficient to say that increase of knowledge has not hitherto
been favourable to Bibliolatry. The discovery of the key to
Egyptian hieroglyphics and its consequences have overthrown
the supposed Hebrew chronology; and critical investigation
tends more and more to weaken our reliance on the Masoretic
compilers. On the other hand, partial confirmations only
strengthen our general behef in the credibUity of ancient his
tory, and do not affect the exclusive claims of Mr. Lee and his
school. (HI)- In dealing with the third objection, Mr. Lee
speaks as if it were stiU possible to doubt that the sacred writers
exhibit ignorance and error in regard to the discovered facts of
physical science. Assuming the infaUibUity of the Bible on this
as on other subjects, he thinks that in every case of apparent
discrepancy we must either suppose that the Bibhcal text means
what science has discovered, or that science in the particular
instance is founded on an imperfect or erroneous induction
(p. 408). If we beg the question as to the infallibility of Scrip
ture, this must of course be the procedure, with what result to
the faith of inteUigent and weU-informed men it needs no great
enlightenment to predict. It seems, however, that Mr. Lee is not
very certain as to his own meaning here : whUe he teUs us that
Scripture is as infalhble in regard to physical science as in regard
to other matters, he warns us that " they who seek in the

320 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX V.
announcements of Scripture for positive information on matters
appertaining to natural science wiU ever seek in vain" (p. 411).
These statements appear to us hreconcUable, except on the sup
position that Scripture has never spoken distinctly on matters
appertaining to physical science. The mere fact that Scripture
speaks of a solid firmament with a mass of water above it and
windows through which the rain descended (Gen. vii. 11, viii. 2),
to say nothing of the rainbow, which did not appear until after
the Flood (ix. 13), would be sufficient to show that the Bible does
make positive and at the same time erroneous statements in such
matters. A writer in a periodical, which is not supposed to make
unnecessary concessions in questions of authority, and which Mr.
Lee quotes in support of his own views (p. 408), speaks thus of
Sh David Brewster's attempt to prove from Scripture that there
are more worlds than one (Christian Remembrancer, January,
1855, p. 78): "He retains the antiquated notion that every
syUable of the Bible is not only verbaUy — literaUy — inspired,
but was intended to teach men astronomy and general science as
weU as godliness. We are loath," adds the writer, " to speak
with severity of blunders and prejudices which are based on a
devout feeling of reverence for God's Word ; but the knowledge
of the age is beyond such servile notions as some which our
northern philosopher advances, and he may rest assured that the
devotion of which ignorance is the parent needs no lamentation
over its fall." The union between science and faith, " which
ought to be self-sufficient, but which ignorant bigotry is per
petually endeavouring to disturb," does not depend on " mutual
concessions or a feigned reconciliation" (New Cratylus, § 43),
but on the simple fact that their provinces are different, and that
the Bible, which contains the substance of an infaUible revela
tion for the latter, is human and fallible in regard to the former.
This, however, is inconsistent with Mr. Lee's view of the inspi
ration of scripture, and he cannot accept this solution of the diffi
culty without relinquishing all that he contends for, and falling
back on the view advocated in the text, and strongly and clearly
exhibited by the able author in the Journal of Sacred Literature,
to whom we have already referred. After stating that Mr. Eogers'
admission of the existence of real discrepancies may weU supply
the place of any proof of the position that errors do really exist
in the Bible in regard to all secular subjects, and consequently

LIMITS OF INSPIRATION. 321
that there is but one subject (being of a wholly different kind)
in reference to which an attempt can be made to maintain within
certain hmits its absolute immunity from error, and that this one
subject is, of course, Eeligion, that writer proceeds (pp. 455,
456) : " It is of this alone — using the term here to denote the
grand scheme of salvation as gradually developed through the
whole Bible, including the fundamental principles of the Gos
pel, and the previous dispensations, so far as they were pre
paratory for, and introductory to, the Gospel, — that we can
predicate a worthy end, a superior wisdom, an absolute truth,
and a perfect inteUigibility. For this only, therefore, do we, or
can we, claim Divine Inspiration. And what need we more ?
If we have in the Bible a divine rule of faith and practice, what
more can we desire, or can it be more fitting in God to give ?
Why should we not rest satisfied with maintaining, to the con
viction of inteUigent and unprejudiced minds, namely, that the
Bible contains a Divine Eevelation — not that it is, as a whole,
the Eevelation — that the whole inspired Word of God is in that
book, though not the whole of that book is the Inspired Word ;
that the Bible, in respect of the truth, — but of this alone, — ' has
God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any
admixture of error, for its subject matter ; ' that ' the Bible, and
nothing but the Bible, is the medium of historical revelation ; '
that 'Holy Scripture contains aU things necessary to salvation,'
and ' was given by Inspiration of God,' though aU things con
tained in it are neither necessary to salvation, nor were given by
Inspiration of God." In this sense, and no other, can we under
stand the proposition, to which Mr. Lee justly attaches so much
importance, and which he places at the beginning of his whole
inquiry, namely, that the Bible contains a human as weU as a
divine element, which is the same as saying that, in one respect,
it is fallible, in the other respect, not liable to error ; for M.
Gaussen's paradox (Theopneustia, p. 304) that "the Scripture is
entirely the word of man, and it is also wholly the Word of
God," has been well declared by the author quoted above (u. s.
p. 463) to be " even more absurd than to affirm that A having
written a history abounding with mistakes and inaccuracies,
which B had corrected, the work given to the public was
whoUy the composition of A, and also whoUy that of B : " and
the same stricture applies to Mr. Lee's statement, that the
21

322 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX V.
human element in the Bible was rendered divine by dynamical
inspiration. Since, therefore, Mr. Lee has contended for results identical
with those of the mechanical theory which he begins by aban
doning as untenable, since he makes Christianity responsible for
these results, and endeavours to estabhsh them by a faUacious
theory, by erroneous distinctions, and by nugatory reasonings,
which are eashy exposed and confuted, his elaborate work must
be added to the number of those which, attempting to invest
human opinions with the attributes of divine truth, contribute
directly to the triumphs of unbehef.

APPENDIX VI.
(CHAP. III. p. 185).
ON THE UNCHEISTIAN SPIEIT OF BIBLIOLATEY.

In addition to the dangers which Christianity incurs from
the untenable propositions on which it is made to depend by
the advocates of mechanical inspiration, it receives stiU greater
damage from the unchristian spirit in which that theory is main
tained and propagated. An Apostle has warned us not to believe
every spirit, but to " try the spirits whether they be of God "
(1 John, iv. 1), and the only touchstone is that Christian love,
which-it is the main object of our religion to promote. When
ever, therefore, we discern a spirit of violence or malignity in the
conduct of those who advocate particular doctrines as essential
to Christianity, we must conclude either that we have to do with
a false prophet, or that Christian faith is not that and that only
which worketh by love. As long as our religion retains its vital
and essential characteristics, the true believer will necessarUy
adopt the former of these alternatives, and wiU receive with
additional doubt any tenets which are maintained by personal
malignity and intolerance.
The dogma of an infaUible book, like that of an infallible
Church, is felt to be weak and incapable of recommending itself
to the calm judgment and reason of man. We find, therefore,
that its advocates, like those of the Eomanistic system, are
obhged to substitute violence for argument, and to attack the
person when they cannot grapple with the facts. The examples
of Calvin at Geneva, of Knox in Scotland, and of the Puritans in
England, are sufficient to show that Bibholatry would support
itself by direct persecution if it had the power. But as Pro
testantism is generally connected with popular institutions this

324 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
interference with the liberty of the subject is generaUy impos
sible, and the freedom of the press is therefore abused for the
purpose of doing such injury to the character, prospects, and
social position of the opponent as may be sufficient to punish or
intimidate all gainsayers. How the press is the instrument, and
libellous personality the mode, of this Bibliolatrous inquisition
and persecution, wiU be best shown by an examination of the
cases mentioned in the text.
We have had in these latter days two self-appointed apostles
of Bibholatry, Eobert Haldane and his brother James Alexander.
They appear to have been men of limited understanding, harsh
temper, and gloomy but enthusiastic disposition. If the tenden
cies, which they manifested, had been carried a httle farther in
the same direction, it would have been a case of monomania in
at least one of the two brothers. As it was, theh persevering
energy and unity of purpose made them conspicuous personages
in the religious world ; and, as men of devotion and courage, they
would have deserved a recognition for that greatness which is
generally connected with strength of will, if their zeal had been
more tempered with discretion, and if their sense of duty had
not led them to actions at variance with that gentleness and
brotherly kindness which the Gospel enjoins, and without which
aU other gifts are valueless.
The unchristian harshness of these twin apostles of Bibholatry
has been admitted by the Exeter Hall panegyrist, who has
undertaken to exhibit them in a kind of apotheosis for the
instruction of "the Young Men's Christian Association." It
wiU illustrate the sphit of Bibholatry, if we consider the terms
in which this orator endeavours to palhate the charge from which
he cannot acquit the subjects of his eulogium (" The Haldanes :
a Lecture by the Eev. W. Landels, of Birmingham, dehvered
before the Young Men's Christian Association, in Exeter HaU,
Dec. 6, 1853"): "To some," he says (p. 147), "their regard
for Scripture wiU appear to approach, if it do not pass the verge
of, BibUolatry. And it must be confessed that, in contending
for the letter, they did not always breathe the spirit of the Word.
From dangers, real or imaginary, Eobert, in particular, defended
it with a degree of asperity, which a more inteUigent regard
would have sufficed to prevent. Too readily, as we think, he
raised the cry of danger, and rushed to the rescue with feelings

THE HALDANES. 325
proportioned in strength to his estimate of the thing at stake ;
whhe the means he employed for its protection were frequently
not less inappropriate than the interference was uncaUed for.
He does not seem to have learned that the character of the Bible
is its best defence, and that ' the wrath of man worketh not the
righteousness of God.' His connexion with the controversy be
tween Drs. Carson and Pye Smith may be referred to as an
Ulustration of this part of his character ; and similar feelings
were also manhested in the manner in which both brothers
dogmaticaUy censured and vhtuaUy unchristianised men who,
revering the Bible not less than they, conscientiously objected
to theh interpretation of its contents." This expression of dis
approval leaves nothing to be desired ; but the panegyrist un
fortunately adds : "On these unamiable manifestations of feehng
I am disposed to look lightly. Jealousy for the Word of God is
so valuable a virtue, and so much needed now, that we should
be slow to quarrel with it when it exists in excess, nor should
it be severely censured, though unamiably displayed." And he
thinks " we may well make allowance for the severity with
which they censured those whose opinions, as they thought, were
derogatory to the authority and at variance with the teaching of
the Word." However, the lecturer returns to the true view of
the case : " But while these considerations may extenuate, they
do not justify, censoriousness. To say nothing of the impropriety
of deeming ourselves infallible and of the necessity of remember
ing that the error may be ours, we should ever distinguish be
tween a mistaken judgment and a perverted inclination or. an
unholy life. He who knew aU things, who could not err him
self, while he sternly denounced wilful wickedness, — whUe he
consigned the Pharisees, who bhnded their eyes and hardened
theh hearts, to the condemnation of hell, was never severe to the
erring. He treated his mistaken foUowers tenderly, as a nurse
her chUdren ; bore with theh mistakes and forgave their follies ;
suffered them to lean on his bosom, and gently led them to a
full perception of the truth. And is it for man — frail man, full
of errors himself, ever needing the Divine forbearance — is it for
him sternly to denounce, or harshly to censure his erring brother ?
Ah me ! how slow we are to render to others the forbearance
which we so much need ourselves ! It is well for us that God's
thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways ;

326 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
but that high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are his
ways above our ways, and his thoughts aboye our thoughts."
It is much to be regretted that a man, who can entertain and
so weU express these sentiments, should have aUowed himself to
say that he is " disposed to look lightly" on the unchristian and
acrimonious spirit in which the Haldanes dealt with those who
differed from them on the subject of literal and verbal inspira
tion. That we may understand how utterly inexcusable theh
conduct was, how impossible it must be "to make light" of
theh sin, if we profess to maintain the duty of obeying the one
great command of Jesus Christ, we should examine the case to
which our panegyrist more particularly refers.
This case, which is fully detaUed in Mr. Medway's " Memoirs
of the Life and Writings of John Pye Smith, D.D.," London,
1853, chapter xvii., was, in its general outlines, as foUows. In
1826, Dr. Smith addressed a private letter to Mr. Eobert Hal
dane, in which he combated, to a certain extent, Mr. Haldane's
views on inspiration. To this letter he received no reply. But,
shortly afterwards, a controversy on cognate subjects was carried
on in the Evangelical Magazine between Dr. Smith and the other
brother, Alexander Haldane, in which Dr. Smith had decidedly
the advantage, and so withdrew from aU further discussion. The
Haldanes, however, were not satisfied, and they found a venal
advocate to attack Dr. Smith on the two principal points in which
he had come into colhsion with Mr. Eobert and Mr. Alexander
Haldane respectively. This was one Dr. Carson, pastor of
Tubbermore, in the north of Ireland, who, in 1827, published,
at Eobert Haldane's expense, a pamphlet, entitled: " Eeview of
the Eev. Dr. J. Pye Smith's Defence of Dr. Haffner's Preface to
the Bible, and of his Denial of the Divine Authority of Part of
the Canon, and of the Full Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures."
It appears, from the " Memoirs of the Lives of the Haldanes,"
by Alexander Haldane, Esq., of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-
Law (Lond. 1852), that Mr. Eobert Haldane was in the habit of
paying this Irish pamphleteer for writing books, or, at least, of
shielding him from loss. " For many years a large proportion of
Dr. Carson's works were, from time to time, sent over to Edin
burgh, and pubhshed at Mr. Haldane's expense (p. 526); and
he distributed gratuitously hundreds of almost every work which
the pastor of Tubbermore published" (p. 530). In the par-

THE CASE OF DR. CARSON. 327
ticular case it is clear that Dr. Carson was employed to fight the
battle of the Haldanes, not only by taking up the controversy in
the Evangelical Magazine, but also by referring covertly to the
private letter to Eobert Haldane : and as he could not quote this,
he sought for simUar sentiments in Dr. Smith's " Scripture Tes
timony to the Messiah," and in an article on the Apocrypha con
troversy, which appeared in the Eclectic Review for Nov. 1825,
and which was erroneously ascribed to Dr. Smith. The pamph
let, which Dr. Carson wrote at Mr. Haldane's instigation, seems,
from the extracts given by Mr. Medway, to have been a coarse,
violent, and foul-mouthed libel, at once unchristian and unscru
pulous, irreligious and immoral; and Dr. Smith's biographer
may weU leave his reader " to form his own opinion of the
quality of the article which has been produced by the peculiar
talents of a Christian minister, and put in circulation with the
approval and by the purse of a Christian gentleman" (p. 306).
It is clear that to support a theory, to which he had publicly
committed himself, perhaps to heal a wounded vanity, possibly to
gratify an irritated temper, Mr. Eobert Haldane forgot the lead
ing precepts of the rehgion which he professed, and encouraged
a stranger to assaU and vituperate one of his old friends — one who
had, two years before, defended him from an attack ("Memoirs
of Dr. Smith," p. 297) — in a spirit and in terms which would
have been perfectly unjustifiable, even if the subject had been
one of secular interest and personal reference. It is, therefore,
most surprising to us that the Lecturer to the Young Men's
Christian Association, or any other Christian man, could be " dis
posed to look lightly" on such conduct. Even if Christianity
had reaUy been implicated in the maintenance of Mr. Haldane's
peculiar dogmas, it would have been altogether unbecoming and
inconsistent to fight the good fight of faith with such weapons.
The sphit of the Gospel exclaims : " non tali auxiho nee defen-
soribus istis." And if it were not so, if Christianity could reaUy
be appealed to as authorizing the practices and principles of
action which these Haldanes exemplified in the case before us,
if our rehgion aUowed a man to indulge in calumny and personal
detraction, for the sake, and in the name of Jesus, we do not
hesitate to affirm that it would not be worth pleading for, it
would not deserve the advocacy of reasonable men, it could not
proceed from that Being whose chief attribute is universal good-

328 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
ness, but must trace its origin to the meanest passions of weak
and despicable humanity.
The conduct of the Haldanes, in the case which we have
been considering, was hmited to a narrow circle of agents and
observers, and might have been forgotten except by the readers
of Dr. Pye Smith's biography. At any rate, the general public
could not be expected to take much cognizance of Dr. Carson's
invectives, which failed to elicit any reply from the person
against whom they were directed. But the same mode of pro
ceeding in the advocacy of the same opinions has since then been
and stUl is a public phenomenon, to the great detriment of religion
and to the signal discredit of the free press in this country. The
Record newspaper, with the establishment and management of
which the Haldane famUy is not unconnected, and which professes
especiaUy to defend their views of inspiration, is a perpetual
and flagrant exhibition of the unchristian sphit of Bibholatry.
Writers are employed, just as the poor creature Carson was em
ployed by Eobert Haldane, to assail with calumnious personalities
any writer who may have signified his dissent from the Haldane
dogma of verbal inspiration. And these attacks are so con
sistently distinguished by aU the worst features of Carson's
pamphlet, — unwarranted assumptions of authorship, misrepre
sentations of facts, distortions and garbliugs of written state
ments, abusive language, and reference to details derived from
private conversations or picked up by domestic spies and retaUers
of provincial gossip, — that the paper, professing to be a warm
advocate of pure religion, has become a by-word in the pubhc
mouth, and enjoys a reputation not very different from that of
the Age and the Satirist a few years since. Those who do not
feel that such a paper, adequately supported by subscribers and
encouraged by anonymous correspondents, is a most lamentable
indication of the state of religion in this country, and that it
ought to be denounced by all true Christians in terms of grave
and sorrowful censure, are stUl so shocked by its monstrous
abuses of the liberty of the press that they cannot refrain from
jibes and cutting sarcasms at its expense. A Morning Journal
caUs it " the bi-weekly organ of religious mendacity" ; l a Sun
day paper says that it professes to be anti-tractarian, but, from
its constant slanders, ought to be caUed de-tractarian, and, from
1 It is now " tri- weekly."

IHE "RECORD NEWSPAPER. 329
its cowardly apologies, whenever its statements are challenged,
re-tractarian ; and the able author of the article on "Church
Parties," in the Edinburgh Review (for October, 1853) makes
himself merry with the self-seeking advertisements, which appear
from time to time in the columns of the Record. But the
existence of such a paper, as the avowed and adequately sup
ported organ of a religious party, ought not to be treated with
levity. It should be regarded either with the sorrow which the
true Christian must feel for his weak and erring brethren, or
with that indignation which every lover of truth must express
when he sees malignity and falsehood assuming the outward garb
of exclusive religiousness. The pitiable weakness and narrow-
mindedness, which are among the characteristics of this journal,
were weU described by Dr. Arnold in a letter to his sister in 1830
(Life, i. 260), where he speaks of having seen " a copy of the
Record newspaper, a true specimen of the party, with their
infinitely little minds, disputing about ' anise and cummin,' when
heaven and earth are coming together around them ; with much
of Christian harmlessness, but with nothing of Christian wisdom" ;
the particular number of the paper being accidentaUy free from
gaU. The amount of chUdishness, the enormous want of re
flexion, which the Record presumes in its readers, may be inferred
from the fact that the editor once adduced as a conclusive testi
mony to his favourite dogma of verbal inspiration the text in
which the Psalmist says : " There is not a word in my tongue
but lo, 0 Lord, thou knowest it altogether ! " EeaUy one would
have thought that there was not an educated person in England
who would fail to see that this passage refers to the omniscience
of God, and might be apphed to every foolish and wicked word
printed in the Record no less than to the utterances of a holy and
humble Prophet. But the Record is not merely weak and foolish.
To make a man a genuine Eecordite, " he must," says the
Edinburgh Review, " combine his creed with the proper amount
of ignorance and intolerance, and must enforce it in a damnatory
sphit." And not only so ; he must, if his organ truly represents
him, make every difference of opinion the ground of personal
animosity, and must pursue his rehgious opponent with undis
guised malice, and even without any regard to honesty and truth
fulness. One might have thought indeed that it would be suffi
cient to gratify the most furious zeal of religious partizans if

330 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
their Journal attacked the pubhshed and acknowledged senti
ments of those who differed from them. And even if the Jour
nalists were not caUed upon to vindicate their own view by calm
and legitimate argumentation, it might seem that they had done
enough when they dhected attention to the fact that some clergy
man or layman had published a book or made a public speech
denying the correctness of the Haldane theory of insphation, or
dissenting from some other doctrine of exaggerated Evangeli
calism. To be able to point to something, written or said, in
which the literary infaUibUity of Scripture was impugned, and
to say " this man is a Eationalist," or to find in print some
assertion of baptismal regeneration, and to say "this man is a
Tractarian, he has the mark of the beast, — hie niger est, hunc tu
anti-Romane, caveto ! " ought to be enough to stimulate the odium
theologieum of the most uncompromising Eecordites, and to make
them exclaim, with their predecessors the Jews, "Away with
such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should hve "
(Acts, xxii. 22). But the religious Journalist does not content
himself with this. AU that appears bad to him must be made a
little worse. Opinions never expressed must be ascribed to the
supposed offender. If he seems to have been guUty of httle, he
must be assumed to be guilty of much. Words spoken, printed,
acknowledged, must be distorted from their true and obviously
intended meaning ; garbled extracts, which would be explained
by the context, must be taken as conclusive samples of a book,
which may have been written avowedly to establish a proposition
of dhectly opposite import ; and, if a writer assents incidentaUy
to another, whose general opinions may be totaUy different, he
is at once stigmatized as responsible for aU that is wrong in the
author whom he quotes. Nor is this all. The strictures are
not confined to public and avowed authorship. The rumour of
anonymous publication is taken for granted, and treated as fact.
And even the materials derived from the social espionage and ill-
natured gossip of provincial towns are made avaUable for the
purposes of theological detraction.
Lest it should be thought impossible that such nefarious con
duct could be practised by a journal professing to represent a
section of the Protestant and Evangehcal Church, we will adduce
three striking instances out of many which might have been
exhibited.

THE BISHOP OF NATAL. 331
The first of these is the case of Dr. J. W. Colenso, Bishop of
Natal. This zealous missionary, shortly before his consecration,
published a volume of " Village Sermons," which he dedicated
to Professor Maurice in a letter which expresses his gratitude
to that divine " for inestimable benefits derived from his teach
ing." Chiefly, it seems, on this account, the " Village Sermons"
were made the subject of a review in the Record of Nov. 10,
1853, in which Bishop Colenso is not only held responsible for
the peculiar opinions of Professor Maurice, which are excluded
by express statements in the " Village Sermons," but is repre
sented generaUy as a plausible but dangerous theologian, as one
whose " religious teaching" is "neither in accordance with the
Articles of the Church, of which he is to be a chief pastor, nor
with the Word of God, which she adopts as her sole and suffi
cient rule of faith." It was impossible that Dr. Colenso could
submit to such accusations. Accordingly, in " a letter to his
Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury," the Bishop designate, as
he then was, conclusively proves that he distinctly disavows,
even in the little book of Sermons which is the object of the
attack, the doctrine which the Record charges him with holding,
and he shows that, throughout, the reviewer had been guUty of
misquoting his words or misrepresenting their obvious import.
In one passage, where the reviewer professes to prove an asser
tion " by quoting in full" two passages, Dr. Colenso shows that
he has stopped short in his quotation just where the very next
paragraph would have exactly contradicted his own words and
proved that "the Bishop did not hold the views ascribed to"
him ; and he concludes his letter with the foUowing observation :
" I shaU be surprised, if there be not found, among the readers
of the Record, many good, and just, and true-hearted men, who
will feel themselves aggrieved at the offences it has here com
mitted against the laws of common truth and honesty."
Now here was an instance in which a confessedly pious man
was relinquishing the ease and affluence of his position in Eng
land, in order to go forth in the name of his Eedeemer and preach
the Gospel to benighted Africans. There was no quarrel between
him and the Record. He did not belong to the opposite party in
the Church. He was not a theological author, in the general
sense of the term. But, because he praised Mr. Maurice, who,
with his brother-in-law, the late Archdeacon Hare, was a

332 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
stumbling-block to the Bibliolaters, a little volume of ViUage
Sermons is selected for attack, and the reviewer is instructed,
or allowed, to cast aside all the obhgations of literary fairness
and common honesty, in order to make out a case against a
Missionary Bishop, and, by injuring his character, to diminish
his means of usefulness. Is this serving the cause of religion,
or is it gratifying an unchristian spirit at the expense of the
Gospel ?
A second example of the characteristics of the Record is fur
nished by the style in which the managers of that journal have
thought it right to deal with the Eev. H. Alford. As Mr. Alford
is not only an editor of the Greek Testament, but also the minister
of a chapel frequented by many of the most influential people in
London, it was quite natural that the Record, which adopts Mr.
Alexander Haldane's view, that " skating for amusement on a
Sunday is in itself wrong !" should comment on a very different
opinion respecting the religious observance of one day in seven,
when put forward by a clergyman occupying so important a
position. Mr. Alford had said that the Lord's day is only an
ordinance of the Christian Church, which has graduaUy grown up
from apostolic usage ; that it has absolutely nothing to do with
the paradisaical sabbath, and that to maintain theh identity is
not only indicative of ignorance of the constitution of man in
Christ, but absolutely antichristian in its tendency. These
opinions led the Record into its usual course of personal and
libellous insinuation, and the journalist even went so far as to
say that Mr. Alford must read the Communion Service in a non-
natural sense. In reply to these attacks, Mr. Alford pubhshed,
with notes, two letters, which he had addressed to his friend Mr.
Sperling ; and, in his indignation, expressed himself in terms of
warm but well-merited censure. He aUuded to information
which had reached him, that the proprietors of the Record " had
come to a dehberate resolution to write him down ; " he spoke of
the attack upon him as "he would hope, a worse than average
specimen of the personal vituperation in that mendacious and
unprincipled journal;" and most truly stated that "the Record
is a greater enemy to Christianity than all the infidel publications
of our time put together." In noticing this rejoinder, on the
26th March, 1856, the Record says, with sublime affectation of
Christian forbearance : " If we were to throw back some of Mr.

THE REV H. ALFORD. 333
Alford' s own vocabulary, we should not act without provocation.
But we prefer a holier example, the example of Him, who not
only forbids ' railing accusations ; ' but who, ' when He was
revUed, revUed not again.' To Him," says the libeUous journal
ist, " and to his righteous judgment, we commit our cause."
The monstrosity of such affectation on the part of the Record,
and its inconsistency with the whole career of the journal, would
have been sufficiently revolting, if the editor could have carried
on, for some little whUe, the outward appearance of acting up to
these professions in the particular case of Mr. Alford. But, in the
very next number of the journal, the managers insert a letter,
probably written at theh suggestion by one of theh organized
gang of slanderers, and add a note, in which Mr. Alford' s cha
racter as an author is attacked, without any reference to the ques
tion at issue between him and the Record. The letter, which
bears the significant signature of Vindex, favours the world with
this very applicable statement : "It is only two months since
Mr. Alford was betrayed into an insulting, and, I am constrained
to add, insolent attack on a venerable and grey-headed divine, to
whom the Church at large is deeply indebted. And now," adds
the gentle Vindex, with an unvindictive selection of epithets,
" he has given to the world a diatribe on the Record newspaper,
which, for concentrated venom and impotent rage, is scarcely to
be paraUeled." The note states that " another friend " had fur
nished the editor with an extract from Tischendorf, charging Mr.
Alford's Greek Testament with plagiarism and bad faith. To the
letter of Vindex, Mr. Alford makes no reply ; but he shows, in a
letter to the editor of the Record, which appeared on the 2nd
April, that the words of Tischendorf were applied to the first
edition of Mr. Alford's work ; that the charge of mala fides was
met at the time; and that the best comment on it is that
" Tischendorf and myself are now in friendly correspondence,
and interchange of publications."
This attack on Mr. Alford is a good specimen of the manner
in which the Record endeavours to inflict professional and lite
rary injury on those who venture to differ from the creed of
Bibholatry, even in the most speculative and uneertain matters.
For it cannot be denied that the relation between the Jewish
Sabbath and the Christian Sunday is merely inferential. The
attack is also distinguished by a purely irrelevant libel on Mr.

334 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
Alford's literary character, immediately foUowing an unctuous
disclaimer of retaliation. But perhaps the most interesting fea
ture in the case, is the incidental ghmpse which we gain of the
management of this "rehgious" journal. In answer to the
information — no doubt substantiaUy true — which had reached
Mr. Alford, that "the proprietors of the Record had come to a
deliberate resolution to write him down," we are told : " there
have been two meetings of the proprietors of the Record since
Mr. Alford's first attack on the Sabbath. At neither meeting
was his name ever mentioned ; and we are persuaded that the
idea of writing him down never entered into the mind of any
one connected with the Record." Very likely these proprietors,
" consisting," we are told, " of clergymen and laymen, country
magistrates and professional gentlemen," only met to consider the
pecuniary interest of the journal — how to get the largest dividend
from the joint-stock company for the manufacture of cant and
slander ; but the literary department, the editorship, properly so
called, is admitted to have held debate, or to have received com
munications on the subject of Mr. Alford; and, in an earlier
part of the same article, we read the confession that " there were
men of high standing, clergymen and others, who complained
that, far from exceeding in severity, our rebuke was not propor
tioned to the magnitude of the offence." It wiU be observed
that the description of " the men of high standing, clergymen
and others," exactly corresponds to that of the proprietors of the
Record ; and it would not be an unreasonable inference, that,
although the said proprietors did not speak of Mr. Alford at the
two business meetings, they came, either together or severally,
into the editor's back-parlour, and stimulated the zeal of their
hireling by some injunctions, which, at all events, did not mean
that he was to write up Mr. Alford.
The third case which we shall cite is thus described by the
Guardian of August 13, 1856: — "The Record smarting under
the admonition of the Bishop of Lincoln to the religious press,
for its unfounded charges of Popery against the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, which his Lordship recently denounced
so emphaticaUy at Nottingham, has not ceased its attacks on
Bishop Jackson, whom it fears may be translated to the See of
London. The foUowing paragraph would seem to intimate that
the malignity of its attacks were too much for its own readers :

THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN. 335
' We have received several letters from clergymen in the diocese of
Lincoln, complaining of the aUusion made in a recent article to the
Bishop of Lincoln's aUeged love of state  : The aUusion to
his Lordship's "love of state" had reference to the state kept up at
Eiseholm, and some of those, from whom we derive our informa
tion, attributed this want of simplicity, not so much to his Lord
ship's own predUections, as to the novelty of the position to one
suddenly elevated to so high a station, and, consequently, more
likely to err from a deshe to keep up, not so much his personal,
as his official dignity. It is no uncomm'on remark that the son
of a nobleman, accustomed from his youth to move in the highest
circles, often exhibits as a Bishop far more simphcity in his table,
his equipage, and his retinue, than another who has recently
sprung from the middle classes of society.' " The Vicar of
Nottingham, who was one of the remonstrating clergy of the
diocese of Lincoln, and who caUs himself a " weU- wisher" of the
Record, writes an indignant letter to the Editor in reply to this
base and dastardly avoidance of an apology. " You do not," he
says to the Editor, "insert any of those communications [which
the Editor admitted were written to him], neither do you, in the
shghtest degree, modify your aspersions ; but you reiterate them,
accompanied by an unbecoming and invidious reference to the
Bishop's former position in society. . . . With regard to the
Bishop's aUeged love of state, allow me to repeat, that your
assertions are not only without any foundation in truth, but
directly at variance with the real state of the case." He adds
that he had lately been in company with about a dozen of the
clergy of Nottingham, and that " they were unanimous in con
demning the attack upon him [the Bishop] which appeared in
your paper of the 8th, and in the conviction that he [the
Bishop] had notoriously exhibited the very opposite of the
character imputed to him." When we add that, even after
this, the Record did not retract its slanders or offer any apology,
but merely evaded the duty by shifting its ground, we shaU be
justified in expressing our surprise that any gentleman or clergy-
Ta^-~~~fa& country can be found to support such a paper. Be
cause a Bishop, in the discharge of his duty, rebukes the Record
1 We omit in this and in the other extract a reference to the Bishop's
efficiency as an administrator, which is a matter of opinion only.

336 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
for a slanderous imputation directed against a religious Society,
the managers of the paper conceive themselves justified, on the
strength of the miserable gossip which they studiously coUect by
theh anonymous spies, to bring an irrelevant charge against the
Bishop's private and social arrangements ; and then endeavour
to justify it by an insolent aUusion to the fact that this Prelate,
like many others, has been promoted to his dignity from a pre
vious position less aristocratic ! If the statement had been true,
it would have been no answer to the Bishop's admonition.
Being, as almost every personality in the Record is proved to
be on examination, utterly baseless and false, the malignant
aspersion is nevertheless maintained in spite of a direct and
emphatic contradiction, and merely so transposed into other
language as to avert the alternative of a candid confession of
wrong-doing or a justification of the statement by the production
of competent witnesses.
These three instances may suffice as specimens of the manner
in which the Record undertakes to vindicate Christianity — to
uphold the religion of truth and benevolence. Any amount of
simUar transgressions might be collected from the pages of this
odious journal. But it is quite unnecessary to multiply par
ticular instances in a case where good men of aU parties, beyond
the Umits of a narrow sect, feel themselves compeUed to de
nounce, as mean, mendacious, and malignant, — as combining the
venal slanders of the Age and the Satirist with the unctuous
hypocrisy of Exeter HaU, as, in short, a scandal to the religion,
and a disgrace to the free press of England, — a newspaper,
which is the most prominent champion of Bibholatry, and the
accredited organ of the factious minority which aspires to guide
and govern the Church.
The disgust, which has been so generaUy excited by the out
rages of the Record, has found its expression in more than one
periodical ; and the proprietors of this wretched journal have
thought it necessary to seek some apology for themselves under
an attack from another so-called religious paper (Record, May
30, 1856). With affected moderation of tone, they rest theh
defence against the charges of intolerance, folly, and slanderous
violence, on the position that " feeble likes and dishkes, in ques
tions of religious faith and practices, are the sure index of a

THE ATTEMPTED DEFENCE. 337
feeble moral condition " ; and that " those who love and prize
the truth, as infinitely precious, must hate the errors which
undermine it, and contend warmly against them ; and those who
embrace any error, believing it to be the truth, must of necessity
do the same." This lax plea evades the point at issue. The
Record is not censured for its zeal, but for its general dishonesty
and for its want of Christian charity in dealing with the persons
whose opinions are at variance with those of the Evangelical
party. The faith, which the Record professes to be zealous for,
teaches us that we ought to love our brethren; and, though " a
good hater" may be a fine party-man, he cannot by any pos-
sibUity be a good Christian. There may be such a thing as
Odium Theologicum, but Odium Christianum is a contradiction in
terms. If the conceptions of religious truth which the Record
represents and endeavours to enforce, not by argument, but by a
proscription and denunciation of those who adopt a different view
of Christianity, were in themselves perfectly supported by legiti
mate deductions from Scripture ; if, in fact, the rehgious theory
of the Eecordites were as ScripturaUy valid as it is eminently
precarious, they would be disqualified for the office of teaching
this theory, by the practical manifestations of a spirit at variance
with the first principles of the Gospel. If Jesus has declared,
and John has repeated, that what we do unto one of the least of
these his brethren, we do unto him, and that he who loveth not
his brother abideth in death, no good can come from an advocacy
of religion which uses zeal as a cloak for maliciousness. And, as
Paul has enjoined us, if we wish to be regenerate, to put away
lying and to speak every man truth with his neighbour, we
cannot recognise the children of light in those whose trade it is
to bear false witness against their brethren. But, if the mahce
and falsehood involved in the Record's calumnious vilification of
ah, who wish and hope to be Christians without pronouncing" the
shibboleth of the Low Church party, must bring discredit on such
a mode of defending the faith ; the particular theory, which they
would maintain by this mode of action, stands condemned by
this substitution of personal denunciation for calm and reasonable
arguments. And, if the Christian advocate must fail unless, as
we have shown above, he endeavours at least to recommend his
cause by his conduct, the literary champion, who has no better
weapons than virulent abuse and unscrupulous slander, shows
22

338 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
by his mode of proceeding that he has no confidence in the
strength of his cause.
The position of the Record, as a professedly religious organ,
cannot be better indicated than by the fact that a very able
weekly journal has drawn an unfavourable contrast between this
paper and one which affects a sort of opposition to Christian
orthodoxy. In an article " on the Secular Press," which ap
peared in the Saturday Review for the 5th April, 1856, we find
the foUowing remarks : " The Record and the Reasoner differ in
many respects. The Record is bitter, false, and mahgnant.
The Reasoner is not by any means taxable with these faults —
it is written with calmness and admits contradictions with can
dour. The Record is eternaUy prying into private affairs. The
Reasoner appear to us to confine itself within the limits of fair
criticism. The Record and the Reasoner are both ignorant, and
not over logical ; but the Reasoner is far the least offensively
written of the two  Both of them attach infinite import
ance to a certain set of opinions — both of them beheve that their
respective views are the indispensable condition of human pro
gress and happiness — and each of them goes on gyrating in its
own smaU chcle, grinding its own smaU assortment of tunes on
the same barrel over and over again, and never showing the
smaUest result."
It might perhaps be thought that the narrow-minded igno
rance of the writers in the Record, and theh want of literary
abUity, do not aUow us to regard the existence of such a paper
as a phenomenon of any significance. No doubt this considera
tion enables individuals, who are attacked by the Record, to treat
it with sUent contempt, and has probably saved the proprietors
from many an action for hbel. But the paper, stupid and
dastardly as it is, represents or expresses the feelings of a con
siderable number of readers and purchasers. It is the foolometer,
in Sydney Smith's phrase, of a distinct party in the Church ; and
the formidable fact is, that such a low type of theological in
formation and Christian morality should be paraded by any
section of a Protestant community. An event, which has re
cently occurred at Liverpool, shows that the unchristian spirit
of Bibholatry, which is advocated in the Record newspaper, has
its hving representatives in the clergy of the Established Church,
and especiaUy in those districts where the middle class, con-

THE REV. J. MACNAUGHT. 339
sidered as the rich but uneducated or imperfectly educated class,
exercises uncontroUed the authority of prejudiced respectability.1
It appears '" that the Clerical Society of Liverpool, consisting
of seventy-seven members, lately expelled one of theh body
under the foUowing circumstances. This Society, which pro
fessedly holds its meetings to enable the clergy of the neigh
bourhood to interchange their thoughts on scriptural questions,
had arranged, through the committee, that a certain Dr. Baylee,
and Mr. Macnaught, the clergyman who was eventually expeUed,
should discuss, on opposite sides, the question of inspiration.
The meeting for this purpose took place on the 8th January,
1855. Dr. Baylee "urged that there was no logical resting-
place between verbal insphation and atheism. A man must
either believe that every word of Scripture was inspired, or he
ought (logically) to deny the existence of a God!" On the
other side, Mr. Macnaught argued " that the Bible was insphed,
but that this did not prevent there being errors in the Bible."
This view of the matter was very unfavourably received by the
society, and one of the members, a certain Mr. Minton, said " he
would not stoop to pick' up a Bible, which might lie at his feet,
unless he thought it was the InfaUible Word of God " ! ! Fif
teen months passed away, however, without any unpleasantness
between Mr. Macnaught and his brother members. But, early in
1856, Mr. Macnaught published, " with a quantity of additional
matter, but without any alteration of opinion," the article which
he had read before the society, as a book entitled : " The Doctrine
of Insphation ; being an inquiry concerning the InfaUibihty,
Insphation, and Authority of Holy Writ:" and, at the April
meeting of the society in the same year, Mr. Macnaught had
occasion to remark, on the strength of the text in Col. i. 24,
that Christ's sufferings were in some sense deficient, a statement
which provoked a good deal of opposition ; and a certain Mr.
PoUock declared "that his dear friend and brother, Mr. Mac
naught, was preaching antichrist." This meeting was foUowed,
1 We have made some remarks on this section of society in Classical
Scholarship and Classical Learning, pp. 87 foil.
2 See " Free Discussion versus Intolerance, or the Liverpool Clerical
Society's mode of expelling a brother clergyman who differed from them and
expressed his difference" ; a Narrative by the Eev. John Macnaught, M.A.,
Oxon. London, 1856. That this expulsion is "a most significant fact for
the laity" has been shown in an able and temperate article in the Saturday
Review for 5th July, 1856.

340 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
on the 2nd May, by an attempt, on the part of a Dr. Hugh
McNeUe, who seems to be the leader of the Irish MiUennarian
party at Liverpool, and who is a sort of Protestant Pope in that
great commercial city,1 to induce Mr. Macnaught to retire from
the Clerical Society. And the attempt having faUed, Mr. Mac
naught was surprised at the next meeting, on the 5th May, to
hear the following notice of motion announced, without any
previous intimation to himself : —
" The Eev. John Macnaught, having avowed, in meetings of
this society, sentiments respecting the inspiration of Scripture,
and the atonement of Christ's death, which are contrary to the
deepest convictions of its members,
Eesolved —
That he be no longer considered a member of this society."
This resolution was undertaken by the Dr. Baylee who had been
Mr. Macnaught's opponent in the previous discussion, and Mr.
Howson promised to second it. It was not aUeged that Mr.
Macnaught had offended against any law of the society, the
express object of which was the discussion of such subjects.
When the meeting took place, Mr. Macnaught was not tried for
what he had said before the society, but for his book. The addi
tional question about the Atonement, was eventuaUy dropped,
and, by a majority of fifty -five to four — three members having
declined to vote, and fifteen being absent — Mr. Macnaught was
arbitrarily expelled. The pamphlet, from which we have derived
these detaUs, is, of course, an ex parte statement, and we do not
profess to defend aU that Mr. Macnaught has said and done;
but the general truth of his statement has not been disputed,
and it is adequately guaranteed by documents. The narrative
establishes the foUowing significant facts : —
(1). That the members of an evangehcal society may think
and say anything, provided they do not publish their thoughts ;
(2). That the pubhcation of anything opposed to the dogmas
of Bibholatry, obliges a clerical society to discard an unexception
able brother clergyman, whether their rules permit it or not.
That it was the publication of Mr. Macnaught's views, and
1 We learn, from a letter published in the Guardian, September 17, 1856,
that this Dr. McNeile, though a clergyman of the Established Church,
has spoken in public of the " soul-destroying doctrine of repentance," and
that he once proposed to punish Eoman Catholic clergymen with death (!) for
the exercise of their office as confessors.

MR. MACNAUGHT S BOOK. 341
not his communication of them to the Clerical Society, which
made it necessary to expel him, appears from the lapse of time
between his discussion with Dr. Baylee and that gentleman's
motion for his extrusion. Indeed, the Venerable Archdeacon who
presided on the latter occasion, seems to admit as much. And if
theh "deepest convictions" were so wounded by the paper, why
did they not demolish the arguments by which it was supported ?
That, surely, was the proper business of the society, as such.
It is needless, however, to make any remark on the cowardice
and dishonesty of the whole proceeding. With regard to the
book, which furnished the immediate occasion for aU this in
tolerance, it has a certain value, not because it is, but because
it is not, a work of original research or learned detaUs. It
states, simply and popularly, some of the reasons which pre
vent us from regarding the Bible as infaUible ; but, at the same
time, it maintains that " although there has, for many cen
turies, existed a false and superstitious opinion in favour of
insphational infallibility, yet there still is recognised and ad
mitted, among aU behevers, the ancient, scriptural, and only true
idea of Inspiration, according to which the term signifies that
action of the Divine Spirit by which, apart from any idea of
infaUibUity, all that is good in man, beast, or matter, is origi
nated and sustained " (p. 196) : and the author takes a very
high and reverent view of the value of the Bible, and maintains,
with perfect justice, that his sentiments are compatible with his
position as a minister of the English Church (pp. 290 sqq.). In
fact, Mr. Macnaught's book on Inspiration is one of the class of
works which we most wish to see in the hands of those respect
able and serious, but ignorant and narrow-minded citizens of the
middle class, who give importance to the Cummings, McNeUes,
Baylees, andMintons; who accept, as exclusive Christianity, their
mixture of Judaism and Calvinism ; who construe the prohibi
tion of labour on the Jewish Sabbath into a prohibition of inno
cent recreation on the Christian [Sunday ; and who enable the
proprietors of such journals as the Record to count upon that
which they probably value more than even the gratification of
theh arrogance and malignity — a remunerative chculation.
With these, and many like examples before us, we cannot
doubt that the spirit of Bibholatry is eminently unchristian. If
we might use the coarse language which one of its most un-

342 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
scrupulous advocates applied to its opponent, the so-called Neology,
we might say with truth that this hypothesis of an infallible
literature "begins with befooling the understandings," and that
f it is weU if it does not end with debauching the consciences
of its disciples." The Record is the most scandalous example of
this atrocious spirit; but other so-caUed religious journals, in
proportion as they are bibliolatrous, in the same proportion
exhibit a derehction from the duty of love and truthfulness.
And no one, who is anxious for the promotion of true religion,
or zealous for the honour of Christianity, wUl be disposed, with
the panegyrist of the Haldanes, " to look lightly on those un-
amiable manifestations of feeling," which have led to an organized
system of personal calumny and detraction. " Jealousy for the
Word of God," which is pleaded in extenuation of these scanda
lous offences against Christian charity, fair reasoning, and lite
rary honesty, is only another name for the uncompromising
maintenance of a theory respecting the Scriptures, which is
found to be convenient, if not essential, for the support of a
certain form of external religion, and which is at least a watch
word or shibboleth for a faction in the Church. Party sphit, a
desire for personal influence, and a love of gain, wiU be found
to be the main motives for aU the turbulence of Exeter HaU and
aU the virulence of the religious press. The same feelings of
compromised self-interest, which led Mr. Brooks to his brutal
assault on Mr. Sumner, and justified the Southern States in theh
applause of that felonious act, are at work in the minds of those
who call themselves the " rehgious world " — alas ! " more
worldly" than " religious," in every point of view. The vin
dictive slave-owner struck down his brother legislator, because
his unchristian and inhuman trade had been boldly exposed; and
the bibliolatrous journals, with the fuU consent and applause of
their constituents, boast that they can proscribe and ruin, strike
down morally and trample on, aU those who differ from them,
and have the courage to state the grounds for their dissent. But
they stand denounced themselves in words which the Founder of
our religion addressed to their prototypes, the scribes and Pharisees
of Judsea : " Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites !
for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he
is made, ye make him twofold more the chUd of heU than your
selves" (Matth, xxiii. 15). Who is "a child of hell," if this

HOPES OF A REACTION, 343
awful designation is not apphcable to him whose selfishness takes
that particular form of malice and falsehood which is personified
in the ideal type of the devU ? And is" not the following sentence,
which appears in Julius Midler's classical treatise "on Sin"
(vol. i. p. 241, 3rd edition), a most true description of the spirit
whioh animates the so-caUed religious journalists ? " Christ
adduces hatred and lying as two main directions of evil, in the
domain of the spirit, when he designates the devil as, on the
one hand, the murderer from the beginning, and, on the other
hand, as the liar and father of lies (John, vhi. 44). Lying is
the cowardice (Feigheil), hatred is the arrogance ( Uebermuth) of
selfishness. Nevertheless they mutuaUy produce each other :
from falsehood springs hatred ; from disinclination to the truth
arises animosity against the person who represents it : and hatred
begets lying, because it requires it for the execution of its pur
poses." MiiUer adds in a note, that the manner in which hatred
flows from falsehoood is taught us by Jesus himself in his con
versations with the Jews. We, therefore, maintain that these
Bibholaters, who are so ready in their application of the term
Antichrist, are themselves as antichristian as theh predecessors
who persecuted Christ to the death for disaUowing their rigid
Judaism. There is only one cons olatory reflection connected with
this sad phenomenon. It is that the procedure of Bibholaters
is doing daUy damage to their own cause.1 The ignorant pre
judices of the middle classes are very strong, and half-educated re
spectability wiU in some form or other requhe to be told authori
tatively what must be beUeved — or professed. But no amount
of prejudice or ignorance wiU prevent the majority of English
men from discovering, sooner or later, that " the insolent folly,
unscrupulous detraction, reckless dishonesty, and unchristian
violence of the so-called rehgious periodicals," 3 are indications of
a line of argument which has no intrinsic validity ; and that
those who condescend to the use of th ese weapons admit, by the
conduct which they adopt, that their whole fabric of intolerant
dogmatism rests upon a sandy foundation, and is aheady begin
ning to yield to the current of public opinion.
1 One might almost suppose that the Eecordites are, after all, Jesuits in
the disguise of Puritans ; who, as was the case in the reign of Elizabeth, have
taken this method of bringing discredit on Protestantism.
2 Classical Scholarship and Classical Learning, p. 169,

344 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VI.
It would, indeed, be a result of some importance, if the
misconduct of the bibholatrous press were to awaken the true
Protestants of England — the lovers of religious and inteUectual
freedom — to a due sense of the present need for united action in
opposition to a tyranny more overbearing, and, at the same time,
more degrading, than that of Eome. When an organized con
spiracy, under the name of Bible Christianity, is endeavouring to
check and impede the progress of education and enlightenment in
aU that concerns religion ; when an effort is made to circum
scribe the English Church within the narrow limits of a Calvin
istic sect ; when these evangehcals, as they caU themselves, are
boasting that they can, with the aid of a weU-intentioned, but
Ul-informed and narrow-minded nobleman, send theh surpliced
puritans to our cathedrals, and promote theh shaUow rheto
ricians to our Bench of Bishops ; when they have attempted to
deprive us of literary correspondence on the first day of the
week, and have succeeded in restraining the pubhc relaxations of
the Christian Sunday ; when they can venture to denounce
modern learning as dangerous impiety, and place in their Index
Expurgatorius any work which is in accordance with the present
state of biblical criticism ; when they can openly avow the
reasons which induce them to fear an improved version of the
Scriptures, and stigmatise, as the influence of ApoUyon, every
manifestation of independent thought; when, under theh in
quisitorial discipline, the boasted respectabUity of the middle
classes is becoming more and more a Temple of Untruth,1 and the
artificial faith of the half-educated men of business is more and
more dependent on the untenable assumptions of theh teachers,
— in this state of things we may welcome any extravagance, which,
by shocking the good taste and better feelings of the age, wiU
create a reaction, and so contribute to the overthrow of a fanat
ical or self-seeking dictatorship, or at least provoke a declared
and indignant antagonism to the unchristian and illiberal sphit of
Bibholatry.

1 See a Dialogue on Respectability in Blackwood's Magazine for December,
1856, and especially p. 691, where respectability is described as the " British
Antichrist."

CHAPTEE IV.

INTEKMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES.

CHEISTIAN OETHODOXY.

CHAPTER IV.
THE SUPPOSED EXISTENCE OF INTEEMEDIATE
INTELLIGENCES.
We now come to the other objection, which has been ad
vanced against the ordinary teaching of our rehgion, namely,
that Christianity has made itself responsible for the truth of a
system of angelology and dsemonology, which is clearly trace
able to an unsubstantial origin in the human imagination. This
dogma, as we have already mentioned, is mainly a result of that
hypothesis respecting the literal infaUibihty of the Scriptures,
which has been already tried in the balance, and found wanting.
It is upheld chiefly because it has been found convenient to
claim an absolute immunity from error for the writings of the
Jews who returned from Babylon, and for those of the Chris
tians who adopted the same views, or used the same language ;
and to admit as divine revelation the conceptions which they
entertained, or seem to have entertained, respecting the exist
ence and functions of intermediate inteUigences. It is not per
ceived by those, who so strenuously defend this superstition,
that, even on their own hypothesis of an infaUible literature, it
leads to the most formidable difficulties and contradictions. In
the ante-Babylonian books, an angel is not a created intelligence

348 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
different from man, but a visible or physical manifestation of
Jehovah himself ; and Satan is only a name for those harms and
hindrances which are attributed to the immediate agency of
God, or cannot otherwise be explained. Accordingly, the new
notion, that angels were intermediate created inteUigences, and
that Satan was a person, was either a valuable truth revealed
to, or discovered by, an idolatrous nation before the people of
God had any conception of it ; or it was a false and mischiev
ous doctrine, belonging to the dualism of Zoroaster, so long as it
continued to be the exclusive possession of the heathens, but
was converted into a supernatural and infaUible revelation as
soon as it was adopted by the Jews. This alternative was pro
posed long ago, and the BibUolaters have found no escape from
it. Then, again, both the Old and the New Testament agree in
the doctrine, which lies at the basis of our religion, that man
consists of a spirit of divine origin, and of a body, made from
the dust of the ground ; that, while the former is directly
derived from the God of the spirits of aU flesh, and is capable
of direct communion with its source, the latter is the cause of
all sin and suffering, the fruitful origin of all temptation to
irreligion and immorality, the vehicle and fomes of corruption
and death. To assert, therefore, the real existence of a separate
class of created inteUigences, is not to contradict one or two
passages in Scripture, but to run counter to the general tenor of
aU revealed teaching. For, whUe the doctrine of good angels is
opposed to that of the ministration of the Spirit of Gad, of the
direct operation of the Holy Ghost on the soul of the faithful,
the belief in bad angels involves the monstrous faUacy that the
pure Spirit of God — for there is no other origin of spiritual
existence — is capable of being corrupted without any corporeal
or fleshly influences, and not only so, but capable of permanent
and incurable depravity and wickedness. To maintain, there
fore, a doctrine of intermediate intelligences, as a necessary sup-

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 349
plement to that of an infallible literature, is not merely to make
the one untenable proposition the result of the other, but to
upset aU revelation, and, together with the truths of religion, to
overthrow the very hypothesis which it was intended to' support.
It is generally said, by those who have no other argument to
adduce, that we cannot disprove the existence of angels, because
we do not know enough of the relations of spirit and matter to
assert that such existences are impossible. And this was ad
mitted long ago, even by Schleiermacher.1 But we have an old
rule of law : de non apparentibus et de non exsistentibus
eadem est ratio." We have heard nothing of angels since the
publication of the Acts of the Apostles, and Schleiermacher
himself plainly acknowledges that the Bibhcal evidences for
their appearance are by no means satisfactory, and that they
belong to a class of conceptions no longer possible in the world.
And, if this belief is insufficiently supported by historical testi
mony, if it is opposed to the general teaching of revelation, and
if its origin can be explained, it is surely disproved as completely
as the nature of the subject admits.
This being the case, the only course open to the true advo
cate of Christianity, is to show that our religion has not, as is
commonly supposed, identified itself with the cause of this
superstitious mythology ; and this we shall endeavour to do by
proving that the behef in question, if it can be caUed one, is
reducible to a pictorial representation of ideas more or less
fanciful ; that it is, in fact, merely the result of an affection of
oriental phraseology, which our Saviour and his Apostles adopted
along with the language of their country and age, but which
has no permanent or essential connection with the Christian
religion, any more than the Aramaean idiom in which it was first
preached to the world.
We learn, from an accurate survey of the whole domain of
1 Der Christliche Glaube, vol. i. §§ 42, 43, pp. 202 sqq. ed. 3. .

350 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
ancient mythology, that the doctrine of intermediate agency
springs from the difficulty, which is felt whenever we wish to
represent, or indeed to express the manifestation of God's active
energy or the existence and effects of spiritual and physical evU.
The vivid imagination of an eastern poet wiU not acquiesce in
the abstract idea. He seeks to personify what he scarcely ven
tures to understand, and eventuaUy an effort of the plastic fancy
perpetuates itself in a convenient form of expression. The pro
cess, however, of personification, is graduaUy and slowly com
pleted. At first, the angelophany is merely a visible indication
of the special agency of God. No intimation is given that the
medium of communication is a separate created inteUigence.
Where there is no distinction of wiU, but merely a ministerial
act, the hypothesis of such a personality is an unnecessary in
crease to the machinery. The very form of the Hebrew word,
which we translate angel," shows that no personification was
imphed in the mode of expression, and every angelophany,
recorded in those books which are free from the influence of
Babylonian phraseology, expressly signifies that God himself
was the only person who spoke or acted. Now the visible
agency of God in this world must be by and through the powers
of Nature. Consequently, according to the oriental notion, he
is Lord of Hosts," or ruler of the countless stars, which glitter
in the canopy of heaven ; and, if he descends to earth, he is
seen or felt in his messengers or angels, in those natural func
tions which operate mysteriously for good or mischief. Clouds,
winds, rainbows, lightnings, thunderings, voices, visionary
forms, and the invisible attacks of pestilence, are aU described as
mal'hdkim, or missionaries of the divine wUl. The rapid motion
of these messengers soon invests them with wings, and we read
of the wings of the wind," and " the winged dart of God,"
namely, the thunderbolt. From this, the transition is easy to
the winged bird, especially to the bird of prey, which flies fastest

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 351
between heaven and earth, and is most truly representative of
the destructive power of an offended deity ; hence, the eagle,
the vulture, and the hawk, are messengers of the gods. Lastly,
either a composite symbol, half-bird and half-beast, takes the
place of the simple figure, or a winged man, with the head of
an eagle, or entirely human, appears as the representative of the
divine agency. When the shape of man is assumed, the wiU of
man is easily added, and thus we arrive at the belief, if it can
be so called, in created intelligences, intermediate between God
and man.
This hieroglyphic process is so natural, that the pure theism
of the Hebrews would not have been untainted by it, even if they
had not sojourned among the flesh-pots of Egypt, or had quite
escaped aU subsequent contact with Aramaean superstitions. As
it is, we find in the Bible an exemplification of every step in
this realistic procedure.1
That the constant phrase, ' Lord God of Sabadth, or Hosts,"
springs from an elementary conception of the Supreme Being as
leader of the fire-breathing stars, which are the army of heaven,
does not require any proof. Even the earhest chapters of Genesis
speak of the stars as a tzaba, or host," and it would have
been remarkable that the Jews should have adopted, so uni-
versaUy, a mode of speaking which identified Jehovah with
Ormuzd, the god of light, if criticism had not taught us that
many of their books, supposed to be much more ancient, were
not composed until after they had been exposed to the influence
of Babylonian superstitions. When this phraseology first be
came common, we have no means of ascertaining ; but the desig
nation of Jehovah as Lord of Hosts," does not occur in any
book before the First of Samuel, and it is probable that it was
an importation of heathen origin. All the nations, which lived
round the Jews, were more or less given to the worship of the
1 See, on this subject, Jashar, pp. 74 sqq.

352 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
elements. The existence of three cities in the land of Israel,
bearing the name Reth-Shemesh, or House of the Sun," shows
that the worship of the great luminary was famUiar to the Jews,
and we know that, at a later period, the Persian worship of the
sun, under equestrian symbols, was received even in the Temple
at Jerusalem. The stars, then, are the heavenly host which sings the praises
of Jehovah ; but, if he descends to earth, his chariot or vehicle
is supplied by the clouds, the winds, the lightning, or the
thunder. As the clouds, in this reference, are supposed to be
in motion, there is frequently an interchange between these
floating bodies and the wind which acts upon them. Thus the
Psalmist says that Jehovah maketh the clouds his chariot and
walketh on the wings of the wind." The fantastic and ever-
changing shapes of the clouds, to which sportive allusions are
made by Shakspere and Aristophanes, not unnaturaUy suggested
the idea of intelligent hfe as weU as motion ; and an English
translation has spread an acquaintance with a Sanscrit poem
caUed the Megha-duta, Nephel-angelus, or cloud-messenger,"
in which a banished Taksha, or spirit, conveys an imaginary
message to his wife by means of a cloud ; one of those noble.
masses," says the translator,1 which seem almost instinct with
life, as they traverse a tropical sky in the commencement of the
monsoon, and move with slow and solemn progression from the
equatorial ocean to the snows ofthe Himalaya." In this poem,
the exile addresses the cloud with prayer and sacrifice, as a
being of power and benevolence ; he says : *
" Hail, friend of lndra, counsellor divine,
Illustrious offspring of a glorious line,
Wearer of shapes at will ; thy worth I know,
And bold entrust thee with my fated woe :
For better far solicitation fail
With high desert, than with the base prevail."
1 Wilson's Megha-duta, p. iv. z P. 6.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 353
With the earlier Jews, as we have aheady said, the mal'hak
or messenger" was not so much an independent medium of
communication as the vehicle or manifestation of God him
self ; and this is particularly the case in regard to the clouds
and winds. In a cloud Jehovah leads his chosen people out of
Egypt, in a cloud he sits on the mercy seat, in a cloud he
descends on Sinai. An igneous or luminous body is sometimes
substituted for the cloud as a manifestation of the Deity. Thus
the cloud which leads the way out of Egypt becomes a pUlar
of fire by night ; God appears to Moses in a fiery shape ; and
the thick cloud on Mount Sinai is accompanied by thunders,
lightnings, fire .and smoke, and the voice of a trumpet exceed
ing loud. Of all luminous appearances, however, that which is
felt to be most like a sign from God to man, a message from
heaven to earth, is the rainbow. Thus the Greeks regarded the
Iris, whose name denotes the arch which seems to bridge an
access from the celestial regions to this lower world, as a
messenger or angel of the gods : and there can be little doubt that
this or some simUar phenomenon is intended under the form of
the ladder which Jacob saw in a dream ; for as he caUed the
place Bethel, " the house of God," it is clear that the angelic
manifestation was regarded, in this as in other cases, as an
epiphany of Jehovah himself, who stood above the ladder, of
course veiled in a cloud. Similarly in the first mention of the
rainbow it is said to be set in a cloud."
Now the cloud and rainbow are visible forms; but the plastic
imagination is necessarily summoned to our aid, if we wish to
depict the momentary flash of lightning or the invisible vio
lence of the hurricane. For these two manifestations of divine
power the Hebrews adopted and personified the names of Seraph,
"the burner," and Cherub, "the harpy orseizer"; and they
are described together in the one hundred and fourth Psalm,
where we read that God " makes the winds his messengers and
23

354 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
the flame of fire his ministers." l The former appears in Hebrew
poetry as a flaming sword ; in heathen mythology, as a winged
thunderbolt, or as an eagle bearing the thunderbolt. The violent
wind has in all mythologies, Oriental as well as Greek, a sym
bolical form combining the ideas of strength and velocity.
Wings typify the rapid motion of the gale ; the beak and talons
of the eagle, sometimes the claws of the hon, are called in to
show how the tornado seizes on and carries off its prey. It is
highly interesting to know that in almost aU languages this
compound symbol was expressed by the root, which enters into
the Hebrew k'rub or cherub, and which seems to denote the
power of seizing or snatching. Thus we have the Greek
harp-ies, which Homer designates as stormy winds ; the Persian
gryf-ons, which guarded the gold ; the Egyptian sphinx, pro
bably termed k'rabu, which watched over the sepulchres; and
the Greek kerb-erus, which barred the entrance to Hades.2
That the cherub was merely a symbol or hieroglyph is admitted
by Clement of Alexandria, and that it represented the wind,
as one of the manifestations of the power of God, is clear from
the words of the Psalmist : ' He rode upon a cherub and did
1 See Jashar, pp. 76, 230.
3 Our previous discussion on this subject, in which we have nothing to
alter, and to which we refer our readers, has been, of course, attacked by the
Eoman Catholic writer in the Dublin Review, Sept. 1855, pp. 221-224. It
would be a waste of time to answer the sophistical cavils in this criticism,
some of which are refuted by anticipation in Eosenmiiller's note on Exod.
xxv. 18. When, however, the reviewer objects to the etymology itself as
extraordinary, and npt to be paralleled in German philology, we will ask him
to consult Julius Fuerst, who takes his view of the sanctity of the subject,
but nevertheless writes thus (Concordantice, p. 571) : " D-n? ii. m. sicut
ypvw6s (Greif) prehendens, tenens, custodiens aliquid, velut introitum Paradisi
vel sacri foederis arcam. Gryphi Grsecorum et Sphinges JEgyptiorum, quos
Alexandrinus Philo comparat, imitatione ex Cherubis Hebra3orum expressa esse
videntur." And with regard to the possibility of a connexion between Hebrew
and Sanscrit, on the one hand, and Hebrew and ancient Egyptian, on the
other, we beg him to refresh his memory by reading again a book, with which,
no doubt, he is as well acquainted as with any other in the English language,
namely, Cardinal Wiseman's " Lectures on the Connexion between Science and
Eevealed Eeligion," vol. i. pp. 88, 94-101, 372-376. Indeed this was rather
a pet subject with his Eminence some twenty years ago, when he had the
advantage of instructive intercourse with Bunsen and Lepsius.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 355
fly; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind." As the
chariot or steed of God, the cherub exemplifies his active power.
But there is an easy transition from this idea to that of passive
majesty enthroned in a fixed abode: and so we see that the
cherubs over the ark represent the seat of Jehovah, when he
descended hke a cloud upon his sanctuary; and the prophet
Isaiah and the Psalmist describe his throne as supported by
these symbohcal figures.
There is yet one more application of this imaginative
machinery. As supporters of the throne of God, the cherubim
are not only symbols of the Divine presence, but also, as a
necessary consequence, signs of warning to forbid a rash or
profane approach to the shrine of inaccessible sanctity. The
same feeling, which justified the infliction of instant death on
TJzzah for laying his hand on the ark of God, would readily
invest the symbols attached to it and other like emblems of
present Deity, with a sort of warning or prohibitory power.
Hence we find that the cherub and the cognate symbols repre
sent guardians who bar the approaches to that which is for
bidden or inaccessible. In the first mention which we have of
cherubim, they prohibit aU access to the tree of life in the forfeited
garden of Eden, and here they are accompanied with a flaming
sword, perhaps represented as a breath of fire proceeding from
theh mouths, but more probably the cognate form of the
seraphim.1 As these emblems deny aU return to forbidden
happiness, so the kerb-erus of heathen mythology blocks the
entrance to the unexplorable recesses of the grave. In the
midst of the errors caused by his imperfect acquaintance with
the language and religion of the Medo-Persian tribes, Herodotus
has preserved for us a most interesting fragment of this sym
bolical mythology in his account of the Arimaspians. This
one-eyed equestrian people, who dweU in the hyperborean
1 See Jashar, p. 78.

356 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
regions, which are considered as the inaccessible sanctuary of
the sun, can only represent the figure of the sun-god himself
mounted on his heavenly courser, and with his head surmounted
by the circular disk which always typifies his orb, and so often
serves as a foundation for the belief in Cyclopian or monoph-
thalmic deities ; whUe the gryfon, which
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloined
The guarded gold,
represents the cherub, which vainly seeks to prevent the golden
light of day from being borne to the southern regions by
arimaspa or ahuramasdagpa, the horseman of hght."
The transition from the compound figure to one which is
human, with the exception of the cherubic or gryphon-liead,
and from this again to the merely winged man, is to be seen
on the Nineveh marbles. And of course the anthropomorphic
messenger of heaven would naturaUy be invested with distinct
personality. There is, however, no evidence to show that the
Jews conceived the existence of created inteUigences, inter
mediate to God and man, until after the Babylonian captivity
had made them acquainted with the superstitions of their
conquerors. And here an entirely new range of mythology
was opened to them. The attempt to account for the existence
of physical and moral evU, which is natural to all men, pre
sented itself in Mesopotamia and Medo-Persia under the form
of an antagonistic dualism. The two opposite empires of Ught
and darkness were placed under the rule of two opposite deities.
Ormuzd or Ahura-mazddo, the lord of light," had his host of
pure and happy beings, who carried out his beneficent purposes :
whereas Ahriman, the king of darkness," worked out his evil
designs by the instrumentality of the malignant daemons, who
were obedient to his will. The world lay between these two
empires, and was the scene of a perpetual strife between the

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 357
rival principles of good and evil, to which the alternations of
happiness or misery in this life were a perpetual testimony.1
The older and purer theology of the Jews recognised only
one supreme ruler of the world, to whose providence, whether
for good or evil to his creatures, all events were consistently
attributed. In the noble language of the second Isaiah, the
opposing functions of Ormuzd and Ahriman are expressly
claimed for the God of Israel : 2 I am the Lord and there is
none else, there is no God beside me : I form the light and
I create darkness : I make peace and create evil : I the Lord
do aU these things." In accordance with this view, we find
that the obduracy of Pharaoh is sometimes ascribed to the
influence of Jehovah on his heart, and at other times attributed
to his own inherent perverseness. When David resolves to
number his people, this disastrous act is ascribed in one passage
to the anger of the Lord, in another it is said that Satan, or
"the adversary," stood up against Israel and provoked David
to number Israel; and the punishment is referred, not to any
external agency, but to the destroying angel of God. We learn
from the story of Balaam that Jehovah could assume the cha
racter of Satan, or ' the adversary," to prevent, as weU as to
provoke, an evU action : for when that mercenary prophet went
on his forbidden journey, the angel of the Lord, that is, Jehovah
himself, stood in the way for a Satan or adversary" against
him. As Plutarch has shown that the Egyptians had their dualism
no less than the Babylonians,. we have a strong proof of the
overruling sanction with which the religion of Moses was deh
vered, in these sounder views respecting the unity of divine
providence. On the other hand, the degraded Jews, who
returned from the captivity and exile, incorporated the dualistic
mythology of their conquerors with the half-understood traditions
1 Above, pp. 129 foil. z xiv. 5, 7 ; above, p. 133.

358 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
of their own purer faith. Angels and daemons were regarded
as real inhabitants of the invisible world. Sinful suggestions
and influences were placed under the control of Satan, the
adversary," who was raised to a personal existence and identified
with Ahriman. AU diseases and disasters, the origin of which
was unknown or misunderstood, were set down to the per
nicious agency of daemons, and the angels of light were con
sidered as engaged in aU occurrences of a pleasing or beneficent
character. And this fantastic phraseology, for it was nothing
more, had so completely incorporated itself with the ordinary
language in our Saviour's time, that he was constrained to
accommodate his own words to the weakness and ignorance of
those whom he had to address. But we must be careful to
distinguish between the Babylonian superstitions of the Jews,
which were aggravated by the legendary lore of the Eabbis,
and to which Jesus necessarily lent a sort of tacit countenance,
and that modern system of supernatural machinery, which is
partly derived from the theories put forth in the latter half of
the third century by the Persian Manes or Manichaeus, and partly
from the fairies and daemons of Teutonic mythology, and to which
the ignorance of the Western Church in the Middle Ages has
given a stamp of ecclesiastical tradition. It is from these later
sources, and not from the New Testament, that we have borrowed
the ridiculous hobgoblins of the nursery ; and the hideous
Moloch of Calvinistic preachers, an imaginary being who almost
takes from God his attributes of goodness and omnipotence, and
shares with him in the attributes of omniscience and omnipresence,
is a lively plant of Manichaean growth, a comparatively recent
importation from Persia.1
1 Landor, Imaginary Conversations, vol. i. p. 179. London, 1846 : " The
Church of Scotland brings close together the objects of veneration and abhor
rence. The evil principle, or devil, was, in my opinion, hardly worth the
expense of his voyage from Persia ; but since you have him, you seem resolved
to treat him nobly, hating him, dofying him, and fearing him nevertheless.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 359
In order that we may clearly understand how far Jesus and
his Apostles adopted or sanctioned the popular language of the
Jews respecting the existence of angels and devils, how far the
concession or accommodation was inevitable, and how far it
involved important moral or rehgious considerations, it wUl be
necessary to consider the question from the point of view from
which it was presented to our Lord himself. And here we
shaU waive the question, whether Jesus was or was not, before
his resurrection, so informed by his immanent divinity, that he
did not think and reason, according to his human nature, like
the best and most learned of his countrymen. We wUl assume
his infinite superiority to his age and race even in the unexplored
domains of human science and criticism.
Eeserve in the communication of knowledge, when the
parties are, or may be, on a footing of equality, is mere dis
simulation, which might proceed from the most dishonest
motives. But when a teacher is infinitely superior to those
about him, his mode of speaking must admit of a certain amount
of accommodation or condescension. We aU act upon this
principle in our dealings with chUdren, and a learned clergyman
must frequently place himself, by a dehberate effort, on a level
with the apprehension of his ignorant congregation. These rules
are d fortiori applicable to the revelations made by a superior
being in any age or country. We beheve that Jesus Christ
made such a revelation. Whatever might have been the eminence
of his knowledge on any subject, it is obvious that his teaching
would have been unintelligible, and therefore ineffectual, if it
had not assumed the forms of speech, and the habits of mind, of
his countrymen and contemporaries.1 When erroneous concep
tions, expressed in words, have infected the phraseology of a
I would not, however, place him so very near the Creator, let his pretensions,
from custom and precedent, he what they may."
1 There are some excellent remarks on this subject in Norton's Genuine
ness of the Gospels, vol. ii. pp. 477 sqq.

360 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
whole generation of men, the remedy is not to be sought in a
mere change of expression. The language of modern science
would have been an unknown tongue even one hundred years
ago. What would have been the case among the ignorant and
ilhterate Jews, if an inspired teacher of moral truths had begun
by requiring them to correct their ignoranpe of the nervous sys
tem, and of the disorders which are traceable to its pathology ?
The question which naturaUy suggested itself to our Lord, sup
posing him to be possessed of all our present and future acquire
ments in science, was as to the relation between the errors which
he perceived, and the truths which he wished to convey. He
would not sanction or continue religious error, but he would
not, for speculative reasons, impede the success of his own great
undertaking by turning aside to correct mistaken conceptions,
which were not immediately concerned in the matter, and which
were felt to be connected with the language of his country
rather than with the facts of the case. We shaU, moreover, see
presently, that the more correct view was entertained by an
influential sect among the Jews, whose tenets on one important
point were vitally opposed to the cardinal fact in the revelation
of Jesus. Let us, in the first place, confine ourselves to the dapmonology
of the Hebrews. They spoke as if they believed that Satan,
as the ruler of the powers of darkness, or Beelzebub, the prince
of devUs, was always engaged in mischievous attacks on the
body and soul of man. Like the Greeks, they personified Ate,
or "mischief." In regard to the bodily organs, certain affec
tions of the nervous system were supposed to result from
dsemoniacal possession. Thus any one who was Uable to idiocy,
mania, loss of speech or hearing, and even to fits of epilepsy,
was said to be possessed by one or more devils, according to the
language used by the patient in his ravings, or by analogy, in
the case of those who had what were termed dumb spirits.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 361
Although this spiritual machinery was presumed, the Jews
themselves, according to Josephus, regarded dsemoniacal posses
sion as a bodily disease, and employed medicines to cure or
alleviate several of these cases ;: and our use of the word
lunatic " to express similar affections, although no one now
believes that the moon has anything to do with diseases of the
brain, shows that an erroneous phraseology may be used without
deception or dissimulation. Modern physical science will not
allow, for a moment, that anything beyond an affection of the
brain, medulla oblongata, spine, or ganglionic system, is the cause
of these diseases, and modern psychology rejects with disdain
any such hypothesis as that which the Jews adopted. If the
evils, of which we are conscious in this life, result from the
combination or juxtaposition of spirit and matter (and this is

1 All the older opinions are collected by Wetstein in a long note on Matth.
iv. 24, pp. 279-284. It is worthy of remark, that Dr. Nathaniel Lardner,
the great advocate of historical Christianity, did not believe in dsemoniacal
possession. At the end of the first volume of his collected works (Lond.
1838) will be found four discourses " on the case of the daemoniacs men
tioned in the New Testament," in which the whole subject is fully and tem
perately discussed. Some of his remarks are well worthy of the notice of our
modern Manichaeans. Among other things he says (p. 483) : " The scripture,
in agreement with reason, and the general persuasion of mankind, supposes
one soul or spirit in a man ; and for other spirits to subsist therewith, and to
control and actuate all his members, is an incongruity that ought not to be
admitted." With regard to the man who thought himself possessed by a
legion of evil spirits, he makes the following remarks, p. 494 : " Every one
should judge for himself ; but to me it appears most probable that this (the
destruction of the swine) was done by the man himself called Legion . . .
When he had conceived the thought of gratifying the evil spirits, by which he
imagined himself to be possessed, with the destruction of the swine, he would,
without much difficulty, drive them off the precipice. If some few of them
were put in motion, the whole herd would follow . . . This appears to me a
much more reasonable way of accounting for the loss of the swine, than to
suppose that our blessed Lord accepted and granted the petition of evil
spirits." Those who maintain that a belief in Christianity requires an
implicit adoption of the letter of the New Testament narratives, should
recollect that these remarks proceed from the greatest writer on the evidences
of our religion, whose epitomiser, Paley, still furnishes the text-book to one
of our universities. We may also refer to Lardner's remarks on the scientific
ignorance of the sacred writers (p. 479 foil.), and on the countenance given by
our Lord to the common and prevailing opinion on the subject of dsemoniacal
possession (p. 504 foil.). But the whole discussion is well worth the attention
of modern Bibliolaters.

362 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
philosophically certain), it is demonstrable that spirit does not
cause the evils, of which spirit is the unwilling recipient, and
which could not arise, except by and through the material
adjuncts of the mind. The very diseases, which are referred
to demoniacal possession, are affections of the mind, resulting
from a morbid condition of the bodily organs, and are therefore,
strictly speaking, exemplifications of the antagonism between
body and spirit, to which we attribute aU evil. It seems,
therefore ridiculous to speak of a spiritual possession for the
purpose of finaUy affecting the mind by means of a nervous,
that is to say, a corporeal instrumentality.
Now our Lord undertook to prove his divine authority by an
exercise of Godlike power in the benevolent cure of all diseases ;
and he was not likely to neglect the most distressing and hope
less of human maladies. As therefore he restored the blind,
the lame, the leper, so he laid his healing hand on the stiU more
unhappy epileptic, idiot, and maniac. But there was no theory
about the former cases, whereas the latter were attributed to non
existent spiritual agencies. Could the Jews have understood
the correction of their error, if Jesus had thought fit to give it ?
And if not, what would religion have gained by the attempt ?
His object clearly was, by one and the same act, to do good and
to prove his divine authority, and these objects were equaUy
accomplished, whether his wondering attendants beheved in
daemoniac possession or were astonished with anticipations of
modern medical science. He might have foreseen the follies and
crimes connected with a belief in witchcraft, just as he foresaw
other mischiefs immediately springing from his rehgion. But
how could he so far anticipate the enlightenment of after ages, as
to wean the ignorant Jews from their deep-seated daemonology ?
That this superstition," says an able writer,1 " embodied in
the Scripture, has been the cause of many evils, is incontrover-
1 Prospective Review, No. xxiii. p. 386.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 363
tible. But causes anterior to Christianity created the super
stition : a Bibholatry, of which Christianity is independent,
prolonged it. It is easy to expatiate on the mischiefs of this or
any other error left uneradicated by the new religion : but
unless we take into comparison the state in which the case had
been before, or would have been without Christianity, we shut
out the conditions of all rational judgment. For ourselves, we
are convinced that the dualistic belief, expressed in the doctrine
oi possession, is truer and more favourable to moral progress than
any theory of unreduced evil accessible under the same condition
of the human inteUect. To ask for the religious fruits of
physical science, before the science exists, appears to us in the
highest degree unreasonable."
It is easy to perceive, even in the brief accounts given by
the Evangelists, that our Lord, in his dealings with the Jews,
rather acquiesced in the established phraseology than sanctioned
the prevalent superstition.1 When the centurion applied to
Jesus to heal his paralytic servant, our Lord replied, ' I will
come and heal him." But the centurion deprecated the personal
visit as unnecessary : he thought that, as he gave commands to
his inferiors in military rank, so our Lord's simple word would

1 The Talmudists, who echo the opinions prevalent among the Jews of
our Saviour's time, express, by the one term Satan, both the subjective and
objective existence of evil, both that which is in the human breast, and that
which assails us from without. " They understood by this term the obscure
relation which prevails between the fortunate man and external circumstances,
where a single instant, often without our concurrence, may introduce many
changes. They also understood the dsemoniacal in man himself, the self-
oblivion of his weakness, and the manifestation of his brutality. Moreover,
the word Satan denotes every danger in general. When we read in the
Talmud, that ' Satan accuses in the time of danger,' this signifies merely the
greater proximity of risk ; or still more specially when we read : ' Do not
stand in the way of the ox when he comes from the meadow, for Satan leaps
up between his horns,' this only means that the ox is then wild, and therefore
more dangerous than at other times" (Dukes, Rabbinische Blumenlese, pp 107,
108). And with regard to moral evil : " Satan means, in the Talmud,
sensuality, and passion in general, which cause moral death. In this sense we
must understand the Talmudic proverb : ' Satan, evil thoughts, and the angel
of death, are one and the same thing' " (Id. Ibid. p. 145).

364 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
exact obedience from the intermediate agents in his miracles,
whom he, no doubt, conceived as consisting of many legions of
angels. And Jesus accepted his view with an encomium on his
faith. The military associations of the moment no doubt sug
gested the aUusion to the twelve legions of angels, whom he
might have summoned at the time of his arrest. His acquiescence
in the proposal of the Gergesene maniac, that his host of oppres
sors should be transferred to the herd of sWine, appears to us to
rest on a similar condescension : though this miracle, as has
always been felt, involves some difficulties peculiar to itself.
That he regarded the case of daemoniac possession as only one
of those natural irregularities which invited his divine inter
ference, is shown by the fact that he adopted the same proso
popoeia in calming a storm or allaying a fever. Thus, while we
read of the case of a daemoniac,1 he rebuked the foul spirit,
saying unto him, thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come
out of him and enter no more into him" ; we find that, when he
healed Simon's wife's mother, " he stood over her and rebuked2
the fever, and it left her" ; and when he rescued his disciples
from the storm on the lake, he arose and rebuked3 the winds
and the sea, and there was a great calm." If it is only by a
figure of speech that we can be said to rebuke a fever or a storm,
we cannot deny a figurative meaning to the same word when it
expresses the similar injunction addressed to a morbid affection
of the nervous centres.
Thus much may suffice for a brief examination of our Lord's
mode of dealing with the Hebrew dtemonology, so far as the
bodily organs were concerned. But Satan and his emissaries
were also represented as acting on the mind and will. Thus
seven devils are said to have been expelled from the woman who
was a sinner, and Satan is described as entering into the per-
1 Mark, ix. 25, _-reW/«)<r-. a Luke, iv. 39, iwerlpmo-e.
3 Matth. viii. 26, hrerlfaiire.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 365
fidious Apostle when he resolved to betray his Master. Now
either these are merely figures of speech, or they are assertions
of the existence of a being or beings who are cognizant of the
thoughts of man and capable of setting aside the limitations of
space and time. To say nothing of the obvious conclusion that,
if so, omniscience and omnipresence are not distinctive attributes
of God, but shared also by a host of unclean and malignant
spirits in open opposition to Him, we should require to be told
how that which is external to the mind can produce conceptions,
otherwise than through the senses. Of course, we reject at once
any analogy deduced from the operations of the Holy Spirit of
God. We are distinctly told, and our own experience confirms the
statement, that the nobler part of our nature is an emanation
from the Divine Spirit, and that, by virtue of what Jesus did
and suffered, the Holy Ghost dweUs in the believer, combining
itself with those spiritual faculties, — which, though clogged by
the corruptions of our lower appetites, are stiU stamped with
the impress of a celestial origin, — and reproducing the divine
image, in which the soul of man was from the first created.
Hence, as the divine is combined with the human in the person
of Christ, so, in a smaUer degree, the human and divine must
coexist in every true Christian, and the natural soul (tyvvfi)
becomes exalted into a Godlike spirit (irvevpta). AU this is
perfectly consistent with reason and revelation. But unless we
are prepared to concede that Satan shares in the attributes of
Deity, it is impossible to conceive that he should insinuate him
self into the inner folds of our spiritual nature. If, on the other
hand, we say that he takes possession of our bodUy organs and
sensual appetites, and so acts upon our wiU, it is obvious that
he can only do this by identifying himself with them ; and thus
he will not only lose his spiritual nature and separate per
sonality, but will become a part of the separate personality of
each individual man, which will effectually reduce him to a figure

366 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
of speech. In the Apostle's language, " a thorn in the flesh" is
an angel of Satan." Sin is of the flesh and in the flesh.
Out of the flesh it has no objective existence, except so far as
every abstract idea is supposed to have a sort of logical and
conceptional reality ; and the mere assumption that Satan is an
incorporeal and spiritual personality excludes the possibihty of
his having that sin which Scripture and reason limit to a
corporeal and carnal nature. On this subject, the declarations
of Scripture are precise and unmistakeable. Our Lord himself
said : l That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the
man. For from within, out of the heart of man, proceed evU
thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousnesses,
wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy,
pride, foolishness : aU these evil things come from within and
defile the man." The declaration of the Prophet2 that: "The
heart is deceitful above all things (or in aU persons") and
desperately wicked"; and the admission of the Apostle:3 "i
know that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing :
for to wiU is present with me ; but how to perform that which
is good I find not : I dehght in the law of God after the inward
man : but I see another law in my members warring against
the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law
of sin, which is in my members :" — these and many hke passages
amount to the conclusion of phUosophy, that all guilty distur
bances of our higher nature are attributable to the concupiscence
and other passions generated by the bodUy frame in which our
divine spirit is encased. Consequently, as the same thing can
not be at the same time both within and without ourselves, there
can be no temptation except that which proceeds from our own
fleshly heart, or from men subject to the like criminal liabilities ;
and thus the phrase, get thee behind me, Satan," is only a
figurative expression by which we reject the sinful suggestion
1 Mark, vii. 21-23. » Jerem. xvii. 9. 3 Eom. vii. 18-22, 23.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 367
held out before us, whether by our own active imagination,1
or by the fallacious reasonings of a brother man.2 That the
suggestions of our own minds might be placed, as it were, out
of ourselves and attributed to some externnl cause, is shown even
by our phrase the thought struck me," or " presented itself to
me"; still more strongly by the Greek expressions, "the
thought entered into me," I was possessed by the belief,"
the opinion stood beside me," 3 which last, in a fragment
quoted by Stobseus, appears under the form an evil daemon
stood beside a person, turning him to injustice."4
It would be an idle waste of time to show at length how
1 Luke, iv. 8.
2 Matth. xvi. 23. Independently of the theological difficulties occasioned by
the belief or hypothesis that the suggestions of sin are not in the flesh as
opposed to the spirit, but in some created being external to both, this doc
trine has its prejudicial bearing on general morality. We have known cases
in which a convicted criminal has endeavoured to throw the blame of his
delinquency on the irresistible influences of the devil. The frequent plea of
monomania shows how mischievous it may be to allow the belief in delusions,
ab extra, to qualify the sense of responsibility, which is the best safeguard of
society. Nor must we neglect the question of education. We speak after the
results of long experience, when we say that we have never known a case
where it would have been desirable to appeal to the personal existence of a
malignant being, in order to enforce upon the youthful mind the great duties
of morality. Self-denial and self-control are the lessons which we habitually
inculcate. We tell our pupils to say " no " to their own inclinations. The
very idea of education presumes their capacity for improvement, and our best
efforts would be nullified if a boy or child really believed that all his watch
fulness would be in vain, if he gave a single loophole to a tempter without
himself, whose functions are unconnected with the spiritual functions of the
individual, or with his bodily appetites. It is true that we may warn the young
against the evil suggestions and the bad examples of their companions, who
play the part of Satan to them ; but our Lord's rebuke to Peter presumes
that the temptations they lay before us are human, not fiendish (Matth.
xvi. 23) : " Get thee behind me, Satan : thou art my stumbling-block : for
thou maintainest not the promptings of God, hut the dictates of man." The
fact is, as the author of Yeast very truly observes, that the world, the flesh,
and the devil walk arm-in-arm, and man must be regarded as the origin of
all those crimes for which man is held responsible. With regard to the moral
effects of a belief in dsemoniacal possession, it has been well said (Wetstein,
ad Matth. iv. 24, p. 281) : " Qui hsec temere et sine probatione credit, quo
jure condemnabit furem aut latronem habentem excusationem se neque sciente
nee volente factum esse quidquam, sed diabolum callidis artibus corpus suum
invasisse, atque membrorum ministerio abusum fuisse? quod summam con-
fusionem pareret, omnemque testimoniorum certitudinem ipsamque sensuum
evidentiam eluderet."
3 So(,a u.oi TtapeaTdBT). Soph. (Ed. T. 911. 4 Stob. Serm. 42.

368 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY
natural these expressions are and how unjustly a Manichaean
machinery would be extracted from them. For the Christian
it is sufficient to know that Jesus did not preach any dualism,
by way of explaining, the origin of evU; but, on the contrary,
that he fell back on the correcter views entertained by the
older Jews, and considered God himself as the only cause of
whatever is found in this world. As man was created of soul
and body, he was created liable to temptation and guilt.
While, therefore, we pray to our Father which is in heaven,
that he wiU not lead us into temptation ; but that he wUl, on
the contrary, as often as the temptation occurs, as often as the
evU thing presents itself before us, draw us away from its
influence, make a way for us to escape, and enable us by the
help of his Spirit to reject all the wicked promptings of our
own heart or of our sinful brethren " : 1 we are expressly cautioned
1 The concluding petition of the Lord's Prayer is (Matth. vi. 13, Luke,
xi. 4) : fj.7) el&eveyKTjs T)fids els Treipafffibv , dXXa pvffai Tjpias dtrb tov 7rov7)pov.
The aorists show that the prayer does not allude to continued hut to inci
dental temptations. It is also clear that the clause'contains only one petition,
expressed in two different forms. In some copies of Luke, xi. 4, the latter
part of the sentence is omitted as unnecessary. This being the case, 6 TrovTipbs
(for tov TTovvpoS is masculine : see Matth. xiii. 19, 38, Ephes. vi. 16, and
especially 2 Thess., iii. 2, 3 : 'Lva p'vtrBwu.ev dirb Tajv &T(Jirwy Kal TrovTjpwv
dvBpwwwv .... 6 Kbpios bs (pvXa^ei curb tov TcovTipov) must be equivalent
to 6 7reipd(wv or b SidftoXos cf. Matth. iv. 1, with 1 Thess. iii. 5. But this
personification creates no difficulty, for it is quite clear, from the locus classicus
in John xvii. 15, that the world, 6 k6<t)los, is the only concrete reality which
is referred to here. The real question is, how can we pray to God that he will
not introduce us to temptation, but, as the converse of this, that he will deliver
us from the tempter (2 Pet. ii. 9) ? The parallel passage, which gives an
answer to this question, is that in Matth. xxvi. 41 : ypTjyopeTre, ko.1 Trpoa-
ebxeoBe, 'lva u,7i eiaeX8l\Te els 7retpairfi6v. Tb /lev 7rvevu.a TrpSBvpiov, t) Be <rctp|
ao-Bevfis. From this we see that the temptation is suggested by the flesh, that
it attacks the spirit whenever it slumbers and relinquishes its active vigilance,
and that the grace by which we overcome our infirmities is to be obtained by
constant prayer (cf. Ephes. vi. 18). Thus the concluding petition of the Lord's
Prayer is really a supplication for grace to enable us to conquer in the daily
contest of our spirit with our flesh, of our higher with our lower nature. God
cannot be said to introduce us to temptation, or to act the tempter (James, i.
13, 14), though he has so ordered the conditions of our being, that we are
liable to the influences of the flesh. The whole clause must, therefore, be
taken together, and pronounced uno ore; so that the pi) elaeveyKris aAAa
final may be taken in the sense suggested by Origen (in Psalm xvii. 19) :• els
Treipaapbv ovk elffepxeTai ob Tip u.7i 7reipaa8rjvai dXXa t<$ pi) dx&vai Tats Trayiai
tov TceipatrfioS {cf. 2 Tim. ii. 26) ; and this was also the meaning of the Jewish

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 369
by the Apostle James, whose testimony, as we shall soon have
occasion to show, is peculiarly valuable, against supposing that
the Almighty is the cause of temptation in any other sense
than that which is implied in his placing us here, as responsible
persons, in a state of probation or trial. His warning is plain
and precise : 1 Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am
tempted of God : for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempteth he any man : but every man is tempted when he is
drawn away of his own lust and enticed" : and after reminding
us that strife and brawling come from the lusts that war in our
members,2 he bids us : " Eesist the devil and he will flee from
you,"3 clearly implying that our only enemy was our own corrupt
nature, to be subdued by the grace which God giveth to the
humble. With regard to the belief in good angels, it is to be remarked
that with the exception of a few passages, in which our Lord
obviously uses a phraseology intentionally metaphorical or accom
modated to the preconceptions of his hearers, there is no mention
of angels in the New Testament, which can have any importance
as a matter of fact, except in the eyes of those who maintain
the hypothesis of the literal and verbal infaUibihty of the Gospel
narratives ; and it wiU be observed by all who have read the
controversies on the subject, that angelology is generaUy main
tained as a mere coroUary to the doctrine of inspiration.4 If the
angelic appearances rested on the same evidence as the miracles
Prayer (Beraehoth, f. 60, 62, quoted by Wetstein, ad Matth. 1. c.) : " Ne facias
nos intrare in manus peccati, et in manus tentationis, et in manus contemtus,
nee in potestatem ejus ac dominium ; ne conjiciatis nos in angustias, unde
pedem referre non possimus ; ne permittamus ut succumbamus oneri." We have
a similar explanation in 1 Cor. x. 13 : iriorij Se S ®ebs, bs ovk idaei bpas
Treipacrdrjvai vwep b BvvaerBe, oAAa TcoiTjaei abv ry Treipatrpup Kal Tijv eKfiao'tv,
tov SivaaBai vpcis vTreveyKelv. It is for this eK&aais that we pray. And the
irovnpbs, therefore, however personified, resolves itself into its results —the
works of sinfulness ; whence, with a close reference to the phraseology of our
prayer, we read, 2 Tim. iv. 18: ^iJireioi pe 6 Kipios oxb iravrbs ipyou
novripov. 1 James, i. 13, 14. - iv. 1. 3 iv. 7. 4 See Appendix VIT.
21

370 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
and other facts in our Lord's history, we must either receive
them as estabhshed historical incidents, or give up our faith in the
historical evidences of Christianity. It so happens, however,
that in no one instance is the appearance of an angel recorded
by a person who professes to have seen the celestial visitant with
his own waiting eyes. We are referred to visions and dreams, to
the doubtful chapters at the beginning of St. Matthew, to the
poetical introduction to St. Luke, to the wearied and sleepy
Apostles in Gethsemane, to terrified women looking into a
gloomy cavern, to Peter in the darkness of a dungeon-ceU.
In these cases something appeared, or was imagined, or has been
erroneously recorded. But no Jewish enemies witnessed the
wonderful phenomenon, no sceptical Sadducee was converted from
his repugnance to Babylonian dualism by a sight which would
have convinced his senses. The only narrative which seems
to militate against this general assertion is that of the descent
of the angel into the sheep-pool at Jerusalem.1 But it is re
markable that the passage itself is doubtful, if not spurious,
as is shown by the wavering evidence of the MSS. ; and even
supposing that the text were undoubtedly genuine, as it clearly
refers to the intermittent spring by which the pool was fed,
and as there is not the least reason to suppose that the angel
was described as visible, the only effect would be to show us
still more clearly with what readiness the Jews ascribed every
unexplained occurrence to the imagined tenants of the spiritual
world, and so would lead us to doubt every statement which
spoke of an angelophany. If the assembled friends of Peter
could maintain, in spite of the repeated assurances of Ehoda,
that she was mad to recognise him by his voice, and that his
angel, not himself, was knocking at their gate, we can readily
make allowance for any amount of superstitious error on the part
of those whose imaginations were so prone to the construction of
1 John, v. 1-8.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 371
supernatural machinery. In general, it is the universally ad
mitted canon — that each part of Scripture must be interpreted by
the spirit of the whole l ; and if, which is certain, the mention of
angels as separate beings is unconnected with any religious
doctrine and unsupported by the usual criteria of historical
evidence, it may be safely allowed to sink to its proper level
and to rank with other instances of inaccurate or erroneous
phraseology. If, notwithstanding aU that haa been said, it should be
thought that Jesus did not discountenance the angelology and
daemonology of the Jews as he would have done had he con
sidered these dogmas erroneous, we may point to an additional
reason for his acquiescence, to which sufficient weight has not
been given by any Biblical commentator.
When Jesus taught in Judaea, he found himself opposed by
two leading sects, which had ranged under theh respective
denominations all the educated and intelligent men of the nation,
since the days when the Maccabees endeavoured to restore the
independent existence, of their country. These sects are gene
rally known as the Pharisees and Sadducees. The former, whose
name denotes the separated," and who were also called the
Kasidim, or pious," were distinguished by their regard for the
traditions of the elders, by the importance which they attached
to ceremonial observances, by their eager proselytism, and by a
fatalism and self-reliance which generaUy belong to those who
build their faith on a system of stereotyped bigotry and outward
rites.2 The Sadducees, whose name indicates that they claimed
to be the Tttaddiqim, or righteous," rejected all the traditions

1 Coleridge, Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, p. 73.
2 To what an extent the Pharisaical system was a religion ab extra, and,
as such, opposed to the spirit of Christianity, may be inferred from their rule
that " instead of leaving everything to the free motions of the heart, a man
should bind himself to do this or that good by a direct vow ; for vows are the
enclosures of Pharisaical piety— y\D DH"J. -W*")?!? ." Pirke Avath, § 13.

372 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
by which the text of the saered books had been overlaid and
corrupted. They set aside, therefore, the Babylonian superstitions
about hierarchies of spiritual beings, good and bad ; they did not
recognise a personal resurrection, because they could not find it
clearly taught in the books of the Law ; they maintained the
necessity of the strictest moral rectitude, and consequently
asserted the freedom and responsibility of man ; they were not
given to proselytising, and were tolerant of aU doctrines except
that of the resurrection, which they considered detrimental to
the purity of the moral law.
The attentive reader of the New Testament oan hardly faU to
observe, that while the Pharisees are made the objects of con
tinual reproach and censure, the Sadducees are in general less
frequently mentioned, and their distinctive tenets are not re
buked or confuted, with, of course, the great exception of the
vital doctrine of the resurrection. Their disbelief in angels
and devils is passed over in guarded silence, as far as any
censure is concerned. In many respects, our Lord seems to
have approved and recommended theh views. Like them, he
and his Apostles upheld the payment of tribute, and were for
giving to Caesar the things that were Caesar's. Like them,
Jesus agreed with the Karaites, in relying on the letter of the
Old Testament, as distinguished from the Eabbinical traditions.
It is written," is his form of citation ; and though he spiritua
lised the Law and the Prophets, and rejected the ceremonial
aftergrowths of Leviticism, he found the spirit in the texts
which he quoted. Above all, he seems to have acquiesced in
their distinctive name as applied to himself. He is known by
his friends and by his candid enemies as " the just man,"
b Blxaiot, ha-tsaddiq, in fact, as the Sadducee," according to
the meaning of this term- Have thou nothing to do with that
righteous or just man," says Pilate's wife. " Certainly this was a
just man," was the exclamation of the centurion who attended his

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 373
execution. " Ye denied the Holy One and the Just," said Peter,
and desired a murderer to be granted to you." And in the same
way James writes : Te have condemned and kiUed the Just."
We might even go a step farther, and assume that this was the
special designation of Jesus at Jerusalem ; for, in the language of
prophecy, he is described as the Lord our Eighteousness " ; and
we find that the same name was given to his relative James,
who was at the head of the Church in the city of David.
On account of his exceeding righteousness," says Eusebius,
he was caUed tzaddiq, that is, the just man." As this epithet
was also borne by Simon, the Just," the successor of Ezra
and the true founder of the Sadducaean sect, it is difficult to
resist the impression that Jesus and his brother James, being
known by the characteristic title of this sect, openly aUowed
many of the fundamental doctrines of the Sadducees ; and there
may be as much truth in the statement of Hegesippus, that
James was put to death by the scribes and Pharisees, as in the
counter-statement of Josephus, that his martyrdom was effected
by the Sadducaean High Priest Ananus. If James the Just was
the author of the Epistle attributed to him, these considerations
impart an additional interest to his declaration that sin and
death spring from the lust inherent in our nature and not from
the temptations presented by a superior being.
But whatever conclusion we may come to on the subject,
it must be clear that as Jesus agreed with the Sadducees on
other points, but was opposed to them in regard to the most
vital doctrine of his religion — the resurrection of the dead — he
was not likely to have made any express concessions to their
denial of the existence of angels and spirits, a denial which
rested on materialistic reasoning, and was connected with a
disbelief in the immortality of the soul. For although he may
have agreed with them as to the fact that there are no created
intelligences other than man, he could not openly adopt a

374 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
speculative truth, which was saddled with an application dia-
metricaUy opposed to the cardinal verity of his religion; and
though entitled to the epithet ' ' Just," which was their technical
appeUation, he shrank from aU appearance of fellowship with
the dogmatic and sectarian Sadducees. If, then, we are disposed
to think that Jesus did not sufficiently repudiate the superstitious
angelology of his countrymen, we may perhaps conclude that
his sUence was justified by his pecuhar relations to the sect
which had made a false application of the true doctrine.1
As it has now been proved that a belief in intermediate
existences may be traced back to an Oriental mythology, which
Christianity cannot adopt except as an affection of phraseology,
it wiU be satisfactory to show that the Anghcan Church has
not committed itself to any dogmatic teaching on this subject.
The fact is, that not only do the Articles make no mention
whatever of angels or devUs, as created personahtes, but they
give an account of the origin and nature of sin, which is quite
at variance with the hypothesis of an external agency in its
production. It is true that the Church, hke the Bible, assumes
the existence of good and bad angels, without teaching anything
about them. It is true that the Liturgy abounds in aUusions
to Satan, and brings before us Cherubim, Seraphim, Michael,
and the whole hierarchy of post-Babylonian angels. But as
the sixth Article ahows no necessary teaching which is not read
in Scripture or may be proved thereby, as the eighth Article
makes the Creeds themselves dependent on the warrants of
Scripture by which they are estabhshed, and as the twentieth
1 Beausobre has made an approximation to this view; he says (Remarques
sur le N. T., p. 14) : " D'ailleurs, N. S. n'etoit pas appell, a corriger les
fausses id6es que les Juifs pouvoient avoir sur la nature de ces maladies. Et
s'il leur avoit dit, qu'elles etaient l'effet de quelques causes naturelles, ils en
auraient pris un pretexte de l'accuser de nier qn'il y eut de mauvais esprits ;
et par consequent qu'il y en eut aussi de bons. Les Pharisiens en auraient
ait un Sadduoeen."

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 375
Article teUs us that the Church may not so expound one place
of Scripture that it be repugnant to another, it cannot be
said that we are bound, as consistent Churchmen, to prefer the
views which the Jews brought back with them after the ExUe
to those which are propounded in the older books of the Canon.
We cannot beheve that an angel is a created inteUigence with
out rejecting those passages in the Old Testament which repre
sent every angelophany as a manifestation of Jehovah himself ;
and this the Church, by its own laws, cannot demand of us.
The angehc symbols, which are found in so many churches,
show how enthely conventional and phraseological our whole
angelology would have become if the Calvinistic preachers had
not found theh account in this superstition. If the mpst zealous
stickler for personal angels could be convinced of the fact that
the figures on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments were truer
representations of the cherubs and angels of the tabernacle and
the temple, of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the Apocalypse, than those
winged figures or winged infant-heads, which we have intro
duced into our churches and churchyards from the paintings of
Italian artists, would he, out of respect to any reality in his
own mind, substitute the genuine for the counterfeit symbolism ?
And if not, is he not a slave to the beggarly elements of a
merely syllabic realism ? In strictness we are bound to view
the matter from both sides. The Church of England predicates
nothing more of her Liturgy than that it is in accordance with
Scripture. Now it cannot be denied that some parts of Scrip
ture give a prima facie sanction to this angelogy. Accordingly,
the most enhghtened scholar wiU admit that there is at least
an apparent reason for leaving in the Prayer-Book a.phraseology
derived from Scripture so long as there are members of the
Church to whom this language suggests a hteral and dogmatio
meaning. On the other hand, the advocates for this hteral

376

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.

interpretation must concede to the clergy, to whom our Church
gives the right and duty of interpreting the whole Bible, the
hberty of interpreting the angelology of the Prayer-Book on the
same principles and to the same extent as they interpret the
angelology of the Scriptures themselves.1
Let us see what results wiU flow from a separate and detaUed
examination of the passages in our Liturgy in which angels and
devUs are mentioned. And to begin with the angelology, our
first and most prominent case is the dedication of a special day
to the commemoration of the Archangel Michael and aU angels.
To any objection which might be raised to the doctrine of angels
in general, there is the peculiar addition, in the case of this
Talmudieal Archangel, that he occurs only in three books — in
Daniel and Jude, which are least able to satisfy the conditions
of Bibhcal criticism, and in the Apocalypse, which is altogether
poetical and visionary. VirtuaUy his functions, since the earliest
centuries of the Church, have been absorbed into those of our
national patron, St. George. If there are any persons in England
by whom either the 23rd AprU or the 29th September is regarded
as a religious commemoration, they should be at full liberty to
1 There are some sensible remarks on this subject in the introduction to the
edition of the Greek Testament by Messrs. Webster and Wilkinson (pp. xxii.,
xxiii.) : "We refer to the Book of Common Prayer as the best practical
commentary on the Bible, ascribing a higher authority to the Creeds and
Articles as the formal exegesis of our faith as the members of a Christian
community. In the prosecution of our labours, we have been forcibly struck
with the very wide difference which exists between the views of those who
regard all the contents of the Prayer Book as a dogmatical commentary on
the Bible, which is binding on the faith and consciences of honest Church
men, and of others, like ourselves, who accept it as a practical commentary for
the purposes of Church membership." The instances which they give — the
open questions as to the identity of Bartholomew and Nathaniel, the author
ship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the interpretation of the Parable of
the Good Samaritan, are of less general importance than others which they
might have adduced ; but their principle seems to be a sound one. At any
rate, it is quite clear that the Church of England has no dogmatic teaching on
the subject of intermediate intelligences ; it only assumes their existence in
some sense which it does not determine. And the question is not, — what was
the belief of those who framed the prayers ? but, — is the Prayer-Book recon
cilable with modern biblical learning ?

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 377
pursue theh devotions according to their own ideas. As, how
ever, these days have long ceased to be kept holy, it would be
desirable to remove from our Prayer-Book a Collect which seems
to recognise the Babylonian mythology of different orders of
demi-gods. The ter-sanctus of the Te Deum and of the Com
munion Service rests upon a sublime vision of Isaiah, expanded,
in the latter case, by a reference to the Talmudical hierarchy.
In the highly- wrought language of devotional hymns, we may
safely adopt poetical imagery which is fraught with religious
truth ; and if it is necessary to seek for an accurate explanation
of the terms employed, we can faU back upon the statement
in the book of Job, that at the Creation " the morning stars
sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy"; and upon
the nineteenth Psalm, which represents the physical heavens as
hymning the praises of Him "whose glory is the fulness ofthe
whole earth." That personification is the natural result of this
poetical language, might be shown, if necessary, by citing the
Angelic chorus, which Haydn, in his " Creation," and GSthe,
in his "Faust," have constructed from these reahstic materials.
These are the only passages in the Prayer-Book which make a
distinct aUusion to the existence of angels ; and whUe the
Michaelmas service is vhtuaUy extinct and inoperative, the
aUusions in the Te Deum and Communion Service may be, and
usually are, understood as referring generally to our wish to
rival the worship of the invisible world. " Thy wiU be done in
earth as it is in heaven," is the key-note of aU human devotion.
The daemonology of the Prayer-book is a more distinct feature
than its angelology. Eeferences to the Devil, as the chief cause
of sin and suffering, occur everywhere. In the Catechism, the
chUd is reminded that his sponsors at his baptism promised
that he would "renounce the devil and all his works," as weU
as the world and the flesh. In accordance with this we pray,

378 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
in the CoUect for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, that we
may have grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the
flesh, and the devil. The same prayer is repeated in the
Litany, where we also beseech God that it may please Him
finaUy to beat down Satan under our feet. In the prayer for
help under adversities, we say : " Graciously hear us, that those
evUs which the craft and subtilty of the devil or man worketh
against us be brought to nought, and by the providence of thy
goodness they may be dispersed." And on the Fhst Sunday in
Lent we are distinctly reminded of our Lord's temptation by
Satan in the wilderness.1 These are the principal passages :
and if we examine them carefuUy we shaU see that, while no
idea of separate personaUty is conveyed by the name of Satan,
the word is distinctly used as an abstract term significant of the
sin which causes crime and suffering.
If we begin with the Catechism and the other passages which
place the world, the flesh, and the devU in the same category,
we shaU see that the latter represents a particular form of that
sinful selfishness which opposes itself to the law of God.2 On
this subject the services for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

1 There is one reference to the devil in the Articles. It is said that
"hominibus curiosis, carnalibus, et Spiritu Christi destitutis, ob oculos per-
petuo versari prsedestinationis Dei sententiam, perniciosissimum est prse-
cipitium, unde illos diabolus protrudit, vel in desperationem vel in seque
perniciosam impurissima? vitae securitatem" (Art. xvii. ad. fin.). Here it is
obvious that by " the devil" is meant the condemning voice of the conscience,
which is really a voice of God in our hearts (1 John, iii. 20, 21). On this
subject Julius Miiller has well observed (von der Siinde, i p. 189, ed. 3rd) :
"When Gothe, in his Faust, places in the mouth of the evil spirit the re
proaches of the awakening conscience, this procedure of the poet, for which
parallels might be easily adduced from the writings of the great teachers of
the Church, especially Luther, may be justified by this, that, with reference to
its effects, a certain amphiboly attaches itself to the consciousness of guilt,
although this consciousness is so holy in its origin. As, on the one hand, it
promoted salvation in Peter, so, on the other hand, it tended to destruction in
the case of Cain and Judas."
2 See "The Three Treacherous Dealers," Lond. 1854, where it is shown
that the language of the Catechism may he most instructively used without
inculcating the personality of Satan.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 379
are peculiarly instructive. To the Collect, which we have
aheady cited, and which implies that a purity of heart and
mind is the result of a conquest over the world, the flesh, and
the devil, is attached a passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew
which contains our Lord's answer to the question of the Lawyer,
" What is the first and great commandment in the Law ? "
Jesus said unto him, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment. And the second
is Uke unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On
these two commandments hang aU the Law and the Prophets."
Now, since the Christian is regarded as a warrior, who has
engaged manfully to fight under Chiist's banner against sin
(i.e. the flesh), the world, and the devU, and as he best fulfils
this engagement by obeying his Master's commands, we
should expect, on the one hand, to find in the decalogue the
law of love (and for this" we have our Saviour's authority) ; and
also, in its negations, to discover the triple antagonism which
constitutes the warfare of the Christian soldier. If, then, we
set aside the first four commandments which pertain to the
love of God, and the fifth, which refers to the love of parents —
and aU these may be classified under the common head of pietas,
or dutiful affection — there wiU remain five other precepts which
express our obhgation to love our neighbours as ourselves. As
the devil is described as a murderer and a har — the accuser of
the brethren, — as the flesh or sin is concupiscence, or sexual
indulgence, and as the world represents mammon, or greedy
and unprincipled aggrandisement, we may make the last five
commandments faU under these heads : " thou shalt do no
murder," which is of the devil ; " thou shalt not commit
adultery," which is of the flesh; "thou shalt not steal," which
is of the world; "thou shalt not bear false witness," which

380 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
is of the devil; "thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house,"
which is of the world ; " thou shall not covet thy neighbour's
wife," which is of the flesh. Now the very form of the teaching
which places the "devU" by the side of the "flesh," or "sin," and
the " world," shows us that the three terms are equaUy abstract,
and that if it is not necessary for any theological purpose to
personify the world and the flesh, neither can it be necessary
to personify the devil. All three stand on the same footing, as
constituents of one and the same whole, namely, the selfishness
which places itself in opposition to the Christian's self-denying love.
In the remaining passages, we are invited to regard Satan
as the cause of temptations and trials. The phrase in the
Litany, where we speak of beating down Satan under our feet
is, of course, a mere metaphor ; but when the devU and man
are put together as producing afflictions by craft and subtilty,
there must be some reference to an agency from without, and
the passage can only imply a distinctioU between the explicable
and the mysterious causes of human suffering. Otherwise, we
must return to a belief in the daemonology of the Middle Ages,
not excluding witchcraft, and aU its abominable and hideous
consequences. With regard to the Fhst Sunday in Lent, and Satan's power
as a tempter, it is clear from the CoUect for that day, and from
the account which our ninth Article gives of sin, that the
Church, like St. James, regards aU provocation to guUty con
duct as proceeding from the diseased heart of faUen man. The
CoUect prays that we may have grace to use such abstinence,
that our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey
our Lord's godly motions in righteousness and true holiness.
As this prayer is the sequel to a citation of our Lord's absti
nence in the wilderness, it implies, or ought to imply, that his
fast led to a similar victory of the Spirit over the flesh. Now

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 381
a comparison of our Baptismal Service with our Catechism,
shows that our Church considers sin, the world, and the devil,
as equivalent to the flesh, the world and the devU; and the
ninth Article teUs us that sin is presumed in our <ppbvr)p,a o-apKot,
that is, in the tendencies of our corrupt nature. But the same
thing cannot be both within and without. Therefore, our Church
must be regarded as denying the existence of an objective
tempter as the cause of sin.
The objections derived from the narrative of our Lord's
temptation are easily answered. The internal evidence of the
narrative, when it is compared with the scene in the garden of
Gethsemane, shows that the conflict described was confined to
the mind of our Lord. At the beginning of his ministry, and
just before its painful completion, he was, as perfect man,
beset with the troublesome thoughts which are described in
these two narratives, and by his divine sphit triumphed in both
cases. But, it is urged, how could he, who was sinless, have
any suggestion to sin in his own nature ? This objection, which
is sometimes couched in very violent language, as if the con
trary view involved positive blasphemy, springs from a confusion
of mind which is very deplorable. It points, at any rate, to
a most pernicious dogma. For the tendency to deify our Lord's
human nature, which has existed since the time of Eutyches,
leads inevitably to that deification of the Virgin Mother, which
has lately found its ultimate result in the dogma of her im
maculate conception! Our Saviour either was perfect man, —
that is, man, in the full and proper sense of the term,1 — or he
1 The doctrine of Christ's perfect humanity, which it would be the worst
of heresies to deny, involves some considerations respecting the limitations of
his knowledge and intellectual capacity, which have not received sufficient
attention. It is clear that when the divine Word (xiyos) or manifested Deity
(John, i. 18) became flesh (cdptj, he assumed human nature in all its
trichotomy (see Olshausen, de naturte humana; triehotomia, Opuscula Theo-
logica, pp. 143 sqq.), namely, he had the irvevpa, if'ux^i and trSpa, of man.

382 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
was not. If he was — and it is the worst of heresies to deny
this — he must have had human passions, or a liability to the
access of temptation. But he was also perfect God ; and there
fore his victory over temptation was certain in every case. So

In his agony at Gethsemane, he mentions all three, his wceS/ia as opposed to
his crop! (Matth. xxvi. 41), and his ^ivxt) (v. 38). His whole career shows
that in whatever manner, and to whatever extent, his irvevpa was influenced
and actuated by immanent deity, it was still the spirit of a man, and acted by
aud through his natural or bodily organs. Thus we find him, at first, a help
less infant (Luke, ii. 16) ; then, although his progress in mind and acquired
knowledge was very remarkable (ibid. 47), it is expressly stated that in bodily
growth or maturity (rjXiKia), and in intellectual development {aotpla), he
improved gradually (vpoeKOTTTe), like other children (ibid. 52). He was liable
to the passionate emotions of pity (Luke, xix. 41, John. xi. 33, 35) and indig
nation (Matth. xii. 31 sqq.) ; he groaned in spirit, and wept for sorrow (John,
xi. 33, 35). The contemplation of his own sufferings threw him into inde
scribable anguish of mind, and he seemed to shrink from the task which he
had undertaken, even at the moment when it was about to be accomplished
(Matth. xxvi. 39). Finally, he died a most painful death, with all the adjuncts
of mental prostration (Matth. xxvii. 46). That his illumination in spiritual
matters was not immediate and complete— in other words, that it did not flow
necessarily from the divinity which resided within him from his birth, — is
clearly shown by the statement that the Spirit of God desceuded upon him at
his baptism (Matth. iii. 16). There are, no doubt, many examples of his
superhuman knowledge {e. g. John, i. 48), especially in regard to that discern
ment of the thoughts and intentions of men, which may sometimes spring
from merely human penetration and sagacity (John, ii. 24, 25, Matth. ix. 4,
Mark, ii. 8, Luke, v. 22) ; and even this penetration seems to have failed him
when he selected Judas Iscariot as one of his Apostles. And on the other
hand, we are expressly told that his knowledge was limited even in regard to
the most momentous of all his own prophecies, the fall of Jerusalem, and the
coming of his own kingdom. He foresaw the fact, and knew that it would
happen before that generation had passed away (Matth. xxiv. 34) ; but he
declared that the day and the hour were unknown even in heaven, save to the
Father only {ibid. 36, Mark, xiii. 32). The more complete revelation was
purchased by his death on the cross, for he was made perfect through suffer
ings (Hebr. ii. 10, cf. v. 9) ; and this is the meaning of the statement in the
Apocalypse, that the Lamb that was slain was alone privileged to open those
seals which locked up the precise knowledge of the time when Jerusalem was
to fall (Rev. v. 3, 5, 9). If, then, Christ's knowledge was thus limited in
regard to a revelation of the utmost importance affecting the results and
objects of his mission on earth, it cannot be maintained that his knowledge
was unlimited in regard to all other matters, least of all in regard to those
matters which belong to the domain of human science and investigation.
Accordingly, it must be supposed that what Peter said to him after his resur
rection (John, xxi. 17) : " Lord, thou knowest all things," could not have
been said before his death on the cross : and that his sufferings, which pur
chased the exaltation of his humanity (Phil. ii. 9), and without which the
Spirit could not have taken up its abode with the Church (John, xvi. 7)
obtained also for his human intellect that illumination without which it could
not have mated in heaven with his antecedent divinity.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 383
that he was, as a fact, without sin either in flesh or spirit,
which is the doctrine of our fifteenth Article. "It might be
doubted," says Dr. Hey, "whether our Article does in strictness
affirm that Christ was not peccable : it certainly affirms that he
did not sin ; which seems to amount to much the same. If sin
had been in his propensities, he would seemingly have com
mitted it sometimes, as we do, so many are the openings to sin ;
but this we cannot thoroughly understand." The difficulty here
raised, vanishes at once if we remember what Dr. Hey has
so strangely overlooked, the double nature of our Lord. He
would have been peccable, if he had been man only ; but, being
God also, the flesh was consistently subdued to the sphit, and
sin, as St. John says, was not in him. Wherever there is flesh,
there must be passion ; wherever there is passion there must be
a habUity to temptation ; and, if the temptation is not resisted,
the inevitable result is sin. Now we are expressly told that
" the word became flesh "; 1 the whole career of Jesus is repre
sented as an antagonism oi flesh and spirit ; 2 and, in one of his sorest
trials, he declared " that the spirit indeed was willing, but the
flesh weak." 3 That the flesh assumed by Jesus was not, in itself
and absolutely, impeccable, or free from the liabihties of human
nature, is not only clear from the fact that he was perfect man,
but is also distinctly stated by St. Paul, who tells us in one
passage,4 that " God, by sending his Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, and as a sacrifice for sin, condemned or deprived of
its power the sin in the flesh " ; and, as he intimates that this
was impossible under the law, owing to its carnal weakness
(iv S> r)o-0evei Bid rrjt aapKot), he must mean, as he says in
the preceding verse, that the divine element in Christ, and the
' John, i. 14 ; 1 Tim. iii. 16. 2 1 Pet. iii. 18. 3 Matth. xxvi. 41.
1 Horn. viii. 3 ; cf. Hebr. x. 8, 18.

384 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
Spirit of life which he imparted to his true foUowers, were the
only means of conquering this inherent liability of our lower
nature. The same opposition between the divine and human
elements in the double nature of Christ is distinctly implied in
another important statement by the same Apostle, namely, that
God " made Him that knew not sin to be sin on our account,
in order that we may become the righteousness of God in
Him,"1 where the clear inference is that Christ condescended
to combine his impeccable divine nature with our peccable
humanity, in order that we, conversely, might obtain in and by
Him the divine grace, by which alone we can enjoy it, the
means of resisting temptations, and so controlling our lower
nature. To say that Jesus Was without passions in his human
flesh, is simply to confuse between his humanity and his
divinity ; for, as our first Article distinctly avers, an immunity
from passions is an attribute of the Godhead alone.
This participation in the weakness and passion incident to
human flesh is immediately connected with the temptations of
our Lord, in the passage which is especiaUy quoted in proof of
his sinlessness:z "We have not a high priest unable to sympa
thize with our weaknesses (crvpnradrjo-ai Tait curdeveiait
f)p>G>v), but tempted in aU respects like us, short of sin"
(Tre7reipa/jievov icaTa irdvra KaO' bpioibTrjTa ^topi? dp,ap-
Tiat), where the last words manifestly imply, not an immunity
from the same kind of temptation to which every man is
exposed, for this is expressly conceded, but to a victory over
this temptation. This shows that the devil, who tempted Jesus,
tempts us in the same way, and St. James tells us that if we
also resist him he wiU flee from us. But who is this devU ?
Simply the evil agency of our unrenewed nature, which pro
duces sin. Thus, St. John tells us that every one who com-
1 2 Cor. v. 21. ¦* Heb, iv. 15.

INTERMEDIATE INTELLIGENCES. 385
mitteth sin is of the devil, and that the devU has been all
along the active agency of sin,1 whereas he that is born of God,
or regenerated, commits no sin; and hence, beUevers and un
believers are distinguished as chUdren of God and children of
the devil respectively. If this mode of viewing the case were
less satisfactory than it is, we must perforce accept St. Paul's
statement, which has been so long overlooked, that Jesus "put
off from himself the principalities and powers, and made an
open exhibition of his victory, having triumphed over them
on his cross." 2 From aU this, it appears that the dread reality
of temptation is to be sought in the natural tendencies of man,
from which the first Adam was not free, otherwise he would
not have faUen, and in which the' second Adam must have
sympathised, otherwise he would not have been perfect man;
and that the temptation of Jesus differed from ours only in
its intensity, which he had aggravated by his long-continued
abstinence, and in the certainty of that spiritual strength,
which wiU, however, be bestowed, in different measures, on aU
who ask for it in his name.
This inquiry, which has regarded the subject from every
avaUable point of view, has brought us to some definite results,
which seem to us to reconcUe the requhements of modern learn
ing and cathohc orthodoxy. We have seen, negatively, that
neither Scripture nor the Church has any definite dogmatic
teaching on the subject of intermediate existences; that the
evidence for aUeged angelophanies cannot be regarded as be
longing to the same class as that on which we admit the reality
of the miraculous occurrences mentioned in the Gospels; and
that we cannot harmonize the mention of angels in the Old
Testament with that of angels in the New Testament unless
we contradict either the one or the other authority. We have
1 1 John, iii. 8, 9. 2 See above, pp. 14, 61 foil.
25

386

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.

seen, positively, that the Church doctrines of original sin as a
corruption of the flesh, of the perfect humanity of Jesus, and
of the Holy Spirit's ministration in the Church, dhectly forbid
us to believe that sin can exist in a purely spiritual being, or
that such a being can be the cause of sin in us. In opposition
to aU this, we find merely the hypothesis that the Jewish and
Christian books written after the Captivity are literaUy infalhble,
and that the conceptions, which the Israelites borrowed from
the duahsm of their masters, are a necessary part of revealed
rehgion. We may safely leave the result of the argument to
be decided by any man of ordinary candour and competent
information; and we think that, if the case is duly weighed,
with a fah estimate of the conflicting evidences, it must be
admitted, even by the narrowest theologian, that it is incom
parably more heterodox and heretical to maintain, than to deny,
the existence of created but superhuman inteUigences.

APPENDIX VII.
(CHAP. IV. p 369).
ON A EECENT ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH THE
PEESONALITT OF ABSTEACT EVIL.
About five years ago an attempt to prove " the separate
and substantive existence of a Spirit of EvU" was made by one
whose academical and educational position entitles him to a
hearing on this or any other question. A volume of Sermons,
doctrinal and occasional, by Charles John Vaughan, D.D., " Head
Master of Harrow School, Chaplain in Ordinary to Her Majesty,
and late Fellow of Trinity CoUege, Cambridge," (London, 1851),
is headed by one " on the personality of the Tempter,"" which
gives its title to the coUection. Independently of other reasons
this Sermon deserves notice as showing, in accordance with the
statements in our treatise, that the advocates of this opinion
respecting the personality of abstract evil make Christianity
responsible for it, brand with the name of unbehever those who
do not agree with them, and leave theh own faith to stand or
faU with an hypothesis, which, they admit, is untenable on
grounds of reasonable argument, and dependent entirely on the
hteral and literary infaUibUity ofthe written Word. Dr. Vaughan
begins by teUing us that " those, who believe in the existence of
an evU sphit, cannot view without horror the attempt to deny
and disprove it" (p. 5), and that " nowhere surely (if there be
such a person) has his presence upon earth been more effectuaUy
displayed than in those places (for such there have been) of
instruction and even of worship, in which all the ability of pro
fessed teachers of truth has been exerted to disprove his per
sonality, and to explain upon an opposite hypothesis the phe-

388 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VII.
nomena of man's being" (ibid.). Notwithstanding this formid
able denunciation, Dr. Vaughan admits the weight of the diffi
culties by which his hppothesis is beset, and some (not all) of
which he states with sufficient fairness. "I do not," he says
(p. 11), "deny or disparage them. Urged by an infidel to an
infidel, by a disbeliever in Eevelation to one who concurred in
that disbelief, I think they would be unanswerable. I think, at
least, that the man who, on the strength of reason and philosophy
alone, should assert the personality of the Spirit of Evil, would
be met by more difficulties, on the whole, than he who, on the
same ground of natural reason, should represent evil as an abstract
principle. In short, the existence of the tempter is a fact, if
fact it be, dependent for its proof upon Eevelation." This is
merely admitting, what we have stated in the text, that the
New Testament daemonology depends upon the hypothesis of the
hteral infallibility of the Scriptures. But Dr. Vaughan places
the issue, which we consider so pernicious to Christian advocacy,
in the form of a very grave alternative, when he says that though
a figurative meaning might be applied in some passages where
the name of Satan occurs, "there are others, neither few nor
trivial, in which no such explanation can by possibility find place,
and from which consequently we must infer, by the strictest rules
of reasoning, either the personahty of the tempter, or" (he adds
very needlessly, " I speak as a man," for no one suspected that
the Master of Harrow School laid claim, like St. Paul, to at least
occasional inspiration), "the error and therefore the imposture of
Christ" (p. 20). Surely there could not be a stronger proof of the
validity of the position from which we start in this treatise, that
the maintainers of these untenable assumptions make Christianity
responsible for their opinions, and that, as they view the case, reli
gion must stand or faU according to pubhc judgment on the issue
which they provoke. Now observe the nature of the postulates
which Dr. Vaughan here takes for granted. He not only assumes
that Jesus must have been an impostor if his knowledge were in
any respect limited ; but he assumes also that we have an infalli
bly accurate record of the very words which he used. We have
disposed of the latter assumption in the text.1 But let us for a
moment argue as if the case were even as Dr. Vaughan
supposes. He must perforce admit that our record of Christ's
1 See above, pp. 155, 192.

LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE STATEMENTS. 389
words is as infallible when he says that " aU evil thoughts
proceed from within" (Mark, vii. 21 sqq.), when he says
" watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation : the spirit
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matth. xxvi. 41),
when he says, " I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of
the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil"
(John, xvii. 15), and in a multitude of other passages in which
sin and temptation to sin are referred to the flesh, the heart of
man, and the world composed of men, — as it is when he is made
to say : " Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he
may sift you as wheat : but I have prayed for thee, that thy
faith faU not" (Luke, xxii. 31, 32), or when he is made to say:
"I beheld Satan as Ughtning faU from- heaven " (Luke, x. 18).
As we cannot concede to Dr. Vaughan the prerogative, which the
Church abjures, of interpreting the latter class of passages in
contradiction to the former, and in declaring that temptation
comes from a personal spirit without us, when Christ so plainly
declares that it comes from within us, and from the world com
posed of men like ourselves, we must have recourse to the esta
blished rules of criticism in determining which of the two views
we are to take as conveying the meaning of our Lord. Now we
find that the view of the case involved in those passages which
speak of sin as inherent in man, and as resulting from the oppo
sition of flesh and spirit, of the world and Christianity, is sup
ported by the general tenor of the whole Bible, and expressly
maintained by the Apostolic writers themselves (see Jashar, pp.
66 sqq. above Appendix I.). We have, also, Dr. Vaughan's own
admission, that, on philosophical grounds, the other view is beset
with insuperable difficulties. If, then, both reason and the
general tenor of Scripture are in favour of the opinion that sin
and temptation belong to the conditions of our nature, and if this
fact has been stated in distinct words by our Lord himself and his
Apostles, without any possibility of metaphorical or figurative lan
guage, surely we are on the safe side, at aU events, when we adopt
this view of the matter. And as the passages in which our Lord,
as Dr. Vaughan says (p. 18), " asserts again and again the personal
existence of the spirit of evU," or, as he ought to have said,
speaks as if there were a personal spirit of evU, not only might,
but in some cases must, be interpreted as involving a mere per
sonification of abstractions, accommodated, if not to the opinions,,

390 CHRIS EIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VII.
at least to the popular phraseology of the Jews, they must, if
Christ was infaUible, and his words have been infaUibly reported,
conform themselves to the signification of those direct state
ments which involve no metaphor. Dr. Vaughan's criterion is
utterly faUacious. " I ask you," he says (p. 20), " to test each
example by this simple inquiry : wiU the substitution of the word
sin or evil, for the name of the devil or Satan, affect injuriously
the force or sense of the passage ? If not, I waive that proof :
but if otherwise, I urge it as an argument — each one by itself a
conclusive argument — that God's revelation has spoken on this
subject, spoken audibly, and, if audibly, decisively." He might
as weU argue that no fable, parable, or apologue, could convey
truth figuratively, because the substitution of the thing signified
for the figurative expression would spoU the fable. For example,
if we substitute envy for viper, in the fable of the viper and the
file, it would, we presume, spoU the fable ; but it is not the less
true that the viper in that fable means envy. Apply the same
rule to the first of the examples which Dr. Vaughan quotes in
p. 24, and which we have aheady cited (Luke, xxh. 31, 32).
Does it prove that this passage is not figurative, because if we
substitute sin for Satan the result is nothing but " confusion and
trifling?" What other result could ensue from the partial trans
lation of a figure of speech ? WiU Dr. Vaughan deny, what
every body must see, that our Saviour is here aUuding to the
beginning of the book of Job ; and does he suppose that the very
dramatic scene, which commences that poetical book, represents
a real occurrence ? Does he imagine that the author of the book
of Job was an eye-and-ear-witness of the dialogue which he
assigns to the denizens of heaven ? And if not, what an ab
surdity it must be to insist on a hteral interpretation of phrase
ology borrowed from such a fanciful picture ! StiU the state
ment must be true, if Jesus said these words, and was himself
infaUible. But the truth Ues within the figure, and the express
declaration of our Lord, that aU evil thoughts emanate from the
heart of man, sufficiently shows that he perceived in Peter the
struggle between carnal doubt and spiritual faith, which was
going on within that impetuous disciple, and indicated the help
from above which he promises to aU his true followers in the
hour of temptation. That Satan was in Peter, and was human
sin, we happen to know from another passage, in which Jesus is

ODE LORDS TEMPTATION. 391
made to address him thus : " Get thee behind me, Satan : thou
art an offence unto me : for thou savourest not the things that be
of God, but those that be of men" (Matth. xvi. 41). WUl Dr.
Vaughan maintain that in this passage the word Satan means a
personal spirit ? or if, on the contrary, it is certain that Jesus
used the word as an abstraction in this passage, and with
reference to merely human tendencies, why is it necessarUy con
crete and extra hominem in other passages ?
The Scripture proof of the personahty of the tempter, on
which Dr. Vaughan makes so much to depend, is derived : 1.
from the narrative of our Lord's temptation ; 2. from the mhacle
of the legion of devils sent into .the herd of swine; 3. from
passages in which the tempter is spoken of as affecting the mind
and conduct, the safety and happiness of man; 4. from passages
which contain glimpses of the personal history, character, and
destiny of the tempter.
1. Dr. Vaughan thinks (p. 21) that the narrative of the
temptation necessarUy implies "a person who comes, speaks,
shows, argues, is answered, and departs"; and he rejects the
interpretation which sees in this narrative the record of "a
train of imaginations succeeding each other in a single mind,
which revolves various forms of moral evil, and repels the
inclination to each." He asks : " Is not such language either
substantially accurate or practicaUy deceptive ? and which ? "
Surely, the substantial accuracy would not be affected, if the
language were figurative or parabolical. As nobody was present
on the occasion, the conflict described was entirely confined to
Jesus himself, whether he wrestled with his own thoughts, or
argued with an unseen spiritual visitant ; and, as Phileleutherus
Anglicanus has observed ( Vindication of Protestant Principles,
p. 168), the details of the temptation could only have been
communicated by our Lord himself. Now we are told, on
canonical authority, which we do not regard as inferior to that
of the Gospels, that Jesus was touched with the feeling of our
infirmities, and was in all points tempted hke as we are (Heb.
iv. 15) ; and that he put off the principalities and powers from
himself (Col. ii. 15). If so, the narrative of the temptation
must be figurative or parabolical ; in the words of Phileleutherus,
it was " a true recital, coloured by the peculiar phraseology of
the narrator, of a mental struggle which he really underwent "

392 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VII.
(Vindication of Protestant Principles, p. 170). This was the
view taken by the most learned of the early Christian Fathers
(Clemens Alex. Cohort, ad Gentes, xi. p. 86, Potter), and it has
been enforced most eloquently by an advocate of Christianity,
whom a staunch anti-rationalist has edited in Enghsh. The
foUowing are the words in which Edgar Quinet answers Strauss on
the subject of the temptation (Revue des deux Mondes, xvi. p. 613
sqq, pubhshed in Enghsh by the Eev. A. McCaul, D.D., in Thoughts
on Rationalism, etc. : London, 1850, pp. 127, 8) : "Jesus has just
been baptized. He makes his' mission known for the first time.
At the point of completing this revelation, he withdraws into
the desert. Who can know the agony, the strife, the enemies
within, which, in the sohtude, assaUed this new Jacob,
wrestling with the unknown angel ? Before declaring war with
the whole of visible nature, before throwing humanity into the
future, as a world in a new orbit, who knows whether he did
not hesitate in his mind ; whether the whole of the past did
not rise up before him hke an ambuscade ; whether the mute
universe, clothed with its borrowed splendour, did not with an
hundred voices caU on him to prostrate himself, and adore,
instead of opposing it ; whether his thoughts did not carry him
on theh wings to the summit of the temple and of the Holy
Mount ; whether he did not thence see at his feet, on one side
the kingdoms of the world, with their people bowing down in
submission, and on the other, the immeasurable emphe of
thought, with the passion and the cross, instead of the sceptre of
Judah ? Who knows whether he did not, at this moment, feel,
in anticipation, the bloody sweat of Gethsemane, and whether,
in the extremity of suffering, he had not aheady cried out,
in the prospect of the world risen up against him : ' My Father !
my Father! why hast thou forsaken me?' Now, if doubt
could approach him, assuredly Satan then reigned amidst the
gloom. This history then would not be so visionary as is pre
tended. On the contrary, it would concern what was most
intimate, that is to say, most real, in the hfe of Jesus. Eaised
up from that mental depression, internal life reappears to him.
The heavens re-open. In that moment, Christ recovers himself
until Calvary. The legions of immaculate angels descend into
his heart. They complete, with celestial nourishment, the
restoration of his spirit wearied with the combat. What is

THE GADARENE MIRACLE. 393
there impossible in aU this ? where is the imitation ? what part
is fabulous? and how can we form any idea of the Gospels,
without seeing in them a continual representation of the interior
life and thoughts of Christ ?" If such is the view of temptation
taken by Apostles and Fathers, and the most recent and eloquent
defenders of the faith, what are we to say to Dr. Vaughan for
perilling even the moral character of Christ, on the support or
downfal of the contrary opinion ?
(2.) Of the extraordinary destruction of the herd of swine,
Dr. Vaughan asks (p. 23) : "What amount of ingenuity, short
of absolute unbelief, can explain away the testimony of this
miracle?" and adds (p. 24): "So long as that record remains
amongst the Scriptures of truth, we retain an unanswerable
proof of the personality of the power of evU, of its independent
existence, of its distinctness and separability from man." To
this confident dogmatism we wiU only oppose the fact, men
tioned above (note to p. 361), that Dr. Lardner, who, far from
inculcating " absolute unbehef," has done more to establish the
evidences of Christianity than any other man that ever hved,
suggested an explanation, utterly inconsistent with that view,
without which Dr. Vaughan will not aUow us to be Christians
at aU. Nothing, as it appears to us, was more likely to assist
in the cure of the poor maniac of Gadara, than to allow him to
suppose, as our Lord did with gracious and condescending kind
ness, that the malady, which his monomania had invested with
so formidable a name, was transferred to the legion of unclean
beasts which were feeding before his eyes, especiaUy if the
delusion were completed by allowing the maniac to drive them
into the water, so that they played the same part for him, as
the scape-goat did for the ancient Israelites. We have seen
such accommodations to the humour of the patient, practised
with success by the skilful managers of modern lunatic asylums.
(3) . In addition to the words of our Lord, which we have
already considered (Luke, xxii. 31, 32), Dr. Vaughan quotes
three passages from St. Paul (2 Cor. ii. 10, 11 ; Eph. vi. 12, 16 ;
1 Thess. iii. 5), and one from St. Peter (1 Peter, v. 8, 9), which
he considers as indicating the existence of the tempter, " not as
a matter of speculation or curiosity (when indeed," he asks, "do
the Scriptures descend to such topics ?), but as affecting, in every
possible way, the mind and the conduct, the safety and happi-

394 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VII.
ness of man" (p. 24). The same remark, which applies to our
Lord's figurative language, applies also to the figurative language
of the Apostles. For as they constantly speak of the temptation
to sin as springing from the lusts of the flesh and from the cor
ruptions of the world (see the passages quoted in Jashar, p. 67,
above, Appendix I.), their figurative language must be explained
by these dhect and categorical statements. Besides, the very
passages which Dr. Vaughan quotes as most emphaticaUy
indicating a personification are explained away by the writers
themselves. Thus in 2 Cor. ii. 11, the meaning is that we ought
not to give the unchristian spirit of anger an undue advantage.
The Apostle says : lva p,rj irXeoveKTr/Owpiev vrrb tov Ilaravci'
ov yap avTov t« vorjpiaTa dyvoovpiev, "in order that we
may not be overcome (so Plutarch, irXeoveKTOVfievot vtrb twv
7roXefii,ojv) by Satan, for we are well aware of the thoughts
which he suggests" (cf. 2 Cor. x. 5 : alyfiaXooTi^ovTet irdv
vbr/pia. Similarly, Clemens Alexandrinus says that the Saviour
came et? Toi>t ireTrXavtqpAvovt t<_ vorj/Mara, Strom, ih. p. 554,
Potter). That the thought suggested by Satan is neither more
nor less than carnal, worldly, and unchristian asperity, is clear
from Eph. iv. 26, 27 : bpyi^ecrOe Kal ptrj dptapTavere • b rjXiot
pur) iiriBviTco im rS •jrapopyio-pttp vpicbv, firJTe BiBore tottov t&
Bia/3bXq>, where the whole turn of the phraseology shows that
" giving place to the devil," i.e. not resisting him, is equivalent
to "yielding to uncontroUed anger." This passage and the usage
of the later Greek writers (especiaUy Plutarch, de ira cohibenda, vii.
p. 811, Eeiske : Set Be firJTe irai^ovTat Trj bpyfj BiBbvai tottov),
convince us that Eom. xii. 19, ought to be written : firj eavrovt
iKBiKovvTet, dya-TrrjToi, BiBotb tottov t§ bpyfj instead of dXXa
Bote. Besides, the opposition ofthe participle to the imperative is
needlessly harsh, and the construction, " do not by avenging your
selves give fuU scope to your anger," is strictly in accordance with
the intended sense of the passage. The present St'SoTe is supported
both by Plutarch and by the passage in theEpistle to the Ephesians :
[AAAA] AI
and the change in ArAnHTOi[AAAA]AOTE is very trifling. The
description of the Christian contest in Eph. vi. 11-16, must
derive its explanation from the important paraUel passage in
Col. ii. 15 ; and as this speaks of an internal struggle even in the
case of Christ, the ordinary Christian's struggle must be internal

EXPLANATION OE METAPHORS. 395
also. This is also the view of Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom.
vh. p. 839 ; see above, pp. 15, 69). The phrase fir/ irtot
hrelpao-ev iipMt b ireipdtpsv in 1 Thess. ih. 5, is quite general,
and proves nothing either way. The reference of this to the
faith of his readers, and the passage in the Second Epistle (iii. 2) :
Xva pvo-Q&ptev dirb t&v aTorrmv Kal Trovqpmv dvOpdnrmv
ov ydp trdvTwv r) irioTit, compared with the last petition of the
Lord's Prayer, show clearly enough that the Apostle is speaking
of the temptation which is suggested and enforced by the un
believing world ; and he says elsewhere that this is the only
source of temptation (1 Cor. x. 13 : Treipaa-pibt vptdt ovk etXr/cpev
et pJ) dvdpayrrivot, " no temptation has taken you, except a human
one, or one of human origin.") When St. Peter says (1, v. 8) :
"Be sober and watch, because the devil, who pleads against you,
walks about like a roaring hon, seeking whom he may devour,
whom resist (m avrlaTrfre) by being confirmed in your faith,
knowing that the same sufferings are accomplished for aU Chris
tians in this world " (ttj iv Koo-ptw vp,S>v dBeXtpoTr/Ti), he obvi
ously refers, as our Saviour did in his warning to Peter himself,
to the poetic machinery of the book of Job : and his simile, ".as
a roaring lion," shows how figuratively he is speaking. But the
recommendation of sobriety and watchfulness carries us back to
the passage (Matth. xxvi. 41), where our Saviour, with the same
warning, opposes the spirit to the flesh, and the mention of the
world shows that the trials referred to belong to the persecution
which Christians must expect from unbehevers. The phrase
& avTio~Tr)Te refers us at once to St. James' caution (iv. 7) :
dvTicrTrjTe to) Bia/3bXq> Kal (pev^eTai ddV vpioov, and here at least
the personification must be figurative, for St. James recognises
no tempter except the lusts of the man who is tempted (i. 14).
(4). For "the personal history, character, and destiny" of
the tempter, Dr. Vaughan quotes 1 John, iii. 8, 2 Pet. ii. 4,
Jude, 6, and, above all, the text of his sermon, John, viii. 44.
With regard to the first of these, no one can read St. John's
First Epistle without seeing that with him the world — sin-
causing, brother-hating, Christ-denying — is the great anti-christ,
the opposite and enemy of Christ : see especially ii. 13, cf. v. 4,
17, iii. 12, 13, iv. 3, 4, 5, v. 18, 19. It is, therefore, in express
terms, b irovqpbt, b BlafioXot, and, according to this, the per
sonification of evil is merely an abstraction. In citing 2 Pet. ii.

396 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VII.
4, Jude, 6, as separate and independent testimonies to a mys
terious and infallible revelation, Dr. Vaughan has been strangely
inconsiderate. He ought to have known that these two epistles
belong to the dvTiXeybpteva, or doubtful books of the New
Testament Canon ; that they were either derived from the same
source, or the one copied from the other ; and that the passages
in question are direct allusions to Eabbinical traditions. If he
had not had a latent consciousness of this, he would not have
shrunk from citing a most distinct reference to the personal
biography of Satan in the 9th verse of Jude, which adopts allu
sively a fragment of very absurd tradition. The reference to the
apocryphal book of Enoch (v. 14) is sufficient to show that the
place, which the Epistle of Jude ultimately obtained in the Canon,
does not impart a divine sanction to all its quotations ; and the
same remark applies to the second epistle attributed to Peter, if
it was an imitation of Jude's short epistle. Lastly, every one,
except Dr. Vaughan, must see, that the text of his sermon (John,
viii. 44), taken with the context, clearly implies a figurative and
abstract signification of the word BidftoXot. That this is the
true interpretation of the passage, which is, in every way, one of
the most important of those referring to the opposition between
the devU and God, was shown long ago by the most logical of aU
the writers on theology, who have appeared in the present cen
tury. Speaking of the passage in which the tares are called
" the chUdren of the wicked one " (ot viol tov irovqpov, Matth.
xhi. 38), Schleiermacher says ( Christl. Glaube, vol. i., p. 214,
3rd edit.) : " This passage reminds us of one of the most import
ant texts, where Christ says to the hostUe Jews — Ye are of your
father, the devU; where manifestly, according to the peculiarities
of the Hebrew idiom, these expressions are used only with
reference to the relation of similarity and correspondence. For
no one can take this text UteraUy, because the Jews could neither
be derived from the devU in the same sense as they boasted to be
derived from Abraham, nor in the same sense in which Christ,
whose words they merely echoed, had asserted that God was his
Father. So that we cannot strictly interpret this passage on the
supposition of the reality of the devil, without either opposing
the devil to God in a completely Manichaean application, or, on
the other side, cahing Christ the son of God only in the wider
sense in which the Jews might really be called sons of the devil.

.THE FORMIDABLE ALTERNATIVE. 397
Allusion is undoubtedly made to a history of the devil, but only
as to something already known, and this also, like that which has
preceded, derives its explanation entirely from the literal expres
sion (v. 47) that they were not of God." To these remarks of
the truly logical theologian, who did not hesitate to assert that
" a belief in the devil could not be exhibited as a condition of
our beUef in God or Christ, and that no one could, for a moment,
speak of the devil's influence within the kingdom of God " (ibid.
p. 212), we need only add the following considerations : that in
v. 34 we have the figure BovXot Trjt dp,apTiat, " a slave of
sin" ; in v. 40, we have the works of faithful Abraham opposed
to the works of their father, whom, in v. 41, they call "God" ;
and in v. 44, theh father is caUed the devU, and they are said to
do his lusts (ra? iirtdvpilat tov irarpbt vp,S)v OeXeTe Troielv),
which are farther defined as mahce and falsehood. What, then,
can be clearer than that we have here an abstraction of the
worldly sphit, which stands in constant opposition to the gentle
love and truth of Christ's rehgion ? The merest novice in Hebrew
phraseology must see that the sonship here predicated is as much
a metaphor or figure of speech, as when Jesus says to Nicodemus
" that which is born (yeyevvrj/Mevov) of the flesh is flesh, and
that which is born of the spirit is spirit" (John, iii. 6); or
when John the Baptist addresses the Pharisees and Sadducees as
" generations of vipers" — yevvrjpiaTa ixiBvcbv — (Matth. iii. 7).
And yet Dr. Vaughan can venture to say, on the strength of
these citations, " What room is here left for the substitution of
an abstract quality in place of a personal agent ? Indeed, indeed,
my brethren, with such words before us, the only question is,
whether Christ, the Christ of the Scriptures, was a deceiver or
true. If true, the doctrine of the existence of a tempter is
irrefragably estabhshed : if a deceiver, your faith is vain ; ye
are yet in your sins ; and they who have faUen asleep in him
are perished." If we thought it necessary to borrow strong
words from Dr. Vaughan, we might say that we cannot read
" without horror " such a passage as this. Not contented with
the proper issue, whether the canonical books are or are not to
be invested with literal infallibility, he would actually stake on
such an inquiry as that which he has instituted, — an inquiry
which, at the best, could lead to very trifling results,1 — the
1 The most learned advocates of a personal tempter admit that the practical

398 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VII.
whole substance of Christianity, and the .personal morality of
Christ himself. There either was a personal tempter, as the
heathen Medes and Persians believed, or the blessed Jesus
(horrescas referens) was an impostor !
We must not, however, omit to warn Dr. Vaughan, that in
thus peremptorily dogmatizing on figurative expressions, opposed
not only to the general tenor of Scripture, but to express and
literal statements on the subject of temptation, he has incurred
the censure dhected by our Church in its twenty-eighth Article
against the simUar procedure of those who maintain the doctrine
of transubstantiation. This doctrine, says our Article : " apertis
scripturse verbis adversatur et multarum superstitionum dedit
occasionem." But transubstantiation is proved by a hteral ren
dering of our Lord's figurative expressions in John vi. 53. Our
Church maintains, that this interpretation is inconsistent with
the words of our Lord, when he said of a mere piece of bread,
" this is my body " (Matth. xxvi. 26), which shows that the other
language must be figurative. Dr. Vaughan faUs under the same
imputation, when he neglects the literal statements in order to
literaiize the figurative expressions of the same fact.
We have thus submitted Dr. Vaughan's views to a formal
examination, not because they are supported by any vahd, or
even plausible arguments, but because he is the ablest, and
perhaps most candid and dispassionate maintainer of the hideous
creed of modern Manichaeism: "I beheve in the devU!" The
ease with which such a man may be refuted, when he osten
tatiously attempts to prove this doctrine of the personahty of
abstract evil, is the best evidence of the worthlessness of the
theory which he supports. And when we find that he makes
not only Christian faith, but the personal character of the
Eedeemer, dependent on the hypothesis, which, he admits, is incon
sistent with phUosophical reasoning, his sermon must be taken as
an example of that false or destructive conservatism, which it
is the object of this treatise to expose. With every wish to be
an advocate of Christianity, Dr. Vaughan belongs to the number
of those who, in ignorant and foolish wilfulness, risk the safety
of the citadel for the sake of an untenable outwork.

results would be the same if we considered evil as inherent in the lower nature
of man.

CHAPTEH Y.

THE NATIONAL CHUECH.

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.

CHAPTEE V.
ON THE OETHODOXY OF A NATIONAL CHUECH.
In the preceding discussions, we have shown that, in the
particular instances, neither Christianity in general, nor the
Church of England, as its national exponent in this country,
has made itself responsible for those dogmas, which the op
ponents of Christianity have denounced as erroneous, and which
Christian scholars have relinquished as untenable. In other
words, it has appeared that neither Christian orthodoxy in
general, nor our national orthodoxy in particular, is interested
in maintaining the hypothesis of an infallible literature, or
the belief in intermediate inteUigences. And thus, whUe we
have endeavoured to prove that the true conservatism of
Christianity is best promoted by the abandonment of these
speculative opinions, which are felt to be false and indefensible
by those who are most capable of forming a judgment, we
have sought to strengthen our position by arguing that the
Church of England is not imphcated in any recognition of
these erroneous statements. If we have been successful, the
Christian advocate is left to the use of his proper weapons ;
26

402 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
and he does not find himself, even in this country, fettered by
the acceptance of conditions more favorable to his opponents
than to himself and his cause.
It seems desirable, however, that, before we bring this essay
to a conclusion, we should take a larger and wider view of the
relations which connect the orthodoxy of aU Christians with
that of the Church of England, and that we should inquire
whether there is anything in the distinctive position of our
National Estabhshment, which need prevent any good citizen
and good Christian from entering into communion with us. If
we can show that there is no such limitation, it wUl follow that
Christian orthodoxy and Anglican or national orthodoxy are
co-extensive terms.
The word " orthodoxy," both in its origin and in its ordi
nary acceptation, denotes a particular class of opinions regulated
by some authority or standard of appeal ; and its opposite,
"heterodoxy," or, more generaUy, "aUodoxy," implies opinions
which, tried by the same standard, are different, and therefore
wrong or erroneous. In theological matters, it unfortunately
happens that the standard of appeal, even where it is commonly
recognised, becomes itself a ground for differences of opinion,
and at last, especially among Protestants, every party, section,
or even individual, hmits orthodoxy to some inner circle of
opinions, tiU at last every man is to himself the judge of what
is right opinion and what is wrong. Plato, in his Thecetetus,1
takes some pains to show that even true opinion is not real
knowledge or science ; and a learned Father of the Church, as
we have seen already,2 expressly distinguishes between science,
as constituting the true Church, and opinion, as the mother of
heresies. Milton would go even farther ; for he says that " a
1 Pp. 187, sqq.
2 Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom, vii. p. 894, above, p. 35.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 403
man may be a heretic even in the truth; and if he believe
things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so
determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be
true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy." Accord
ingly, in comparing the national orthodoxy of England with
that which is common to all Christians, nay, to the whole Com
munion of Saints, we do not for a moment intend to test the
former by the opinions of any party or individuals in the
Church. We shaU take the formularies according to theh
obvious meaning, and theh general spirit and intention : and,
on the other hand, in defining Christian orthodoxy in general,
we shaU be careful to exclude from our outline all false drawing
and aU adscititious colours.
Eeserving for a special discussion the injunction to the
Apostles " to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them
in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," we may
derive a full and explicit definition of Christian orthodoxy from
the confession of St. Peter compared with St. John's description
of Antichrist. The former teUs us what orthodoxy is, the latter
warns us against that which it is not. With this statement
and warning combined, we can hardly fail to lay down for
ourselves those limits of orthodoxy,
Quos intra citraque nequit consistere rectum.
On the one hand, we are told J that Jesus, having come to the
coasts of Caesarea PhUippi, asked his disciples two questions :
(1) "Whom do men say that lam?" and (2) " Whom say ye that
lam?" To the former question they replied, that people in
general regarded him as some eminent prophet restored to life,
and made once more a teacher of Israel ; but in respect to the
other question, "Whom say ye — not one of you, but one and
all of you, the Apostles — whom say ye that I am?" Peter
1 Matthew xvi. 13, sqq.

404 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
returned the foUowing answer in the name of the other Apostles :
" Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." That this
reply was intended to convey the sentiments of the other
Apostles, and not St. Peter's only, is clear, not merely from the
form of the question, but from the words put into St. Peter's
mouth by St. John:1 "Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord,
to whom shaU we go ? thou hast the words of eternal life ; and
we beheve and are sure, that thou art that Christ, the Son of
the living God." To this confession of faith our Lord made
the foUowing reply : " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona ; for
flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father,
which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art a
stone, and upon this rock I wiU buUd my Church, and the gates
of heU shaU not prevaU against it." It is worth whUe to
remark, for the sake of those who have not noticed the fact,
that not only do the two Greek words opposed in this passage,
namely, irerpot, "a stone," and irerpa, "a rock,"3 stand related
as the part to the whole, but that, in the language actuaUy used
by Jesus, kSpha denotes " a single stone," whereas the plural
kephim, which alone is used in Biblical Hebrew, denotes not
" a stone," but " a rock." So that Jesus must have said :
" Thou art a stone, and on these stones I wiU bthld my eternal
Church." That the other Apostles understood the statement
in this way, is clear from the description of the heavenly
Jerusalem in the Apocalypse, where, among other circumstances
of minute aUegorical detaU, it is stated of that type of the
Church, that "the waU of the city had twelve foundations, and
in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb." 3 And

1 vi. 68, 69.
2 ireTpos is "an individual or single stone," hut ireVpa " a collection of
stones"; there is the same distinction between x&pos and x<"P&- See New
Cratylus, § 229 ; cf. § 15.
3 Apoc. xxi. 14.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 405
now, what was the effect of that confession, which St. Peter
made in the name of the first disciples of Jesus, and which our
Lord declared, with a blessing, to be the inspired orthodoxy,
whereon, as on a rock, the Church would be buUt up so firmly
that all the powers of evil would vainly strive to overthrow it ?
It was clearly a declaration of our Lord's divinity, involving a
belief in that atonement, which it was his work on earth to
effect. Other men had come to the conclusion that Jesus was
a wonderful prophet, a man sent from God to warn and teach ;
but those who had the persuasion of Peter recognised in him
both a character and functions far higher than this. He was
greater than man, and came to do more than lay within the
power of any human being. The confession of Peter, in fact,
included a belief in redemption ; a recognition of the fact that
a divine and sinless mediator between God and man was needed
to break down the waU of separation, and to sUence the accusing
voice of the conscience. If sin consists in carnal selfishness, it
is clear that there can be no atonement in any act which en
courages a feeling of self-satisfaction. Selfish man cannot
become righteous, that is, unselfish, by any form of self-
justification. The true atonement must consist in self-abnega
tion, and in a genuine and humble dependence on God as the
only agent in redemption, as the only giver of grace. It is
well-remarked by Juhus MiiUer,1 that " the forgiveness of sins
has for its objective foundation the atonement by ihe death of the
Redeemer. The necessity for this expiation is not yet reaUy
recognised, so long as we aUow the moral agency of man to be
resolved into its external or temporal form, so that we make the
interruption of the communion between God and man depend
only on the evil now happening, not on that which has aheady
happened. The natural result of this would be, that the shiner„
1 Von der Siinde, vol. i., p. 347, 3rd- edition.

406 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
in order to resume his filial relationship with God, would require
no atonement, repentance, or forgiveness, but only a relinquish
ment of sin, and a conversion to God. This mode of viewing
the subject concerns itself so little with the old saying — ' what
is done cannot be undone ' — that it regards committed evU, just
because it is committed, and is past and gone, as though it had
not been committed." As it is clear that this view of sin is
not in due antagonism to that selfishness in which aU sin con
sists, it is impossible that it can lead to any true reconcUiation
with God, and therefore the doctrine of the atonement, flowing
as it does from that of a divine mediation and redemption, is
the foundation of aU cathohc orthodoxy ; and it is this which
has stamped itself on the outward and visible Church by the
perpetual commemoration of the Eucharist. Besides, it is
only this idea of the work of God in our salvation that can
explain the consequent functions of the Holy Spirit. "If,"
says Muller,1 "the human race is ever to be restored to com
munion with God, it needs an atonement, which Christ alone
is able to make, because he alone among men is perfectly sinless,
and he alone, as the incarnate Son of God and as the founder
of a new kingdom of absolutely universal significance, stands
in an all-embracing relation to humanity. Uniting himself by
the power of his love with the race that needed expiation, he
becomes qualified, as the representative of man, to suffer the
death to which he was not liable on his own account. And
not until after the withdrawal of this side of the connexion
between our present state and our sinfulness in past time — we
may caU it the ideal side — can the other side of this connexion
— which we may term the real or actual — be taken away. For
the Holy Spirit, as the principle of new life, could not com
municate himself to the human race so' long as unexpiated sin
1 Von der Siinde, i. pp. 348, 349.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 407
lay upon it, so long as Christ had not yet entered into his glory
by and through his expiating death." 1
We see, then, that the foundations of Christian orthodoxy
are really contained in that confession which Peter made, in
the name of the Apostles, and in contrast to the common opinion
of men, for which confession he was blessed by our Lord, and
told that his name was a type of his position, as one of those
true believers on whom, as on a rock, or a collection of stones,
the fabric of the Church would rest throughout all ages.
But it may be said that although this confession was the
foundation of orthodoxy, it does not include aU that is essential
to a sound faith, and that a man might hold this and yet be an
opponent of Christianity. And here St. John meets us, on the
other hand, with a definition of "antichrist" or "the un
christian," which is the exact counterpart of St. Peter's con
fession. For he says: z "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh is of God : and every spirit that
confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of
God : and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have
heard that it should come : and even now already is it in the
world." In a former passage St. John had said : 3 " Who is a
har, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ ? He is anti
christ that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth
the Son, the same hath not the Father." And in the Second
Epistle we read : 4 " Many deceivers are entered into the world,
who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh ; this is
the deceiver and the antichrist." As, then, St. Peter's profes
sion is the foundation of all Christianity, because it contains
the recognition of the Divine nature in Jesus Christ, so St.
John's definition of antichrist, or of that which is the founda-
i John, vii. 39. a 1 John, iv. 2, 3. » 1 John, ii. 22, 23. i 2 John,. 7.

408 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
tion of aU heterodoxy, is a declaration of the fact that we
cannot live together as Christians if we faU to grasp the practical
consequences of the doctrine that this Divine Jesus was also
man as we are man, flesh as we are flesh ; if in any way we
faU into the error of those Docetes and Phantasiasts, and strip
this Incarnation of the Godhead of its real and sohd humanity.
Though St. Peter's confession and St. John's warning point to
necessarUy co-ordinate propositions respecting the double nature
of Christ, it is easy to see why they stand as separate statements,
and as supplementary to one another in the New Testament.
When our Lord was hving in the midst of his brethren and his
countrymen, when they heard and saw and handled every day
the Word of hfe, there was httle fear that they should deprive
him of his tangible humanity, and there was much more ground
for the apprehension that he would be regarded as a mere man.
Hence the recognition of his divinity by Peter and the other
Apostles was really the first foundation of the Church which
was to be built up in this belief. But after he had risen from
the dead, after he had spent forty days of a very different and
much less material hfe in the midst of his immediate disciples,
after they had seen him appear and disappear at theh meetings,
until at last he was taken away from their longing and wonder
ing eyes, it was not at all unnatural that they should think
more of that which distinguished him from aU men than of that
common nature which they shared with him, and that they
should look back with dreamy thoughts to theh latest recoUec-
tions of what he had been to them. That some at least of the
five hundred brethren to whom he appeared in Galilee may
have faUen into such reveries is not at all impossible. And
it is quite certain that Docetism very soon began to manifest
itself in the Church. When St. John wrote his Epistle this
may have been a prominent form of error, and he did well to

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 409
meet it with a definition of antichrist, which included all
impugners of our Lord's real humanity.
Here, then, we have a complete criterion of Christian
orthodoxy. Positively, and as the starting-point in our accep
tance of Jesus Christ as our Eedeemer, we must declare with
Peter, that he is the Son of the living God, and therefore a
Divine Person. Negatively, and as a safeguard against the
prevalent error of professing Christians, we must stigmatize as
antichrist aU those who wiU not confess that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh, aU those who do not fully admit his absolute
humanity. Whether we look back to the earhest days of the Church or
take the developments of Christianity which we now see around
us, we shaU find that aU heresies and schisms are traceable to
some direct or indirect rejection of the true Apostolic doctrine
respecting the Person of our Lord.
It has been weU remarked 1 that all the older heresies are
but variations of four original forms of heterodoxy — that of the
Ebionites, who denied the divinity of Christ — that of the
Gnostics, who controverted his true humanity — that of the
Pelagians, who would not aUow the need of salvation — and
that of the Manichceans, who denied man's capacity to be saved.
Now, as Pelagianism falls back on Ebionitism, while Mani
chaeism makes common cause with Gnosticism, it is clear that
all this old heterodoxy resolves itself into a denial of the truth
that Jesus was very God and very man, and of its coroUary,
that man's salvation by him was both possible and necessary.
For these cardinal points of orthodoxy are equaUy set aside,
whether, with the Jewish Ebionite, we reduce Christ to the
rank of a mere man, distinguished indeed by the highest gifts
of virtue and intellect, but stiU a mere man ; or, with the
1 See Studien und Kritiken ior 1849, pp. 997 sqq.

410 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
heathen Gnostic, strip him of his actual humanity, and leave
nothing but a supernaturaUy fantastic and dreamhke mani
festation of the Deity : whether, with the Manichaean, who
approximates to the latter, we establish an irreconcheable
dualism between spirit and matter, and regard human nature
as substantiaUy and irredeemably base; or with the Pelagian,
who adheres to the former, deny that there is any disease or
depravation in the heart of man, which should stand in need
of a special intervention for its cure, and thus despise the
Eedeemer, whUe we are willing to accept the Teacher.
If from those old heresies which gave a speculative and dog
matic expression to these erroneous views, we turn to the prac
tical manifestations of the sphit of antichrist, vve shaU see that
wherever men have set up in the name of Christianity something
which leads to religious and moral results directly opposed to
the tendency and intentions of the Gospel dispensation, the
cause of ah the mischief is the loss of an ever-hving and ever-
present conviction that Jesus was God as weU as man, and that
what he did and suffered was done and suffered once for all.
It was the Eedeemer's promise that there should be a divine
hfe in the Church, wherever there was a real union of behevers
in his name. Where even two or three were so gathered
together, there he would be in the midst of them. And thus
not only the Church, as a gathering of faithful men, must have
a sacramental character, and show forth the divine nature of
him who inspires it, but this recognition of a divine life in
the world will contribute to the vital union of Christians among
themselves : for a fuU conviction of the fact, that the Son of
God took our nature in order that the Spirit of God might
dwell with the sons of men, necessarily leads to a feeling of
communion and brotherhood. It is thus that we arc enabled to
appreciate the one source of our spiritual life, and reaUy come

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 411
to the practical belief, that, "being many, we are one body in
Christ, and every one members one of another." Not only
are we bound, as the disciples of Jesus, to recognise him in
our afflicted brethren, and to be convinced that what we do
or leave undone unto the least of them, we do or leave undone
unto Him;1 not only are we thus to do for Christ's sake what
we might do from the promptings of natural benevolence, but
we are to seek and find Him everywhere by making ourselves
at one with all those who call upon His name. In this true
feUowship consists the solemn mystery of our Church mUitant
upon earth. " Mystical," says one of our great modern writers,
" mystical, more than magical, is that communing of soul with
soul, both looking heavenward : here, properly, soul first speaks
with soul ; for only in looking heavenwards, take it in what
sense you may, not in looking earthward, does what we caU
union, mutual love, or society, begin to be possible." AU loving
communion with our brethren, because they are Christians, and
on the strength of our common faith, is, by the nature of the
case, a channel of divine grace, — in other words, it is sacra
mental. It is true that there are only two sacraments of incor
poration — those which were instituted by Christ himself — the
Sacrament of Baptism, by which we are received into the
fold, and which makes the blood of Christ avaUable to the
washing away of sin, and the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,
by which we formaUy keep up our membership in the mys
tical body of the Son of God, which is the blessed company
of aU faithful people. But all religious communion with
our brethren is, by its nature, sacramental, and every act
of charity " out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience and
faith unfeigned,"3 is a fresh baptism of that love which covers
the multitude of sins. The spirit of antichrist cannot perceive
' Matth. xxv. 34-40. 3 1 Tim. i. 5

412 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
this, because it cannot, or will not, aUow the reality and ever
lasting significance of Christ's Incarnation. Hence it gives us,
instead of a real life in the Church, sustained by the personal
godliness and mutual love of believers, some outward form of
dogmatic authority — an infaUible Church, or an infallible lite
rature — which must be maintained, if need be, by the sacrifice
of aU that is beautiful and lovely in the communion of Chris
tian men. Hence it is that, instead of opening her arms as a
mother to invite and welcome aU her children, the Church is
too often represented as a system of exclusive ordinances, calcu
lated, if not designed, to irritate the selfishness of men, and to
awaken the slumbering antagonism of discrepant opinions. And
all this, because, with the ancient heretics, we forsake the one
foundation of orthodoxy, that Jesus Christ did personaUy come
in the flesh, as a union of God and man, that he is reaUy
present with his Church when even two or three are gathered
together in his name, and that this world is blessed with the
outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace in
aU true communions of true Christian men.
We have thus seen that Christian orthodoxy in general rests
and must rest on the broad basis of St. Peter's confession, and
that antichrist must always be sought among those who, in
some form, contravene that confession ; in other words, that this
alone is necessary to everlasting salvation — that we believe
rightly .the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and live in
accordance with that belief.1
1 In support of this limitation of orthodoxy, it is worthy of remark that
the word "theology," according to its original meaning, and its use by the
Fathers, strictly denotes the study of the divine nature, that is, in Chris
tianity, the doctrine of the Trinity, and especially the assertion of the
divinity of Christ. Chrysostom has in this sense the expression BeoXoyia
tov vlov, Cyril of Alexandria the phrase BeoXoylav Ttpoadyeiv tu Xpio-T$, and
the Fathers actually oppose omovopia, as denoting the human nature of Christ,
to his BeoXoyia, or divinity ; thus Chrysostom says : ol pev fiarpatyav tt)v
oiKovopiav, 6 Se (John) {ZpovTq tt)v deoXoyiav.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 413
If that which constitutes the orthodoxy of an English
churchman, in particular, depends upon something better than
a merely conventional dogmatism, it must approximate, at aU
events, to this general standard of Christian faith. And it will
do this in proportion as it leans upon and encourages the per
sonal religiousness of Englishmen. As we have endeavoured
to show, at the beginning of this essay, we cannot diffuse
religious faith unless we both wear it in our hearts and exhibit
it in our conduct. Personal godliness is the best advocacy of
religion. But if, where purity and benevolence are the recog
nised touchstones of the faith of Jesus, we see the most
clamorous of his nominal disciples violating, in many actions of
theh hves, and especiaUy in those which are most closely con
nected with theh rehgious dogmatism, the principles of the
faith which they profess to recommend, we cannot hope that such
an example will produce an effect favourable to the reception
of their creed by those who are unsatisfied of its truth. Chris
tianity is the abnegation of self. Whenever, then, the professed
Christian connects practical selfishness with his creed, he, as far
as in him lies, saps the foundations of his own stronghold. But
mere immorality will eventuaUy meet with its proper rebuke
from the approving and disapproving faculty which is inherent
in man: the sensual and dishonest Christian discredits and
damages his faith; but he does not inflict an irremediable wound.
The greatest injuries, which have been done to our rehgion, have
proceeded from selfish dogmatism. This is one of the most
fuUy-developed forms of antichrist. For while it substitutes
for religion itself, the opinions or dictates of men respecting
rehgion, it unseats Christ from his rightful throne, and, instead
of his law of mutual forbearance and consideration, sets up the
most domineering form of absolute tyranny. The comphances
required by religious dogmatism are possible only in the case of

414 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
those who are insincere, cowardly, or stupid. To hold any
opinions on religious matters, except those which are suggested
by conscience and reason, is a vain attempt when the heart
is pure, and the inteUect unclouded. We learn, from the most
hackneyed proverb, that the differences of opinion are neither
more nor less than the number of human beings in the world.
And yet we are told, by the advocates of external religion, that
in regard to the best means of securing our eternal salvation, an
object personaUy interesting to each separate man, we are bound
to shape our opinions or thoughts by some stereotyped and per
manent formula ! Easy as this may appear to the merely in
different professor of a creed, who, hke the well-known student
at Oxford, is willing to sign an indefinite number of Articles, it
is clear that the true and earnest behever can only be rehgious
according to his own convictions. It would, therefore, be the
height of absurdity, if a national church, which professes to be
coextensive with the secular government, did not open its doors
to aU true Christians in the nation. But as it could not do this
without allowing sufficient elbow-room in regard to those merely
speculative dogmas which vary with the minds of individuals, it
foUows that a State Church, which is conscious of its proper func
tions, wiU make no attempt to prescribe the course by which its
members must severaUy and individuaUy work out their own
salvation. In regard to outward forms, there wiU be an appear
ance of definite precision in each national system. But the case
of our United Kingdom shows that these polychrome varieties
result from accident, are maintained by convention and habit,
and regarded as really unessential. For the inhabitants of Eng
land, Scotland, and Ireland hve under the same central govern
ment ; they have the same laws, the same language, the same
political, social, and domestic habits, and regard one another as
essentiaUy members of the same faith — for this never throws

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 415
an obstacle in the way of the jus connubii — and yet they are
distinguished by the greatest possible opposition of outward
Church system : for whUe the English are by law and in fact
Episeopahan Lutherans, and the Scots Presbyterian Calvinists,
the majority of the Irish are as openly Eoman Catholics. Now
the same principle, which enables these professors of different
forms of Christianity to live side by side with all the fellow-
feeling of good citizens, ought d fortiori to regulate the inter
course of those who are professedly members of the same
national Church. If it faUs to produce this harmony, the
fault is not in the Church or in the majority of its members ;
for the Church of England has been well described as "a system
of pacified discrepancies," and the majority of its members
adopt views which are caUed, whether rightly or not, both
Latitudinarian and Erastian.1 The cause of the dissensions
which have produced so much discomfort and scandal among

1 See above, p. 32. It may seem rather surprising that, considering the
great number of clergymen in the Church of England, who are both liberal
and moderate, the extreme parties, and especially the bibliolatrous Low Church,
should he allowed to dictate, as they do, to men wiser and better than them
selves, and so in effect to narrow the basis of the Church and circumscribe the
liberty of its ministers. Indolence and timidity in some cases, and generally
that love of a quiet life, which belongs to moderate men, are the chief causes
of this tacit acquiescence in dogmatism, which is felt to be as mischievous as
it is offensive. The Bishops, and especially those of them who are men of
learning, incur a grave responsibility by their real or seeming encouragement
of narrow and ignorant bigotry — none perhaps more than the late occupant of
the Metropolitan See. Bishop Blomfield, as a professed scholar, might have
been expected to take a firm stand on the side of reason and learning ; but he
lent his influence, with wavering and doubtful consistency, to the religion of
authority and convention. There is scarcely a worse instance of dealing
deceitfully with Scripture, on the part of a Protestant divine, than that to which
Phileleutherus has directed attention {Vind. ofProt. Principles, p. 133). Mr.
Bowland Williams has well remarked {Rational Godliness, p. 308) : " One
would make large allowance for the conscientious anxiety of those eminent
persons, whose position makes them responsible as bulwarks of the Faith, and
who are ever dreading the consequences to which the first outlet of the waters
of freedom may tend. But may God in his mercy teach them, that nothing
can be so dangerous as to build on a false foundation. The question, how far
toe would go, will best be answered by experience. Only it never will be safe
to stop short of the Truth."

416 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
us, is to be sought in the selfishness of the two factions who
hang on by the skhts of our particoloured garment, and who,
though differing in all other respects, agree in the wish to
enslave the consciences of men, and bind them down in the
trammels of' something outward, formal, and tangible. Sacer
dotal infaUibUity for the one extreme, and a translated Bible,
to be consulted ad aperturam, as an infaUible text-book, by the
ignorant, for the other extreme, are to take the place of all the
free workings of the enlightened heart. And instead of dis
cerning the insphation which resides in every communion of
true behevers, it is sought either in the clerical machinery of
the visible Church, or in the documents which record the
foundation and early history of revealed religion. Hence it is,
that with either party it is accounted blasphemy to dispute the
opinions of men. And what sort of opinions are those which
are thus invested with more than divine sanctity ? On the one
hand, the childish traditions of an age when the teachers of an
ignorant laity had forgotten their Lord's command:1 "Be not
ye caUed Eabbi : for one is your master, even Christ ; and aU
ye are brethren. And caU no man father (or Pope) : for one
is your Father, which is in heaven." And on the other hand,
the doctrine of the arrogant Puritans, who, in the re-action
against the assumption of superior knowledge, placed the hmit
of inquiry at the low- water mark of theh own abilities and
attainments. Accordingly, the dogmatism which is the chief
enemy of Christianity, the parent of intolerance, and the in
stigator of infidelity, is on either side a system of limitation
and exclusion. The persons to be persecuted or expeUed are
those who are wiser or more candid than their self-constituted
teachers. If a man listens to the voice of God, which speaks
in his reason and his conscience, the sacerdotal Christian calls
1 Matth. xxiii. 8.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 417
him a heretic ; the Bible Christian scouts him as a rationalist ;
and both together charge him with a Titanic autonomy, spring
ing from a contempt of all authority, divine and human ! And
this, not on the grounds of science and conviction, but in spite
of the law of love dictated by Christianity, and with no argu
ments except those which are derived from the very dregs and
Bcum of transmitted opinions. If dogmatism were the result
of sincere rehgion, its effect would be to make us pity our
brethren, who thought erroneously : we should endeavour to
point out their errors, but should leave the consequences in the
hand of God. The dogmatism, which has always prevailed in
the Church, refuses to enter upon any argument : it denounces
a difference of opinion as ipso facto wrong ; and proceeds, by aU
available means, to inflict personal injury on those whom it is
unwilling or unable to convert.
Men would better understand the worthlessness of the arbi
trary doctrines which oblige them to neglect all that is beautiful
in the human soul, if they would only compare these thoughts
with their own position and prospects as responsible and im
mortal beings. Let us look forth into this wonderful universe :
let us reflect that we are but shortlived specks on the surface
of a planet which revolves, with many other like bodies, round
the central sun : let us remember that this enormous luminary
is but one , of millions of simUar bodies, which, for aU that we
know, are respectively surrounded by a corresponding number
of circling satellites, and the nearest of which is so distant that
its parallax is scarcely estimable by the minutest calculation :
indeed, it seems possible that even these suns may be moving
in infinite space and dragging their systems behind them. And
when we have thus impressed ourselves with a due sense of
our personal insignifiance in space, let us turn our thoughts
to our heavenly hopes, to our eternal destiny ; let us reflect on
the full conviction which assures us that our being is not
27

418 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
doomed to perish with the fraU case of animal hfe which we
bear about with us ; that the lofty asphations of our reason
carry us far beyond even the immensity of space which human
genius has explored ; that God himself, the creator of aU that
we see or can imagine, has revealed himself to us in his personal
character, has assumed our bodUy frame, has triumphed over
its passions, and borne it glorified to another state of existence,
having left us a law in harmony with our true nature, by
obedience to which each man, as long as the world lasts, may
become Godhke here and live with God for ever. If we would
only do our best to grasp these grand but simple ideas, and
then compare them with the beggarly elements of that dogma
tism which makes our everlasting happiness or misery dependent
on the adoption or rejection of some unalterable yet capricious
form of words or ceremonial, we should feel ashamed of the
childish httleness of those objects on which rehgious men fritter
away the brief and precious hours of this fleeting life of proba
tion, and we should endeavour to exhibit some correspondence
between our present conduct and the objects at which we aim.
That this petty spirit should be displayed by individuals who
profess that their hearts are set on the great things of eternity is
sufficiently pitiable and distressing. But it would be infinitely
more deplorable if the same narrow-minded prejudices guided
and controUed the rehgious system of our great nation at this ad
vanced period of its inteUectual, moral, and social development.
In accordance with these general principles, we venture to
maintain that a national Church ought not to be saddled with
any obsolete provisions or local enactments, which would close
its doors against a good Christian and a good citizen, enlight
ened by the civilization of the age, but that national orthodoxy
must be as wide a word as personal rehgiousness, and that the
national communion must be prepared to receive every subject of
this realm, who confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh."

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 419
How far the Church of England has adopted this criterion
of orthodoxy, wiU be seen if we examine the structure of the
formularies by which it is governed. The Thirty-nine Articles
may be divided into four sections or classes : —
§ I. Art. 1—5. Of the nature of God.
§ II. Art. 6—8. Of the rule of faith.
§ III. Art. 9 — 18. Of the sinfulness and salvation of man as
an individual.
§ IV. Art. 19—39. Of the Church, as a coUection of Chris
tians ; of its power, its functions, and
its relations to the State.
Now it is clear, from the arrangement of these Articles, that the
only objects of faith, precisely prescribed, are those which are
indicated in the first section; and this contains an exphcit
profession of behef in the Holy Trinity. The second section
begins by referring to the Scripture as the sole rule or autho
rity for this faith ; and here it places the Old and New Testa
ments on an equal footing ; and it ends by maintaining the- three
Creeds as expressions of this faith, on the ground that they
admit of being proved by most certain warrants (flrmissimis
testimoniis) of Scripture," and for no other reason. The inten
tion of the thhd section is to show that man is, by nature,
sinful, and that his salvation depends on faith, of course, in the
doctrine of the Trinity, which is set forth in the Creeds, and
recognised in the first section of the Articles as the only object
' of faith. The fourth section begins by indicating the falhbUity
of the Church, and by limiting its authority, as weU as that
of the general CouncUs, to those deductions from Scripture
which depend upon a perfect consent of the whole Canon, and
then proceeds to discuss matters in detail, with a controversial
reference to the Church of Eome, and more by way of expla
nation than as propounding doctrines for special adoption.
On the whole, then, as the object of faith is stated before

420 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
any mention is made of the rule of faith, or of the means of
ascertaining what is to be believed; as the doctrine of the
Trinity, which is the only subject of the Creeds, is the only one
which is stated before the proviso referring aU other matters
to the free judgment of the Scriptural student ; it seems per
fectly certain that the Church of England, in the Articles, has
no precise and definite dogmatism beyond that behef in the
Holy Trinity which our Lord prescribed as the watchword or
pass of admission into his general Church. In other words,
the Articles are presumed to be addressed to baptized Chris
tians, who have already received and admitted the faith in the
Trinity ; and, with this exception, the Church of England leaves
the Bible, as the sole rule of faith, to the conscientious study of
all its members.
This view receives a complete confirmation, if we turn from
the Articles to the Catechism, which contains the authorised
instruction of aU young members of our Church.1 In the
beginning of this summary of Christian teaching, the child is
reminded that his sponsors had promised three things on his
behalf: (1) that he should renounce the devU, the world, and the
flesh (and this is repentance, whereby we forsake sin) ; (2) that
he should beheve all the articles of the Christian faith (which is
faith) ; (3) that he should walk according to the command
ments of God (whioh is obedience). We find, then, that the
original Catechism, independently of Bishop Overall's appendix
respecting the Sacraments, is confined to instruction on the
subjects of faith and obedience; for repentance is retrospective,
and the baptized chUd is supposed to have turned his back on
the world, the flesh, and the devil. Now faith is taught merely
by the Apostle's Creed, and obedience by a Christianized expo-

1 We have discussed the Church Catechism in a little tract entitled the
Thret Treacherous Dealers, Lond. 1854.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 421
sition of the Decalogue. With the latter, we are not now
concerned ; but it is important for the English Churchman to
observe how the Creed is explained for the benefit of chUdren.
What dost thou chiefly learn," says the questioner, "in these
Articles of thy belief?" The child is taught to answer:
First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made
me and all the world. Secondly, in God the Son, who hath
redeemed me and mankind. Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost,
who sanctifieth me and all the elect people of God." Thus we
see that, according to the Catechism, expressly designed for the
rudimental instruction of our children, the Creed, as furnishing
the materials of our faith, is described as teaching chiefly — that
is, as its main object — the doctrine of the Trinity ; and we find
nothing else in the summary, except the true and anti-Calvi-
nistic statement, that all baptized children are elect, and there
fore predestinated.
Taking, then, the Catechism in conjunction with the Articles,,
Mr. MaskeU was justified in saying to the Archbishop of Can
terbury,1 that the Church of England has no precise teaching

1 Mr. MaskeU, in a letter to the Archhishop of Canterbury, dated Apr-i
23, 1850, remarked : " It seems to me that, excepting the doctrine of the ever-
blessed Trinity, I have no doctrines and no faith to teach as certainly the faith
and doctrines of the Church of England. I may perhaps teach what I believe
to be true ; but — as it seems— it is quite open to me, if I thought it to be
right, and that I should be no less justified, to teach the opposite." The
Archbishop answered (April 26) : " Tour Bishop justly states that there are
many subjects connected with our holy religion upon whieh we have no reason
to expect the dogmatic teaching of the Church. Indeed, your second published
letter complains of matters left undetermined, upon which the Church could
not possibly pronounce a decision, unless it were her office to reveal what is to
be believed, rather than to teach what has been revealed." And in another
letter he says (April 27) : " Whether the doctrines, concerning which you
inquire, are contained in the Word of God, and can be proved thereby, you
have the same means of discovering as myself, and I have no special authority
to declare." From this Mr. MaskeU concludes, in his last letter (April 27) :
" I consent entirely to your Grace's opinion that I am not authorized by the
reformed Church of England to teach these doctrines in the terms stated as
being certainly true ; I mean, authorised in such a manner as would for
bid and condemn my teaching the contrary. In. saying I take this to
he your Grace's opinion, I venture to. conclude it to be so, because if I
were authorised to teach distinctly a particular and defined statement of the;

422 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
except on the doctrine of the Trinity. This declaration was
intended as a reproach by the sacerdotal enthusiast who was on
the eve of deserting the National Church in which he held a
ministerial office. But we accept the rebuke as an admission
of our truly Protestant character, and we should fear for our
safety, if we sought to assemble the majority of this great,
enlightened, and free nation on any narrower basis than that
which is supphed by the confession of St. Peter. We have
seen that on his declaration of the divine nature of Jesus,
he was told that he was an individual stone (irerpot),
and that on the rock (iTeTpa) of which he was a fragment, on
truth as to these doctrines, I cannot doubt but that your Grace would readily
have told me. So that ' it seems to be as I had supposed ; and that I have
no faith and no doctrines to teach on any subject — except, perhaps, regarding
the ever-blessed Trinity — as certainly the doctrines and the faith of the Church
in which I am a minister. In other words, if there is anything which I ought
to teach it is this, that the Church of England has no distinct doctrine except
on a single subject." (See Times of 1st May, 1850). Mr. Maskell's pre
mises are not the less correct because he draws an erroneous conclusion from
them ; and the Archbishop's concession is not the less inevitable, because he
has since tried Archdeacon Denison by another standard. There Dr. Lush-
ington, as the Archbishop'6 assessor, laid down the position that he could not
permit any appeal to be made to the Holy Scriptures, in defence of the incul
pated doctrines. The only question, he said, which his Grace had to try was,
whether the Archdeacon's doctrines are or are not opposed to the doctrines of
the Thirty-nine Articles, for " the authority of Parliament has established the
Thirty-nine Articles to be taken to be the true expression of Scripture upon
every subject to which those Articles relate." Now, as it is one ofthe doc
trines — in fact, the most frequently repeated doctrine — of the Thirty-nine
Articles, that the Scriptures are the only rule of faith ; as they state that the
Church, of which the Articles are the exponent, cannot interpret a text of
Scripture so as to make it inconsistent with another text ; and as the doctrine
of consubstantiation held by the Archdeacon is just one of those for which
special texts are cited ; whatever confirms the authority of the Articles on any
point must confirm their general doctrine of a free appeal to Scripture. That
tho opinions of Mr. Denison are erroneous in themselves and directly at vari
ance with the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth Articles we cannot for a mo
ment doubt; but if he sincerely believes that he can derive his doctrine from
Scripture, and that he can reconcile it with the Articles in question, the Church
of England has renounced the right to oblige him either to think or to teach
otherwise. His great fault, and that which has involved him in all this
trouble, is his obtrusive intolerance, his denial to others of the liberty which
he claims for himself. For he was really the aggressor when he endeavoured,
as a Bishop's chaplain, to force upon candidates for ordination a view respect
ing the holy Eucharist, which, to most members of the Church, must seem as
inconsistent with the general rule of faith as it is with the national exposition
of the doctrine.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 423
the coUective unity of aU those who should hold the same
faith, Jesus would buUd his everlasting Church, against which
the powers of evil would strive in vain. And this must always
be the case. The Church, and every branch, must stand on the,
personal faith of individual believers. Accordingly the Catholic
Church needs no precise teaching, except that which Christ has
prescribed as a concomitant of baptism — the doctrine of the
Trinity ; and it is a strange charge to bring against a national
estabhshment, which does not, and cannot, include aU Chris
tians — -that it does not refuse the privileges of religious commu
nion to those who, according to the laws of our Divine Founder,
would be true Christians in any part of the world.
The object of a State religion is the maintenance of outward
worship for the benefit of the community at large. As such,
the State is not interested in any development of theology.
It regards religion as beneficial or expedient in a political or
social point of view : and if Christianity is supported it is on
these accounts. Such being the case, every one who is a good
Christian and a good citizen must be entitled to admission into
a communion which is naturaUy comprehensive wherever the
State is not exclusive. If, therefore, a behef in the Trinity is
a sufficient passport of admission to the Catholic Church as such,
it must stiU more meet the requirements of a territorial Church,
which counts as its members aU inhabitants of the realm who
do not openly dissent from it.1
The fact is, that there is no doctrine except that of the
Holy Trinity which is entitled to be called at once catholic and
distinctive ; it is the only declaration of behef which, while it
furnishes a bond of union to the great majority of professing
Christians, also constitutes the greatest mark of difference be
tween those who reject and those who assume this name. That,
in this country at least, we have always regarded a faith in the
1 Powell, The State Church, p. 15.

424 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
Three Persons as the one essential characteristic of our com
munion, is clear from the hold which it has taken in our most
solemn associations, and from the manner in which it pervades
and, as it were, threads together the different elements of our
pubhc Liturgy. The Holy Trinity is the sign on our banners ;
the watchword on our hps ; our token of reception into the
Church at baptism ; the topic of the Creeds which we recite then
and from thenceforth ; it is the key-note of our Prayer-Book ;
it is the theme of the final clause with which we appropriate
and, as it were, consecrate to our use as Christians every Psalm
or Hymn of the Jewish Church employed in our services ; it
furnishes the solemn address with which we begin our Litany ;
and it suggests the terms of the blessing which concludes every
pubhc act of devotion. We delight in the name itself. It is
borne by our noblest Institutions and by our most stately churches;
and nearly one half of the Sundays in the year are counted from
the day on which we especiaUy commemorate the revelation
respecting the Divine Nature. And yet, in spite of aU this,
there is no doctrine which has caused so much uneasiness to
individual behevers in our own days, or has introduced into the
Church at large such early, such extensive, and such various
manifestations of heresy and schism. It is surely an inevitable
conclusion, from an examination of this state of things, that the
doctrine itself, which was intended to be as universal as the
rehgion which is built upon it, must have been in the first
instance a practical result of each individual adoption of Chris
tianity, and that aU differences respecting it must have arisen
from our converting a fact revealed to our moral nature into a
speculative opinion, varying with the judgments of men, deduced
in the first instance and subsequently defined by processes of
logical reasoning.
If we look into the history of the Church, we shaU see that
while Arius was dividing the substance, and Sabellius confus-

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 425
ing the persons ; whUe Macedonius maintained that the Holy
Ghost was a creature, whUe Nestorius denied the real union
of the two natures in Christ, whUe Eutyches and Dioscorus
taught that the human nature of Jesus was absorbed or swaUowed
up in the divine — whUe aU these heresies were being broached
and condemned, we shaU see that no one dreamt of considering
the question as other than a speculative or logical proposition,
to be argued on rational grounds, or despotically overruled by
ecclesiastical authority.
And yet it would appear that these presumptions are excluded
by the very nature of the case. A belief in the Trinity was,
from the first, the indispensable preliminary to a man's admis
sion into the Church of Christ ; and unless this was the mere
repetition of a mystical formula, it must have been capable of
approving itself to the heart which was prepared for the recep
tion of true religion. For if no one could be a Christian with
out entertaining this belief, it seems to follow that the belief
itself would increase with the growth of Christian graces in
the soul ; so that the dostrine would be one of those which are
felt rather than proved to be true ; and instead of admitting of
subtle distinctions to be settled, or at least authoritatively laid
down, by the precise dogmatism of a School of Divinity, the
truth that there is a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the
Godhead must rather be one of those which contain their own
illumination and entwine themselves with the spiritual improve
ment of our moral nature. Intended as a bond of union among
Christians, it could not have become the cause of differences,
if it had been rightly apprehended ; but here, as in other cases,
we see the fatal effects of that carnal spirit which so eagerly
sets up the opinions of parties and individuals as a substitute
for the practical truths revealed by God ; and instead of allowing
all men to live as Christians in unity and brotherly love, that
part of the world which we caU Christendom is split up into

426 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
rival sects, occupied with endeavours to stereotype some form of
discordant dogmatism even on the subject which was intended
to form the starting-point of all practical and individual
Christianity. That this was the intention of a belief in the Trinity may
be gathered from the words of our Lord, as recorded at the
end of the first Gospel. And Jesus came and spake unto
them, saying, AU power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth : go ye therefore and make disciples of aU nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe aU things whatsoever
I have commanded you : and lo, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of the world." These words are, as far as this
Evangelist has told us, the last which the Lord addressed to
his foUowers. But whether we are or are not to understand
that they were actually his parting address, we may be sure
that they at least contained the substance of those injunctions
which he left for the final guidance of his chosen foUowers,
and of all who should afterwards profess his rehgion. If we
examine the passage accurately we shaU see that it contains,
what we might expect under such circumstances — (1) a state
ment, (2) a command, and (3) a promise, respecting the Christian
Church ; in other words, respecting the kingdom of God which
Jesus estabhshed upon earth. The statement refers to the autho
rity of Him who was the Head of the Church, and without
whose wUl and power it could never have existed : AU power
is given unto me," i.e. I am authorised to found this Church —
this communion of saints — as weU the visible and mUitant
Church on earth as the unseen and triumphant Church in
heaven. Then foUows the injunction: Go ye therefore" — ye
who first accepted my invitation and have entered into my
fealty — go ye and make disciples or Christians of all nations,
baptizing them in each case and as one act in the name of the

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 427
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and then con
tinuing to teach them to observe aU things whatsoever I have
commanded you." This is the injunction which is perpetually
binding on all Christians, for it contains the outward conditions
without which the visible Church could not continue to exist.
The original strictly implies, as we have expressed it, that the
baptism is to be a single act in each particular case, but that
the lessons of obedience are to be unceasingly repeated : and
thus by baptism we become Christians, and by observing and
keeping the commandments of our Lord, which he communi
cated to his first followers, we abide in the discipleship which
we have professed. Lastly, we come to the promise : And lo,
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." With
you —with whom ? Not the Apostles only, but aU those who,
like them, believed and obeyed : for aU those who, like Peter,
profess the truth, are, like him, component parts of that Eock
of Ages against which no storms will prevail, and members of
that congregation to which it is said : Where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them." Lest we should imagine for a moment that this baptism in
the name of the Three Persons was some magical or mysterious
rite which operated like a charm and opened the door to the
Church and to the promises of Christ without any corresponding
act on our own part, we have the necessary explanation in the
paraUel passage of St. Mark : " Go ye into all the world and
preach the Gospel to every creature : he that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, but he that beheveth not shaU be con
demned." Here we have it plainly stated that belief comes
before baptism. But belief in what ? Of course belief in that
unto which we are baptised — in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost. From the earliest days the Church
had no doubt upon this point : for the simplest Creed, which

428 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
was required of the candidates for baptism, was, as we have
seen, a profession of faith in the Three Holy Persons. But there
is an inevitable connexion between the faith which is the con
dition of baptism and the obedience to God's law as revealed by
Jesus Christ. The one necessarily precedes the other; but faith
and baptism are vain and nugatory without the obedience to
which they lead, and which proves their reality. It follows,
therefore, that as baptism in the name of the Trinity presumes
faith in the Trinity, and as this faith is a commencement and
pledge of obedience, it must be something very different from
a speculative assent to dogmas ; it must be a practical and
moral principle which confirms and establishes itself. When
we speak of faith, we are speaking of an act which is to
serve as a means of bringing man nearer to God — we are
speaking of an act of religion which must, by the nature
of the case, be a religious act. The plain conclusions of
our reason, when we are wiUing to use it, show us
that religious faith must find its seat in the heart, and
exhibit its vitality by the outward conduct of the behever.
This, too, is the consistent and unvarying language of our Lord,
and of those of his Apostles who have most definitely recorded
his words. St. John has told us : He that believeth in the
Son of God hath the witness in himself: " and that this
evidence extends to a revelation of the divine essence, as
exhibited in the Trinity, is clear from the words of our Lord,
recorded by the same Apostle : He that hath my command
ments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me : and he that
loveth me, shaU be loved of my Father, and I will love him,
and manifest myself unto him." And again, in answer to the
question : "How is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us,
and not unto the world ? " he said : " If a man love me, he will
keep my words ; and my Father wiU love him, and we wUl come
unto him, and make our abode with him." Now here we have

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 429
the revelation of all three Persons of the Godhead, promised to
him who has the real faith which worketh by love. The Holy
Ghost, as a witness, for ever dwells in his heart ; the Father
loves him; and the Son manifests himself by the perpetual
presence of his grace. For such a one the whole economy of
that heavenly revelation is realised, and, as it were, appropriated.
If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature : old things are
passed away; behold, all things are become new." He knows
and feels that God is in Christ, reconciling the world unto him
self, and not imputing trespass unto them that believe : his
secret convictions tell him that the union of the two natures in
the Son of God, is not a mere form of words, or a high-flown
aUegory ; but that as Jesus, in his glorified human nature, sits
for ever at the right hand of God, pleading his atonement, and
making intercession for his brethren, so does the Holy Spirit,
the Comforter, for ever dwell with those that love him, whisper
ing the sweet assurances of sonship and adoption to aU those,
whose aspirations of dutiful affection and gratitude to a heavenly
Father are shown by their abnegation of the world's selfishness,
and by that bright halo of purity and hohness which marks the
children of light in their passage through this vaUey of the
shadow of death. To beheve in — to know — the Three Persons,
is not a matter of difficulty or doubt with such a Christian as is
worthy of the name. On the contrary, when once persuaded
that the mission of Jesus is a fact historicaUy established, he
cannot conceive that it should be otherwise. A craving of his
very nature would be unsatisfied, if he could not feel that it
were so. A loving Father, an incarnate Eedeemer, an ever-
present, ever-influencing Comforter, are numbered among the
pre-requisites of his spiritual existence — of that new life which
he has pledged himself to lead. To worship one God in Trinity,
and the Trinity in unity, is with him to show the hopes of the
future in the actions of the present life. The faith which has

430 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
taken possession of his soul, not in words to be repeated as a
lesson, but in thoughts which actuate his conduct, is, that as God
dweUs for ever with man in the person of the Holy Ghost, so
man dweUs for ever with God in the person of Jesus ; and he is
for ever reminded of his happy state by the apostolic benedic
tion, which prays that the love of God the Father, manifested in
the scheme of redemption, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
which his faith has appropriated, and the fellowship of the
Holy Ghost, which his life of obedience has secured, may for
ever dweU with him, and aU like him. Thus, then, we under
stand the precept to baptize all believers in the name of the
Trinity, as a recognition, not of speculative acquiescence, but of
moral aUegiance; and we see in the Trinitarian faith not a
variable dogma, but a self-reahzing principle, which wiU keep
pace with the obedience of love.
The intimate connexion between this faith in the Holy
Trinity, and the obedience to which it leads, is not only pre
sumed in the texts of Scripture which have been adduced, but
also distinctly imphed in the liturgical formularies of our own
Church. And, to begin with that part of the Prayer Book which has
been so often interpreted in a very different way, if we look to
the objections which have been raised against the Athanasian
Creed, we shall see that they generally resolve themselves into
the complaint, that a document saddled with damnatory clauses
requires, as the only condition of salvation, the precise adoption
of a dogmatic and incomprehensible belief. But there is some
thing both of ignorance and oversight in these cavUs, and the
misconception has been kept up by those who are anxious to
resolve religion into an external and objective existence. It
is an indication of theological ignorance to suppose that the
terms salvation" and being saved" are tantamount in mean
ing to those which promise eternal life" and "everlasting

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 431
felicity." All those who belong to the Church of Christ, which
is the Eingdom of Heaven upon earth, are in a state of salvation
— they are all, so far, the chosen, the elect, the saved, the
sanctified. It is needless to multiply texts in proof of this.
St. Paul's Epistles, which are addressed to whole congregations
or churches, apply these terms, without distinction or limitation,
to aU professing disciples of Christ ; and every one is acquainted
with the passage in the Acts, which describes the first increase
of the Church. ' Save yourselves," says the Apostle, "from
this untoward generation" — that is, "be baptized, leave the
world, join the body of the faithful." And the consequence is
given in corresponding terms : The Lord added to the Church
daUy such as should be saved" — more literally — those who
were trying to save themselves." l To speak of those who are
brought into a special covenant with God as at once in a saving
state or condition, because this is the natural tendency of what
has aheady taken place, is a species of anticipation common
to aU languages : and as a rehgious phrase it is by no means
confined to Christianity. The disciples of Mohammed call them
selves Mussulmans, which means the saved " — namely, those
who have committed their affairs to God, who are safe because
they are at peace with Him" ; though they conceive the possi
bihty, as we do, of a falling off from God even on the part of
those who have entered upon his covenanted mercies. But
final salvation, or eternal life after death, is not promised by
Jesus to aU those who enter his Church by baptism, but to
those who observe all things whatsoever he commanded. He
that shaU endure unto the end, the same shall be saved," are
his words of promise ; and the straight gate and narrow way are
significant terms, indicating the difficulty of thus consummating
the objects proposed by our earthly pUgrimage. The Athanasian
Creed, when properly examined, speaks in accordance with
1 Acts, ii. 47 : robs oa&pevovs.

432 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
this practical teaching. Whosoever wishes to be saved, before
all things (i.e. as an essential preliminary), it is necessary that
he hold the cathohc faith" — the one distinctive and influential
belief of aU Christians. This is only what our Lord himself
had said : He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" :
that is, he, who adopts the faith in the Trinity and is received
into the Church by baptism, is ipso facto in a state of salvation,
or has the means of grace placed within his reach : but he that
believeth not, shah be damned" or condemned"; that is, he,
who refuses to hear the teacher of Christianity, must remain in
the state of condemnation from which Christ came to save him :
for if justification or dehverance from the reatus or guUt of
original sin depends on the atonement of Jesus, and if the effects
of that atonement are made applicable only by the faith of the
individual, it foUows that we must continue to be chUdren
of wrath" if we reject the only means of becoming chUdren
of grace." That the Creed means nothing more nor less than
this — that it does not substitute profession for practice, or prefer
mere words and thoughts to the deeds of a holy life, is clear
from its emphatic conclusion — namely, that at the coming of
Jesus Christ to judge the quick and the dead, AU men shaU
rise again to give account for their own works. And they that
have done good shall go into hfe everlasting; and they that
have done evil shah go into everlasting fire. This," says the
Creed, " is the Catholic faith : which except a man beheve faith-
fuUy he cannot be saved." No candid person can deny that a
document which terminates with this distinct and unequivocal
declaration in favour of practical holiness is most unjustly ac
cused by those who represent it as nothing more than an un
charitable condemnation of certain forms of speculative opinion.
It is quite clear, on the contrary, that while it echoes the state
ment of our Lord, that a behef in the Trinity is the only door
of approach to His Church, it makes aU the final consequences

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 433
to depend on that obedience and purity which are the legitimate
fruits of a sincere and religious faith.1
Those who are well acquainted with their Prayer Book will
have no difficulty in recognising a practical application of
Trinitarian doctrine in the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels which
are appointed for the series of Sundays foUowing the day on
which we particularly announce our faith in the Trinity in
Unity. It would not only occupy too much space, but it
would be doing what every reader can do for himself, if we
were to point out at length how this train of thought is en
couraged in the prayers and Scripture extracts which occupy
us on nearly half the Sundays in the year. But let us take
the first Sunday as a sample. Here we have a CoUect or prayer
for God's grace to enable us to serve Him, foUowed by a passage
from St. John's Epistle, in which the great practical proof of
our love to God is enforced ; and by the parable of the rich
man and Lazarus, which declares the fate of those selfish
stewards of God's bounties who do not recognise Christ in their
poorer brethren. What can be the intention of this but to teU
us that no orthodoxy, however precise, is sufficient for us as
Christians or as Churchmen if we do not add to it the enduring
sanction of a holy life ? — that it is useless to say that we put
our trust in Him who came to redeem us from condemnation,
unless we prove that we are disciples of Him who came to
purchase unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works ?
This is the teaching of the Church ; this is the voice of Him
who crieth in the wUderness of this world, bidding men prepare
for the coming of their Judge, by repentance and good works.
We are especially told to remember that this life is only an
incomplete and preparatory state in regard to rehgion as well
as to other functions of our nature. Here the soul is bound to
a corruptible body, and enthralled by aU the influences of sense,
1 For a further discussion of the Athanasian Creed, see Appendix VIII.
28

434 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
which blunt and, to a certain extent, nullify its higher and
spiritual perceptions. But even here we can show by deeds
our behef in that name unto which we are baptized. We can
indicate that the cry of Abba, " Father," is ever in our hearts,
by the purity of our devotions and the gentleness of our zeal ;
we can recognise the Lord in our brethren ; and we can exhibit
the graces of the Spirit in the harmony by which we are
actuated. And if this is better even now than any mere pro
fession of faith in unseen mysteries, what will it be when we
no longer see through a glass darkly, when faith is turned into
sight, and hope into fruition? Then the greatest proof which
we can now give of our Christianity wUl stiU be our living
requisite and the chief element in the happiness which it has
prepared for us. Love wiU never fail, but wiU remain or abide
when all other gifts have ceased, because they have become
needless ; and holiness, which is the proof of faith here, wiU be
its surviving result in that everlasting state of bliss, which could
not be obtained or enjoyed without it : for, when we recoUect
that " without faith it is impossible to please God," we must
be careful to remember that without holiness no man can see
the Lord." The prophet Isaiah has left us the record of a
vision, in which this truth stands before us in palpable reality.
He says, " I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted
up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim,
and one cried unto another and said, ' Holy, holy, holy Lord of
Hosts : his glory is the fulness of the whole earth.' Then said
I, woe is me ! for I am undone : because I am a man of unclean
lips, and I dweU in the midst of a people of unclean lips : for
mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." Here it is
plainly intimated to us that we can never be numbered among
the spirits of just men made perfect, to whom the Trinity is no
longer an unseen mystery, and who with threefold acclamations
for ever proclaim the holy nature of the Three Divine Persons,

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 435
unless we are holy ourselves : for the men of unclean hps wiU
behold in God only their indignant judge and theh offended
King. In aU that we have said thus far in our attempt to define the
national conception of orthodoxy, we have spoken of the Enghsh
Church as a whole. We have made no distinction between the
Clergy and the Laity. Before, however, we bring this inquiry
to a close, it wUl be necessary to consider more particularly the
position of the Anghcan minister, and to ask whether he too
has the Protestant's hberty of private judgment, whether he
too may claim to be orthodox and conformist on the broad basis
of individual religiousness, or whether he is bound down by
precise formularies which deny to him, at least, the privUege,
and relieve him, at least, from the duty of thinking for himself.
An adequate investigation wiU convince us that, whUe the clergy
man has just the same freedom of judgment as the layman, he
has incurred, by his ordination vow, the special obhgation of
qualifying himself to judge rightly, and of teaching only accord
ing to his own convictions. After what we have said above, it
is unnecessary that we should insist on the universal priesthood
of Christians, or that we should renounce, for the Protestant
minister at least, the distinctive claims of a sacerdotal caste. It
is true that a different opinion is maintained by many clergy
men of the Enghsh Church, and Wheatly, whose book is re
ceived as an authority by many of the bishops, does not hesitate
to say that : " The ministers of rehgion are to publish the laws
of God, to pass his pardons, and to preside in his worship. God
hath committed to them the keys of the kingdom of heaven ;
and ' whose soever sins they remit, they are remitted unto them,
and whose soever sins they retain, they are retained.' They are
the stewards of the mysteries of God, and the dispensers of his
holy word and sacraments ; and, on theh ministration, the assist-

436 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
ance of the Holy Spirit, and aU the graces of a good life,
depend." These extreme views are not sanctioned by the New
Testament. In the passage referred to, and in others hke it,
our Saviour's commission is given to the Apostles as represen
tatives of a coUective Church. He is the only Mediator, the
only High Priest, the only means of access to God the Father.
And the Holy Sphit, the Comforter, is his advocate in every
heart, the pervading influence in every society, however smaU,
which is met together in his name. The minister, then, is, what
his name denotes — one who occupies a position of inferiority in
reference to the Church at large,1 one who is a BiaKovot* or
servant, with certain definite work to do ; one whose superiority,
if he is superior, is entirely professional, or dependent on the
degree and manner in which he is acquainted with his business.
The word, which we stiU use to signify the pubhc service of the
Church, or that business which constitutes the proper employ
ment of the Christian minister, namely, the term liturgy, recalls
classical associations, illustrating in a striking manner the rela
tions which connect the clergyman with the community on
behalf of which he is commissioned to act. A work, which
some one citizen undertook on behalf of the State, was called a
liturgy, XeiTOvpyia, and the official who performed it was
termed the XeiTovpyot, or " state's workman," a name which
eventually superseded its older synonym Brjpitovpybt, " the
people's workman." This latter term had its use, as a general
designation of professional or skiUed workmen, even in the days
of Homer, who says : 3 —
1 Minis-ter, from minus, is the correlative of magis-ter, from magis ; see
Varronianus, p. 123.
2 The proper meaning of BtctKoros, from SiI)ku or Siwkw, is " an active
messenger or go-between."
3 Horn. Od. xvii. 385 :—
tIs yap Si/ £e?vov KaXe7 aXXoBev avrbs i7reX8wv
&XXov y* el pi) twv dl BTjpioepyol eatriv. K. t. \.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 437
" What man to another's house
Repairs to invite him to a feast, unless
He be of those, who by profession serve
The public, — prophet, healer of disease,
Ingenious artist, or some bard divine
Whose music may exhilarate the guests ? "
And the distinction was particularly applicable to those who
took the lead in public worship. At one time, the coUective
chorus of the whole population in a Greek city discharged the
duties of prayer and thanksgiving. But at last the professional
poet and musician came forward as " state's workman," with his
trained band of singers and dancers, and performed, for the
whole body of citizens, what they were formerly content to do
in ruder style for themselves. From this habit of delegation,
the state's workman, or minister, is regarded as the personification
of greater skiU or knowledge, as well as the representative of
the population at large. He becomes an object of respect, by
vhtue of the public functions committed to him, and aU the
rest of the citizens, his constituents in fact, are, as compared
with him, "common rabble" (Xabt) and "private men"
(IBi&Tai), from whose Greek designations we derive our modern
"lay-man," as opposed to "clergyman," and "idiot," as opposed
to any possessor of common-sense and even ordinary informa
tion.1 From all this we see that the Christian minister, in his
official or public capacity, is but the appointed servant and func
tionary of the society to which he belongs ; but that, as an
individual, he must stand on precisely the same religious footing
as the other members of his Church, must enjoy aU theh liberty,
1 In reference to one of the old meanings of S-npiovp y6s, it is interesting
to know that ISiwttis denotes even " a prose-writer," as opposed to a poet ;
Plat. Phcedr. 258 D., Symp. 178 n., Leges, 890 a. In old English, "lay"
means "ignorant" or "unlearned," as a translation of iSu&np; thus in the
Bible of 1551, Acts, iv. 13, kypdppaToi Kal ISiwTai is rendered "unlearned
men and lay people," where the German version also has " ungelehrte Leute
und Laien" ; and, " ich bin darin ein Laie," is still common German for " I
am not acquainted with the matter."

438 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
and incur aU theh obhgations; or, if there is a difference between
him and other individuals, it must consist in his special devotion
to a righteous and godly hfe, and in the professional superiority
which he derives from his prosecution of a particular branch
of study. That this is a correct view of the matter, as regards the
Christian minister in general, appears from the direct and ex
plicit language of the Apostle Paul. That it is also in accord
ance with the position which the National Church assigns to her
ordained ministers, and with the functions and privUeges which
she commits to them, may be shown by an examination of the
authorised formularies.
The passage, in which St. Paul most clearly defines the
position of a Christian minister, is that in which he appeals to
the effects of his preaching, as the best voucher for his com
mission to preach.1 The existence of the Church at Corinth was
the proof of his effectual ministration or sufficient authority.
" Not," he adds, " that we are competent (IkovoI) of ourselves
to claim2 anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of
God, who also has made us competent (iKavmaev) as ministers3
of the New Testament, not of the letter but of the spirit, for
the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life." It is obviously
the intention of the Apostle to say that the sufficiency or com
petency of the minister depends not upon himself, but upon the
message which he dehvers, and the divine authority which he
has received to dehver that message — an authority which, in
modern times, is bestowed by the coUective body of the Church

2 The word \oyl(opat, like the Latin imputo, means " to make a charge,"
"to debit another person with an item," as in the Tpets pvas avaxdcas
XoyiaaaBai BwSeKa of Arist. Plut. 381.
3 Cf. iii. 5. That he _ understands Sidxovos in its servile sense, is clear
from the word SovXovs in iv. 5.

IHE NATIONAL CHURCH. 439
in any district. But the context also teUs us that no one is a
proper minister of the New Testament, which brought life and
immortality to light, unless he can distinguish between the
letter and the spirit of revelation, for the letter kiUeth but the
spirit giveth life. In an age, therefore, when our appeal hes
to the written records of revelation, we must seek the test or
criterion of a true ministration or preachership, in the manner
in which the expounders of Scripture escape from the beggarly
elements, the deadening influence of the letter, and enjoy the
true liberty of the sons of God : for " where the spirit of the
Lord is there is liberty." x And this the Christian minister wUl
do, if, on the one hand and generaUy, he cultivates the spirit
of Christianity in himself, and if, on the other hand, and spe
ciaUy, he endeavours, by the aid of hurnan industry and human
reason, to penetrate through the outer crust of language, in which
aU written revelation is enveloped, to the real meaning and
positive intent of the writers, and of the Spirit by which they
were actuated.
Now the first and most essential condition for a proper use
of the records of revelation is the possession of a true spiritual
sympathy with the spiritual truths communicated to us. This
is the spiritual discernment which the Apostle in his First
Epistle to the Corinthians declares to be absolutely necessary
for those who would understand the things of the Spirit.
"What man," he asks,1 "knoweth the things of a man, save
the spirit of a man, which is in him ? Even so the things of
God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. But we have
received, not the spirit of the world, but the sphit that proceeds
from God, that we may know the things which God has imparted
to us." In communications even from man to man there is
misunderstanding, if there is not some congeniahty of principle
1 V- 17, • 1 Cor. ii. 11, 14.

440 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
and sentiment. Even words are understood in different senses,
and the whole statement is distorted by the medium through
which it passes, if the writer and the reader do not look from
the same point of view. But aU men resemble one another
much more than the unregenerate and carnal man resembles
the mind and spirit of God. And, if the greatest of heathen
philosophers could say that1: "Every discourse, when once
written, is tossed about from hand to hand, equaUy among
those who understand it and those for whom it is not fitted,
and does not know to whom it ought and to whom it ought not
to speak, and when misunderstood or unjustly attacked, always
needs its father, that is, its author, to interpret it" — if this can
be said of ordinary and human communications, it must be
much more true of a revelation, which has for its only design
to convert and save men from the sinfulness of the world to
which they are aU naturaUy inclined, and to bring them over
to a way of thinking and acting which is naturaUy at variance
with aU theh habits of thought and action. In fact, in regard
to our dealings with aU purely spiritual communications, we
are like the magnet, which has two poles, one of which attracts,
whUe the other repels, reUgious and moral truth. If the carnal
mind is predominant in us, we either reject and loathe the spiritual
food, or we are unable to appropriate it and derive nourishment
from it. On the other hand, the spiritual mind is more than
half prepared for the reception of divine truth — it is already
gravitating in that dhection, and receives the gracious lessons
with eager longing and instinctive sympathy. There can be
no difficulty in finding a practical definition of the carnal as
contrasted with the spiritual mind. The fulfilment of the divine
law rests upon love or unselfishness. If we approach the truths
of revelation in this sphit, we can understand and receive them.
' Plato, Phitdrus, p. 275, ad Jin.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 441
But if we seek to combine with religion any form of human
selfishness — whether it be the selfishness of pride, or of mahce,
or of avarice, or of indolent self-gratification, spiritual truth
shrinks from the repeUing influence of that counter-pole, and
the cup of life is emptied before we can raise it to our lips.
This remark wiU of course apply to aU cases, — to the layman
as weU as to the clergyman, to the ignorant as weU as to the
learned. But it is most applicable to the case of those who
claim to be able, competent, and sufficient ministers of the
New Testament. If the Spirit of Christ has no seat in their
hearts, they may indeed preach to others, but they wiU be but
the more conspicuous castaways themselves. It is true that no
deficiency on the part of the ministers can affect the validity
and efficacy of divine ordinances ; but, just in proportion as the
sphituaUy minded and loving preacher is able in the spirit of
love to serve and edify his brethren, in the same proportion
must the self-seeking, vain, worldly, indolent, or Ul-tempered
steward of God's Word falsify the treasures committed to him,
and dispense them with a large admixture of his own base
coinage. The other essential condition for an able and sufficient
ministration of the New Testament may, indeed, be fulfilled
by aU who are qualified by leisure and education for the
prosecution of the necessary studies ; but it is the imperative
duty of every minister of a Christian Church to endeavour,
according to his opportunities and abhities, to become a learned
and competent interpreter of the records of revelation. There
are indeed some among the ministers of our own Church, and
there are many dissenting ministers, who not only undervalue
learning, but represent it, even in their public discourses, as
a dangerous, if not unholy thing. And it is a favourite saying
with them that the poor pious man, with ever so little learning,

442 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
is not only often, but generally, a better Christian than the
scholar. To put aside the case of those who make such state
ments from selfish motives, — namely, to excuse themselves from
the charge of having neglected the studies proper to theh pro
fession, — and to confine ourselves to the many who are really
sincere in theh belief that no special learning is required for
a full appreciation of all that can be learned from the pages
of the Scriptures, we must remark that we have here one of
those confusions of thought which are at the bottom of aU the
unconscious sophistries of ordinary conversation. It is true
that no learning is required in order that we may be able to
read the Bible so as to hve by it. The great broad doctrines
of practical holiness are equaUy plain in the translation and
in the original ; and those who approach the weU of hfe with
a soul thirsty for spiritual truth and with a congenial sympathy
of religious instinct, with a wish to be good and to do good,
these persons wiU grasp at once the essential and simple truths,
and wiU not disturb themselves with speculations at once in
coherent and incongruous. If, to this sphit, the student of
Scripture adds perfect learning and competent ability, he will
indeed arrive at the same practical results as the ignorant but
reaUy pious behever, but he wiU do this in a manner suited
to his own knowledge and capacity, and will be enabled to
express the truths of revelation in the language most intelligible
to those whose educational advantages are the same as his own.
And it may sometimes be necessary for the Christian clergyman
to preach to those who are neither pious nor ignorant, and
whose hearts must be reached through the avenues of a culti
vated understanding. For ministering in a civilized and refined
society, for keeping abreast of the van of scientific and literary
progress, it wiU always be necessary that some at least of the
stewards of God's mysteries should be as learned and as able as

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 443
the foremost men in the congregations which they have to address.
Theology must keep pace with the advance of other branches of
science; for "every scribe who is instructed unto the kingdom of
heaven is like the man of property, who from his well-fUled store
house dispenses as occasion serves things new and old,"1 neither
offending prejudices by a startling parade of novelties, nor
insulting educated manhood with chUdish anachronisms. No
one, who has been permitted to form such a store, has any excuse
in the eyes of God, if he locks it up and makes it as profitless as
a miser's hoard. We ah know the parable which warns us that
our talents must at least bear interest. And the Fathers of
the Church have repeatedly quoted a saying of our Lord's,
which intimates, distinctly enough, that we are as much bound
to use our critical faculties as we are to employ ourselves in
the laborious acquisition of knowledge : " Be ye approved
money-changers, rejecting on the one hand base coinage and
on the other hand holding fast to that which is good." 2 In
accordance with this we must sift to the bottom and test to
the uttermost the doctrines to which we give currency, and the
authorities on which they rest ; and we must not be deterred from
the necessary investigations by the appeUations of neologian
and rationalist, which are so emphaticaUy bestowed by the
indolent and superstitious on aU who bring to sacred literature
a rigorous judgment and fearless spirit of research. To those
who dreaded Greek philosophy, which was the rationalism of
i Matth. xiii. 52 ; cf. above, p. 93.
2 Clem. Alex. Strom, i. p. 425, Potter : ylveoBe SSmpoi rpmreprai, t& pev
cmo5oKipd(ovTes, t_ 5 . KaXbv KaTexovTes. Mceph. Hist. x. 26: " Spectatos
nummularios nos esse divinum oraculum jubet, et ut pulcherrimum quodque
ex rebus omnibus deligentes, quod malum est abjiciamus, quod bonum autem
disquiramus et inventum retineamus." Similarly Basil and Ambrose, as
quoted by Potter, ad Clem. loc. This significant injunction is not attributed to
Christ by any of the evangelists, but it seems to be tacitly referred to by St.
Paul and St. John in the following passages : TtdvTa Se SoKtpd(eTe- ri> KaXbv
KaTev.Te (1 Thess. v. 21) ; ju.7) iravrl TrvevpaTi TncTeveTe oAAa SoKipdfae ra
¦irvevpaTa, ei iK row Beov icrlv.

444 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
the early Church, Clement of Alexandria addressed some observa
tions which are very apphcable to the present day: "Most
persons," he said,1 " dread Greek phUosophy, as children dread
hobgobhns, fearing lest it should run away with them. But
if theh faith — I will not say their knowledge — is such as to be
overcome by a specious and plausible argument, let the philo
sophers above aU others gain this victory and reduce them to
the confession that they wUl not have the truth. For truth
they say is invincible, but false opinion is liable to overthrow.
For example, we choose even our purple silks by putting two
pieces together. So that, if one confesses that his heart has
not the power of discrimination, he assuredly has not the money
changer's table, stUl less has he the true criterion — the reason.
And how is he any longer a money-changer, if he is not able
to prove or distinguish the unaUoyed coin and its counterfeit?" 2
At the time when Clement wrote these words there was a dis
crimination with regard to the constituent parts of the Canon
of Scripture, and a searching inquiry into the meaning of that
which was accepted as a valid authority for the truth of revela
tion. And if we rest on the indolent and uncritical acquiescence
of a later age ; if we pass off as good coin whatever happens to
be in circulation, without allowing ourselves to examine the
superscription or to test the metal; if we even accept as a seam
less texture that which is variegated with purple patches; we not
only undervalue our privUeges, but we neglect a positive duty, and
set at nought the gravest of our responsibilities. For by this neg
ligence we not only do not act like the approved money-changers,
1 Clem. Alex. Strom, vi., p. 780, Potter.
2 Mr. Wilson has well remarked (Bampton Lectures, p. 185) that, as far
as the heathen world is concerned, the philosophers of Greece " were more
truly the precursors of the Christian ministry, than were the priests of the
pagan temples ; and though not, in this case, by evident design, nor in express
imitation of a model, the Christian teachers replaced the philosophers, and
not the priests among the heathen, as they represented the doctors of the
Sanhedrim, and not the Levitical priesthood among the Jews."

THR NATIONAL CHURCH. 445
but we degrade our high caUing to that of the retailer who vends
adulterated provisions,1 and falsify the Word of God,2 which we
profess to deliver in its primitive simplicity. But independently
of the preacher's duty to his congregation, an enlightened study
of Scripture produces its proper results for aU those who pro
secute it in the proper spirit. The Christian scholar can see
far better than the uneducated man that the Old and New
Testament are bound together by a real concent and harmony ;
that one statement of consistent doctrine runs through aU the
written records of revelation. He can understand the insigni
ficance of apparent discrepancies, and he can often penetrate,
hke the gold-seeker in our days, through the valueless quartz
or loam to the pure metal, which sometimes shows glistening
particles on the surface, and sometimes is entirely hidden within.
It is in the wide interval between complete ignorance and per
fect knowledge or learning that aU the mischievous elements
of theological speculation are to be found. Here, if anywhere,
"a little learning is a dangerous thing." It is from the little
learning, uncontroUed by a Christian temper, that we get the
letter which kiUeth, instead of the Spirit which giveth life.
It is from the little learning that we get the sUly cavUs of
captious unbelief, which is always nibbling at the unimportant
accessories of religion, and endeavouring to persuade us that
it is delivering home-thrusts at the body and heart of our faith.
It is from the little learning that we get the minute and positive
dogmatism, which spins a whole fabric of heresy and schism
from the fine threads of verbal subtleties. Nay, it is sometimes
from the little learning that we hear the wholesale disparage
ment of learning, or those boastful predications of the difference

1 2 Cor. ii. 17 : KaTC7]XebovTes Tbv x6yov tov Beov, where the allusion is to
the adulteration of wine by the KdirriXoi.
2 2 Cor. iv. 2 : SoXovvres Tbv x6yov tov Beov.

446 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
between the learning which is, and the learning which is not,
sanctified. It may require a deeper insight into the human
heart than man can claim, to say what learning is truly sanctified
by the indwelling Sphit of God, though here also we have
the criterion given us by our Lord — that the tree is known
by its fruits1 — but it requires no iUumination beyond that of
human reason and human abihty to teU the difference between
learning and ignorance, between genius and dulness, and we
can find out for ourselves that those, who disaUow the necessity
of learning and critical judgment to the able ministers of a
Christian Church, are generaUy deficient in those accomplish
ments which they affect to disparage.
Whatever may be the principles or practice of other com
munities, the Church of England, at aU events, expects in her
ministers both spirituality and learning. The means of giving
fall effect to her requirements may be practicaUy defective, and
the neghgence of the Bishops has often acquiesced in a minimum
of piety and attainments. But it is impossible to read the ordi
nation service, without seeing that no man can conscientiously
become a minister of the Church of England without a true
spirit of devotion, and without resolving to obtain, by the best
exertion of his abUities, a complete and independent garniture
of theological information. Whoever seeks holy orders in our
Church, whether as deacon, priest, or bishop, is always asked,
first of aU, whether he " thinks," or " thinks in his heart," or
"is persuaded" that he is "truly called" to that particular
ministration; and the Anglican priest, at his ordination, solemnly
pledges himself, the Lord being his helper, that he "wiU be
dUigent in prayer, and in reading of the Holy Scriptures, and in
such studies as help to the knowledge of the same, laying aside
the study of the world and of the flesh." That the qualification
i Matth. vii., 16-20.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 447
of competent learning is a leading characteristic of the Enghsh
clergyman, is shown by the fact that the ministry of the Church
is, in theory at least, subordinate to the theological schools
at the great Universities, which are stUl legaUy entitled to take
an independent part in the discussion and determination of re
hgious doctrine.1 The academical character of the Church is
openly exhibited to the eyes of the congregation by the very
attire of the minister. Instead of the tippet, which marks the
equality of priesthood in the Eomish Church, our clergy are
dhected by the Canons to wear " such hoods as by the orders of
the Universities are agreeable to their degrees ;" and the inten
tion of this must be to indicate that they have the guarantee of
academical standing, whatever may be the value of that dis
tinction at the present day. It may also be shown that the
social rank of clergymen is regulated by the academic prescrip
tion, which is also maintained in theh relative precedence
among themselves.2
But although it may be sufficiently clear that the English
minister incurs the obhgation of being, as far as he can, a godly
and weU-learned divine, it has not been generaUy observed that
his liberty of private judgment is maintained even by his ordi
nation vow, and that he accepts the rule of faith with that
latitude of interpretation which is always presumed in the pro
fessional study of a document. The Deacon, who receives the
New Testament only, with " authority to read the Gospel in the
Church of God, and to preach the same, if he be thereto
licensed by the Bishop himself," is merely asked: "Do you
unfeignedly beheve aU the canonical Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments ? " The meaning of this question is explained
1 The importance, or rather the necessity, of making the Universities inde
pendent of the Church, has been strikingly shown by the question which has
recently been agitated between the Bishops and the Universities of Belgium.
2 See Classical Scholarship and Classical Learning, pp. 171-174.

448 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
by the corresponding demand addressed to the Priest and Bishop
respectively : " Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures con
tain sufficiently aU doctrine required of necessity for eternal
salvation through faith in Jesus Christ ?" As it would be absurd
to suppose that the Priest and Bishop, who receive not the New
Testament only, but the whole Bible, are expected to entertain
a different opinion respecting the Scriptures from that which
is required of the Deacon; and as their profession, which is
definite and in verbal accordance with the sixth Article, ought
to explain the more vague and general declaration, which they
had previously made, it must be manifest that the Deacon too
is merely understood to say that he receives the Canonical
Scriptures as his one rule of faith, as containing and including
aU that is required of necessity to eternal salvation. He is not
caUed upon to profess any theory of inspirational infaUibUity ;
he is not asked whether Moses was reaUy the writer of the
Pentateuch ; he may or may not have his own opinions
about the great fish of Jonah or " the five hundred thousand
chosen men," who were slain in a single battle; his scholarship
may or may not be sufficient to raise or aUeviate critical diffi
culties ; still, if he can make his declaration in the same sense
as he subscribes the sixth Article ; if he can say, in the words
of the great Scahger, when speaking of the doubtful Epistles,
ego credo Us qua intus, quia nihil contra nos,1 he wiU, at all
events, accept the question ex animo imponentis, and will express
the unfeigned beUef, which the English Church considers ap
plicable to the whole body of Scripture — the belief that neces
sary doctrine is not to be sought elsewhere. Now the Priest
and Bishop not only accept the Scriptures as the exclusive .
rule of faith, but bind themselves by a promise that they wUl
exercise an independent judgment in regard to the doctrines
1 Above, p. 183.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 449
which they derive from the Canonical Books. They are both
of them required to declare that they are determined by God's
grace, " out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people com
mitted to their charge, and to teach nothing, as required of
necessity to salvation, but that which they shall be persuaded
may be concluded and proved by the Scripture." We have
already seen that the Articles refer every doctrine to Scripture,
with the exception of that belief in the Trinity, which is the
foundation of the Catholic Faith. If, then, the Church does
not teU us what doctrines we must find in Scripture, if she
expressly relinquishes the privilege of affixing arbitrary inter
pretations to isolated texts, if she requires from her ordained
Priests and consecrated Bishops that they wiU be guided by
theh own convictions in their conclusions from the text of
Scripture, it is clear that the Anglican minister is not only
not precluded from the enjoyment of that liberty which is an
indication of the Spirit's presence, but that he is bound on all
occasions both to exercise and assert his freedom. The late
Bishop Marsh stated the fact when he said : * "As our Liturgy
and Articles are avowedly founded on the Bible, it is the special
duty of those who are set apart for the ministry to compare
them with the Bible, and see that their pretensions are well
founded. But then our interpretation of the Bible must be
conducted independently of that, of which the truth is to be
ascertained by it. Our interpretation of the Bible, therefore,
must not be determined by rehgious system ; and we must
foUow the example of our Eeformers, who suppUed the place
of tradition by reason and learning." The academical character
of our Church, taken in connexion with the fact that there are
still schools for theological disputation in the two great Univer
sities, may convince us that, as long as we confine ourselves to
i Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy, etc., p. 487. 29

450 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
Scripture as the rule of faith, there is no doctrine or speculation
of religious import which the Anglican divine is forbidden to
test by the laws of reason and the canons of criticism ; that his
only perU is the risk of confutation, when he brings forward a
proposition which he cannot sustain ; and that the most erroneous
conclusions, at which he can arrive by an honest process of
argumentation, are less opposed to the terms of his ordination
than any attempt to be outwardly orthodox in despite of his
own convictions.
That these are the principles of the Church of England, as
deduced from a candid examination of her formularies, cannot
be denied by any one who has examined them according to the
plain meaning of the words and the obvious intentions of the
Eeformers who composed or sanctioned them. And yet it must
be aUowed that a very different opinion is entertained by the
majority of Nonconformists, and by a considerable number of
persons within the Church itself. It is a prevalent belief that
the Enghsh clergyman is not aUowed to call his soul his own —
that he had the right to think for himself before he assumed the
clerical character, but that, having done so, he has relinquished
his spontaneity, and has become a mere cog-wheel in the
ecclesiastical machine. At any rate, it is quite certain that if
any Anghcan divine exercises the privilege which the Articles
presume, and performs the duty which his ordination vow
enjoins, the Dissenters cannot understand how he can con
scientiously remain in communion with the Church, to which
they attribute such stringent bondage, and his brother clergy
men, or at least the most noisy and tumultuous among them,
scout him as heterodox and heretical, because he will not accept
their additions to the national rule of faith. That the Dissenters
should be unable to comprehend the latitude and toleration of a
Church which is always represented to them by its extreme

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 451
parties on either side, as eminently narrow and exclusive, is
very pardonable. And there are some expressions in our Liturgy
and Articles which, though capable of a liberal interpretation,
seem to countenance this mistaken idea. Before a Nonconformist
can understand that the Church of England is liberal and com
prehensive, the members of the national communion must relin
quish aU attempts to narrow our door- ways, and, if possible, must
remove those ambiguous passages from our formularies which in
terpose needless stumbling-blocks to sincere believers in the Catho
hc Faith. And, independently of the more general attacks which
the Anghcan divine has to expect from his brethren, when he
brings common sense and modern learning to bear upon the
records of revelation, we think it necessary that we should
emphaticaUy expose the suicidal faUacy which leads to this
sectional intolerance within the national Church.
The primary consideration which we would impress upon
those who would confine AngUcan orthodoxy to their own
specific opinions is this : that if either of the extreme parties
is right, they must exclude from our communion, not only the
other extreme party, but also the great majority of Churchmen
who wiU not accept the dogmatic teaching of either of them.
The consequence of this would be a complete schism, with the
probability of infinite subdivisions. The fact, however, is that
the two extreme parties do not reaUy adopt the essential prin
ciples of the national Church ; they are heterodox, in the proper
sense of the word; they only hold on by the skirts of our
garment, and are permitted to do so by that toleration which
they Would gladly deny, not only to one another, but to every
liberal and enlightened man within the Church itself. Although
the Articles, as the later and more authoritative document, must
be supposed to regulate and explain the rubrics of the Prayer
Book and the prayers themselves, we find the extreme High

452 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
Church party engaged in supporting their partial adoption of
Eomish tenets, by an appeal to the Liturgy, which is distinctly
contradicted by the plainest declarations of the Articles of
Eehgion. And the extreme Low Church party obtained some
few years ago, from a guarded sentence of the Privy Council,
a toleration for their Calvinistic dogmas, which neither the
Prayer Book nor the Articles can be made to countenance.
We have no particular affection for the views either of Arch
deacon Denison or of Mr. Gorham ; we think both of them
equaUy wrong and equaUy mischievous ; but we are convinced
that a national Church ought to be wide enough to hold even
these litigious ministers, if they can conscientiously subscribe
to the Articles ; and we would most distinctly maintain for them
the right of examining the Scriptures and ascertaining for them
selves whether theh doctrines are in accordance with the only
rule of faith which is prescribed to the Enghsh theologian.
But the outcry against that application of common sense and
modern learning to the uses of bibhcal study, which we consider
to be connected with the most obvious duty of the ordained
minister, is by no means confined to the extreme parties in the
Church. It proceeds, no doubt, in the first instance from those
who take up the hypothesis of an infalhble hterature as the
counterpoise to the dogma of an infaUible Church; and it is
certain that, in proportion as Bibholatry is adopted, in the same
proportion party-spirit becomes more rancorous, and the partisans
more malignant and dishonest. The unchristian spirit which we
have described, and proved to exist,1 is much more flagrant in
the Low Church than in the High. Whether we recaU to mind
individual instances, or look to the public examples afforded by
periodical and occasional literature, we shall find that the violent
and unscrupulous personahty of rehgious invective always
1 Above, pp. 323 foil.

THE NATIONAL CHUECH. 453
depends on the furor biblicus of the assailant. Those who lean
only on the infaUible book are the worst offenders. Those who
have another, and a stronger cord for their bow,— an infallible
Church, — can afford to argue with some amount of Christian
calmness on the vahdity of the other assumption.1 But aU
parties, in proportion as they cling to any form of the rehgion
ab extra, are maintainers of prescriptive authority. They abhor
novelty, and deprecate the free use of the reason. Hence it
comes to pass, that a considerable number, even of those who are
not party men, are either afraid of receiving themselves, or ready
to impose on others, the names of neologian and rationalist. Now
it appears to us that these names do not, in themselves, convey any
very formidable imputations, and we should be quite wiUing to
receive them, if our opponents would accept from us the converse
and correlative designations of anachronists and irrational bigots.
When our Lord described the true expounder of rehgion as one
who brought forth from his treasure new things as weU as old,
and warned us not to put new wine into old bottles, or new cloth
into our old garments, he indicated, as we conceive, that
anachronism might be more dangerous than neology} We know
what results have flowed from Mr. Eose's maxim that "whatever
is new in theology, is eo nomine false."3 On the other hand, it
1 The High Church party are not only preserved from bibliolatrous ex
travagance by their general superiority to the opposite party in educational
culture and refinement of mind, but they have a warning in the pages of the
great English theologian, to whom they make frequent appeals. " Whatso
ever," says Hooker {Eccles. Polity, Book II., ch. viii. § 7, p. 423, ed. Keble),
" is spoken of God, or things appertaining to God, otherwise than as the
truth is ; though it seem an honour, it is an injury. And as incredible praises
given unto men do often abate and impair the credit of their deserved com
mendation, so we must likewise take great care, lest in attributing unto Scrip
ture more than it can have, the incredibility of that do cause even those
things, which indeed it hath most abundantly, to be less reverently esteemed."
2 See above, pp. 93, 443.
" Mr. Faber {Doctrine of Primitive Regeneration, pp. 182, 183) says that
" a confession of doctrinal novelty is a confession of doctrinal falsehood," and
that " the acquisition of doctrinal truth must always be strictly a re-discovery
as contradistinguished from a new discovery."

454 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
has been weU remarked by an EngUsh clergyman, that " novelty
may be considered as an indication of the genuine Protestant
feeling" with which a Divine investigates the meaning of Scrip
ture ; for " to affirm that progress may be made in mental,
moral, physical, but not in spiritual science, is a thought worthy
of the dark ages." 1 Complaints have been frequently made of
late that sermons are becoming insufferably duU, dreary, and
uninstructive. How can it be otherwise, so long as clergymen
imagine that it is sinful and dangerous to preach except according
to the conventions of thought and language which suited the
cahbre of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ? Compare
the piously thoughtful discourses of the neologian Schleiermacher
with the effusions of the most accomplished London preacher,
whose only anxiety is not to compromise himself, and then con
sider what results might be expected, if English clergymen
aUowed themselves to fulfil their ordination vow, by reaUy
studying the Sacred Eeco'rds, and teaching the people, in a fresh
and original manner, according to theh own persuasions, and the
conclusions of modern learning. With regard to the imputation
of rationalism, we may fairly inquire, when the term is apphed
to us, what is meant by the word. If it is used, as in technical
accuracy it ought to be used, to denote the effete and super
annuated system of Paulus and the other German writers who
wished to give a rational account of miracles, we reply, that we
build up our faith in historical Christianity on a conviction of
its mhaculous origin, and that we have no part in the teaching of
a school, which has come to an early end in the land of its birth.
But if by rationalism is meant the free use of our reason in all
that regards revelation, we answer that, as Protestants, and as
human beings, we claim this as our indispensable, as our inalien
able privUege. Eeason and faith are functions of the same
1 Desprez, Apocalypse Fulfilled, Pref. p. 14.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 455
spiritual nature ; they can have no rivahy, for theh objects are
the same ; they can have no antagonism, for theh mode of action
is parallel and harmonious. If revelation does not appeal to our
reason, neither does it invite our faith. He, who believes at aU,
believes as man, that is, as a being who enjoys the attributes of
reason and will. "For man," says Eichard Hooker, " to be tied
and led by authority, as it were with a kind of captivity of
judgment, and though there be reason to the contrary, not to
listen unto it, but to follow, like beasts, the first in the herd,
they know not nor care not whither, this were brutish." " Phi
losophy," says Sir W. Drummond, "wisdom, and liberty, sup
port each other. He who will not reason is a bigot; he who
cannot, is a fool ; he who dares not, is a slave." With regard to
our own Church in particular, the great majority of our pro
fessing members have agreed to maintain the privUeges of reason
wad freedom ; and in this they are most orthodox, for they most
agree with the principles of those Articles which prescribe the
terms of our national communion, and with the tendency of those
solemn vows to which our ordained ministers pledge themselves.
What, then, shaU we say to one of our clergy, who, professing
to be a Protestant, has ventured to raise the question whether " a
man can be a Eationalist, a minister of a Christian Church, and
yet an honest man?" Those, who know how often the so-caUed
Eationahsts have sacrificed theh worldly prospects by the honest
openness of their avowals, may, perhaps, be a little curious to
learn how any one could return the intended answer to such a
question. The writer, to whom we refer, has had the kindness
to teU us1 that the rationalist view of revelation "is especiaUy
opposed to the teaching of the Church of England, which, in her
1 Thoughts on Rationalism, Revelation, and the Divine Authority of the
Old Testament, by the Kev. A. McCaul, D.D., Professor of Divinity, King's
College, London, 1850, p. 29.

456 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
Lessons, as weU as the Epistles and Gospels, propounds, as the
Word of God, the narratives of aU the most remarkable revela-
lations, which God has made of himself in appearances, in
mhacles, and in prophecies. No man of common integrity could
possibly read to the people in the pubhc service of God, as God's
Word, that which he himself regards as nothing but a portion of
the mythology of an ignorant people, and rejects not only as
incredible and impossible, but unworthy of the Divine Being,
and injurious to the spiritual welfare of man. The great ques
tion, however, it may be said, is, whether this doctrine be true
or false. Undoubtedly; and on this point every conscientious
man is bound to make up his mind. But this is a question for
those without, not for those within, the Church. He must have
thought but httle of Christianity, and know next to nothing of
the grounds of his faith, and have but little honesty or conscience
in his profession of Church membership, who has not made up
his mind upon a subject first in order, as weU as importance."
Again he writes, at the end of his short essay : : whatever may be
the origin of rationalism, " the deadhness of its influence is the
same. By whatever name it may be caUed, its effect is to anni-
hUate the authority of God's Word ; to infidelize the whole mass,
or to make the teachers of Christianity mere deceivers, whose
theological scheme is totally different from the religion of the
people ; having one doctrine for the cathedral and the study, and
another for the pulpit — talking of the Word of God, and the
Son of God, and the Spirit of God, with their lips, and, in
their hearts, rejecting all faith in them as popular error ; having
a non -natural sense for the fundamental articles of the Christian
faith, as others have for the fundamental doctrines of Protestant
ism. Far better to renounce the Christian faith at once, and to
get rid of Theologians as well as Priests. Wretched wUl be the
1 p. 66.

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 457
supremacy and glory of intellect and science, if it leave us des
titute of good faith, integrity, and common honesty." On reading
these words, we are positively astounded by the effrontery of the
writer. That a charge of dishonesty should be brought by a
Bibholater, whose vocation it is to maintain conscious error,1
against those who would sacrifice aU their worldly interests rather
than relinquish the fearless love of truth and liberty and plain
ness of speech, which is their distinguishing characteristic, must
seem audacious beyond the usual daring of unscrupulous parti-
zans, to any one who has considered the flagrant mendacity and
disingenuousness of Bibliolaters in general, even as shown by a
few examples in these pages.2 And the very writer, whose pre
sumptuous words we have just quoted, has, in his essay of less
than seventy pages, exhibited all the worst qualities of his
school. For throughout he assumes the points which he ought
to prove, both with regard to the rationalism he attacks, and the
theory of infallibility which he maintains. Nay, in the very
words which we have quoted, there is either a strange confusion
of ideas or the grossest misrepresentation. Where does the
Church of England put forward any theory of inspiration, either
with regard to the Scriptures in general, or with regard to the
select passages, which are read in the course of divine service ?
What is there to hinder any minister of the Church from taking
his text from the Lessons, Epistles, or Gospels, and expounding it,
and the passage in which it occurs, according to his own persua
sions of their value and meaning ? How can this writer know
that the enlightened minister, whom he calls a Eationalist,
agrees enthely with Wegscheider, or, if he does, that he could
not find profitable instruction, conducive to " the spiritual welfare
of man," in any one of these biblical extracts ? On what prin
ciple can he maintain that all English clergymen have come
1 Above, p. 1S4. z Above, pp. 73, 259, 312, 318, 331, etc.

458

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.

to the end of theh theological improvement, and have nothing
more to learn, when they take holy orders at the early age of
twenty-three or twenty-four ; that their ordination vow to devote
themselves to Scriptural studies is a mockery ; that their pro
mise to teach only according to theh persuasion is a farce ;
that any new learning, which might lead to the correction of
crude and immature notions, would involve them in sin ; that,
in fact, there is no honesty or conscience except for those who
either retain in manhood the chUdish things of their early
years, or resolutely shut their eyes that they may not see the
truth ? This might be possible enough if we were stiU in the
sixteenth century, when the clergy were so ignorant that they
were often unable to compose sermons, and were obhged to
avaU themselves of HomUies, in which the Apocryphal writings
are described as the insphed Word of God. But now it must
happen, as a matter of course, that every clergyman, who does
his duty, wiU become better informed as he grows older; and
it is therefore an absurdity to speak of the liberty of judgment
with regard to questions of Biblical authority and interpretation
as belonging only to those without the Church. For the cler
gyman as well as for the layman, Protestantism is an ac
tive principle, not a hfeless tradition. The defalcations in
good faith, integrity, and common honesty, of which this
writer speaks, and the evil consequences which he attributes
to them, must be laid to the charge of the school of Bibholaters,
to which he belongs. They it is who are the enemies, while
they profess to be the friends, of revelation; they it is who
shake the faith of humble Christians by making our religion
responsible for faUacies which the increasing intelligence of
the age cannot fail to detect ; they it is who disgust the
educated classes by self-conscious sophistries, which at once
betray themselves, and involve the religion of light and love

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 459
in the discredit which attaches to a creed of darkness and
maUgnity. With this parting rebuke to the insolent bigotry which
presumes to surround the national orthodoxy with narrow
limitations unknown to the formularies of our Church, we wiU
bring our whole discussion to a close. A general, but not
inaccurate, survey of the entire field of Christian theology has
enabled us to see that neither our religion itself, nor the Church
of England as its national exponent, nor the Anglican divine,
as an ordained minister, is committed to any maintenance of
those untenable opinions, which have furnished the unbehever
with the only materials for his successful warfare. We have
shown that the historical evidences of Christianity are altogether
untouched by the cavils of our adversaries, and that we can
afford to resign to the sceptic aU the apparent advantages which
the ignorant dogmatism of our teachers has aUowed him to
gain. The true advocate of Christianity finds the object and
fulfils the laws of his conservatism by relinquishing the scenic
outworks of preposterous opinions and unsupported assumptions,
and by falling back on the impregnable fortress of rehgion itself.
His strength consists in the solid texture of the historical testi
mony, by which he is enabled to account for the origin of his
faith, and in the sincerity and hohness of each individual
believer, which show that the Gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. To the former he fearlessly invites the strictest
scrutiny, while he appeals with equal confidence to the hving
miracle of the existence of his rehgion in the hearts of its
sincere professors ; for, as St. Paul said, every man who draws
near to the Lord's table renews the evidence of his creed, by
commemorating the actual death of Him who rose from the
dead and is to come again. Considered in this way, Chris
tianity becomes independent of the literary remains which

460 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.
have preserved the history of our faith and of the antecedent
Judaism. And though modern Bibhcal learning has brought
us to some conclusions respecting the canonical books and theh
interpretation, which are at variance with the notions formerly
entertained by an iU-informed and uncritical age, it has not
in the slightest degree interfered with the historical fact that
a revelation has been given, or with the truths, which charac
terize that revelation. In proportion as we have been success
ful in our endeavour to prove this proposition, in the same
proportion have we reconcUed Christian orthodoxy, as it was
in the beginning, with the Biblical learning which distinguishes
our own age. With regard to the orthodoxy of the Enghsh
Church, we have seen that, even by the admission of men
representing the most opposite opinions, the dogmatic teaching
of our national establishment is confined to an exphcit declara
tion of the Trinitarian Faith. And as the vitahty of a religion
must depend on the religiousness of its professors, it is con
solatory to be able to assure ourselves that the doctrine of a
Trinity in Unity is not a speculative statement, but the record
of a great fact, inevitably recognised by those whose conduct
proves its reality — the great fact that God became man in order
that man might become hke God in his attribute of love.
Hence it is that the Athanasian Creed, the most precise of
aU our Trinitarian formularies, is also most emphatic in insist
ing on the necessity of a righteous and godly hfe. It maj',
therefore, be concluded that no correctness of speculative opinion
is safe in itself, or conducive to the salvation of others, when
it is propagated by unchristian acts ;• and as aU Christian
righteousness is summed up in that love which is the fulfilling
of the law, there can be no sound doctrine in those who are,
by their doctrine, induced to hate their brethren. Whatever
may be the case with other nations, wc, who are Christian

THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 461
Englishmen, enlightened by the culture of modern civilization,
science, and freedom, and to whom Providence has committed
the work of teaching our religion to millions of unconverted
heathens in our distant possessions, we, at least, are bound so
to form and so to interpret our canons of orthodoxy that we
may not exclude any good Christian from a participation in
that faith which ought to be a bond of union rather than a
stimulant of contention. We, at least, must not imitate the
insane multitude in the circus at Byzantium, to whom the Ever
Blessed Trinity was but the badge of a party, a tenet ab extra,
fostered by frantic zeal and prop agated by cruel persecution. With
us, at least, that name, under which we were regenerated or born
again, must be associated with the gentle graces of a new life,
foreshadowing the love and hohness which alone are admitted
to gaze on the splendours of the heavenly throne. For us, at
least, there is especial significance in that short sentence which
our Eedeemer addressed to those who were to be the first
agents in the propagation of his rehgion : " Have salt in your
selves, and have peace one with another." L As the Christian
must justify his cause by his conduct, and win souls to God
by exhibiting the effect of his convictions in his own absolute
and individual religiousness, the world wiU not be seasoned
if the salt has lost its saltness in this metropolis of rational
liberty and refined intelligence ; and as the heavenly Jerusalem,
the communion of saints on earth, is indicated only by a con
stant endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace,2 we can have but little hope of the universal brotherhood
of Christians, if those, who dweU together as feUow citizens and
feUow subjects in this world-ruling island, can find nothing in
¦their religion except the fuel and fomentation of perpetual
discord. 1 Mark, ix. 50. 2 Eph. iv. 3.

APPENDIX VIII.
(CHAP. V. r. 433).
ON THE ATHANASIAN CEEED.
The vindication of the Symbolum quicunque vult, which finds
a place in the text, expresses only a partial sense of the value
which we attach to this record of the faith of Latin Christianity.
It has been the custom even with those who are most contented
with the so-caUed Apostles' Creed, and who do not find fault
with that of Nicaea, to raise the most grave objections against
the monthly recitation of the confession which bears the ortho
dox name of St. Ath'anasius. The Uberal Archbishop TiUotson
wished that the English Church was weU rid of it ; and we have
heard that it is regularly omitted in the Episcopahan Chapels of
Edinburgh, even in that in which the Bishop himself officiates,
because a majority of votes in the managing vestry has so deter
mined it. Now, without pressing the fact that the Nicene Creed,
in its original form, had damnatory clauses not less stringent than
those of the quicunque vult, and without calling the latter, with
Bishop Beveridge, "this incomparable creed" (Works, vol. vii.
p. 260, Anglo-Cathohc Library), we do not hesitate to express
our conviction that, if there is any advantage in having an
explicit declaration of the particulars which constitute orthodoxy,
the Athanasian symbol is in every respect preferable to either of
the other two which our Church places by the side of it. For
while it is most explicit in regard to that Trinitarian doctrine,
Which is the key-stone, of orthodoxy, it carefully avoids those
points of interpretation which are opposed to the results of
Bibhcal learning ; it lays the principal stress on an abnegation
of that Tritheism which is the worst and most natural abuse of

464

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VIII.

Trinitarian teaching ; and it subordinates, in the most emphatic
manner, the credenda of orthodoxy to the agenda of religion and
morality. In order to understand fuUy the theological importance of
the Athanasian creed, it is desirable that we should, as far as
possible, realize to ourselves the position of the writer, and the
chcumstances by which he was surrounded. The complete in
vestigation of the question more- than a century ago, by Dr.
Daniel Waterland, has fully established the fact that this Creed
was composed about the year 430 a.d., by Hilary, Bishop of
Aries, in the South of France. At this time the Yisigoth
monarchy was firmly estabhshed in that province, and, under its
influence, the Arian heresy was introduced into Gaul with fresh
sanction and support. "Whatever," says Gibbon (iv. p. 327,
ed. W. Smith), " might be the early sentiments of Ulphilas, his
connexions with the empire and the Church were formed during
the reign of Arianism. The Apostle of the Goths subscribed the
Creed of Eimini; professed with freedom, and perhaps with
sincerity, that the Son was not equal or consubstantial to the
Father; communicated these errors to the clergy and people,
and infected the barbaric world with an heresy which the great
Theodosius proscribed and extinguished among the Eomans."
In the province of Gaul, on the other hand, the cultivated clergy
and the Latinized laity had long exhibited an active zeal on
behalf of the doctrines of Athanasius. The eminent namesake
of the Bishop of Aries, Hilary of Poitiers, had, one hundred
years before, devoted his best energies to the maintenance of
those doctrines to which the Nicene eouncU had recently affixed
the stamp of orthodoxy, and opposed himself so zealously to the
spread of Arianism in the west, that he incurred the displeasure
of the Emperor Constantius II., and he was one of the prelates
who were banished in consequence of the reactionary CouncUs of
Aries and MUan in 355 a.d. The interval between the ages of
the two HUary's, was partly fiUed up by the literary activity of
Augustine, who was an eminent advocate of the Cathohc doc
trine of the Trinity. And as Waterland has observed, " HUary
of Aries was a great admirer and follower of St. Austin." When
therefore, the estabhshment of the gaUant dynasty of WaUia,
on the throne of Southern Gaul, gave a greater encouragement
to the Arian tenets of the Gothic and other barbarian tribes

CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICn IT WAS WRITTEN. 465
settled in that district, it was not unnatural that the newly-
elected Bishop of Aries should endeavour to recommend the
doctrines, for which the greatest of his Gallic predecessors had
testified under the frowns of imperial power, which his teacher
Augustine had maintained in the midst of a Vandal invasion,
and which his own convictions declared to be most in accordance
with the original teaching of the Church. At the same time,
HUary could not but be aware that the professors of the orthodox
faith were by no means equal in real religion and morahty to the
Arians, whom they stigmatized as barbarous heretics. Dr.
Newman has remarked (Essay on Development, p. 272, 2nd
edition) that " whatever was their cruelty or tyranny, both Goths
and Vandals were a moral people, and put to shame the Cathohcs,
whom they dispossessed. ' What can the prerogative of a re
hgious name profit us,' says Salvian, ' that we caU ourselves
Catholic, boast of being the faithful, taunt Goths and Vandals
with the reproach of an heretical appeUation, while we live in
heretical wickedness ? ' The barbarians were chaste, temperate,
just, and devout ; the Visigoth Theodoric repaired every morning
with his domestic officers to his chapel, where service was per
formed by the Arian priests; and one singular instance is
recorded of the defeat of a Visigoth force by the imperial troops
on a Sunday, when, instead of preparing for battle, they were
engaged in the religious services of the day." With this con
trast before his eyes, HUary of Aries could not but feel that
Christianity required something more than a precise form of
sound doctrine ; and he has left to the Church a Symbol or Creed
not less distinguished from other documents of the same class by
the logical accuracy of its theological statements, than by the
earnestness with which it insists on the necessity of a sober,
righteous, and godly hfe.
In examining the Athanasian Creed, or any other compen
dium of Christian doctrine, we must remember that it is, after
aU, only a commentary on Scripture in a very abridged form, and
that its merit depends on the accuracy of the instruction which
it conveys. No such exposition can take from a Protestant the
right of examining Scripture for himself. And he must either
interpret the Creed according to the best hghts which he can
bring to bear on the interpretation of Scripture, or, if it does
not admit of such an interpretation, he must prefer the text to
30

466 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VIII.
the commentary. Our eighth Article declares that tne three
Creeds are " by all means to be received and believed, for they
may be proved by the surest warranties of Scripture." If this
were not so, if it could be shown that the Creeds, or any one of
them, lacked this support, it must foUow that the ground of
reception would ipso facto faU. Mr. Maurice, we believe, has
remarked that " a Creed needs a Bible, to show that it has some
thing to rest upon ; a Bible needs a Creed to show that it has
done what it proposed to do." We recognise as true the former,
but not the latter, part of this axiom. The correct statement is
contained in a proposed new edition of our Articles, which has
come into our hands with the foUowing title : " Eeformata Fidei
Confessio sive communia rehgionis Christianse principia in ar-
ticulos duodetriginta digesta : opera Presbyteri Anglicani.
Londini, 1855." In the fourth of these Articles we read : " Fidei
Symbohs et Confessionibus, cujus generis sunt etiam Expositiones
pueris ediscendse, modice uti licet tanquam doctrinse compendiis
atque initiis, et tanquam communionis pacisque vincuhs; non
quasi aliquid in iis sit auctoritatis divinse. Haee omnia hominum
opuscula eatenus valent, quoad ostendi perspicue possint e sacris
hteris undique inter se coUatis et consonantibus esse desumpta.
Neque eadem aut forma aut numero sint ubique necesse est ;
fuerunt enimvero jam pridem diversa diversis locis ac temporibus;
quae quemadmodum ascita sunt, ita pro re nata vel deponi vel
mutari ab ecclesia rite possunt, data semper opera ne quid praeter
Dei verbum velut ex necessitate salutis credendum hominibus
obtrudatur, atque ut omnia cum caritate fiant, ad aedificationem
et ad gloriam Dei." The truth of this statement is excellently
developed in the first of Mr. WUson' s Bampton Lectures (pp.
23 sqq.). He has well remarked that " there are processes in
evitably going on, whereby the peculiar chcumstances and edu
cation of each successive generation varies the conceptions which
it is capable of forming ; " that there is " no divine promise that
these processes should not affect theological conceptions, or lan
guage, when it expresses theological conceptions;" that, not
withstanding this, " Creeds and other hke formularies may be
retained, and have been retained by Churches, as Symbols of
union and membership, or as instruments of instruction," though
a Creed or formula may be " retained or adopted in a sense dif
ferent, more or less, from that which it bore at its framing, or in

THE PROPER ESTIMATION OF CREEDS. 467
some previous period of its history ; " and that the hberty of so
settling the meaning of a Creed may "be claimed especiaUy for
a Church which refers to Scripture as the authority for its cre-
denda, if the sense, in which a Creed or Article of Faith was
framed, or has at some time been received, should now turn out,
to her present mind, unscriptural." To the question, if Creeds
and Articles are not to be considered as interpretations of Scrip
ture and we must go to Scripture for the interpretation of forms
of that kind, where is to be found the interpretation of Scrip
ture?" — Mr. Wilson replies by referring to the sense of Scrip
ture, "as it shall be interpreted, under the best lights of the
present and future times." He says that " as in this matter the
responsibUities of all men are their own and present, theh judg
ment must be theh own, and not that of others — a present judg
ment, and not one that is past, although past judgments supply a
portion of the materials for it." And he adds that " a wider
apphcation of this principle or rule, beyond what occurs as
probable at its first enunciation, may ensue upon the defining of
what has not yet been defined, namely, what iB meant by the
Insphation of Scripture; a definition which must itself be
referred to the common consent of those to whom the Scripture
shall come."
Admitting these principles as generaUy coincident with that
view of Erotestant theology which we have taken in the text,
and as dhectly applicable to the case of a Creed, we proceed to
show that the Symbol of HUarius Arelatensis, though more dis
tinct and elaborate than the other two Creeds, contains less that
requires to be accommodated by the imposition of a new or cor
rected meaning to the modern interpretation of the texts on
which it rests.
It is a mistake to suppose that a Creed, at the time when it
is put forth, is intended to narrow the basis of the Church. The
obvious purpose of such a Symbol or passport of admission into a
Church must be to include as many as possible, and this not so
much by precise and logical statements of what the behever must
profess, as by negativing certain propositions which tended to
break up the Church into a number of sects. As we have shown
in the text, the Church Catholic, and even a national Church, is
necessarily more comprehensive than any community of men who
dissent on particular grounds. It has been weU remarked, that

468 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VIII.
even the orthodox settlements of the Creed "were in fact ex
pressions of dogma, which did act as comprehensions in their
time. As, for instance, even the final expression of the doctrine
of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father compre
hended as many as could possibly be comprehended within the
terms of one and the same profession, considering the antagonistic
theories between which that declaration placed itself" ; so that
" the heterodox parties commenced the war of limitations," and
" sought by definitions to narrow the Church of Christ," whereas
the orthodox party merely swept away these specialties (WUson,
Bampton Lectures, p. 55.)
In asserting the doctrine of the Trinity, the Athanasian Creed
is much more engaged in contradicting erroneous views than in
binding down the professors of Christianity to any particular
theory on the subject. In asserting generally both an Unity of
Godhead and a Trinity of Persons, this Creed meets with a con
tradiction all the mischievous theories which had originated from
that doctrine. The heresies specially combated are the Arian,
SabeUian, Nestorian, Eutychian, and Apolhnarian. We have
seen L that false rehgion generally assumes one of three forms —
polytheism, dualism, or pantheism. The polytheistic view of the
doctrine of the Trinity would convert the three persons into
three Gods, or establish a tritheism instead of an unity of God
head. To this the Athanasian Creed opposes itself by a series of
repeated contradictions from the seventh verse to the nineteenth,
both inclusive. In passing from the crudest form of false reh
gion to the antagonistic monotheism, the advocate of the orthodox
faith in the Trinity had to combat two erroneous apphcations of
that true belief. Monotheism sometimes represented itself as a
recognition of one Supreme Deity, with certain ministerial agents
subordinated to him, who constituted a class of secondary gods.
This view was apphed to the Trinity by Arius, who was thus
guUty of a division of the divine Substance or entity. On the
other hand, monotheism appeared as a recognition of only one
God, who, however, acted upon or in the world by a merely
temporary personification of Himself. This was the view applied
to the explanation of the Trinity by Sabellius, who thus fell into
the error of confusing the Persons. It will be seen that the Arian
1 Above, p. 101.

THE ATHANASIAN CREED IS NOT THEORETICAL. 469
theory verged towards polytheism, and represented the views of
the Greeks ; Kal yap KaKelvoi, says Athanasius (c. Arian. iii. 16,
p. 423, Newman's translation), &o-irep Kal oinot, Tfj KTiaei
XaTpevovo-i irapd tov KTiaavra Ta irdvTa Oebv; and he
he adds that this is really a kind of polytheism : " the Arians
are greater traitors than the Jews in denying the Christ, and
they wallow (o-vyKvXiovrai) with the Gentiles, hateful as they
are to God (6eoo-rvyelt), worshipping the creature and many
deities." On the other hand, Sabellianism inclined to the Judaism
of the times before the Exile, when God appeared among men
by his angels or mal' hakim, and so BasU said that Sabellianism
was merely Judaism under the form of Christianity (Ep. 210, 3 :
IovBalo-fwt io-Tiv b %a{3eXXio-p,bt iv Trpocrx^piaTt XpiaTi-
avio-fwv ; cf. Euseb. c. Marcellum, i. 8). These two antagonistic
theories are contradicted together in the Symbolum Quicunque,
vv. 3-6. As the polytheistic view was represented in greater or
loss degrees by Tritheism and Arianism, so the dualistic error
found its approximation in the doctrines of Nestorius, who as
serted that in Christ there were not only two natures but two
persons ; and pantheism asserted itself in the hypothesis of
Eutyches, who denied the two natures in Christ, and maintained
that the human was swallowed up in the divine. This latter
doctrine, that of the Monophysites, as it is called, seems to have
originated in the views of Apollinaris in the previous century,
who held that Christ could not have had a human soul ; that the
Word dwelling in him must have been his only source of reason
ing and information ; and this was of course a denial of the two
perfect natures, and an approximation to pantheism. Opposed as
they were in other respects, it seems that the pantheism of
ApoUinaris inclined to the polytheism of Arius, and the dualism
of Nestorius to the monotheism of Sabellius. " If," says Dr.
Newman (on Athanas. ii. p. 292), " the opposites of connected
heresies are connected together, then the doctrinal connexion of
Arianism and Apollinarianism is shown in their respective op
position to the heresies of Sabellius and Nestorius. Salij (Eutych.
aut Eut. 10) denies the connexion, but with very little show of
reason. La Croze caUs ApoUinarianism Arianismi tradux (Thes.
Ep. Laeroz. t. 3, p. 276)." The Athanasian Creed stands in no
direct antagonism to the Eutychians, whose views were not pub
lished till a later part of the same century, but their positions
are fully denied by anticipation in vv. 27-35. Apollinaris, however,

470 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VIII.
is referred to and contradicted in v. 30, where it is stated that
" Jesus Christ was perfect God and perfect man of a reasonable
soul and human flesh subsisting " ; and there is an equally im
mediate rebuke to Nestorius in v. 32, where it is added that
although Jesus " be God and man, yet He is not two but one
Christ." In thus putting a veto on the precise limitations of belief,
which would have narrowed the Cathohc Church to the dimen
sions of a dogmatic sect, the Symbolum Quicunque does not itself
advance any theory respecting the Trinity. Its doctrine is given
in vv. 20-26, and these statements are foUowed by the assertion
of a real incarnation, of the fact that Christ, whose divinity had
been previously maintained, was in every sense a human being
also — " God, of the substance of his Father, begotten before the
world ; and man, of the substance of his mother, born in the
world" — and therefore "equal to the Father, as touching his
Godhead, and inferior to the Father, as touching his manhood."
The doctrine of the Trinity, thus generaUy conceived, is, as we
have shown in the text, not speculative but practical, and capable
of leading directly to holiness of heart and hfe. It has been
objected that " the doctrine of the Trinity, as stated in the
Athanasian Creed, and held by the Catholic Church, however it
may be expressed in words, in reality does not differ from
SabeUianism or Unitarianism, which consists in holding God
to be one mind only or one philosophical person" (Brief Remarks
on some of the Doctrines of the Catholic Church by a Graduate of
Oxford; London, Cradock and Co., 48, Paternoster Eow, 1844).
And we have heard it asserted by men of abihty that it is im
possible to find any mean between Tritheism and SabeUianism,
which is in fact Unitarianism. That the Athanasian Creed most
strenuously asserts the Unity of the Godhead — that, in fact, all
true Trinitarians are Unitarians also, no one wiU for a moment
deny. It is also clear, as we have mentioned above, that
SabeUianism connects itself with the monotheism of the Jews,
which was not only true religion, but the only true religion
untU the coming of Christ : for it seems absurd to say that the
Jews had any idea of a Trinity of Persons. The use of the
plural Elohim with a singular verb, in the history of the Creation,
is generaUy cited to prove that the Jews had this conception.
But the Christian doctrine is that the Word alone was the instru
ment of creation. And it has -been weU remarked by M.

XEINITARIANS AND UNITARIANS. 471
Archinard (Le Catechisme de Viglise de Genhve defendu eontre la
requite de deux peres de famille; Gen. 1853, p. 47): "Si Ton
admet que ce Verbe divin a cree le monde, les choses visibles
et les invisibles, comme cela est dit, Jean, i. 10, Coloss. i. 16,
U n'y a pas moyen alors de voir une plurality de personnes dans
les mots ( Gen. i. 26) : faisons I'homme, etc. Dieu le Pere n'y
a ete pour rien ; e'est le FUs qui a tout fait. Cette difficult^ est
incontestable, et ne cesse d'en etre une que du moment ou Ton
voit dans le pluriel un pluriel d' excellence, comme dans le nom
hebreu de Jerusalem et dans Esdras, iv. 18; 1 Maccab. x. 19,
xi. 31, xv. 9." The distinction between SabeUians or Uni
tarians, and those who " worship one God in Trinity and Trinity
in Unity," may be established by the foUowing considerations.
It seems to us that there are three means or intervening pro
positions between that kind of Unitarianism which we caU
Deism, and the Tritheism which is a kind of Polytheism. The
following arrangement wiU show the transition in its natural
development : —
Tritheism. — A belief in three Gods : i.e. in three minds or Sub
stances all equal.
Arianism. — A division of the Substance of God, without a recog
nition of more than one equal God.
Sabellianism. — A confusion of the Persons in the one substance
of God.
Trinitarianism. — A recognition of the unity of Substance, which
insists on a separation or diversity of Persons.
Unitarianism or Deism. — A denial of any sub-manifestations in
the unity of the Godhead.
The difference between the Deist and the SabeUian is more
apparent than real ; it consists in the fact that the latter admits,
at least in name, that there are persons in the Godhead, though
he virtually confuses them, whereas the former makes no attempt
at such a subdivision. With regard to the Trinitarian, every
thing depends on the meaning of the word person. It is a mere
truism to say that, if a Trinity of Persons implies a Trinity of
minds, there cannot be a unity of the Godhead. And it is
begging the question to assert that whoever does not take
" person" in this sense, confuses the Persons, and so becomes a
SabeUian. We, who profess the doctrine of a Trinity in Unity,
believe in one divine mind or Godhead ; and in this one Godhead

472 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX .VIII.
we declare that there are three Persons or manifestations — the
Father, or Goodness, the Son, or Wisdom, and the Holy Ghostt
or Power — existing side by side before aU worlds. In the like
ness of these three Persons man was created ; in their name he
is regenerated by baptism. The Father is manifested to this
lower world only through the Son, and in Him creates and
redeems mankind ; or through the Son in the Holy Ghost, in
whom he sanctifies and sustains His chosen people. But, as
attributes or agencies, the three Divine Persons are anterior to
the world, and independent of it. If any one, refusing to
examine Scripture on the subject, insists upon telling us that
this is SabeUianism, we may be weU content to reply that, if so,
the great authorities with the two parties in the Church were
Sabellians also. Hooker, to whom High Churchmen wiU not be
unwilling to defer as a sound guide, says, very distinctly (Eccles.
Pol. v., civ., 5, p. 317, Eeble): "The Father as Goodness, the
Son as Wisdom, and the Holy Ghost as Power, do all concur in
every outward particular issuing from that one only glorious
Deity which they all are. For that which moveth God to work
is Goodness, and that which ordereth his work is Wisdom, and
that which perfecteth his work is Power." Calvin, whom the
Low Churchmen reverence as a sort of oracle, and who has
expressly combated SabelUanism in his Institutio, writes thus in
his Catechism (quoted by Archinard, u. s.) : " M. Veu qu'U n'y
a qu'un Dieu, qui te meut de reciter le Pere, le Fils, et le Saint
Esprit, qui sont trois ? E. Parce qu'en une seule Essence divine
nous avons a considerer le Pere, comme le commencement et
1'origine ou la cause premiere de toutes choses : puis apres son
FUs, qui est la Sagesse eterneUe : le Saint Esprit, qui est sa
Vertu et Puissance, laqueUe est epandue sur toutes creatures, et
neanmoins reside toujours en lui." The same view is implied in
St. Paul's benediction (2 Cor. xiii. 14), and in Justin Martyr's
statement that the three Divine Persons are ovk ovaiat ovoptara,
dXXa Tpbrroi Trjt inrdp^emt (p. 373) ; and it is most distinctly
asserted by the orthodox Dr. South, in his Animadversions on
Dr. Sherlock (p. 240), and in his dedication to Aretius; see
Vindication of Protestant Principles, by PhUeleutherus Angli-
canus, London, 1847, pp. 184-186. When Dr. South says that
the current doctrine both of the fathers and the schools is that
"every Person of the Blessed Trinity, by virtue of its proper

EXPLANATION OF THE SECOND VERSE OF THE CREED. 473
mode of subsistence, includes in it the Godhead itself, and is
properly the Godhead as subsisting with and under such a cer
tain mode or relation," he virtually distinguishes between sub
stance and subsistence, between ovo-la and v7rap^it, and suggests
an interpretation of PhU. ii. 6 : virdpywv iv fiopcpfj Qeov,
which would make the divine VTrbaTaait the eternal form of the
Divine Person, whereas its manifestation in the world is its
XapaKrrjp or eiKcov (Hebr. i. 3, Col. i. 15). And this we be
lieve to be both Scriptural and Catholic. But in whatever
sense Churchmen in general may agree to understand the words
" substance " and " persons," and in whatever sense they may
say that " the Son is not made nor created, but begotten," and
that " the Holy Ghost is neither made nor created, nor begotten,
but proceeding," it is clear that the Athanasian Creed lays down
no narrow rule on this point, but contents itself with contradict
ing the precise and speculative dogmatism of the early heretics.
That this symbol distinguishes between that state of salvation,
which is common to aU Christians, and to which alone a profes
sion of faith can serve as an access, and that eternal felicity,
which is promised only to those who work out theh salvation by
patient continuance in weU doing ; and that it plainly declares
that the judgment of Christ wUl try the works of men, and not
their orthodoxy ; this has been sufficiently indicated in the text.
One critical objection might be raised to this interpretation of
the Athanasian Creed. There is no doubt that the language of
the second verse has led many persons to overlook the statements
at the end of the Creed, and to suppose that an assent to some
speculative doctrine is, after all, made the indispensable pre
requisite of eternal happiness. But a more accurate examina
tion of that verse, as interpreted by the context, wiU relieve us
from this misapprehension. The Latin text, as given by Water-
land, is as follows : " Quam nisi quisque (or " quis ") integram
inviolatamque (or "inviolabilemque") servaverit absque dubio
in aeternum peribit." If we take these words in connexion with
the previous verse, they can only have this meaning: "The
Catholic Faith is a necessary preliminary (ante omnia) for a saving
communion with the Church, and the keeping that faith to the
end in a corresponding life is the necessary condition of everlast
ing salvation." That this is the meaning of the writer, appears
from the conclusion of the Creed ; — that it is the sense of the

474 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY.. APPENDIX VIII.
words themselves, we wiU endeavour to show. AU depends, of
course, on the meaning of the phrase " to keep the faith,"
servare fidem. Now it is clear that this phrase is taken from the
vulgate of 2 Tim. iv. 7 : fidem servavi, tt)v ttigtiv Terr^pr)Ka.
And there is no doubt that St. Paul used that phrase as signify
ing the completion of a hfe of obedience to the precepts of the
Gospel. He says : "lam now ready to be offered, and the time
of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my course, I have kept the faith ; henceforth is laid up
for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto
aU them also that love his appearing." In the very passage,
then, in which Hilary found his servare fidem, he found it con
nected with the day of judgment and the crown of righteous
ness ; and his own doctrine shows that he could not have
awarded eternal life to any other way of " keeping the faith."
Nor is this all. The word Tr\peiv, which is here rendered
servare, is especially applied in the New Testament to the prac
tical observance of the commands of Christ : we have Tr/peiv tov
Xoyov (John, viii. 51, 52), Tr/pelv Tat evToXdt (Matth. xix. 17),
Tr\pelv tov vbpiov (James, ii. 10), Tr/pelv dypi TeXovt Ta epya
(Apoc. ii. 26). The tertiary predicates, integram inviolatamque,
must be understood of the manner in which the faith was to be
carried out into 'obedience. The same verb Tr/pelv is used simi-
larlarly with negative predications in the following passages ;
2 Cor. xi. 9 : iv ttovtI dfiaprj ifiavTOV vpilv iTrjpr/aa Kal
Tr)prjo~a), "in omnibus sine-oner e me vobis servavi et servabo ;
James, i. 27: dairikov eavTov Tr/peiv aTrb tov Koo-piov, " im-
maculatum se servare ab hoc saeculo.'; We think it not impro
bable that the particular adjectives selected by Hilary to express
that immunity from mundane influences, with which the faith
was to be maintained and kept to the end, may have been sug
gested by Phil. ii. 15: "va rjre ap,epvrrToi Kal aKepaioi (integri
inviolatique}), Teicva deov dptwpia ptkcrov yevedt CTKoXiat Kal
BieaTpapipievTjt. At any rate, we have here a direct reference
to the other passage, where servare fidem occurs ; for, in v. 1 7,
the Apostle says: "I joy and rejoice with you aU, if I be
offered (cnrevBofiai) upon the sacrifice and service oi your faith."
Classically, we have the same collocation, with a similar moral
reference, in Cicero, pro Ccelio, c. v. § 11: "qui prima ilia

COMPARISON OF THE ATHANASIAN WITH THE OTHER CREEDS. 475
iaitia astatis integra atque inviolata prsestitisset, de ejus fama ac
pudicitia, quum is jam se corroboravisset, nemo loquebatur." And
the "integer vitae scelerisque purus" of Horace (1 Carm. xxi. 1)
sufficiently expresses the meaning of the combination. From
this examination we see that there is no inconsistency between
the second verse and the general tenor of the Athanasian
Creed. It only remains that we should caU attention to the more
ambiguous statements, which are incorporated in the other Creeds,
but entirely omitted in the Quicunque vult. For here, also, we
have a proof of the greater comprehensiveness of this much
maligned formulary.
In the Apostles' Creed, it is weU known that the fifth article :
" He descended into hell," and the latter part of the ninth : "I
beheve in the communion of saints," are not only of later date
and of less general adoption than the rest of the Creed, but also
involve some ambiguities of interpretation. With regard to the
former, the second edition of our Thirty-nine Articles abandoned
the reference to the passage in St. Peter's First Epistle (1 Peter,
iii. 19), on which the doctrine was supposed to depend, and some
of our most learned divines at the time of the Eeformation and
afterwards have entertained very different opinions as to the
meaning of this Article and the signification of the text in St.
Peter's First Epistle. It is clearly an advantage to the Atha
nasian Creed that it makes no reference to these doubtful matters.
Considering, too, how much a sort of Docetism is more or less
consciously maintained by the two extremes in the Christian
Church, what a tendency there is to ignore the absolute humanity
of Jesus, and to consider only his superhuman character, and how
this contributes to the formation of such doctrines as that of the
immaculate conception of his mother, it is satisfactory to know
that in the Athanasian Creed at all events there is no statement
which encourages these extravagent opinions. Here, at least,
the doctrine of the Incarnation is not set forth in a partial and
one-sided formula. Here, at least, we have no grounds for the
antichristian assertion that Jesus Christ did not really come in
the flesh. We are told that he was not only God but " man of
the substance of his mother bom in the world ; perfect man, of a
reasonable soul, and human flesh subsisting " ; and so " inferior
to the Father as touching his manhood." There is a less distinct

476 CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY. APPENDIX VIII.
assertion of this absolute humanity in the Nicene Creed, which
merely states that Jesus Christ " for us men and our salvation
came down from heaven, and was incarnate out of the Holy
Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was included in man" (/«_Te\-
Qbvra etc t&v ovpavoiv Kal o~apKw0evra e'/c UvevptaTOt 'Ayiov
Kal Maplat Trjt irapOevov Kal ivavOpairr/o-avTa) ; and even in
the Apostles' Creed, which tells us very briefly that our Lord
was " conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary"
(o~vXXr)(p0evTa e'« IIvevpiaTOt 'Aylov, yewrj&evra e/c Mapiat
Trjt trapQevov) ; for in both of these descriptions there is an
opening for Docetism, to say nothing of the difficulty suggested
by the mention of the Virgin Mary to all those who either enter
tain critical objections to the introductory chapters in the first
and third Gospels,1 or who think that, as express reference is
made in the former to the prophecy in Isaiah, we are bound to
understand that Mary was not n^-in3, but merely np^JK2 Every
one who is acquainted with the meaning of the Hebrew words, and
also thinks that " all this was done that it might be fulfiUed
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet," 3 wiU be obliged
to admit that the designation in question cannot mean anything
more than a young or newly married woman ; but very different
views are generally suggested by the adjunct ; and it would be
weU if we avoided whatever contributes, however indirectly, to
Mariolatry, and tends, however remotely, to weaken the great
doctrine that Jesus was not only very God but also very man,
even as we are very men.
On the whole, then, we are prepared to maintain that, as a
formulary, the Athanasian Creed is not only exceUent in itself,
but that it is even preferable to the other two Creeds, because it
confines its doctrinal statements to the true province of theology,4
and because it subordinates the profession of faith to that personal
godliness, without whieh Christian Orthodoxy is but a delusive

1 Above, pp. 277, 287. 2 See Gesenius, on Isaiah, vii. 14, pp. 297-302.
3 Matthew, i. 22. 4 Above, p. 412.

STEPHEN AUSTIN, l'JUNTKH, HERTFOflD.

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