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INTRODUCTION 1

INDEX 303

INTRODUCTION. HOW IS OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM RELATED TO CHRISTIANITY?

The point of view represented in this volume is still so little recognised and represented in England and America that the author ventures to prefix a short paper delivered as an address at the Church Congress held at Reading in October 1883. It is proverbially more difficult to write a thin book than a thick one, and the labour involved in preparing this twenty minutes' paper, with its large outlook and sedulously under-stated claims, was such as he would not willingly undertake again for a like purpose. The subject was not an ephemeral one and the attitude of the Churches towards it has not materially altered within the last three years. The present volume is pervaded by the spirit which breathes, as the author trusts, in every line of this paper. It relates, indeed, only to a small section of the Old Testament, but no part of that 'library' can be studied in complete severance from the rest. And if a high aim is held forward in one of the opening sentences to the Church of which the writer is a son, those who are connected with the other historic communions will easily understand the bitter-sweet feeling of hope against hope with which those lines were penned.

'My own conviction,' said the late Dr. Pusey, 'has long been that the hope of the Church of England is in mutual tolerance.' That truly great man was not thinking of the new school of Old Testament critics, and yet if the Anglican Church is ever to renovate her theology and to become in any real sense undeniably the Church of the future, she cannot afford to be careless or intolerant of attempts to modernise our methods of criticism and exegesis. It would no doubt be simpler to content ourselves with that criticism and exegesis, and consequently with that theology, which have been fairly adequate to the wants of the past; but are we sure that Jesus Christ would not now lead us a few steps further on towards 'all the truth,' and that one of His preparatory disciplines may not be a method of Biblical criticism which is less tender to the traditions of the scribes, and more in harmony with the renovating process which is going on in all other regions of thought? Why, indeed, should there not be a providence even in the phases of Old Testament criticism, so that where some can see merely the shiftings of arbitrary opinion more enlightened eyes may discern a veritable progress, leading at once to fresh views of history, and to necessary reforms in our theology, making this theology simpler and stronger, deeper and more truly Catholic, by making it more Biblical?

But I only mention these possible inferences in order to point out how unfair they are. The inspiration of the Levitical Law is only weakened in any bad sense if it be maintained that the law, whenever the main part of it was promulgated, failed to receive the sanction of God's prophetic interpreters, and that it was not, in the time of Ezra, the only effectual instrument for preserving the deposit of spiritual religion. With regard to the inconsistency between the two periods of the Divine teaching of Israel, the feeling of a devout, though advanced critic would be that he was not a fit judge of the providential plan. Inconsistent conclusions on one great subject might in fact be drawn from the language of our Lord Himself at different periods of His ministry, though the parallel may not be altogether complete, since our Lord never used directly anti-sacrificial language. And it might be urged on the side of Kuenen, that neither would the early prophets have used such language--at any rate in the literary version of their discourses if they had foreseen the canonical character which this would assume, and the immense importance of a sacrificial system in the post-Exile period. The theory that the law involves an injurious condescension is by no means compulsory upon advocates of the new hypothesis. Concessions to popular taste have, indeed, as we know but too well, often almost extinguished the native spirit of a religion; but the fact that some at least of the most spiritual psalms are acknowledged to be post-Exile ought to make us all, critics and non-critics alike, slow to draw too sharp a distinction between the legal and the evangelical. That the law was misused by some, and in course of time became spiritually almost obsolete, would not justify us in depreciating it, even if we thought that the lesser and not the greater Moses, the scribe and not the prophet, was mainly responsible for its promulgation. Finally, the rash statement of Lagarde has been virtually answered by the reference of another radical critic to the well-attested words of Christ at the institution of the Eucharist .

I have spoken thus much on the assumption that the hypothesis of Kuenen and Wellhausen may be true. That it will ever become universally prevalent is improbable--the truth may turn out to lie between the two extremes--but that it will go on for some time gaining ground among the younger generation of scholars is, I think, almost certain. No one who has once studied this or any other Old Testament controversy from the inside and with a full view of the evidence can doubt that the traditional accounts of many of the disputed books rest on a very weak basis, and those who crave for definite solutions, and cannot bear to live in twilight, will naturally hail such clear-cut hypotheses as those of Kuenen and Wellhausen, and credit them with an undue finality. Let us be patient with these too sanguine critics, and not think them bad Churchmen, as long as they abstain from drawing those dangerous and unnecessary inferences of which I have spoken. It is the want of an equally intelligent interest which makes the Old Testament a dead letter to so many highly orthodox theologians. If the advanced critics succeed in awakening such an interest more generally, it will be no slight compensation for that 'unsettlement of views' which is so often the temporary consequence of reading their books.

One large part, however, of Kuenen and Wellhausen's critical system is not peculiar to them, but accepted by the great majority of professed Old Testament critics. It is this part which has perhaps a still stronger claim to be considered in its relation to Christian truth, because there is every appearance that it will, in course of time, become traditional among those who have given up the still current traditions of the synagogue. I refer to the analysis of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua into several documents, to the view that many of the laws contained in the Pentateuch arose gradually, according to the needs of the people, and that Ezra, or at least contemporaries of Ezra, took a leading part in the revision and completion of the law book, and to the dating of the original documents or compilations at various periods, mostly long subsequent to the time of Moses. Time forbids me to enter into the grounds for the confident assertion that if either exegesis or the Church's representation of religious truth is to make any decided progress, the results of the literary analysis of the Pentateuch must be accepted as facts, and that theologians must in future recognise at least three different sections, and as many different conceptions of Israel's religious development, within the Pentateuch, just as they have long recognised at least three different types of teaching in the Old Testament as a whole. On the question as to the date of these sections, and as to the Mosaic origin of any considerable part of them, the opinions of special scholars within the Church will, for a long time yet, be more or less divided. There is, I know, a belief growing up among us, that Assyrian and Egyptian discoveries are altogether favourable to the ordinary English view of the dates of the historical books, including the Pentateuch. May I be pardoned for expressing the slowly formed conviction that apologists in England frequently indulge in general statements as to the bearings of recent discoveries, which are only half true? The opponents of whom they are thinking are long since dead; it is wasting time to fight with the delusions of a past age. No one now thinks the Bible an invention of priestcraft; that which historical critics doubt is the admissibility of any unqualified assertion of the strict historicalness of all the details of all its component parts. This doubt is not removed by recent archaeological discoveries, the critical bearings of which are sometimes what neither of the critical schools desired or expected. I refer especially to the bearings of Assyrian discoveries on the date of what are commonly called the Jehovistic narratives in the first nine chapters of Genesis. I will not pursue this subject further, and merely add that we must not too hastily assume that the supplement hypothesis is altogether antiquated.

We shall, perhaps, discriminate more between the parts of the Old Testament, some of which will be chiefly valuable to us as bringing into view the gradualness of Israel's education, and as giving that fulness to our conceptions of Biblical truths which can only be got by knowing the history of their outward forms; others will have only that interest which attaches even to the minutest and obscurest details of the history of much-honoured friends or relatives; others, lastly, will rise, in virtue of their intrinsic majesty, to a position scarcely inferior to that of the finest parts of the New Testament itself.

As a result of what has thus been gained, our idea of inspiration will become broader, deeper, and more true to facts.

We shall have to consider our future attitude towards that Kenotic view of the person of Christ which has been accepted in some form by such great exegetical theologians as Hofmann, Oehler, and Delitzsch. Although the Logos, by the very nature of the conception, must be omniscient, the incarnate Logos, we are told, pointed His disciples to a future time, in which they should do greater works than He Himself, and should open the doors to fresh departments of truth. The critical problems of the Old Testament did not then require to be settled by Him, because they had not yet come into existence. Had they emerged into view in our Lord's time, they would have given as great a shock to devout Jews as they have done to devout Christians; and our Master would, no doubt, have given them a solution fully adequate to the wants of believers. In that case, a reference to some direction of the law as of Mosaic origin would, in the mouth of Christ, have been decisive; and the Church would, no doubt, have been guided to make some distinct definition of her doctrine on the subject.

Thus in the very midst of the driest critical researches we can feel that, if we have duly fostered the sense of Divine things, we are on the road to further disclosures of religious as well as historical truth. The day of negative criticism is past, and the day of a cheap ridicule of all critical analysis of ancient texts is, we may hope, nearly past also. In faith and love the critics whose lot I would fain share are at one with many of those who suspect and perhaps ridicule them: in the aspirations of hope their aim is higher. Gladly would I now pass on to a survey of the religious bearings of the critical study of the poetical and prophetical books, which, through differences of race, age, and above all spiritual atmosphere, we find, upon the whole, so much more attractive and congenial than the Levitical legislation. Let me, at least, throw out a few hints. Great as is the division of opinion on points of detail, so much appears to be generally accepted that the number of prophets whose works have partly come down to us is larger than used to be supposed. The analysis of the texts may not be as nearly perfect as that of the Pentateuch, but there is no doubt among those of the younger critics whose voices count that several of the prophetical books are made up of the works of different writers, and I even notice a tendency among highly orthodox critics to go beyond Ewald himself and analyse the Book of Daniel into portions of different dates. The result is important, and not for literary history alone. It gives us a much firmer hold on the great principle that a prophet's horizon is that of his own time; that he prophesied, as has been well said, into the future, but not directly to the future. This will, I believe, in no wise affect essential Christian truth, but will obviously modify our exegesis of certain Scripture proofs of Christian doctrine, and is perhaps not without a bearing on the two grave theological subjects referred to already.

Bear with me if, once again in conclusion, I appeal to the Church at large on behalf of those who would fain modernise our criticism and exegesis with a view to a not less distinctively Christian but more progressive Church theology. The age of oecumenical councils may have passed; but if criticism, exegesis, and philosophy are only cultivated in a fearless and reverent spirit, and if the Church at large troubles itself a little more to understand the workers and their work, an approximation to agreement on great religious questions may hereafter be attained. What the informal decisions of the general Christian consciousness will be, it would be impertinent to conjecture. It is St. John's 'all truth' after which we aspire--'all the truth' concerning God, the individual soul, and human society, into which the labours of generations, encouraged by the guiding star, shall by degrees introduce us. But one thing is too clear to be mistaken--viz. that exegesis must decide first of all what essential Christian truth is before a devout philosophy can interpret, expand, and apply it, and Old Testament exegesis, at any rate, cannot be long separated from its natural ally, the higher criticism. A provisional separation may no doubt be necessary, but the ultimate aim of successive generations of students must be a faithful exegesis, enlightened by a seven-times tested criticism.

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Footnote 3:

THE BOOK OF JOB.

I now proceed to give in plain prose the pith and substance of this great poem, which more than any other Old Testament book needs to be brought near to the mind of a Western student. I would entitle it THE BOOK OF THE TRIAL OF THE RIGHTEOUS MAN, AND OF THE JUSTIFICATION OF GOD.

In its present form the Book of Job consists of five parts--

There are some differences in the arrangement which will presently be followed, but these will justify themselves in the course of our study. Let us first of all examine the Prologue, which will bear to be viewed by itself as a striking specimen of Hebrew narrative. The idyllic manners of a patriarchal age are delineated with sympathy--no difficult task to one who knew the early Hebrew traditions--and still more admirable are the very testing scenes from the supernatural world.

It may perhaps seem strange that this should be only a prose poem, but the truth is that narrative poetry was entirely alien to the Hebrew genius, which refused to tolerate the bonds of protracted and continuous versification. Like that other great hero of parallelistic verse Balaam, Job is a non-Israelite; and in this the unknown author shows a fine tact, for he is thus absolved from the embarrassing necessity of referring to the Law, and so complicating the moral problem under consideration. Job, however, though an Arabian sheich , was a worshipper of Jehovah, who declares before the assembled 'sons of the Elohim' that 'there is none like Job in the earth,' &c. . Job's virtue is rewarded by an outward prosperity like that of the patriarchs in Genesis: he was a great Eastern Emeer, and had not only a large family but great possessions. His scrupulous piety, which takes precautions even against heart-sins, is exemplified to us by the atoning sacrifice which he offers as head of his family at some annual feast . Then in ver. 6 the scene is abruptly changed from earth to heaven. The spirit of the narrative is not devoid of a delightful humour. In the midst of the 'sons of the Elohim'--supernatural, Titanic beings, who had once been at strife with Jehovah , but who now at stated times paid Him their enforced homage--stood one who had not quite lost his original pleasure in working evil, and who was now employed by his Master as a kind of moral and religious censor of the human race. This malicious spirit--'the Satan' or adversary, as he is called--had just returned from a tour of inspection in the world, and Jehovah, who is represented under the disguise of an earthly monarch, boldly and imprudently draws his attention to the meritorious Job. The Satan refuses to give human nature credit for pure goodness, and sarcastically remarks, 'Does Job serve God for nothing?' Jehovah therefore allows His minister to put Job's piety to as severe a test as possible short of taking his life. One after another Job's flocks, his servants, and his children are destroyed. His wife, however, by a touch of quiet humour, is spared; she seems to be recognised by the Satan as an unconscious ally . The piety of Job stands the trial; he is deeply moved, but maintains his self-control, and the scene closes with a devout ascription of blessing to Jehovah alike for giving and for recalling His gifts.

Before passing on the reader should notice that, according to the poet, the ultimate reason why these sufferings of Job were permitted by the Most High was that Job might set an example of a piety independent of favouring outward circumstances. The poet reveals this to us in the Prologue, that we may not ourselves be staggered in our faith, nor cast down by sympathy with such an unique sufferer; for after the eulogy passed upon Job in the celestial court we cannot doubt that he will stand the test, even if disturbed for a time.

A second time the same high court is held. The first experiment of the Adversary has failed, and this magnified earthly monarch, the Jehovah of the story, begins to suspect that he has allowed a good man to be plagued with no sufficient motive. Admiringly he exclaims, pointing to Job, 'And still he holds fast his integrity, so that thou didst incite me against him to annihilate him without cause' . Another sarcastic word from the Adversary , and once more he receives permission to try Job. The affliction this time is elephantiasis, the most loathsome and dangerous form of leprosy. But Job's piety stands fast. He sits down on the heap of burnt dung and ashes at the entrance of the village, such as those where lepers are still wont to congregate, and meets the despairing counsel of his wife to renounce a God from whom nothing more is to be hoped but death with a calm and pious rebuke. So baseless was the malicious suggestion of the Satan! Meantime many months pass away , and no friend appears to condole with him. Travelling is slow in the East, and Job's three friends were Emeers like himself , and their residences would be at some distance from each other. At last they come, but they cannot recognise Job's features, distorted by disease . Overpowered with surprise and grief, they sit down with him for seven days and seven nights . Up to this point no fault can be found with his friends.

I never yet did hear That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.

It was their deep, unspoken sympathy which encouraged him to vent his sorrow in a flood of unpurified emotion The very next thing recorded of Job is that he 'opened his mouth and cursed his day' . This may at least be the poet's meaning, though it is also possible that the prologue and the body of the poem are not homogeneous. Not to mention other reasons at present, the tone of Job's speech in chap. iii. is entirely different from the stedfast resignation of his reply to his wife, which, as Prof. Davidson has said, 'reveals still greater deeps in Job's reverent piety' than the benediction at the end of chap. i., the latter being called forth not by the infliction of positive evil, but merely by the withdrawal of unguaranteed favours.

How strangely vivid were the sensations of the race to which the author of Job belonged! How great to him must have been the pleasures of existence, and how great the pains! Nothing to him was merely subjectively true: his feelings were infallible, and that which seemed to be was. Time, for instance, had an objective reality: the days of the year had a kind of life of their own and paid annually recurring visits to mankind. Hence Job, like Jeremiah , in the violence of his passion can wish to retaliate on the instrument of his misery by 'cursing his day.'

Perish the day wherein I was born, and the night which said, A man has been conceived.

i.e. let my birthday become a blank in the calendar. Or, if this be too much and the anniversary, so sad to me, must come round, then let magicians cast their spell upon it and make it an unlucky day .

Let them curse it that curse days, that are skilful to rouse the leviathan ;

i.e. the cloud dragon , the enemy of the sun . So fare it with the day which might, by hindering Job's birth, have 'hid sorrow from his eyes!' Even if he must be born, why could he not have died at once and escaped his ill fortune in the quiet phantom world ? Alas! this melancholy dream does but aggravate Job's mental agony. He broods on the horror of his situation, and even makes a shy allusion to God as the author of his woe--

Wherefore gives he light to the miserable, and life to the bitter in soul?

Behold, this have we searched out; so it is; hear thou it, and know it for thyself --

Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward .

Assuming without any reason that Job would question this, Eliphaz enforces the moral imperfection of human nature by an appeal to revelation--not, of course, to Moses and the prophets, but to a vision like those of the patriarchs in Genesis. Of the circumstances of the revelation a most graphic account is given.

And to myself came an oracle stealthily, and mine ear received the whisper thereof, in the play of thought from nightly visions, when deep sleep falls upon men, a shudder came upon me and a trembling, and made all my bones to shudder, when a wind sweeps before me, the hairs of my body bristle up: it stands, but I cannot discern it, I gaze, but there is no form, before mine eyes ... and I hear a murmuring voice. 'Can human kind be righteous before God? can man be pure before his Maker? Behold, he trusts not his own servants, and imputes error to his angels'. .

There is no such weird passage in the rest of the Old Testament. It did not escape the attention of Milton, whose description of death alludes to it.

If shape it could be called that shape had none, Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb; Or substance might be called that shadow seemed.

A single phrase is borrowed from the theophany of Elijah , but the strokes which paint the scene, and which Milton and Blake between them have more than reproduced, are all his own. The supernatural terror, the wind betokening a spiritual visitor, the straining eyes which can discern no form, the whispering voice always associated with oracles--each of these awful experiences we seem to share. Eliphaz himself recalls his impressions so vividly that he involuntarily uses the present tense in describing them.

But why should Eliphaz imagine that because Job had not had a revelation of this kind he is therefore ignorant of the truth? He actually confounds the complaints wrung from Job by his unparalleled mental and bodily sufferings with the 'impatience' of the 'foolish man' and the 'passion' of the 'silly' one, and warns him against the fate which within his own experience befell one such rebellious murmurer against God--an irrelevant remark, unless he has already begun to suspect Job of impiety. Then, as if he feels that he has gone too far, he addresses Job in a more hopeful spirit, and tells him what he would do in his place, viz. turn trustfully to God, whose operations are so unsearchable, but so benevolent. Let Job regard his present affliction as a chastening and he may look forward to even more abundant blessings than he has yet enjoyed.

In these concluding verses Eliphaz certainly does his best to be sympathetic, but the result shows how utterly he has failed. He has neither convinced Job's reason nor calmed the violence of his emotion. It is now Job's turn to reply. He is not, indeed, in a mood to answer Eliphaz point by point. Passing over the ungenerous reference to the fate of the rebellious, which he can hardly believe to be seriously meant, Job first of all justifies the despair which has so astonished Eliphaz. Since the latter is so cool and so critical, let him weigh Job's calamity as well as his words, and see if the extravagance of the latter is not excusable. Are these arrow wounds the fruit of chastisement? Does the Divine love disguise itself as terror? The good man is never allowed to perish, you say; but how much longer can a body of flesh hold out? Why should I not even desire death? God may be my enemy, but I have given Him no cause. And now, if He would be my friend, the only favour I crave is that He would shorten my agony.

Then should still be my comfort , that I have not denied the words of the Holy One .

Job's demeanour is thus fully accounted for; it is that of his friends which is unnatural and disappointing.

My brethren have been treacherous as a winter stream, as the bed of winter streams which pass away: they were turbid with ice, and the snow, as it fell, hid itself in them; but now that they feel the glow they vanish, when it is hot they disappear from their place. Caravans bend their course; they go up into the desert and perish. The caravans of Tema looked; the companies of Sheba hoped for them; they were abashed because they had been confident; when they came thither they were ashamed .

And was it a hard thing that Job asked of his friends? No; merely sympathy. And not only have they withheld this; Eliphaz has even insinuated that Job was an open sinner. Surely neither honesty nor wisdom is shown in such captious criticism of Job's expressions.

How forcible is honest language, and how cogent is the censure of a wise man! Think ye to censure words, and the passionate speech of one who is desperate?

With an assertion of his innocence, and a renewed challenge to disprove it, this, the easiest part of Job's first reply, concludes.

And now, having secured his right to complain, Job freely avails himself of his melancholy privilege. A 'desperate' man cares not to choose his words, though the reverence which never ceased to exist deep down in Job's nature prompts him to excuse his delirious words by a reference to his bitter anguish . Another excuse which he might have given lies on the very surface of the poem, which is coloured throughout by the poet's deep sympathy with human misery in general. Job in fact is not merely an individual, but a representative of mankind; and when he asks himself at the beginning of chap. vii.--

Has not frail man a warfare upon earth, and are not his days like the days of a hireling?--

it is not merely one of the countless thoughts which are like foam bubbles, but the expression of a serious interest, which raises Job far, very far above the patriarchal prince of the legend in the Prologue. It is the very exaggeration of this interest which alone explains why the thought of his fellow-sufferers not only brings no comfort to Job, but fails even to calm his excitement.

Am I the sea or the sea monster, that thou settest a watch over me?

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