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CHRISTIANITY 
 
 > 
 
 AMD 
 
 BIBLICAL CRITICISMi 
 
 fcjSk.-.fy.j 
 
 A PAPER, 
 
 Read before the St. John Clerical Association, 
 
 March iith, 1890. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. J. deSOYRES, M.A. 
 
 Rector of St. John's Church. 
 
 Published at the request of the. Members. 
 
 SAINT JOHN, N. R. 
 J, & A. McMillan, 98 Prince William Stkeet. 
 
 1890. 
 
,i Ai 
 
 ^flii^:-:*t;^r 
 
 :'i ■ C* ' 
 
CHRISTIANITY 
 
 AND 
 
 BIBLICAL CRITICISM: 
 
 A PAPER, 
 
 Read before the St. John Clerical Association, 
 
 March iith, 1890. 
 
 BY 
 
 7 THE REV. J. deSOYRES, M.A. 
 
 Rector of St. John's Church. 
 
 Published at the request of the Members. 
 
 SAINT JOHN, N. B. 
 J. & A. McMillan, 98 Prince William Street. 
 
 1890. 
 
HANTA AOKIMAZETE- TO KAAON KATEXETE. 
 
 (/ Thess. V. 21.) 
 
 *' Coeleste depositum, quod Deus a Mosis tempore 
 usque ad apostolos per pensa subinde explicatiora non 
 frustra dedit, servent, qui optima quaeque probent. 
 Tum, si quis subsidii quidpiam ad salutarem Scripturae 
 tractationem praesenti opere sibi praestare posse existi- 
 mat, eo velim in gloriam DEI et in suam aliorumque 
 aedificationem, mihi bene precatus, utatur." 
 
 (Bengel, Praef. in Gnom. N. T.) 
 
 "The only question concerning the authority of Scripture is. 
 whether it be what it claims to be, not wheth.^r it be a book 
 of such sort, and so promulged, as weak men are a|)t to fancy." 
 
 (Butler, Analogy, Part 11.^ ch. j.) 
 
 il 
 
To THE Most Reverend the Metropolitan of Canada. 
 
 My Lord, — I dedicate to you a brief essay upon a topic 
 now occupying the attention of the whole Church. The 
 essay was read at the first meeting of our Clerical Associa- 
 tion in this city, and it was the desire of my brethren that 
 it should be published. I hesitated long before compliance 
 with this request, and I have at last assented with the hope 
 that the weighty utterances of those great scholars and 
 teachers whom I quote may be helpful to those who are 
 now considering the subject , of Biblical Criticism, and the 
 attitude which the Church should adopt towards its claims. 
 As so many of our hard- worked clergy are forced to depend 
 on second-hand information, and often upon the biassed 
 utterances of party newspapers, there is imminent danger 
 that some may be led to adopt hasty conclusions, whether 
 rash acceptance of new theories, or as hasty condemnation 
 of that which they have not proved. You, my Lord, will 
 give to us your guidance in this as in all other difficulties; 
 but you will not deem it presumptuous that one of the least 
 of your subordinates has ventured to speak, not with any claim 
 for personal hearing, but as the echo of beloved teachers, 
 some now gone before to their reward and rest, memories 
 which begin in boyhood with Canon Cook and Archdeacon 
 Allen, unswerving champions of conservative scholarship ; of 
 DoUinger at Munich enlightening the page of Church history, 
 and the aged Tholuck at Halle, in his last years, vindicating 
 
 3 ■ 
 
4 Dedication. 
 
 the inspiration of Holy Scripture; of Lightfoot (5 tmKapCrrr:) 
 and his colleagues at Cambridge; and of one other, most 
 beloved of all, their contemporary and equal, whose words 
 conclude this essay. 
 
 May the prayer of the great Christian scholar Bengel, which 
 I have transcribed, be fulfilled even in this humblest effort 
 in the same great cause of "rightly dividing the Word of 
 Truth." 
 
 I remain, my Lord, . 
 
 Obediently and affectionately, 
 
 John deSovres. 
 St. John, N. B., May 4, 1890. 
 
 " 
 
 ■mImShL 
 
ir 
 
 ^» 
 
 '' 
 
 51 
 
 *'f. .J' 
 
 ; ■.;■■*' '. \' \i - 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 
 
 [The portion included in brackets was omitted, for the sake of brevity, during 
 the reading of the paper.] 
 
 THE first meeting of an Association intended to 
 promote "free discussion of subjects connected 
 with the life and work of the Church," imposes 
 a double embarrassment upon the member entrusted 
 with the duty of selecting a subject, and opening the 
 debate. In the first place, he has to make choice amid 
 the almost innumerable topics which suggest themselves; 
 in the second place, to arrive at what mathematicians 
 would call the function of two variables, namely the 
 measure of the topic's general interest, and of his own 
 personal capacity for dealing with it. As I am merely 
 the opener of a general discussion, and in no way offer 
 myself as the instructor of my brethren, it is sufficient to 
 claim that the former of these elements is of unquestion- 
 able strength. 
 
 For the last generation in the English Church, ever 
 since the publication of *' Essays and Reviews" in i860, 
 and Bishop Colenso's work on the Pentateuch, questions 
 of Biblical Criticism have occupied the attention of theo- 
 logical students. Some of us are old enough to remem- 
 ber the alarm and indignation which thes*^ crude and 
 ill-digested works naturally aroused. I remember hear- 
 ing the Dean of Exeter, preaching in his Cathedral pulpit, 
 denounce the appointment of his diocesan, Dr. Temple, as 
 
 5 
 
V 
 
 Christianity and Biblical Criticism. 
 
 the eternal disgrace of the Church of England. I remem- 
 ber Dr. Pusey's famous letter to the Earl of Shaftesbury, 
 inviting an armistice in the nascent strife about cere- 
 monial, so that a coalition of High and Low Churchmen y 
 might crush the rising danger. And now, after five and 
 twenty years, other voices are heard. From the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford, as much the recognized seat of Old •; 
 Testament study as her sister university for New Testa- ^, 
 ment research, voices of authority have been uttered, . : 
 bidding us refrain alike from hasty alarm and premature .' 
 judgment. And it is not only the scholars of European 
 reputation, like Professors Cheyne and Driver, who speak ' 
 to the learned world. Far more significa .t as a sign of 
 the times is the change of front in a section of the . ' 
 Church, strong in numbers, in ability, in zeal, and in 
 unquestioned devotion to the cause of what they hold to 
 be the truth. » 
 
 The tiicological heir of Dr. Pusey himself, the present 
 Librarian of the Pusey House at Oxfoid, has recently 
 edited a volume of essays, dealing himself in one of them 
 with the questions of Inspiration and Biblical Criticism. 
 A book which represents the joint work of men like Mr. 
 Gore Canon Scott Holland, Dr. Paget, the late Mr. 
 Aubrey Moore, and others of equal calibre as scholars 
 and theologians, and written for the general religious 
 public, has a weight and claim to notice which few indi- 
 vidual authors could obtain. The editor's essay on 
 Inspiration has boldly accepted a position which is most ' ^ 
 
 startling to many of his readers, Differing widely fron^ 
 
 :l 
 
<^ 
 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 
 Christianity and Biblical Criticism, 7 
 
 the tone of the earlier " Essayists," he virtually accepts the 
 same standpoint of the legitimacy of Biblical Criticism, 
 which once evoked such a whirlwind of orthodox indig- 
 nation. He urges that it is right to face the facts which 
 criticism puts before us, and that it is safe for Christians 
 to do so ; and further, that by doing so, we enlarge and 
 exalt our conception of the Old Testament. He points 
 to the recognized value of investigations ii. the text of 
 the New Testament, and asks for the same trustfulness 
 in the case of Old Testament criticism, even if it has been 
 hitherto marked by unwelcome and negative results. He 
 declares " that the modern development of historical criti- 
 cism is reaching results as sure, when it is fairly usedy 
 as scientific enquiry y* 
 
 It is hardly needful to state that my purpose, in calling 
 attention to this remarkable work, is neither to invoke its 
 authority, nor, on the other hand, to raise the pitiful cry 
 of the heresy-monger against those with whom, on some 
 of the deepest theological issues, I find myself at vari- 
 ance. I note it as a historical fact, a sign of the times : 
 which it behoves us, as ministers and priests of Christ's 
 Church, to take into earnest, prayerful consideration, — 
 •eliminating all personal aspects, all questions of party 
 rivalry, all fears of man's approval or criticism, and dis- 
 cussing it this day in that spirit of "free discussion" 
 which the object of our Association prescribes, and which 
 can only be helpful and strengthening to ourselves, in 
 gaining uiore and more insight into GOD'S Inspired 
 Scriptures. 
 
 ■r 
 
8 Christianity and Biblical Criticism. 
 
 I . What does Biblical Criticism mean f Whence did 
 it take its origin ? What is its present standing and 
 acceptance^ as regards both Old and New Testament? 
 These qaestions face us at the outset, and can be simply 
 disposed of, as they are matters of pure fact, involvinj^ 
 no controversial issues. Biblical Criticism means the 
 honest application of processes of historical and philo- 
 logical enquiry to . ascertain the true text and other 
 literary facts concerning the Word of God. The frame 
 of mind in which a man enters upon such a work, 
 whether — as it should ever be, humble and devout, or, 
 as it may sometimes have been, self-confident or even 
 eager of personal distinction as a discoverer of new facts, 
 these incidents have nothing to do with the va^ue of 
 the process itself. That would have to be judged upon 
 issues entirely different, namely : whether the authority 
 of GOD'S word stands and falls with questions of 
 human authorship ; whether the pillar and ground of 
 our Faith would be imperilled by processes which human 
 productions, like the Homeric poems, have so long and 
 successfully withstood; and whether, finally, the meri- 
 torious and honourable anxiety for the due preservation 
 of Scripture may not pass unconsciously to that letter- 
 worship which the Bible itself condemns, and which 
 the history of Jewish Talmudism exposes ; may not 
 imperceptibly impair and destroy the true theory of Divine 
 Inspiration itself, which (as we all believe) finds its great 
 analogy and parallel in the Mystery of the Incarnatiou, 
 the union of Divinity and Humanity. 
 
 T 
 
 
 5 . 
 
 >■ 
 
 \^ 
 

 i 
 
 Christianity and Biblical Criticism. 
 
 2. IV hat was the origin of Biblical Criticism ? It 
 needs not to speak of facts so familiar as the labours of 
 M ' Origen (labours which the Church remembers with grati- 
 
 1, tude, as against some rash imaginings in other subjects), 
 
 and the still greater efforts of Jerome. Do we not 
 remember how, from the very first, these labours of the 
 Western Father evoked the bitter opposition of his con- 
 temporaries, how he was reviled by them as a ^^falsarius^ 
 sacritegus, corrupter sanctarum scripturariim''^ — abuse 
 which the Saint acknowledged by calling his opponents 
 '' aselli bipedes'^ — a candour which I trust will not be 
 imitated by the Biblical critics of our own day, when 
 exposed to similar attacks. Little by little our New 
 Testament grew into shape. Would that an Origen or 
 a Jerome had gathered the materials which later ages 
 have had to investigate and sift with such elaborate skill ! 
 The Middle Ages contributed little; but the Revival of 
 Letters was fitly crowned by the labours of Erasmus, the 
 Estiennes, and Cardinal Ximenes. All was yet confined 
 to matters of text. Luther indeed uttered a deeper and 
 freer theory of inspiration, but it was quickly smothered 
 . by those of his own side, who carried ideas of literal 
 
 inspiration from Scripture even into the wording of their 
 own formulas. 
 
 New Testament criticism seemed closed by the tacit 
 
 adoption of the textiis receptus. It was from the Church 
 
 ^{(f of Rome that the next impetus was to proceed. Richard 
 
 Simon, a member of the Oratorian Order, in his Critical 
 
 History of the Old Tcstamc7it, developed a thought 
 
Vr,.;*' 
 
 W Christianity mid Biblical Criticism. 
 
 which the learned Jew Kalonymus had uttered as far 
 back as the 13th century, when he noted (in a letter to a 
 friend) the use oi Jahveh and Elohini in the book of 
 Genesis. ^ Simon, followed later by the Roman Cath- 
 olic physician Astruc, attempted to solve the difficulties 
 of the narrative of Genesis, by the adoption of a theory 
 of composite materials, now familiar to all students."' 
 Censured by the theologians of their own Church, and 
 ignored by Protestants, these investigations were suffered 
 to fall, until in the next century, German scholars resumed 
 them."^ But once more, the textual criticism of the New 
 Testament had found zealous and able writers in England, 
 the home of sound and accurate Biblical scholarship. 
 Mill and Bentley paved the way, assisted by Bengel and 
 Wetstein in Germany, for the later work of our present 
 century, Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, Tregelles, Tisch- 
 endorf, Westcott and Hort; through whose efforts, under 
 the providence of God we may feel that the Good Tidings 
 of the New Covenant are placed before us with almost 
 the identity of word and syllable.* I turn now to the 
 third preliminary question suggested. 
 
 3. What 13 the present measure of acceptance^ the J 
 
 attitude of the Church, to this study, and the work ivJiicli 
 it involves f Nobody can d-^ny that, in principle, the 
 work has been accepted. Nobody can deny that, as 
 regards the New Testament, the Church has very much 
 modified her attitude from that which, a hundred years 
 ago, would have been universal. Remember the vials 
 of wrath which Archdeacon Travis hurled upon Porson ^^ 
 
 > 1 
 
 ■■ 
 
^ 
 
 Christianity and Biblical Criticism. 
 
 It 
 
 ^ 
 
 ■■ 
 
 >v 
 
 for His "criticism upon the famous text of the Three 
 Heavenly Witnesses. He, and the mass of the less- 
 ^ducated clergy, regarded the Greek textus rccepfus — 
 that successful commercial venture of the enterprising 
 Dutch printer Elzevir — as of inspired authority, and 
 any criticism upon it as treason against God's word. 
 Now, the least instructed of our students knows that this 
 text was simply the recension of the French Reformer 
 Beza; he knows the measure,* whether of strength or 
 deficiency of authority, which belongs to such passages 
 as that of the Woman Taken in Adultery, the closing 
 verses of St. Mark's Gospel, the famous ©eos in the last 
 verse of i Tim. iii. There are many to whom these 
 simple facts of Biblical knowledge are still unknown : as 
 many sermons may still be preached on the " almost 
 persuaded'^ of Agrippa, and other mistranslations which 
 a more accurate scholarship has abandoned ; but among 
 the men who strive to fulfil their ordination vow to be 
 *' diligent in reading the Holy Scriptures^ ayid in such 
 studies as help to the knowledge of the same,' the cause 
 in itself is ended ; they thankfully receive the result of 
 past labours, and bring to their own study that more 
 excellent spirit of reverent search which God rewards 
 with Light. When, but recently, tidings reached us of 
 the discovery of a new Uncial Codex of the 4th century ; 
 who felt alarmed, as men a century ago would have been 
 terrified? We know that no honest investigation can 
 hurt our edifice. Men may, indeed, imperil their own 
 souls by irreverent and sceptical attacks, but nothing 
 
 151 
 
T-^-TTW^ 
 
 12 
 
 Christianity and Biblical Criticism. 
 
 shall prevail against that WORD which is eternal and 
 unmovable as GOD himself. - a ;; . i. 
 
 Why, then, if on matters of New Testament criticism, 
 there is such practical unanimit}^ with regard to the 
 acceptance of principle, even if there be difference as to 
 the value of this or that reading, — why has the similar 
 process, when applied to the Old Testament, evoked so 
 much suspicion and hostility? It cannot be merely 
 because questions of authorship are mainly involved, 
 for we have long agreed to regard that of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews as an open question. 
 
 May the cause, in part, be deducible from the fact that 
 the Old Testament is to many clergymen relatively a 
 terra incognita, that while most of them have a working 
 acquaintance with the text of our New Testament, many 
 have to depend upon commentaries for the shades of 
 Hebrew meaning. We remember how, before the Re- 
 formation, the formula " Grcecum est, non iyitelligitur^' 
 settled at once any rash appeal from the Vulgate or the 
 Schoolmen. We remember how the Evil Spirit v/as 
 .supposed by many to have invented Greek for the pur- 
 pose of disturbing the leisure of monastic retirement. 
 But these are not the examples which we desire to gain 
 from past ages. The clergy should feel no jealousy of 
 studies from which their own lack of leisure, their other 
 duties, and not lack of inclination may sometimes restrain 
 them. And they should wish God speed, surely, to all 
 labours which have the Grace of God for their motive 
 power, and the promotion of Truth for their object. 
 
 li 
 
 I 
 
T 
 
 "^ 
 
 Christianity and Biblical Criticism. 
 
 n 
 
 ^ 
 
 ■\\ 
 
 
 No one Is expected to bind himself in advance, or at 
 any time, to accept results which he cannot personally 
 verify. I can well conceive a minister, through a long 
 career, never once touching upon any aspec t of criticism, 
 speaking as it were only of the contents of the Letter^ 
 not of its envelope^ or of the possible amanuensis. But 
 when the other topic is forced upon his consideration, 
 when a soul struggling with doubt, with fencied discre- 
 pancies or real difficulties, comes to his ghostly counsel- 
 lor, let him not give the stone of mere apologetic 
 special pleading, or scornful condemnation, instead of 
 the wholesome bread of a reasonable and sincere explana- 
 tion. ■^. ■■ -.:-.- ,. .-..-L^.:' , „. , v-^r .iWi.. ■ 
 
 Some of us may not be aware of the immense harm 
 done to educated minds by forcing upon them supposed 
 explanations which do not remove difficulties. We have 
 abandoned, with regard to the supposed moral difficulties 
 of the Old Testament those methods of casuistry by 
 which Augustine and Chrysostom, for instance, justified 
 Abraham's dealing with Hagar, or his denial of his wife.* 
 Surely it is time to abandon a similar method with regard 
 to matters which belong to the domain of theological re- 
 search. Take, for instance, the controversy as to the date of 
 the Book of Daniel, 'i know of more than one theologi- 
 cal student who examined this questibn with the sole aid 
 of those treatises which strenuously uphold the earlier 
 date. But they found their guides utterly at variance as 
 to the reasons they allege, and even as to the solution of 
 other difficulties we are familiar with, such as the presence 
 
 1 
 
14 Christianity and Biblical Criiicism. 
 
 of Greek words, the identification of Belshazzar and 
 Darius, or the like. Students, as I know, have been 
 driven into a repudiation of the book simply from the t ] 
 
 impossibility of reconciling the differences of those advo- 
 cates who agreed in nothing but in virulence against the 
 supporters of the Maccabsean date. On any given point, 
 they had found Dr. Pusey condemning Keil and West- 
 cott, and the Speaker's Commentary, as much as these 
 differed from himself And then, the student perhaps 
 learns for the first time that another theory of a later 
 authorship is supported by no less learning, though with 
 a less vigorous polemic, and he rushes over to that side. 
 May I read to you the guarded and wise language, 
 reflecting the true school of Biblical Criticism, uttered by 
 Professor Stanton of Cambridge, in his Hulsean Lectures 
 on the Jewish Messiah.* '* I avoid," he says, " making 
 any assumption as regards the date of the Book of 
 Daniel. It is assigned to the Maccabsean era even by 
 many orthodox critics. The chief difficulty which the 
 earlier date must have, consists in the fact that the 
 communication of such detailed information about events 
 in a comparatively distant future, would not be accord- 
 ing to the laws of Divine Revelation which we trace in 
 other cases." And, after stating various arguments on 
 both sides, he sums up : " Possibly the truth may be in 
 some medium view, the larger part being assigned to the 
 time of the Babylonian captivity, while larger or smaller 
 additions were subsequently made." ^ 
 
 And so with the Pentateuch. Nobody desires to 
 
V 
 
 Chrisiianitv and Biblical Criticism. 
 
 15 
 
 " 
 
 perplex the young or the old with theories of Jehovistic 
 and Elohistic portions. But vvlien a sincere enquirer 
 comes to us, and tells us that he is perplexed by finding 
 seemingly needless repetitions and discrepant narratives, 
 as for instance in the story of the Flood and the Ark, is 
 it candid to conceal from him that, by simply separating 
 the Elohistic and Jehovistic portions, all the difficulty 
 vanishes? We find that there are two distinct stories, 
 each of which is intelligible and clear by itself, while the 
 confusion is caused by the mingling together of the two.® 
 And there are many other instances where this resolu- 
 tion of the Text into component parts gets rid of diffi- 
 culties for which no other satisfactory solution has been 
 propounded. And so we find it accepted now that the 
 documentary theory of the composition of the Pentateuch 
 and other parts of the Old Testament may be regarded 
 as one of the proved results of Biblical Criticism, and as 
 one of the most important contributions which has been 
 made in recent times to Biblical knowledge. In a paper 
 read at the Reading Church Congress in 1883, and 
 reprinted as the preface to his volume on Job and 
 Solomon, Professor Cheyne makes " the confident asser- 
 tion 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 and 
 the Book of Joshua into several documents must be 
 accepted as facts, and that theologians in the future must 
 recognize at least three different sections interwoven 
 into the present text, containing as many different con- 
 ceptions of the religious development of Israel." 
 
1 6 Chrutianity and Biblical Criticism, 
 
 If there are any to whom such views come with 
 novelty, and therefore perhaps with offence, let them 
 remember that a policy of silence is no longer possible ^ 
 
 to the Church. We cannot keep the results of criticism, 
 nor any of the scientific knowledge of the present day 
 shut up (as it were) in a box. Nor, even if we could do 
 so, ought we to desire it. All truth is GOD'S truth, 
 and the Church and the world will be better for knowing 
 it. And if they are to be known, — surely it is better 
 that such truths shoulc he learned from the Church, 
 and her appointed ministers, than distorted, caricatured, 
 exaggerated, from the columns of atheistical newspapers. 
 
 Some, there may be, who will exclaim : ** Is not this 
 the down-grade theologywe have heard about f^^ It is 
 not for me to offer myself as the champion of scholars 
 like Dr. Cheyne, or Dean Perowne, or Mr. Gore. To 
 dispute about nicknames is a folly only inferior to that 
 of bestowing them. But, speaking for myself, I should 
 be inclined to describe as "down-grade" that theology 
 which abandoned spiritual liberty, and sank down upon 
 the mere letter of the Bible ; which preached the search 
 of Scripture with one voice, and anathematized it with 
 another ; which tied the inestimable truth of GOD'S Inspi- 
 ration to matters of human authorship ; which professed 
 to regard as vital bulwarks the heading of a Psalm, or 
 the postscript of an Epistle ; which offered as its solutions 
 sophistries and special pleadings so pitiable that a lawyer 
 would disddn to offer them to the most ignorant jury. 
 
 But it is an "up-grade" theology that I commend to 
 
ir 
 
 Christianity and Biblical Criticism. 
 
 17 
 
 « f 
 
 , 
 
 myself, and, — were I fitted to speak with authority, — I 
 would commend to my brethren. A Biblical theology 
 which takes as its starting point the teaching that GOD 
 spake to the fathers in old time " by divers portions and 
 in divers manners ;'' that many things were permitted 
 for a time which later instruction would forbid ; which 
 looks not downward but upward, as it lifts up the heart 
 to receive the Inspiration /rom on high ; and like Jacob 
 in his dream at Bethel, sees in God's revelation as it were 
 a ladder reaching to the Heavens with the messengers of 
 GOD, ascending and descending on it. ^ , ^.rv 
 
 " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, ■■ >v 
 
 ■ ' From whence Cometh my help." '*'• 
 
 [Two cautions are worthy of being impressed upon 
 our minds at this present juncture. Firstly, of not being 
 led away by any tide of fashion, or any personal allegi- 
 ance of human respect, to accept results which have not 
 yet fully passed through the test of devout and scholarly 
 research. We should never trouble the minds of hearers, 
 fed on the " milk " of plain Scriptural teaching, and the 
 Church's simple requirements from her lay people, with 
 topics and controversies, which need for due comprehen- 
 sion a grasp of historical facts which not all the clergy, 
 and very few of their hearers, at present possess. Indeed 
 we are not likely, at the present day, to be frightened by 
 any theological novelty started in Germany, or any other 
 country. The day has gone by when Dean Alford pur- 
 veyed an indiscriminate supply of German exegesis, and 
 respectfully refrained from any selection. At the present 
 
1 8 Christianity and Biblical Criticism. 
 
 day, an utterance from Oxford or Cambridge is more 
 likely to " flutter the dovecots " of Leipzig and Jena than 
 otherwise, and the traditions of sound English scholar- 
 ship which, in Bentley's time, claimed and received 
 authority over the world of letters, bid fair to return 
 again in the still nobler field of theology and the study 
 of Holy Scripture. :;.: 
 
 But with this caution, surely there is equal wisdom in 
 refraining from any sneering condemnation of labours 
 and results which our means of study do not enable us 
 to verify. Let not history repeat itself in the matter of 
 Biblical Criticism, as when, in the 17th century, many 
 ecclesiastical writers, Roman and Protestant, denounced 
 the great discovery of Galilei as an attack upon revealed 
 truth ; or the foolish sneers which, even in our own 
 memory, assailed those researches of geology which are 
 now the accepted facts of every child's education. v 
 
 If we dispute the results, let it be in a tone of charity 
 and reason, that elementary virtue of Christianity recom- 
 mended by St. Paul, ( aX't]Bf.vuv kv dyaTrr].) There is abund- 
 ant example of bitter controversy and the rabies theolo- 
 gorum which Melancthon deplored, but let it be banished 
 from the hearts and practice of those who follow the 
 example of Jesus. '■* • ' 
 
 Therefore it may be wiser for us, for a time at least, to 
 exercise forL ^arance, and our best eloquence may be 
 silence. Many of these problems are not yet solved : 
 some, perhaps, are insoluble. But do not let us be 
 teaching now what we may have later to retract ; do not 
 
 .. 
 
 ±- 
 
t f 
 
 Christianiiy and Biblical Criticism. 19 
 
 let us declare that to be God's Truth which may be only 
 the '* doctrines of men ; " do not let us denounce as here- 
 tics and depravers of God's Word those who may be His 
 most faithful and devout servants.] 
 
 May I conclude by uttering borrowed words, — words 
 which have authority, words of one to whom I look as a 
 second father, one who, as my Rector, soon after my 
 entrance into ministerial life, gave me the priceless, 
 though the unapproachable, example of the Christian 
 scholar and the ideal parish minister; who, after being 
 called later to the dignity of a Canonry at St. Paul's, has 
 recently resigned to younger hands what to many men 
 would have been a dignified sinecure ; and now is pass- 
 ing the close of an active and distinguished life in the 
 same earnest study which first marked the Cambridge 
 Senior Classic, and the Headmaster who claimed a 
 Benson and a Hatch for his pupils. v v^ ? »" 
 
 Called not long ago as Select Preacher before the 
 University of Oxford, at the very time when all minds 
 were excited and divided by the new controversy, and 
 the extraordinary and perhaps salutary revolutions of 
 party attitude which it has brought with it, he uttered 
 these words of wise caution, and yet of noble confidence 
 in the ultimate victory of truth : 
 
 i. ■'"■.,■'"■. ' " . * ■ ■"."'' 
 
 ', ' ■ ' ■ • ■ ' ■ I . I ' '' ■ ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ■ ' 
 
 " We live in an age of keen inquiry and wide research, 
 stimulated by marvellous discoveries of things new and old, 
 and rewarded, as no candid mind can doubt, by large and real 
 progress in almost every branch of knowledge. Can we won- - 
 der, or need we fear, if at such a time that which is man's 
 
 V 
 
do , Christianity and Biblical Criticism. 
 
 highest concern becomes the subject of the most searching 
 criticism iind most eager speculation ? What more natural 
 1^ source of the keenest enquiry than an ardent, fearless love of 
 truth ? or what more certain, to one who trusts the promise of 
 our Lord, than that all such enquiry must bring out into clearer 
 light that Truth into which His Spirit has been sent to guide us ? 
 
 " To that Truth the most searching criticism cannot be de- 
 structive, need not be unfriendly. Be patient, therefore, with 
 the enthusiasm, or even with the rashness, if such it seem to 
 you, of those who feel themselves called to the most searching 
 examination of those Scriptures, which are to us ' the words of 
 eternal life.' 
 
 *' Remember what Butler has so wisely taught us, that the 
 only important question about Holy Scripture is, whether it is 
 what itself claims to be, not whether it is in all respects what 
 we may have imagined. 
 
 "Learn, therefore, to distinguish the solid substance and 
 majestic form of Truth from the shadows which it casts both 
 behind it and before, in ancient prejudice and novel theory. 
 The prejudice may be erroneous, the theorv imperfect, and 
 both may pass away, but the word of God abideth for ever." * 
 
 * From a sermon preached at Great St. Mary's, Oxford, June 9, 1889, by Yen. 
 Archdeacon Gifford. 
 
 # 
 
 w\ 
 
 
 % 
 
, n 
 
 ; 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 ■f:. 
 
 n 
 
 ' The remarkable letter was brought into notice by Prof. A. 
 Neubaiier {Athencsum, April 14, 1888). Kaldiymus says: "My 
 honoured brother, a great and strong perplexity arose in my 
 mind lately, concerning this chapter (Gen. i), which I think will 
 not prove groundless, and of which I have not heard that any 
 one took it up before me. This difficulty is the following: From 
 the beginning of Genesis up to the passage f T the Sab'^atic 
 rest (ii. 1-3) only Elohim occurs and not once Jehovah. From 
 ii. 4 to V. we find Jehovah-Elohim. From v. to vi. 9, only Jeho- 
 vah is mentioned. * * ^«- This strange use of the names of 
 God cannot be accidental, but gives, according to my opinion, 
 some hidden hints, which are too wonderful for me to under- 
 stand." 
 
 ^ AsTRUC. Jean Astruc was born in Languedoc, 1684. His 
 father had been a Huguenot, but had joined the Church of 
 Rome soon after the birth of his son. Educated at Montpellier 
 as a physician, Jean Astruc became professor in the medical 
 faculty of Toulouse, and later was a royal physician of Paris, 
 where he died in 1766. It was in 1753 that he published anony- 
 mously his '* Conjectures sur les mtmoires originatix dont il 
 parait que Moyse s'est send pour composer le livre de la GeneseP 
 [Avec privilege et approbation.] It was not publicly identified 
 with his name until a year after his death, then Lorry, in a 
 biographical sketch, referred to his scruples about publishing 
 the treatise. " II etait bien stir de ses intentions, mais il avait 
 "peur que quelques esprits forts ne crussent pouvoir, de ses 
 "conjectures, tirer quelque induction contre la divinite des 
 " Livres saints. II eut besoin d'etre rassur6 longtemps par des 
 •' personnes pieuses et instruites, avant de donner cet ouvrage, 
 "quin'est que curieux sans 6tre dangereux." Astruc quotes 
 Simon, LeClerc and Fleury, as predecessors who had already 
 discussed the possibility of a composite authorship in the Pen- 
 tateuch. He was not aware that, in the same year (1753) a 
 Protestant, Peter Brouwer at Leyden, had treated of the same 
 
1 
 
 
 22 Notes. 
 
 topic in a dissertation ^^ qua disqtiiriturunde Moses res in libro 
 Genescos descriptas didicerit,^^ inferring that Moses had used 
 older historical fragments, but firmly maintaining the "■historica 
 Veritas'''' and " divina origo''^ of the book. Astruc divided Gene- 
 sis into four sources (A, B, C, D), with some few passages 
 marked as AH. After an elaborate analysis, he proceeds to 
 refute Spinoza's theories of a post-exilic authorship, on the 
 ground that the Samaritans would never have accepted such a 
 work from the Jews. 
 
 ^ Richard Simon. Many causes combined to involve Simon's 
 researches in a condemnation which Astruc afterwards escaped. 
 His combative nature, and his share in the controversies of the 
 day, made it impossible that any utterance of his should receive 
 impartial consideration. The MS. of the Histoire critique du 
 Vieux Testament managed to pass the censure, and was printed. 
 But Bossuet's influence was sufficient to suppress the edition in 
 France, although reprints were issued in Holland soon after- 
 wards. The supplementary work on the New Testament ap- 
 peared later without hindrance. As a history of the text, 
 Simon's work is admitted to have been a valuable contribu- 
 tion to theology ; but some narrow partialities and antipathies, 
 especially where the labours of the Jansenists were concerned, 
 and his total lack of appreciation for patristic exegesis, deprived 
 the work of a thoroughly scientific character. Criticism^ from 
 all quarters were not wanting, but for the shallowness of the 
 iSth century his work was too learned to meet with real appre- 
 ciation, whether of its stronger or weaker sides. 
 
 * Johann Albrecht Bengel, the critic who, with one consent, 
 stands first as a commentator upon the New Testament, did 
 not escape bitter attacks in his own time from those who feared 
 the possible results of his processes. When he published his 
 edition of the New Testamemt in 1734, with its apparatws, criti- 
 cuSy its departures from the textus receptus were denounced as 
 tn ason to God's Word, as he relates. [ Vita auctoris, ^ 35.] 
 Bengel received these attacks very patiently, and declared : "I 
 have suffered many hard words from those who are themselves 
 God's children, and may have to endure more, until at last the 
 truth shall prevail. «^ * * All truth brings suffering and 
 contradiction with it." | 
 
Notes. • 23 
 
 ^ Patristic Exegesis. The reference is not so much to the 
 overstrained allegorizing, as to the forced and unreal explana- 
 tions of actions which are now understood in the light of God's 
 gradual education of the human race. Cases in point are that 
 of Augustine and Chrysostom, dealing with the action of 
 Abraham in the case of Hagar, and in denying that Sara was 
 his wife. See especially Augustine De civit. Dei, xvi. 25. 
 
 ^ On the question of the identification of Belshazzar, for 
 instance, Dr. Pusey decided for the eldest son of Nabunahit, 
 (the Nabonidus of P^erosus), VV'estcott for Evil-Merodach, Keil 
 for Nabonadius. while the Speaker's Commentary candidly 
 declares identification impossible. "It leaves the difficulties 
 connected with the whole question altogether unanswered, 
 * * * no identification is possible, and none is required." 
 
 ^ " The Jewish and the Christian Messiah^ Edinburgh, 1886, 
 p. 109 (note). It is a remarkable fact that the great Biblical 
 scholar Eranz Delitzsch, whose recent death was deplored by 
 the whole Christian world, finally adopted (after long resistance) 
 the belief that the book of Daniel was written in the Maccabaean 
 period, placing it indeed in the year B. C. 168. His views 
 experienced a similar change with regard to the Pentateuch, a 
 portion of which he places in the time of Josiah, and some even 
 later. 
 
 " Taking the narrative of the Flood as it stands, regarding the 
 book of Genesis as an organic whole, it is evident that the notes 
 of time are confusing. There are frequent and perplexing 
 repetitions. 
 
 " At one time two of every sort of creature are to be brought 
 into the ark; at another it is seven pair of clean .animals and 
 two of unclean. In ch. viii., v. 5, we read that 'The waters 
 decreased continually until the tenth month ; in the tenth 
 month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the 
 mountains seen.' But later on, in the ninth verse of the same 
 chapter, after forty days at least have elapsed, when the dove 
 is sent forth from the ark she finds no rest for the sole of her 
 foot, and returns again to the ark because ' the waters v/ere on 
 the face of the whole earth.' But let the students separate the 
 Elohistic and the Jehovistic sections in this narrative, and all 
 
 A ^k.:i^A.i \,^A^ 
 

 24 • No/ds. 
 
 this difficulty vanishes almost completely away. The inter- 
 vals of seven and forty days belong to one of these stories, 
 and the system of dating by the days of the month ('the second 
 month, the seventeenth day of the month;' 'in the tenth 
 month, on the first day of the month,! &c.) belongs to the other 
 story. He finds, moreover, that this system of dating by the 
 days of the month gives an intelligible and satisfactory result 
 when the seven days and the forty days are omitted, and that 
 the seven and forty days gives a coherentchronology of its own 
 to the other story. The 'two of every sort ' of beasts belongs %J( 
 to one story, the 'seven clean ' and the * two unclean' to the 
 other, and tiiat other the one which leads on to the story of 
 Noah's sacrifice on leaving the ark, while the story which has 
 only ' two of every sort ' belongs to the same chain of extracts 
 in which the renewal of the covenant, when Noah leaves the 
 ark, is marked liv the rainbow, and which contains no mention of 
 an animal sacrifice. The sending out of the raven and the dove 
 is also found to belong to one narrative, and the appearance of 
 the mountain tops above the water, which in the united narra- 
 tive causes a contradiction, is found to belong to tiie other. 
 
 The case of the flood narrative is only one out of innumerable ^ , 
 instances in which the analysis of the present text into its com- ^ 
 
 ponent parts gets rid of difficulties and explains puzzles for '• 
 which no other satisfactory solution has been propounded. It is \ 
 
 like untwisting a rope of many colours, and finding each strand 
 of one colour come away by itself" [J. A. Cross, Paper read 
 before Leeds Cleriiy C/iib, 1SS6. j 
 
 " As a model in our own times of what Christian controversy 
 should bt', and the right tone and spirit by which questions of 
 I'iblical criticism may best hope for satisfactory solution, we 
 may recall the meinorable correspondence in the Guardian 
 between the late Bishop Lightfoot and Canon Cook, the editor 
 of the Speaker's Commentary, upon the true rendering of 
 ttTTo Tov TTovTjpov 'lu tlic Lord's Prayer, or the similarly friendly 
 discussion between the late Professor Kennedy and Arch- 
 deacon Gifibrd. {'"Appello Caesarem''' 1882.) 
 
 \ 
 
'-.anjVWW'iM.iPH^Mii.