THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF MAN FROM REVIEWS AND OPINIONS OF THE FIRST EDITION The late Rev. R. W. DALE, D.D. "Dr. Laidlaw's excellent treatise on the 'Bible Doctrine of Man.'" PRINCIPAL MOULE. "To this book we are greatly indebted." PROFESSOR W. P. DICKSON, D.D., Glasgow University. "An interesting discussion of the subject." THE EXPOSITOR. " On the whole we take this to be the most sensible and reasonable statement of the biblical psychology of man we have met. " EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE. " We urgently commend the volume to theological students. We have rarely read a stronger, wiser book." ENGLISH CHURCHMAN. "A thoughtful specimen of painstaking exegesis, based upon very wide reading, and constructed in an admirable temper." ECCLESIASTICAL GAZETTE. "Deserves to be carefully studied by everybody who desires to master this most interesting and attractive branch of Christian speculation." THE THE ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF SCRIPTURE BY JOHN LAIDLAW, M.A., D.D. PBOFESSOE OF THEOLOGY, NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH AUTHOR OF "THE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD" ETC. (KMttoit, ilcbiseti ant) He-amuujtb EDINBURGH T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 1895 PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO LIMITED. NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER's SONS. TORONTO : .THE WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORY PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION IN issuing the " Seventh Series of the Cunningham Lectures " in this revised form, I renew my acknow- ledgment of the kind assistance rendered by my friends -Professor S. D. F. Salniond, D.D., of Free College, Aber- deen, and Eev. W. Cruickshank, M.A., Inverurie, in the preparation of the original edition. To several friends in my own College I am indebted for help with the proof- sheets now. The present is an entire recast of the book, and many pages have been rewritten. While retaining the substance and almost every detail of the work as first published, and maintaining without excep- tion the positions then taken up, I have found it desirable to discard the cumbrous form, customary in such publications, of printing so many Lectures as orally delivered, together with a mass of Notes and Citations as Appendix. The continuity of the work, even to the eye, has been provided for, by retaining the title-pages and ground-texts of the Six Lectures in the former edition, as the Six Divisions of the present. The whole, however, is further divided into sixteen Chapters, for greater distinctness of topical treatment. The appended material of the former issue has now been vi PREFACE TO KEVISED EDITION adopted into the text, so far as practicable, while that which still retains the form of Appendix is distributed as Notes on the several Chapters to which it is immedi- ately relevant. Some small portion of the original Appendix is left out as no longer necessary. The aim is to present in one view the Bible Theology and Philosophy of Man and his Nature. What is claimed for this endeavour, in the specific department of Biblical Psychology, is to have called attention to the distinction which the Bible attributes to " spirit," as the highest element in man's constitution, and on the possession of which is grounded its unique doctrine of man's likeness to his Maker. It also claims to be a consistent exposi- tion of the relations of "soul" and "spirit" in man. Rejecting as unscriptural and unsupported by reason the notion which founds upon the Bible use of these terms a Tripartite Theory of man's nature, cause is yet shown why the neglect of that usage, as a meaningless parallelism, must yield to accurate exegesis and historic- fact. These two discussions specially exemplify that which it is the object of the whole treatise to maintain, namely, that a study of the psychological ideas of Scrip- ture throws valuable sidelights on its doctrinal teaching. The " Literature " now prefixed to each section is not, of course, meant as a complete Bibliography. It is confined almost entirely to naming the books which have been consulted for this work, JOHN LAIDLAW. NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH, May 1895. CONTENTS DIVISION I INTRODUCTORY THE BIBLE ACCOUNT OF/MAN'S ORIGIN CHAP. I. INTRODUCTORY THE BIBLE VIEW or MAN . Note. HOFMANN AND DELITZSGH ON BlBLICAL PSYCHOLOGY . CHAP. II. THE BIBLE ACCOUNT OF MAN'S ORIGIN DIVISION II MAN'S NATURE\-THE BIBLE PSYCHOLOGY CHAP. III. BIBLE PSYCHOLOGY IN GENERAL .... 49 CHAP. IV. TRIPARTITE VIEWS EXAMINED . . . . . 66 CHAP. V. USE OF SOUL AND SPIRIT EXPLAINED .... 87 Note. THE TRICHOTOMY IN ITS HISTORICAL CONNECTIONS . 98 CHAP. VI. FLESH, HEART, AND OTHER TERMS .... 109 Note. LEADING TERMS IN BIBLICAL PSYCHOLOGY . . 131 DIVISION III THE DIVINE IMAGE AND MAN'S PRIMITIVE STATE CHAP. VII. THE DIVINE IMAGE : BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL . 141 CHAP. VIII. MODERN FORM OF THE DOCTRINE .... 160 Note. RECENT VIEWS OF THE DIVINE IMAGE . . . 176 CHAP. IX.-^MAN'S PRIMITIVE STATED 182 > ____ - vii V1L1 CONTENTS DIVISION IV (MAN FALLENHIS NATURE UNDER SIN AND DEATH PAGE CIIAP. X. BIBLE DOCTRINE OF THE FALL 199 CHAP. XI. SIN IN THE RACE AND IN THE INDIVIDUAL . . 215 CHAP. XII. DEATH THE PENALTY OF SIN 233 DIVISION V PSYCHOLOGY OF THE NEW LIFE CHAP. XIII. THE NEW LIFE : ITS ORIGIN .... 249 CHAP. XIV. THE NEW LIFE : ITS GROWTH AND VICTORY . . 268 [Mainly an Exposition of Rom, vii. viii.] Note. THE\PAULIN/ANTHROPOLOGY . . 296 DIVISION VI MAN'S NATURE AND A FUTURE STATE CHAP. XV. THE FUTURE LIFE IN GENERAL .... 307 Note. THE GREEK FATHERS ON THE MORTALITY OF THE SOUL 336 CHAP. XVI. SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION . 341 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TOPICS ..... 359 INTRODUCTORY THE BIBLE ACCOUNT OF MAN'S ORIGIN fa fj.^v ofiv TTfpl ifstrxfis . . . rb ftv d\T)8h, ws etpijrat, QfSv v/j.ri(ra.i>TOS rbr &v oirw /JLOVUS diiffxvpi^oifj:e6a. PLATO, Timazus, 72 D. ' ' The truth concerning the soul can only be established by the word of God." JOWETT. ' ' Quomodo possit cognitio de substantia animae rationalis ex philo- sophia peti et haberi ? Quinimo ab eadem inspiratione divina hauriatur, a qua substantia animae primo emanavit." BACON, De Augmentis Scientiarum, lib. iv. cap. iii. 3. Psalm viii. 4-9 (R.V.). "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? For Thou hast made him but little lower than God, and crownest him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands ; Thou hast put all things under his feet : all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field ; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatso- ever passeth through the paths of the seas. LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth ! " CHAPTEE I INTRODUCTORY THE BIBLE VIEW OF MAN IT will be at once understood that our subject is not Anthropology in the sense in which that forms a topic in the theological systems, but the Anthropology of the Bible in the stricter sense ; that is to say, we seek some answer to the question, What views of man's nature and constitution are taught in Scripture, or are to be held as necessarily implied in its teaching ? Any study which may be classed under the head of Biblical Psychology has in most minds initial pre- judices to overcome. The chief of these arises out of the extravagant claim which has sometimes been made on its behalf. To frame a complete and independent system or philosophy of man from the sacred writings is an impossible task. The attempt cannot commend itself to the judicious interpreter of Scripture. It is certain to foster one-sided views in theology, or to become a mere reflex of some prevailing philosophical school. It is an opposite extreme to say that Scripture affords us no knowledge of the soul's natural being, that the texts on which a so-called biblical psychology has been founded, do not teach what the nature of man is, but only declare 3 4 THE BIBLE VIEW OF MAN his relation or bearing towards God. 1 No doubt the relation of man to God is that aspect in which the Bible chiefly regards him. But for that reason its whole structure rests on most important assumptions as to what man was and is. Even should we adhere rigidly to the view 2 that the Bible is to be construed as giving us religious and spiritual, but no merely natural know- ledge, far less any scientific information, we should still be compelled to admit that this religious and spiritual teaching involves presuppositions regarding man and his nature which are of immense interest for anthropology and psychology. These presuppositions cannot be separated from the substance of the record. Let it be ever so strenuously maintained that the religion of the Bible is the Bible, this religion includes such relations of man to God, to the unseen, to the everlasting, as mani- festly to imply a very definite theory of his essential nature and constitution. Let it be further remembered that the Bible is, upon its own representation, the history of God's dealings with man in a special course of religious and spiritual communication ; that therefore this record of revelation contains an account of man's origin, of his original nature, of the changes which have befallen it, and of the changes which by divine grace have been and are still to be wrought upon it. Such an account is 1 See v. Hofmann, Der Schriftbcweis, i. p. 284. 2 Recently expressed thus : ' ' That inspiration was not a general but a functional endowment, and consequently limited to subjects in which religion is directly involved ; and that in those which stand outside it, the writers of the different books in the Bible were left to the free use of their ordinary faculties," etc. Row's Sampton Lecture, 1877, p. 43. That a writer should be more free to use his faculties when uninspired implies a mistaken view of inspiration. IN WHAT SENSE AUTHORITATIVE 5 surely a contribution to the knowledge of man, and to the history of the race. Is there not reason to expect that, in the progress of such a revelation, light should be shed on man's nature and constitution, and that such information, apart from its saving and spiritual purpose, should be of moment for the student of psychology ? Far more, however, than any other department of nature touched upon in the Bible, the nature of man falls within the field of theology. Hence it becomes us to inquire, in the interest of Scripture doctrine, in what sense the Bible notion of man is authoritative, uniform, and available for such treatment as we propose. How far Bible doctrine has in it a true knowledge of man, formed for itself " in its own light out of the revelations of the Spirit," l how far the view of man's constitution which pervades the Bible enters into the subject-matter of the revelation, are questions turning upon the relation between the natural and the supernatural element in Scripture, or perhaps upon the more general relation of natural to revealed truth. It is quite what we should expect, that in rationalistic schools of theology the treat- ment of this biblical topic appears as " the psychology of the Hebrews," and that their " science " can have nothing to do with any biblical psychology which professes to be more than a view of the notions of the Hebrew people. Such questions, however, become most pregnant for those who are interested in maintaining the really divine character of the Bible revelation. For it is exactly here that the authoritative character of the Bible assumptions 1 Beck, Umriss der biblischen Seelenlehre, Vorwort, p. vi. 3te Aufl. 1871. 6 THE BIBLE VIEW OF MAN in regard to natural fact seems to form an essential element in its claim to be from God. It is in such regions as this that the maxim, " The religion of the Bible is the Bible," will not unlock all difficulties. We cannot easily, if at all, draw the line, in what Scripture says of man, between that which is religious and that which is non-religious. If we should say that the Bible notion of man as a natural being must submit to the same criticism as that which is contained in other ancient literature, what are we to say of the information which the Bible gives us about man's creation, the fall, the new birth, the resurrection ? Have these no bearing upon our idea of man as a natural being ? Have not these entered into the very marrow of the philosophy of man in all nations that know the Bible ? That man was made by God, and in His image ; that the present anomalies in man's nature are explained by a great moral catastrophe which has affected his will ; that neverthe- less his spirit stands in such relation to the divine as to be capable of renovation and possession by the Spirit of God ; that soul and body alike are essential to the totality of man, and are both brought within the scope of redemption, these are positions which undoubtedly belong to the essence of the Bible revelation, and which have also greatly influenced the philosophical conception of human nature. The view which would relegate all the elements of natural knowledge contained in Scripture to the region of the merely popular notions prevalent in the age and mind of the writers, no doubt makes short work with biblical psychology. But such a view involves . the LIKE ITS COSMOGONY 7 widest issues with regard to the word of God. In the highest of all interests it has to be resisted at every point, and met with another and more adequate theory, namely, one which will neither on the one hand give up the statements of the Bible regarding natural facts as subject to all the errors of their age, nor claim for them on the other the anomalous character of supernatural science. Let us, for the sake of analogy, glance at a kindred topic, namely, the Scripture account of the Origin of the World. The position to be maintained here by the believer in revelation is one which refuses the dilemma that the representations contained in the first chapter of Genesis must be either scientifically correct or altogether worthless. Their supremely religious character, funda- mental as they are to the whole revelation, in teaching the being, unity, spirituality of God and His relation to the creatures, places them in a totally different region from that of science. They must soar above and stand apart from the special discoveries and provisional state- ments of any stage of scientific attainment. *To forget this has been the great mistake of those who have sought to harmonise science and Scripture, though the blame of the mistake has often been misplaced. The complaint of science is that theology has resisted her progress. Might not the accusation be shifted, if not retorted ? Is it not theology that has been unfortunately encumbered with physical science, or with the philosophemes which stood for science at some particular period ? Inter- preters of Scripture have allowed the prevailing theories of their own day so to colour their statements of Bible doctrine, that natural discoverers of the next age have 8 THE BIBLE VIEW OF MAN raised the cry, " The Bible with its theology stops the way ! " the fact being that it was not the Bible at all, nor even theology, which opposed itself to their dis- coveries, but only the ghosts of defunct philosophical or scientific opinion, clothing themselves in the garments of religious thought. For instance it is frequently asserted that the account of Creation, given in the chapter named above, has always been read by theologians either literally, or as in some way scientific, whereas nearly the reverse of this is true. It is a comparatively modern idea to view the passage as a vision or foretelling of scientific truths. The most ancient Christian interpreters, even, did not take the six days literally. Some of them thought the world was created in an instant of time, and that the six days were expressed as a mode of indicating gradation and order in creation, and as laying a foundation for the observance of the seventh-day rest. 1 Others, like Augustine, expressly deny that they were ordinary days. 2 We are now in a position to do more justice than these ancient interpreters could to the magnificent general ideas of Creation, of its unity, order, progress, and scope, con- tained in this divine cosmogony ; but the true foundation of a right exegesis is to regard it mainly, as they did, from the religious point of view, as an expression of belief in God, in a Creator, and in a plan of Creation, ideas which all belong properly to an inspired system of spiritual truth. It is not necessary to refer to the 1 For a catena of opinion on the whole topic, see Quarry on Genesis, pp. 29-42. 2 De Civitate Dei, xi. 6, 7. THE FIRST CREATION-CHAPTER countless and shifting modes of reading into this chapter the discoveries and often merely the conjectures of science which have prevailed within the last fifty or sixty years. That which has become most favourably known in this country is the theory of Kurz, so lumin- ously and poetically expounded by Hugh Miller. It is based upon the conjecture that " the knowledge of pre- Adamite history, like the knowledge of future ages, may have been communicated to Moses, or perhaps to the first man, in prophetic vision ; that so, perhaps, vast geological periods were exhibited to the eye of the inspired writer, each appearing to pass before him on so many successive days." The result aimed at was to establish a correspondence between the discoveries of modern science, as to the different geological eras, and the various steps in this sublime passage of Scripture. No one who cares for the subject can fail to be acquainted with the gorgeous prose poem on this theme which the stone-mason of Cromarty evolved out of his scientific knowledge, acted on by a brilliant and devout imagination. A wise and weighty dictum of his own, however, is well worth considering in connection with it: "Were the theologians ever to remember that the Scriptures could not possibly have been given to us as revelations of scientific truth, seeing that a single scientific truth they never yet revealed, and the geologist that it must be in vain to seek in science those truths which lead to salvation, seeing that in science these truths were never yet found, there would be little danger even of difference among them, and none of collision." 1 This is exactly 1 The Testimony of the Hocks, p. 265. 10 THE BIBLE VIEW OF MAN the principle which it is necessary for us to carry through all our treatment of Scripture. And it is particularly applicable to this narrative, for it is just here that there is a strong temptation to make the Bible appear scientific. That the main purpose of the chapter is religious cannot be doubted. It is meant to teach the unity of God a protest against the gods many of the nations ; the distinction between God and the world a protest against pantheism ; the fact of the divine origin of the world a protest against atheism, as involved in the notion of the eternity of matter ; above all, to show God's relation to man and the relation of man to the world, that the God of revelation and the God of creation are one, and that the God of grace the God who sealed His mercy to Israel with the special institution of the Sabbath is the same who made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. That along with these spiritual ideas concerning God and man there are also given in this chapter certain principles of creation, some great Lines of physical and cosmical truth, must not, of course, be overlooked. No one can be satisfied to believe that the writer who conveys here such grand thoughts about the world and its becoming as those of the original uprise of all things, the chaos of earth's primitive state the birth of light before the formation of the sun the orderly succession of existences, inorganic, vegetable, animal, human, was left in framing these thoughts to the false and inadequate ideas of nature prevalent in his own time. It is clearly quite otherwise. These grand principles of natural truth coincide so thoroughly with the findings of science that THE CREATION-NARRATIVE NOT SCIENTIFIC 11 we are compelled to say, This is inspiration. It is the unity of truth. It is the harmony of the divine Mind. The light of the same Spirit who framed the world lies on this first page of the great World-Book. This divine light upon God and creation and man's place there is true to the world of fact and nature, and will never, therefore, contradict, but always harmonise with whatever of scientific truth man shall scientifically dis- cover for himself. But it is not science ; and we must protest against this creation-narrative being interpreted as an illuminated transcript of scientific discovery in all its details before the time. The incompetence of such a style of exegesis becomes more apparent the more we think of it. Scientific discovery and scientific guess or hypothesis, going hand in hand, are always moving, the guesses shifting rapidly, like a framework or scaffold- ing ; the discovery creeping slowly on, like a noble building rising solidly tier by tier. But how could a prophecy of such discovery be given beforehand, or how- could a view of the world's becoming in its scientific shape be given to those who had no science, or even to those who, like us, have an unfinished and imperfect one ? It is all but certain that cosmic and anthropo- logical theories which at present prevail will change, and those speculative readings of geology and evolution into Genesis which have found such favour will be left dry and baseless. No ! the real spirit of this world-picture is very different. It is a view of the Creation which is to serve for all ages of human history, to fit into every single age's need. Each being an age in which scientific research is only at one of its stages, this sublime view 12 THE BIBLE VIEW OF MAN of the divine work of world-making, in order to serve its proper purpose, must deal with great spiritual and cosmical principles, and with these alone. The leading idea of the Bible Cosmogony, then, is not scientific, it is religious ; yet as a cosmogony it gives principles of the becoming of things which, in their superiority to the corresponding ethnic conceptions, in their substantial agreement with science, contribute im- portant proof of the divine character of the book in which they are found. Coincidence, in such an account, with the findings of science in any one age, would have been as useless as correspondence to the ever-varying results of it throughout the ages would have been impossible. But such a view of the world's becoming as satisfies religion, while it consists with the principles that science is discovering for itself, is a true and proper revelation on the subject. On this analogy, would we define the character to be attached to the Anthropology of the Bible. In answer to the question whether the Scripture view of man as a natural being is not the view of the times in which the Scriptures were written, we reply that it is, in so far as man's notions of himself can furnish adequate and correct foundation for revealed doctrine. For every- where in Scripture we find evidence of this marvellous quality, that its presuppositions on natural subjects, and especially on the Origines of the world and of man, though never given in the scientific form, and not intended to teach science, justify themselves in the face of scientific discoveries as these are successively made. The writers of Holy Scripture, by whatever method of poetic or prophetic elevation, move in the domain of ITS IDEAS SIMPLE AND UNIFOKM 13 natural facts and principles with a supernatural tact, which at once distinguishes them from all other ancient writers on such subjects, and places the Scriptures them- selves above the reach of scientific objections. On the other hand, some zealous upholders of biblical psychology speak of it as something directly descended from heaven, bearing no relation to the natural psychology of the times. But it is evident there must have been such an adaptation, by the biblical writers, of psycho- logical terms in previous use as to be understood by those to whom their words first came. We cannot afford here, or anywhere else, to forget that in the Scripture the Holy Ghost speaks with a human tongue, and therefore, in speaking of man, must have employed such ideas and expressions regarding his nature and constitution as convey a true and intelligible view of what these are. Such expressions and ideas are undoubtedly those of the age in which the writings arose, but they are at the same time so simple and universal as to find easy access to the mind of mankind everywhere and at all times. And this simplicity speaks to another trait, namely, their uniformity. The tendency of much recent scholarship is to disintegrate the Scriptures, and accordingly objections have been taken to the reception of a biblical notion of man, on the ground that on all topics of natural know- ledge the standpoint of each Scripture writer must be considered independent. 1 There is nothing more ground- 1 E.g. by Dr. Hermann Schultz in his early tractate, Die Voraus- setzungen der christliclien Lehre von der Unsterblichkeit, Gottingen, 1861, p. 72. But in the latest edition of his Old Testament Theology he does ample justice to the uniformity and simplicity of the Old Testament psychology. See vol. ii p. 242 (Clark, Edin., 1892). 14 THE BIBLE VIEW OF MAN less. The unity of Scripture is precisely one of those facts not explained by Rationalism, but clear in a moment when we regard Scripture as the record of a con- tinuous and consistent historical revelation. And the scope of that revelation being the redemption of man, there is nothing which is more essentially bound up with it, than that idea of man and his nature which pervades the record. It would, indeed, be very difficult to deny the uniformity of psychological view in the Old Testa- ment, were it only on the ground that at the early period to which these writings belong, the refinements of school philosophy, which introduce diversity even where they bring ripeness, had not begun to operate. It cannot be denied that fresh elements from without enter into the psychology of the New Testament, and especially into that of St. Paul ; yet little doubt can remain on the mind of any unprejudiced reader of Scripture, that a notion of man pervades both the Old and the New Testament, popularly expressed indeed, but uniform and consistent, though growing in its fulness with the growth of the biblical revelation itself. Let us understand, then, what we may expect to attain in any study of biblical psychology. Dr. Delitzsch defines the scope of such study very fairly and modestly when he says its aim is " to bring out the views of Scripture regarding the nature, the life, and the life- destinies of the soul, as these are determined in the history of its salvation." l We cannot agree with the same writer when he claims for it the rank of "an 1 Biblische Psychologic, p. 13. WHAT THE STUDY MAY YIELD 15 independent science," even within "the organism of theology." 1 It is really bound up with the theology which we call biblical. Far leas can we allow that these Bible representations of man constitute an independent philosophy of human nature. To use them for such a purpose is to fall into an error like that of reading the Bible account of creation as a prophetic view of geological science. The friendly discussion between Delitzsch and Hofmann of Erlangen, as to the possibility of a Bible psychology, turns mainly on the form which such a study must assume. Notwithstanding the extreme position noticed above, Hofmann does not deny the existence in Scripture of disclosures deliberately anthropologic and psychologic. In his masterly treatise on The Scripture Proof of Christian Doctrine, he does not shrink from the discussion of texts involving the fundamental questions of our theme. He has no doubt that the presupposi- tions of Scripture on the subject can be grouped together, that is to say, that they are consistent. He warns us only that we are not to expect of them a scientific whole. Nor should we forget that they come into view just as they are used for the expression of facts which, though touching on the psychological region, do really belong to another, namely, the theological. On the other hand, Delitzsch, though premising that no system of psychology propounded in formal language is to be looked for in the Bible, any more than of dogmatics or ethics, zealously contends that a system can be found and constructed. Under the name of Bible psychology he understands a scientific representation of the doctrine of Scripture on 1 Biblische Psychologic, p. 15. 16 THE BIBLE VIEW OF MAN the psychical constitution of man as he was created, and on the ways in which this constitution has been affected by sin and by redemption. It seems as if Hofmann had overlooked the importance and the purpose of that con- sistent idea of man's constitution which underlies the Scripture teaching ; while Delitzsch slightly misstates its purpose rather than exaggerates its importance. 1 That purpose is not to teach the science of man, but it has a vital use in subservience to theology, nevertheless. To trace that use, in an induction of Scripture utterances, is the proper scope and form of any study deserving the name of biblical psychology. A single word further of its necessity. The chief argument for attempting a consistent and connected view of man's nature, drawn from the Bible itself, is easily stated. There never has been a theology which did not imply and implicitly base itself upon some philosophy of man. The influence of philosophy upon theology is proverbial. It is notorious how soon Christian doctrine, as discussed in the early Church, became coloured by Platonic speculations ; how long the Aristotelic doctrine of the soul held sway in mediaeval and even in Eeforma- tion theology ; how Leibnitz and Descartes became the lords of a system of Protestant orthodoxy. " No philo- sophy," says Dr. Charles Hodge, " has the right to control or modify the exposition of the doctrines of the Bible, except the philosophy of the Bible itself, that is, the principles which are therein asserted or assumed." 2 Yet 1 The main paragraphs from each of these writers are subjoined to this chapter. Those of Delitzsch are specially pertinent to the question of the possibility of our study, and form a satisfactory vindication of it. * Systematic Theology, iii. 661. WHY IT DEMANDS ATTENTION 17 with what naivett do most of our theologians, not exclud- ing the author now quoted, assume that the Bible stands exactly on the Cartesian postulates as to man, the world, and the soul ! Beck very justly points out the vice of scientific theology in deriving those most essential con- ceptions of life, upon which Christianity has to build its unique doctrines of sin and redemption, not from the circle of thought which belongs to Christianity itself, but from some one totally different, a mode which logically leads to results entirely opposed to Bible anthropology. 1 We can only rid ourselves of this vice by carefully observing those ideas of life and the soul which the Scriptures themselves assume in all their theological statements. To ascertain the " science of life," if it may be so called, which prevailed with the writers of Scripture, to put together such simple psychology as underlies their writings, cannot be an unnecessary task. Theology is not truly biblical so long as it is controlled by non - biblical philosophy ; and such control is inexcusable when it is seen that a view of human nature available for the purpose of the theo- logian is native to the source from which theology itself is drawn. Our aim, then, in the following pages is to give prominence to the psychological principles of Scripture, to those views of man and his nature which pervade the sacred writings. It does not appear, however, that the psychology of the Bible, or what may be called its philosophy of man, can be successfully treated as an abstract system. These natural views of man's constitu- J See Umriss der liblischen Seelenlehre, p. iv. 2 18 THE BIBLE VIEW OF MAN tion are given to us in the record of a special revelation which declares the divine dealings with man in order to his redemption. They should be treated, therefore, in close connection with the history and development of those dealings. Accordingly, after stating the Bible account of Man's Origin, and some general principles of Bible Psychology, the remaining chapters are devoted to the exhibition of these psychological principles in the order of the great theological topics concerning man. They are first illustrated by the Scripture statements regarding man's Original Image and Primitive State ; then, by those which describe his Condition under Sin ; next, they are viewed in connection with Eegeneration ; and last of all, in their bearing upon Future Life and Resurrection. No exhaustive treatment of these revealed doctrines is intended. Each of them is dealt with here only in those aspects which depend for their correct apprehension upon a true view of the Scripture psychology. The Bible notion of man ought to repay our study. On the lowest ground it is of interest as a contribution to the history of opinion regarding man and the soul. Further, it is indispensable as a key to the theology of the Bible, for into all those large portions of its teaching which concern man and his destiny, some view of his natural constitution must enter. Finally, with believers in revelation it is axiomatic that revelation should throw light on that nature which is the field of the divine operations recorded in it. If Plato could sigh for divine assistance as the only way by which the knowledge of the soul could be established, how carefully should NOTE ON CHAPTER I 19 the Christian psychologist give heed to the intimations of Scripture ! x NOTE ON CHAPTEE I HOFMANN AND DELITZSCH ON BIBLICAL PSYCHOLOGY Delitzsch, in the second edition of his System der Biblisclun Psychologic, has quoted and replied to Hof- mann's attack on the so-called science which the former so much favours. All that is here given, therefore, will be found substantially in Clark's translation of Delitzsch's Biblical Psychology, but in preparing the extracts I have made constant reference to the original of both authors. Hofmann's words are: "A Biblical Anthropology and Psychology have, it is true, been got together, but without finding any justification in Scripture, of which Harless rightly says that we must not expect from it natural description and natural knowledge, because these were not intended to be given there. 2 That putative science is based merely upon such Scripture texts as do not teach what the nature of man is, but, on the hypothesis that it is understood what kind of creature is meant when man is spoken of, declare his relation or deportment towards God. It is replied that the Scripture does nevertheless give, almost in its first sections, disclosures which are de- liberately anthropologic and psychologic, seeing it narrates the process of man's creation. It is further alleged that it must be worth while to bring together its anthropological and psychological presuppositions, since they cannot be so trivial as to be matter of course, nor so inconsequent and unconnected as to be capable of no scientific arrangement. But as regards the disclosures, they only serve the purpose 1 See motto prefixed to this section. Jowett's rendering is taken from his Introduction to the Tim&us (3rd Edition of his Plato, 1892). In his translation of the Dialogue itself, he now paraphrases the words so as to empty them of almost any meaning. 2 So in the preface to the 4th Edition of his Ohristliche Ethik ; but the remark seems to be withdrawn in the latest edition. 20 NOTE ON CHAPTEK I of rightly defining the relation of man to God and to the world at large, without the knowledge of which relation there can undoubtedly be no anthropology and psychology corresponding to the reality. As to the presuppositions, it is subject to no doubt that one may group them together, without, however, being justified in the expecta- tion that they will form a scientific whole. .For they only come to light in so far as they are employed for the expression of facts, which, while they touch on the anthropologic and psychologic region, themselves belong to another. A Biblical Psychology is just as little a psychological system as a Biblical Cosmology is a cosmo- logical system. And if one finds it feasible to call it theological instead of biblical, it will also be allowable to say that there is a Theological Psychology only in the same sense in which one can speak of a Theological Cosmogony." l To this Delitzsch replies, that he is very far from denying that all Scripture Psychology is bound up with the revelation of redemption. What he maintains is, that in pursuance of its great design of declaring salvation for man, the Bible has to say so much on man's spiritual and psychical constitution, that it must proceed upon a psychology distinct from that of mere natural knowledge. He retorts upon Harless and Hofmann, that both use largely in their respective treatises exactly those utter- ances of Scripture which refer to the most fundamental questions in psychology. Hofmann especially, while asserting that Scripture teaches nothing on the subject, is constantly attempting to answer from Scripture such psychological questions as How is man's soul related to his spirit ? How is the spirit in man related to the Spirit of God ? Is man's constitution trichotomic or dichotomic ? How is man as a nature distinguished from man as a person ? " Whether, then," he goes on, " we call this teaching or not, Scripture gives us on all these questions at least the disclosures necessary for a fundamental knowledge of salvation. These disclosures must be exegetically set 1 Der Schriftbewcia, i. 284, 285, 2te Aufl., 1857. HOFMANN AND DELITZSCH 21 forth, and because they are of a psychological nature, must be psychologically digested; must be adjusted according to their connection inter se, as well as with the living whole formed by the historical and personal facts of redemption. "And here at once is a system, to wit, a system of Biblical Psychology, as it is fundamental to the system both of the facts of salvation and of the revelation of salvation ; and such a system of Biblical Psychology is so necessary a basis for every biblical summary of doctrine, that it may be rightly said of the doctrinal summary which Hofmann's Schriftbeweis seeks to verify by Scripture, that from the beginning to the end, from the doctrine of the creation to the doctrine of the last things, a special psychologic system, or (if this expression be objected to) a special complex of psychological primary conceptions, lies at the basis of it. What Scripture says to us of cosmology might certainly appear insufficient to originate a system of biblical cosmology ; but it says infinitely more to us about the spirit and soul of man than about Orion and the Pleiades. And I would not assert that Scripture offers to us no natural knowledge of the soul ; I believe it rather to the honour of God's word to be compelled to maintain the contrary. For example, that the constitu- tion of man is dualistic, i.e. that spirit and body are fundamentally of distinct origin and nature, that is surely a natural knowledge a tenet with which, in spite of all the objections of rigid scientific investigation, we live and die. And although such utterances as Scripture gives us to ponder e.g. in Gen. ii. 7 and 1 Cor. xv. 45 may deserve no other name than 'finger-pointings,' yet an investigation in Biblical Psychology which takes the way indicated by these finger-signs will be justified. . . . We desire to bring out exegetically the views of Scripture regarding the nature, the life, and the life-destinies of the soul as these are determined in the history of its salvation. And we also desire, according to the unavoidable exigence imposed upon our thinking when engaged in the region of Scripture, to bring these views into systematic con- nection. . 22 NOTE ON CHAPTER I " The task which I propose to myself is practicable ; for under the name of Biblical Psychology I understand a scientific presentation of the doctrine of Scripture on the physical constitution of man as it was created, and the ways in which this constitution has been affected by sin and redemption. There is such a doctrine of Scripture. It is true that on psychological subjects, just as little as on dogmatical or ethical, does Scripture contain any system of dogmas propounded in the language of the schools. If it taught in such a way, we should have no need at all to construct from it Psychology, and as little Dogmatic or Ethic. But still it does teach. . . . There belongs essentially to Holy Scripture a quite definite psychology which is equally fundamental to all the sacred writers, and \vhich essentially differs from that multiform system lying outside the circle of revelation. The task of Biblical Psychology, therefore, can be executed as a unity. We have no need first to force the material of the Bible teaching into oneness ; it is one of itself. " The Biblical Psychology so built up is an independent science which coincides with no other, and is rendered superfluous by no other in the entire organism of theology. It is most nearly related to the so-called Biblical Theology, or rather to Dogmatics. For what is usually designated by the former expression an extremely unfortunate one more properly falls in partly with the history of redemption, partly with the history of revelation. Biblical, or, as one may also call it, Theological Psychology (to distinguish it from the scientific-empirical and philosophic- rational) pervades the entire material of Dogmatics, inasmuch as it discusses all those phases of man's psychical constitution that are conditioned by the facts and relations so full of significance in the history of salvation which form the content of Dogmatic Theology. At all the points of contact, however, it maintains its own special character. Of what is common to it with Dogmatics it only takes cognisance in so far as that common factor throws light or shadow upon the human soul, draws the soul into co-operation or sympathy, and tends to disclose its secrets. Much which is only incidentally dealt with in Dogmatics HOFMANN AND DELITZSCH 23 is a principal subject for the subsidiary science of Psychology : as, for example, the relation of the soul to the blood, a point of some importance for the doctrine of propitiation, or the question whether the soul is propa- gated per traducem, which is of moment for the doctrine of original sin. On the other hand, the scriptural doctrines of the Trinity, of good and evil angels, of the divine-human personality of Christ, which in Dogmatics are main themes, come to be treated by Psychology only in so far as they are connected with the divine image in man, with the good or evil influence of the spirit-world upon him, and with the restoration of true human nature. The new relation of God to humanity in Christ, which is the centre of our entire theology, is also the centre of Psychology, as of Dogmatics. The business of Dogmatic is to analyse and systematise the believing consciousness of this new relationship a consciousness which relies upon and rests in the Scripture. The business of Psychology, on the other hand, is with the human soul, and through the soul with that human constitution which is the object and subject of this new relationship. " From this conception of our science, which we are still convinced will stand the crucible of criticism, we turn to the method of its realisation." Delitzsch, Biblischc Psychologic, pp. 12-16, 2te Aufl. 1861. CHAPTER II THE BIBLE ACCOUNT OF MAN*S ORIGIN [LITERATURE. Quarry On Genesis (Lond., 1866) ; Mac- donald, Creation and the Fall (Edin., 1856) ; Ewald's papers, " Die Schopf ungsgeschichte nach Gen. i. 1-ii. 3," at p. 77 of his Erstes Jahrbuch der bibl. Wissenschaft (1848); " Die Spatere, Gen. ii. 4-25," p. 132 of his Zweites Jahrbuch (1849) ; a " Third," at p. 108 of his Jahrbuch for 1850. Numerous references in Hofmann's Schriftbeweis, 2te Aufl. (Nordlingen, 1857). Two papers by the late Professor James Macgregor, " The Place of Man Theologically Re- garded," " The Christian Doctrine of Creation," in British and Foreign Evangelical Review (Jan. 1875, Oct. 1878). Sir J. W. Dawson touches the question of the Genesis - narratives in his three books, Story of the Earth and Man (Lond., Hodder & Stoughton, 1874), Origin of the World according to Revelation and Science (Lond., 1877), Meeting- place of Geology and History (Lond., 1894). F. Lenormant, Les Origincs, translated under the title, The Beginnings of History (Lond., 1882).] OUR primary question is that of the Origin of Man. What does the Bible say of man's coming into existence at the first ? The bearing of this upon all that follows is plain ; for the lines of origin, nature, and destiny run very close together. Our material here must be drawn mainly from the opening pages of the Old Testament, although with constant reference to the use made, all 24 TWOFOLD ACCOUNT IN GENESIS 25 through the Scriptures, of this primal and fundamental statement. In describing the double account of the origination of man given in the first and second chapters of Genesis, we accept the fact that there are two distinct creation- narratives or paragraphs contained in these two chapters respectively. 1 We take nothing to do with theories that posit an Elohist writer for the one and a Jahvist for the other. Leaving the documentary hypothesis to time and criticism, we begin with this fairly accepted result, namely, that the human author of Genesis found to his hand certain fragments of ancient tradition, either re- cited from memory or preserved in writing, which he embodied in this inspired book. A very similar piecing of documents or narratives is generally admitted in the New Testament at the beginning of the Third Gospel. But surely a history does not cease to be the veritable product of its author because it contains documentary or extracted material. Nor does inspiration, as we understand it, refuse to consist with the recital or inser- tion of older communications enshrined in the religious belief of those to whom were committed the sacred oracles. Accepting, then, the two sections at the open- ing of the book of Genesis as at least two distinct com- positions, in each of which a special phraseology has been maintained, and naming them, for convenience sake, the first and second narratives, we nevertheless do not admit that they contain different accounts of the Creation. Such an assumption is clearly beside the mark. In the first narrative we have the succession in creation of the 1 The first contained in i. 1-ii. 3 ; the second in ii. 4-25. 26. various elements, and then of the several orders of animated beings. In the second what we have is not a different account of the creation, for the plain reason that it takes no account of the creation at large. It makes no mention of the heavenly bodies, of land and water, of reptiles and fishes, all these having been de- scribed in the former narrative. Indeed, the introductory word of the second narrative, if we mark its use all through the book of Genesis, tells the tale quite dis- tinctly, and should have prevented any misconception, for it means invariably not the birth or begetting of those named, but the history of their family. 1 So here, " the generations of the heavens and of the earth " means not their creation at the first, but an account of certain transactions within the heavens and the earth ; in short, the dealings of God with mankind. For this second narrative is plainly, as Ewald calls it, the history proper of the creation of mankind. 2 1 Gen. ii. 4, nil^D ri;3J< : "These are the generations, i.e. what follows is the genealogical history, a formula which marks off this and the other nine sections which make up the rest of the book of Genesis an orderly division and succession, affording strong presumption of its unity of plan and singleness of authorship. Hofmann lays great stress on the Sabbatic pause at the close of the first narrative, as bringing out the principle of a distinction between the act of creation and the history of that which is created. And now what follows is the history of that which is transacted between God and man. He says it is impossible, upon a comparison of all the passages where the phrase is used (note especially Gen. xxxvii. 2), to think that it can ever refer to what has preceded (Schriftbeweis, i. 206). The passages are Gen. v. 1, vi. 9, x. 1, xi. 10, xxv. 12, 19, xxxvi. 1, xxxvii. 2 ; see also Num. iii. 1. 2 "Die eigentliche Menschenschopfungsgeschichte. " In the series of papers in his Jahrbiicher der biblischen Wissenschaft (1848, 1849), entitled, " Erkliirung der biblischen Urgeschichte. " In the first two papers of the series he discusses the double creation narrative of Genesis. So also Sir J. "W. Dawson, in an article on " Early Man and Eden," in The Expositor, APPARENT DIFFERENCES 27 Both narratives speak of the origin of man, and here, indeed, is their real point of unity and connection. We do not say that there are no difficulties in harmonising the two. It is not clear whether the plants and animals, the formation of which is described along with that of Adam in the second chapter, are the same flora and fauna the rise of which is described as successive-crea- tion acts in the sublime language of the first chapter. The main difficulties are the introduction of a vegetable creation along with man, and an apparently subsequent or simultaneous origination of beasts and birds. In both these points, the second narrative appears to diverge from the first. One explanation takes the fauna and flora of the second narrative as those of the present geological era, or of the human period. Those described in the former narrative are, on this hypothesis, held to belong to the past epochs of life on the globe, of which palaeontology reads us the record laid up in stone. This belongs, however, to the style of interpretation against which we have already protested. Another ex- planation is that the former narrative contains the grand principles of the rise of life on the earth generally ; the latter the production and grouping of life, vegetable and animal, in the Edenic region, which took place along with the origination of man. 1 This is certainly the natural impression which the narratives respectively make on the reader's mind. But, as has been said, the second is not April 1894: "To a scientific reader the second narrative is evidently local in its scope, and relates to conditions of the introduction of man not mentioned in the general account of creation." See the same author's Meeting-place of Geology and History, p. 112 (Lond., 1894). 1 On this point see further discussion, pp. 33-37 infra. 28 THE BIBLE ACCOUNT OF MAN'S OKIGIN strictly a creation-narrative, except as it bears on the introduction of the human being. So far as man and his origin are concerned, the coincidence of the two narra- tives is plain. Lay them side by side at this point, and their relation becomes clear. The first narrative gives us man's place in the succes- sion of being and life upon the globe. On that grand opening page of the Bible stands a cosmogony which fitly prepares for all that follows in the book, and which shines with its steady light to-day in presence of the torch of science, as it shone on the Hebrew mind for centuries before Christianity came into the world. After the march of the elements light and sky, water and earth after the preparation of the great platform of life, comes life itself, and that in the regular ascent which modern science has taught us to look upon as a law of nature. First vegetable life, then the creatures of the deep, then the fowls of the air, and, last of all, the animals of the land. At the summit man appears, the apex of the pyramid of earthly being. Who can doubt for a moment that we have in this arrangement a point in which theology and science meet ? It matters little whether you read the arrangement as one of history or one of classification. If the account of the Creation in that chapter be taken, in its more obvious sense, as chronological, then you have the convergence of two independent witnesses science and Scripture to the fact that man comes last and crowns the series ; his creation on the sixth day, at the close of the production of the land animals generally, corresponding with his place, as ascertained by observation, in the latest of the FIRST NARRATIVE 29 geological epochs " A writer of fiction would probably have exalted man by assigning to him a separate day, and by placing the whole animal kingdom together in respect of time. . . . Geology and revelation coincide in referring the creation of man to the close of the period in which mammals were introduced and became pre- dominant, and in establishing a marked separation be- tween that period and the preceding one, in which the lower animals held undisputed sway." x On the other hand, were that chapter taken merely as a pictorial classi- fication, a clothing of cosmic principles in dramatic garb, the result would be still the same. Man crowns the edifice of nature and life a principle attested by the researches of biology and comparative anatomy, as much as by those of geology and palaeontology, namely, that man is a compendium of nature, and of kin to every creature that lives, that man, in the words of Oken, is the sum total of all animals, the equivalent to the whole animal kingdom. 2 In either case you have a position as to which revelation and natural knowledge are consciously at one a fact at once of religious and of scientific im- portance, for to give man his true religious or theological place is to give him also his true natural or scientific place. The obvious supremacy of man in the natural orders of the animal kingdom corresponds with the central and final place assigned him in the revealed system of religion. Let us next note how the creation of man is made to stand out of or above the line of the other creative acts. 1 Dawson, Origin of the World according to Revelation and Science (Lond., 1877). 2 Quoted by Hugh Miller, Footprints of the Creator, p. 279. 30 THE BIBLE ACCOUNT OF MAN'S ORIGIN This representation of man as " the paragon of animals," this account of him appearing in line with the other living beings of God's making, though at the summit of the line, is further heightened by a stroke of description which places man far above the other creatures. In the march of animated being previous to man there is a formula employed which indicates both mediate creation and generic distinction : " And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life ; . . . Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind." But when we come to man, the formula is suddenly and brilliantly altered. Immediate rather than mediate origination is suggested. It is not, " Let the waters or the earth bring forth," but God said, " Let us make man." It is no longer " after his kind," on a typi- cal form of his own ; far less is it after the type of an inferior creature. God said, " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Reserving all that has to be said about the divine image as descriptive of man's nature and destiny, let us here note simply how much distinction the narrative attributes to his origination. For this distinction appears in the very form of the announcement. As to all the other products of creative power there is recorded in this first narrative simply a fiat with its factum est " Let it be," and " It was." But in the case of man there is a purpose with its fulfilment ; and that fulfilment is recorded with such majesty of language, with such threefold repetition, " a joyous tremor of representation," l as to show how great stress the book laid upon this fact : " So God created man in His own 1 Ewald, ut supra. FIRST NARRATIVE 31 image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them." To these three leading features of distinction in man's creation, the divine council and decree concerning it, the divine type after which he was formed, and the immediate divine agency exercised in his production, the rest of the chapter adds some details illustrative of man's original state. There is not here, as in the second narrative, any special account of the creation of woman. But the creation of both by the divine hand is carefully emphasised. That it is of the same type is implied, and by subsequent Scripture writers inferred, though the description is generic, in keeping with the whole character of the narrative. The term Adam is used to include both sexes " Male and female He created them ; and blessed them, and called their name Adam in the day when they were created." x The blessing of God pronounced over them (ver. 28) does not, in the terms referring to propagation and production, differ from those used of the lower animal orders in ver. 22. But now it is addressed to mankind as in conscious fellowship with the Supreme, and not merely spoken of them. It is further grandly distinguished as conveying to mankind the gift or office of dominion over the earth and all creatures in it. The subordination of all living creatures to man, and his subdual of the earth and them, is stated in the form of a divine donation or charter, significantly connected by its place in the context with the Divine Image in which he is formed. 2 This is followed by the grant to man of the seed-bearing 1 Gen. v. 2. 2 See infra, pp. 143, 146. 32 THE BIBLE ACCOUNT OF MAN'S ORIGIN herbs and the fruit-bearing trees for food, while to the beasts, birds, and creeping things, lower forms of vegetation are reserved. That is to say, besides the dominion over all living things for all uses, food no less than other, man receives, in accordance with his superior intelligence and ability, the use of grain and fruits capable of cultivation ; to the inferior animals only the green herb, as naturally produced, is given. 1 Clearly, the great features of this first description are the solemn preparation of all things for man's introduc- tion, and then his formation after the Divine Image. Here the Bible view of his origin and nature follows the law of consistency. Man is an animal among the animals, breathes the breath of life as they do, yet is represented as occupying a different position from that of all the other creatures, not only in relation to them, as supreme over them, but in relation to God his Maker. With all this the special account of his creation coincides. When we pass to the second narrative the point of view is changed a fact noted long ago by Josephus when he bids us mark how, at Gen. ii. 4, " Moses begins to physiologize," i.e. naturam interpretari, to explain the nature of things. The remark is especially applicable to the account which follows of the production of man. Even the words describing the mode of the divine action are different. Instead of Bara, " to create," so prominent in the former narrative, we find here Yatzar, " to form or knead," as the potter his clay. Further on, in the detailed 1 See Quarry, Genesis and its Authorship, pp. 82-84 (Lond., 1866), whose strong masculine sense carries this exegesis as clearly preferable to the fanciful and overdrawn view that Gen. i. 28 and Gen. ix. 3 are different decrees. THE SECOND NAERATIVE 33 account of woman's formation, another verb still, namely, Banah, "to build," is employed. The same general principle is maintained in this narrative as in the first that of closely connecting man with earth and with the whole system of life. The order of arranging the facts, however, is here the converse of the former. In the first, the rise of the animated world is described in a continuous line, with Man for its end or climax. This one has Man for its centre. The other creatures are ranged round him in a circle. So that, not the order or succession of their becoming is the thread of connection, but the relation of living nature, vegetable and animal, to his uses. Thus what is said in this narrative concerning the plant world (chap. ii. ver. 5) has to do only with those forms of vegetation which are subject to his tillage. What is said of the animal world (vers. 19, 20) has reference to man's cognisance of them, and his association with them, rather than to the order or mode of their production. The point of junction is suggested in the evident derivation of his name (ver. 7) " Adam," from Adamah, the ground, out of which he and they are alike formed or kneaded. But in this classic verse, two distinctive features of man's nature are universally allowed to be indicated, and these are the special con- tribution of this second narrative to the topic in hand. " Jahveh Elohim formed man dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" This account of the formation of man's nature on one side, from the earth, makes more emphatic than did the former narrative his kinship with the animals. To this agree other passages of Scripture which speak of man as 3 34 THE BIBLE ACCOUNT OF MAN'S ORIGIN "dust" (aphar, Gen. iii. 19; Eccles. iii. 20, xii. 7) and " clay " (chomer, Job xxxiii. 6) ; as "of the earth, earthy." x Yet even here there is not wanting a note of distinction. "Dust from the ground" may be held to denote not a solid mass, a clod of the earth, but the finest derivative from earthy material. Some exegetes, indeed, hold that not only aphar " dust," but adamah " ground,' and chomer " clay," are special in their meaning in this connection : " red earth," " virgin soil," " potter's clay." At all events, there is suggested in this popular phraseology something akin to what research has made good as to the human frame. 2 The other detail peculiar to this narrative is that into the nostrils of the form so moulded " this quintessence of dust," the Lord God Himself " breathed the breath of life " or " lives," and " man became a living soul," an animated being. In this particular, also, there is some- thing which connects man closely with the rest of animated nature. For although the " breath," or " spirit," with which he is endued is expressed by a word (Neshamah), which does often signify the human spirit, yet it is sometimes (e.g. Gen. vii. 22) used both of men and animals. And the word employed to denote the result of this inbreathing, namely, " a living soul " (Nephesh hayyah) has been used in the former narrative (Gen. i. 30) of all living creatures. For these reasons, we 1 IK yrjs x' t for example, the Bible is marked by quite another kind of exactitude than that of the schools. Indeed, its- purpose requires that its teachings be not cast in the scientific form. According to the Talmudic maxim,. " The expressions used in the law are like the ordinary language of mankind," 2 it may be said of the whole Bible that on all subjects it uses the language of common life, a speech which men in all lands and times can understand. It is one of its divine charac- teristics that by means of such expressions it conveys 1 Magnus Friederich Roos, in his Fundamenta Psychologies ex Sacrd Scripturd Collecta, 1769. See German version by Cremer, p. 4 (Stuttgart, 1857). The whole passage has been freely adapted by Beck in the preface to his own Umriss der biblischen Seelenlehrc. - a De Sola's New Translation of the Sacred Scrip, i. 19 (1844). ITS NATURE AND GROWTH 51 discoveries of human nature which commend them- selves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Yet on these very grounds the exact meaning and consistent use of these expressions demand our closest attention. Again, the psychological ideas of Scripture must be construed by us according to the manner of thought, so far as we can apprehend it, of the writers themselves. Now the writers of the Old Testament, from whom those of the New derive in large part their phraseology, are like the tongue in which they write, non-philoso- phical. Their psychology is not analytic. The whole character of their thinking should warn us against expecting distinctions and divisions of human nature in an abstract form. Their tendency is to the concrete. Their expressions, sensuous and symbolic, are " thrown out " at mental and spiritual ideas. . They use a large variety of terms for the same thing, according as it is viewed from different points or conceived under different emotional impressions. Considering our mental habits of analysis and abstraction, care must be exercised in rendering their terms into modern equivalents which are to have for us any intellectual validity. But to conclude on that account that the expressions do neither justify nor repay accurate study, is to fall into" one of the shallowest blunders of the Eationalistic school. Once more, we shall certainly be wrong if we persist in the old method of taking all parts of Scripture as equally valid for our purpose, and furnishing terms equally pliable and useful. We should thus, repeat the 52 THE BIBLE PSYCHOLOGY- IN GENERAL old error of the proof -text system in theology, namely, that of finding all the doctrines in every part of Scripture alike. 1 We must be prepared to find growth in the use of psychological terms in Scripture, and that from two several causes. Acquaintance with culture outside of the Hebrew nation has left its evident impress on the New Testament writers, and even on the later Old Testament writers as compared with the earlier. There is growth from a more simple and popular to a more complex and philosophical view of man's nature. But the other source of growth is more important. There is a progress in the revelation of which Scripture is the record. The proper influence of this fact upon theology has become an axiom of all enlightened study of that science. The fruits of that influence are already seen in our rapidly multiplying essays in Old and New Testament theology. Its bearing on the study of the sacred languages is also obvious. Kothe has said that " we may appropriately speak of a ' language of the Holy Ghost.' For in the. Bible it is evident that the Divine Spirit at work in revelation has always fashioned for Himself, out of the language of those nationalities in which the revelation had its chosen sphere, an entirely peculiar religious dialect, moulding the linguistic ele- ments w r hich He found to hand, as well as the already existing conceptions, into a form specially suited to His 1 H. Schultz complains of several otherwise meritorious works on Biblical Psychology that they commit the error of regarding the entire biblical writings, without more ado, as material of equal relevancy for the study of man. Alt. T. Thcologie, i. 348. See also Bottcher's remark on Beck: " Nuperrime, subtilius caeteris, nullo tamen aetatis discrimine facto." De Inferis, p. 14 (Dresd., 1845). ITS NATUEE AND GROWTH 53 purpose. Most clearly does the Greek of the New Testament exhibit this process." 1 Cremer, who cites this passage, adds : " The spirit of the language assumes a form adequate to the new views which the Spirit of Christ creates and works." 2 Without attention to this element of progress, it is impossible to construct any adequate biblical psychology. This alone explains the transition from terms in the earlier Scriptures that are rather physical than psychical, to those in the later Scriptures that are more deeply charged with spiritual meaning. A progressive religious revelation is intimately connected with the growth of humanity, casts growing light upon the nature and prospects of man, will there- fore be increasingly rich in statements and expressions bearing upon the knowledge of man himself, and especially of his inner being. It is in the latest records of such a revelation that the terms expressive of the facts and phenomena of man's nature should be correspond- ingly enriched, diversified, and distinguishable in their meaning. Bearing in mind these simple maxims, we proceed to ask, What is the Bible view of man's constitution ? The announcement in Gen. ii. 7 is that which first claims our attention. Into this ground-text of biblical psychology the meaning of the various theories has been read, and round it numberless controversies have raged. The chief of these has been whether the passage, taken along with the allied expressions, entitles us to say that the Bible 1 Zur Dogmatik, pp. 233, 234, 2te Aufl. (Gotha, 1869). 2 Cremer 's Worterbucli der N. T. Grdcitat, Vorrede, p. 5, 4te Aufl. (Gotha, 1886). . ' , . ' 54 THE BIBLE PSYCHOLOGY IN GENERAL views man's nature as dual or tripartite in its consti- tuents. But before discussing the " sufficiently famous " l trichotomy, as it is called, we must meet a question which recent speculation has brought up. Most advocates of a trichotomy of man allow it to be based upon a more radical dichotomy. But the newest question is, whether the Bible necessitates even this whether, in short, we may not interpret its accounts of man's nature on the one substance hypothesis of modern positivism. If any part of Scripture seems in accord with this view, it is the earlier passages of the Old Testament, and pro- minently the one which stands at their head. Let us consider these three questions in order, taking the last first. I. The unity of man's nature, according to Scripture. The meaning of Gen. ii. 7, to a mind unprepossessed with theories, is sublimely simple. It declares that the Lord God formed the man, dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (or " lives "), and man became a living soul. Here are plainly two constituents in the creation : the one from below, dust from the ground ; the other from above, the breath of life at the inspiration of the Almighty. Yet from these two facts results a unit. Man became an animated being. No- thing can be more misleading than to identify " soul " here with what it means in modern speech, or even in later biblical language. " A living soul " is here exactly equivalent to " a creature endowed with life," for the expression in these creation-narratives is used of man and the lower animals in common. " Soul " in the 1 Olshaiisen, Opusc. Theolog, p. 145. MAN'S NATUKE A UNITY 55 primitive Scripture usage means, not the " immaterial rational principle " of the philosophers, but simply life embodied. So that in this primal text the unity of the created product is emphatically expressed, and the sufficient interpretation of the passage is, that. the divine inspiration awakes the already kneaded clay into a living human being. 1 Here is an account of man's origin fitted to exclude certain dualistic views of his nature with which the religion of revelation had to contend. 2 Whether, indeed, the formation of his frame and the in-breathing of his life be taken as successive or as simultaneous moments in the process of his creation, the description is exactly fitted to exclude that priority of the soul which was necessary to the transmigration taught by Oriental religions, and to the pre-existence theory of the Greek schools. There is here no postponement or degradation of the earthly frame in favour of the soul, as if the latter were the man, and the former were only the prison- house into which he was sent, or the husk in which he was for a time concealed. According to the account in this text, the synthesis of two factors, alike honourable, constitutes the man. That neither the familiar antithesis, soul and body, nor any other pair of expressions by which we commonly render the dual elements in human nature, should ex- pressly occur in this locus classicus, is a fact which may help to fix attention on the real character of the earlier 1 Cf. Ezekiel's resurrection-vision (chap, xxxvii. ), where there is first, the reconstruction of the animal frame, bones, sinews, flesh, skin ; and only after this the " Breath " comes into them, and they live. 2 "It directly contradicts the doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul." Schultz, O.T. Theology, ii. 252 (Clark, Edin., 1892). 1>"6 THE BIBLE PSYCHOLOGY IN GENERAL Old Testament descriptions of man. The fact is not explained merely by the absence of analysis. Eather is it characteristic of these Scriptures to assert the solidarity of man's constitution, that human individuality is of one piece, and is not composed of separate or inde- pendent parts. This assertion is essential to the theology of the whole Bible to its discovery of human sin and of a divine salvation. In a way quite unperceived by many believers in the doctrines, this idea of the unity of man's nature binds into strictest consistency the Scrip- ture account of his creation, the story of his fall, the character of redemption, and all the leading features in the working out of his actual recovery from his regenera- tion to his resurrection. All this, however, will not avail those who wish to identify the Bible view of man with that of the positive, or monistic philosophy. With some recent writers on Bible psychology it is a favourite assertion that the Bible treats humanity as an integer ; that man is the true monad ; that in the language of Scripture and of early Christian writers the soul is not the man, and the body is not the man, but man is the tertium quid result- ing from their union. There is a sense in which these statements are correct. But they bring no support to the one-substance theory. To say that the Bible lan- guage on this point " agrees in an unexpected manner with the deductions of recent science/' l is at the best only to overrate the accidental agreement of non-analytic language with the terms of a false analysis. To go farther, and say that the Bible has no notion of a 1 Rev. Edward White, Life in Christ, p. 94. MAN'S NATUKE A UNITY 57 separable soul and spirit in man, that it regards death as the destruction of the man, is to place oneself in hopeless antagonism to the facts. The Bible, which regards man as possessed of a dual constitution, com- posed of a higher and a lower element, God-given and earth-derived, attaches the personality to the higher, and views human beings as capable of existence apart from their present visible corporeity. When, however, the assertions above referred to are intended to bring out the Bible view of the oneness of man's nature, they are fitted to do good service. It is certain that the Bible mode of speaking of man's nature differs essentially from much of the language which an alien philosophy has imposed upon religion. To speak so exclusively of " the soul " as has been so long the practice in religious and moral teach- ing, is to show much disregard of man's position in the world, and strange inattention to the language of Scrip- ture. It seems to have been forgotten that man's one though complex nature is to be his nature for ever. The Bible never loses sight of this, nor overlooks the place of the body. According to it, man's creation begins with the formation of the body, his salvation is crowned with its redemption. 1 From this great first text which describes man's original constitution, through those pass- ages which speak of his dominion over earth and the creatures, in all those which represent work done through the agency of the body as divine service and human victory, onward to those which represent the redemption of the body as the climax of salvation, it is evident that 1 See remarks on Ps. xvi. , by the late Professor "VV. Robertson Smith, in Expositor, Nov. 1876." 58 THE BIBLE PSYCHOLOGY IN GENERAL the Bible system of religion is based upon the unity of man's nature. It is therefore quite just to regard all attempts in philosophy and in science to appreciate the real unity of our nature as in the proper sense a return to truth, and an agreement with Scripture. " This harmony between the outer and the inner man," says Mr. Heard," l " the interdependence of sense on thought and thought on sense, is the point on which our soundest physiologists are advancing every day. Discarding the old mate- rialism, which made thought a secretion of the brain or blood, and the old spiritualism, which taught that the spirit of man was probably that of some fallen demon imprisoned for a while in flesh, we are advancing in the right direction when we maintain the separate existence of the mind and body, and yet regard the former as per- fectly pervading the latter, nay, as being the formative principle by which it is constructed and adapted to our nature and use. The goal to which modern research is tending is the point where the old dualism between mind and body will not disappear, but combine instead under some higher law of unity which we have not as yet grasped. Physiology and psychology will not stand contrasted then as they do now, but rather appear as the two sides of the same thing seen in its outward and inward aspect. The resurrection of the body, which at present is a stumbling-block to the spiritualists and foolishness to materialists, will then be found to be the wisdom of God as well as the power of God, and so the Scripture intimations of the unity of man's 1 Tripartite Nature of Man, 5th Edition, p. 84 (Clark, Edin., 1882). THE SCRIPTURAL DUALITY 5 9 true nature in one person will be abundantly vin- dicated." II. The duality of human nature, however, is as clearly expressed in Scripture, in another aspect, as the unity of his being is conserved in the former. But let us carefully note how these dual elements are conceived of and set forth. The anthropology of the Greek, and of some other ethnic schools, rested on a dualistic scheme of the universe. Soul and body, mind and matter, were the representatives in man of contrary opposites in the nature of things. For them, man, so far from being a unity, \vas a paradox a mirror in little, of that universe at large, in which God and the world, the real and the phenomenal, were eternal opposites. But the Bible philosophy of God, of the world, and of man, rests on its grand and simple idea of creation proper an idea so familiar to us that we forget how originally and essenti- ally biblical it is. Its simplicity must by no means lead us to confound it with the pantheistic doctrine of emanation ; for not out of God's own essence or nature, but as the creation of His expressed free will, do all things arise. As little is its duality to be confounded with the dualism of the ethnic systems, acording to which the world is not created, but only framed or fashioned, and exists therefore eternally in contradis- tinction and counterpoise to the framer of it. A duality, however, in the Bible philosophy there is. In that sublime revelation of all things as the result of free will and word in God, " He spake, and it was done," it is plain that the things made, good and perfect though they are, stand in a line apart from and beneath their bO THE BIBLE PSYCHOLOGY IN GENERAL Maker. This primal and fundamental antithesis runs through all Bible thought, antithesis of the Creator and the creature, the infinite and the finite, the invisible and the visible. This prepares us for the duality of terms in which the ground-text (Gen. ii. 7) describes the origination of man's nature. It pointedly presents two aspects of it, the earthly and the super-earthly, that, on the one side, which allies man to the animal creation, namely, that like the lower animals he is formed from the ground ; this, on the other, which represents man alone as receiving his life by the immediate in-breathing of the Lord God. We shall import into the passage a later meaning if we insist on these contrasted aspects as a material and an immaterial element in the modern sense of the terms, if we identify the duality off-hand with that of body and soul, much more if, led away by mere verbal parallelism (aphar, nephesh, neshamah), we read into it the later trichotomy of body, soul, and spirit. The antithesis is clearly that of lower and higher, earthly and heavenly, animal and divine. It is not so much two elements, as two factors uniting in a single and harmonious result, " man became a living soul." Here, then, we have a dichotomy no doubt substantially agreeing with that which has been current wherever man analyses his own nature, but depending upon an antithesis native to the Scrip- tures. If we neglect this antithesis, if we identify it at once with the later philosophical contrast between matter and -mind, we shall miss the special light which it is fitted to throw upon the Scripture doctrine of man. The pervading dual conception of man in the Old THE SCRIPTURAL DUALITY 61- Testament, beginning from this account of his- creation, is that he is alternately viewed as fading flesh on his earthly side, and on the other as upheld by the Spirit of the Almighty ; but this contrast of flesh and spirit is primarily that of the animal and the divine in man's first constitution. It is not to be identified with the analysis of man's nature into a material and an imma- terial element. The antithesis soul and body in its modern, or even in its New Testament sense, is, strictly speaking, not found at all in the Old Testament. Early biblical usage had no fixed term for the human body as a living organism. An assemblage and alternation of terms were employed, such as " trunk," " bones," " belly," " flesh " ; the last by far the most common, perhaps because it supplies form and colour to the body. In later Old Testament writings, we have such metaphorical expres- sions as " houses of clay," l or, as in the post-biblical writings, " earthly tabernacle." 2 In the latest, we have words which suggest a hollow, a frame-work, or a sheath, favouring the Greek idea of the body as the husk or clothing of the soul. 3 As little was there at first a fixed term for the inner or higher part of man's twofold nature. " Soul," " heart," " spirit," are each used upon occasion as the counterpart of the lower, and as together with it> making up the whole man. 4 Thus " soul " and " flesh " are used in 1 Job iv. 19. 2 Sap. Salom. ix. 15. 3 G-uphah, 1 Chron. x. 12 (for a corpse) ; Geshem and Nidneh, found in Dan. iv. 33, v. 21, vii. 15, are Chaldee words, the latter meaning literally the sheath of a sword. 4 The original terms are Nephesh, Lebhabh, Ruacli; and for "flesh," JBasar. 62 THE BIBLE PSYCHOLOGY IN GENERAL combination, e.g. " My soul thirsteth for Thee, and my flesh longeth for Thee" (Ps. Ixiii. 1); "My flesh in my teeth, and my lif e (soul) in my hand " (Job. xiii. 1 4) ; " His flesh hath pain and his soul mourneth" (Job xiv. 22). A land entirely stripped of its trees and of its crops is said to be consumed " soul and body " (lit. " flesh," Isa. x. 18). Equally characteristic is the conjunction of " flesh " with " heart " for the whole human being. Aliens wholly unfit for God's service are described as " uncircumcised in heart and in flesh " (Ezek. xliv. 7,9). The man whose whole being is given to pleasure " searches in his heart how to cheer his flesh " (Eccles. ii. 3). " Remove sorrow from thy heart and put away evil from thy flesh" (Eccles. xi. 10). The summum bonum of human life is when " a sound heart is the life of the flesh " (Prov. xiv. 30), an expression reminding one of the classic, mens sana in corpore sano. This dualism of the Old Testament is clinched in the memorable descrip- tion of its final form " when the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit to God who gave it" (Eccles. xii. 7). The distribution of parts, however, is not invariably nor rigidly dualistic. For, along with such as those now quoted, we have also various trinal phrases, e.g. " My soul longeth ... for the courts of the Lord : my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God " (Ps. Ixxxiv. 2) ; " My heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth ; my flesh also- shall rest in hope" (Ps. xvi. 9);' "Mine eye is consumed with grief, yea my soul and my belly " (Ps. xxxi. 9). Yet, dual or trinal though the terms may be, the intention is to express, in man, the inner and the THE SCRIPTURAL DUALITY 63 outer, the higher and the lower, the animating and the animated, all resting upon the primal contrast of what is earth-derived, with what is God-inbreathed. So soon as we pass to the New Testament, w T e come upon those antithetic expressions which we ourselves familiarly use, soul and body, flesh and spirit, Greek words moulded by Greek thought, but still derived directly from the Septuagint, used therefore with their Old Testament force, rather than with any reference to the philosophical analysis of the Greek schools. We are sometimes told, in this connection, that the antithesis of material and immaterial was not developed till late in the progress of thought ; that the ancients, and even the Fathers of the Christian Church, had no notion of an immaterial essence ; that the soul was to them a gas, a finer kind of matter than the body, but matter still. Dr. Bain, on the ground that the " sole theory of mind and body existing in the lower stages of culture is a double materialism," holds that this was the prevailing tenet even in the Christian Church dow T n to the fifth century. He asserts that though a beginning for the notion of the immaterial or spiritual had been made in the Greek schools, it " received no aid either from Judaism or Christianity." 1 Such writers as Liidemann, Holsten, and Pfleiderer try to force the same construction even upon S. Paul's psychology. The Pauline pneuma, they tell us, implies a conception of material substance, of a non-earthly sort, " a transcendent physical essence, a supersensuous kind of matter, which 1 Mind and Body^ pp. 143-158, by Prof. Alex. Bain, of Aberdeen (1876). 64 THE BIBLE PSYCHOLOGY IN GENERAL is the opposite of the earthly, sensuous materiality of the sarx." l Now we are not concerned to defend the Christian Fathers on such a point. Many of them had been pagans before their conversion, and carried with them into Christianity the crudeness of pagan philosophy, instead of the purer psychological ideas of the Old Testament. So far as the Pauline passages are concerned, it is enough to refer to Wendt's convincing demonstra- tion, on exegetical grounds, that the " pneumatic " in these places means not a special kind of substance, but that which is animated by the Pneuma, i.e. by a newly infused principle of divine life. 2 In regard to the biblical dualism generally, and that of the Old Testament in particular, the statements above quoted are singularly beside the mark. That dualism we certainly distinguish from the philosophical one of material and immaterial. But instead of being, therefore, a lower conception, like that of the ethnic peoples, it is other, because in a sense higher. If we grasp the notion of the Bible antithesis between the earthly and the super-earthly in man, if we note how it rests upon his unique origin as there revealed, we shall know how to account for the absence from the earlier Scriptures of the Greek antithesis between matter and mind, and see how this other supplied its place. Its motive, indeed, was religious, rather than philosophical. Spirit and spiritual, as thus 1 Pfleiderer, Paulinism, i. 201, Transl. 2 Wendt Die Bcgri/e Fleisch und Geist im Mblischen Sprachgebrauch, pp. 139-142. Cf. Dr. Dickson's summary of Wendt's argument in Appendix to his Baird Lecture, St. Paul's Use of Flesh and Spirit (Glasgow, 1883). . THE SCRIPTURAL DUALITY 65 contrasted with flesh and earthly, is not an antithesis of substances, rather of origin and force. It is not the pitting against each other of two sorts of material, a lower and a higher, a coarser and a finer. Neither is it, in point of form, the antithesis of the corporeal and the incorporeal, though it may nearly agree with that in fact. Yet it does not follow that this religious duality of the ancient Scriptures had no influence in forming the philosophical conception of immateriality which now rules all our thinking. The Old Testament conception of God is really that of " spirit " in the highest sense of the term, that of the illocal, impalpable, immaterial, " without body, parts, or passions," while it rises above even this in its further idea of Him as living, intelligent, transcendent, and absolute Personality. Nothing but wanton disregard of fact is shown in saying that Old Testament religion contributed nothing to the meta- physical idea of " spiritual substance as recognised by us." l The grandeur of its conception of God speaks for itself. The idea of God as one of whom His worshippers saw no similitude, of whom they were to make no likeness, who has no image but that which He Himself has formed in his intelligent offspring, whom no temple could contain, and who is to be worshipped everywhere in spirit and in truth, this surely has done much to ripen a notion of immateriality which coincides with our highest intellectual conceptions, and rises to the dignity of our purest moral ideals. 1 Bain, ut &upra. CHAPTEE IV THE TRIPARTITE VIEWS EXAMINED HAVING considered the Unity which Scripture attributes to the human constitution, and the dual elements acknowledged by it, in common with almost all human psychologies, we have now to inquire whether this duality has to be further modified in favour of a three- fold division of man's nature. Here, as before, every- thing turns on interpretation of terms. There is a pair of expressions for the inner or higher part of man's nature which occurs plentifully in the Old Testament, as Nephesh and Ruach, in the Greek Scriptures as Psyche and Pneuma, in the modern languages as Seele and Geist, SOUL and SPIRIT. The distinction implied in this usage may be said to be the crux of biblical psychology. The controversy concerning it has been, not unnaturally, though rather unfairly, identified with that concerning the possibility of a Bible psychology at all. On the other hand, the revival of this whole science in recent times is coincident with the recal of attention to the fact of a distinction in Scripture between these two terms. The real controversy, however, concerns the precise force of that distinction. Does it indicate two separable natures, so that, with the corporeal presupposed, man may be said to be of Tripartite Nature ? Or, is it HISTORY OF THE TRICHOTOMY 67 rather such a view of the inner nature of man as sunders that nature into two functions or faculties ? Or, finally, is it a nomenclature to be explained and accounted for on prin- ciples entirely peculiar to the biblical writings ? We shall here sketch the theory of Tripartition, and in next chapter point out the historical explanation of the scriptural usage. I. THE THEORETICAL CONSTRUCTIONS. The Trichotomy of body, soul, and spirit held an important place in the theology of some of the Greek Christian Fathers ; but, in consequence of its seeming bias towards a Platonic doctrine of the soul and of evil, still more because of its use by Apollinaris to underprop grave heresy as to the Person of Christ, it fell into disfavour, and may be said to have been discarded from the time of Augustine till its revival within a quite modern period. It has recently received the support, or, at least, the favourable consideration, of a respectable school of evangelical thinkers on the continent, represented by such names as those of Eoos, Olshausen, Beck, Delitzsch, Auberlen, and Oehler. In our own country, such writers as Alford, Ellicott, Liddon, and Lightfoot fully recognise the impor- tance of the Trichotomic usage in Scripture, but none of them has investigated its real meaning. Most of them adopt the mistaken interpretation that the distinction between soul and spirit is that between a lower and a higher essence or nature, and accordingly lean to the foregone conclusion of this exegesis, namely, that Scrip- ture is committed to the affirmation of a tripartite nature in man. Yet their utterances on this point are little more than obiter dicta. Not one of these authors has seriously or consistently taken up this peculiar psycho- 68 THE TKIPAETITE VIEWS EXAMINED logy. There exists among us a small school of writers who have done so. Their leading representative is Mr. J. B. Heard, whose Tripartite Nature of Man has now been before the public for some considerable time. 1 This psychology has been largely adopted by those who maintain the peculiar eschatological position known as that of Conditional Immortality, although Mr. Edward White, the main exponent of this view, makes compara- tively little of the Trichotomy. That it has furnished a favourite scheme of thought for mystics and sectaries has not helped its fair investigation in our theological schools. The pretension put forth for it by some of its votaries, that as a theological panacea it would heal the strife of centuries, has had the effect on the professional mind which is always produced by the advertisement of a quack remedy, not without that other effect on the common apprehension that, after all, there is probably something in it. Its crudest and most frequently quoted form is that which, taking body for the material part of our constitution, makes soul stand for the principle of animal life, and spirit for the rational and immortal nature. This is plainly not the construction which any tolerable interpretation can put upon the Scripture passages, though it is often presented in popular writing as an account of the Trichotomy. It is not unusual, indeed, to identify the whole topic with this boldly unscientific statement. 2 But such a tripartition can hardly be 1 Fifth edition (T. & T. Clark, Edin., 1882). See also his Old and New Theology, and his Hulsean Lecture of 1892-93, Alexandrian and Cartha- ginian Theology Contrasted. 2 E.g. Dr. Charles Hodge's account of the Trichotomy consists in so describing it. His refutation of it as unbiblical would accordingly be ROOS AND OLSHAUSEN 69 attributed to any theologian of repute. The views of most of those named above are greatly more creditable attempts to frame a theory which will cover the biblical use of the terms. Let us briefly examine them. Divergence from the track of valid biblical science may be measured by the degree in which a real Trichotomic usage in Scripture has been mistaken for the assertion of a tripartite nature. M. F. Eoos (1769), already alluded to as the pioneer of this inquiry, has wholly avoided this error. He distinguishes the terms soul and spirit in their natural sense, and has carefully marked the spiritual import of their contrasted usage in the Pauline Scriptures. But he goes no farther. 1 Olshausen, the well-known commentator, in an academic address (1825), entitled "The Trichotomy of Human Nature adopted by New Testament Writers," takes the position so largely followed of distinguishing pneuma and psyche as higher and lower powers, though not without a glimpse of the real distinction. The leading sentence usually quoted from him is to this effect : " Pneuma signifies the power in man, superior, active, and governing, though it indicates, at the same time, man's divine origination. Psyche, again, signifies the inferior power which is acted on, moved, and held in check ; for it is thought of as placed midway between an earthly force and a heavenly one." 2 Delitzsch holds both a dual and a trinal division of human nature to be scriptural. He contends for entirely successful, if this were the only thing to be discussed. See Systematic Theology, ii. pp. 47-49. 1 See especially pp. 41, 42, 53-62 of his work, as cited above. 2 P. 154 of his Opuscula Theologica (Berlin, 1834). 70 THE TRIPARTITE VIEWS EXAMINED three distinct or essential elements in man soul and spirit, though not distinct natures, being nevertheless separable elements of the inner man, and these such as to be substantially distinguished. 1 This position Delitzsch thinks of such cardinal importance to his system that he signalises it thus : " The key of biblical psychology lies in the solution of the enigma : How is it to be conceived that spirit and soul can be of one nature and yet of distinct substance ? When once I was enlightened upon this enigma, my confused materials for a biblical psychology formed themselves, as if spontaneously, into a systematic whole." 2 This light he endeavours to convey to his readers, thus : " Soul and spirit are of one nature but of distinct substance . . . as the Son and the Spirit in the blessed Trinity are of one nature with the Father, but still not the same hypostases. The soul is related to the spirit, as the life to the principle of Life, and as the effect to that which produces it ; as the brute soul is related to the absolute spirit which brooded over the waters of chaos." 3 He quotes from Justin that as the body is the house of the soul, so the soul is the house of the spirit; from Irenseus, that the soul is the tabernacle of the spirit ; but his main and favourite analogy is that the human soul is related to the human spirit, as the divine Doxa is related to the triune divine nature. The spirit is the in-breathing of the Godhead, the soul is the out- breathing of the spirit. The spirit is spiritus spiratus, and, as spiritus spirans, endows the body with soul. 1 System der biblischen Psychologic, 2te Aufl. pp. 90-92 (Leipzig, 1861). 2 Ibid. Vorrede, p. 5. 3 Ibid. p. 96. DELITZSCH'S VIEW 71 The spirit is the internal of the soul, the soul is the external of the spirit. In the Old Testament the soul is also called simply " the glory " (Chavod), 1 for the spirit is the imago of the triune Godhead, but the soul is the copy of this image, and relates itself to the spirit as the "seven spirits" (Eev. iv. 5) are related to the Spirit of God. 2 So much for his explanations and analogies. The main proofs he adduces for a scriptural trichotomy in the sense now explained are the two classic passages, 1 Thess. v. 23 and Heb. iv. 12. On the first of these, he virtually gives up the tripartite view. " If any one prefers to say that by pneuma and psyche the apostle is distinguishing the internal condition of man's life, and especially of the Christian's life in respect of two several relations, even this would not be untrue. For the three constituents of our nature, which he distinguishes, are in no wise three essentially distinct things. Either spirit and soul, or soul and body, belong to one another, as of like nature, and the apostle's view is thus, in the final result, certainly dichotomic. Yet it would scarcely be consistent to attribute to him the meaning that spirit and soul are only two several relations of that essentially similar inner nature, and not two distinct constituents. It is certain that Paul distinguishes three constituents of man's nature, to each of which, in its way, the work of sanctifying grace extends." 3 On Heb. iv. 12, he makes the exegetically happy suggestion that there is 1 Gen. xlix. 6 ; Ps. vii. 6, xvi. 9, xxx. 13, Ivii. 9, cviii. 2 (orig.). 2 Pp. 97, 98 otBibl. Psych., or pp. 117, 119 of Clark's Transl. 3 Ibid. p. 91 ; cf. Transl. p. 110. 72 THE TRIPARTITE VIEWS EXAMINED a parallel in the passage between the sensuous and the supersensuous in man, and that both are here repre- sented as bipartite ; " soul and spirit," in the one standing, over against "joints and marrow," in the other. "I maintain," he says, referring the reader to his commentary, in loc., " that the writer ascribes to the word of God a dividing activity of an ethical sort which extends to the whole spiritual-psychical, and corporeal constitution of man ; and that he regards as bipartite the unseen and supersensible constituent, as well as that which is sensuous and apparent to the senses, inasmuch as he distinguishes soul from spirit in the former, and in the latter, ' the joints,' which minister to the life of motion, from ' the marrow,' which ministers to that of sensation." 1 Clearly this exegesis favours the conclusion that soul and spirit are two several functions or aspects of the inner life of man, as the organs of motion and sensation are distinguishable parts of his corporeal being, but not distinct natures. Delitzsch has thus declared himself against the Tripartite theory. He even goes further, and guards against the current mis- apprehension that soul and spirit are intended to represent lower and higher divisions of the mental faculties. " The distinction," he says, " of so-called higher and lower powers of the soul has, no doubt, its substantial truth, witnessed for also by Scripture ; but, for the rest, the false trichotomy consists exactly in that way of distinguishing soul and spirit, which refers these two to distinct departments of being. There is no special need of a refutation of this trichotomy from 1 BibL Psych., p. 92 ; Transl. p. 111. DELITZSCH'S VIEW 73 Scripture, for it is absolutely incapable of being estab- lished on scriptural authority. Since psyche, according to the usus loquendi of all the Bible books, frequently denotes the entire inward nature of man ; frequently, also, the ' person ' designated according to the whole inner and outer life ; since it oftener says that man consists of body and soul, than that he consists of body and spirit, the soul (in the Bible sense of the word) cannot possibly belong to the nature-side of man as a thing of distinct essence of the spirit. . . . We maintain the dualism of nature and spirit as strenuously as we maintain the dualism of God and the world, and accor- dingly regard the body and the spirit of man as being of distinct natures. But the soul belongs to the side of the spirit. To maintain an essential distinction between a human nature-soul and the thinking human spirit is a construction contrary to Scripture and to experience." 1 All this is clear and convincing. How the author reconciles it with his repeated assertion that soul and spirit, though of one nature, are yet distinct substances, it is not for us to say. The late Dr. J. T. Beck, of Tubingen, was much earlier in this field than Delitzsch, the substance of his treatise Outlines of Biblical Psychology having been delivered to a semi-academic audience more than fifty years ago. The work, rendered accessible in English so late as 1877, appears to have undergone very little modification since its first issue in 1843. It abounds in subtle and original remarks. The exegesis is keen and accurate ; but the 1 Bibl. Psych., pp. 93, 94; cf. Transl. pp. 113, 114 (which, however, requires frequent correction). 74 THE TRIPAETITE VIEWS EXAMINED historical method of treating Scripture and its ideas is entirely disregarded. The Bible is throughout quoted as if the whole had been written contemporaneously, and as if every text, in which a psychological word occurs, bore with equal directness on the nature of the soul. He, like Delitzsch, feels that the Scripture view of man's nature is at root dichotomic, but his account of the tri- partite usage is clearer and more attractive. Man is, according to him, made up of " body " and " spirit," but the unity or personality thus formed is in the Bible designated by " soul." The following paragraphs give his view in brief : Body and spirit are the two radically distinct elements or principles. Soul is that which unifies them : derived from the inbreathing of the spirit, formed by the union of the breath of God's Spirit with the body (Gen. ii. 7), it yet constitutes, or is identical with the human personality. Man is soul ; he possesses body and spirit. " So even for the individual life, spirit forms the principle and the power by which life persists ; soul forms the seat, guide, and holder of it, while body is its vessel and organ. The three are specifically different, but they exist only in connection with one another. The proper foundation of human nature, formed as it is out of spirit and earth, the Ego or Subject in the strict sense of the word, is the soul, which connects the inward vital power of the spirit with the outward vital organ of the body, forming the two into one living individuality." 1 Again : " The soul has the spirit in and above it, the body by and about it, Thus there is a double i Umriss der bibl. Seclenlehre, p. 35. BECK AND OEHLER YO sphere of life and activity (a spiritual and a corporeal) existing together in one organism and in one economy. This indicates a point of unity, as the life-centre which forms a meeting-place and source for the life-streams as they flow from within outwards, and from without in- wards, in their fulness and force, both spiritual and cor- poreal. From this function, the centre-point has its significance and its special organic property. This office Scripture ascribes to the heart." 1 Similarly, Oehler speaks, and with still greater distinctness : " In the soul which sprang from the spirit and exists continually through it, lies the individuality in the case of man his personality, his self, his Ego ; because man is not Ruach (spirit), but lias it, he is Soul. . . . From all it is clear that the Old Testament does not teach a tricho- tomy of the human being, in the sense of body, soul, and spirit being originally three co-ordinate elements of man ; rather the whole man is included in the Basar (flesh) and Nephesh (soul) which spring from the union of the Ruach with matter. The Ruach forms partly the sub- stance of the soul individualised in it, and partly, after the soul is established, the power and endowments which flow into it and can be withdrawn from it." 2 It is plain, then, that even defenders of a biblical trichotomy so strenuous as Beck and Delitzsch do not understand it to imply a tripartite nature. It is not two separate inner natures or essentially distinct life-principles that they find in soul and spirit. " We thoroughly agree," 1 Umriss der bibl. Seelenlehre, p. 70. 2 Theology of the Old Testament, vol. i. pp. 218, 219 (Clark, Edin., 1874). 76 THE TRIPARTITE VIEWS EXAMINED says Delitzsch, " in this respect with Aquinas, when he declares it to be impossible that in one man there can be several essentially different souls. There is one only which discharges the function of growth, sensation, and intellect." l Thus their position does not practically differ from that of the large number of writers, both in this country and on the Continent, who understand the biblical distinction between soul and spirit as expressing two aspects or functions of man's one inward nature. As has been already indicated, the writers who in this country entirely carry out the Tripartite scheme of inter- pretation are neither many nor of great weight. Their contention is, moreover, connected with certain theologi- cal views which they seek to ground on their peculiar exegesis. This theology will call for remark at several points of our subsequent discussion. Here it is relevant to give a brief account, once for all, of their scheme, drawn chiefly from the work of Mr. Heard, a book abounding in vigorous .strokes of thought, and of con- siderable value on one important aspect of our theme, notwithstanding the extremeness of the thesis which it seeks to maintain. This author claims that " the tricho- tomy of human nature into spirit, soul, and body is part of that wisdom ' hidden ' from man, till it was taught us by God in His Word." 2 He claims further to have made out from Scripture, that the trichotomy amounts to a divine discovery that " Man is a tripartite hypostasis a union of three, not of two natures only." 3 With this simple key l\e proposes to unlock the main positions of 1 Quoted, BiU. Psych, p. 94. 2 Tripartite Nature (Preface), p. 10. 3 Ibid. (Summary), p. 388. HEARD S VIEW 77 Scripture as to man's Original Standing, the Fall, Ee- generation, the Intermediate State, and the Future Glory. Out of the union of three natures in one person result two tendencies, the flesh and the spirit. " Soul," the union point between " spirit " and " body," was created free to choose to which of these two opposite poles it would be attracted. The equilibrium between flesh and spirit is the state in which man was created, and which he lost by the fall. Adam was created innocent and capable of becoming holy, endowed with inherent capaci- ties for becoming spiritual, capable of becoming pneunia- tical through the native powers of the pneuma. This was the sense in 'which man was made in the divine image. The fall was an inclination given to the whole nature of Adam in the direction of the flesh, by which the spirit or image of God was deadened in him ; and this bias to evil descends to his posterity. There is also transmitted the germ or remains of the fallen pneuma (variously described by our author as a dead organ, a rudimentary organ without corresponding function, or a bare spiritual capacity) ; an integral part of man's nature which could not be destroyed by the fall, and which still makes itself felt as conscience. It is proposed by this theory to resolve the quarrel of fourteen centuries' standing be- tween the Augustinian and Pelagian view of man's present natural state. It proposes a return to the posi- tion on this subject said to have been held by the Greek Fathers in consequence of their attending to the distinc- tion between pneuma and psyche a position lost to Latin 78 THE TKIPAETITE VIEWS EXAMINED theology by the obliteration of the distinction, and which the Eeformers, Lutheran and Calvinistic alike, failed to restore. Any account of original sin from a dichotomic point of view is held to make more difficulties than it solves. Upon the bipartite hypothesis of man's being, if original sin be something positive, it must be a trans- mitted virus, which, like a physical disease, should either have worn itself out or should wear out the race. The reductio ad absurdum of the Augustinian position was the view of Flacius Illyricus that original sin corrupted the nature of the soul. The negative or privative idea of birth-sin is quite sufficient to explain the facts of the case, but still only upon the tripartite view of man. For the privative idea when applied on a bipartite psychology results in the utterly insufficient theory of the Pelagian. A far more serious defect, than Pelagians allow, can alone account for the facts of human nature as we see them ; that is, the defect of the pneuma. When Adam fell, God withdrew from him the presence of His Holy Spirit, and thus the pneuma fell back into a dim and depraved state of conscience toward G-od. We need not suppose more than this fatal defect allowed to con- tinue, and Adam to propagate a race under the unspiri- tual condition into which he had fallen, and we have enough to account for the condition of man as we see him now. Original sin is by the help of this psychology seen to be privative only, but so serious in its privation as defect of the regulative or sovereign pneuma a defect which sufficiently accounts for universal depravity. This dormant existence of the pneuma in the natural man is further insisted on as giving us assurance of the HEAKD'S VIEW 79 possibility of regeneration or conversion, and insight into its method. Were the pneuma in man supreme, as by his constitution it ought to be, there would be no need of regeneration. As Butler says of it under the name of conscience, " had it power as it had manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world " ; on the other hand, were it wholly obliterated, regeneration would be impossible. Men would be beyond the reach of redemp- tion, as devils are with reason supposed to be. Thus the rudimentary existence of the pneuma in all men in their unconverted state is the ground of the possibility of their recovery by grace. In the same way this theory sug- gests the possibility and mode of sanctification. The Evangelical view of fallen human nature is said to land in a dilemma those who hold man as a compound of soul and body only. For if the immaterial nature of man is wholly corrupt, desperately wicked, and that nature is a unit, no nidus in human nature is reserved into which the Divine Spirit can descend and purify all within. How can a good thing come out of an evil ? Upon this view the heart is desperately wicked, and remains so, even in the regenerate, who nevertheless are led by the Spirit of God, and walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. How this can be is as unexplained as how a deaf man can hear, or a lame man can walk. Let but the distinction between psyche and pneuma be seen, and all is clear and consistent. The pysche is like the flesh prone to evil, and remains so even in the regenerate. But the pneuma the G-od-like in man is not prone to evil, indeed it cannot sin. Its tendency is naturally up- wards to God. Eegeneration, then, is the quickening of 80 THE TRIPARTITE VIEWS EXAMINED this pneuma. Sanctification is the carrying on of that which conversion began. Conversion may be dated either from the first moment of conviction by the law (Eom. vii. 9), or from the time when the pneuma is practically acknowledged to be the master principle, and our mem- bers are yielded as instruments of righteousness unto God. The gradual character of sanctification and the conflict implied in it thus explains itself. It is the working out of that which was begun at conversion, The seminal principle, then quickened, grows and asserts its presence by asserting its mastery over the lower part of our nature, until the true harmony of man's constitu- tion, spirit, soul, and body, overturned by the fall, is completely restored. When it enters on questions connected with the future life, this tripartite theory breaks up in confusion. Its supporters are hopelessly divided among themselves. Mr. Heard treats the moral and metaphysical arguments for a future life with respect. He considers them to be presumptions, and presages rather than proofs, intima- tions more than arguments. But to Mr. Edward White, 1 the doctrine of the soul's immortality is the root of all evil in theology. Since the Fall, man naturally goes to nothing at death. Mr. Heard knows that when the early Fathers speak of the mortality of the psyche, they may fairly be taken " to mean no more than this, that the existence of the wicked in the place of punishment depends on the appointment of God, not on the necessary immortality of the soul." Of the soul as the seat of self- consciousness, he will affirm neither mortality nor iminor- 1 Life in Christ, 3rd Edition (Elliot Stock, 1878). EDWARD WHITE'S VIEW 81 tality. He thinks the soul or self -consciousness can only exist through its union with the spirit or God-conscious- ness, so that the proof of the life everlasting must rest, not on the argument for the natural immortality of the psyche (who argues for this ?), but on the gift of eternal life to the pneuma, when quickened and renewed in the image of God. But he admits that there may be an evil-possessed pneuma in man as well as a divinely quickened pneuma. The duration of punishment and malignity of evil must bear some proportion to each other. So far, therefore, from denying eternal punish- ment, he declares that Universalism seems to shut its eyes to all those passages which speak of spiritual wickedness. He wishes to discover some middle truth between the Augustinian theory of a massa perditionis, the undistinguishable misery of all out of Christ, and the Universalist doctrine that all punishment is remedial. He concludes with Bengel that the doctrine of final retribution is not one fit for discussion. All this is treated in a much less tentative way by Mr. White. Having started with the proposition that the Fall changed man's constitution to one perishable at death, like the lower animals ; having set out with the bold general denial of man's natural immortality, and yet being loyal enough to Scripture to preach judgment to come for all mankind, he is in sore straits to find a ground for the survival of the impenitent. For the eternal life of the saved he finds sufficient ground in their union to Christ, the act of regeneration having changed their constitution from mortality to immor- tality. But for the rest, he is compelled to say that it 6 82 THE TRIPARTITE VIEWS EXAMINED is the incarnation and work of the Eedeemer which secures their reservation to future punishment, though there is for them no continuous or immortal existence in the world to come. Some disciples of the school seem to imagine that the trichotomy affords ground for a solu- tion of the terrible problem. They apply it in a very crude and simple fashion. Since natural men have only the psyche, and since the pneuma is added or bestowed only in regeneration, immortal existence belongs to those alone who are possessed of the pneuma. All others by and by pass into nothing by the very law of their nature. But this denial of the pneuma altogether, as an element of being, to natural men, this addition of it as a faculty in the case of the regenerate, this attempt, in short, to construct an eschatology out-of-hand, upon the basis of the tripartite theory, is too obviously irreconcilable with fidelity to Scripture to command the support of the present leader of the school. He is aiming at the same conclusion, namely, that none but those who are in Christ live for ever. But he cannot be content so to snatch at it. How little Mr. White really makes of the trichotomy will be seen in his succinct and fair statement of the question at pp. 274279 of his Life in Christ. He sees clearly that no ontological distinction is implied in the difference between psyche and pneuma ; consequently he is shut up to assume that by the pneuma in regeneration our Lord meant the " spiritual and eternal life secured by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not the addition of a wholly new faculty to humanity." The great fault of this scheme of thought is that no ground is laid for these revolutionary conclusions in any FAILUKE OF THE THEORY 83 careful synopsis of Bible usage in regard to the terms soul and spirit. That there is a meaning in the usage is seen, and more than a glimpse is got in Mr. Hoard's treatise of the distinguishing feature in biblical psycho- logy, namely, the supreme place it assigns to spirit in the human constitution, and the close relation of " spirit " in man to the Spirit of God. But there is no attempt made to justify the assumption that Scripture intends by these two terms two essentially distinct natures or elements in man's inner being. Consequently the whole scheme is built up in defiance of exegesis. What con- ception of the trichotomy pervades the treatise is not certainly the coarse one often attributed to the school, 1 but is more akin to that of Beck. Often no more appears to be claimed for the distinction between soul and spirit than one of poise, or point of view ; but this is only one of many inconsistencies in the treatment. What is made out of the scheme, theologically, has all the character of a foregone conclusion, supported by reasonings that are largely " special pleadings." Since, then, this endeavour to found a rigid triparti- tion of human nature upon the biblical antithesis of " soul " and " spirit," breaks down, let us turn to those interpretations of it which are satisfied with less. But when we examine the views of those who maintain that the distinction, though something less than that of two separate natures, is yet something like that of two departments in man's inner nature, we find much diversity in the mode of construing the distinction. Some tell us, with Liddon, that pneuma represents the 1 See ante, p. 68. 84 THE TRIPARTITE VIEWS EXAMINED higher region of self-conscious spirit and self -determining will, psyche, the lower region of appetite, perception, imagination, memory ; the former that which belongs to man as man, the latter that which, in the main, is common to him with the brute. 1 Bishop Ellicott puts it thus : " The spirit may be regarded more as the realm of the intellectual forces, and the shrine of the Holy Ghost ; the soul may be regarded more as the region of the feelings, affections, and impulses, of all that peculiarly individualises and personifies." Body, soul, and spirit he holds to be " the three component parts of human nature." 2 Similarly, Bishop Lightfoot holds that spirit, as the principle of the higher life, is distinguished from the soul, the seat of the affections and passions. 3 Liine- mann thinks that pneuma describes the higher and purely spiritual side of the inner life, elsewhere called by Paul the nous, or reason ; psyche, the lower side, which comes into contact with the region of the senses. 4 All these writers, it will be noticed, follow the idea of Olshausen quoted above, that the distinction is one of a higher and lower faculty in the mental or incorporeal region. Others, again, make all three members of the trichotomy to be figurative differentiations of internal human phenomena. They take the term " body " to indicate those appetites which we have in common with the brutes ; " soul," to denote our moral and intellectual faculties, directed only towards objects of this world ; and spirit for the same, directed towards God and 1 Some Elements of Religion, p. 92 (Lond., 1873). 2 Destiny of the Creature, p. 123. 3 See on Phil. i. 27. 4 See on 1 Thess. v. 23, in his New Testament Commentary (Meyer's). TRISECTION NOT MEANT 85 heavenly things. 1 Not greatly different from this last, but more succinctly expressed, is the view of Auberlen : " Body, soul, and spirit are nothing else than the real basis of the three ideal elements of man's being world- consciousness, self - consciousness, and God - conscious- ness." 2 Now, it would be easy to confute each and all of these proposed biblical trisections of human nature, by con- fronting them with numerous passages of Scripture which will not consist with them. Especially is this the case with the above-quoted attempts to find a psychological analysis in the use of the two leading terms of the trichotomy. That " soul " and " spirit " denote distinct natures in man, or, as Delitzsch has it, separable elements of one nature, or even, as the well- known commentators above quoted seem to say, distinct faculties, or departments of the inner man, implies a kind of analysis which is out of harmony with biblical thought, and will not stand upon an impartial examination of the whole Scripture usage. On the other hand, to assume that, in the special passages to be explained, we have nothing more than rhetorical accumu- lation of terms, will not satisfy the facts. It is easy to prove, from the Old Testament Apocrypha, and from the writings of Philo and Josephus, that, by their time, a definite use of the terms " soul " and " spirit " had passed into psychological language, and even into current popular speech. In the New Testament usage of these terms, therefore, we must recognise a real meaning for 1 Dr. T. Arnold, as quoted by Heard, Tripartite Nature, p. 175, Note. 2 Art. "Geist," Herzog, Real Encyc. (1st Edition, iv. 729). 86 THE TRIPARTITE VIEWS EXAMINED which the old parallelism of Hebrew poetry will not alone account. 1 Before proceeding to examine the origin and explanation of this usage, we may here sum up what has already appeared on the face of Scripture to be its mode of viewing human nature as one, as dual, or as trinal. There is evidence enough to show that while maintaining with strong consistency the Unity of the human being, Scripture confirms the usual dual concep- tion that his two natures are flesh and spirit, or soul and body, yet makes use quite consistently of a trichotomy depending on a distinction between soul and spirit, which distinction, in some New Testament passages (especially the Pauline), is charged with a religious or doctrinal significance. " Anyone who does not force on Scripture a dogmatic system, must acknowledge that it speaks diclwtomously of the parts viewed in themselves, trichotomously of the living reality, but all through so as to guard the fact that human nature is built upon a plan of unity." 2 1 In commenting on 1 Thess. v. 23, Liinemann says: "The totality of man is here divided into three parts. We are not to assume that this trichotomy has a purely rhetorical signification, since, elsewhere, Paul also definitely distinguishes ptuuma and psyche. The origin of the Trichotomy is Platonic, but Paul has it, not from the language of Plato and his scholars, Init from the current language of society, into which it had passed out of the narrow circle of the schools." 2 From a lecture of Dr. von Zezschwitz, Profanyracitat und biblischer Sprachgeist (Leipzig, 1859), repeatedly referred to by Delitzsch in his Biblical Psychology ; quoted also by Prof. Dickson in a Note at p. 177 of his Baird Lecture (Glasgow, 1893). CHAPTEE V THE BIBLE USE OF SOUL AND SPIKIT EXPLAINED THE so-called Trichotomy rests, as we have seen, not so much upon the comparatively rare use in Scripture of the three terms together body, soul, and spirit as upon the pervading use of the two latter terms for the interior life. This usage, therefore, requires explanation. The too common attempt to render them analytically, as discriminating lower and higher faculties, has broken down. It is plainly not justified by consistent exegesis. Thus, baffled exegetes visually retreat upon the unsatis- factory explanation that there is nothing more in the usage of " soul and spirit," than poetic parallelism. Let us try the historical, instead of the analytic method. Let us trace the rise and current of the usage. It can be shown how the simpler and more popular antithesis, in the Hebrew Scriptures, passed at length into a sharper and more theological discrimination, in the New Testa- ment Epistles, of " soul " and " soulish," from " spirit" and " spiritual." Thus we shall arrive, not only at the exact force of the distinction, but at the causes and uses of it, and see how such writers as St. Paul adapted this Old Testament phraseology to express the en- larged ideas with which the spirit of New Testament 87 88 THE BIBLE USE OF SOUL AND SPIRIT EXPLAINED revelation had furnished them. We come therefore to II. THE HISTORICAL EXPLANATION. Let us begin with the use of both terms in their primary sense, or in relation to physical life. To this, both Pneuma and Psyche, like Euach and Nephesh, of which they are the Greek equivalents, originally refer. Enoch and Nephesh are easily distinguished in this primal reference. Nephesh is the subject or bearer of life. Euach is the principle of life ; so that in all the Old Testament references to the origin of living beings, we distinguish Nephesh as life constituted in the creature, from Euach, as life bestowed by the Creator. The life indicated by both these terms is that of man and the lower animals alike. A " living soul " is a living creature in general, or an animated being. It is used in G-en. i. 30 of every creature that has life, and in Gen. ii. 7 to express the result, even in man, of the divine creative breath. So also Euach and its kindred term Neshamah are used for the principle of life, in man and brute alike. It is the " Nishmath of life " that makes man a living soul (Gen. ii. 7). It is the "Euach of life" that animates all the creatures who were threatened by the flood (vi. 17), and all those who entered into the ark (vii. 15). It is the " Nishmath-ruach of life " which denotes those who perished in the waters (vii. 22). These passages prove that no distinction is made in Genesis between the life- principle in animals generally and in man. But, what is of more importance, they call attention to a usage which is practically uniform, of putting " spirit " (Euach or Neshamah) for the animating principle, and " soul," or PRIMARY AND SECONDARY USE 89 " living soul " {Nephesh hayyah) for the animated result. This primary distinction of the two terms, when applied to physical life, has passed over from the Hebrew of the Old Testament to their Greek equivalents in the New Testament, and suggests a reason for their respective employment, even where the meaning goes beyond the merely physical. If psyche thus means the entire being as a constituted life, we see why it is used in such an expression as that of John x. 11," He giveth His life (psyche, not zoe nor pneumd) for the sheep." If pneuma is the life-principle bestowed by and belonging to God, we see its propriety in John xix. 30, "He gave up the ghost (pneuma)." When we pass from this primary application of these two terms to a higher, in which they refer not to physical life merely, but to the life of the mind, both denote almost equally and indifferently the inner nature of man as distinguished from the corporeal. For this purpose they are used throughout the Old Testament, and generally even in the New Testament, with no sharp distinction, but are, rather, freely interchanged and combined to express the whole inward nature. This appears upon examination of three classes of passages : (a) Those where each term is used alone, as, " Why is thy spirit (ruach) so sad ? " " Why art thou cast down, my soul (nephesh) ? " l " Jesus was troubled in spirit " (pneuma). " My soul (psyche) is exceeding sorrowful." 2 (5) In those where either term is joined with body to express entire human nature : " To destroy both soul (psyche) and body " ; " The body without the spirit 1 1 Kings xxi. 5 ; Ps. xlii. 11. 2 John xiii. 21, Matt. xxvi. 28. 90 THE BIBLE USE OF SOUL AND SPIRIT EXPLAINED (pneuma) is dead." l (c) Those in which the two terms occur together, in the manner of other parallel terms of Hebrew poetry : " With my soul (nephesh) have I desired Thee in the night ; yea, with my spirit (ruach) within me will I seek Thee early." 2 " My soul (psyche) doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit (pneuma) hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." 3 " Stand fast in one spirit (pneuma), with one soul (psyche), striving for the faith of the gospel." 4 These last passages render it quite impossible to hold that " spirit " can mean exclusively or mainly the Godward side of man's inner nature, and " soul " the rational or earthward. The terms are parallel, or practically equivalent, expressions for the inner life as contrasted with the outer or bodily life ; and the usage, on the whole, makes for the ordinary twofold view of human nature, and not at all for any tripartite theory. 5 No doubt the underlying distinction found in the primary or physical application of the two terms gives colour and propriety to their usage, and, when firmly grasped, prepares us to understand the expanded mean- ing which they receive in the special or Pauline passages yet to be considered. /All through Scripture, " spirit " denotes life as coming from God, " soul " denotes life as 1 Matt. x. 38, Jas. ii. 26. 2 Isa. xxvi. 9. 3 Luke i. 46, 47. 4 Phil. i. 27 (R.V.). 5 After examining the terms as we have done, Weiss, in his New Testament Tlwology (vol. i. pp. 123-125, Clark's transl.) concludes thus: " It follows that the nature of man is conceived of as dichotomous, and that all distinctions between psyche and pneuma, in the sense of a trichotomy such as Delitzsch had adopted, are arbitrary. Similarly, Oehler, as quoted ante, p. 75, who, however, holds the distinction between soul and spirit which we are now tracing to be real, and of value. KEAL MEANING OF THE TWO 91 constituted in the man. Consequently, when the indi- vidual life is to be made emphatic " soul " is used. " Soul," in Scripture, freely denotes persons. " My soul " is the Ego, the self, and when used, like " heart," for the inner man, and even for the feelings, has refer- ence always to the special individuality. " Spirit," on the other hand, seldom or never used to denote the individual human being in this life, is primarily that imparted power by which the individual lives <-It fitly -denotofy thorofetoi on occasion, when used as a psycho- m, the innermost of the inner life, the higher aspect of the self or personality. While therefore we see-JJiafe-^he-'tWo " terms are used over the breadth of Scripture as parallel expressions for the inner life, there is never wanting a certain difference of poise, which can lie accentuated when required. The inner nature is named " soul," " after its special, individual life," and " spirit " " after the living power which forms the condi- tion of its special character." l Thus far there is no apparent design in the use of these two terms, throughout the Scripture generally, to analyse the constituents of man's inner being into two parts, natures, or elements. Not only would such analysis be foreign, as we have said, to the Bible way of thinking, but the usage has now been sufficiently ac- counted for, without the violent hypothesis of the " Tri- partite " nature. The purpose of the double phrase, " soul and spirit," is, at most, to present the one iudi- 1 These two phrases are quoted by Oehler from von Hofmann (Schrift- beiveis, i. p. 296), who uses bedingtes Einzelleben for "soul," and bedin- gende Lebensmacht for "spirit." 92 THE BIBLE USE OF SOUL AND SPIRIT EXPLAINED visible thinking and feeling man in two diverse aspects, according as these two terms originally suggest his life viewed from two different points. Their use, therefore, in the older Scriptures and generally, cannot be held as giving us a psychological analysis of human nature. It is quite certain, however, that in the period between the production of most of the Old Testament writings and those of the New Testament, a use of psyche and pneuma had sprung up, under the Alexandrian influences, which led some of the apocryphal writers as well as the Seventy to attribute to the sacred books such an analysis of man's nature a trichotomy, in short, cor- responding to that of Plato, though not identical with it. It is as undoubted that these combined influences the Greek philosophy and the later Jewish schools led the Christian writers of the early centuries to adopt the analysis as if it had been sanctioned by Scripture ; hence also its revival in the cruder forms of recent biblical psychology. Apart from this historical origin, and far more worthy of attention, is the fact that in a special set of New Testament passages there emerges a particular usage of the two terms and their congeners in a religious applica- tion, not unconnected with their original force, but fraught with a distinct and additional meaning. In these passages mainly though not exclusively Pauline it is plain, first of all, that the adjective psychic, or " soulish," l has taken on a meaning, not obvious in its root-word. It has acquired a force almost equivalent to " carnal." In Jas. iii. 1 5 (e.g.) a wisdom is spoken which SOULISH AND SPIRITUAL 93 is " earthly, soulish (sensual, R.V.), devilish." Of certain predicted opponents of the gospel it is said, in Jude 19, that "they are soulish (sensual, marg. natural or animal, E.V.), not having the Spirit." St. Paul terms the unregenerate, who cannot discern the things of the Spirit of God, "a soulish man" (1 Cor. ii. 14). The "body" which we wear at present " the body of our humilia- tion," as he once calls it (Phil. iii. 20), that which is of the earth earthy, is a " soulish " body, and shall be sown in the grave as such (1 Cor. xv. 44). On the other hand, the corresponding adjective " pneumatic," or "spiritual," 1 has, in the parallel passages, come to denote, not what belongs to the natural, human pneuma, but what belongs to the Pneuma in the religious sense, the Spirit of God or the spirit of the regenerate life. Indeed, this word in its frequent use throughout the New Testament always denotes life and activity that are under the influence of the Spirit of grace. 2 In the classic Pauline passages, however 1 Cor. ii. 1116 and xv. 4247 it is used as the antithesis, not to sarkic or carnal, as sometimes elsewhere, but to psychic or soulish. It is this usage which specially claims attention and requires to be ac- counted for. No doubt, even in St. Paul's Epistles, " spirit " also occurs in the older meaning. For example, in the same context (1 Cor. ii. 11), the natural human pneuma is referred to as the faculty of self-consciousness in man, corresponding to the Divine Pneuma as the self- searching and self-explaining Power within the Godhead. 2 With the single exception of Eph. vi. 12, where "spiritualities" of exactly the opposite moral character are spoken of. 94 THE BIBLE USE OF SOUL AND SPIRIT EXPLAINED But the contrast or antithesis with which we are deal- ing is plainly one between human nature in its own native elements and human nature under the higher power which has entered it in the New Birth. The former is psychic, the latter is pneumatic. The psychical or " soulish " man is man as nature now constitutes him, and as sin has infected him. His own mere wisdom may therefore be " psychic " as allied to earthly, or even worse (Jas. iii. 15). As such, he is unable to receive the things of the Spirit of God, for these are only spiritually discerned. The pneumatic or spiritual man, again, is man as grace has re-constituted him, and as God's Spirit dwells in him and bestows gifts upon him (1 Cor. ii. 15). He is able to judge spiritual things. He receives spiritual blessings in the heavenlies (Eph. i. 3). He is to increase in spiritual understanding (Col. i. 9). He is to offer spiritual sacrifices (1 Pet. ii. 5). In the pro- gress of redemption, he shall exchange a body " psychi- cal " or " natural," which he has in common with all men as derived from Adam, for a body spiritual or glorified, adapted to his new nature, and fashioned like unto the glorious body of his Lord. For the first head of the race was made a living psyche ; the Second Adam is a life-giving Pneuma (1 Cor. xv. 4447). Thus far the contrast between psychical and spiritual in these special passages is an undeniable and intelligible usage. The last quotation suggests that the antithesis thus peculiarly conceived and applied had come, in the mind of some New Testament writers, to extend its force back to the older and original antithesis between " soul " and " spirit " as constituents of man's created nature. WHENCE DERIVED 95 Such passages as Heb. iv. 12 and 1 Thess. v. 23 may therefore be explained upon the same implied antithesis. The " Hebrews " passage will then mean, either that the word of God divides and discriminates between what is psychical and what is spiritual ; or, that it penetrates both regions of human nature. The " Thessalonians " passage will mean that the Christian is to be sanctified wholly in his threefold life, the physical life of the body, the individual life of the soul, and the inner life of the spirit. Now comes the question, whence this undeniably re- ligious or theological distinction, in these passages, be- tween the psychical or natural and the spiritual or regenerate ? The Old Testament use of soul and spirit was non-analytic and simple, as opposed to philosophical, and this use is followed by our Lord and the New Testa- ment writers generally. 1 The special or Pauline usage (as it may be called) may no doubt have been influenced by the would-be philosophic usage of these terms by Josephus and Philo, must have been so, indeed, if, as is commonly alleged, that use had become a habit with cultured Jewish writers of the period. But though St. Paul may be said to have adopted this cultured language of the Jewish schools, he was, in point of fact, redeeming the Old Testament terms out of their hands for his new purpose. The parallel between his trichotomy and that of the Platonists and Stoics is appreciable, but the differ- 1 "Weiss points out that the psychological ideas directly borrowed from the Old Testament are the same in the whole of the New Testament, ' ' Up till the peculiar transformation which they undergo in the Pauline system," N.T. Theologie, 1 Theil, sec. 27, a sentence curiously mistrans- lated in the English edition. 96 THE BIBLE USE OF SOUL AND SPIRIT EXPLAINED ence is more important. Their tripartition was a mode of accounting for divergent moral forces in man, for the subjugation in him of what is best by what is worst. It did so by assuming that there was in his constitution a physical element eternally opposed to the divine. In the Old Testament terms adopted by St. Paul there was no such taint. They were fitted to do a better thing than account for man's moral failure, namely, to express the new force that had entered into humanity for its redemp- tion. One of these terms especially, " spirit " (pneuma), had never been debased by ethnic thought. It was never used in the Greek psychology. Even Plato's highest human principle is not pneuma, but nous, and its deriva- tives. While therefore the ethical distinction between " soulish " and " spiritual " may have had some dim parallel in Grseco-Jewish philosophy, the terms them- selves were biblical. The meaning was true at once to the older biblical psychology, and enlarged with the ful- ness of the new revelation. Instead of being rooted in a philosophical analysis of the constituents of human nature, the idea sprang from two disclosures of Christ's own teaching. One is His clear revelation of the per- sonality of the Holy Spirit ; the other is that of the spiritual union of redeemed humanity with God, through Jesus Christ. 1 The new life or nature thus originated, St. Paul variously terms " the new man," the " new creature," " the inner man," but especially " the spirit " and " spiritual," as contrasted with the psychical or carnal. Why this last term became technical or signal in this topic is evident. With a rare felicity the same 1 See John xiv. xv. xvi. passim. WHENCE DERIVED 97 word (ruach of the Old Testament, pneuma of the New Testament) serves to denote the Spirit of God Himself, and the new spirit or life-power which He creates in the regenerate. This Pauline usage is an instance at once of the elevating influence of revelation upon language, and of that insight into the capacities and destinies of man which the progress of the revelation makes possible. According to this explanation, we do not base the Pauline psychology upon any school distinctions, Platonist, Phil- onian, or Stoic. 1 We recognise it as an essential part of the apostle's inspired insight into the relations of man's nature under the Christian dispensation of grace. Never- theless, we thus see how the use of the terms " soul " and " spirit " in the Old Testament, and in the current lan- guage of the New Testament, prepared the way for this new meaning which Pauline Christianity has poured into them. The natural life as organically instituted, the personal living being had always been denoted by the term Soul (nephesh or psyche) ; life as emanating from the fountain, the divinely derived energy of the creature by the term spirit (ruach or pneuma). Thus, when a further distinction became necessary, man, as he is now produced in nature, could be described as psychical or soulish ; man as born from above, pneumatical or spiritual. That is to say, the same word which expressed the God-derived natural life came to express the principle of the regenerate life, the identity of the terms answering to an underlying biblical idea, namely, that the immediate 1 This is confirmed by such keen inquirers as Liidemann, Die Anthro- pologie des Apostels Paulus (Kiel, 1872), and Pfleiderer, Paulinism. See also the vigorous argument of Dr. Dickson, St. Paul's Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit, pp. 70-72, 274, 275 (Glasgow, 1883). 7 98 NOTE ON CHAPTER V divine origination of man's being in creation lays a ground for the immediate divine renewal of his nature in redemption. 1 NOTE TO CHAPTEE V THE TRICHOTOMY IN ITS HISTORICAL CONNECTIONS PROCEEDING on the general principle that the historical method is the right one for the elucidation of the psycho- logical terms of Scripture, I have endeavoured to show that a close observation of Old Testament usage will enable us to understand how the trichotomic language of the New Testament arose, and what is its exact force. But a great deal that is interesting in the way of col- lateral illustration of the Bible trichotomy might be got together. I am only able to add a few scattered notes on the various ancient sources which shed light on the Pauline or sacred trichotomy either by contrast or by resemblance. As indicated in the chapter (pp. 95, 96 ; also infra, p. 129), the main parallels in ancient philosophy, though differing all of them essentially from the scriptural trichotomy, are those of the Platonic and the Stoic schools before the rise of Christianity, and of the Neo-Platonic after it. Even in the Stoic psychology, however, I am unable to find any exact parallel, except in a writer subsequent to Paul, namely, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Some profess to find a trichotomy indicated by Pytha- goras. If we may believe Diogenes Laertius (viii. 20), the highest power in man according to that philosopher was that designated by the Greek term v/Jiri, and au/^a (vo\Jv ^lv h 4'.u%^, ^v/jiv bt sv ffu'j,ari ^vvtffrac TO KM Zuvtrtxraivero). It IS true that this is given in connection with the anima mundi, but commentators have always understood it as referring to the human being as well. Delitzsch seems, therefore, to be mistaken in ascribing this division first to Plotinus. For the full Platonic doctrine of two souls in one body, vide Timceus, 69, 7.0. 102 NOTE ON CHAPTER V An Aristotelic trichotomy is sometimes spoken of (e.g. by Delitzsch, p. 93), but it is plain that Aristotle differed fundamentally from Plato in his view of man's constitu- tion. His subtle and profound doctrine of the ^i^ has pervaded philosophic speculation ever since his own day. He meant to conceive of -^vy^i as a principle manifesting itself in an ascending scale through vegetable, animal, and human life. But his theory of its vegetative, sensitive, and noetic functions by no means favours a trichotomy. Much rather, his view of -^M-xjfi as " the simplest actuality (svrsXs^iia) of a physical body potentially possessing life " laid the foundation for the strict philosophical dualism which has prevailed through all the centuries of Christian thought. It may, with some appearance of plausibility, be even held to favour the monistic view of modern Posi- tivism. It is to be noted, on the other hand, that Aristotle finds in man voZz Kadqnxog and vo\jg TO/TJT/XOS, a passive and an active intellect. And as Plato claimed immortality only for that highest of his two souls which as Xo'yoj or voug constituted the real man, so Aristotle says (De Anim. iii. 5), ToDro (i.e. airadqg voug) povov adavaTW, . . . 6 ds cra^r/xos voijg tpdapros. Still with him these are only two modes of reason. They are not, as for Plato, several souls. Accord- ing to Aristotle, the active or creative reason (voS? TO/TJT-/- xo?) is apparently impersonal. Its survival of death, its everlasting existence, is not the continued personal exist- ence of the man. [For the bearing of Aristotle's view on the question of a future life, see Westcott's Gospel of the Resurrection, pp. 147-152.] The psychology of the early Stoics seems to have been of a ruder and lower kind than either of the preceding. They assimilated man's rational activity to the activity of the senses. But they upheld the oneness of the soul's being with greater vigour than did either Plato or Aris- totle. Reason, rb fiyepov/xov (otherwise called 8/avo^nx6v t XoyiffriHov, or Xoy/o^oc), is with them the primary power. From it the other parts of the soul are only derivatives. From it, like the arms of a cuttle-fish, the seven divisions of the soul reach to the body. At a later period, among the Stoics, and also among the Epicureans, this scheme appears VIEW OF AURELIUS AND THE STOICS 103 to have become that of the ascription to man of a rational and an irrational, or of an intelligent and an animal soul a tendency which stretched far on, as we shall see, into the philosophy of modern Europe. The most remarkable parallel to the biblical trichotomy is that found in the writings of the last of the Stoical philosophers, the emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus. In his only extant treatise, Tuv g/'g iavrhv, |3/iSx/a ;/3', he says : " What I am con- sists entirely of the fleshly and spiritual, and the chief part," G 7i -TTore rov-ro sifti, Gapxia sc~i xa! xvsvftdriov, y.a.1 rb 7}-/s,u,ovr/.6v (lib. ii. 2). Again : " Body, soul, mind ; to thy body belong senses ; to thy soul, affections ; to thy mind, assertions (decreta)" 2^/ia, -4/u;^, vovz' ou/^aro; aiffdqasis, ^vxf,(; op,u,ai, vo\j Boy/Aura, (lib. iii. 16). Once more : " There are three parts of which thou art composed, the bodily, the spiritual, and the mind," Tpla. iarh 1% >v awearqxag, eu/idnov, -irvivpaLTiov, vote (lib. xii. 3). It is not possible to agree with T. Gataker (the scholarly editor, 1652) when he says, in a note on the second of the passages quoted, " Parilis distributio et in sacris literis reperitur 1 Thess. v. 23, ffZ/Aa, ^-/jrt, -vev t ua. qui et vote, Eom. vii. 25 " ; nor with Sir A. Grant (Ethics of Aristotle, vol. i. Essay vi. p 297), who thinks that we find in Aurelius " the same psychological division of man into body, soul, and spirit as was employed by St. Paul." To make this out it is neces- sary to say, as the last-quoted writer does, that the fvevpu of St. Paul answers to the vots or viye/novixov of Antoninus. Now any one who follows the line of investigation we have indicated, will see at a glance the differences between these two trichotomic schemes. St. Paul would totally deny that the vovs is the Jiyepovtxov. The real governing principle according to him is Ti/sD^a, and trvsvpa in a sense entirely different from that in which it is used by Aurelius. For though miv/Adnov in the Stoic scheme is an addition to the Platonic language, there is no change or advance upon the Greek idea which identifies msupdnov and 4 U %^> whereas everything in the scriptural scheme turns upon the natural and moral distinction between -^v'/j} and irvevpa. Lastly, the aupa and the adp% of the two schemes are only seem- ingly parallel. The Stoic depreciates the supa, considers 104 NOTE ON CHAPTER V rd aapy.ia as the mere prison of the mind ; but there is nothing in the stoical adp% answering to what St. Paul understood by that term in relation to the depraved nature of man. His conception is wholly biblical. This particular form of the Stoic psychology is later than Paul. But of any influence exercised even by earlier Stoical schools upon the Pauline psychology it is vain to speak. An Alexandrian influence would have been more probable. But Philo's trichotomy is purely Platonic, and differs, therefore, essentially from that of the apostle. Older and simpler influences, as we have seen, sufficiently account for the rise of this last. The idea of a trichotomy was rendered familiar to Paul, as to other Hebrews of his time, by the current language, of philosophy, both Stoic and Alexandrian ; but the form and contents of that which appears in the New Testament were moulded by Old Testament psychology, , while its special terms were prepared in the Greek of the Septuagint. The Seventy were doubtless familiar with the philosophical language of the Greek schools, yet they have remained entirely true, in their translation, to the genius of the Hebrew Scrip- tures. Accordingly, the term \/ov$, so prominent in Greek philosophy for the higher aspect of the soul, never occurs in the Septuagint in that connection (see infra, p. 137). Uvt^a and -^tvyji are of constant occurrence, the former as the uniform translation of nvi, and sometimes of noco (which is also, at times, rendered by wot}) ; the latter as the equi- valent of B>B3 and nn. sometimes of "itos. The general T - ' T names for body are au^a and edp%. The terms of the simple trichotomy, spirit, soul, and body, are evidently thus provided for in that version of the ancient Scriptures with which Paul was so familiar, and need not be sought in any extraneous source whatever. The application of it in the Christian system belonged to the new revelation. It would be overstrained to build much on occasional traces of philosophical influence in the language of the Septuagint, e.g. Job. vii. 15, 'A-raXXafs/g aero mevparos pou rqv -^v^v /j,ov, where our present Hebrew text has no such distinction ; or Ps. li. 12 (Heb. ver. 14 ; Sept. 1. 12), wjpart rr^fyv >j,t, where we have probably a purely un- THE NEO-PLATONISTS 105 designed coincidence with the philosophical jiyepovixov. It is clearer, however, that Josephus had a favour for the current trichotomy when he paraphrases Gen. ii. 7 thus : "EKXaffiv o Osog rw civdpuvov, ~/o\Jv airb rrity^S Xafiyv' x.qi irv>iMt ivrixev UVTUI xat -^v^v (Antiqq. I. i. /3), instead of .giving the simple and untechnical rendering of the Septuagint. A similar favour for what became the New Testament tricho- tomic usage is traceable in the Wisdom of Solomon, in such passages as XV. 11 : "On viyvo^a rdv ^"kaaavra avrbv, x.ai Gavra aura) vj^u^f evip-yovffav, xai ifiipvffriaavru wvtvfAK and xvi. 14 : ifyXdbv ds srvtufAa ovx avaffrpstpu, old's vfflv vapa^ripdeTaav. In the Apocrypha generally, the leading psychological terms are used with much the same latitude as in the Old Testament. But among other traces of Greek influence, we may reckon the more pro- nounced dualism of " body and soul " which begins to appear in these writings: e.g. aupa, -^u^, Wisd. i. 4, 2 Mace. vi. 30, xv. 30 ; wsv/^a, (ra-Xay^a, Baruch ii. 17 ; a hint of pre-existence, Wisd. viii. 20 ; and most noticeably, the Greek notion of the body as the fetter of the soul, Wisd. ix. 15, this last passage containing also the very terms of the later Greek trichotomy, ?> but the character of the Plotinian thinking was theosophic rather than philosophic. It was a bold jumble of all the philosophies, pervaded by mysticism, and intended to rival Christianity, a mere inflated imitation, which owed all that was really new in it to the sacred thought which it obviously parodied. To trace the history of the trichotomy in the hands of early Christian writers would be a difficult task. The whole subject of the psychology of these writers is obscure and uncertain. That the Pauline trichotomy does not appear in the Apostolic Fathers proves nothing against its acceptance in the early Church, for the range of topics and therefore of Scripture quotation, in their extant writings, is necessarily very limited. In the Greek Apologists, on the other hand, the use of a trichotomy is frequent. The Pauline terms even are easily traced. But though they use the scriptural pneuma and psyche, their thinking is really Platonic or Stoic. They protested against the results of the Platonic psychology (see Note to our final Chapter), but they could not shake themelves free of its influence. Accordingly, they are ruled by the notion of two princi- ples in man, a lower and a higher ; a creaturely soul (psyche), and a divine or incorruptible spirit {pneuma}. This was undoubtedly an unscriptural view, and it soon led to such results Gnostic, Manichaean, Apollinarian as drew forth the protest of the Church in her general councils. How great was the influence of the ancient philosophy, even with Christian writers, may be seen in Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, both of whom favour the Platonic trichotomy. Even Tertullian is disposed to accept it as not alien to the faith (De Anima, xvi.), while he disparages the biblical distinction between soul and spirit. Long after these early controversies were forgotten, the Aristotelic philosophy perpetuated the distinction between a veetative and a rational element in the human OCCAM AND BACON 107 The distinction was promoted by William of Occam (d. 1347), into a doctrine of two souls differing in substance from one another, the sensitive soul joined to the body circum- scriptive, so as to dwell in separate parts of it ; the intel- lective soul separable from the body and joined with it dijfovitivd, so that it is entirely present in every part. A similar view is ascribed to the Italian philosopher Ber- nardinus Telesius (1508-88). But it is of more interest to find something akin to it in the writings of the father of modern inductive science. Lord Bacon suggests a tricho- tomy of man's nature in this way : having observed that " there were two different emanations of souls in the first creation of them, namely, one that had its original from the breath of God, and another from the matrices of the elements," he proposes to distinguish these in man as the spiracle or inspired substance on the one hand, and the sensible or product soul on the other. It is in connection with his consideration of the former, in proposing to ask whether it be native or adventive, separable or insepar- able, mortal or immortal, how far it is tied to the laws of matter, how far not, and the like, that he utters the sug- gestive sentiment that there are questions in philosophy which must be bound over at last unto religion [see extract given on title-page of Division I.]. In speaking of the second, he says that this is in beasts the principal soul, whereof the body of beasts is the organ ; but in man this soul is itself an organ of the rational soul, and should bear the appellation, nqt of a soul, but rather of a spirit. His trichotomy then would be soul, spirit, and body, soul de- noting the divine spark, the inbreathed principle of rationality ; spirit, the unreasonable soul, " which hath the same original in us as in beasts, namely, from the slime of the earth." This is a tripartite theory, for it seems to de- mand a rational principle ruling over two distinct organs or organisms, the animal soul and the animal body. De Augmentis, Kb. iv. cap. iii. From the time of Lord Bacon, the trichotomy may be said to have fallen greatly out of sight, until the revival of biblical psychology in the end of the last and beginning of the present century. There is probably no instance 108 NOTE ON CHAPTEK V since the ancient councils in which a psychological article has been introduced into church symbols, except that of the later Helvetic Confession. In this document the strict dualism of the human constitution is insisted on in words which reflect some f orgotton controversies : " Dicimus autem constare hominem duabus ac diversis quidem substantiis, in una persona, anima immortali, utpote quse separata a corpore, nee dormit, nee interit, et corpore mortali, quod tamen in ultimo judicio a mortuis resuscitabitur, ut totus homo inde, vel in vita, vel in morte, seternum maneat. Damnamus omnes qui irrident, aut subtilibus disputationibus in dubium vocant, immor- talitatem animarum, aut animam dicunt dormire, aut partem esse Dei." Conf. Helvet. posterior, c. vii. CHAPTEE VI FLESH, HEART, AND OTHER TERMS NOT less important for biblical psychology and theology than the terms soul and spirit, is the term FLESH (Basar, Sarx). 1 It will be necessary to note its use in two broadly distinct regions. There is (A) a natural meaning, admitting of various shades of application, which runs through the whole Scripture. It bears also (B) a very definite ethical significance in certain well-known doctrinal passages of the New Testament, especially of the Pauline Epistles. Under the first head (A), there are four shades of meaning which we may conveniently distinguish. There is (1) its literal meaning, substance of a living lody, whether of men or beasts. From this radical meaning it comes to be a designation of the creature on one side, as " living soul " is on the other. If " soul " (nephesh) be an embodied life, "flesh" (basar) is ensouled matter ; though we must never construe it as merely material, for in the life-principle which makes it flesh a higher element than matter is presupposed. Under 1 ~INK> is sometimes used as equivalent to ~\W3 even in its psychological sense ; see Ps. Ixxiii. 26. More usually the relation of "IKK> to -|'3 is like that of /c/^as to ; see e.g., Ps. Ixxviii. 20, 27, comp. with ver. 39. 109 110 OTHEK PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS this use it denotes all terrestrial beings possessing life. 1 From this there arises (2) its application to human nature generally, and the personal life attached to it. Man as clothed in corporeity is contrasted under the name " flesh " with purely spiritual being, and especially with God. Hence with reference to the weak, the finite, the perishable being which man is, this expression pervades both the Old and New Testament as a phrase for human kind. 2 The New Testament has the additional expression " flesh and blood " (sarx kai haima) 3 to designate human nature on its earthly side, in contrast with the supersensible and the divine. The phrase, though without an exact equivalent in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, is doubtless expressive of the Old Testament idea, " The life of the flesh is in the blood." Its special force, however, lies in contrasting human nature with something greater than itself. 4 This can hardly be made too emphatic in our exegesis, for it is the prevalent force all through the Bible of the term as applied to mankind. Man is " flesh," from his creaturely nature, or from his nature on its creaturely side. When we come (3) to use " flesh " as a term for one constituent of human nature in contrast with the others, it naturally stands for the corporeal or lower element. In the Old Testament it is used along with " heart " or " soul " to express the entire nature of man. So far, 1 E.g. Gen. vii. 21. 2 Kg. Gen. vi. 3 ; Job xxxiv. 15 ; Ps. Ivi. 5, Ixxviii. 39 ; Isa. xl. 6-8 ; Jer. xvii. 5 ; 1 Cor. i. 29 ; 1 Pet. i. 24. 3 crctp Kal 3.ifjia. 4 E.rj. Matt. xvi. 17 ; 1 Cor. xv. 50 ; Gal. i. 16 ; Eph. vi. 12 ; Heb. ii. 14, to which may be added John i. 13. THE TEEM "FLESH" 111 however, is " flesh " from being despised in contrast with these higher elements, that it is joined with them in the relation of the whole man to God and to his future hopes. 1 In the New Testament its use in this psycho- logical sense for the lower element in man without any disparagement, though not very frequent, is quite clear. In a sufficient number of passages it occurs coupled with spirit (pneuma), to show that flesh and spirit are used for the whole of man, the simple natural elements of which he is made up, exactly as " flesh and soul," " flesh and heart," are in the Old Testament. 2 It is of consider- able importance to point out that even within the Pauline writings, where we are afterwards to find the specifically ethical meaning of flesh so current, a quite unethical use of " flesh " for the outward or sensuous part of man, in contrast with the inner and spiritual, is undeniable ; 3 and even when the sinful state of man is the subject under consideration, the whole of man is designated by " flesh and mind " in one Pauline passage, and by " flesh and spirit " in another, where simply our entire nature is meant. 4 The New Testament has other pairs of expressions for the same thing. It uses freely the Greek duality which has become the modern one, " soul and 1 Ps. Ixiii. ] , Ixxxiv. 2, xvi. 9 ; Job xix. 26. A good example of the two, basar and nephesh, used as the sole and even separable constituents of human nature, like soul and body, is Job xiv. 22. 3 Matt. xxvi. 41 ; Mark xiv. 38 ; comp. Luke xxiv. 39. 3 Rom. ii. 28 ; 1 Cor. v. 5, vii. 28 ; 2 Cor. iv. 11, vii. 5, xii. 7 ; ol KO.T&. ffdpxa. The phrase yoia ffapKiK^ occurs in another connection, 2 Cor. I 12. THE TEKM "FLESH" 115 evidently extreme ascetics attached to some form of Gnosticism. 1 It might, indeed, be maintained that if we assume the sensuous nature in man to be (5) the principle or source of evil in him, it is easy to understand how the whole man under its influence should receive the denomination of " the flesh," or the " body of sin." But this is an assumption which will not tally with the treatment of man's corporeal nature in the sacred writings. Any view implying the inherent evil of matter is radically opposed to the whole biblical philosophy. To derive moral evil in man from the bodily side of his nature is as opposed to the Scripture account of its beginning in the race as it is to our experience of its first manifesta- tions in the individual. In Genesis the first sin is repre- sented as the consequence of a primary rebellion against God. 2 The first outbreaks of moral evil in children are selfishness, anger, and self-will. Again, that the cor- poreal nature is necessarily at strife with the spiritual is a view which cannot be reconciled with the claims made upon the body in the Christian system with such pre- cepts as that believers are to " yield their members instruments of righteousness unto God," 3 to present their bodies a living sacrifice, 4 to regard their bodies as the members of Christ and as the temple of the Holy Ghost, 5 that the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body. 6 Still more impossible is it to reconcile with such a view 1 Col. ii. 18 ; comp. vers. 21, 22, 23. See Lightfoot's dissertation on "The Colossian Heresy," prefixed to his Commentary on that epistle, 2d Edition, 1876. 2 See Chap. X. infra. 3 Rom. vi. 13. 4 Rom. xii. 1. 5 1 Cor. vi. 15, 19. 6 1 Cor. vi. 13. 116 OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS the Christian revelation concerning the future of the redeemed, and the consummation of redemption. If sin were the inevitable outcome of man's possession of a body, redemption ought to culminate in his deliverance from it, instead of in its change and restoration to a higher form. 1 To say that the matter of the body is or contains the principle of sin, and then to say, as Paul does, 2 that the last result of the Eedeemer's Spirit in- dwelling in us shall be to quicken these mortal bodies, would be flat self-contradiction. But the truth is, the view which connects sin with the material body is neither Hebrew nor Christian. It is essentially alien to the whole spirit of revelation. Nevertheless, at a very early period in Christian history, chiefly through the influence of the Greek and some of the Latin Fathers, it obtained such hold of Christian thought that it continues to colour popular modes of conception and speech to the present day. One of its most obvious examples is that men imagine they are uttering a scriptural sentiment when they speak of welcoming death as the liberation of the soul from the body, the sentiment of Paul being exactly the reverse, when he declares that even the redeemed who have the first-fruits of the Spirit groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption, i.e. for the redemption of their body. 3 Two additional reasons why Paul cannot be held as tracing man's evil to the cor- poreal element may be summed up in the words of Julius Miiller : " He denies the presence of evil in Christ, who was partaker of our fleshly nature, 4 and he 1 Phil. iii. 21. 2 Rom. viii. 11. 3 Rom. viii. 23. 4 Gal. iv. 4 ; Heb. ii. 14. THE TERM " FLESH " 117 recognises it in spirits who are not partakers thereof. 1 Is it not, therefore, in the highest degree probable that according to him evil does not necessarily pertain to man's sensuous nature, and that sarx denotes something different from this ? " 2 When, however, those who successfully refute this mistaken derivation of the ethical force of sarx come to give their own explanation of it, they fall for the most part into mere tautology. If we say with Neander that it represents " human nature in its estrangement from the divine life, " 3 or with Mliller that it is the " ten- dency which turns towards the things of the world and is thereby turned away from God," 4 or with Principal Tulloch that it means " all the evil activity of human nature," 5 we attain the profound conclusion that the flesh is sinful human nature ! If " flesh " be a designa- tion for sinfully-conditioned human nature, whence comes it that the term is appropriate ? When sarx is defined as " the sinful propensity generally," or as " love of the world," it is quite fair to ask, as Pfleiderer does, 6 " how it would sound to say, ' In me, that is, in my tendency to sin in general, or in my love of the world, dwelleth no good thing.' " " If the ' flesh ' be nothing else than just this condition of man's nature as we find it, this condition which is to be explained, then the whole of 1 TO. TTvev/j.aTt.K^ T?}S irovripla.3, Eph. vi. 12. 2 The Christian Doctrine of Sin, i. p. 321. 3 Planting of Christianity, i. p. 422 (Bohn's Edition). 4 Ut supra, i. p. 326. 5 Croall Lecture, 1876, p. 154. Dr. Tulloch also employs Neander's phrase. 6 Der Paulinismus ; ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der urchristlichen Theo- logie, p. 54, note. 118 OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS Paul's subtle and acute deduction would be nothing but the most wretched argument in a circle. People would give anything to explain away the idea of an impersonal principle of sin contained in the nature of man that pre- cedes every sinful manifestation, and is the ultimate cause which infallibly produces it ; and yet this is just the pith of the whole passage." 1 It is quite certain that Paul means to posit a principle of sin in man, " the sin that dwelleth in me, the law in my members." It is further clear (notwithstanding the occasional use of the one for the other, e.g. " the flesh lusteth against the Spirit "), that the law or principle of sin is one thing, and the flesh or native constitution of man in which it inheres is another. And it is certain that he as little develops the principle of sin out of the mere physical flesh as he identifies the one with the other. It is im- possible to deny a very pointed reference to the lower element of human nature in this important key-word of the Pauline theology ; but what misleads contending exegetes is the supposition that the lower and higher ele- ments in man were conceived of by Paul as by the Greeks or by ourselves, that the antithesis, material and imma- terial, is at the basis of the distinction. So long as this idea prevails, it will be impossible to get rid of the sus- picion that in the " flesh " of the Pauline Epistles we have something which connects sin essentially with the material element in man's constitution. Dismiss that antithesis, substitute for it the proper biblical antithesis, 1 Der Paulinismus, p. 58. This book, which is now in a second edition (Edin., 1890), occupies vols. xiii. and xv. of the Theological Translation Fund Library (Williams & Norgate, 1877). See Chap. XIV. infra, for further reference to Pfleiderer's own position. THE TERM "FLESH" 119 earthly and heavenly, natural and supernatural, that " flesh " is what nature evolves, " spirit " what God in His grace bestows, then we can see how the idea of " flesh," even when ethically intensified to the utmost, is appreciably distinct from the notion of evil as necessarily residing in matter. The great word of John iii. 6 is the source of the apostolic doctrine on this subject : " That which is born of the flesh is flesh." " Flesh " has be- come the proper designation of the race, as self-evolved and self-continued. Human nature as now constituted can produce nothing but its like, and that like is now sinful. " Flesh," therefore, may be appropriately used for the principle of corrupt nature in the individual man, for the obvious reason that it is in the course of the flesh, or of the ordinary production of human nature, that the evil principle invariably originates and comes to light. Thus the phrase is some explanation of the con- dition of man's nature, which it describes. It is no objection to this view, but rather a confirmation of its correctness, that it grounds the Pauline use of sarx, for sinful human nature, on the underlying doctrine of here- ditary corruption, the primary assumptions of apostolic doctrine regarding man being always, that " God made man upright," and that " by one man sin entered into the world." This view is well expressed by Professor E. P. Gould, 1 thus : " What, then, is the reason of this use of sarx to denote man's sinful nature ? . . . Humanity, which on the natural side owes its continuance to the sarx is itself called sarx. Natural and sarkikal are therefore convertible terms in reference to man. On the 1 In a brief article on 2a/> in the B'ibliotheea Sacra, Jan. 1875. 120 OTHEK PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS other side, the spirit is that through which man is con- nected with the divine and supernatural, and specially in the new birth. It is there that the Divine Spirit works, implanting the germs of a new life ; and so ' spiritual ' and ' divine or supernatural ' are also convertible terms in regard to man. To this let it be added that the natural man, connected with the race through the sarx, is sinful, while the new man, connected with God through the pneuma, is holy ; and does it seem strange that sarx should itself be used to denote the sinful natural man, and pneuma the holy renewed man ? It is simply re- solved into this : ' flesh ' is that through which man, in his natural state, is descended from a sinful race, and inherits a sinful nature, and the term is used to denote that nature ; while ' spirit ' is that through which and in which God implants a new divine life of holiness, and the term, therefore, is used to denote that life." We thus see how the secondary, i.e. the ethical or theological meaning of sarx, has a certain reasoned con- nection with its primary or natural meaning. But we make no apology for any want of complete continuity in the transition. It is not our view of the thoughts and language of the Bible that the religious or spiritual is developed by the human writers of it out of the natural or philosophical language of their time, and that critics can trace the development. We hold it a worthier view that the Spirit of revelation poured new and intenser meanings, as revelation advanced, into the earlier and simpler language. The rise of the Pauline phrase, " the flesh," for human nature under sin, is in our view another striking instance of this method of the THE TERM "HEART" 121 inspired writers, or rather of the Spirit of inspiration in them. The only other leading term in biblical psychology which requires detailed notice is HEART (Lebhabh, Kardia). This term is the one least disputed in its meaning, and which undergoes the least amount of change within the cycle of its use in Scripture. Indeed, it may be held to be common to all parts of the Bible in the same sense. It only concerns the modern reader to note what that sense is, and to distinguish it, in one or two particulars, from the modern use of the word, {""ite prominence .as a psychological term in the Bible and in other ancient books is due, doubtless, to the centrality f the physical organ which it primarily denotes, and which, "according ~""t) to the view of the ancients, bulked so much more in the human frame than the brain. Since, in Bible phrase, " the life is in the blood," that organ which forms the centre of the distribution of the blood must have the most important place in the whole system. By a very easy play of metaphor, therefore, " heart " came to signify the seat of man's collective energies, the focus of the personal life. As from the fleshly heart goes forth the blood in which is the animal life, so from the heart of the human soul goes forth the entire mental and moral activity. By a sort of metaphorical anticipation of Harvey's famous discovery, the heart is also that to which all the actions of the human soul return. In th^LCQjidnsed-language of Eoos, In corde actiones animce liumcmtx. ad i-psmn redeunt. In the heart the soul is at home with itself, becomes conscious of its doing and suffering as its own. " The heart knoweth the bitterness 122 OTHEK PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS uf ily uaul," ui, ~of its self." l ' It is therefore the organ of conscience, of self-knowledge, and indeed of all know- ledge. For~we must note well that, in contradistinction to modern usage, " heart," in Bible speech, includes the rational and intellectual as well as all other movements of the soul. It is only in the later scriptures that the Greek habifof distinguishing the rational from the emo- tional finds a place in the sacred language. Now, because it is the focus of the personal life, the work-place for the personal appropriation and aeetmila* tion of every influence, in the " heart " lies the moral and religious condition of the man. Only what enters the heart forms a possession of moral worth, and only what comes from the heart is a moral production. On the one hand, therefore, the Bible places human de- pravity in the heart, because sin is a principle which has penetrated to the centre, and thence corrupts the whole circuit of life. On the other hand, it regards the heart as the sphere of divine influences, the starting-point of all moral renovation : "The woi'le