The history of the higher criticism of the New Testament; being the history of the process whereby the Word of God has won the right to be understood

Front matter

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Preface

This book may seem to be badly planned. Where space is so scanty, to spend four chapters in working up to the critical period that began in the eighteenth century looks out of proportion. Yet the purpose of the book justifies and even compels this procedure. The aim is to make clear to non-professional readers the nature of the Higher Criticism and its divine right within the churches. To do this the history of Bible-study must be followed far into the history of Christianity, even as far as the time when, by the cooperation of the Catholic Church with the moral forces of pagan antiquity, the foundations of modern life and culture were laid, and the Bible was taken to the heart of Europe. Criticism can defend itself before the people only by showing that the history of our religion has made it inevitable. And to do this with any measure of success, the historical causes and conditions of criticism must be treated at greater length than would be seemly if the book were designed for professional readers.

The reader will remember that the aim of the book is not to give a detailed account of the movements of opinion in the field of Introduction. That matter is handled by another book in this series. The aim is rather a philosophy of the history of Criticism.

Chapter I Page

View taken of the subject — Criticism is the modern form of Bible-study — Its motive is identical with the motive of Bible-study in earlier periods — The means and methods differ — The motive of Bible-study has always been the desire to know the Word of God deeply — In former times the Scriptures were not free to speak their mind in their own tongue — The text was dominated and manipulated by dogma that came upon it from without — In our times the text is being interpreted along the lines of its own meaning. This, in sum, is criticism — The explanation and defence of criticism is to be found in the history of Bible-study as a whole.

CHAPTER II The Bible's Definition op Revelation and the Ideal

op Bible-study that goes with it . . . .17

The main qualities of the book upon which Christian interpretation has exercised itself — The nature of the self-revelation of God — The Bible defines itself as a Word of God delivered through a genuinely human experience — The Bible describes itself as being mainly a book of histories — The heart of the New Testament is the story of a sinless, yet absolutely human, life, wherein God's deepest Word about Himself took flesh — The Holy Scriptures command us to viii CONTENTS

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test all views of the Bible by bringing them close to the definition given by Scripture itself — The nature of the Bible forces us to take it into the light of history in order to understand it.

Chapter III

The irrepressible conflict between the ecclesiastical interpretation of the Middle Ages and the sacred text. The fundamental idea of genuine Christianity is that the Sacred Scriptures, being the record of God's self-revelation and the book of witness to the promise and presence of the perfect life amongst men, are the standard by which the Church is to judge her life — The ecclesiastical doctrine of Tradition led the Church to a position where she was more or less disloyal to this fundamental idea — The Tradition put itself forward as an infallible, that is to say, a sufficient interpretation of God's Word — Finally it vested its claims and rights in the person of an infallible Pope — The contradiction between the sacred text and the established interpretation was concealed by an allegorical or unhistorical interpretation — The Bible itself, to secure its rights, demanded a breach with Tradition — Criticism inevitable.

Chapter IV

How the Possibility op Criticism was given . . 63 The Reformation — Renaissance movement ; — The laity secure the right to think and speak on sacred things — The sacerdotal monopoly of interpretation comes to an end — The Reformation asserts the right of the lay conscience to know the Scriptures, the standard of the ideal life, at first hand — The Renais-

CONTENTS ix

TARU sance asserts the right of reason to look into divine truth — The Bible comes into direct contact with common religious consciousness, and is set up as its supreme authority — The fundamental idea of Christianity clearly recognised — The Bible shakes off the bonds put upon it by human opinion — An historical interpretation of Scripture necessary — Bible-study ceases to be indirect, through the Fathers and through Tradition, and becomes a study at first hand.

CHAPTER V How Criticism was realised . . .77

The eighteenth century — The critical period in the thought of Europe — Dogma breaks down — Tradition cashiered — The sacred text set free — By means of a grammatical and historical method of interpretation the Bible insures itself against allegorical abuse — The Bible its own guardian — The human authors of Holy Scripture come plainly into view — The ideal of criticism appears — All the records of the past open themselves to a searching examination.

CHAPTER VI The Preliminary Work of Criticism . . . 100

From Semler to Strauss, 1750-1835 ; — The criticism of the text followed by "Higher" or interior study — The decay of the ancient conception of inspiration makes a literary study of the New Testament possible — Problems appear — The relations of New Testament books to one another are discovered — The historical movements back of the books are suggested,

Chapter VII

The Tubning-point in the Course of Criticism, 1835 111 The criticism of 1750-1835 lacked a controlling and coordinating conception — The dogmatic concept of the Canon had given unity to patristic and mediaeval and early Protestant Bible-study — That conception shattered in the eighteenth century — No new unifying principle to take its place — Studies of Scripture, while critical and free, were disconnected — The results lacked an organising principle — In 1835 anew ruling idea conies on the field — The idea of humanity — Sacred history the record of a human process — The literary study of the New Testament becomes coherent.

Chapter VIII

Criticism as an academic process — Forces deeper than academic thought — The men of the chair freer in Germany than in any other country — Even in Germany, influences coming from outside the universities have been masterful — A purely critical process is an illusion — Fundamental tendencies in German criticism — The individual scholars did not create them and can only in part modify them.

Chapter IX

The "Schools" of critical opinion more or less loosely connected groups of scholars — Tubingen School — Conservative School — Mediating School — Ritschlian School.

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Chapter X Page

The Historical Spirit ... ... 171

The historical spirit "a new kind of piety " — The aim is to give the right of free speech to the men of the past — The records of the past to be read in their own language and along the lines of their own feeling

— The aim of the Reformation was to set the Word of God free from subjection to ecclesiastical tradition

— By the help of modern methods in historical study and through the use of the materials of knowledge now brought within our reach, the principle of the Reformation can be realised — The spirit of scientific study the ally of Holy Scripture.

CHAPTER XI The Inspiration of Criticism . . . 180

A critical age may find in its criticism an ideal no less noble than the one found by a dogmatic age in its dogma — Criticism an ideal — The nature of revelation calls for it — The logic of history makes it inevitable — The Church must take criticism seriously or be untrue to Christianity — Possible connection between the tasks of criticism and the preparation of the churches for their work in the coming age — The ideal and the promise of criticism divinely given and ordained.

Index ■ 189

Bible-study.

THE HISTOEY OF THE HIGHER CRIT- ICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

Chapter I

Let us fasten our minds on the Bible and take note The first of the thoughts it gives rise to. We shall find that B^stufr we are stirred by a deep and lively interest, like that which any great object excites, when it would call us out of ourselves. Our interest runs out toward many things. A mighty and majestic universe has always beset the reason of our race. But it was only a little while ago that we came to know the universe in its true character. Man's discovery of the world he lives in is the commanding feature of the mental life of our time. Nature, having so long and patiently besieged us, has, at last, carried the citadel by storm. The walls are down. Neither indolence nor dogma can longer resist Nature's questions. The results are not all good. Beligious folk are sometimes brought into

1 Literature : The ruling idea of this book being that the Higher Criticism of the N. T. is an integral part of the process whereby the men of the N. T. have come to be interpreted historically, many of the books referred to must necessarily be very general in their character. Farrar, History of Interpretation, 1885 ; Immer, Hermeneutics of the N. T. , tr. by Newman, 1890 ; S. Davidson, Sacred Hermeneutics, 1843 ; Diestel, Geschichte d. A. T., 1869; Hagenbach, History of Christian Doctrines, 3 vols. (The Foreign Theological Library); Alfred Cave, Introduction to Theology and its Literature, 2d ed., 1896. b 1 deep trouble. Many devout souls, finding the clear and simple horizons of the old life blurred and beclouded, are in sore distress. Masses of people who, in earlier days, would have been under the influence of Christianity, now wander about as sheep having no shepherd. These things grieve our hearts. Still, we cannot turn back the tide of history. The age we live in, along with its many grievous faults, has some incomparable virtues. The disinterested love of truth has never been so strong; nor has there ever been anything to compare with the wide and eager study of our time. We have perfected the telescope, and so broken through the barriers of the skies. We have developed the microscope until the infinite has come out of its hiding-place within the familiar. Above us, around us, beneath our feet, is a world of objects, all of them interesting, all of them commanding us, with an authority that may not be gainsaid, to study them and so enlarge our minds.

Dogma, the simple, unhesitating, untiring conviction regarding the things unseen, has greatly weakened. Some day, changed in form, it will regain its edge and force. For dogma means power and temper of will, depth and persistence of purpose. And our age, with the inspiring yet terrible difficulties that are beginning to confront its choicest ideals, will find, sooner or later, that it has sore need of dogma. But, meanwhile, as we wait and pray for a truer and kindlier statement of the old faith, we recognise to the full the intellectual glory and splendour of our epoch. We are not outsiders to our time. We are within it and of it. And because we drink deep of its spirit, our world is full of interesting things, each endowed with a divine right to be known. The depths of the sea challenge us to fathom and explore them. The North Pole does to men what the deed of Miltiades at Marathon did to Themistocles — it will not let them sleep. Nature stands before us with a full and eager mind. To listen to her reverently, to go outside the bounds of our present knowledge in order to learn new things, and by learning to enrich and strengthen our race in its struggle against the conditions that have enslaved us, this is the ideal of mental life that inspires and disciplines the highest reason of our time.

To that ideal our minds owe unhesitating loyalty. Every object that makes a part of our universe calls to us to come forth from ourselves that we may interpret it. And we reverently acknowledge the divine right of the object to challenge us, even though the time and strength, the faculties and opportunities of knowledge, be denied us. Now the Bible is one object amongst others. It challenges the reason in us, just as every great object does. At the same time, its challenge has peculiar and compelling power. For when reason passes from the high scientific study of Nature to the scientific study of history; when it sets out on the search for that self-knowledge which is the highest form of knowledge; and when, in pursuit of the deepest self-knowledge, it comes to the history or autobiography of our race, the Bible comes upon it with irresistible authority. In supreme degree it has the right to be reverently studied.

The Bible has been knit into the experience of the The Bible nations whom God has put in control of the earth. jJXrattag The story of the way it grew up is at the very heart because of of universal history in its ancient period, as that his- ^ pUyed. tory moved slowly but resistlessly from the earliest Chaldean Empire to Rome. The story of its influence is at the centre of universal history in its modern period, as that history has marched on from the downfall of Borne to the building of the nations. It has, then, a sovereign right to command our attention, a supreme power to tax and control our interest. Think of it as a book set deep in the best experience of our race. Then, if we would truly know our responsibilities and our capacities, we must know its story intimately. Think of it as a literature that has strongly coloured and shaped the conscience and imagination of the Occident. As students of literature, we must acquaint ourselves with its intrinsic qualities and its external fortunes. Think of it as the book of devotion to high aims and ennobling ends, from which the choicest spirits of the world have drawn strength and inspiration. Then, as men of serious mind, who will not let their science distract them from their main business — the art of living nobly — we must study this book thoroughly. That splendid ideal of knowledge, that impassioned desire to know, which is the mental glory of our time, lays upon us the obligation to acquaint ourselves with the Bible and its history.

The second As we go deeper into our own hearts, we discover motive of another motive at work. This book, the book of Life to our fathers, is the selfsame book of Life to us, their children. As we look at it, warm and joyous thoughts of the deeds of God visit and cheer us. Through it the Christ speaks home to us a Word of God that comes from the depths of the divine Being, and tells us of a work of God perfectly wrought out in humanity. We have listened to the Word. The best that is in us has said "Amen" to Christ's report of good things. Christ's book has enkindled in us the sweet and masterful hope that we ourselves may grow up to the doing of a perfect work. Our reverence for ourselves, and our trust in our race, bid us reverence and love the Bible. Our hearts stir us up to study and know it.

And so, two kinds of piety join their forces to press to know and the desire to upon us the duty of knowing the Bible intimately. 1 The desire The first is the historical spirit, a true kind of piety, in that it bids us know the words and deeds of the behaved men of the past, because of their intrinsic worth and meaning. The second is the piety of the Christian, which bids us search the Scriptures because they have a deeper root in human experience than any other book, and because they speak home to our hearts as no other book can. Here are the two great spiritual desires of our nature working to the same end. There is, indeed, a vulgar desire to know. Vanity, the appetite for knowledge that shall have a market value, the love of fame, the low pleasure of the disillusionment that comes from criticism of the noblest aspects of the past, these things sometimes stain and soil the purity of the desire to know. Likewise, there is a vulgar desire to be saved. The subtle egotism that pervades many forms of religion, the wish to avoid complete responsibility for one's own character and deeds, the base dread of the physical pains of hell, the low pleasure of feeling one's self spiritually insured,

1 " Allenthalben widmet man der Erforschung der Alterthiimer ein Studium das duroh eine Art von Pietat belebt wird. " Eanke, Weltgeschichte, I, Vorrede. Ranke, after Niebuhr, is the greatest name in modern historical study. When he calls the historical spirit a kind of piety, he speaks with authority. It is indeed a new sort of piety. Its motive is reverence for the total human past. Its aim is to insure to the men of the past the right of free speech, so that their words and deeds may retain their individual character, and not be taxed to meet the needs of feeling or fancy in the present. So the two motives of modern Bible-study are in unison. The scientific motive demands the original facts and thoughts of Scripture, distinct and separate from subsequent opinion regarding Scripture. The religious motive demands the Word of God in its pristine beauty. The two motives are at one. See also, Keim, Jesus of Nazara, I, p. i f.

these things stain and soil the purity of the desire to be saved.

Yet, for all that, these two desires — the desire to know and the desire to be saved — are supreme among the motives that rightfully mould the affections and command the will. The pith of the desire to know is the resolute purpose to see things as they are and to report what one has seen without fear or favour. The pith of the desire to be saved is the holy aim to consecrate one's self as Christ was consecrated, to be perfect as God is perfect, and to work even as He works for the redemption of our race.

The two Now and then, as we read our Bible, these two

desires desires conflict. Our devotional reading of Scripture

conaict. is sometimes disturbed by our scientific interest in questions of authorship and history. The scientific endeavour to know the various parts of Scripture in their original meaning and setting is sometimes impeded by our devotional moods. None the less, both desires are at home in our hearts. The Christian in us may not say to the historical student in us, "Thou art of a different spirit; I can have no fellowship with thee ! " To say so were to play false to the history of the Occident. Our religion could not have established itself in Europe, unless it had first made its peace with the philosophy of the ancient world. A true victor never wins a victory save through service. The Christianity that conquered the Mediterranean world first served both its mind and its heart. The same law still prevails. By reason of the very frame and constitution of Occidental history, the desire to know is as deep in us as the desire to be saved. The two desires, spite of temporary jars and conflicts, must work side by side in our study of the Scriptures. Otherwise, the Bible will cease to be the Word of Life for men of our kind.

The union of the two motives for Bible-study sug- Union of gests the ruling idea of this book. Holy Scripture motives, has the right to be understood. As one great object in a universe of objects, all of them demanding the best effort and the most patient study of the student, it must be known as it is in itself, whether the knowledge agrees or disagrees with the established opinions of the churches. As the sovereign object of religious study, it asserts the right in supreme degree. Our deep reverence for it forces us to interpret it along the lines of its own meaning and purpose.

It is indeed true that Bible-study, under modern Risks conditions, is attended by risks and sometimes fol- modern" 5 lowed by losses. A sober-minded scholar cannot Bible-study, think without pain of the many devout souls who cry out, — when criticism shatters some old statement or view, — " They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." No matter how erroneous the statement may have been or imperfect the view, the pain inflicted by its destruction must needs bring grief to the destroyer. A youthful critic may take pleasure in the use of his apparatus, even as a young surgeon delights to use his instruments upon the human body. And sincere Christians, ripe in faith, see things most dear to them, and to many generations of believers before them, handled as intellectual playthings, or at best as a chemist handles elements in his laboratory. The academic thinker is not infrequently far away from the body of the people, and through sheer lack of imagination cannot realise the grief and alarm that criticism is causing. But upon scholars who keep their hearts as well as their heads, these things weigh heavily.

There is something even more distressing. Numbers of Protestant Christians, although they have neither ability nor equipment for critical study, feel

No sound conception of authority.

Certain losses are inevitable.

The divine compulsion in criticism.

themselves forced to dip into criticism. They have no sane conception of authority that can take the place of the irrational and sacerdotal conception of the Roman Church. As long as the Bible stood before their eyes clothed with an infallibility which frowned down all questions, they lived untroubled. But the Bible has now come within reach of questions. They are forced to assume a certain responsibility for the answers. Lacking the wherewithal of critical study, yet carried into it by the main forces of the day, they do not, because they cannot, work at criticism. They merely worry over it. Criticism enters as a sort of slow fever into their religion. Their spiritual energies are grievously wasted.

Yet we have read the history of Christianity to little purpose, if we suppose that the Master of Life will give us his best things without our paying for them in grief and trouble. From the beginning, the way of the cross has been the way of light. We are witnessing, and with or without our will are helping on, the break-up of that conception of authority and inspiration which satisfied and controlled the Christian reason for many centuries. Now the undoing of a great conception, one that has long shaped and coloured the thoughts of men, is sure to bring some distressing things in its train. Evil and trouble and pain have come among us. But we know well that we are not critics by grace of any human authority. It is not by our own wish or will that we are what we are.

The divine will that ever and again drives the Cburch out of the old ways and views, to the end that her eyes may be opened upon new fields of privilege and duty, is the critic's authority and stay. He doubts not that a divine compulsion is laid upon him. And he seeks to persuade the great body of Christian people that he is ordained of God to defend and make good the rights of God's own Word. If it can be shown that criticism is the inevitable result, the saving necessity of the Church's life, the laity will not be as the children of Ephraim, who, being harnessed and carrying bows, turned themselves back in the day of battle.

It is a commonplace of mental method that we cannot hope to understand the nature of any object, unless we follow it through the stages of its growth. We must know how it became what it is, if we would penetrate its being. This law of method has a force that increases in proportion to the greatness and scope of the object we are studying. The more significant the idea or the ideal that stands before us, the more compelling its claim upon our attention, the less shall we be able to understand its permanent bearings, unless we acquaint ourselves with the story of its growth. Hence, in a matter so significant in itself, and so pregnant with consequences as Biblical criticism, we must follow its history from the beginning.

Since the second century the Christian Scriptures have been deeply and devoutly studied. Why they were studied in one way down to the eighteenth century, and why in our time they are being studied in a different way, constitute a single question. It should be clear that the question can be answered only by a broad appeal to history. And if, through our reading of the history of Bible-study at large, criticism shall be given to us as being both an historical necessity and a divine ideal, we shall all be cleansed of our vanity and fear. The conceit of the critic will disappear when he realises that he is called of God to be a critic. The fears of the layman will vanish when once he is assured that God is holding up before his Church new ideals of life and knowledge. We shall

We must know how a thing grew, in order to understand it.

A broad appeal to historynecessary.

be delivered from mental frivolity, — the most hideous of all intellectual faults, — and from that habit of coquetting with criticism upon which Christians of a certain kind congratulate themselves. For criticism will show itself to be the defence of the rights of Holy Scripture, the process through which God is emancipating his Word from servitude to human opinion.

History of Nothing short of the history of Bible-study as a

as a 1 whoieT whole can achieve this result. If we confine our attention to the years just past — a hundred and fifty, more or less — wherein the " Higher Criticism " has become a distinct discipline, we shall not be able to prove to ourselves that the root of reverent criticism goes as deep as the life of the Church; we shall not wholly allay the suspicion that the Higher Critics are men who, for insufficient reasons, are breaking the peace of the Church. It may be said that, taking the subject so largely, we shall run the risk of losing ourselves. But that is not to the point. Better to be lost than to transgress the law laid down for us by the nature of the subject we propose to take in hand.

The Christian Bible was recognised as Holy Writ during the period that saw the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Occident. 1 The

1 Speaking broadly, the building of the Canon is the first chapter in the history of Bible-study. That is clearly the case in the O. T. field. The prophetical literature being the spiritual patrimony of Israel after the Exile, to study and assimilate it, to edit it and to apply it to the needs of the time, became the chief mental and legal training of the Jews. Out of this Bible-study issued the fact and conception of the 0. T. Canon. The case is not so clear in the N. T. field. But only because the preexistence of the 0. T. Canon, along with Christianity's speedy detachment from its Jewish base, brought it to pass that the first and decisive steps in the building of the N. T. Canon were quickly taken, when once the need of a N. T. Canon came to be doctrine of the Canon was built up, not as a thing apart, but as one part of a vast structure of dogma. No one thought of separating the idea of the Bible from the idea of the Church. The two ideas belonged to a single organism of ideas. During the Middle Ages, while the Church's estimate of the Bible's worth kept going higher, still the two ideas clung close to each other. Hence, if we are to take any cognizance of Bible-study before the Reformation, we must read the story in connection with the whole mental life of the Church. Now the part played by the Bible in the Reformation period becomes unintelligible, if we detach it from the history of Bible-study during the mediaeval and patristic periods. So, if we take a single step beyond the eighteenth century, we must keep on until we reach the times of the Fathers.

But why should we take that first step? Why not confine our attention to the period of conscious criticism? The specialist in modern Bible-study is tempted to do that. He knows that criticism as an ideal is distinctly a modern thing. It is for the most part in the modern university — and chiefly in the German university — that scientific Bible-study has found both its standing-ground and its apparatus. Why, then, in a book so small as this, attempt to cover so much ground? Why not neglect the comparatively unimportant periods of Bible-study and give all our time to the work of getting clear views concerning the evolution of the critical ideal and methods throughout the professedly critical period?

There are two sufficient reasons against this procedure. In the first place, we should go wide of our

The idea of the Bible and the idea of the Church.