The Bible, regarded as a work of history which offers us proofs of credibility beyond those of any secular work of the same kind, has in its composition and style a refinement and loftiness of tone far superior to other writings of equal age which have come down to us. The Jews "attributed to these books, one and all of them, a character which at once distinguishes them from all other books, and caused the collection of them to be regarded in their eyes as one individual whole. This distinguishing character was the divine authority of every one of those books and of every part of every book."[1] This belief of the Jews was so strong, so universal, so unchanging that, as has already been said, it pervaded and regulated their entire religious, political, and social life during all the eventful centuries of Israelitish history.
That our Lord knew of this belief, that He endorsed it, preached and emphasized it repeatedly, is very evident from the authentic narrative of the Gospels.
Expressions indicating this are to be found everywhere in the writings of the evangelists: "Have you never read in the Scriptures?" He says to the Scribes in referring to the words of the Psalmist (cxvii. 22): The stone which the builders rejected, etc. (St. Matthew xxi. 42.) Again, a little later on, He charges the Sadducees who say there is no resurrection: "You err, not knowing the Scriptures" (Ibid. xxii. 29). In the Garden of Olives He bears witness to the prophetic character of the Book of Isaiah: "How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled" (Ibid. xxvi. 54)? And the historian, a friend and Apostle of Christ, adds: "Now all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled" (Ibid. 56). St. John's Gospel, especially, abounds in references like the foregoing, which point to the intimate relation between the Messianic advent of Christ and the figures of the Old Law, and assure us that the books of the Prophets, as well as the accompanying historic accounts of the Scriptural books generally, were regarded as the sacred word of God, not only by the Jews, but by the disciples of Christ.
This sacred collection was generally spoken of as consisting of three parts, namely, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Philo and Josephus, both trained in the schools of the Pharisees, mention the division as one well understood among the Jews of their time. Christ Himself speaks of the Sacred Scriptures, in different places, with this same distinction.
Now the testimony of Christ, who proved Himself to be the Son of God, and therefore unerring truth, is explicit in so far as it appeals with a supreme and infallible authority to the Jewish Scriptures as to a testimonynot human, but divine. "Have you not read that which was spokenby God?" He says, referring to the Mosaic Law in Exodus iii. 6 (St. Matt. xxii. 31). Many times He speaks of the Scriptures "that they may be fulfilled," thus indicating that they contain that which lay in the future, and whose foreknowledge must have come from God. This testimony of Our Lord is strengthened by the interpretation of His Apostles in the same sense.
Yet although the testimony of Christ and the Apostles regarding the fact that the Books of the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms are divinely inspired, is very explicit, we have nowhere a clear statement or a catalogue which might assure us what books and parts of books are actually comprised in this collection of the Sacred Scriptures of which our Lord speaks. Christ approves as the word of God those writings which were accepted as such among the Jews of His day, but He does not give us any definite security by this general endorsement that every chapter, every verse, much less every word of the Bible, as we have received it, is actually inspired. We are not therefore quite sure from the evidence thus far given that the Old Testament, as we have it, has in every part of it the sanction of Christ's testimony to its being truly the word of God. As to the New Testament, we know that, however accurate and trustworthy as a history of the times in which it was composed it may be, yet it could not have had the explicit approval of our Lord, simply because it had not been written and was not completed for about a hundred years after His death and glorious resurrection.
Yet we accept the New Testament as also inspired in just the same authoritative way as we receive the Hebrew writings of the Old Law. And nothing but a divine testimony, such as that of Christ, could assure us sufficiently that in the Sacred Scriptures we have the word of God.
What criterion have we by which to determine precisely what books and parts belong to this collection of Old Testament writings of which Christ speaks as the word of God? What authority have we, moreover, for believing the entire New Testament inspired, since it was written after the time of Christ? If Luther and other reformers, so-called, threw out some portions of the sacred text, by what standard or criterion were they guided? Some have answered that we need not the testimony of Christ or any other equally explicit proof to determine what parts belong to this collection of writings representing the inspired word of God. They hold, with Calvin, that a certain spiritual unction inherent in the Sacred Scriptures determines their source, and produces in the devout reader an interior sensation which gives him an absolute conviction of the truth. But common experience teaches that devout feelings may be produced by books which are not inspired, nay, by positively irreligious books, which appeal to our better sensitive nature in some passages whilst they destroy a proper regard for virtue in others. Moreover, the "absolute conviction of the truth" to be deduced from the reading of the Sacred Scriptures is belied by a similar experience, since various sects draw opposing conclusions from the same texts. As truth cannot contradict itself, and as Christ prayed that His followers all be of one mind, we do not feel safe in admitting mere subjective feeling and judgment as a test of what is God's word.
Therefore we must look for some other criterion. Indeed, if our Lord wished us to accept the Sacred Scriptures, including the New Testament, which was written many years after His time, and for a long time was known only to very much separated portions of the faithful, we may be quite sure that He provided a means, an authoritative and clear method, which would lead us to an unerring conclusion in regard to what is and what is not the inspired word of God. This would be all the more necessary for those who regard the Bible as the principal rule and source of their faith.
It is a well-established historical fact that Christ taught some "new doctrines," as they were called, and that He gave a commission to His followers, which they repeated and carried out at the sacrifice of their lives. There is no obscurity whatever about certain words and precepts given by our Lord, historically recorded by six of His Apostles and by many of His disciples who had heard and seen Him, who honestly and intelligently believed in Him, and who were prepared to die, and in some cases actually did suffer martyrdom for the assertions they made. He bade them teach all nations the things He had taught them. He did not give them a book, as He might have done, nor did He tell them to write books; for some of the Apostles never wrote anything; and of those who did write in later days, some had actually never seen our Lord. Such is the common belief regarding St. Paul, who wrote more than any other of the evangelical writers. St. Luke, in the very opening of his Gospel, tells us that he wrote what had been delivered to him by those who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word. Our Lord did not, therefore, give His disciples a book, but He was very explicit in making them understand and feel that He gave them an unerring Spirit, who would be just the same as Himself, verily identical with their living Master and Teacher, Christ, who would abide with them to the end of time. "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." To the consummation of the world? And were they never to die? Were they actually to go, as some believed of St. John, to perpetuate the kingdom of Christ, wandering over the earth until all the nations were converted? Not so. They were to deliver His doctrine to their successors, and the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, would watch over it until the end of ages. St. Peter would live, in this sense, forever, and all the opposing forces of error, the mighty gates of hell, would not overcome that Spirit any more than they would triumph over Christ, who had "overcome the world." To St. Peter He said: "To thee I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven;" "Confirm thou thy brethren." All this was to go on and on, so that every human creature could come into possession of truth through this unerring Spirit that presided over the Christian doctrine. And this perpetual transmission of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who would guide the future teachers and preside over their councils as at the first councils of Antioch and Jerusalem,—this perpetual transmission through a body like the apostolic body, ever living, ever guarded from error, ever triumphant amid humiliations, what else is it but the Church, that glorious heritage of ages, which we recognize through all time in every land, holding every class and condition with the wondrous power of its unity of doctrine and discipline!
Now it is this body, this ever-living and unchanging organism, this grand apostolic tribunal, which Christ established, and without which His mission to men would really have remained incomplete, that tells us that the things which some of the Apostles and some of the disciples wrote for our instruction and edification are inspired by the same holy and infallible Spirit which guided the Apostles in their oral teaching. Not all things were written there, as St. John tells us, but many things which they had taught, and which would keep the people, with whom the Apostles could not be ever present, in mind of that doctrine. The written things were not intended to replace the spoken word of doctrinal jurisdiction, for the evangelical teaching of the spoken word was to go on to the end; besides, there were many who could not read, and many who might listen but would not read. Furthermore, there would be need of a living apostolic tribunal, since a written doctrine, like a written law, is liable to various and sometimes contradictory interpretations. We have constitutions and laws, but we need judges and courts to decide the meaning and application, and if it were not that men forget the order of justice, or are too remote from the centres of jurisdiction, we should not need any written laws at all. Communities may be governed by a wise superior without any written laws, and in no case does the written law dispense with the necessity of a discretionary living authority. It is quite evident that in the matter of truth God wished His Apostles to useall the instrumentsby which that truth might be safely and rightly communicated, and thus the written word was added to the living teaching which the Holy Ghost was ever to direct and safeguard.
I repeat: Christ did not give His disciples a book, but a living, infallible spirit, abiding with them to the end of time, as He said; and since the Apostles were not to remain on earth to the end of the world, what else could our Lord have meant but that others would take their place on the same conditions, with the same prerogatives! That He wished and said this is written over and over again in the sacred volume, and by men who, if they had held this grand trust only for themselves, would have had every reason to say so. But they state the contrary. St. Peter ordains St. Paul; St. Paul sends Timothy and Titus to the new converts on the same conditions, bidding them to preserve intact the grace that is in them "through the imposition of hands." And the successive generations of Pontiffs who take the place of Peter and Paul and Timothy and Titus are the grand tribunal for the transmission of Christ's doctrine.
That tribunal, from St. Peter down to Leo XIII., is the authority: "Christ having sent them, even as the Father had sent Him," which tells us that the books of the Sacred Scriptures, such as we have them, and as they are singly defined in what is called the Catholic Canon of Biblical Books, are truly and really the word of God, and were written under the impulsion of the Holy Spirit.
[1] "The Sacred Scriptures," Humphrey.
In the preceding chapter it was said that the Sacred Scripture of the New Testament contains Christ's statements according to which He founded an ever-living tribunal of doctrine which decided the question of what books are, and what books are not inspired, whenever there is any doubt about such books. Perhaps you will say: "But is this not arguing in a circle—a vicious circle, as philosophers say? You prove the existence of the Church as the tribunal to determine what books belong to the Sacred Scriptures from the words of the Bible; and then you turn about and prove the inspiration of the Bible from the authority of the Church." Now mark the difference. When in my first argument I refer to the Bible as containing Christ's statement and the commission given to His Apostles, I am taking the testimony of the Bible, not as an inspired or divine book, but simply as a trustworthy historical record which tells us the fact, repeated by several eye-witnesses and sincere men, such as the evangelists and apostolical writers, that Christ, of whose divinity they were convinced, had said and emphasized the fact that He meant to found a Church. And as that Church was to have the divine spirit abiding in it, guiding its decisions, it came naturally within the province of that Church to define whether certain books were to be regarded as really inspired by that Holy Spirit. Thus the Church placed upon these books the mark and sign-manual of that commission which she had unquestionably received.
But I am constrained, for the sake of completing our present aspect of the subject, to say something on the character and extent of that divine element which Jews and Christians recognize when they accept the Sacred Scriptures as the word of God.
We have seen that the Biblical writings bear the unmistakable impress of a divine purpose. The nature of that purpose is likewise clearly enunciated on every page of Holy Writ. Man in his fallen condition stands in need of law and example, of precept and promise. These God gives him. We read in Exodus (Chap. iii.) that He first speaks to Moses, giving him His commands regarding the liberation and conduct of His people out of Egypt. Later on, in the desert on Mount Sinai, "Moses spoke, and God answered him" (Chap. xix. 19); and "Moses went down to the people and told them all" (Ibid. 25). Next we read (Chap. xxiv. 12) that the Lord said to Moses: "I will give thee tables of stone, and the law, and the commandments whichI have written, that thou mayest teach them."
Here God announces Himself as the writer of "the Law and the Commandments," although we receive them in the handwriting of Moses. Is Moses a mere amanuensis, writing under dictation? No. He is the intelligent, free instrument, writing under the direct inspiration of God. In this sense God is the true author or writer of the Sacred Scriptures, making His action plain to the sense and understanding of His children through the medium of a man whom He inspires to execute His work.
How does this inspiration act on the writer who ostensibly executes the divine work? We answer:God moves the will of the writer, and illumines his intellect, pointing out to him at the same time the subject-matter which he is to write down, and preserving him from error in the completion of his committed task.
Looking attentively at this definition of Scriptural inspiration, a number of questions arise at once in our minds. God moves the will, enlightens the mind, and points out the subject-matter which the inspired writer commits to paper. Is the writer under the influence of the divine impulsion so possessed by the inspired virtue that he acts without any freedom, either as regards the manner of his expression or the use of previously acquired knowledge concerning the subject of which he writes?
I answer: No. God moves the will of the writer; He does not annihilate it or absorb it, unless in the sense that He brings it, by a certain illumination of the intellect, to a conformity with His own. Hence the manner and method of expression retain the traces of the individuality of the writer, that is to say, of his views and feelings as determined by the ordinary habits of life and the range of his previous knowledge. The idea of the divine authorship of the Sacred Scriptures by no means requires that the truths which God willed to be contained therein could not or should not have been otherwise known to the inspired writers: "Their use of study, their investigation of documents, their interrogation of witnesses and other evidence, and their excuses for rusticity of style and poverty of language show this only, that they were not inanimate, but living, intelligent, and rational instruments—that they were men, and not machines.... They were employed in a manner which corresponded to, and which became the nature, the mode, and the conditions of their being. Previous knowledge of certain truths by men can be no reason why God should not conceive and will such truths to be communicated by means of Scripture to His Church.... Hence the idea of inspiration does not exclude human industry, study, the use of documents and witnesses, and other aids in order to the conceiving of such truths, so long as it includes a supernatural operation and direction of God, which effects that the mind of the inspired writer shouldconceiveall those truths, and those only which God would have him communicate."[1] And herein lies the difference between inspiration and revelation, the latter being the manifestation of something previously unknown to the writer.
The second question, which naturally occurs in connection with the one just answered, is whether we are to consider that the words, just as we read them in the Bible, are inspired in such wise that we may not conceive of the sacred text having any other meaning than that to which itsverbal expressionlimits it.
There are many reasons why we need not feel bound to accept the theory of literal orverbal inspirationof the Bible, although such opinion has been defended by eminent theologians, who wished thereby to defend the integrity of the sacred volume against the wanton interference with the received text on the part of innovators and so-called religious reformers.
In the first place, the theory of verbal inspiration is not essential to the maintenance of the absolute integrity of a written revelation. That revelation proposes truths and facts, and whilst the terms employed for the expression of these truths and facts must fit adequately to convey the sense, they admit of a certain variety without thereby in the least injuring the accuracy of statements. This is applicable not only to single words, but to phrases and forms of diction, and to figures of illustration.
Secondly, the sacred writers themselves abundantly indicate the freedom which may be exercised or allowed in the verbal declaration of divinely inspired truths. Many of them repeat the same facts and doctrines in different words. This is the case even with regard to events of the gravest character, such as the institution of the Blessed Eucharist, in which there can be no room for a difference of interpretation as to the true sense.
St. Matthew (xxvi. 26-28), for example, records the act of consecration by Our Lord on the eve of His passion in the following words: "Take ye and eat: This is My Body.... Drink ye all of this, for this is My Blood of the new Testament, which shall be shed for many for the remission of sins."
St. Mark (xiv. 22-24) writes: "Take ye. This is My Body.... This is My Blood of the new Testament, which shall be shed for many."
St. Luke (xxii. 19-20) says: "This is My Body, which is given for you.... This is the chalice, the new Testament in My Blood, which shall be shed for you."
St. Paul (I. Cor. xi. 24-25) has it: "This is My Body, which shall be delivered for you.... This chalice is the new Testament in My Blood."
These four witnesses cite very important words spoken by our Lord on a most solemn occasion. St. Matthew was present at the Last Supper. He wrote in the very language employed by our Lord, and we have every reason to believe that he could remember and wished to remember exactly what our Lord had said on so important a subject, especially when he, with the other Apostles, was told to do the same act in remembrance of their Master when He should be no longer with them in visible human form. St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. Paul nevertheless vary the expression of this tremendous mystery in all but the words: "This is My Body." They drew their knowledge of the form of the institution of the Blessed Sacrament from St. Peter; at least we know that St. Peter revised and approved of St. Mark's Gospel,[2] and St. Paul and St. Luke evidently obtained their knowledge of the Christian faith from a common source, which the chief of the Apostles controlled. They had every opportunity to consult St. Mark, and there might have been reason for doing so since they wrote in Greek, whereas St. Matthew retained the Hebrew idiom, but evidently neither they nor St. Peter deemed a literal or verbal rendering of the sacramental form essential, provided the true version of our Lord's action was faithfully given.
Furthermore, the claim of verbal inspiration implies a necessity of having recourse to the original language in which the inspired writers composed their works, since it is quite impossible that translations can in every case adequately render the exact meaning conveyed by an idiom no longer living. But the necessity of referring to the Hebrew, Chaldee, or Greek text in order to verify the true sense of an expression would place the Bible beyond the reach of all but a few scholars, for whose exclusive benefit the generally popular style of the Bible forbids us to think they were primarily intended.
Finally, we have the indication by writers of both the Old and New Testaments that what they wrote was not conveyed to them by way of dictation, but that the divine thought conceived in their own minds was rendered by them with such imperfections of expression as belonged wholly to the human element of the instrument which God employed, and could in nowise be attributed to the Holy Ghost, who permitted His revelation to be communicated through channels of various kinds and degrees of material form. Thus the writer of the sacred Book of Machabees (II. Mach. ii. 24, etc.) apologizes for his style of writing. St. Paul (I. Cor. ii. 13; II. Cor. xi. 6) gives us to understand that his words fall short of the requirements of the rhetorician, but that he is satisfied to convey "the doctrine of the Spirit."
[1] Vid. "The Sacred Scriptures; or, The Written Word of God." By William Humphrey, S. J.—London, Art and Book Co., 1894.
[2] Clement Alex.—Euseb., H.E., II. xv. 1; VI. xiv. 6; XX. clxxii. 552. Also Hieron., De Vir. Ill., VIII. xxiii. 621, etc.
But, you will say, whilst it is plain that we need not adhere to the text of Holy Writ so strictly as to suppose that each single word is the only exact representation of the thought or truth with which God inspired the writer, it seems difficult to see where you can draw the line between the teaching of God and its interpretation by man who is not bound by definite words. In other words, if verbal inspiration is not to be admitted, how far does inspiration actually extend in the formation of the written text?
I should answer that inspiration extends to thetruthsandfactscontained in the Bible,absolutely; that it extends to the terms in which these truths and facts are expressed,relatively. The former cannot vary; the latter may vary according to the disposition or the circumstances of the writer. It may be allowable to express this distinction by a comparison of Biblical with musical inspiration. Taking music, not as a mechanical art, but as an expression of the soul, or, as Milton puts it, of
"Strains that might create a soul,"
we distinguish between the conception of the melody and its accompaniment of harmonious chords. The former constitutes, so to speak, the theme, the truth, or motive of the artistic conception, which the composer seizes under his inspiration. When he goes to communicate the expression of this musical truth or melody through the instrument he at once and instinctively avails himself of the chords which, by way of accompaniment, emphasize the musical truth which his soul utters through the instrument, according to the peculiar nature or form of the latter. These chords of the accompaniment are not the leading motive or truth of his theme, but they are equally true with it. They may vary, even whilst he uses the same instrument, but the melody must ever observe the exact distances between the sounds in its finished form, and cannot be altered without changing the motive of the piece.
The inspiration of the Sacred Text offers an analogy to that of the artist musician. The divine melody of truths and facts is definitely communicated to the inspired composer of the Sacred Books. Sometimes he sings loud and with strong emphasis, sometimes he barely breathes his heavenly tones, yet they are no uncertain notes; they allow of no alteration, addition, or omission. But in the accompanying chords he takes now one set, now another, remaining in the same clef, ever true to the melody, yet manifold in the variety of expressing that truth. Even the seeming discords, which, taken by themselves, look like errors, prove to be part of the great theme; when rightly understood they are but transition chords which prepare us for the complete realization of the succeeding harmony into which they resolve themselves.
Does the Church indorse the definition of Scriptural inspiration which has been given in the two preceding chapters? The Church has said very little on the subject of the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, but enough to serve us as a definition and as an expression of its limitations. The Councils of Florence and Trent simply state that "the Sacred Scriptures, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, have God for their author." How much may be deduced from this was made clear by the late Vatican Council (Constit.,de Fide, cap. ii.), which holds that "the Church regards these books (enumerated in the Tridentine Canon), as sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed through the care and industry of men, they were afterwards approved by the authority of the Church, nor simply because they contain revealed truth without error, but because they were written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in such a way as to have God for their author...."[1]
By this definition two distinct theories of inspiration are censured as contrary to Catholic teaching. The first is that which has been calledsubsequentinspiration, according to which a book might be written wholly through human industry, but receiving afterwards the testimony of express divine approval, might become the written word of God. This teaching is not admissible inasmuch as it excludes the divine authorship of the Scriptures.
A second theory condemned by the above clause of the Vatican Council as untenable on Catholic principles is that which is callednegativeinspiration. Its defenders hold that the extent of the divine action in the composition of the Sacred Scriptures is limited to the exclusion of errors from the sacred volume. This would restrict the value of the truth revealed in the Bible to a mere exposition of human knowledge containing no actual misstatements of fact.
[1] See on this subject P. Brucker's recently published work "Questions Actuelles d'Ecriture Sainte,"par le R. P. Jos. Brucker, S. J.: Paris, Victor Retaux, which treats admirably this part of our subject.
Among the many interesting letters which St. Jerome has left us there is one to Laeta, a noble lady of Rome, regarding the education of her little daughter, Paula. An aunt of the child was at the time in Bethlehem, where, amid the very scenes where our Lord was born, she studied the Holy Scriptures in the Hebrew and Greek tongues, as was then the habit of educated Christian ladies. St. Jerome would have the child Paula trained in all the arts and sciences that could refine her mind and lead it to its highest exercise in that singularly gifted nature. To this end he bids Laeta cultivate in the child an early knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures. With a touching simplicity the aged Saint enters into minute details of the daily training,—how the childish hands are to form the ivory letters, which serve her as playthings, into the names of the prophets and saints of the Old Testament; how later she is to commit to memory, each day, choice sayings, flowers of wisdom culled from the sacred writers, and how, finally, he [Transcriber's note: she?] is to come to the Holy Land and learn from her aunt the lofty erudition and understanding of the Bible, a book which contains and unfolds to him who knows how to read it rightly all the wisdom of ages, practical and in principle, surpassing the classic beauty of those renowned Roman writers of whose works St. Jerome himself had been once so passionately fond that they haunted him in his dreams.
It must not be supposed, however, that the judgment of so erudite a man as St. Jerome in placing the study of the Sacred Scriptures above all other branches of a higher education was based upon a purelyspiritualview. He realized what escapes the superficial reader of the inspired writings: that they arenot onlya library of religious thought, but, in every truest sense of the word, a compendium of general knowledge. The sacred volumes are a code and digest of law, of political, social, and domestic economy; a book of history the most comprehensive and best authenticated of all written records back to the remotest ages; a summary of practical lessons and maxims for every sphere of life; a treasury of beautiful thoughts and reflections, which instruct at once and elevate, and thus serve as a most effective means of education. That this is no exaggeration is attested by men like the pagans of old, who, becoming acquainted with the sacred books, valued them, though they saw in them nothing of that special divine revelation which the Jew and Christian recognize. We read in history how, nearly three hundred years before our Lord, Ptolemy Philadelphia, the most cultured of all the Egyptian kings, and founder of the famous Alexandrian University, which for centuries outshone every other institution of learning by the renown of its teachers, sent a magnificent embassy to the High-priest Eleazar at Jerusalem to ask him for a copy of the Sacred Law of the Jews. So greatly did he esteem its possession that he offered for the right of translating the Pentateuch alone six hundred talents of gold ($576,000), and liberty to all the Jewish captives in his dominion, to the number of about 150,000 (some historians give the number at 100,000, others at 200,000).
There exists a spurious account, ascribed to Aristeas, one of Ptolemy's ministers, who is said to have accompanied the royal embassy to Jerusalem for the purpose of urging the king's request. According to this story, which is in form of a letter written by Aristeas to his brother Philocrates, six rabbis, equally well versed in the Hebrew and Greek languages, were selected by the high-priest from each of the twelve tribes. The seventy-two rabbis were invited to the palace of the king, who, whilst entertaining them for some time, publicly asked them questions relating to civil government and moral philosophy, so that by this means he might test their knowledge and judgment. Many of these questions, curious and quaint, have been preserved, and are intended to show the wisdom of Ptolemy and his desire to raise his government to a high level of moral and political perfection. Among the guests who were present at the king's table we find Demetrius Phalereus, the famous librarian, Euclid, the mathematician, Theocritus, the Greek poet philosopher, and Manetho, the Egyptian historian, together with other equally learned and illustrious scholars and literary artists.
Later on the seventy-two translators, according to the same tradition, which has come to us through some of the old ecclesiastical writers, were brought to the island of Pharos, where they went to work in separate cells, undisturbed and living according to a uniform rule, until the entire work of translation had been accomplished. Then the results were compared, and it was found that the translations of all agreed in a wonderful manner, and the Jews accepted it as a work done under the special protection of Jehovah.
Whatever we may hold as to the accuracy of the above account and its pretended origin, it is certain that the story was current before the time of Christ, it being credited by Philo, who repeats it in his Life of Moses, and by Josephus, as well as by St. Justin Martyr and others of the early Christian Fathers. All agree that the Septuagint translation was made about the time of Ptolemy, and that the Jews of Alexandria and Palestine held it in equal veneration as a faithful copy of the Mosaic books, whilst the pagans regarded it in the light of a wonderfully complete code of laws—civil, domestic, and moral.
Reference has already been made to the Sacred Scriptures as constituting the oldest and best-authenticated record of ancient history. From it we draw the main store of our information regarding the beginnings of human society in the Eastern countries of Mesopotamia, early Chaldea, Assyria, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt, all of which are grouped around the common centre, Palestine, where the principal scenes of the Old and New Testament narrative are laid.
But it is not only in the departments of history and geography that the Bible represents the most extensive and reliable source of information hitherto open to the student of mental culture. The sacred books, although never intended to serve a purely scientific purpose, have within recent years become recognized indicators which throw light upon doubtful paths in the investigation of certain scientific facts. Sir William Dawson, one of the leading investigators of our day, has lately published his Lowell lectures, in which he shows how science at last confirms and illustrates the teaching of Holy Writ regarding geology and the creation of man.[1] Similar conclusions are being daily reached in different fields of scientific research, and the words of Jean Paul regarding the first page of the Mosaic record, as containing more real knowledge than all the folios of men of science and philosophy, are proving themselves true in other respects also. We may be allowed to cite here from Geikie's "Hours With the Bible" the testimony of the late Dr. McCaul, who gives us a legitimate view of the latest results of science as compared with the Mosaic record of the Bible.
"Moses," he says, "relates how God created the heavens and the earth at an indefinitely remote period, before the earth was the habitation of man: Geology has lately discovered the existence of a long prehuman period. A comparison with other Scriptures (i.e., those written after the Pentateuch, or Mosaic account) shows that the "heavens" of Moses include the abode of angels and the place of the fixed stars, which existed before the earth: Astronomy points out remote worlds, whose light began its journey long before the existence of man. Moses declares that the earth was or became covered with water, and was desolate and empty: Geology has found by investigation that the primitive globe was covered with a uniform ocean, and that there was a long azoic period, during which neither plant nor animal could live. Moses states that there was a time when the earth was not dependent on the sun for light or heat; when, therefore, there could be no climatic differences: Geology has lately verifed this statement by finding tropical plants and animals scattered over all places of the earth. Moses affirms that the sun, as well as the moon, is only a light holder: Astronomy declares that the sun is a non-luminous body, dependent for its light on a luminous atmosphere. Moses asserts that the earth existed before the sun was given as a luminary: Modern science proposes a theory which explains how this was possible. Moses asserts that there is an expanse extending from earth to distant heights, in which the heavenly bodies are placed: Recent discoveries lead to the supposition of some subtile fluid medium in which they move. Moses describes the process of creation as gradual, and mentions the order in which living things appeared: plants, fishes, fowls, land animals, man: By the study of nature, geology has arrived independently at the same conclusion. Whence did Moses get all this knowledge? How was it that he worded his rapid sketch with such scientific accuracy? If he in his day possessed the knowledge which genius and science have attained only recently, that knowledge is superhuman. If he did not possess the knowledge, then his pen must have been guided by superhuman wisdom" (Aids to Faith, p. 232).
Some years ago much ado was made by certain sceptics about the chronology of the Bible, as if the discrepancies of a few figures could undo the manifest authenticity of the vast store of facts vouched in the grand collection of Biblical books. These discrepancies are being gradually explained. It may be that we err in properly understanding the Oriental habits of counting genealogies, or that the method of the first transcribers led to inaccuracy, despite the care used in the copying and preservation of the text. When we remember that Hebrew signs, very closely resembling each other, denote often great differences, clear enough, no doubt, at first, but becoming indistinct in the course of time, we cannot wonder that some words and expressions present to the ordinary reader a mystery, or even seeming contradiction. It is not necessary to understand the ancient tongue in order to realize this fact. In the first place, the similarity of Hebrew characters which represent great numerical differences must have easily led to errors by the copyists, which caused difficulty to the later transcribers unless they had a reliable tradition to correct the mistake. Thus the letter ב (Beth) representstwo, whilst כ (Kaph) representstwenty. By placing two small dots above either of these two characters you multiply them by a thousand, [Hebrew: Beth with two dots] representingtwo thousandand [Hebrew: Kaph with two dots]twenty thousand. The letter ו (Vav) is equivalent tosix, another letter very like it in form, ז (Zayin), isseven, whilst both of these characters represent a variety of meanings: oftenest ו (Vav) is a copula, at other times it stands at the beginning of a discourse, or introduces the apodosis, or is simply an intensive, or adversative; sometimes it is prefixed to a future tense, and turns it into an imperfect, etc. Again, there are special reasons why certain combinations of letters stand for numerals, contrary to the ordinary rule. Thusfifteenis expressed by טו=9+6, instead of יח, because the name of God commences with the latter characters יחות (Jehovah), etc.
Furthermore, many of the signs used as numerals had fixed symbolical significations, and were not meant to be taken as literal quantities.
Moreover, in all the old Hebrew writings the consonants only are expressed. Thus it happens that the same written characters may denote different things, sometimes contradictory, unless living tradition could supply the true signification. Thus the word כר meansson(Ps. ii. 12), or it may be an adjective signifyingchosen(Cant. vi. 9), or, again,clear(Cant. vi. 10), orempty(Prov. xiv. 4). Besides these primary meanings it stands forcornorgrain, foropen fieldsorcountry, for apit, forsalt of lye(vegetable salt), and forpureness. The true signification in each passage is not always clear from the context, and critics are frequently at a loss to divine the sense intended by the writer.
But whilst these discrepancies and obscurities are a momentary source of distraction, they arouse not only zeal for the study of the sacred languages, by which means philological mysteries are frequently cleared up, but they give us often an insight into the wonderful genius of the Semitic languages, with their peculiar imagery, which associates ideas and feelings apparently wholly distinct from each other according to the use of modern terms.
The last-made reflection suggests another advantage, in an educational point of view, which the study of the Sacred Scriptures opens to those who possess sufficient talent and opportunity for its pursuit. I mean the power of thought and reflection which comes with the study of a foreign language. There are portions of the Old Testament which we cannot rightly read and understand withoutsomeknowledge of the tongue in which they were originally written. This is one of the several reasons which the Church has for not sanctioning, without certain cautions, the indiscriminate reading of the Sacred Scriptures in the form of translation. Let me give you a very good authority for this.
About the very time when Ptolemy Philadelphus, of whom I have spoken in the beginning, sent to Jerusalem in order to procure the Greek translation of the Thorah, or Hebrew law (Pentateuch), a holy Jewish scribe was inspired to write one of the later Scriptural books. It appears that He was among the seventy learned scribes who had been sent by the High-priest to Alexandria for the purpose of making the translation for the king, and that afterwards, whilst still there, he composed the sacred book known asEcclesiasticus. This book he wrote in the Hebrew tongue. Many years after, a grandson of this inspired writer, who is called Jesus son of Sirach, came upon the book and resolved to translate it into Greek, in order that it might be read by many of his brethren in the foreign land, who no longer spoke the Hebrew language, though they believed in the law of their forefathers. To this translation he wrote a short preface which, though it does not belong to the inspired portions of the text, has been preserved and is found in our Bibles. Let me read it to you, because it demonstrates the truth of what I have just said, namely, that our understanding of the Bible is rendered difficult when we are obliged to depart from the original language in which it was written. The younger Jesus Sirach, who spoke both the Hebrew and Greek tongues equally well, at a time when they were still living languages, writes as follows about the translation of his grandfather's work:
"The knowledge of many and great things hath been shown us by the Law and the Prophets, and others that have followed them, for which things Israel is to be commended for doctrine and wisdom; because not only they that speak must needs be skilful, but strangers also, both speaking and writing, may by their means become most learned.
My grandfather Jesus, after he had much given himself to a diligent reading of the Law and the Prophets, and other books that were delivered to us from our fathers, had a mind also to write something himself pertaining to doctrine and wisdom; that such as are desirous to learn and are made knowing in these things may be more and more attentive in mind, and be strengthened to live according to the Law. I entreat you, therefore, to come with benevolence, and to read with attention, and to pardon us for those things wherein we may seem,while we follow the image of wisdom, to come short in the composition of words: for the Hebrew words have not the same force in them when translated into another tongue. And not only these, but the Law also itself, and the Prophets and the rest of the books, have no small difference when they are spoken in their own language. For in the eighth and thirtieth year coming into Egypt, when Ptolemy Euergetes was king, and continuing there a long time, I found these books left, of no small and contemptible learning. Therefore I thought it good and necessary for me to bestow some diligence and labor to interpret this book; and with much watching and study, in some space of time, I brought the book to an end, and set it forth for the service of them that are willing to apply their mind, and to learn how they ought to conduct themselves, who purpose to lead their life according to the Law of the Lord" (Prologue to Ecclesiasticus).