Page images
PDF
EPUB

school in pointing out the Judaizing and Pauline "tendencies" in the New Testament. After Semler exegesis became, and has continued to be, no longer merely grammatical, but historical also. In establishing this historical method, and insisting with Lessing on the distinction of the divine and human elements in the Bible, he cut off at the root all the typical, allegorical, dogmatic, confessional, naturalistic systems. These have no motive when once the point of view is reached which is indicated in the following words of Semler: "It is inconceivable how thoughtful Christians confound the sacred Scriptures of the Jews and the Word of God which is here and there contained and enveloped therein."

Mention should not be omitted, in even the briefest sketch of the history of interpretation, of the salutary and widereaching influence of Schleiermacher, "the Origen of Germany." He was not only the founder of the Psychological School of exegesis, but furnished a fine exemplification of that union of profound Christian faith and the philosophic spirit with the freest and boldest critical attitude toward the sacred books, of which Dr. Martineau and Archdeacon Farrar are among the best living illustrations.

We can only mention Gesenius, De Witte, Bleek, Ewald, Hausrath, Pfleiderer, Keim, Hase, Neander, Dorner. In that monumental work of Meyer, the Commentary on the New Testament, the exegesis of the modern epoch culminates and finds its most consummate expression.

[ocr errors]

Dr. Farrar's own justification of his point of view in relation to the divine and human elements in the Bible ought not to be omitted in a notice of his History. "And if any one ask, How are we to discriminate between that which in the Bible ought to be to us the immediate word of God, and that which, having been but relative and transient, is not His word to us?' I answer that not only is there not the slightest practical difficulty in doing so, but that the question shows, surely, a strange and unworthy timidity. . . For all essential truths, have we nothing to guide us into certainty? Have we no reason 'lighted by God, and lighting to God, res illu

minata illuminans ?' Have we within us no voice of Conscience, that aboriginal vicar of Christ, a Prophet in its informations, a Monarch in its peremptoriness, a Priest in its blessings and anathemas?' Have we no Spirit of God to guide us, or has He abdicated His office since the days of St. John, or at least since the days of St. Augustine?"

To those who shall have had the patience to read this fragmentary outline of the history of a most important part of the progress of the human mind, the lessons which that history teaches will not be obscure or far to seek. It would, surely, be to follow the dictate of a most unwarrantable pessimism to declare that the teachings of that history are disheartening. A history of errors, to a great extent, indeed, it must be admitted to be. The "divine event" towards which Exegesis has moved and is moving, may yet be far away, and not even to be reached by our methods. But that a decided, though tardy, progress has been made, the history will, surely, have taught him who shall not have read it in vain. The lines on which this progress has been made and must continue to be made are, too, unmistakable. Prepossessions, the hot zeal of controversy, dogmas of the infallibility, homogeneity and absolute harmony of the Scripture, have always made, and will certainly continue to make, wheresoever they prevail, of interpretation a hideous farce. To reject the conclusions of a valid historical criticism touching the composition and authorship of Biblical writings, to dissipate by a "figurative" interpretation the plain sense of passages which otherwise would prejudice a System of Theology, has always been, and will always be, to court exegetical disaster. But to the clear-seeing, unbiassed mind, to the discriminating and critical, yet devout and reverent seeker after truth, the Bible will continue to be, as through the ages it has been, the greatest, the purest, the most inspiring Word of God.

President O. Cone, D.D.

ARTICLE XI.

Some Modern Phases of Social Economy.

THERE is a class of persons who have a recognized place among the leaders and teachers of social and political economy, who broadly hold and urge with emphasis doctrines somewhat as follows:

1. The state is under no obligation to educate the children of its citizens. The injury that comes from so doing is greater than the blessing conferred.

2. No man has a right to marry and become the head of a family until he has sufficient means, not only to support, but to educate his possible children.

3. Institutions of charity which have their ground in the Christian sentiment of tenderness and pity for the weaker members of society are harmful, since they tend to preserve and perpetuate the imperfect and abortive specimens of the human stock.

4. The common notion of the relation between parent and child is wholly erroneous. The parent, since he is the cause of the child's existence, owes everything to the child. child owes nothing to the parent, not even affection.

The

These doctrines, when presented in their nakedness, cannot but be shocking to the average intelligence of the nineteenth century. But when clothed in the garb which their advocates know so well how to weave for them, they not only have about them a certain air of plausibility, but seem to carry with them for some minds, at least, the force of verity. Evidently they spring out of scientific theories which, have assumed a wide prominence in our time. But examination will show that they are grounded in a misconception and misapplication of those theories. The law of evolution, and to some extent beyond question the law of evolution by natural selection, holds in human society and human life. But to-day the most intelligent of those theorists who are inclined to put this law into the foreground of their philosophy,

and make it the key with which to unlock the deepest mysteries of the universe, are careful to assert that this law does not work blindly and automatically among men as in the lower orders of being, but that like the other laws which pertain to man's existence, it is subject to intelligent and moral control. Every one must see that there are certain fundamental postulates by which all scientific study must be governed. For example, no law can be examined apart from the facts which underlie and attend its movements. Neither can any law so operate as to be at variance with the nature of things in that province of fact where its dominion is recognized. In other words, every principle which is presented for the guidance of either nature or life, must be applied with due regard to all the phenomena of the domain in which it bears

sway.

In view of these things we are prepared to consider the reciprocal relations of parent and child, of the state and the subject, of institutions and humanity.

The saying that the parent owes everything to the child, has in it a measure of truth. The parent is bound to do for the welfare of his offspring all that lies in his power. He must exercise prudence in his behalf, and he must take up denials for his sake. All good men throughout the civilized world recognize the obligation, and neither rational religion nor sonnd philosophy teach anything to the contrary. The fact that marriages among enlightened nations vary with the price of corn, shows that even the most ignorant and least thoughtful members of society exhibit no tendency to assume the responsibilities of paternity without some regard to the principles of prudence. But this is not the whole truth. Indeed, this entire teaching in regard to parent and child, state aud citizen, etc., is only half of a great truth; and hence becomes the foundation of maxims which are subversive alike of the teachings of social ethics and political economy.

Let us begin by looking at the subject on its ethical side. No principle is better established than that every duty has its correlative right. If the parent owes the child sustenance,

care, training, he has a right to something from the child; for instance, to obedience, honor, affection. The Mosaic law said: Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Filial obedience, filial trust, filial affection was the corner-stone, upon which the Hebrew state was to find its permanence. Nor does it require any very profound penetration to perceive that it is the strength of the family tie among the children of Israel which enabled them to survive the shock of national dissolution and kept them apart from all other races and stamped upon them from generation to generation and from age to age their original characteristics as a peculiar people.

But this is not a specific rule, devised for a particular race. It is a universal law grounded in the very nature of our humanity. All permanent society is built upon the sacredness of the family tie. Contrast the stability of western society with those frequent upheavals in oriental life which so often proceed through parricide. Moreover, let it be remembered that the family is the fundamental social unit. Here is the point at which the law of evolution begins to work. Before the family we have nothing but brutality. Ethical conceptions do not emerge until men have assumed social relations. But the first social bond is the bond of family. In the primeval family, moreover, the father is the head. We have an accu. rate and graphic picture of such a family in the history of the Patriarchs in the book of Genesis. Here everything, the wives, the children, the servants, and even the cattle seemed to stand in the same subordinate relation to the head. Jacob said: "With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands." History has but one testimony to give on this head. Among every civilized people will be found institutions, laws, customs, social habits and modes of thinking which point unmistakably to the time when the family was the unit, and had its life in and through the paternal head. For instance, Patria Potestas among the Romans, according to which the father had absolute power over the possessions, the services, and even the life, of the son, can only be ex

« PreviousContinue »