BOOKS.
IT is impossible to doubt that Mr. Gore's essay on " The Holy Spirit and Inspiration " is one of the most important in this volume, probably that which, after the preface, gives the key-note to the whole,—and we find fault with the design of the volume not so much for the substance of this essay, as for its form. It has raised so great an issue as to the proper meaning of the inspiration of the Bible, that it should have been put in a more prominent position than it actually occupies, and have given a much more elaborate treatment than it actually gives to the relation between historical fact and the divine purpose embodied in the arrange- ment and treatment of historical fact by the inspired writers. The brief way in which Mr. Gore touches so difficult a subject is hardly worthy of his theme. Indeed, the discussion of the true meaning to be assigned to inspiration in the Bible is compressed into a few pages at the close of an essay which in its opening hardly gave promise of culminating in so prac- tical and momentous a series of conclusions. His exposition of the proper meaning of the inspiration of Scripture would have been all the better for far more exhaustive illustration than is here given to it. Practical illustrations, and various illustrations carefully discussed and expounded, were needful to make Mr. Gore's meaning clearly understood ; and if we apprehend him rightly, his use of the word "myth" in con- nection with the literature of the Bible (p. 356), is unfortunate, and likely to mislead the readers of so terse and undeveloped an essay. " Myth," as used by Strauss (and it is in his writings that the word has been most fully treated in its connection with the Bible), certainly expresses the crystallisation of purely human wishes into fictitious narrative. For example, the desire for an incarnation of Deity gave birth, as Strauss strangely believed, to the tradition of the supernatural conception and annunciation to the Virgin Mary; in other words, passionate human longing engendered an imaginary event in the region of
• Lux Hundi : a Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation. Edited by Rev. Charles Gore. MA , Principal of Pnsey House, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. London: John Murray.
history, or, in other words, falsified history. But that is not the sense in which Mr. Gore uses the word "myth." "A myth," he says, "is not a falsehood ; it is a product of mental activity, as instructive and rich as any later product; but its charae- teristic is that it is not yet distinguished into history and poetry and philosophy. It is all of these in the germ, as dreams, and imagination, and thought, and experience, are fused in the mental furniture of a child's mind." But that is not the sense in which " myth " has been used in relation to Biblical literature. "Myth" has been used for the embodi- ment in fictitious history,—though history mistakenly assumed by the writer to be true,—of some one of the desires of man's heart. If the story of the fall of man in the second chapter of Genesis was not meant (as many of the fathers of the Church believed) to be taken for history at all, but was meant much as Banyan's Pilgrim's Progress was meant, for moral truth expressed in an allegorical form, then that was not myth, it was genuine allegory, and the word "myth" would be a misnomer if applied to it. Again, if the first chapter of Genesis was no more intended to give a scientific account of the creation of the world, than the Book of Job was intended to give an authentic record of a contract between God and Satan and its consequences, then it would be quite a mistake to speak of the first chapter of Genesis as containing a myth. It should be regarded as a "Psalm of Creation," just as we regard, for instance, the 104th Psalm, which goes over some of the later portion of the same ground, but was never mistaken by any one for a scientific exposition of geological facts. That psalm speaks of God as one " who laid the founda- tions of the earth, that it should not be moved for ever. Thou. coveredst it with the deep as with a garment ; the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away; they went up by the mountains ; they went down by the valleys, into the place which thou hadst founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over, that they turn not again to cover the earth." If that never was intended to convey to man a scientific account of the geology of watersheds, surely the first chapter of Genesis was never meant to contain a scientific account of the story of evolution. The one, like the other, is a psalm, and neither a myth nor a scientific treatise. It is meant to teach us to see the sublimity of the divine power and purpose, but not to give us a lesson in the method of the divine order. We regret very much that Mr. Gore should have made use of the word " myth," —absolutely spoiled by Strauss's use of it, if not inappropriate before—for his purpose. For it seems to us not only a mis- leading word in itself, but a word which does not in the least express Mr. Gore's real meaning, with which, so far as we under- stand it, we have no fault to find. For undoubtedly there are elements in the Bible, and as we believe genuinely inspired elements in the Bible, of which the 104th Psalm and the first chapter of Genesis are perfect specimens, in which "products of mental activity, not yet distinguished into history and poetry and philosophy," are incorporated.
But while we think that Mr. Gore has made a mistake in not treating of the inspiration of the Bible at considerably greater length, and in a manner less open to misinterpreta. tion, we have no fault to find with what we understand to be the principles which he lays down. Indeed, they seem to us admirably clear and trustworthy, though we greatly need more illustrations in applying them to the critical problems of Scripture. He points out that the difference between the Hebrew account of creation and that of the allied cosmogonies, the Babylonian and Phcenician, is, that, instead of having for its motive "the satisfaction of a fantastic curiosity," or scientific ardour for discovering the order of phenomena, its object from the first is to reveal the higher purposes of God,— man's relation to those higher purposes, the secret of evil in man's disobedience to God's law, the promise of re,- storation, and the expanding purpose of God in the gradual evolution of the means and the method of restoration. The recorders of that purpose, " sort, collect, adapt, combine" all kinds of materials for showing the development of God's purpose ; but their animating motive is not, like the motive of other national historians, to bring out the triumphs of their race, or even to excite interest in the mere structure of the national fortunes, but to illustrate God's character and law. They insist on the disgraces of their nation even more emphatically than on its glorious victories; they record the punishments which fell upon it. " A know- ledge of God and the spiritual life gradually appears, not as the product of human ingenuity, but as the result of divine communication ; but the outcome of this communication is to produce an organic whole which postulates a climax not yet reached, a redemption not yet given, a hope not yet satisfied." Christ is the goal of the whole story, and the measure of its meaning. The inspiration of the Old Testament leads us to the life which the New Testament reveals. We should test the inspiration of the Old Testament by the degree in which it leads us to the fulfilment of its hopes in the New. Mr. Gore quotes from Robertson Smith :—" The real use of the earlier record is not to add something to the things revealed in Christ, but to give us that clear and all-sided insight into the meaning and practical worth of the perfect scheme of Divine grace, which can only be attained by tracing its growth." For example, Mr. Gore takes the imprecatory Psalms. They contain, he says, a real element of the divine education, though one belonging to an early stage of spiritual growth, which looked upon this present world as the only scene in which the divine purpose for man could develop itself. They were not outpourings of personal spite or resentment, but invocations to God to reveal to man his true justice, his true hatred of pride and malice and selfishness and cruelty.
Again, is all the history in the Bible necessarily true ? In purpose and outline, Mr. Gore believes that it is ; for the object of the writers,—to bring out the divine purpose,—pre- vented them from flattering their national heroes, and often compelled them to insist on their sins. But it is not necessarily always accurate. There is no special providence to prevent a man whose mind is full of the development of God's purpose in a later age, from reading more of it back into an earlier age than careful comparison and research will show to have been really developed so early. Thus, Deuteronomy ascribes a further development to the Mosaic institutions in the time of Moses than any which actually took place so early. The Books of Chronicles attribute to the early history of Israel a more rapid growth of the priestly conceptions in the early days than the Books of Samuel and of Kings justify us in accepting. Mr. Gore does not believe that there was any guarantee for the accuracy of these later conceptions of the early history. It is enough that these writers have simply antedated the historical growth and maturity of germs of divine purpose which were early planted. But he assumes that this can only happen if "the result read back into the earlier history does represent the real purpose of God, and only anticipates its realisation." Inspiration means the illumination of the recorder's judgment as to the purposes of God, but not necessarily, and not always, the illumination of his judgment as to human facts, concerning which he had at his command but imperfect evidence. If we may give an illustration of our own, the Bible itself shows us very great discrepancies in its different accounts of the same facts,—in such a summary, for instance, of Old Testament history as St. Stephen's, as compared with the story in the Old Testament itself. It would seem, therefore, that inspiration itself testifies to us that the accuracy of all the historic details of the story of the people of Israel, as narrated by inspired writers, is not guaranteed by their gift of inspiration.
Mr. Gore treats our Lord's own use of the Old Testament in the same reverent, yet, as we think it, candid way. The very meaning of the Incarnation is, that our Lord really emptied himself of his divine attributes of omniscience and omnipotence, for the purpose of setting us a real example, and showing us what human nature in its perfection might really be. Had he retained his omniscience and omnipotence in the sphere of his human experience, his humanity would not have been real, his example would not have been applicable, his sympathy with our griefs and limitations and difficulties and yearnings would not have been perfect. But this implies that in dealing with the literary side of Old Testament problems, our Lord, in his human nature, had only the best knowledge available in his own age, and was not using his supernatural power to sift the true from the erroneous. Mr. Howorth, in our own columns, put this point very conclusively when he showed that our Lord's quotations from the Old Testament are certainly often taken from the Septuagint, and not from the original Hebrew. Now, where the Septuagint differs from the original Hebrew, it is impossible to maintain that the Septuagint can have repre- sented the books of Moses more accurately than the original
Hebrew. What further demonstration could we have that our Lord in his human nature did not command super- naturally the whole field of Hebrew literature ? Had he done so, he would of course have quoted from the most authentic, the only authentic, version. We hold, then,. that Mr. Gore's essay on Inspiration is defective only in form, in crowding a great deal too much suggestion into a very terse statement which he has not space to illustrate satis- factorily, and in the rather careless use of a single word, "myth," which is full of false suggestion, though we do not believe that Mr. Gore intended to convey by it any of these false suggestions. With the general drift of his essay we heartily agree, and think it both wise and timely. But it should have been put in the front of the battle. It should have been much more fully elaborated and defended, and guarded against misinterpretation.
In our concluding notice, we hope to speak of the other essays in this interesting volume which seem to us most impressive and most powerful.
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