Chapters of Bible Study Part 8

From a scientific point of view the Vulgate enjoys the advantage of being the oldest of all the Scriptural versions. In the Old Testament it represents a text more ancient than the Hebrew of the Masoretic doctors. The New Testament is likewise older than the oldest Greek text extant, as Lachmann in his critical edition has demonstrated.

Moreover, its composition is the result of the best scientific apparatus of early Christian times, which St. Jerome possessed in a phenomenal degree, both as to his person and also as to the circ.u.mstances in which he was placed. Finally, it has an historical support of unequalled superiority, inasmuch as it has been from the beginning the means of Christianizing the nations of Europe.

All this is being verified, not only by textual critics, but by the more recent discoveries in the study of Christian paleography.

Such is the position in which scientific research finds the Church.

The multiform theories about the Bible, and the various possible senses of its words and pa.s.sages, only affect her in a limited degree.

Catholic apologists are obliged to deal with these theories so far only as they affect the positive teaching of the Church in faith and morals, although the a.n.a.logy of faith demands that the Catholic scientist test his opinions by weighty tradition and approved practice. Whilst the _dogmatic_ integrity of the Sacred Scriptures is thus secured, the examination of the critical integrity of individual parts leaves a wide field open to Catholic Biblical students. The work done by non-Catholic scholars who have examined the Bible, either to bring out the verbal meaning of its text, or to verify some historical or philological hypothesis, is astounding. Catholic students owe a great debt to the first gleaners in this field; for though we have neither felt impelled to look for the rule of our faith in the Bible exclusively, nor always been inclined to accept the dicta regarding the literal sense of so sacred a doc.u.ment from the professors of philological discipline, we have incidentally profited by all these searchings. They have ill.u.s.trated the excellence of our faith, both as a system and as a moral principle. They have thrown light upon problems of exegesis. All the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church have found their confirmation in the a.n.a.lysis of Biblical terms as the result of textual criticism. The words of the Bible have been thrown into the crucible, and the gold of Catholic doctrine has been the outcome--purer, brighter, more refined, and still weighty. Each verified theory regarding the sense of old forgotten Hebrew terms has received the impress of Catholic approbation, and served to give the doctrine of the Church a more ready currency. Scientists, often reluctantly, are pointing out golden opportunities for Catholic students.

It does not come within our present scope to speak of the various methods employed by the science and art of Biblical criticism, nor to retail the separate results to which the inquiry into the authenticity (Higher Criticism) and the integrity and purity of the text (Lower Criticism) has led. The history of the New Testament, which is the best witness to the authenticity and integrity of the Old Testament books, provided we admit the divinity of Christ, which in its turn rests upon the strongest historic evidence, has received an immense amount of confirmatory argument in numerous discoveries of ancient doc.u.ments. Within the last forty years have been found, among other valuable writings, the famous _Codex Sinaiticus_ by Tischendorf (1859), one of the oldest Greek texts of the Bible. In 1875 Archbishop Briennios found in Constantinople the MS. Epistles of Clement of Rome, which not only confirm the apostolical writings and evangels as being received in the Church of his day, but furnish the oldest liturgical prayer and sermon of post-apostolic times. Another doc.u.ment of the same character, in Latin, was discovered by Morin in 1893. Next we have the celebrated _Diatessaron of Tatian_, the oldest gospel harmony in existence, which, known to Eusebius, but lost in the meantime, was recovered lately, with a parallel ma.n.u.script found in Egypt, and published last year in English. This takes us back to the time of St.

Justin. Another most important find is the MS. of the so-called "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." The doc.u.ment was discovered by Briennios, and published in 1883. It throws much light on the ecclesiastical discipline of the early Christian Church (about A.D.

120), speaks of the written Gospels, etc. Another valuable MS.

(Syriac) was found in 1889 by Professor Harris. It is the "Apology of Aristides," brought from the convent of St. Catharine on Mt. Sinai, and dates about the year 140, as it is addressed to the Emperor Hadrian, and offers him the Christian Scriptures to read.

I pa.s.s over a host of other important finds of the same nature, of unquestioned authenticity, which carry us back to the apostolic age.

[1] See Hettinser's "Apologie," Preface xi.

XXII.

MYSTERIOUS CHARACTERS.

Whilst Biblical criticism and constantly increasing discoveries of new treasures, such as we mentioned in the last chapter, are adding their approving light to the ancient and unchanged traditions of the Catholic Church regarding the Bible and its exegesis, the finds of archeology are confirming the statements of the Bible, especially the Old Testament history, with an accuracy which forces even the infidel scientist to bear witness to the historical truth of the inspired records.

A century ago Biblical antiquity received its side-lights, for the most part, from rabbinical literature, and from newly-discovered methods of interpreting those cla.s.sics which dealt with the Oriental world incidentally. But in modern times an immense literary field has been opened by the discovery of ancient monuments in Egypt, a.s.syria, Babylonia, Syria, Asia Minor, Palestine, and the surrounding countries.

These monuments place us in position to trace the condition of these nations to very remote periods, and give us a key to the explanation of the Biblical doc.u.ments. Extraordinary labor, coupled with all-sided knowledge, a refined method of observation, and untiring patience, have made it possible to read the hieroglyphics and the so-called cuneiform inscriptions. It is interesting to trace the gradual progress by which definite results were attained in deciphering certain inscriptions whose language was entirely unknown to any living man. I may be allowed to give here an ill.u.s.tration, taken from Mr. Sayce's excellent little work, "Fresh Lights on Ancient Monuments," in which he describes the manner of unravelling the mysterious threads of the old Persian script:

"Travellers had discovered inscriptions engraved in cuneiform, or, as they were also termed, arrow-headed, characters on the ruined monuments of Persepolis and other ancient sites in Persia. Some of these monuments were known to have been erected by the Achaemenian princes--Darius, the son of Hystaspes, and his successors--and it was therefore inferred that the inscriptions also had been carved by order of the same kings. The inscriptions were in three different systems of cuneiform writing; and, since the three kinds of inscription were always placed side by side, it was evident that they represented different versions of the same text. The subjects of the Persian kings belonged to more than one race, and, just as in the present day a Turkish pasha in the East has to publish an edict in Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, if it is to be understood by all the populations under his charge, so the Persian kings were obliged to use the language and system of writing peculiar to each of the nations they governed whenever they wished their proclamations to be read and understood by them.

"It was clear that the three versions of the Achaemenian inscriptions were addressed to the three chief populations of the Persian empire, and that the one that invariably came first was composed in ancient Persian, the language of the sovereign himself. Now this Persian version happened to offer the decipherer less difficulties than the two others which accompanied it. The number of distinct characters employed in writing it did not exceed forty, while the words were divided from one another by a slanting wedge. Some of the words contained so many characters that it was plain that these latter must denote letters, and not syllables, and that consequently the Persian cuneiform system must have consisted of an alphabet, and not of a syllabary. It was further plain that the inscriptions had to be read from left to right, since the ends of all the lines were exactly underneath one another on the left side, whereas they terminated irregularly on the right; indeed, the last line sometimes ended at a considerable distance from the right-hand extremity of the inscription.

"The clue to the decipherment of the inscriptions was first discovered by the successful guess of a German scholar, Grotefend. Grotefend noticed that the inscriptions generally began with three or four words, one of which varied, while the others remained unchanged. The variable word had three forms, though the same form always appeared on the same monument. Grotefend, therefore, conjectured that this word represented the name of a king, the words which followed it being the royal t.i.tles.

One of the supposed names appeared much oftener than the others, and, as it was too short for Artaxerxes and too long for Cyrus, it was evident that it must stand either for Darius or for Xerxes. A study of the cla.s.sical authors showed Grotefend that certain of the monuments on which it was found had been constructed by Darius, and he accordingly gave to the characters composing it the values required for spelling 'Darius' in its old Persian form. In this way he succeeded in obtaining conjectural values for six cuneiform letters. He now turned to the second royal name, which also appeared on several monuments, and was of much the same length as that of Darius. This could only be Xerxes; but if so, the fifth letter composing it (r) would necessarily be the same as the third letter in the name of Darius. This proved to be the case, and thus afforded the best possible evidence that the German scholar was on the right track.

"The third name, which was much longer than the other two, differed from the second chiefly at the beginning, the latter part of it resembling the name of Xerxes. Clearly, therefore, it could be nothing else than Artaxerxes, and that it actually was so was rendered certain by the fact that the second character composing it was that which had the value of r.

"Grotefend now possessed a small alphabet, and with this he proceeded to read the word which always followed the royal name, and therefore probably meant 'king.' He found that it closely resembled the word which signified 'king' in Zend, the old language of the Eastern Persians, which was spoken in one part of Persia at the same time that Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenian princes, was spoken in another. There could, consequently, be no further room for doubt that he had really solved the great problem, and discovered the key to the decipherment of the cuneiform texts.

"But he did little further himself towards the completion of the work, and it was many years before any real progress was made with it.

Meanwhile, the study of Zend had made great advances, more especially in the hands of Burnouf, who eventually turned his attention to the cuneiform inscriptions. But it is to Burnouf's pupil, La.s.sen, as well as to Sir Henry Rawlinson, that the decipherment of these inscriptions owes its final completion. The discovery of the list of Persian satrapies in the inscription of Darius at Naksh-i-Rustem, and above all the copy of the long inscription of Darius on the rock of Behistum, made by Sir H. Rawlinson, enabled these scholars independently of one another to construct an alphabet which differed only in the value a.s.signed to a single character, and, with the help of the cognate Zend and Sanskrit, to translate the language so curiously brought to light.

The decipherment of the Persian cuneiform texts thus became an accomplished fact; what was next needed was to decipher the two versions which were inscribed at their side.

"But this was no easy task. The words in them were not divided from one another, and the characters of which they were composed were exceedingly numerous. With the a.s.sistance, however, of frequently recurring proper names, even these two versions gradually yielded to the patient skill of the decipherer; and it was then discovered that while one of them represented an agglutinative language, such as that of the Turks or Fins, the other was in a dialect which closely resembled the Hebrew of the Old Testament. The monuments found almost immediately afterwards in a.s.syria and Babylonia by Botta and Layard soon made it clear to what people this dialect must have belonged. The inscriptions of Nineveh turned out to be written in the same language and form of cuneiform script; and it must therefore have been for the Semitic population of a.s.syria and Babylonia that the kings of Persia had caused one of the versions of their inscriptions to be drawn up.

This version served us a starting-point for the decipherment of the texts which the excavations in a.s.syria had brought to light."

In this way results which stood the test of severe criticism were obtained until the most difficult inscriptions have become a comparatively open book to the historian of to-day. Thus it has come about that, as Prof. Ira Price says: "Since 1850 the Old Testament has been gradually appearing in the ever-brightening and brighter light of contemporaneous history. The new light now pours in upon it from all sides. It is the one history made rich by that of all its neighbors.

Israel is the one people whose part in the drama of ancient nations is just beginning to be understood.... The cuneiform letters discovered at Tel el-Amarna in Egypt, in 1887, have opened up new territory in the fifteenth century, B.C. They are despatches and official communications sent by a large number of rulers, kings, and governors, mainly of countries and provinces and cities of Southwestern Asia, to the king of Egypt. These doc.u.ments disclose a marvellously advanced stage of development, intellectually, politically, and socially, among the people who were soon to be Israel's nearest neighbors. They formed the early background of Israel's settlement in Canaan, and prepare us for no surprises in Israel's growth. In fact, we see that Joshua and his army actually settled in a land of cities and fortresses, already containing many of the elements of civilization, but sadly reduced by internal and external warfare."

The labor of the excavator in the Biblical countries, such as the unearthing of the immense library of brick tablets in the neighborhood of Nineveh, and the result of new discoveries which the ground of Palestine, so long and strangely neglected, promises to yield, widen the field of Biblical research immensely, and from it all we may with perfect a.s.surance look for fresh arguments in behalf of the authenticity and substantial integrity of the Sacred Scriptures. At the same time the interpretation of many of its pa.s.sages, now obscure, will become clearer in the light of contemporary history.

Surely this is a hopeful sign, and should encourage us in the study of the Bible, which is on so many accounts a source of intellectual pleasure, of abiding peace of heart, and of that high moral refinement which comes from contact with n.o.ble minds. There are none better on earth than the sacred writers--men who walked and spoke with G.o.d, and whose living contact we may enjoy in the partic.i.p.ation of that celestial inspiration which breathes through their writings.

CONCLUSION.

The foregoing chapters are nothing more than a brief ill.u.s.tration of the principles laid down by the Sovereign Pontiff, Leo XIII., in his Encyclical Letter "On the Study of the Sacred Scriptures."[1] The careful reading of this Letter must convince us how important a part the study of the Bible has always played in the Church. The conclusions of Leo XIII. are not of yesterday, nor does he claim them as of his own invention. He cites the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the Decrees of Councils, from Antioch to Trent and the Vatican, as witnesses to the fact that all Catholic teaching rests upon the Sacred Scriptures as one of the two great foundation stones which support the grand archway leading into the domain of divine truth.

G.o.d, in order that He may reveal Himself to man, sends His messengers, the Prophets and the Apostles, to announce with living voice His promises and His judgments; then, as if to confirm their mission for all time to come, He bids them take a letter, written by Himself, and addressed "to the human race on its pilgrimage afar from its fatherland" (Encycl.). That letter is the Holy Scripture. "To understand and to explain it there is always required the 'coming' of the same Holy Spirit" who was to abide with the Church. And she, "by her admirable laws and regulations, has always shown herself solicitous that the celestial treasure of the Sacred Book ... should not be neglected" (Ibid.). If men have grown remiss at any time in the use of that heavenly gift, it cannot be said that the Church failed to keep before them its admirable utility. "She has arranged that a considerable portion of it should be read, and with pious mind considered by all her ministers in the daily office of the sacred psalmody." For centuries past the solemn promise of every ordained priest throughout the Catholic world to recite each day the Hours of the Breviary testifies to the constant practice of not only reading, but meditating a fixed portion of the Scriptures, so that under this strictest of his priestly obligations he has practically completed the entire sacred volume within the limit of each ecclesiastical year.

"She has strictly commanded that her children shall be fed with the saving word of the Gospel, at least on Sundays and on solemn feasts."

If these laws and this practice receive a fresh impulse from the Sovereign Pontiff in our day, it is because there have arisen men who teach that the Sacred Scriptures are the work of mere human industry, that they contain only fables, which have no claim to be respected as coming from G.o.d. "They deny that there is any such thing as divine revelation, or inspiration, or Holy Scripture at all. They see in these histories only forgeries and falsehoods of men.... The prophecies and the oracles of G.o.d are to them either predictions made up after the event, or forecasts formed by the light of nature. The miracles and manifestations of G.o.d's power are not what they profess to be, but are either startling effects which are not beyond the force of nature, or else mere tricks and myths. The Gospels and apostolic writings are not, they say, the work of the authors to whom they are a.s.signed" (Ibid.). To confute these errors Leo bids us engage voice and pen. In the limited s.p.a.ce allowed us we have only been able to indicate the arguments which prove the historical authenticity and the essentially divine character which points to the true origin of the Sacred Text, and at the same time to lead the earnest student into the way of reading with pleasure and profit the grandest of all written works.

[1] Litterae Encyclicae, "Providentissimus Deus," Nov. 17, A.D. 1893.

THE END.

APPENDIX.

_Encyclical Letter of Leo XIII._

ON

THE STUDY OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES.

_To Our Venerable brethren, all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops of the Catholic World, in grace and communion with the Apostolic See._

LEO P. P. XIII.

VENERABLE BRETHREN,

_Health and Apostolic Benediction._