History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom Part 80

But Egyptology, while thus aiding to sweep away the former conception of our sacred books, has aided biblical criticism in making them far more precious; for it has shown them to be a part of that living growth of sacred literature whose roots are in all the great civilizations of the past, and through whose trunk and branches are flowing the currents which are to infuse a higher religious and ethical life into the civilizations of the future.(496)

(496) For general statements of agreements and disagreements between biblical accounts and the revelations of the Egyptian monuments, see Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, especially chap. iv. For discrepancies between the Hebrew sacred accounts of Jewish relations with Egypt and the revelations of modern Egyptian research, see Sharpe, History of Egypt; Flinders, Patrie, History of Egypt; and especially Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of Civilization in Egypt and Chaldea, London, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1894. For the statement regarding the Nile, that about the middle of July "in eight or ten days it turns from grayish blue to dark red, occasionally of so intense a colour as to look like newly shed blood,"

see Maspero and Sayce, as above, p. 23. For the relation of the Joseph legend to the Tale of Two Brothers, see Sharpe and others cited. For examples of exposure of various great personages of antiquity in their childhood, see G. Smith, Chaldean Accounts of Genesis, Sayce's edition, p. 320. For the relation of the Book of the Dead, etc., to Hebrew ethics, see a striking pa.s.sage in Huxley's essay on The Evolution of Theology, also others cited in this chapter. As to trinities in Egypt and Chaldea, see Maspero and Sayce, especially pp. 104-106, 175, and 659-663. For miraculous conception and birth of sons of Ra, ibid., pp.

388, 389. For ascension of Ra into heaven, ibid., pp. 167, 168; for resurrections, see ibid., p. 695, also representations in Lepsius, Prisse d'Avennes, et al.; and for striking resemblance between Egyptian and Hebrew ritual and worship, and especially the ark, cherubim, ephod, Urim and Thummim, and wave offerings, see the same, pa.s.sim. For a very full exhibition of the whole subject, see Renan, Histoire du Peuple Israel, vol. i, chap. xi. For Egyptian and Chaldean ideas in astronomy, out of which Hebrew ideas of "the firmament," "pillars of heaven," etc., were developed, see text and engravings in Maspero and Sayce, pp. 17 and 543. For creation of man out of clay by a divine being in Egypt, see Maspero and Sayce, p. 154; for a similar idea in Chaldea, see ibid., p. 545; and for the creation of the universe by a word, ibid., pp. 146, 147. For Egyptian and Chaldean ideas on magic and medicine, dread of evil spirits, etc., antic.i.p.ating those of the Hebrew Scriptures, see Maspero and Sayce, as above, pp. 212-214, 217, 636; and for extension of these to neighboring nations, pp. 782, 783. For visions and use of dreams as oracles, ibid., p. 641 and elsewhere. See also, on these and other resemblances, Lenormant, Origines de l'Histoire, vol. i, pa.s.sim; see also George Smith and Sayce, as above, chaps. xvi and xvii, for resemblances especially striking, combining to show how simple was the evolution of many Hebrew sacred legends and ideas out of those earlier civilizations. For an especially interesting presentation of the reasons why Egyptian ideas of immortality were not seized upon by the Jews, see the Rev. Barham Zincke's work upon Egypt. For the sacrificial vessels, temple rites, etc., see the bas-reliefs, figured by Lepsius, Prisse d'Avennes, Mariette, Maspero, et. al. For a striking summary by a brilliant scholar and divine of the Anglican Church, see Mahaffy, Prolegomena to Anc. Hist., cited in Sunderland, The Bible, New York, 1893, p. 21, note.

But while archaeologists thus influenced enlightened opinion, another body of scholars rendered services of a different sort--the centre of their enterprise being the University of Oxford. By their efforts was presented to the English-speaking world a series of translations of the sacred books of the East, which showed the relations of the more Eastern sacred literature to our own, and proved that in the religions of the world the ideas which have come as the greatest blessings to mankind are not of sudden revelation or creation, but of slow evolution out of a remote past.

The facts thus shown did not at first elicit much grat.i.tude from supporters of traditional theology, and perhaps few things brought more obloquy on Renan, for a time, than his statement that "the influence of Persia is the most powerful to which Israel was submitted." Whether this was an overstatement or not, it was soon seen to contain much truth. Not only was it made clear by study of the Zend Avesta that the Old and New Testament ideas regarding Satanic and demoniacal modes of action were largely due to Persian sources, but it was also shown that the idea of immortality was mainly developed in the Hebrew mind during the close relations of the Jews with the Persians. Nor was this all. In the Zend Avesta were found in earlier form sundry myths and legends which, judging from their frequent appearance in early religions, grow naturally about the history of the adored teachers of our race. Typical among these was the Temptation of Zoroaster.

It is a fact very significant and full of promise that the first large, frank, and explicit revelation regarding this whole subject in form available for the general thinking public was given to the English-speaking world by an eminent Christian divine and scholar, the Rev. Dr. Mills. Having already shown himself by his translations a most competent authority on the subject, he in 1894 called attention, in a review widely read, to "the now undoubted and long since suspected fact that it pleased the Divine Power to reveal some of the important articles of our Catholic creed first to the Zoroastrians, and through their literature to the Jews and ourselves." Among these beliefs Dr.

Mills traced out very conclusively many Jewish doctrines regarding the attributes of G.o.d, and all, virtually, regarding the attributes of Satan.

There, too, he found accounts of the Miraculous Conception, Virgin Birth, and Temptation of Zoroaster, As to the last, Dr. Mills presented a series of striking coincidences with our own later account. As to its main features, he showed that there had been developed among the Persians, many centuries before the Christian era, the legend of a vain effort of the arch-demon, one seat of whose power was the summit of Mount Arezura, to tempt Zoroaster to worship him,--of an argument between tempter and tempted,--and of Zoroaster's refusal; and the doctor continued: "No Persian subject in the streets of Jerusalem, soon after or long after the Return, could have failed to know this striking myth."

Dr. Mills then went on to show that, among the Jews, "the doctrine of immortality was scarcely mooted before the later Isaiah--that is, before the captivity--while the Zoroastrian scriptures are one ma.s.s of spiritualism, referring all results to the heavenly or to the infernal worlds." He concludes by saying that, as regards the Old and New Testaments, "the humble, and to a certain extent prior, religion of the Mazda worshippers was useful in giving point and beauty to many loose conceptions among the Jewish religious teachers, and in introducing many ideas which were entirely new, while as to the doctrines of immortality and resurrection--the most important of all--it positively determined belief."(498)

(498) For the pa.s.sages in the Vendidad of special importance as regards the Temptation myth, see Fargard, xix, 18, 20, 26, also 140, 147. Very striking is the account of the Temptation in the Pelhavi version of the Vendidad. The devil is represented as saying to Zaratusht (Zoroaster): "I had the worship of thy ancestors; do thou also worship me." I am indebted to Prof. E. P. Evans, formerly of the University of Michigan, but now of Munich, for a translation of the original text from Spiegel's edition. For a good account, see also Haug, Essays on the Sacred Language, etc., of the Pa.r.s.ees, edited by West, London, 1884, pp. 252 et seq.; see also Mills's and Darmesteter's work in Sacred Books of the East. For Dr. Mills's article referred to, see his Zoroaster and the Bible, in The Nineteenth Century, January, 1894. For the citation from Renan, see his Histoire du Peuple Israel, tome xiv, chap. iv; see also, for Persian ideas of heaven, h.e.l.l and resurrection, Haug, as above, p.

310 et seq. For an interesting resume of Zoroastrianism, see Laing, A Modern Zoroastrian, chap. xii, London, eighth edition, 1893. For the Buddhist version of the judgment of Solomon, etc., see Fausboll, Buddhist Birth Stories, translated by Rhys Davids, London, 1880, vol. 1, p. 14 and following. For very full statements regarding the influence of Persian ideas upon the Jews during the captivity, see Kahut, Ueber die judische Angelologie und Daemonologie in ihren Abhangigkeit vom Parsismus, Leipzig, 1866.

Even more extensive were the revelations made by scientific criticism applied to the sacred literature of southern and eastern Asia. The resemblances of sundry fundamental narratives and ideas in our own sacred books with those of Buddhism were especially suggestive.

Here, too, had been a long preparatory history. The discoveries in Sanscrit philology made in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, by Sir William Jones, Carey, Wilkins, Foster, Colebrooke, and others, had met at first with some opposition from theologians. The declaration by Dugald Stewart that the discovery of Sanscrit was fraudulent, and its vocabulary and grammar patched together out of Greek and Latin, showed the feeling of the older race of biblical students.

But researches went on. Bopp, Burnouf, La.s.sen, Weber, Whitney, Max Muller, and others continued the work during the nineteenth century.

More and more evident became the sources from which many ideas and narratives in our own sacred books had been developed. Studies in the sacred books of Brahmanism, and in the inst.i.tutions of Buddhism, the most widespread of all religions, its devotees outnumbering those of all branches of the Christian Church together, proved especially fruitful in facts relating to general sacred literature and early European religious ideas.

Noteworthy in the progress of this knowledge was the work of Fathers Huc and Gabet. In 1839 the former of these, a French Lazarist priest, set out on a mission to China. Having prepared himself at Macao by eighteen months of hard study, and having arrayed himself like a native, even to the wearing of the queue and the staining of his skin, he visited Peking and penetrated Mongolia. Five years later, taking Gabet with him, both disguised as Lamas, he began his long and toilsome journey to the chief seats of Buddhism in Thibet, and, after two years of fearful dangers and sufferings, accomplished it. Driven out finally by the Chinese, Huc returned to Europe in 1852, having made one of the most heroic, self-denying, and, as it turned out, one of the most valuable efforts in all the n.o.ble annals of Christian missions. His accounts of these journevs, written in a style simple, clear, and interesting, at once attracted attention throughout the world. But far more important than any services he had rendered to the Church he served was the influence of his book upon the general opinions of thinking men; for he completed a series of revelations made by earlier, less gifted, and less devoted travellers, and brought to the notice of the world the amazing similarity of the ideas, inst.i.tutions, observances, ceremonies, and ritual, and even the ecclesiastical costumes of the Buddhists to those of his own Church.

Buddhism was thus shown with its hierarchy, in which the Grand Lama, an infallible representative of the Most High, is surrounded by its minor Lamas, much like cardinals; with its bishops wearing mitres, its celibate priests with shaven crown, cope, dalmatic, and censer; its cathedrals with clergy gathered in the choir; its vast monasteries filled with monks and nuns vowed to poverty, chast.i.ty, and obedience; its church arrangements, with shrines of saints and angels; its use of images, pictures, and illuminated missals; its service, with a striking general resemblance to the Ma.s.s; antiphonal choirs; intoning of prayers; recital of creeds; repet.i.tion of litanies; processions; mystic rites and incense; the offering and adoration of bread upon an altar lighted by candles; the drinking from a chalice by the priest; prayers and offerings for the dead; benediction with outstretched hands; fasts, confessions, and doctrine of purgatory--all this and more was now clearly revealed. The good father was evidently staggered by these amazing facts; but his robust faith soon gave him an explanation: he suggested that Satan, in antic.i.p.ation of Christianity, had revealed to Buddhism this divinely const.i.tuted order of things. This naive explanation did not commend itself to his superiors in the Roman Church.

In the days of St. Augustine or of St. Thomas Aquinas it would doubtless have been received much more kindly; but in the days of Cardinal Antonelli this was hardly to be expected: the Roman authorities, seeing the danger of such plain revelations in the nineteenth century, even when coupled with such devout explanations, put the book under the ban, though not before it had been spread throughout the world in various translations. Father Huc was sent on no more missions.

Yet there came even more significant discoveries, especially bearing upon the claims of that great branch of the Church which supposes itself to possess a divine safeguard against error in belief. For now was brought to light by literary research the irrefragable evidence that the great Buddha--Sakya Muni himself--had been canonized and enrolled among the Christian saints whose intercession may be invoked, and in whose honour images, altars, and chapels may be erected; and this, not only by the usage of the medieval Church, Greek and Roman, but by the special and infallible sanction of a long series of popes, from the end of the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth--a sanction granted under one of the most curious errors in human history. The story enables us to understand the way in which many of the beliefs of Christendom have been developed, especially how they have been influenced from the seats of older religions; and it throws much light into the character and exercise of papal infallibility.

Early in the seventh century there was composed, as is now believed, at the Convent of St. Saba near Jerusalem, a pious romance ent.i.tled Barlaam and Josaphat--the latter personage, the hero of the story, being represented as a Hindu prince converted to Christianity by the former.

This story, having been attributed to St. John of Damascus in the following century became amazingly popular, and was soon accepted as true: it was translated from the Greek original not only into Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, and Ethiopic, but into every important European language, including even Polish, Bohemian, and Icelandic. Thence it came into the pious historical encyclopaedia of Vincent of Beauvais, and, most important of all, into the Lives of the Saints.

Hence the name of its pious hero found its way into the list of saints whose intercession is to be prayed for, and it pa.s.sed without challenge until about 1590, when, the general subject of canonization having been brought up at Rome, Pope Sixtus V, by virtue of his infallibility and immunity against error in everything relating to faith and morals, sanctioned a revised list of saints, authorizing and directing it to be accepted by the Church; and among those on whom he thus forever infallibly set the seal of Heaven was included "The Holy Saint Josaphat of India, whose wonderful acts St. John of Damascus has related." The 27th of November was appointed as the day set apart in honour of this saint, and the decree, having been enforced by successive popes for over two hundred and fifty years, was again officially approved by Pius IX in 1873. This decree was duly accepted as infallible, and in one of the largest cities of Italy may to-day be seen a Christian church dedicated to this saint. On its front are the initials of his Italianized name; over its main entrance is the inscription "Divo Josafat"; and within it is an altar dedicated to the saint--above this being a pedestal bearing his name and supporting a large statue which represents him as a youthful prince wearing a crown and contemplating a crucifix.

Moreover, relics of this saint were found; bones alleged to be parts of his skeleton, having been presented by a Doge of Venice to a King of Portugal, are now treasured at Antwerp.

But even as early as the sixteenth century a pregnant fact regarding this whole legend was noted: for the Portuguese historian Diego Conto showed that it was identical with the legend of Buddha. Fortunately for the historian, his faith was so robust that he saw in this resemblance only a trick of Satan; the life of Buddha being, in his opinion, merely a diabolic counterfeit of the life of Josaphat centuries before the latter was lived or written--just as good Abbe Huc saw in the ceremonies of Buddhism a similar antic.i.p.atory counterfeit of Christian ritual.

There the whole matter virtually rested for about three hundred years--various scholars calling attention to the legend as a curiosity, but none really showing its true bearings--until, in 1859, Laboulaye in France, Liebrecht in Germany, and others following them, demonstrated that this Christian work was drawn almost literally from an early biography of Buddha, being conformed to it in the most minute details, not only of events but of phraseology; the only important changes being that, at the end of the various experiences showing the wretchedness of the world, identical with those ascribed in the original to the young Prince Buddha, the hero, instead of becoming a hermit, becomes a Christian, and that for the appellation of Buddha--"Bodisat"--is subst.i.tuted the more scriptural name Josaphat.

Thus it was that, by virtue of the infallibility vouchsafed to the papacy in matters of faith and morals, Buddha became a Christian saint.

Yet these were by no means the most pregnant revelations. As the Buddhist scriptures were more fully examined, there were disclosed interesting antic.i.p.ations of statements in later sacred books. The miraculous conception of Buddha and his virgin birth, like that of Horus in Egypt and of Krishna in India; the previous annunciation to his mother Maja; his birth during a journey by her; the star appearing in the east, and the angels chanting in the heavens at his birth; his temptation--all these and a mult.i.tude of other statements were full of suggestions to larger thought regarding the development of sacred literature in general. Even the eminent Roman Catholic missionary Bishop Bigandet was obliged to confess, in his scholarly life of Buddha, these striking similarities between the Buddhist scriptures and those which it was his mission to expound, though by this honest statement his own further promotion was rendered impossible. Fausboll also found the story of the judgment of Solomon imbedded in Buddhist folklore; and Sir Edwin Arnold, by his poem, The Light of Asia, spread far and wide a knowledge of the antic.i.p.ation in Buddhism of some ideas which down to a recent period were considered distinctively Christian. Imperfect as the revelations thus made of an evolution of religious beliefs, inst.i.tutions, and literature still are, they have not been without an important bearing upon the newer conception of our own sacred books: more and more manifest has become the interdependence of all human development; more and more clear the truth that Christianity, as a great fact in man's history, is not dependent for its life upon any parasitic growths of myth and legend, no matter how beautiful they may be.(498)

(498) For Huc and Gabet, see Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet, et la Chine, English translation by Hazlitt, London, 1851; also supplementary work by Huc. For Bishop Bigandet, see his Life of Buddha, pa.s.sim. As for authority for the fact that his book was condemned at Rome and his own promotion prevented, the present writer has the bishop's own statement. For notices of similarities between Buddhist and Christian inst.i.tutions, rituals, etc., see Rhys David's Buddhism, London, 1894, pa.s.sim; also Lillie, Buddhism and Christianity, especially chaps. ii and xi. It is somewhat difficult to understand how a scholar so eminent as Mr. Rhys Davids should have allowed the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, which published his book, to eliminate all the interesting details regarding the birth of Buddha, and to give so fully everything that seemed to tell against the Roman Catholic Church; cf. p. 27 with p. 246 et seq. For more thorough presentation of the development of features in Buddhism and Brahmanism which antic.i.p.ate those of Christianity, see Schroeder, Indiens Literatur und Cultur, Leipsic, 1887, especially Vorlesung XXVIII and following. For full details of the canonization of Buddha under the name of St. Josaphat, see Fausboll, Buddhist Birth Stories, translated by Rhys Davids, London, 1880, pp. x.x.xvi and following; also Prof. Max Muller in the Contemporary Review for July, 1890; also the article Barlaam and Josaphat, in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. For the more recent and full accounts, correcting some minor details in the foregoing authorities, see Kuhn, Barlaam und Joasaph, Munich, 1893, especially pages 82, 83. For a very thorough discussion of the whole subject, see Zotenberg, Notice sur le livre de Barlaam et Joasaph, Paris, 1886; especially for arguments fixing date of the work, see parts i to iii; also Gaston Paris in the Revue de Paris for June, 1895. For the transliteration between the appellation of Buddha and the name of the saint, see Fausboll and Sayce, as above, p. x.x.xvii, note; and for the mult.i.tude of translations of the work ascribed to St. John of Damascus, see Table III, on p. xcv. The reader who is curious to trace up a mult.i.tude of the myths and legends of early Hebrew and Christian mythology to their more eastern and southern sources can do so in Bible Myths, New York, 1883. The present writer gladly avails himself of the opportunity to thank the learned Director of the National Library at Palermo, Monsignor Marzo, for his kindness in showing him the very interesting church of San Giosafat in that city; and to the custodians of the church for their readiness to allow photographs of the saint to be taken. The writer's visit was made in April, 1895, and copies of the photographs may be seen in the library of Cornell University. As to the more rare editions of Barlaam and Josaphat, a copy of the Icelandic translation is to be seen in the remarkable collection of Prof. Willard Fiske, at Florence. As to the influence of these translations, it may be noted that when young John Kuncewicz, afterward a Polish archbishop, became a monk, he took the name of the sainted Prince Josafat; and, having fallen a victim to one of the innumerable murderous affrays of the seventeenth century between different sorts of fanatics--Greek, Catholic, and Protestant--in Poland, he also was finally canonized under that name, evidently as a means of annoying the Russian Government. (See Contieri, Vita di S. Giosafat, Arcivesco e Martira Rutena, Roma, 1867.)

No less important was the closer research into the New Testament during the latter part of the nineteenth century. To go into the subject in detail would be beyond the scope of this work, but a few of the main truths which it brought before the world may be here summarized.(499)

(499) For a brief but thorough statement of the work of Strauss, Baur, and the earlier cruder efforts in New Testament exegesis, see Pfleiderer, as already cited, book ii, chap. i; and for the later work on Supernatural Religion and Lightfoot's answer, ibid., book iv. chap.

ii.

By the new race of Christian scholars it has been clearly shown that the first three Gospels, which, down to the close of the last century, were so constantly declared to be three independent testimonies agreeing as to the events recorded, are neither independent of each other nor in that sort of agreement which was formerly a.s.serted. All biblical scholars of any standing, even the most conservative, have come to admit that all three took their rise in the same original sources, growing by the accretions sure to come as time went on--accretions sometimes useful and often beautiful, but in no inconsiderable degree ideas and even narratives inherited from older religions: it is also fully acknowledged that to this growth process are due certain contradictions which can not otherwise be explained. As to the fourth Gospel, exquisitely beautiful as large portions of it are, there has been growing steadily and irresistibly the conviction, even among the most devout scholars, that it has no right to the name, and does not really give the ideas of St.

John, but that it represents a mixture of Greek philosophy with Jewish theology, and that its final form, which one of the most eminent among recent Christian scholars has characterized as "an unhistorical product of abstract reflection," is mainly due to some gifted representative or representatives of the Alexandrian school. Bitter as the resistance to this view has been, it has during the last years of the nineteenth century won its way more and more to acknowledgment. A careful examination made in 1893 by a competent Christian scholar showed facts which are best given in his own words, as follows: "In the period of thirty years ending in 1860, of the fifty great authorities in this line, FOUR TO ONE were in favour of the Johannine authorship. Of those who in that period had advocated this traditional position, one quarter--and certainly the very greatest--finally changed their position to the side of a late date and non-Johannine authorship."

Of those who have come into this field of scholarship since about 1860, some forty men of the first cla.s.s, two thirds reject the traditional theory wholly or very largely. Of those who have contributed important articles to the discussion from about 1880 to 1890, about TWO TO ONE reject the Johannine authorship of the Gospel in its present shape--that is to say, while forty years ago great scholars were FOUR TO ONE IN FAVOUR OF, they are now TWO TO ONE AGAINST, the claim that the apostle John wrote this Gospel as we have it. Again, one half of those on the conservative side to-day--scholars like Weiss, Beyschlag, Sanday, and Reynolds--admit the existence of a dogmatic intent and an ideal element in this Gospel, so that we do not have Jesus's thought in his exact words, but only in substance."(500)

(500) For the citations given regarding the development of thought in relation to the fourth gospel, see Crooker, The New Bible and its Uses, Boston, 1893, pp. 29, 30. For the characterization of St. John's Gospel above referred to, see Robertson Smith in the Encyc. Brit., 9th edit., art. Bible, p. 642. For a very careful and candid summary of the reasons which are gradually leading the more eminent among the newer scholars to give up the Johannine authorship ot the fourth Gospel, see Schurer, in the Contemporary Review for September, 1891. American readers, regarding this and the whole series of subjects of which this forms a part, may most profitably study the Rev. Dr. Cone's Gospel Criticism and Historic Christianity, one of the most lucid and judicial of recent works in this field.

In 1881 came an event of great importance as regards the development of a more frank and open dealing with scriptural criticism. In that year appeared the Revised Version of the New Testament. It was exceedingly cautious and conservative; but it had the vast merit of being absolutely conscientious. One thing showed, in a striking way, ethical progress in theological methods. Although all but one of the English revisers represented Trinitarian bodies, they rejected the two great proof texts which had so long been accounted essential bulwarks of Trinitarian doctrine. Thus disappeared at last from the Epistle of St. John the text of the Three Witnesses, which had for centuries held its place in spite of its absence from all the earlier important ma.n.u.scripts, and of its rejection in later times by Erasmus, Luther, Isaac Newton, Porson, and a long line of the greatest biblical scholars. And with this was thrown out the other like unto it in spurious origin and zealous intent, that interpolation of the word "G.o.d" in the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of the First Epistle to Timothy, which had for ages served as a warrant for condemning some of the n.o.blest of Christians, even such men as Newton and Milton and Locke and Priestley and Channing.

Indeed, so honest were the revisers that they subst.i.tuted the correct reading of Luke ii, 33, in place of the time-honoured corruption in the King James version which had been thought necessary to safeguard the dogma of the virgin birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Thus came the true reading, "His FATHER and his mother" instead of the old piously fraudulent words "JOSEPH and his mother."

An even more important service to the new and better growth of Christianity was the virtual setting aside of the last twelve verses of the Gospel according to St. Mark; for among these stood that sentence which has cost the world more innocent blood than any other--the words "He that believeth not shall be d.a.m.ned." From this source had logically grown the idea that the intellectual rejection of this or that dogma which dominant theology had happened at any given time to p.r.o.nounce essential, since such rejection must bring punishment infinite in agony and duration, is a crime to be prevented at any cost of finite cruelty.

Still another service rendered to humanity by the revisers was in subst.i.tuting a new and correct rendering for the old reading of the famous text regarding the inspiration of Scripture, which had for ages done so much to make our sacred books a fetich. By this more correct reading the revisers gave a new charter to liberty in biblical research.(501)

(501) The texts referred to as most beneficially changed by the revisers are I John v, 7 and I Timothy iii, 16. Mention may also be made of the fact that the American revision gave up the Trinitarian version of Romans ix, 5, and that even their more conservative British brethren, while leaving it in the text, discredited it in the margin.

Though revisers thought it better not to suppress altogether the last twelve verses of St. Mark's Gospel, they softened the word "d.a.m.ned"

to "condemned," and separated them from the main Gospel, adding a note stating that "the two oldest Greek ma.n.u.scripts, and some other authorities, omit from verse nine to the end"; and that "some other authorities have a different ending to this Gospel."

The resistance of staunch high churchmen of the older type even to so mild a reform as the first change above noted may be exemplified by a story told of Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter, about the middle of the nineteenth century. A kindly clergyman reading an invitation to the holy communion, and thinking that so an affectionate a call was disfigured by the harsh phrase "eateth and drinketh to his own d.a.m.nation," ventured timidly to subst.i.tute the word "condemnation." Thereupon the bishop, who was kneeling with the rest of the congregation, threw up his head and roared "d.a.m.nATION!" The story is given in T. A. Trollope's What I Remember, vol. i, p. 444. American churchmen may well rejoice that the fathers of the American branch of the Anglican Church were wise enough and Christian enough to omit from their Prayer Book this d.a.m.natory clause, as well as the Commination Service and the Athanasian Creed.

Most valuable, too, have been studies during the latter part of the nineteenth century upon the formation of the canon of Scripture. The result of these has been to subst.i.tute something far better for that conception of our biblical literature, as forming one book handed out of the clouds by the Almighty, which had been so long practically the accepted view among probably the majority of Christians. Reverent scholars have demonstrated our sacred literature to be a growth in obedience to simple laws natural and historical; they have shown how some books of the Old Testament were accepted as sacred, centuries before our era, and how others gradually gained sanct.i.ty, in some cases only fully acquiring it long after the establishment of the Christian Church. The same slow growth has also been shown in the New Testament canon. It has been demonstrated that the selection of the books composing it, and their separation from the vast ma.s.s of spurious gospels, epistles, and apocalyptic literature was a gradual process, and, indeed, that the rejection of some books and the acceptance of others was accidental, if anything is accidental.

So, too, scientific biblical research has, as we have seen, been obliged to admit the existence of much mythical and legendary matter, as a setting for the great truths not only of the Old Testament but of the New. It has also shown, by the comparative study of literatures, the process by which some books were compiled and recompiled, adorned with beautiful utterances, strengthened or weakened by alterations and interpolations expressing the views of the possessors or transcribers, and attributed to personages who could not possibly have written them.

The presentation of these things has greatly weakened that sway of mere dogma which has so obscured the simple teachings of Christ himself; for it has shown that the more we know of our sacred books, the less certain we become as to the authenticity of "proof texts," and it has disengaged more and more, as the only valuable residuum, like the ma.s.s of gold at the bottom of the crucible, the personality, spirit, teaching, and ideals of the blessed Founder of Christianity. More and more, too, the new scholarship has developed the conception of the New Testament as, like the Old, the growth of literature in obedience to law--a conception which in al probability will give it its strongest hold on the coming centuries. In making this revelation Christian scholarship has by no means done work mainly destructive. It has, indeed, swept away a ma.s.s of noxious growths, but it has at the same time cleared the ground for a better growth of Christianity--a growth through which already pulsates the current of a n.o.bler life. It has forever destroyed the contention of scholars like those of the eighteenth century who saw, in the mult.i.tude of irreconcilable discrepancies between various biblical statements, merely evidences of priestcraft and intentional fraud. The new scholarship has shown that even such absolute contradictions as those between the accounts of the early life of Jesus by Matthew and Luke, and between the date of the crucifixion and details of the resurrection in the first three Gospels and in the fourth, and other discrepancies hardly less serious, do not destroy the historical character of the narrative. Even the hopelessly conflicting genealogies of the Saviour and the evidently mythical accretions about the simple facts of his birth and life are thus full of interest when taken as a natural literary development in obedience to the deepest religious feeling.(502)

(502) Among the newer English works of the canon of Scripture, especially as regards the Old Testament, see Ryle in work cited. As to the evidences of frequent mutilations of the New Testament text, as well as of frequent charge of changing texts made against each other by early Christian writers, see Reuss, History of the New Testament, vol. ii, S 362. For a reverent and honest treatment of some of the discrepancies and contradictions which are absolutely irreconcilable, see Crooker, as above, appendix; also Cone, Gospel Criticism and Historic Christianity, especially chap. ii; also Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, and G.o.d and the Bible, especially chap. vi; and for a brief but full showing of them in a judicial and kindly spirit, see Laing, Problems of the Future, chap. ix, on The Historical Element in the Gospels.

Among those who have wrought most effectively to bring the leaders of thought in the English-speaking nations to this higher conception, Matthew Arnold should not be forgotten. By poetic insight, broad scholarship, pungent statement, pithy argument, and an exquisitely lucid style, he aided effectually during the latter half of the nineteenth century in bringing the work of specialists to bear upon the development of a broader and deeper view. In the light of his genius a conception of our sacred books at the same time more literary as well as more scientific has grown widely and vigorously, while the older view which made of them a fetich and a support for unchristian dogmas has been more and more thrown into the background. The contributions to these results by the most eminent professors at the great Christian universities of the English-speaking world, Oxford and Cambridge taking the lead, are most hopeful signs of a new epoch.