The Book of God : In the Light of the Higher Criticism

IX. THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS

Some of the teaching of the Higher Criticism as to the authorship and credibility of the Old Testament is, on the face of it, contrary to the plain language of Jesus Christ himself in the Gospels. Moses, for instance, is no longer considered as the author of the Pentateuch. Canon Driver, who is perhaps the chief scholar of this movement in the Church of England, as Dean Farrar is perhaps its chief rhetorician, locates the composition of the book of Deuteronomy in the period between Isaiah and Jeremiah. Throughout the book, he observes, the writer introduces Moses in the third person, and puts speeches in his mouth which of course he never uttered. But in "framing discourses appropriate to Moses' situation!" he was not guilty of "forgery," for he was "doing nothing inconsistent with the literary usages of his age and people." That is to say, everybody did it, and this writer was no worse than his contemporaries – which is probably true. But passing by the question of casuistry here involved, we repeat that the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is entirely abandoned. Dr. Farrar is quite as emphatic as Dr. Driver on this point. He denies that there is "any proof of the existence of a collected Pentateuch earlier than the days of Ezra (b.c. 444 )" – a thousand years after the time of Moses. He points out that the salient features of the so-called Mosaic Law, such as the Passover, the Sabbatical year, and the Day of Atonement, are not to be traced in the old historical books or in the earlier prophets. Nor does he scruple to assert that the Pentateuch is "a work of composite structure," which has been "edited and re-edited several times," and "contains successive strata of legislation." In the New Testament, however, Moses is repeatedly spoken of as the author of the Pentateuch.⁶ Not to multiply texts, for in such a case one is as good as a thousand, we will take a decisive passage in the fourth Gospel: —

"Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" (John v. 45-47).

The speaker in this instance is Christ himself. It is he, and not the evangelist, who speaks of the writings of Moses, and declares that Moses "wrote of me."

Now let us turn to the book of Psalms, which has been well called the Hymn Book of the Second Temple. According to Dr. Farrar, they are "a collection of sacred poems in five separate books of very various antiquity." Canon Driver points out that they are mostly posterior to the prophetical writings. "When the Psalms," he says, "are compared with the prophets, the latter seem to show, on the whole, the greater originality; the psalmists, in other words, follow the prophets, appropriating and applying the truths which the prophets proclaimed." Very few of the Psalms are earlier than the seventh century before Christ. Dr. Driver affirms this with "tolerable confidence." Dr. Farrar says that "some may mount to an epoch earlier than David's," but this is mere conjecture. The more cautious Dr. Driver will not commit himself further than "a verdict of non liquet"; that is to say, there is no proof that David did not write one or two of the Psalms, and no evidence that he did. His name was associated with the collection, in the same way as the name of Solomon was associated with the Proverbs. Nevertheless it is David who is referred to by Jesus as the author of the hundred-and-tenth Psalm.⁷ But this Psalm is one of those which are allowed to belong to a much later period. Jesus quoted it as David's, but Professor Sanday says "it seems difficult to believe it really came from him"⁸ – which is as strong an expression as a Christian divine could be expected to permit himself in a case of such delicacy.

We have already seen that the book of Daniel was not written by the prophet Daniel, but by some unknown author hundreds of years later, probably in the second century before Christ. Upon this subject Professor Sanday takes precisely the same view as Canon Driver. He says that this is "the critical view" and has "won the day." All the facts support the "supposition that the book was written in the second century b.c.," and not "in the sixth." "The real author," he says, "is unknown," and "the name of Daniel is only assumed." He was writing, not a history, but a homily, to encourage his brethren at the time of the Maccabean struggle. "To this purpose of his," Professor Sanday says, "there were features in the traditional story of Daniel which appeared to lend themselves; and so he took that story and worked it up in the way which seemed to him most effective." Jesus Christ, however, held the orthodox view of his own time, and spoke of Daniel as the actual author of this book (Matthew xxiv. 15). "But this," Professor Sanday observes, "it is right to say, is only in one Gospel, where the mention of Daniel may be an insertion of the Evangelist's." Such conjectural shifts are Christian critics reduced to in their effort to minimise difficulties; as though reducing the mistakes of Jesus in any way saved his infallibility.

We will now turn to some portions of the Old Testament narrative which the Higher Criticism regards as legendary, but which Jesus regarded as strictly historical. One of these is the story of the Flood. No one of any standing is now prepared to defend this story, at least as we find it in the book of Genesis. A few orthodox scientists, like Sir James W. Dawson, pour out copious talk about tremendous floods in former geological ages; but what has this to do with the Bible narrative of a universal deluge which occurred some four thousand five hundred years ago? The Higher Critics have the impatience of Freethinkers with such intellectual charlatanry. They regard the story of the Flood as a Jewish legend, which was not even original, but borrowed from the superstitions of Babylon. Yet the opinion of Jesus Christ seems to have been very different. Here are his own words: —

"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matthew xxiv. 37-39).

Jesus Christ appears to have believed, like the disciples he was addressing, like all the rest of his countrymen, and like nearly all Christians until very recently, that the Flood was an historical occurrence, that Noah and his family were saved in the ark, and that all the other inhabitants of the world were drowned.

Another story which the Higher Criticism dismisses as legendary is that of Jonah. The book in which it is related was, of course, not written by Jonah, the son of Amittai, of whom we read in 2 Kings xiv. 25, and who lived in the reign of Jeroboam II. "It cannot," as Dr. Driver says, "have been written until long after the lifetime of Jonah himself." Its probable date is the fifth century before Christ. Dr. Driver says it is "not strictly historical " – that is to say, the events recorded in it never happened. Jonah was not really entertained for three days in a whale's belly, nor did his preaching convert the whole city of Nineveh. The writer's purpose was didactic; he wished to rebuke the exclusiveness of his own people, and to teach them that God's care extended, at least occasionally, to other nations as well as the Jews. Some critics, such as Cheyne and Wright, regard the story as allegorical; Jonah standing for Israel, the whale for Babylon, and the vomiting up of the prophet for the return of the Jews from exile. Dr. Farrar draws attention to the "remarkable" fact that in the book of Kings "no allusion is made to any mission or adventure of the historic Jonah." He adds that there is not "the faintest trace of his mission or its results amid the masses of Assyrian inscriptions." Even the writer of the book of Jonah, according to Dr. Farrar, attached "no importance" to its "supernatural incidents," which "only belong to the allegorical form of the story." So much for the Higher Critics; and now let us hear Jesus Christ: —

"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold a greater than Jonas is here" (Matthew xii. 39-41).

This utterance of Jesus is also reported in Luke (xi. 29-32), but with an important variation, the reference to Jonah in the whale's belly being entirely omitted. This variation is seized upon by Dr. Farrar. The fishy reference, he says, occurs in Matthew alone, and it may "represent a comment or marginal note by the Evangelist, or of some other Christian teacher." This, however, is an arbitrary supposition, which everyone is free to repudiate; and Dr. Farrar feels obliged to add that "even if our Lord did allude to the whale" it does not follow that we should regard it as "literal history." But this is not the question at issue. The real question is, did Jesus Christ believe the story of Jonah and the whale? If he did not, it must be admitted that he had a most unfortunate way of expressing himself.

No educated Christian in the present age believes the story of Lot's wife being changed into a pillar of rock salt, although Josephus pretended that he had seen it, and many travellers and pilgrims have searched for it as a sacred relic. Jesus Christ, however, gave great prominence to this salted lady. "Remember Lot's wife" is a verse by itself in the Protestant Bible (Luke xvii. 32). Jesus also refers to the rain of fire and brimstone by which Sodom was destroyed.

Here then, upon the face of it, we have Jesus Christ's testimony to three documents as having been written by men who did not write them, and to the historical character of three incidents which are purely fabulous. Now the Higher Criticism must be wrong, or else Jesus Christ was mistaken; in other words, he was not infallible, and therefore not God. But the Higher Critics declare that they are not wrong; they also declare that Jesus Christ was not mistaken. Let us see how they try to save their own accuracy and his infallibility.

We must remark, in passing, that some of these critics hint, without exactly asserting, that Jesus may have been mistaken. Dr. Farrar bids us remember that "by the very fact of taking our nature upon him Christ voluntarily submitted himself to human limitations." There were some things which, as a man, he did not know. Yes, but he was also God; and the conjunction of "knowledge" and "ignorance" in one person, and with respect to a single subject, would dissolve the unity of the God-man, which is a dogma of Christian theology. Moreover, as Canon Liddon argued, it is not so much a question of Christ's omniscience as a question of his infallibility. Supposing there were some matters, such as the date of the day of judgment, of which he was ignorant; he might confess his ignorance or remain silent, and no harm would accrue to anyone; but if he spoke upon any matter, and was mistaken through want of knowledge, he would become a propagator of error; and this would not only destroy the doctrine of his deity, but very seriously impair his authority as a teacher, and cause everything he said to be open to the gravest suspicion. No less dangerous is it to fall back upon the explanation that "the discourses of Christ are not reproduced by the Evangelists with verbal identity" – to use Dr. Farrar's own language. Dr. Sanday seems a little attracted by this explanation. He reminds us that, whatever views Jesus himself entertained as to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, his views have come down to us through the medium of persons who shared the erroneous ideas that were then current on the subject. We must be prepared, he says, for the possibility that Christ's sayings in regard to it "have not been reported with absolute accuracy." But after all "not much allowance" should be made for this; which means, we suspect, that the worthy Professor saw the dreadful peril of pursuing this vein of observation, and desisted from it before he had said enough to cause serious mischief.

The more astute Higher Critics avoid such dangers. They resort to a theory that combines mystery and plausibility, by which they hope to satisfy believers on both sides of their natures. Dr. Farrar tells us that Christ, to become a man, emptied himself of his glory; and that this "examination" involved the necessity of speaking as a man to men. This position is perhaps best expressed by Canon Gore: —

"It is contrary to his whole method to reveal his Godhead by any anticipations of natural knowledge. The Incarnation was a self-emptying of God to reveal himself under conditions of human nature, and from the human point of view. We are able to draw a distinction between what he revealed and what he used…Now when he speaks of the 'sun rising' he is using ordinary human knowledge. Thus he does not reveal his eternity by statements as to what had happened in the past, or was to happen in the future, outside the ken of existing history. He made his Godhead gradually manifest by his attitude towards men and things about him, by his moral and spiritual claims, by his expressed relation to his father, not by any miraculous exemptions of himself from the conditions of natural knowledge in its own proper province. Thus the utterances of Christ about the Old Testament do not seem to be nearly definite or clear enough to allow of our supposing that in this case he is departing from the general method of the Incarnation, by bringing to bear the unveiled omniscience of the Godhead, to anticipate or foreclose a development of natural knowledge."⁹

This would perhaps be sublime if it were only intelligible. We are not surprised at Dr. Driver's turning away from the metaphysics of this theory. His mind is cast in a more sober and practical mould. It is enough for him that the aim of Christ's teaching was a religious one; that he naturally accepted, as the basis of his teaching, the opinions respecting the Old Testament that were current around him; that he did not raise "issues for which the time was not yet ripe, and which, had they been raised, would have interfered seriously with the paramount purpose of his life."¹⁰

This is excellently said. It is just what Paley might have written in present-day circumstances. But it contains no note of the supernatural. It deals with Jesus as a mere man, who did not disclose all the information he possessed, but sometimes veiled his knowledge for temporary reasons. It leaves his Godhead in the background. It does not recognise how easy it was for Omnipotence to act differently. And when the Higher Criticism points out that the human mind could, in the course of time, free itself from errors as to the authorship and credibility of the Old Testament, it forgets that Jesus Christ, by accommodating himself to those errors, perpetuated them. His authority was appealed to for centuries – it is appealed to now – in favor of falsehood. Nor is this falsehood trivial and innocuous. It has been extremely harmful. It has fostered a wrong view of the Bible, it has prolonged the reign of superstition, and thus hindered the growth of true civilisation. This is an impeachment of the moral character of Jesus. It is a confession that he served a temporary object at the expense of the permanent interests of humanity. We feel constrained, therefore, to admit the force of the words of Canon Liddon: —

"We have lived to hear men proclaim the legendary and immoral character of considerable portions of those Old Testament scriptures, upon which our Lord has set the seal of his infallible authority. And yet, side by side with this rejection of Scriptures so deliberately sanctioned by Christ, there is an unwillingness which, illogical as it is, we must sincerely welcome, to profess any explicit rejection of the Church's belief in Christ's divinity. Hence arises the endeavour to intercept a conclusion, which might otherwise have seemed so plain as to make arguments in its favor an intellectual impertinence. Hence a series of singular refinements, by which Christ is presented to the modern world as really Divine, yet as subject to fatal error; as Founder of the true religion, yet as the credulous patron of a volume replete with worthless legends; as the highest Teacher and Leader of humanity, yet withal as the ignorant victim of the prejudices and follies of an unenlightened age."¹¹

Canon Gore devotes several pages of his Bampton Lectures to this subject, but he does not fairly answer the straightforward objections raised by Canon Liddon. Dealing with the references of Jesus to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and to Jonah's three days' entombment in the whale's belly, and with the argument that this endorsement by Jesus "binds us to receive these narratives as simple history," he blandly declares, "To this argument I do not think that we need yield." Of course not. There is no need to yield to anything you do not like; for this is a free country, at least to Christians. But what is the logical conclusion? That is the point to be decided. Canon Gore does not face it; he merely expresses a personal disinclination. Subsequently he pleads that "a heavy burden" should not be laid on "sensitive consciences," and that men should not be asked "to accept as matter of revelation what seems to them an improbable literary theory." But this again is a personal appeal. These men must be left to attend to their own consciences. They have no right to demand a suppression of truth, or a perversion of logic, for their particular advantage.

When a candid reader has finished all that the Higher Criticism has to say on this matter, we believe he will be filled with a sense of its insincerity. It never strikes a note of triumph, or even a note of conviction. It is timid, furtive, and apologetic; and shelters itself against reason by plunging into mystery. In place of all the difficulties it removes it sets up a colossal one of its own manufacture; the difficulty, to wit, of conceiving that God himself lent a sanction to grave and far-reaching error as to his own Word; or what would inevitably be regarded as a sanction, and would necessarily delay for many hundreds of years the discovery and reception of the truth. The Higher Criticism, in short, has supplied a new argument against the deity of Jesus Christ.

X. THE BIBLE AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Dr. Farrar's book has naturally given offence to the more orthodox Christians. Clergymen like "Father" Ignatius stigmatise him, and indeed all clerical exponents of the Higher Criticism, as wolves in sheeps' clothing, who eat the Church's meat and do the work of "infidelity." We are not surprised, therefore, that some reassurance has been deemed necessary; nor astonished that it took the form of a popular announcement in the newspapers. Some months ago – to be accurate, it was in September – the following paragraph went the round of the press: —

"Dean Farrar and the Scriptures. – A correspondent called the attention of Dean Farrar to the fact that Atheistic lecturers are in the habit of affirming that he does not believe in the Bible (referring to his works as a confirmation of the statement), and observed that, if such a grave assertion were allowed to be propagated without contradiction, the young and the ignorant might be deceived by it. The Dean, who is at present staying in Yorkshire, replied as follows: 'The statement to which you refer is ignorant nonsense. The doctrine of the Church of England about Holy Scripture is stated in her Sixth and Seventh. Articles, and that doctrine I most heartily accept."

This strikes us as a rather paltry evasion. The Sixth and Seventh Articles of the Church of England do not state the full Christian belief as to the Bible, but only the Protestant belief as against that of the Church of Rome. They emphasise two points, and two points only: first, that the Scriptures contain all that is necessary to salvation, so that no man is at the Pope's mercy for a seat in heaven; second, that fourteen books of the Roman Catholic Bible are apocryphal, and cannot be used to establish any doctrine. The general Christian view of the Bible, common to Catholics and Protestants, is taken for granted, as it had not then been brought into controversy. There is one word in the Sixth Article, however, which may be commended to Dr. Farrar's attention. The last clause explains what is meant by "Holy Scripture," and runs as follows: – "In the name of the holy Scripture we do understand those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church." Now, unless Dr. Farrar means to juggle with the word "authority" – and we do not doubt his capacity for doing so – it is idle for him to say that he believes in the Bible according to these terms. He does not believe, for instance, in the "authority" of the book of Jonah; on the contrary, he believes that Jonah did not write it, and that it is not history, but romance, from beginning to end. If this is believing in the Bible, then Atheistic lecturers believe in it as well as Dr. Farrar. He does not believe that Jonah spent three days in a whale's belly – nor do they; he does not believe that Jonah's deep-sea adventure was a prefigurement of the burial of Jesus Christ – nor do they; he does not believe that the Jonah story is any the truer because Jesus Christ really or apparently believed it – nor do they; he simply believes that the story's moral is a good one, as far as it represents people who are not Jews as entitled to consideration – and so do they. Substantially there is not the smallest difference between them. The only discernible difference is a hypothetical one. Dr. Farrar claims that the book of Jonah is inspired. But he also claims that everything good and true – that is, everything worth reading – is inspired. "Very well then," the Atheist may reply, "I agree with you still, in substance. The only point in dispute between us is whether there is a God who interferes with the natural course of things, either in the external world or in the human mind. But on your definition of the word inspired, this makes no particular difference to any one book or collection of books. And unless you alter (and narrow) your theory of inspiration, our difference begins outside, not inside, the library – and is, in brief, not practical, but metaphysical."

But let us return to Dr. Farrar's method of proving his sufficient orthodoxy; and let us tell him that if he will only pursue it far enough, he may get rid of the Bible altogether.

Suppose we take Pearson's classic Exposition of the Creed, and open it at his address "to the Reader." In the second paragraph he writes as follows: – "The Creed, without controversy, is a brief comprehension of the objects of our Christian faith, and is generally taken to contain all things necessary to be believed." Now this Creed does not mention the Bible at all. A heathen might read it, and never infer from it that there was such a thing as the Scriptures in existence. What then is to prevent Dr. Farrar, or some more audacious clergyman, from saying that he does not believe in the Bible, as it is nowhere laid down as necessary to be believed; but that his orthodoxy is nevertheless unimpeachable, because he "most heartily accepts" the Catholic and Apostolic Creed which is "without controversy" an accurate compendium of the Christian faith, and which, being prescribed in the Prayer Book, is of course binding – and is alone binding – on every loyal son of the Church of England?

Dr. Farrar claims, as a clergyman, what he calls a "Christian liberty" in dealing with the Bible; although, if God has indeed spoken in the Bible, it is difficult to see what liberty a Christian can have but that of absolute belief and obedience. In a lengthy footnote of his volume which we have been criticising, he refers to the famous "Essays and Reviews Case," and the decisions of the judges in the Court of Arches and in the Privy Council. Dr. Lushington laid it down that: "Provided the Articles and Formularies are not contravened, the law lays down no limits of construction, no rule of interpretation, of the Scriptures." Lord Westbury declared that the Sixth Article of the Church of England was based upon "the revelations of the Holy Spirit," and therefore the Bible might be denominated "holy" and be said to be "the Word of God"; but this was not "distinctly predicated of every statement and representation contained in every part of the Old and New Testaments." "The framers of the Articles," Lord Westbury added, "have not used the word 'inspiration' as applied to the Holy Scriptures, nor have they laid down anything as to the nature, extent, or limits of that operation of the Holy Spirit."

According to this sapient judgment, which perhaps is very good law, and covers all possible developments of the Higher Criticism, every member of the Church of England is bound to regard the Bible as containing "the revelations of the Holy Spirit," but is not bound to regard it as a work of "inspiration." A judge, with his legal spectacles on, is notoriously able to discriminate subtleties where laymen see only what is plain; and clergymen may take advantage of his preternatural sagacity, without being able in the long run to impose upon the common sense of the people, who will always look upon "revelation" and "inspiration" as interchangeable terms.

It is quite natural that Dr. Farrar should wish to get rid of this word "inspiration," since it can no longer be defined without danger. But we must remind him that, if it does not occur in the Church Articles, it certainly does occur in the Bible. "All scripture," Paul said, "is given by inspiration of God."¹²

And as the New Testament was not then in existence, Paul of course referred to the Old Testament. This was the "holy scriptures" which Timothy had "known from a child." And Peter is, if possible, more definite than Paul. He speaks of the "more sure word of prophecy," surer than the very voice heard by the three disciples on the mount of transfiguration. This "prophecy of the scripture" he declares to be never of "any private interpretation" – which means, according to the commentators, that it did not spring from any knowledge or personal conjecture in the prophet. Finally, he clinches his exposition by affirming that "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."¹³

According to the Sixth Article of the Church of England, both these epistles, bearing the names of Paul and Peter, are among the books "of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church." Dr. Farrar is therefore bound by them in logic and honor. He is not free to cast aside the Biblical term of inspiration nor free to minimise as he pleases the "moving" influence of the Holy Ghost in either the New or the Old Testament. As a clergyman of the Church of England, he assumes an unwarrantable freedom; a freedom which is no more sanctioned by her Articles than it is by the letter or spirit of the Scriptures. He departs entirely from the primitive and real position of Protestantism; namely, that the Bible is the absolute standard of faith and practice, and that, wherever it is dark or dubious, it must be interpreted by itself. He treads the via media of compromise and irrationality; neither going over to Rome, which claims to be inspired, like the Bible, and to be the vehicle of the living voice of God for the infallible interpretation of the written revelation – nor going over to Rationalism, which regards the Catholic Church as but a human institution, and the Bible as but a human composition. Believe that God has spoken, according to the words of Paul and Peter, and the Catholic theory is the only satisfactory one; disbelieve it, and there is no logical alternative but the most thoroughgoing Rationalism.