Bicknell on Article VII: Of the Old Testament

(ii) Others maintained that Christians were under obligation to obey the whole law contained in it, civil and ceremonial, as well as moral. We read of strange attempts to set up a literal ‘New Jerusalem’ in Westphalia. The Calvinists were not entirely out of sympathy with this idea, as was shown by Calvin’s rule at Geneva.

Against both these views the Article insists that the Old Testament represents a preparatory stage in one divine revelation and must be interpreted as such, in relation to the whole scheme of revelation.

§ 1. The sufficiency of Scripture.

The position of the Church of England laid down in this Article is quite clear. She requires of a man as a condition of membership belief in no truth which is not contained in or cannot be proved from Scripture. In the ordering of priests the question is asked : ‘ Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and are you determined… to teach nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture?’ * We are bound to be faithful in declaring to men the ‘ whole counsel of God’ (cp. Acts 202’) and to hold fast all that God has revealed (cp. 1 Tim. 62°), not leaving out or slurrmg over any truth that is mconvenient or unpopular. But we are no less bound to respect the limits of divine revela- tion. On an enormous amount of points it is quite possible for good Christians honestly to hold different opinions. Ministers of the Church have no right to force upon men what are only conjectures. To require men to accept as authoritative teaching for which there is no real evidence is to strain and weaken faith. If men are asked to accept indiscriminately anything that in- dividuals choose to teach, the inevitable result is that as soon as they learn the precariousness of part of the teaching, they reject not that part only but the whole. The Church of England, therefore, holds up the Bible as the sufficient standard of Christian teaching and as the embodiment of all those truths to which the Church was formed to bear witness. How can this position be justified 2

(a) We must never forget that the Church existed and was at work in the world for many years before any single book of the New Testament was composed. These books were written by

• What do we mean exactly by ‘necessary to salvation’? Our forefathers would bluntly have replied that if a man refused to believe what the Bible or the Church told him, then he would be damned. To-day we have come to see that such a rough and ready criterion is impossible. What we should say is that in so far as a right belief is necessary for a sound and healthy spiritual life (‘salvation ’ practically means ‘ health’), a man who falls short of the right belief on certain points or actually holds an erroneous belief, thereby lacks something that is needed for his highest and best life. Blindness to spiritual truth is often a mark of moral weakness. Submission to truth, whenever it

is recognized to be such, is a primary duty. The wilful rejection of truth is rejection of God.

members of the Church for members of the Church. They pre- suppose a certain knowledge in those who read them, based upon oral instruction (cp. Lk. 14, Ro. 1°7, 1 Cor. 1123, 15%, Heb. 5118, 1 Jn. 2”). They were written not to create but to strengthen and educate faith. No single book of the New Testament was intended in the first instance for unbelievers. So to-day Scrip- ture cannot be our earliest teacher. It is the Church that points us to the Bible as differing from all other books and that gives us that elementary instruction by word and example in the Christian life without which the Bible would be largely unmeaning. ‘For whatsoever we believe concerning salvation by Christ, although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief; yet the authority of man is, if we mark it, the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture. The Scripture could not teach us the things that are of God unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scrip- ture do signify those things.’ * To most of us the beginning of our religion is the teaching of the Church as represented say by a parent. In the earliest days preaching depended on the eye- witnesses and actual hearers of Christ. The first Christians did not test what they heard by the New Testament, for that did not yet exist. Rather as the books of the New Testament came one by one into their hands, they tested them by their conformity to the teaching of the apostles and those who heard them. St. Paul did not go with a Bible under his arm and quote proof texts in support of the Resurrection. Human nature, especially Greek human nature, was not one bit less inquisitive than it is to-day. Questions would be asked, and he would answer them by relating the testimony of eye-witnesses: ‘Peter said this, John told me that.’ So we must not place the Bible in a false position of isolation and divorce it from the continuous life of the society within which it was written. Behind the books of the New Testament stands the life and witness of the early Church illuminating and confirming them. The great failure of much negative criticism to-day is caused by treating the books of the New Testament as if they came to us from some unknown source. Passages which taken out of their context may be inter- preted in more than one way, can only receive one interpretation when they are studied, as they were meant to be studied, in the * Hooker, ii. c. 7, § 3.

light of a Christian life. Since the New Testament was written for Christians only Christians can fully understand it. Bible and Church must go hand in hand. The statement has been made that ‘the Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Pro- testants.” * Apart from the fact that a book cannot be a religion, it denies the intimate connexion between the written word and the Christian community. Like any other book, the Bible can only be interpreted aright by those who approach it with the right presuppositions, and those can only be attained by sharing in the life of Christian fellowship.

(6) Christianity is not the religion of a book but of a Person. ‘Christianity is Christ’ in a way that Buddhism is not Buddha or Mohammedanism Mohammed. The centre of our faith is not the teaching of Christ but Christ Himself. Behind Church and Bible alike stands the living Saviour. Why then is the Bible placed in this supreme position ? The answer lies in its special relation to Christ. The Old Testament is the record of the pre- paration of the world for His coming. It shows the choice and education of the Jewish people. They were endowed with a special nearness to God and taught to feel needs and aspirations that Christ alone would satisfy. The Old Testament is the book on which His own religious life was nourished. He reverenced it as the word of God and found Himself there. So in the New Testament we have on the one hand a fourfold picture of the earthly life of Christ, a selection of His teaching and mighty works, the story of His death and resurrection, all given to us on the authority of eye-witnesses and approved by the consent of the early Church as correct. We have further the earliest and most authoritative teaching of the Church itself. The Epistles show us the Gospel] as it was proclaimed in apostolic days, and all that the Ascended Christ proved Himself to be to the first generation of Christians. They attest all unconsciously the fulness and vigour of the new life and hope that He had brought. The Apostles are obviously witnesses of special import- ance. They were trained by Christ Himself (Mk. 31) : they were promised special guidance by the Holy Spirit to remember and

• It is inscribed on the tomb of Chillingworth. It is only fair to add that he did not use it in the misleading sense popular among the less educated Protestants of to-day.

} Cp. Gore, Bampton Lect. T.

interpret His teaching (Jn. 1426, 16!*14), So the New Testament possesses a unique value from its close relationship to the earthly life of Christ, from the character and position of its writers and its intimate connexion with the life of the early Church. ‘It is self-evident to the mind that takes it in as a whole that the New Testament is a single movement of spiritual and Christian thought and life, and that it is complete and sufficient in itself. It is equally certain that neither the succeeding nor any subsequent age had in it either the plastic capacity or the creative power to take for itself a living form such as Christianity easily, freely and naturally assumed in its initiative stage. And therefore it was, to say no more, an act of practical wisdom to accept that first embodiment and expression of itself as in principle at least and in substance final and irreformable.’ *

(c) The question still remains, can we do what the Article assumes, be assured that it contains all necessary teaching ? May not some part have been omitted 2? We can hardly appeal for an answer to any definite text of Scripture itself. The very idea of such a collection of Christian writings did not yet exist when any one of them was being composed. Each was written to meet a particular need at a particular time. But we can fairly appeal to the feeling in Scripture itself of the greater security of the written word. Christ habitually speaks of the Old Testament in such a way as to suggest that it is the adequate and authoritative embodiment of God’s revelation to the Jewish Church. He finds in it the expression of the Father’s will (Mt. 447,10) He proves His own teaching from it (Jn. 104, Mk. 12227). He appeals to the written law as against unwritten tradition (Mk. 7113). Again, in his preface to the Gospel, St. Luke refers to the greater certainty of the written word (Lk. 14, cp. Jn. 2034). The New Testament from end to end assumes that the revelation of God in Christ is final and complete. Heb. 1’ff. contrasts the fragmentary revelations of old times with the fulness of revela- tion in Christ. It is ‘ the faith once for all delivered to the saints ’ (Jude 3). There cannot be a second Christ or a second Gospel (cp. 2 Cor. 114, Gal. 1°, etc.). That this message is adequately embodied in our Scriptures is shown by the testimony of the early Church. It was the Church that gradually decided the canon of the New Testament, and we find no consciousness at any time that any

part of its message had been omitted or misrepresented. The Church did not in any sense create the Gospel. It is always God’s word and not man’s, but the Bible is the Church’s record of it. This view of the sufficiency of Scripture is for questions of doctrine the unanimous view of the early Fathers. We can only give a few examples here. ‘If any thing remains which Holy Scripture does not determine, no other third scripture ought to be received to authorize any knowledge, but we must commit to the fire what remains, that is, reserve it unto God’ (Origen, Hom. V. in Lev.). ‘The holy and divinely-inspired Scrip-. tures are of themselves sufficient to the enunciation of truth’ (Athanasius, Contra Gentes, 1). ‘In these alone the doctrine of salvation in contained. Let no man add to or take from them ’ (Festal Epistles, i.). ‘ Believe those things that are written : the things which are not written, seek not’ (Basil, Hom. 29). “In those things which are plainly laid down in Scripture, all things are found, which embrace faith and morals’ (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, ii.).* The position taken up by this Article is In effect a return to antiquity. It is supported both by the intrinsic nature of the New Testament writings and by the un- animous witness of the early Church. We may add that if we believe that the Holy Spirit guided the Church in the selection of these books, we must believe that no vital part of the revela- tion in Christ was suffered to be lost. The Apostles could hardly understand the importance of their witness for future. ages. They expected the immediate return of the Lord. But their witness is all the more valuable because it is unpremeditated. Just because they built primarily for their own time, they built the better for all time. By the providence of God the Church was provided with a means of testing its faith. It can return again and again to Scripture as the standard expression of its own life, formulated in times of the greatest vitality.

(d) On the other, as we have already seen, Scripture needs the Church for its mterpretation. Not only is much of it hard to understand (Acts 8*1, 2 Pet. 31%), but its leading truths are not arranged in any definite order. We need the right poit of view. One of the uses of creeds is to supply a simple scheme of truth. From the first the Church has always attached great importance

to tradition, not as alternative to Scripture, but as a means to its correct interpretation. Tradition shows how the words of Scripture have been understood by the Church. Thus, St. Vin- cent of Lerins ends his Commonitorium with the words: ‘ We said above that this has always been, and even at this day is, the custom of Catholics to try and examine the true faith by these two methods : first, by the authority of the divine canon ; secondly, by the rule of the Catholic Church ; not because the canonical Scripture is not as to itself sufficient for all things, but because very many, expounding God’s word at their own will, do thereby conceive divers opinions and errors. And for this cause it is necessary that the interpretation of the heavenly Scripture be directed according to the one only rule of the Church’s understanding ; only, be it observed, especially in those questions upon which the foundations of the whole Catholic doctrine depend.’ It is in the same spirit that the canon of 1571 bids the clergy in their preaching ‘see that they never teach ought in a sermon, to be religiously held and believed by the people, except what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and what the Catholic Fathers and ancient bishops have collected from the same doctrine.’* The well-known say- ing ‘The Church to teach and the Bible to prove’ sums up the position of the Church of England on this point. Cp. Gore, Roman Catholic Claims, c. iv.

Bernard, Word and Sacraments, c. vi. Strong, The Place of Scripture in the Church.

§ 2. The Canon of Scripture.

(a) The distinction made in this Article between canonical and non-canonical books raises in an acute form the whole question of inspiration. We shall shortly give some account of the history of the formation of the Canon, but the deeper question still remains: does this historical distinction depend upon any intrinsic quality in the books themselves? The Article itself bears witness that inspiration is not sharply limited to the canonical books. It assigns a semi-canonical position to certain other books, and thus attributes to them a certain measure of inspiration. But the question is wider than this. Can we in any sense limit inspiration to the Bible? All truth wherever it

is found must come from God. Are not the sacred books of other religions and even the work of all true poets and authors in some sense inspired ? Where then is the unique inspiration of the Bible to be sought ? May not the time come when other writings will take rank beside or even supersede the Scriptures, in view of possessing a fuller inspiration ?

(i) We may begin by drawing a distinction between ‘ Revela- tion’ and ‘Inspiration.’ All knowledge implies both something to be known and a mind that can know it. Revelation and inspiration correspond to these two sides of knowledge. Revela- tion means the uncovering by God of some spiritual truth that man’s mind may apprehend it. Inspiration means the quickening of the human mind and soul to perceive and understand what has been unveiled. ‘In the act of revelation God unveils that which He desires men to know: in His act of inspiration He opens the eyes of men’s minds to see that which He has unveiled.’ * All apprehension of divine truth implies both. We cannot separate the two in our actual experience. All that we can say is that so far as we attain to truth both the capacity for grasping it and its power of being grasped are alike the work of God.

(u) The character of inspiration is conditioned by and corre- spends to the character of the truth that is to be revealed. All parts of the Bible are not equally inspired, because the nature of the truth contained in them varies. Strictly speaking it is not the book but the author that is inspired. Neither the Bible nor the Church has ever defined ‘inspiration.’ It can be felt rather than defined. The nearest approach to any statement are the words of 2 Pet. 174 ‘ No prophecy ever came by the will of man; but men spake from God, bemg moved by the Holy Ghost.’ The exact translation of 2 Tim. 31° is uncertain, but the word Oedzveveos is applied to the Scriptures, 7.e. the Old Testa- ment, and they are said to be ‘ profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.’ These passages suggest that the test of mspiration lies in the result, namely, the truth and value of the message received. The reality of inspiration is proved not by the mere claim to be inspired, nor by the abnormal state im which the message is received, such as a trance or ecstasy, but rather by the appeal that the message itself makes to the heart and conscience of

men.* The form and extent of the message are limited by the moral and spiritual capacity of the recipient and of those to whom He is to deliver it. God respects personality and gives to each age only such truth as it should be able to appreciate. We do not find that inspiration conveys infallible information on questions of science or history. God never does for us what we can do for ourselves. We have our natural powers of mind and research, by the employment of which such knowledge can be attamed. Rather inspiration is given in order to impart moral and spiritual truth.

(ui) In such moral] and spiritual knowledge, as in all forms of knowledge, we find two great facts. First, the bulk of our know- ledge we inherit from the past. Each generation is the heir to the accumulated experience of the race. As Pascal said : ‘Humanity is a man who lives and learns for ever.’ The individual is born into a community that possesses a religion and he is taught its traditions. He starts from the common conscious- ness, however much he may modify or correct his early ideas in later life. Secondly, progress in all knowledge, and this is specially true of religion, normally comes through gifted individuals. The new discovery flashes upon one man first, though many may be groping after it and prepared to welcome it, when it comes. He then communicates it to his fellow-men, and if true, it awakens a response in them. It is tested by the common experience of the community, and if approved in time it becomes part of the common stock. If we take the Jewish religion we find that new truths were revealed to an inspired prophet or teacher. But they were revealed to them as members of a religious community, the people of God. At all times and in every nation there have been men who claimed and were acknowledged by others to possess special powers of getting into touch with the unseen world, men who could ‘see’ things and discern the will of God. Often the means employed by them seem to us crude and superstitious. Yet out of such men were developed the Hebrew prophets. ‘ It cannot be denied that for a period extending over several cen- turies the Hebrew religion was carried forward … by a succession of gifted men, themselves the heirs of a great tradition and each

• On this ground among other we may fairly criticize the alleged revelations

of Spiritualism. See True and False Spiritualism (S.P.C.K.) and the Essays in Immortality.

adding in turn his quota of revelation.’ The Old Testament is the record of God’s revelation stage by stage to His prophets. No doubt it contains books that are less obviously prophetic. For instance the Wisdom literature is more the product of reflec- tion than of prophecy. But behind it all is God’s revelation as interpreted and applied to life by inspired men. So, too, the writers of the New Testament are men who have received a special inspiration to receive and interpret the revelation of God in Christ. If we use the term ‘seer’ or ‘ prophet’ in the widest sense, there are and always have been such: men who have had the power to see some new aspect of truth and teach it to their fellows. All such truth must in some sense be revealed by God : all ability to discern and enter into it must equally be inspired by Him. In the case of the prophets and writers of the Old and New Testaments we only see the supreme example of what God is doing always and everywhere, making Himself known to men and giving them eyes to see Him, in the world, in history and in their own selves. For the general question of inspiration see :

Gore, Lux Mundi, Essay VIII.

Joyce, Inspiration of Prophecy, cc. i.-ix.

Watson, Inspiration.

Sanday, Inspiration, Lect. VIII.

Armitage Robinson, Some Thoughts on Inspiration. Wilson, in Cambridge Theological Essays.

(6) How then can we claim a unique inspiration for Scripture ?

(i) The first ground on which we base our claim is its unique relation to Christ. If we believe that the historical Incarnation is the central event of this world’s history, we must assign to the Bible a position that no other writings can ever hold. The Old Testament is the record of the spiritual education of one race selected in order that in the fulness of time God Himself might become incarnate among them. The New Testament is the record of the supreme and final revelation in Christ and stands to Him in a relation that no other book can ever possibly claim. Since the quality of inspiration corresponds to the nature of the truth revealed, the Bible, which is the record of God’s unique revelation of Himself, must be uniquely inspired. There can be no book to supersede the Bible, because there can be no revelation to supersede Christ.

(ii) The second ground on which we base our claim is that the Bible is uniquely inspired because it is uniquely inspiring. No doubt certain choice extracts from other books may be found more inspiring than certain parts of the Bible. But the proof of the Bible’s inspiration is to be sought not simply in the parts, but in the whole. Although the Bible comprises books of many different dates, it displays a marvellous unity. We find a gradual progress in the apprehension of truth. No other sacred literature displays such unity and progress. The Bible has shown itself unique in its power of speaking home to the hearts and con- sciences of men of all ages, races and classes, even through trans- lations. No other book has such a universal power of appeal. From the nature of the case the reality of this power cannot be proved to those who deny it. To appreciate it, certain qualities of sympathy and insight are called for. Spiritual worth like artistic worth cannot force itself on unwilling souls or be demon- strated by logic to reluctant minds. All we can do for a man who denies that he finds any assistance in the Bible is to appeal to a wider experience and to endeavour to show the lines along which it has proved its value to ourselves and to others. True religion can only find a response in those who are in earnest and who are prepared to make the effort to understand its truth.

Again, the Bible is distinguished from other sacred writings because all through it has been written in close touch with life and history. The sacred books of other religions are unhistorical. In the Old Testament truth grew for the Jews not by abstract speculation but by being worked out in national life, at the cost of tears and blood. The prophets did not simply perceive great truths and write them down in a book. Theology all through was tested and corrected by practical life. So, too, the New Testament records the life and teaching of a definite historical Person. The truth of His message is lived out first in His own life and then in the life of the society that He founded. Outside the Bible truth tends to become speculative and abstract and to lose hold upon the activities of life. It is this connexion with history that in large part explains the universality of the appeal made by Scripture. Human life, gua human, is of no one date or place. The plain man is guided by facts rather than by abstract thought. A religion of abstract ideas tends to become obsolete and uninteresting. It bears the mark and the limitations

of the place and age in which it arose. But a religion clothed in historical facts and wrought out in the lives of men and nations always retains its human interest.

Accordingly, while we gladly admit divine inspiration, whenever we find the presence of truth, in ancient and modern writers alike, still we claim that the Bible possesses a unique inspiration. It can never be superseded. It affords an abiding touchstone for Christian life and teaching.

Cp. Westcott, Cambridge Companion to the Bible (old edition), and The Gospel of the Resurrection, Opening Statement, § 6. C. H. Robinson, Human Nature a Revelation of the Divine.

L. Ragg, The Book of Books. W. Temple, Church and Nation, Lect. VI.

(c) How was the ‘ canon ’ of Scripture formed ? Some account is needed to explain the position of the ‘ apocrypha.’

(i) The exact sense in which the term ‘ canon ’ was first applied to the Scriptures is disputed. Some have held that the word was used in the sense of ‘ rule of life ’ (cp. Gal. 61°) and the books were called canonical as forming a rule of faith or life. More probably the word simply denoted the ‘list’ by which the contents were defined and ‘canonical’ simply meant ‘ on the list.” cavoviCew is applied not only to the books as a whole but to a single book. But the other idea, if not present from the first, was soon suggested, and the Canon of Scripture came to be regarded as a standard to which an appeal could be made. The whole con- ception is Christian rather than Jewish. We must beware of arguing as if the Jews regarded their Scriptures as canonical in quite the same sense as the Christians.*

(ii) The Jews divided the Old Testament into three great divisions: (i) The Law; (ii) The Prophets (these included the ‘Former Prophets,’ 2.e. the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, and the ‘ Latter Prophets,’ 7.e. Isaiah, Jere- miah, Ezekiel and the Twelve) ; (iii) The Writings (these included the Psalms, Proverbs and Job, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles and the five ‘rolls,’ z.e. the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamenta- tions, Ecclesiastes and Esther). It is usually supposed that these three divisions correspond to three more or less distinct stages

• The substantive xavywy is found first in the writings of Amphilochius (380). Athanasius in his Festal Hptstle (367) speaks of the books of Scripture as Kavovifomeva.

in the formation of the Old Testament Canon. The traditions found in 2 Esdras 14 and 2 Macc. 2% assigning the formation of the Canon to Ezra and Nehemiah respectively are historically worth very little. The chief steps that we can trace in the process are these :

(a) The publication of Deuteronomy in 621 B.c. is the first great landmark (2 Kings 233). ‘We have here a solemn religious act by which the king and people alike … accept the book read before them as expressing the divine will and take its precepts as binding upon themselves. This is the essential meaning that, as applied to a book, is contained in the epithet ‘ canonical,’ which means ‘ authoritative,’ and authoritative because in its ultimate origin Divine.’ *

The Law promulgated by Ezra and Nehemiah was substantially our present Pentateuch, with the possible addition of the book of Joshua (Neh. 8-10). If we allow for certain minor editorial changes and additions, the whole Law was probably canonical by then, ze. 440 Bo. It is significant that the Samaritans accepted only the Law as canonical. The simplest explanation is that at the time that they formed their separate community the Canon of Scripture contained nothing else.

(8) No doubt the collection of prophetical writings began quite early. On the one hand, the failure of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah to find a place in this section of the canon suggests that when they were composed, it was at least on the way to being closed. On the other hand, the Chronicler treats the text of Samuel and Kings with great freedom, which equally suggests that by 300 B.c. they were not canonical in the full sense of the term. The strange variations in the Lxx version of Samuel seems to carry this condition of things down even to a later date. The earliest references to the ‘prophets’ as a definite collection are found soon after 200 B.c. In Ecclus. 491° (180 B.c.), the ‘ twelve prophets ’ are referred to as parallel to Jeremiah and Ezekiel. So, too, Dan. 9% (168 B.c.) quotes Jeremiah as authoritative. The prophetic canon was therefore probably closed about 200 B.c.

(y) The formation of the third section of the Canon is more obscure: The earliest mention of any such collection is the pro- logue to Ecclesiasticus (130 B.c.), which alludes to ‘The Law, the Prophets and the other writings.’ The very vagueness of

• Sanday, ‘ Bible,’ #.R.E. ii. 565b. M

the language employed suggests that this last division was not as yet clearly defined. On the one hand, the book of Daniel and certain psalms which are probably Maccabaean were admitted into it. On the other hand, the so-called ‘Psalms of Solomon,’ composed B.c. 70-40, failed to find admittance. We may con- dude, therefore, that this section of the Canon was closed about 100 z.c. It is worth noting that in 1 Macc. 71’, Psalm 79 is quoted as Scripture. But in any case the Psalms were the earliest of these writings to gain their position in the Canon.

(iii) Among the Jews of Palestine the Canon of Scripture was thus practically closed during the first century B.c. Hdifying books were still composed and widely used and quoted, but there had grown up a refusal, at least on the part of the Rabbis, to place them on a level with the Scriptures. Discussion as to the right of certain books to a place in the Canon went on into the second century 4.D. The most disputed were the Song of Songs, Kcclesiastes and Esther. The idea of canonicity was expressed in Jewish language by saying. that the Scriptures ‘defiled the hands,’ 2.e. rendered those who handled them cere- monially unclean, the object of this rule being to prevent irreverent handling. The final stage in the settlement of the Jewish Canon was reached at the Council of Jamnia held about A.D. 90. After the fall of Jerusalem Jamnia became the centre of Palestinian Judaism. There the Canon of the Old Testament was for all practical purposes determined, and it included all the books in the English Old Testament and no others.

But meanwhile from the middle of the first century B.c. the Hellenistic Jews, especially the Jews of Alexandria, did not follow the Palestinian Rabbis in the limitation of the Canon and the general treatment of the Old Testament. Not only did they adopt a different arrangement of the books, but they interspersed among the older books many later writings. These included books originally composed in Hebrew, such as 1 Maccabees, Kcclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith and Baruch and also books composed originally in Greek, such as Wisdom and 2 Maccabees and expansions of canonical books. So the Alexandrian Canon was much wider than the Palestinian, and it has even been argued that the Alexandrians recognized no fixed canon at all. They were ready to admit whatever they judged to be edifying.

Accordingly the Christian Church found itself faced both with a larger and a smaller Canon. When the first Christians broke away from Judaism they did not take with them a well-defined Bible. It would seem that on the question of the canonicity they were content to defer to the judgment of Judaism. Even as late as 170 a.p. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, travelled to Judaea to make a special list. Within the New Testament. itself all the books of the Old Testament are quoted as authoritative except Hcclesiastes, Canticles, Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah. On the other hand, none of the apocryphal books are mentioned by name, though their language is in some cases undoubtedly in the mind of New Testament writers. But the book of Enoch, which lies outside even the Apocrypha, is quoted as Scripture in Jude ™. The main body of the Church went on using the Greek Bible and the Alexandrian Canon. It was recognized, however, especially by learned men who were in touch with Judaism, that there was a more limited Jewish Canon. St. Jerome, for instance, who knew Hebrew, took over the canon of his Jewish instructors. Through his influence the knowledge of the difference between the Hebrew and Greek Bibles was kept alive. The influence of St. Augustine on the other side obtained for the apocryphal books a definite footing. Still all through the Middle Ages the more learned scholars drew a clear line between the Jewish Canon and the apocryphal books. At the Reformation the Council of Trent abolished every shade of distinction between the books.* Luther, following St. Jerome, separated the canonical from the apocryphal books, but gave the latter a place as ‘useful to read.’ Our Article, quoting St. Jerome, does the same. The Calvinists rejected the Apocrypha entirely, and the English Puritans wished the Church to follow their example.f

The word ‘ apocrypha’ is one that has had many meanings. Originally it simply meant ‘hidden,’ and ‘apocryphal’ books were books containing esoteric teaching known only to the few.

• Certain later Roman teachers, however, make a distinction between Proto- canonical and Deuterocanonical books.

• A relic of this Puritan tendency survives in the exclusion of the Apocrypha from all use in the Irish Church and in the inability of the British and Foreign Bible Society to supply complete Bibles. They are forbidden to include the Apocrypha by their constitution.

The idea of such books was increasingly repugnant to the Christian Church and the word acquired a secondary meaning of * heretical ’ or ‘spurious.’ In the fourth century the word is applied in a different sense by St. Jerome, and comes to mean simply non- canonical. ‘ Quicquid extra hos’ (¢.e. the Hebrew Canon) ‘ est, inter a7dxpuda esse ponendum.’ He uses it to include both those books that had previously been termed ‘ ecclesiastical ’ and also those usually styled ‘apocryphal.’ It is from St. Jerome that the title ‘ apocrypha’ as we use it to-day comes.

(iv) The formation of the Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, was a gradual process. We may summarize its chief stages as follows :

(a) The earliest stage was the informal collection by local Churches of writings of spiritual value. These would include letters from Apostles and other leaders and probably collections of our Lord’s sayings and perhaps records of His life and death, that were recognized as coming from reliable sources. A church like Corinth would preserve letters from St. Paul for future guidance. Then local churches would interchange letters and writings. ‘Ephesians’ was probably in origin a circular letter with the name of the local church left blank to be filled in. The words ‘at Ephesus’ in 1? are absent from the two oldest MSS. & B. There is some evidence that Romans was also used as a circular letter without the addition of the last chapters. In Col. 41° the Colossians are bidden to hand on the Epistle to be read at Laodicea and in turn to read ‘the Epistle from Laodicea,’ 2.e. probably the Epistle to the Ephesians, which had been sent there first. We can see then how the germ of a canon arose. Churches compared notes about the sacred writings that they treasured. They interchanged copies, and so in a sense each church came almost unconsciously to form its own canon.

It is most difficult to ascertain how early the books of the New Testament won general acceptance in any given region. Our earliest evidence is that of quotations. In the earliest days we can hardly expect exact quotations from N.T. writings. They had not yet attained their unique position. Stress was still laid on oral. tradition. Phrases from set catechetical formulas still lmgered in the memory of the writers. There was as yet no conception of the duty of exact quotations from books that were not yet in the full sense canonical. So it is most difficult

to be sure what N.T. books were known to early Christian writers. Our evidence does not become clear till the end of the second century.

(8) The earliest definite mention of anything like a canon of Scripture is found in the case of the heretic Marcion (140 4.p.). He formed a collection of St. Paul’s Epistles, rejecting the Pastorals, and added a mutilated version of St. Luke’s Gospel. These alone he accepted as authoritative. About 200 a.p. we find the Muratorian Canon, a fragment containing a list of books recog- nized as authoritative at Rome. This is the earliest list of the kind that has survived: it need by no means be the earliest that was formed. At the close of the second century we find in several writers the conception of a New Testament as a com- panion to the Old, and books from this new collection are cited as Scripture. This does not necessarily imply that the limits of this collection were as yet fixed. The Muratorian Canon includes the four Gospels, Acts, all the Epistles of St. Paul, the Apocalypse, two Epistles of St. John, St. Jude, and the First Epistle of St. Peter. The Second Epistle of St. Peter is treated as doubtful. ‘Some of the members do not wish it to be read in the church.’ It omits Hebrews, St. James, and one of St. John’s Epistles, presumably the third. Hermas is to be read privately, but not in church.*

(vy) By 400 a.p. the Canon of the New Testament had for all practical purposes become fixed. Early in the fourth century Eusebius gives a list of books as accepted by his contemporaries. f He divides them practically into three classes: (1) the * acknow- ledged’ books (6uoAovyouuera), (2) the ‘disputed’ books (avriAeyopueva), and (3) the ‘spurious ’ books (vo6a), In the first class he places the four Gospels, Acts, the Epistles of St. Paul, the First Epistle of St. Peter and the First Epistle of St. John. The Apocalypse he places with hesitation in this class, though he afterwards includes it with a similar hesitation in the second class. It would also seem that he includes Hebrews among St. Paul’s Epistles as he does elsewhere, though he allows that its authorship is disputed by the Roman Church.{ In the second

• Eusebius, H.2£. iii. 34, quoted Gwatkin, p. 33.

{ iii. 3 quoted Gwatkin, p. 34.

class he places, as ‘ recognized by most,’ the Epistles of St. James, St. Jude, 2 and 3 John and 2 Peter. Among the ‘spurious ’ he includes the Acts of Paul, Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the so-called ‘Teaching of the Apostles,’ and also perhaps the Apocalypse of John. The Canon of St. Cyril of Jerusalem * (340 .p.) is the same as our own except for the omission of the Apocalypse. The Canons of Athanasius f (307 a.D.) and Epiphanius { are identical with our own. At this time the chief point of difference was the acceptance of the Apocalypse. It was rejected, e.g. by Gregory of Nazianzum and Amphilochius of Iconium. A Synod of Carthage formally ratified a list identical with our present canon. Its date may be either 397 or 419 and its authority extended beyond Africa. This decision was confirmed by the Trullan Council in 692. But in actual fact the final determination of the New Testament canon was probably due to other causes than the decisions of Synods. In the West the influence of the Vulgate and in the East the agree- ment of a few leading and learned authorities carried great weight. The decisions of Councils did but ratify current usage.

So then we may sum up the history of the Canon by saying it was the gradual work of the collective consciousness of the Church guided by the Holy Spirit. It was a task not only of collecting but of sifting and rejecting. There was a real ‘inspiration of selection.’ ‘ What a number of works circulated among churches of the second century all enjoying a greater or less degree of authority, only to lose it!…It is certainly a wonderful feat on the part of the early Church to have by degrees sifted out this mass of literature: and still more wonderful that it should not have discarded, at least so far as the New Testament is con- cerned, no single work which after generations have found cause to look back upon with any regret.’ § It was a work in which all members of the body played their part. The devotional taste of the multitude was guided and corrected by the learning and spiritual enlightenment of its leaders. Their decisions approved themselves to the mind and conscience of the whole Church. We must not forget that two main considerations guided the Church in the reception of books: first, their value for edification ; secondly, the belief that they were composed

by an Apostle or one in touch with the Apostles. This second factor must be allowed equal weight with the first. Here as elsewhere the life of the Church is not based on mere ideas but on history.*

For history of Canon see : Arts. in H.D.B. and E.R.E. Ryle, History of the Canon.

Westcott, The Bible in the Church, and The Canon of the New Testament. Sanday, Inspiration.

(zd) The relation of the Jewish Law to the Christian Church was one of the first problems that had to be solved. On the one hand, Jewish Christians were reluctant to allow that even the regulations of the old law concerning food, etc., were no longer binding. On the other hand, certain Gnostics, especially the Marcionites, rejected the Old Testament entirely on the ground of its un-Christian morality. Since the early Church possessed little or no idea of a progress in revelation, the backwardness of certain parts of the Old Testament constituted a real difficulty for the Christian conscience. This difficulty was largely solved by a process of allegorization. The life and teaching of Christ and the whole of the New Testament is so penetrated by the life and thought of the Old that the Church could not sever itself from its Jewish antecedents. The difficulty was revived at the time of the Reformation. Some rejected the Old Testament entirely ‘as a book nothing necessary to the Christians which live under the Gospel.’ Others again insisted on the obligation of the whole Jewish Law upon Christians. Article VII. solves the problem in the best way possible in that age. It lays down

• The language of our Article is apparently inconsistent. It first defines as ‘Canonical’ those books ‘of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church,’ which if strictly interpreted would exclude the ‘ Antilegomena.’ Then it gives a full list of N.T. and says ‘ All the books of N.T., as they are commonly received, we do receive and account them for canonical.’ Westcott suggested that a distinction was purposely made between ‘Canonical’ Books and such ‘ canonical books as have never been doubted in the church.’ This would allow room for the opinions of reformers who rejected certain books, eg. Luther rejected the Epistle of St. James. More probably the language is simply careless and we may fairly hold that the appeal is made to the judgment of the whole Church as expressed in the final form of the Canon. The disputed books were at most rejected by parts of the Church and their opinion was finally subordin- ated to the judgment of the Church as a whole.

(i) that the O.T. is not to be rejected as contrary to the New ; (i) that it looks forward to Christ. God’s promises to the Jews are more than transitory ; (ii) that we must draw a distinc- tion between the civil and ceremonial law which are no longer binding and the moral law which remains binding.

(i) ‘ The Old Testament is not contrary to the New’ because it is an earlier and preparatory stage in one single divine revelation. To say that it 1s ‘ not contrary to,’ does not mean that it is on the same level as the New. If we place the books of the Old Testa- ment in the order in which modern scholars almost unanimously place them, we are able to trace a gradual advance in the con- ception of God, of man and of God’s purpose for Israel and the world. Even within the Old Testament itself later writers correct the teaching of earlier writers (¢.g. cp. 2 Kings 10’4 with Hosea 1¢ or Ex. 20 with Ez. 18). Much more is this so when we compare the Old Testament with the New. In earlier times God allowed and even enjoimed much that is imperfect and even, in the light of the higher standard of later days, wrong (cp. Lk. 9°4 and the Sermon on the Mount). He taught men gradually, as they were able to receive it.* We always need to remember that the Church does not accept the Old Testament by itself but only as fulfilled and supplemented by the New Testament. Nearly all the popular objections to Bible morality are based on the fallacy of taking the Old Testament apart in isolation from its fulfilment and correction in the New Testament.

(u) It is perfectly true to say that the Old Testament offers salvation through Christ, though in a different way from the New Testament. Although in the light of our modern knowledge the history of the Messianic hope has needed to be rewritten, yet it remains as real and true as ever. The prophets and writers of the Old Testament voiced ideals and aspirations that they felt sure that a loving and righteous God must one day fulfil, just because He was loving and righteous. They were inspired to feel their need of a Saviour but not to produce a Saviour. This Messianic hope developed on several independent lines. At one time it took the form of an ideal king of the house of David whom God would raise up to do the work that the actual kings were doing so badly (cp. Is. 9°, Ez. 34%, etc.). At other times it was a vision of God Himself coming to judge the earth,

• Cp. Mozley, Lectures on O.T. v.

to overwhelm the enemies of Israel and establish a reign of perfect justice (cp. Ps. 50, Is. 59’®ff., Mal. 31, etc.). Elsewhere it appeared in the shape of the ‘suffering servant,’ an idealization of a perfect Israel fulfilling God’s destiny for itself and so by its sufferings redeeming the world (Is. 53). In short, while other nations were content to look back to the past for a golden age, Israel was inspired to look for it in the future. This glorious picture they attempted to portray in the highest terms that they knew. In the hands of Israel’s prophets it took many shapes, a restored and perfect Jerusalem, a new and painless earth, a kingdom of perfect justice, an age of plenty. The Messianic hope expressed itself in many ways, but all looked forward to the establishment of the Kingdom of God. In this sense certainly ‘the fathers did not look only for transitory promises.’ These hopes and aspirations for the best of all possible worlds they were convinced that God must some day fulfil, because He was God. In a very wonderful way they all met and were fulfilled in Christ. The Old Testament promised a deliverer, the New Testament records His coming.

Again, the faith of Israel really carried with it a belief in a future life. No doubt any such clear and definite belief only appears quite late in Jewish writings. At first it would seem that the Jews regarded life in Sheol as a vague and shadowy existence, hardly worth being called life. The proof of God’s favour was +o be found in long life and prosperity in this world rather than in any reward in the next. But quite early writings bear witness to a faith in God that was bound to issue ultimately in a belief in a future life worth the name. In Mk. 12?’ Christ shows that the language of early times carried with it implications that were only partially understood by those who employed it. What the pious Jew really desired was life im union with God. Such life possessed a positive character independent of time altogether. Hence it is most difficult to be sure how much is meant by the language of many of the psalms. Such psalms as the 16th and 17th, for instance, contain the principle of eternal life in conscious fellowship with God, but it is doubtful if they imply anything like a personal resurrection. At the same time a belief that death could not destroy such fellowship was a de- duction that faith in God must ultimately make and it is implicit in the psalmists’ language. In the famous chapter of Ezekiel

(37) the resurrection of dry bones signifies primarily the resur- rection of the nation, not of the individual Israelite. But Israel could not contemplate a future reign of God upon earth to be enjoyed only by that generation of Israelites then alive. There- fore they were led to the belief that dead Israelites would be raised up again to share it. The Messianic hope must be for the whole nation, not for one part. This idea of a resurrection of the dead is found quite clearly in the late passage Is. 2619 and again in Daniel 127. It is, as it were, being worked out in the book of Job (cp. 19%”), Though it was rejected by the Sadducees, it formed a part of common Jewish belief in our Lord’s day. So we may say that the Jews only gradually came to hold explicitly a full belief in a future life beyond the grave, but that such a belief was contained from the first in their knowledge of God and God’s character.

(iii) The difficult question of the O.T. Law is solved by making a distinction between the ceremonial and civil law on the one hand and the moral on the other. The distinction is useful and no doubt corresponds with the decision of the Church made at the Council of Jerusalem, but we need to remember that it is utterly alien to the Jewish mind. There is not one trace of it in O.T. itself.* To the Jew all alike was the Law of God: each part was equally divine and equally sacred. If the first disciples more or less explicitly tolerated any such distinction it was because part of the law had been definitely abrogated by an act of God Himself, namely by the teaching of Jesus the Messiah, God’s authorized representative. As such He had instituted a New Covenant by His death, under which Jew and Gentile can be saved not by obedience to the law but by faith in Jesus the Messiah. Accordingly, as the Council of Jerusalem and the teaching of St. Paul in his Epistles, especially Galatians and Romans, show, the ritual and ceremonial law was regarded as abolished by One who had authority to abolish it. It was no longer binding upon Christians. The civil law was the law of Israel as a nation. In part it had fallen into disuse as a result of changed circumstances. But in any case it was superseded by the law of the New Israel. National distinctions were done away with. Hence the civil law of the Jewish nation was binding at most on Jews. There could be no longer any need for a Gentile

to become a Jew in order to enter into God’s chosen people. Faith in Christ was the sole essential condition for membership of the New Israel. The case of the moral law was different. It was an embodiment of God’s will for all men, a partial disclosure of the law of man’s true being. As such Christ did not abolish but rather deepen and enforce it (cp. Mt. 223’). The righteous- ness of His disciples was to exceed that of the Scribes and Phari- sees as being righteousness of heart and will and not only of act (Mt. 52°). Further, Christians have a new motive, no longer a forced obedience to a law imposed from without, but a free and willing obedience springing from within, from a heart filled with the love of God. This new motive demands an even completer submission to the will of God than the old. Accordingly we find in the Epistles abundant exhortations to Christians to live worthily of their profession by obedience to the moral law Ro. 13°, Eph. 67, Jas. 27, ete. On the question of the Jewish Law see: Hamilton, People of God, vol. i. pp. 254-259, and vol. ii. 15-18 and

On the value of the Old Testament : Nairne, The Faith of the Old Testament.

Notes

• Du Bose, Hcumenical Councils, p. 25.
• A long list of references could easily be compiled. See Harold Browne on Art. 6, p. 141 ff.; Palmer, On the Church, c. ii.
• See Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church Mistory, p. 476.
• Quoted by Watson, Inspiration, p. 24.
• The Muratorian fragment is given in Gwatkin, Selections from Early Christian Writers, p. 82.
• Catechetical Lectures, iv. 33. + Festal Epistle, 39. t Heresies, c. 76. § Sanday, Inspiration, pp. 27-28.
• Cp. Hamilton, The People of God, vol. i. p. 247.